If there be one object in life that stirs the current of human feeling
more sadly than another, it is a young and lovely woman, whose intellect
has been blighted by the treachery of him on whose heart, as on a
shrine, she offered up the incense of her first affection. Such a being
not only draws around her our tenderest and most delicate sympathies,
but fills us with that mournful impression of early desolation,
resembling so much the spirit of melancholy romance that arises from
one of those sad and gloomy breezes which sweep unexpectedly over the
sleeping surface of a summer lake, or moans with a tone of wail and
sorrow through the green foliage of the wood under whose cooling shade
we sink into our noon-day dream. Madness is at all times a thing of
fearful mystery, but when it puts itself forth in a female gifted with
youth and beauty, the pathos it causes becomes too refined for the
grossness of ordinary sorrow--almost transcends our notion of the
real, and assumes that wild interest which invests it with the dim and
visionary light of the ideal. Such a malady constitutes the very romance
of affliction, and gives to the fair sufferer rather the appearance of
an angel fallen without guilt, than that of a being moulded for mortal
purposes. Who ever could look upon such a beautiful ruin without feeling
the heart sink, and the mind overshadowed with a solemn darkness, as
if conscious of witnessing the still and awful gloom of that disastrous
eclipse of reason, which, alas! is so often doomed never to pass away.
It is difficult to account for the mingled reverence, and terror, and
pity with which we look upon the insane, and it is equally strange that
in this case we approach the temple of the mind with deeper homage,
when we know that the divinity has passed out of it. It must be from a
conviction of this that uncivilized nations venerate deranged persons as
inspired, and in some instance go so far, I believe, as even to pay them
divine worship.
The principle, however, is in our nature: that for which our sympathy is
deep and unbroken never fails to secure our compassion and respect, and
ultimately to excite a still higher class of our moral feelings.
These preliminary observations were suggested to me by the fate of the
beautiful but unfortunate girl, the melancholy, events of whose life
I am about to communicate. I feel, indeed, that in relating them,
I undertake a task that would require a pen of unexampled power and
delicacy. But it is probable that if I remained silent upon a history
at once so true, and so full of sorrow; no other person equally intimate
with its incidents will ever give them to the world. I cannot presume
to detail unhappy Jane’s, calamity with the pathos due to a woe so
singularly deep and delicate, or to describe that faithful attachment
which gave her once laughing and ruby lips the white smile of a maniac’s
misery. This I cannot do; for who, alas, could ever hope to invest a
dispensation so dark as her’s with that rich tone of poetic beauty which
threw its wild graces about her madness? For my part, I consider the
subject not only as difficult, but sacred, and approach it on both
accounts with devotion, and fear, and trembling. I need scarcely inform
the reader that the names and localities are, for obvious reasons,
fictitious, but I may be permitted to add that the incidents are
substantially correct and authentic.
Jane Sinclair was the third and youngest daughter of a dissenting
clergyman, in one of the most interesting counties in the north of
Ireland. Her father was remarkable for that cheerful simplicity of
character which is so frequently joined to a high order of intellect and
an affectionate warmth of heart. To a well-tempered zeal in the cause
of faith and morals, he added a practical habit of charity, both in word
and deed, such as endeared him to all classes, but especially to those
whose humble condition in life gave them the strongest claim upon his
virtues, both as a man and a pastor. Difficult, indeed, would it be to
find a minister of the gospel, whose practice and precept corresponded
with such beautiful fitness, nor one who, in the midst of his own
domestic circle, threw such calm lustre around him as a husband and
a father. A temper grave but sweet, wit playful and innocent, and
tenderness that kept his spirit benignant to error without any
compromise of duty, were the links which bound all hearts to him. Seldom
have I known a Christian clergyman who exhibited in his own life so much
of the unaffected character of apostolic holiness, nor one of whom
it might be said with so much truth, that “he walked in all the
commandments of the Lord blameless.”
His family, which consisted of his wife, one son, and three daughters,
had, as might be expected, imbibed a deep sense of that religion, the
serene beauty of which shone so steadily along their father’s path
of life. Mrs. Sinclair had been well educated, and in her husband’s
conversation and society found further opportunity of improving, not
only her intellect, but her heart. Though respectably descended, she
could not claim relationship with what may be emphatically termed the
gentry of the country; but she could with that class so prevalent in the
north of Ireland, which ranks in birth only one grade beneath them. I
say in birth;--for in all the decencies of life, in the unostentatious
bounties of benevolence, in moral purity, domestic harmony, and a
conscientious observance of religion, both in the comeliness of
its forms, and the cheerful freedom of its spirit, this class ranks
immeasurably above every other which Irish society presents. They who
compose it are not sufficiently wealthy to relax those pursuits of
honorable industry which constitute them, as a people, the ornament of
our nation; nor does their good-sense and decent pride permit them to
follow the dictates of a mean ambition, by struggling to reach that
false elevation, which is as much beneath them in all the virtues
that grace life, as it is above them in the dazzling dissipation
which renders the violation or neglect of its best duties a matter of
fashionable etiquette, or the shameful privilege of high birth. To this
respectable and independent class did the immediate relations of Mrs.
Sinclair belong; and, as might be expected, she failed not to bring all
its virtues to her husband’s heart and household--there to soothe him by
their influence, to draw fresh energy from their mutual intercourse, and
to shape the habits of their family into that perception of self-respect
and decent propriety, which in domestic duty, dress, and general
conduct, uniformly results from a fine sense of moral feeling, blended
with high religious principle. This, indeed, is the class whose example
has diffused that spirit of keen intelligence and enterprise throughout
the north which makes the name of an Ulster manufacturer or merchant a
synonym for integrity and honor. From it is derived the creditable love
of independence which operates upon the manners of the people and the
physical soil of the country so obviously, that the natural appearance
of the one may be considered as an appropriate exponent of the
moral condition of the other. Aided by the genius of a practical and
impressive creed, whose simple grandeur gives elevation and dignity
to its followers;--this class it is which, by affording employment,
counsel, and example to many of the lower classes, brings peace and
comfort to those who inhabit the white cottages and warm farmsteads
of the north, and lights up its cultivated landscapes, its broad
champaigns, and peaceful vales, into an aspect so smiling, that even
the very soil seems to proclaim and partake of the happiness of its
inhabitants. Indeed, few spots in the north could afford the spectator
a better opportunity of verifying our observations as to the mild
beauty of the country, than the residence of the amiable clergyman whose
unhappy child’s fate has furnished us with the affecting circumstances
we are about to lay before the reader.
Springvale House, Mr. Sinclair’s residence, was situated on an eminence
that commanded a full view of the sloping valley from which it had
its name. Along this vale, winding towards the house in a northern
direction, ran a beautiful tributary stream, accompanied for nearly two
miles in its progress by a small but well conducted road, which indeed
had rather the character of a green lane than a public way, being but
very little of a thoroughfare. Nothing could surpass this delightful
vale in the soft and serene character of its scenery. Its sides,
partially wooded, and cultivated with surpassing taste, were not so
precipitous as to render habitation in its bosom inconvenient. They
sloped up gradually and gracefully on each side, presenting to the eye
a number of snow-white residences, each standing upon the brow of
some white table or undulation, and surrounded by grounds sufficiently
spacious to allow of green lawns, ornamented plantations, and gardens,
together with a due proportion of land for cultivation and pasture. From
Mr. Sinclair’s house the silver bends of this fine stream gave exquisite
peeps to the spectator as they wound out of the wood which here and
there clothed its banks, occasionally dipping into the water. On the
loft, attached to the glebe-house of the Protestant pastor of the
parish, the eye rested upon a pond as smooth as a mirror, except where
an occasional swan, as it floated onwards without any apparent effort,
left here and there a slight quivering ripple behind it. Farther down,
springing from between two clumps of trees, might be seen the span of a
light and elegant arch, from under which the river gently wound away to
the right; and beyond this, on the left, about a hundred yards from the
bank, rose up the slender spire of the parish church, out of the bosom
of the old beeches that overshadowed it, and threw a solemn gloom upon
the peaceful graveyard at its side. About two hundred yards again to
the right, in a little green shelving dell beneath the house, stood Mr.
Sinclair’s modest white meeting-house, with a large ash tree hanging
over each gable, and a row of poplars behind it. The valley at the
opposite extremity opened upon a landscape bright and picturesque,
dotted with those white residences which give that peculiar character of
warmth and comfort for which the northern landscapes are so remarkable.
Indeed the eye could scarcely rest upon a richer expanse of country than
lay stretched out before it, nor can we omit to notice the singularly
unique and beautiful effect produced by the numerous bleach-greens that
shone at various degrees of distance, and contrasted so sweetly with the
surface of a land deeply and delightfully verdant.
In the far distance rose the sharp outlines of a lofty mountain, whose
green and sloping base melted into the “sun-silvered” expanse of
the sea, on the smooth bosom of which the eye could snatch brilliant
glimpses of the snow-white sails that sparkled at a distance as they
fell under the beams of the noonday sun. The landscape was indeed
beautiful in itself, but still rendered more so by the delicate aerial
tints which lay on every object, and touched the whole into a mellower
and more exquisite expression.
Such was the happy valley in which this peaceful family resided; each
and all enjoying that tranquility which sheds its calm contentment over
the unassuming spirits of those who are ignorant of the crimes that
flow from the selfishness and ambition of busy life. To them, the fresh
breezes of morning, as they rustled through the living foliage, and
stirred the modest flowers of their pleasant path, were fraught with an
enjoyment which bound their hearts to every object around them,
because to each of them these objects were the sources of habitual
gratification. On them the dewy stillness of evening descended with
tender serenity, as the valley shone in the radiance of the sinking sun;
and by them was held that sweet and rapturous communion with nature,
which, as it springs earliest in the affections so does it linger about
the heart when all the other loves and enmities of life are forgotten.
Who is there, indeed, whose spirit does not tremble with tenderness, on
looking back upon the scenes of his early life? And, alas! alas! how few
are there of those that are long conversant with the world, who can take
such a retrospect without feeling their hearts weighed down by sorrow,
and the force of associations too mournful to be uttered in words.
The bitter consciousness that we can be youthful no more, and that
the golden hours of our innocence have passed away for ever, throws a
melancholy darkness over the soul, and sends it back again to retrace,
in the imaginary light of our early time, the scenes where that
innocence had been our playmate. Let no man deny that groves, and
meadows, and green fields, and winding streams, and all the other charms
of rural imagery, unconsciously but surely give to the human heart a
deep perception of that graceful creed which is beautifully termed
the religion of nature. They give purity and strength to feeling,
and through the imagination, which owes so much of its power to their
impressions, they raise our sentiments until we feel them kindled into
union with the lustre of a holier light than even that which leads our
steps to God through the beauty of his own works. For this reason it is,
that all imaginative affections are much stronger in the country than in
the town. Love in the one place is not only freer from the coarseness
of passion, but incomparably more seductive to the heart, and more
voluptuous in its conception of the ideal beauty with which it invests
the object of its attachment. Nor is this surprising. In the country
its various associations are essentially impressive and poetical.
Moonlight--evening--the still glen--the river side--the flowery
hawthorn--the bower--the crystal well--not forgetting the melody of
the woodland songster--are all calculated, to make the heart and
fancy surrender themselves to the blandishments of a passion that is
surrounded by objects so sweetly linked to their earliest sympathies.
But this is not all. In rural life, neither the heart nor the eye is
distracted by the claims of rival beauty, when challenging, in the
various graces of many, that admiration which might be bestowed on one
alone, did not each successive impression efface that which went before
it. In the country, therefore, in spring meadows, among summer groves,
and beneath autumnal skies, most certainly does the passion of love sink
deepest into the human heart, and pass into the greatest extremes of
happiness or pain. Here is where it may be seen, cheek to cheek, now
in all the shivering ecstacies of intense rapture, or again moping
carelessly along, with pale brow and flashing eye, sometimes writhing
in the agony of undying attachment, or chanting its mad lay of hope and
love in a spirit of fearful happiness more affecting than either misery
or despair.
Everything was beautiful in the history of unhappy Jane Sinclair’s
melancholy fate. The evening of the incident to which the fair girl’s
misery might eventually be traced was one of the most calm and balmy
that could be witnessed even during the leafy month of June. With the
exception of Mrs. Sinclair, the whole family had gone out to saunter
leisurely by the river side; the father between his two eldest
daughters, and Jane, then sixteen, sometimes chatting to her brother
William, and sometimes fondling a white dove, which she had petted and
trained with such success that it was then amenable to almost every
light injunction she laid upon it. It sat upon her shoulder, which,
indeed, was its usual seat, would peck her cheek, cower as if with a
sense of happiness in her bosom, and put its bill to her lips, from
which it was usually fed, either to demand some sweet reward for its
obedience, or to express its attachment by a profusion of innocent
caresses. The evening, as we said, was fine; not a cloud could be seen,
except a pile of feathery flakes that hung far up at the western gate
of heaven; the stillness was profound; no breathing even of the gentlest
zephyr, could be felt; the river beside them, which was here pretty
deep, seemed motionless; not a leaf of the trees stirred; the very
aspens were still as if they had been marble; and the whole air was warm
and fragrant. Although the sun wanted an hour of setting, yet from the
bottom of the vale they could perceive the broad shafts of light which
shot from his mild disk through the snowy clouds we have mentioned, like
bars of lambent radiance, almost palpable to the touch. Yet, although
this delightful silence was so profound, the heart could perceive,
beneath its stillest depths, that voiceless harmony of progressing life,
which, like the music of a dream, can reach the soul independently of
the senses, and pour upon it a sublime sense of natural inspiration.
Something like this appears to have been felt by the group we have
alluded to. Mr. Sinclair, after standing for a moment on the bank of the
river, and raising his eyes to the solemn splendor of the declining sun,
looked earnestly around him, and then out upon the glowing landscape
that stretched beyond the valley, after which, with a spirit of
high-enthusiasm, he exclaimed, catching at the same time the fire and
grandeur of the poet’s noble conception--
These are thy glorious works. Parent of good!
Almighty! thine this universal fame--
Thus wondrous fair--thyself how wondrous then--
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works.
There was something singularly impressive in the burst of piety which
the hour and the place drew from this venerable pastor, as indeed
there was in the whole group, as they listened in the attitude of deep
attention to his words. Mr. Sinclair was a tall, fine-looking old man,
whose white flowing locks fell down on each side of his neck. His
figure appeared to fine advantage, as, standing a little in front of his
children, he pointed with his raised arm to the setting sun; behind
him stood his two eldest girls, the countenance of one turned with an
expression of awe and admiration towards the west; that of the other
fixed with mingled reverence and affection on her father. William stood
near Jane, and looked out thoughtfully towards the sea, while Jane
herself, light, and young, and beautiful, stood with a hushed face, in
the act of giving a pat of gentle rebuke to the snow-white dove on her
bosom. At length they resumed their walk, and the conversation took a
lighter turn. The girls left their father’s side, and strolled in many
directions through the meadow. Sometimes they pulled wild flowers,
if marked by more than ordinary beauty, or gathered the wild mint and
meadow-sweet to perfume their dairy, or culled the flowery woodbine to
shed its delicate fragrance through their sleeping-rooms. In fact, all
their habits and amusements were pastoral, and simple, and elegant. Jane
accompanied them as they strolled about, but was principally engaged
with her pet, which flew, in capricious but graceful circles over her
head, and occasionally shot off into the air, sweeping in mimic flight
behind a green knoll, or a clump of trees, completely out of her sight;
after which it would again return, and folding its snowy pinions, drop
affectionately upon her shoulder, or into her bosom. In this manner they
proceeded for some time, when the dove again sped off across the river,
the bank of which was wooded on the other side. Jane followed the
beautiful creature with a sparkling eye, and saw it wheeling to return,
when immediately the report of a gun was heard from the trees directly
beneath it, and the next moment it faltered in its flight, sunk, and
with feeble wing, struggled to reach the object of its affection. This,
however, was beyond its strength. After sinking gradually towards the
earth, it had power only to reach the middle of the river, into the
deepest part of which it fell, and there lay fluttering upon the stream.
The report of the gun, and the fate of the pigeon, brought the
personages of our little drama with hurrying steps to the edge of the
river. One scream of surprise and distress proceeded from the lips of
its fair young mistress, after which she wrung her hands, and wept and
sobbed like one in absolute despair.
“Oh, dear William,” she exclaimed, “can you not rescue it? Oh, save
it--save it; if it sinks I will never see it more. Oh, papa, who could
be so cruel, so heartless, as to injure a creature so beautiful and
inoffensive?”
“I know not, my dear Jane; but cruel and heartless must the man be that
could perpetrate a piece of such wanton mischief. I should rather think
it is some idle boy who knows not that it is tame.”
“William, dear William, can you not save it,” she inquired again of her
brother; “if it is doomed to die, let it die with me; but, alas! now
it must sink, and I will never see it more;” and the affectionate girl
continued to weep bitterly.
“Indeed, my dear Jane, I never regretted my ignorance of swimming
so much as I do this moment. The truth is, I cannot swim a stroke,
otherwise I would save poor little Ariel for your sake.”
“Don’t take it so much to heart, my dear child,” said her father; “it
is certainly a distressing incident, but, at the same time, your grief,
girl, is too excessive; it is violent, and you know it ought not to be
violent for the death of a favorite bird.”
“Oh, papa, who can look upon its struggles for life, and not feel
deeply; remember it was mine, and think of its attachment to me. It
has not only the pain of its wound to suffer, but to struggle with an
element against which it feels a natural antipathy, and with which the
gentle creature is this moment contending for its life.”
There was, indeed, something very painful and affecting in the situation
of the beautiful wounded dove. Even Mr. Sinclair himself, in witnessing
its unavailing struggles, felt as much; nor were the other two girls
unaffected any more than Jane herself. Their eyes became filled with
tears, and Maria, the eldest, said, “It is better, Jane, to return
home. Poor mute creature! the view of its sufferings is, indeed, very
painful.”
Just then a tall, slender youth, apparently about eighteen, came out of
the trees on the other bank of the river but on seeing Mr. Sinclair and
his family, he paused, and appeared to feel somewhat embarrassed. It
was evident he had seen the bird wounded, and followed the course of
its flight, without suspecting that it was tame, or that there was
any person near to claim it. The distress of the females, however,
especially of its mistress, immediately satisfied him that it was
theirs, and he was about to withdraw into the wood again, when the
situation of poor Ariel caught his eye. He instantly took off his hat,
flung it across the river, and plunging in swam towards the dove, which
was now nearly exhausted. A few strokes brought him to the spot, on
reaching which, he caught the bird in one hand, held it above the water,
and, with the other, swam down towards a slope in the bank a few
yards below the spot where the party stood. Having gained the bank, he
approached them, but was met half way by Jane, whose eyes, now sparkling
through her tears, spoke her gratitude in language much more eloquent
than any her tongue could utter.
[Illustration: PAGE 5-- Having gained the bank, he approached them]
The youth first examined the bird, with a view to ascertain where it
had been wounded, and immediately placed it with much gentleness in the
eager hands of its mistress.
“It will not die, I should think, in consequence of the wound,” he
observed, “which, though pretty severe, has left the wing unbroken. The
body, at all events, is safe. With care it may recover.”
William then handed him his hat and Mr. Sinclair having thanked him for
an act of such humanity, insisted that he should go home with them, in
order to procure a change of apparel. At first he declined this offer,
but, after a little persuasion, he yielded with something of shyness
and hesitation: accordingly, without loss of time, they all reached the
house together.
Having, with some difficulty, been prevailed on to take a glass of
cordial, he immediately withdrew to William’s apartment, for the purpose
of changing his dress. William, however, now observed that he got pale,
and that in a few minutes afterwards his teeth began to chatter, whilst
he shivered excessively.
“You had better lose no time in putting these dry clothes on,” said he;
“I am rather inclined to think bathing does not agree with you, that is,
if I am to judge by your present paleness and trembling.”
“No,” said the youth, “it is a pleasure which, for the last two years, I
have been forbidden. I feel very chilly, indeed, and you will excuse me
for declining the use of your clothes. I must return home forthwith.”
Young Sinclair, however, would not hear of this. After considerable
pains he prevailed on him to change his dress, but no argument could
induce him to stop a moment longer than until this was effected.
The family, on his entering the drawing-room to take his leave, were
surprised at a determination so sudden and unexpected, but when Mr.
Sinclair noticed his extreme paleness, he suspected that he had got ill,
and that it might not be delicate to press him.
“Before you leave us,” said the good clergyman, “will you not permit us
to know the name of the young gentleman to whom my daughter is indebted
for the rescue of her dove?”
“We are as yet but strangers in the neighborhood,” replied the youth:
“my father’s name is Osborne. We have not been more than three days in
Mr. Williams’s residence, which, together with the whole of the property
annexed to it, my father has purchased.”
“I am aware, I am aware: then you will be a permanent neighbor of ours,”
said Mr. Sinclair; “and believe me, my dear boy, we shall always be
happy to see you at Springvale; nor shall we soon forget the generous
act which first brought us acquainted.”
Whilst this short dialogue lasted, two or three shy sidelong glances
passed between him and Jane. So extremely modest was the young man that,
from an apprehension lest these glances might have been noticed, his
pale face became lit up with a faint blush, in which state of confusion
he took his leave.
Conversation was not resumed among the Sinclairs for some minutes after
his departure, each, in fact, having been engaged in reflecting upon the
surpassing beauty of his face, and the uncommon symmetry of his slender
but elegant person. Their impression, indeed, was rather that of wonder
than of mere admiration. The tall youth who had just left them seemed,
in fact, an incarnation of the beautiful itself--a visionary creation,
in which was embodied the ideal spirit of youth, intellect, and grace.
His face shone with that rosy light of life’s prime which only glows on
the human countenance during the brief period that intervenes between
the years of the thoughtless boy and those of the confirmed man: and
whilst his white brow beamed with intellect, it was easy to perceive
that the fire of deep feeling and high-wrought enthusiasm broke out in
timid flashes from his dark eye. His modesty, too, by tempering the
full lustre of his beauty, gave to it a character of that graceful
diffidence, which above all others makes the deepest impression upon a
female heart.
“Well, I do think,” said William Sinclair, “that young Osborne is
decidedly the finest boy I ever saw--the most perfect in beauty and
figure--and yet we have not seen him to advantage.”
“I think, although I regretted to see him so, that he looked better
after he got pale,” said Maria; “his features, though colorless, were
cut like marble.”
“I hope his health may not be injured by what has occurred,” observed
the second; “he appeared ill.”
“That, Agnes, is more to the point,” said Mr. Sinclair; “I fear the boy
is by no means well; and I am apprehensive, from the deep carnation of
his cheek, and his subsequent paleness, that he carries within him the
seeds of early dissolution. He is too delicate, almost too etherial for
earth.”
“If he becomes an angel,” said William, smiling, “with a very slight
change, he will put some of them out of countenance.”
“William,” said the father, “never, while you live attempt to be witty
at the expense of what is sacred or solemn; such jests harden the heart
of him who utters them, and sink his character, not only as a Christian,
but as a gentleman.”
“I beg your pardon, father---I was wrong--but I spoke heedlessly.”
“I know you did, Billy; but in future avoid it. Well, Jane, how is your
bird?”
“I think it is better, papa; but one can form no opinion so soon.”
“Go, show it to your mamma--she is the best doctor among us--follow her
advice, and no doubt she will add its cure to the other triumphs of her
skill.”
“Jane is fretting too much about it,” observed Agnes; “why, Jane, you
are just now as pale as young Osborne himself.”
This observation turned the eyes of the family upon her; but scarcely
had her sister uttered the words when the young creature’s countenance
became the color of crimson, so deeply, and with such evident confusion
did she blush. Indeed she felt conscious of this, for she rose, with
the wounded dove lying gently between her hands and bosom, and passed,
without speaking, out of the room.
“Don’t you think, papa,” observed Miss Sinclair, “that there is a
striking resemblance between young Osborne and Jane? I could not help
remarking it.”
“There decidedly is, Maria, now that you mentioned it,” said William.
The father paused a little, as if to consider the matter, and then added
with a smile--
“It is very singular, Mary; but indeed I think there is--both in the
style of their features and their figure.”
“Osborne is too handsome for a man,” observed Agnes; “yet, after all,
one can hardly say so, his face, though fine, is not feminine.”
“Beauty, my children!--alas, what is it? Often--too often, a fearful,
a fatal gift. It is born with us, and not of our own merit; yet we are
vain enough to be proud of it. It is at best a flower that soon fades--a
light that soon passes away. Oh! what is it when contrasted with those
high principles whose beauty is immortal, which brighten by age, and
know neither change nor decay. There is Jane--my poor child--she is
indeed very beautiful and graceful, yet I often fear that her beauty,
joined as it is to an over-wrought sensibility, may, before her life
closes, occasion much sorrow either to herself or others.”
“She is all affection,” said William.
“She is all love, all tenderness, all goodness; and may the grace of her
Almighty Father keep her from the wail and woe which too often accompany
the path of beauty in this life of vicissitude and trial.”
A tear of affection for his beautiful child stood in the old man’s eyes
as he raised them to heaven, and the loving hearts of his family burned
with tenderness towards this their youngest and best beloved sister.
The sun had now gone down, and, after a short pause, the old man desired
William to summon the other members of the household in to prayers.
The evening worship being concluded, the youngsters walked in the lawn
before the door until darkness began to set in, after which they retired
to their respective apartments for the night.
Sweet and light be your slumbers, O ye that are peaceful and good--sweet
be your slumbers on this night so calm and beautiful; for, alas, there
is one among you into whose I innocent bosom has stolen that destroying
spirit which will yet pale her fair cheek, and wring many a bitter
tear from the eyes that love to look upon her. Her early sorrows
have commenced this night, and for what mysterious purpose who can
divine?--but, alas, alas, her fate is sealed--the fawn of Springvale
is stricken, and even now carries in her young heart a wound that will
never close.
Osborne’s father, who had succeeded to an estate of one thousand
per annum, was the eldest son of a gentleman whose habits were
badly calculated to improve the remnant of property which ancestral
extravagance had left him.
Ere many years the fragment which came into his possession dwindled into
a fraction of its former value, and he found himself With a wife and
four children--two sons and two daughters--struggling on a pittance of
two hundred a year. This, to a man possessing the feelings and education
of a gentleman, amounted to something like retributive justice upon his
prodigality. His conflict with poverty, however, (for to him it might
be termed such,) was fortunately not of long duration. A younger brother
who, finding that he must fight his own battle in life, had embraced
the profession of medicine, very seasonably died, and Osborne’s father
succeeded to a sum of twelve thousand pounds in the funds, and an income
in landed property of seven hundred per annum. He now felt himself more
independent than he had ever been, and with this advantage, that his
bitter experience of a heartless world had completely cured him of
all tendency to extravagance. And now he would have enjoyed as much
happiness as is the usual lot of man, were it not that the shadow of
death fell upon his house, and cast its cold blight upon his children.
Ere three years had elapsed he saw his eldest daughter fade out of life,
and in less than two more his eldest son was laid beside her in the
same grave. Decline, the poetry of death, in its deadly beauty came
upon them, and whilst it sang its song of life and hope to their hearts,
treacherously withdrew them to darkness and the worm.
Osborne’s feelings were those of thoughtlessness and extravagance; but
he had never been either a libertine or a profligate, although the world
forbore not, when it found him humbled in his poverty, to bring such
charges against him. In truth, he was full of kindness, and no parent
ever loved his children with deeper or more devoted affection. The death
of his noble son and beautiful girl brought down his spirit to the
most mournful depths of affliction. Still he had two left, and, as
it happened, the most beautiful, and more than equally possessed his
affections. To them was gradually transferred that melancholy love which
the heart of the sorrowing father had carried into the grave of the
departed; and alas, it appeared as if it had come back to those who
lived loaded with the malady of the dead. The health of the surviving
boy became delicate, and by the advice of his physician, who pronounced
the air in which they lived unfavorable,--Osborne, on hearing that Mr.
Williams, a distant relation, was about to dispose of his house and
grounds, immediately became the purchaser. The situation, which had
a southern aspect, was dry and healthy, the air pure and genial, and,
according to the best medical opinions, highly beneficial to persons of
a consumptive habit.
For two years before this--that is since his brother’s death--the health
of young Osborne had been watched with all the tender vigilance of
affection. A regimen in diet, study and exercise, had been prescribed
for him by his physician; the regulations of which he was by no means to
transgress.
In fact his parents lived under a sleepless dread of losing him which
kept their hearts expanded with that inexpressible and burning
love which none but a parent so circumstanced can ever feel. Alas!
notwithstanding the promise of life which early years usually hold
out, there was much to justify them in this their sad and gloomy
apprehension. Woeful was the uncertainty which they felt in
discriminating between the natural bloom of youth and the beauty of that
fatal malady which they dreaded. His tall slender frame, his transparent
cheek, so touching, so unearthly in the fairness of its expression; the
delicacy of his whole organization, both mental and physical--all, all,
with the terror of decline in their hearts, spoke as much of despair as
of hope, and placed the life and death of their beloved boy in an equal
poise.
But, independently of his extraordinary personal advantages, all his
dispositions were so gentle and affectionate, that it was not I in
human nature to entertain harsh feeling toward him. Although modest and
shrinking, even to diffidence, he possessed a mind full of intellect and
enthusiasm: his imagination, too, overflowed with creative power, and
sought the dreamy solitudes of noon, that it might, far from the bustle
of life, shadow forth those images of beauty which come thickly only
upon those whose hearts are most susceptible of its forms. Many a time
has he sat alone upon the brow of a rock or hill, watching the clouds
of heaven, or gazing on the setting sun, or communing with the thousand
aspects of nature in a thousand moods, his young spirit relaxed into
that elysian reverie which, beyond all other kinds of intellectual
enjoyment, is the most seductive to a youth of poetic temperament.
There were, indeed, in Osborne’s case, too many of those light and
scarcely perceptible tokens which might be traced, if not to a habit of
decline, at least to a more than ordinary delicacy of constitution.
The short cough, produced by the slightest damp, or the least breath of
ungenial air--the varying cheek, now rich as purple, and again pale as a
star of heaven--the unsteady pulse, and the nervous sense of uneasiness
without a cause--all these might be symptoms of incipient decay, or
proofs of those fine impulses which are generally associated with quick
sensibility and genius. Still they existed; at one time oppressing the
hearts of his parents with fear, and again exalting them with pride. The
boy was consequently enjoined to avoid all violent exercise, to keep out
of Currents, while heated to drink nothing cold, and above all things
never to indulge in the amusement of cold bathing.
Such were the circumstances under which Osbome first appeared to the
reader, who may now understand the extent of his alarm on feeling
himself so suddenly and seriously affected by his generosity in rescuing
the wounded dove. His mere illness on this occasion was a matter of much
less anxiety to himself than the alarm which he knew it would occasion
his parents and sister. On his reaching home he mentioned the incident
which occurred, admitted that he had been rather warm on going into the
water, and immediately went to bed. Medical aid was forthwith procured,
and although the physician assured them that there appeared nothing
serious in his immediate state, yet was his father’s house a house of
wail and sorrow.
The next day the Sinclairs, having heard in reply to their inquiries
through the servant who had been sent home with his apparel, that he was
ill, the worthy clergyman lost no time in paying his parents a visit
on the occasion. In this he expressed his regret, and that also of his
whole family, that any circumstance relating to them should have been
the means, even accidentally, of affecting the young gentleman’s health.
It was not, however, until he dwelt upon the occurrence in terms of
approbation, and placed the boy’s conduct in a generous light, that he
was enabled to appreciate the depth and tenderness of their affection
for him. The mother’s tears flowed in silence on hearing this fresh
proof of his amiable spirit, and the father, with a foreboding heart,
related to Mr. Sinclair the substance of that which we have detailed to
the reader.
Such was the incident which brought these two families acquainted, and
ultimately ripened their intimacy into friendship.
Much sympathy was felt for young Osborne by the other members of
Mr. Sinclair’s household, especially as his modest and unobtrusive
deportment, joined to his extraordinary beauty, had made so singularly
favorable an impression upon them. Is or was the history of that
insidious malady, which had already been so fatal to his sister and
brother, calculated to lessen the interest which his first appearance
had excited. There was one young heart among them which sank, as if the
Weight of death had come over it, on hearing this melancholy account
of him whose image was now for ever the star of her fate, whether for
happiness or sorrow. From the moment their eyes had met in those few
shrinking but flashing glances by which the spirit of love conveys its
own secret, she felt the first painful transports of the new affection,
and retired to solitude with the arrow that struck her so deeply yet
quivering in her bosom.
The case of our fair girl differed widely from that of many young
persons, in whose heart the passion of love lurks unknown for a time,
throwing its roseate shadows of delight and melancholy over their peace,
whilst they themselves feel unable in the beginning to develop those
strange sensations which take away from their pillows the unbroken
slumber of early life.
Jane from the moment her eyes rested on Osborne felt and was conscious
of feeling the influence of a youth so transcendently fascinating. Her
love broke not forth gradually like the trembling light that brightens
into the purple flush of morning; neither was it fated to sink calm and
untroubled like the crimson tints that die only when the veil of night,
like the darkness of death, wraps them in its shadow. Alas no, it sprung
from her heart in all the noontide strength of maturity--a full-grown
passion, incapable of self-restraint, and conscious only of the wild
and novel delight arising from its own indulgence. Night and day that
graceful form hovered before her, encircled in the halo of her young
imagination, with a lustre that sparkled beyond the light of human
beauty. We know that the eye when it looks steadily upon a cloudless
sun, is incapable for some time afterwards of seeing any other object
distinctly; and that in whatever direction it turns that bright image
floats incessantly before it--nor will be removed even although the eye
itself is closed against its radiance. So was it with Jane. Asleep or
awake, in society or in solitude, the vision with which her soul held
communion never for a moment withdrew from before her, until at length
her very heart became sick, and her fancy entranced, by the excess of
her youthful and unrestrained attachment. She could not despair, she
could scarcely doubt; for on thinking of the blushing glances so rapidly
stolen at herself, and of the dark brilliant eye from whence they came,
she knew that the soul of him she loved spoke to her in a language that
was mutually understood. These impressions, it is true, were felt in
her moments of ecstacy, but then came, notwithstanding this confidence,
other moments when maidenly timidity took the crown of rejoicing off her
head, and darkened her youthful brow with that uncertainty, which, while
it depresses hope, renders the object that is loved a thousand times
dearer to the heart.
To others, at the present stage of her affection, she appeared more
silent than usual, and evidently fond of solitude, a trait which they
had not observed in her before. But these were slight symptoms of what
she felt; for alas, the day was soon to come that was to overshadow
their hearts forever--never, never more were they and she, in the light
of their own innocence, to sing like the morning stars together, or to
lay their untroubled heads in the slumbers of the happy.
More than a month had now elapsed since the first appearance of Osborne
as one of the _dramatis personae_ of our narrative. A slight fever,
attended with less effect upon the lungs than his parents anticipated,
had passed off, and he was once more able to go abroad and take exercise
in the open air. The two families were now in the habit of visiting each
other almost daily; and what tended more and more to draw closer the
bonds of good feeling between them, was the fact of the Osbornes being
members of the same creed, and attendants at Mr. Sinclair’s place of
worship. Jane, while Charles Osborne was yet ill, had felt a childish
diminution of her affection for her convalescent dove, whilst at the
same time something whispered to her that it possessed a stronger
interest in her heart than it had ever done before. This may seem a
paradox to such of our readers as have never been in love; but it is not
at all irreconcilable to the analogous and often conflicting states of
feeling produced by that strange and mysterious passion. The innocent
girl was wont, as frequently as she could without exciting notice, to
steal away to the garden, or the fields, or the river side, accompanied
by her mute, companion, to which with pouting caresses she would address
a series of rebukes of having been the means of occasioning the illness
of him she loved.
“Alas, Ariel, little do you know, sweet bird, what anxiety you have
caused your mistress--if he dies I shall never love you more? Yes, coo,
and flutter--but I do not care for you; no, that kiss won’t satisfy me
until he is recovered--then I shall be friends with you, and you shall
be my own Ariel again.”
She would then pat it petulantly; and the beautiful creature would sink
its head, and slightly expand its wings, as if conscious that there was
a change of mood in her affection.
But again the innocent remorse of her girlish heart would flow forth in
terms of tenderness and endearment; again would I she pat and cherish
it; and with the artless I caprice of childhood exclaim--
“No, my own Ariel, the fault was not yours; come, I shall love you--and
I will not be angry again; even if you were not good I would love you
for his sake. You are now dearer to me a thousand times than you ever
were; but alas! Ariel, I am sick, I am sick, and no longer happy. Where
is my lightness of heart, my sweet bird, and where, oh where is the joy
I used to feel?”
Even this admission, which in the midst of solitude could reach no other
human ear, would startle the bashful creature into alarm; and whilst her
cheek became alternately pale and crimson at such an avowal thus uttered
aloud, she would wipe away the tears that arose to her eyes whenever the
depths of her affection were stirred by those pensive broodings which
gave its sweetest charm to youthful love.
In thus seeking solitude, it is not to be imagined that our young
heroine was drawn thither by a love of contemplating nature in those
fresher aspects which present themselves in the stillness of her remote
recesses. She sought not for their own sakes the shades of the grove,
the murmuring cascade, nor the voice of the hidden rivulet that
occasionally stole out from its leafy cover, and ran in music towards
the ampler stream of the valley.
No, no; over her heart and eye the spirit of their beauty passed idly
and unfelt. All of external life that she had been wont to love and
admire gave her pleasure no more. The natural arbors of woodbine, the
fairy dells, and the wild flowers that peeped in unknown sweetness about
the hedges, the fairy fingers, the blue-bells, the cow-slips, with many
others of her fragrant and graceful favorites, all, all, charmed her,
alas, no more. Nor at home, where every voice was tenderness, and every
word affection, did there exist in her stricken heart that buoyant sense
of enjoyment which had made her youth like the music of a brook, where
every thing that broke the smoothness of its current only turned it
into melody. The morning and evening prayer--the hymn of her sister
voices--their simple spirit of tranquil devotion--and the touching
solemnity of her father, worshipping God upon the altar of his own
heart--all, all this, alas--alas, charmed her no more. Oh, no--no;
many motives conspired to send her into solitude, that she might in the
sanctity of unreproving nature cherish her affection for the youth whose
image was ever, ever before her. At home such was the timid delicacy of
her love, that she felt as if its indulgence even in the stillest depths
of her own heart, was disturbed by the conversation of her kindred, and
the familiar habits of domestic life. Her father’s, her brother’s, and
her sisters’ voices, produced in her a feeling of latent shame, which,
when she supposed for a moment that they could guess her attachment,
filled her with anxiety and confusion. She experienced besides a sense
of uneasiness on reflecting that she practiced, for the first time in
their presence, a dissimulation so much at variance with the opinion she
knew they entertained of her habitual candor. It was, in fact, the first
secret she had ever concealed from them; and now the suppression of it
in her own bosom made her feel as if she had withdrawn that confidence
which was due to the love they bore her. This was what kept her so much
in her own room, or sent her abroad to avoid all that had a tendency
to repress the indulgence of an attachment that had left in her heart a
capacity for no other enjoyment. But in solitude she was far from every
thing that could disturb those dreams in which the tranquility of nature
never failed to entrance her. There was where the mysterious spirit
that raises the soul above the impulses of animal life, mingled with
her being--and poured upon her affection the elemental purity of that
original love which in the beginning preceded human guilt.
It is, indeed, far from the contamination of society--in the stillness
of solitude when the sentiment of love comes abroad before its passion,
that the heart can be said to realize the object of its devotion, and to
forget that its indulgence can ever be associated with error. This is,
truly, the angelic love of youth and innocence; and such was the nature
of that which the beautiful girl felt. Indeed, her clay was so divinely
tempered, that the veil which covered her pure and ethereal spirit,
almost permitted the light within to be visible, and exhibited the
workings of a soul that struggled to reach the object whose communion
with itself seemed to constitute the sole end of its existence.
The evening on which Jane and Charles Osborne met for the first time,
unaccompanied by their friends, was one of those to which the power of
neither pen nor pencil can do justice. The sun was slowly sinking among
a pile of those soft crimson clouds, behind which fancy is so apt to
picture to itself the regions of calm delight that are inhabited by the
happy spirits of the blest; the sycamore and hawthorn were yet musical
with the hum of bees, busy in securing their evening burthen for the
hive. Myriads of winged insects were sporting in the sunbeams; the
melancholy plaint of the ringdove came out sweetly from the trees,
mingled with the songs of other birds, and the still sweeter voice of
some happy groups of children at play in the distance. The light of the
hour, in its subdued but golden tone, fell with singular clearness upon
all nature, giving to it that tranquil beauty which makes every thing
the eye rests upon glide with quiet rapture into the heart. The moth
butterflies were fluttering over the meadows, and from the low stretches
of softer green rose the thickly-growing grass-stalks, laying their
slender ear’s bent with the mellow burthen of wild honey--the ambrosial
feast for the lips of innocence and childhood. It was, indeed, an
evening when love would bring forth its sweetest memories, and dream
itself into those ecstacies of tenderness that flow from the mingled
sensations of sadness and delight.
It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to see on this earth a young
creature, whose youth and beauty, and slender grace of person gave her
more the appearance of some visionary spirit, too exquisitely ideal for
human life. Indeed, she seemed to be tinted with the hues of heaven, and
never did a mortal being exist in such fine and harmonious keeping with
the scene in which she moved. So light and sylph-like was her figure,
though tall, that the eye almost feared she would dissolve from before
it, and leave nothing to gaze at but the earth on which she trod. Yet
was there still apparent in her something that preserved, with singular
power, the delightful reality that she was of humanity, and subject to
all those softer influences that breathe their music so sweetly over the
chords of the human heart. The delicate bloom of her cheek, shaded
away as it was, until it melted into the light that sparkled from her
complexion--the snowy forehead, the flashing eye, in which sat the very
soul of love--the lips, blushing of sweets--her whole person breathing
the warmth of youth, and feeling, and so characteristic in the easiness
of its motions of that gracile flexibility that has never been known
to exist separate from the power of receiving varied and profound
emotions--all this told the spectator, too truly, that the lovely being
before him was not of another sphere, but one of the most delightful
that ever appeared in this.
But hush!--here is a strain of music! Oh! what lips breathed forth that
gush of touching melody which flows in such linked sweetness from the
flute of an unseen performer? How soft, how gentle, but oh, how very
mournful are the notes! Alas! they are steeped in sorrow, and melt away
in the plaintive cadences of despair, until they mingle with silence.
Surely, surely, they come from one whose heart has been brought low by
the ruined hopes of an unrequited passion. Yes, fair girl, thou at least
dost so interpret them; but why this sympathy in one so young? Why is
thy bright eye dewy with tears for the imaginary sorrows of another?
And again--but ha!--why that flash of delight and terror?--that sudden
suffusion of red over thy face and neck--and even now, that paleness
like death! Thy heart, thy heart--why does it throb, and why do thy
knees totter? Alas! it is even so; the Endymion of thy dreams, as
beautiful as even thou thyself in thy purple dawn of womanhood,--he
from whom thou now shrinkest, yet whom thou dreadest not to meet, is
approaching, and bears in his beauty the charm that will darken thy
destiny.
The appearance of Osborne, unaccompanied, taught this young creature
to know the full extent of his influence over her. Delight, terror, and
utter confusion of thought and feeling, seized upon her the moment he
became visible. She wished herself at home, but had not power to go;
she blushed, she trembled, and, in the tumult of the moment, lost all
presence of mind and self-possession. He had come from behind a hedge,
on the path-way along which she walked, and was consequently approaching
her, so that it was evident they must meet. On seeing her he ceased to
play, paused a moment, and were it not that it might appear cold, and
rather remarkable, he, too, would have retraced his steps homewards. In
truth, both felt equally confused and equally agitated, for, although
such an interview had been, for some time previously, the dearest wish
of their hearts, yet would they both almost have felt relieved, had they
had an opportunity of then escaping it. Their first words were uttered
in a low, hesitating voice, amid pauses occasioned by the necessity
of collecting their scattered thoughts, and with countenances deeply
blushing from a consciousness of what they felt. Osborne turned back,
mechanically, and accompanied her in her walk. After this there was
a silence for some time, for neither had courage to renew the
conversation. At length Osborne, in a faltering voice addressed her:
“Your dove,” said he, “is quite recovered, I presume.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied, “it is perfectly well again.”
“It is an exceedingly beautiful bird, and remarkably docile.”
“I have had little difficulty in training it,” she returned, and then
added, very timidly, “it is also very affectionate.”
The youth’s eyes sparkled, as if he were about to indulge in some
observation suggested by her reply, but, fearing to give it expression,
he paused again; in a few minutes, however, he added--
“I think there is nothing that gives one so perfect an idea of purity
and innocence as a snow-white dove, unless I except a young and
beautiful girl, such as--”
He glanced at her as he spoke, and their eyes met, but in less than a
moment they were withdrawn, and cast upon the earth.
“And of meekness and holiness too,” she observed, after a little.
“True; but perhaps I ought to make another exception,” he added,
alluding to the term by which she herself was then generally known. As
he spoke, his voice expressed considerable hesitation.
“Another exception,” she answered, inquiringly, “it would be difficult,
I think, to find any other emblem of innocence so appropriate as a
dove.”
“Is not a Fawn still more so,” he replied, “it is so gentle and meek,
and its motions are so full of grace and timidity, and beauty. Indeed
I do not wonder, when an individual of your sex resembles it in the
qualities I have mentioned, that the name is sometimes applied to her.”
The tell-tale cheek of the girl blushed a recognition of the compliment
implied in the words, and after a short silence, she said, in a tone
that was any thing but indifferent, and with a view of changing the
conversation--
“I hope you are quite recovered from your illness.”
“With the exception of a very slight cough, I am,” he replied.
“I think,” she observed, “that you look somewhat paler than you did.”
“That paleness does not proceed from indisposition, but from a far
different”--he paused again, and looked evidently abashed. In the course
of a minute, however, he added, “yes, I know I am pale, but not because
I am unwell, for my health is nearly, if not altogether, restored, but
because I am unhappy.”
“Strange,” said Jane, “to see one unhappy at your years.”
“I think I know my own character and disposition well,” he replied; “my
temperament is naturally a melancholy one; the frame of my mind is
like that of my body, very delicate, and capable of being affected by a
thousand slight influences which pass over hearts of a stronger mould,
without ever being felt. Life to me, I know, will be productive of much
pain, and much enjoyment, while its tenure lasts, but that, indeed,
will not be long. My sands are measured, for I feel a presentiment, a
mournful and prophetic impression, that I am doomed to go down into an
early grave.”
The tone of passionate enthusiasm which pervaded these words, uttered
as they were in a voice wherein pathos and melody were equally blended,
appeared to be almost too much for a creature whose sympathy in all
his moods and feelings was then so deep and congenial. She felt some
difficulty in repressing her tears, and said, in a voice which no effort
could keep firm.
“You ought not to indulge in those gloomy forebodings; you should
struggle against them, otherwise they will distress your mind, and
injure your health.”
“Oh, you do not know,” he proceeded, his eyes sparkling with that
light which is so often the beacon of death--“you do not know the
fatal fascination by which a mind, set to the sorrows of a melancholy
temperament, is charmed out of its strength. But no matter how dark may
be my dreams--there is one light for ever upon them--one image ever,
ever before me--one figure of grace and beauty--oh, how could I deny
myself the contemplation of a vision that pours into my soul a portion
of itself, and effaces: every other object but an entrancing sense of
its own presence. I cannot, I cannot--it bears me away into a happiness
that is full of sadness--where I indulge alone, without knowing why, in
my feast of tears’--happy! happy! so I think, and so I feel; yet why
is my heart sunk, and why are all my visions filled with death and the
grave?”
“Oh, do not talk so frequently of death,” replied the beautiful girl,
“surely you need not fear it for a long while. This morbid tone of mind
will pass away when you grow into better health and strength.”
“Is not this hour calm?” said he, flashing his dark eyes full upon her,
“see how beautiful the sun sinks in the west;--alas! so I should wish to
die--as calm, and the moral lustre of my life as radiant.”
“And so you shall,” said Jane, in a voice full of that delightful spirit
of consolation which, proceeding from such lips, breathes the most
affecting power of sympathy, “so you shall, but like him, not until
after the close of a long and well-spent life.”
“That--that,” said he, “was only a passing thought. Yes, the hour is
calm, but even in such stillness, do you not observe that the aspen
there to our left, this moment quivers to the breezes which we
cannot feel, and by which not a leaf of any other tree about us is
stirred--such I know myself to be, an aspen among men, stirred into
joy or sorrow, whilst the hearts of others are at rest. Oh, how can my
foretaste of life be either bright or cheerful, for when I am capable of
being moved by the very breathings of passion, what must I not feel
in the blast, and in the storm--even now, even now!”--The boy, here
overcome by the force of his own melancholy enthusiasm, paused abruptly,
and Jane, after several attempts to speak, at last said, in a voice
scarcely audible--
“Is not hope always better than despair?”
Osborne instantly fixed his eyes upon her, and saw, that although her’s
were bent upon the earth, her face had become overspread with a deep
blush. While he looked she raised them, but after a single glance, at
once quick and timid, she withdrew them again, a still deeper blush
mantling on her cheek. He now felt a sudden thrill of rapture fall upon
his heart, and rush, almost like a suffocating sensation, to his throat;
his being became for a moment raised to an ecstacy too intense for the
power of description to portray, and, were it not for the fear which
ever accompanies the disclosure of first and youthful love, the tears of
exulting delight would have streamed down his cheeks.
Both had reached a little fairy dell of vivid green, concealed by trees
on every side, and in the middle of which rose a large yew, around whose
trunk had been built a seat of natural turf whereon those who strolled
about the ground might rest, when heated or fatigued by exercise or the
sun. Here the girl sat down.
A change had now come over both. The gloom of the boy’s temperament was
gone, and his spirit caught its mood from that of his companion. Each at
the moment breathed the low, anxious, and tender timidity of love, in
it purest character. The souls of both vibrated to each other, and felt
depressed with that sweetest emotion which derives all its power from
the consciousness that its participation is mutual. Osborne spoke low,
and his voice trembled; the girl was silent, but her bosom panted, and
her frame shook from head to foot. At length, Osborne spoke.
“I sometimes sit here alone, and amuse myself with my flute; but of
late--of late--I can hear no music that is not melancholy.”
“I, too, prefer mournful--mournful music,” replied Jane. “That was a
beautiful air you played just now.”
Osborne put the flute to his lips, and commenced playing over again the
air she had praised; but, on glancing at the fair girl, he perceived
her eyes fixed upon him with a look of such deep and devoted passion as
utterly overcame him. Her eyes, as before, were immediately withdrawn,
but there dwelt again upon her burning cheek such a consciousness of her
love as could not, for a moment, be mistaken. In fact she betrayed all
the confused symptoms of one who felt that the state of her heart had
been discovered. Osborne ceased playing; for such was his agitation that
he scarcely knew what he thought or did.
“I cannot go on,” said he in a voice which equally betrayed the state
of his heart; “I cannot play;” and at the same time he seated himself
beside her.
Jane rose as he spoke, and in a broken voice, full of an expression like
distress, said hastily:
“It is time I should go;--I am,--I am too long out.”
Osborne caught her hand, and in words that burned with the deep and
melting contagion of his passion, said simply:
“Do not go:--oh do not yet go!”
She looked full upon him, and perceived that as he spoke his face became
deadly pale, as if her words were to seal his happiness or misery.
“Oh do not leave me now,” he pleaded; “do not go, and my life may yet be
happy.”
“I must,” she replied, with great difficulty; “I cannot stay; I do not
wish you to be unhappy;” and whilst saying this, the tears that ran in
silence down her cheeks proved too clearly how dear his happiness must
ever be to her.
Osborne’s arm glided round her waist, and she resumed her seat,--or
rather tottered into it.
“You are in tears,” he exclaimed. “Oh could it be true! Is it not, my
beloved girl? It is--it is--love! Oh surely, surely it must--it must!”
She sobbed aloud once or twice; and, as he kissed her unresisting lips,
she murmured out, “It is; it is; I love you.”
Oh life! how dark and unfathomable are thy mysteries! And why is it that
thou permittest the course of true love, like this, so seldom to run
smooth, when so many who, uniting through the impulse of sordid passion,
sink into a state of obtuse indifference, over which the lights and
shadows that touch thee into thy finest perceptions of enjoyment pass in
vain.
It is a singular fact, but no less true than singular, that since the
world began there never was known any instance of an anxiety, on the
part of youthful lovers, to prolong to an immoderate extent the scene
in which the first mutual avowal of their passions takes place. The
excitement is too profound, and the waste of those delicate spirits,
which are expended in such interviews, is much too great to permit the
soul to bear such an excess of happiness long. Independently of this,
there is associated with it an ultimate enjoyment, for which the lovers
immediately fly to solitude; there, in the certainty of waking bliss, to
think over and over again of all that has occurred between them, and to
luxuriate in the conviction, that at length the heart has not another
wish, but sinks into the solitary charm which expands it with such a
sense of rapturous and exulting delight.
The interview between our lovers was, consequently, not long. The secret
of their hearts being now known, each felt anxious to retire, and to
look with a miser’s ecstacy upon the delicious hoard which the scene
we have just described had created. Jane did not reach home until the
evening devotions of the family were over, and this was the first time
she had ever, to their knowledge, been absent from them before. Borne
away by the force of what had just occurred, she was proceeding up to
her own room, after reaching home, when Mr. Sinclair, who had remarked
her absence, desired that she be called into the drawing-room.
“It is the first neglect,” he observed, “of a necessary duty, and it
would be wrong in me to let it pass without at least pointing it out
to the dear child as an error, and knowing from her own lips why it has
happened.”
Terror and alarm, like what might be supposed to arise from the
detection of secret guilt, seized upon the young creature so violently
that she had hardly strength to enter the drawing-room without support:
her face became the image of death, and her whole frame tottered and
trembled visibly.
“Jane, my dear, why were you absent from prayers this evening?” inquired
her father, with his usual mildness of manner.
This question, to one who had never yet been, in the slightest instance,
guilty of falsehood, was indeed a terrible one; and especially to a girl
so extremely timid as was this his best beloved daughter.
“Papa,” she at last replied, “I was out walking;” but as she spoke
there was that in her voice and manner which betrayed the guilt of an
insincere reply.
“I know, my dear, you were; but although you have frequently been out
walking, yet I do not remember that you ever stayed, away from our
evening worship before. Why is this?”
Her father’s question was repeated in vain. She hung her head and
returned no answer. She tried to speak, but from her parched lips not
a word could proceed. She felt as if all the family that moment were
conscious of the occurrence between her and her lover; and if the wish
could have relieved her, she would almost have wished to die, so much
did she shrink abashed in their presence.
“Tell me, my daughter,” proceeded her father, more seriously, “has your
absence been occasioned by anything that you are ashamed or afraid to
mention? From me, Jane, you ought to have no secrets;--you are yet too
young to think away from your father’s heart and from your mother’s
also;--speak candidly, my child,--speak candidly,--I expect it.”
As he uttered the last words, the head of their beautiful flower sank
upon her bosom, and in a moment she lay insensible upon the sofa on
which she had been sitting.
This was a shock for which neither the father nor the family were
prepared. William flew to her,--all of them crowded about her, and
scarcely had he raised that face so pale, but now so mournfully
beautiful in its insensibility, when her mother and sisters burst into
tears and wailings, for they feared at the moment that their beloved
one must have been previously seized with sudden illness, and was then
either taken, or about to be taken from their eyes for ever. By the
coolness of her father, however, they were directed how to restore her,
in which, after a lapse of not less than ten minutes, they succeeded.
When she recovered, her mother folded her in her arms, and her sisters
embraced her with tenderness and tears. Her father then gently caught
her hand in his, and said with much affection:
“Jane, my child, you are ill. Why not have told us so?”
The beautiful girl knelt before him for a moment, but again rose up, and
hiding her head in his bosom, exclaimed--weeping--
“Papa, bless me, oh, bless me, and forgive me.”
“I do; I do,” said the old man; and as he spoke a few large tears
trickled down his cheeks, and fell upon her golden locks.