A BLASTED LIFE.
THOUGH, however, Wilfred could not rise, he could, when at last he
found himself alone, think; and Heaven only knows how exceedingly
bitter were his thoughts. For some hours he lay like one stunned,
trying, but trying in vain, to see his way out of the maze of sin and
misery in which he was involved. Lionel, his heroic brother; Evelyn,
his tenderly loved and loving sister; the grey old Rector, who had
been his steadfast friend and adviser from childhood upwards; and Mary
Elthorne, his sister’s friend--what would all these think of him? And
the village lads at Holmcastle, his companions in every manly game, and
to whom erewhile he had been the friend and adviser--would not they
too, when they came to know it, despise him in their honest hearts?
He had loved those rough, honest, true-hearted fellows as friends and
comrades, with that love which, in this country, thank God, so often
subsists between the best-born and the rural poor--a thing which it
enters not into the heart of a United States republican to conceive or
understand; and now Wilfred felt he dare not look one of them in the
face. And his father? His father had indeed been a cold, unsympathetic
parent, so far as personal intercourse was concerned, and there had
been little or no confidence between them; but the boy reflected that
he owed food, and raiment, and education, and many of the joys of
life to him alone, and his grateful heart swelled with grief at the
disappointment he would feel. Wilfred probably appreciated anything
which was of good in his father’s character more, and loved him better,
than did his other children. He had the poet’s gift of idealising. His
own high-strung, enthusiastic nature led him to feel that his father’s
foibles, ridiculous and even wrong as they were when viewed from some
aspects, had yet for their basis something which, if not noble, was
at least unsordid. At all events, they sprang not from that “_fons
et origo mali_,” the base love of money. His father’s family pride
was in some respects redeemed by the fact that he could _make_
nothing by it; and Wilfred mourned as he thought of the shock which
the announcement he would surely receive would have on his father’s
reserved and proud nature. It may seem strange, but it is nevertheless
true, that the thought of attempting to justify himself scarcely even
entered into the lad’s over-sensitive mind. The foul accusation had
been made, that accusation was supported by a chain of circumstantial
evidence, and he felt he was doomed to take the consequences. As
regarded justification, he must let that alone for ever. Bowed down in
the dust of the degradation of the present hour, the boy could look out
with no hope upon the future; all was a blank before him. Heretofore,
to his poetic soul, life itself had been very dear, and his happiness
in that life had been great and vivid. Heretofore, his young life had
been to him as life was to Adam before the fall. That was the outcome
and the reward of his innocence. Where there was no sin, there was no
shame. He had made the poet’s words his own--
“Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
The strong rending of boughs from the fir trees, the cool, silver shock
Of the plunge in the pool’s living waters----”
He had rejoiced in his strength, as he climbed the crags of Stanwick
Chase; he had joyed in his lonely rambles over the solemn moors with
his gun, with which he had shot the casual grouse, or the rare falcons
which haunted the highest rocks; he had revelled in the swift paces of
his horse; he had loved the excitement of the manly games, in which he
was himself the foremost actor. Not a star shone in the silent midnight
sky, not a bird sang in the leafy copses, not a flower blossomed by the
wayside, not a fern uncurled its fronds in the crevices of the rocks,
that had not been to him a source of living joy.
Now, all that was passed and over; the light had died out from his
life, and the blackness of darkness covered his soul.
Alas, that it should be so! Alas, that to some noble natures a sense of
injustice received is the most crushing and most deadly of all blows
that can be dealt!
It was near nine o’clock in the evening when Dr. Massenger came up to
Wilfred’s room. After the expression of a cold and mechanical hope
that he was feeling better, the Heidelberg Doctor said, “I have come
to inform you, Mr. Manwaring, that I have written to your father, and
have despatched the letter by this evening’s post, to prepare him
for your immediate return to the honourable home you have disgraced,
as, in justice to my other pupils, I can no longer permit you to be
the associate of gentlemen of noble birth and refined feelings, into
whose company I confess I was wrong ever to have permitted one of
your station to enter. No,” pursued the Doctor, as he saw Wilfred
was attempting to speak--“no, I cannot permit any explanation or
any excuses. Your manifest reluctance to have your effects examined
(how widely different was the behaviour of that exemplary young man,
the-heir of Lord Guttleborough!), and the fortuitously fortunate
discovery of a portion of your ill-gotten plunder in the recesses of
a garment which you wore when you were unsuspiciously admitted to
view the Lares--the household gods, I may say--of a gentleman who
is not only an ornament to society, but whom I am proud to reckon
amongst the number of my own personal friends, renders all explanation
superfluous and useless. The restitution of the rest of the plunder
(although I fear that is rendered impossible by your recent purchase
of an expensive instrument calculated to destroy life--I mean a
fowling-piece) will, I apprehend, be a matter for the consideration of
the legal advisers on both sides, since, with what I confess appears
to me to be a misplaced leniency, my outraged friend declines to
prosecute you for the criminal offence. All I have to say at present
is, that you will leave this roof to-morrow, and will return at once
to your parental mansion. For the remainder of the evening, I have to
insist upon your remaining in your own chamber, and you will depart by
the first train in the morning. As I shall not see you again, I now bid
you farewell, with the earnest hope that, not yet utterly hardened in
crime, you may live to redeem the shameful past.” With these words, the
proprietor of “Ehrenbreitstein” turned on his heel, and stumped out of
the room.
Wilfred, who, during the foregoing oration, was prostrate upon his bed,
turned himself to the wall on the Doctor’s exit, a prey to the deepest
shame and sorrow. He was just sinking into a disturbed slumber, when he
was aroused by a friendly arm being thrown round his neck, and, as he
turned in the darkness, he felt a warm kiss imprinted upon his fevered
brow by some one who was leaning over him, as he half-knelt by the
bedside.
“Manwaring, Manwaring, my dear old fellow,” cried a sympathetic
voice, “don’t take this horrid matter so much to heart. All will be
explained; I know it will. I felt sure from the first it was some
devilry of that infernal cad, Cubleigh. You can’t think that I, your
friend and companion, could ever think you guilty--you who are the
dearest and best and noblest fellow I ever saw; you, who I know, and
shall always gratefully remember, have done me good; you, whose advice
and entreaties saved me from sin, and to whom I owe more than I can
ever repay!”
The speaker was the young Duke of Ribblesdale, and as he spoke, he
nestled close to the forlorn youth, and threw his strong arms around
him, and wetted him with his tears.
“Look here,” he continued; “Massenger has told me you are to be sent
home to-morrow in disgrace. It’s a beastly shame. But don’t think I
shall remain here without you; I would bolt first. But I know my mother
will remove me at Christmas if I ask her. Massenger is an old snob, and
I have no pity for, nor patience with him. He told me not to speak to
you again; but you see here I am, come to say good-bye and God bless
you. We shall meet again, I know, in happier times.”
Wilfred felt deeply moved by the affectionate kindness of his friend,
but he was too weak and miserable to speak. He returned, however, the
embrace, and then once more he was left alone to the company of his own
sad thoughts.
It is indeed grievous to reflect upon a blasted life.