THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Ada Nisbet 
 
 ENGLISH READING ROOM
 
 JUL 17 1986 
 
 V
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD BULWERJLYTTON 
 (LORD LYTTON) 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 
 31 EAST I;TH ST. (UNION SQUARE)
 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 RAHWAV, N. .
 
 TO 
 
 ALBANY FONBLANQUE 
 
 WHOSE ACUTENESS OF WIT IS ACKNOWLEDGED BY THOSE WHO OPPOSE 
 HIS OPINIONS, 
 
 WHOSE INTEGRITY OF PURPOSE IS YET MORE RESPECTED BY THOSE 
 WHO APPRECIATE HIS FRIENDSHIP, 
 
 THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED. 
 
 July, 1840.
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840. 
 
 THIS Novel so far differs from the other fictions by the same author, that 
 it seeks to draw its interest rather from practical than ideal sources. Out of 
 some twelve Novels or Romances, embracing, however inadequately, a great 
 variety of scene and character, from " Pelham " to the " Pilgrims of the 
 Rhine," from " Rienzi " to the " Last Days of Pompeii," "Paul Clifford" 
 is the only one in which a robber has been made the hero, or the peculiar 
 phases of life which he illustrates have been brought into any prominent 
 description. 
 
 Without pausing to inquire what realm of manners, or what order of crime 
 and sorrow are open to art, and capable of administering to the proper ends 
 of fiction, I may be permitted to observe, that the present subject was 
 selected, and the Novel written, with a twofold object : 
 
 First, to draw attention to two errors in our penal institutions, viz., a ! 
 vicious Prison-discipline aud a sanguinary Criminal Code the habit of cor- 
 rupting the boy by the very punishment that ought to redeem him, and then 
 hanging the man, at the first occasion, as the easiest way of getting rid of 
 our own blunders. Between the example of crime which the tyro learns from 
 the felons in the prison-yard, and the horrible levity with which the mob 
 gather round the drop at Newgate, there is a connection which a writer miy 
 be pardoned for quitting loftier regions of imagination to trace and to detect. 
 So far this book is less a picture of the king's highway than the law's royal 
 road to the gallows a satire on the short cut established between the House 
 of Correction and the Condemned Cell. A second and a lighter object in the 
 novel of " Paul Clifford " (and hence the introduction of a semi-burlesque or 
 travesty in the earlier chapters) was to show that there is nothing essentially 
 different between vulgar vice and fashionable vice and that the slang of the 
 one circle is but an easy paraphrase of the cant of the other. 
 
 The Supplementary Essays entitled " Tomlinsoniana," which contains the 
 corollaries to various problems suggested in the Novel, have been restored to 
 the present edition. 
 
 CLIFTON, 
 
 July 25, 1840.
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. 
 
 MOST men, who, with some earnestness of mind, examine into the mys- 
 teries of our social state will, perhaps, pass through that stage of self-edu- 
 cation in which this Novel was composed. The contrast between conven- 
 tional frauds, received as component parts of the great system of civilization, 
 and the less deceptive invasions of the laws which discriminate the meum 
 from the tuum, is tempting to a satire that is not without its justice. The 
 tragic truths which lie hid, in what I may call the Philosophy of Circum- 
 stance strike through our philanthropy upon our imagination. We see 
 masses of our fellow-creatures the victims of circumstances over which they 
 had no control contaminated in infancy by the example of parents their 
 intelligence either extinguished, or turned against them, according as the 
 conscience is stifled in ignorance, or perverted to apologies for vice. A child 
 who is cradled in ignominy ; whose schoolmaster is the felon ; whose 
 academy is the House of Correction ; who breathes an atmosphere in which 
 virtue is poisoned, to which religion (V->es not pierce becomes less a respon- 
 sible and reasoning human being than a wild beast which we suffer to range 
 in the wilderness till it prowls near our homes, and we kill it in self-defence. 
 
 In this respect, the Novel of "Paul Clifford " is a loud cry to society to 
 amend the circumstance to redeem the victim. It is an appeal from 
 Humanity to Law. And, in this, if it could not pretend to influence, or 
 guide the temper of the times, it was at least a foresign of a coming change. 
 Between the literature of imagination, and the practical interests of a people, 
 there is a harmony as complete as it is mysterious. The heart of an author 
 is the mirror of his age. The shadow of the sun is cast on the still surface 
 of literature, long before the light penetrates to law. But it is ever from the 
 sun that the shadow falls, and the moment we see the shadow, we may be 
 certain of the light. 
 
 Since this work was written, society is busy with the evils in which it was 
 then silently acquiescent. The true movement of the last fifteen years has 
 been the progress of one idea Social Reform. There, it advances with 
 steady and noiseless march behind every louder question of constitutional 
 change. Let us do justice to our time. There have been periods of more 
 brilliant action on the drstinies of States but there is no time visible in His- 
 tory in which there was so earnest and general a desire to improve the condi- 
 tion of the great body of the people. In every circle of the community that 
 healthful desire is astir ; it unites in one object men of parties the most op- 
 posed it affords the most attractive nucleus for public meetings; it has 
 cleansed the statute-book from blood ; it is ridding the world of t'-.e hang- 
 man. It animates the clergy of all sects in the remotest districts ; it sets the 
 squire on improving cottages and parcelling out allotments. Schools rise in 
 every village ; in books the lightest, the Grand Idea colors the page, and be- 
 queathes the moral. .The Government alone (despite the professions on which 
 the present Ministry was founded) remains unpenetrated hy the common 
 genius of the age. But on that question, with all the subtleties it involves, 
 and the experiments it demands (not indeed according to the dreams of an 
 
 vii
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 insane philosophy, but according to the immutable iaws which proportion the 
 rewards of labor to the respect for property) a Government must be formed 
 at last. 
 
 There is in this work a subtler question suggested, but not solved. That 
 question which perplexes us in the generous ardor of our early youth 
 which, unsatisfactory as all metaphysics, we rather escape from than decide 
 as we advance in years, viz. make what laws we please, the man who lives 
 within the pale can be as bad as the man without. Compare the Paul Clif- 
 ford of the fiction with the William Brandon ; the hunted son and the hon- 
 ored father; the outcast of the law, the dispenser of the law the felon, and 
 the judge ; and as, at the last, they front each other, one on the seat of jus- 
 tice, the other at the convict's bar, who can lay his hand on his heart and 
 say, that the Paul Clifford is a worse man than the William Brandon ? 
 
 There is no immorality in a truth that enforces this question ; for it is pre- 
 cisely those offences which society cannot interfere with, that society re- 
 quires fiction to expose. Society is right, though youth is reluctant to 
 acknowledge it. Society can form only certain regulations necessary for its 
 self-defence the fewer the better punish those who invade, leave unques- 
 tioned those who respect them. But fiction follows truth into all the strong- 
 holds of convention ; strikes through the disguise, lifts the mask, bares the 
 heart, and leaves a moral wherever it brands a falsehood. 
 
 Out of this range of ideas, the mind of the Author has, perhaps, emerged 
 into an atmosphere which he believes to be more congenial to Art. But he 
 can no more regret that he has parsed through it, than he can regret that 
 while he dwelt there, his heart, like his years, was young. Sympathy with 
 the suffering that seems most actual indignation at the frauds which seem 
 most received as virtues are the natural emotions of youth, if earnest. 
 More sensible afterwards of the prerogatives, as of the elements, of Art, the 
 author at least seeks to escape where the man may not, and look on the prac- 
 tical world through the serener one of the ideal. 
 
 With the completion of this work closed an era in the writer's self-educa- 
 tion. From " Pclham " to " Paul Clifford" (four fictions, all written at a 
 very early age), the author rather observes than imagines; rather deals with 
 the ordinary surface of human life, than attempts, however humbly, to soar 
 above it or to dive beneath. From depicting in " Paul Clifford " the errors 
 of society, it was almost the natural progress of reflection to pass to those 
 which swell to crime in the solitary human heart, from the bold and open 
 evils that spring from ignorance and example, to track those that lie coiled 
 in the entanglements of refining knowledge and speculative pride. Looking 
 back at this distance of years, I can see, as clearly as if mapped before me, 
 the paths which led across the boundary of invention from " Paul Clifford " 
 to " Eugene Aram." And, that last work done, no less clearly can I see 
 where the first gleams from a fairer fancy broke upon my way, and rested on 
 those more ideal images, which I sought, with a feeble hand, to transfer to 
 the " Pilgrims of the Rhine/'and the "Last Days of Pompeii." We authors, 
 like the Children in the Fable, track our journey through the maze by the 
 pebbles which we strew along the path. From others who wander after us, 
 they may attract no notice, or, if noticed, seem to them but scattered by the 
 caprice of chance. But we, when our memory would retrace our steps, re- 
 view, in the humble stones, the witnesses of our progress the landmarks of 
 our way. 
 
 KNEBWORTH, 
 184$.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Say, ye opprest by some fantastic woes, 
 Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose, 
 Who press the downy couch while slaves advance 
 With timid eye to read the distant glance ; 
 Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease 
 To name the nameless ever-new disease ; 
 Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, 
 Which real pain and that alone can cure : 
 How would you bear in real pain to lie 
 Despised, neglected, left alone to die? 
 How would ye bear to draw your latest breath 
 Where all that's wretched paves the way to death ? " 
 
 CRABBE. 
 
 IT was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents 
 except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a vio- 
 lent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London 
 that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely 
 agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against 
 the darkness. Through one of the obscurest quarters of Lon- 
 don, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the 
 police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his 
 solitary way. He stopped twice or thrice at different shops and 
 houses of a description correspondent with the appearance of 
 the quartier in which they were situated, and tended inquiry 
 for some article or another which did not seem easily to be 
 met with. All the answers he received were couched in the 
 negative ; and as he turned from each door he muttered to him- 
 self, in no very elegant phraseology, his disappointment and 
 discontent. At length, at one house, the landlord, a sturdy 
 butcher, after rendering the same reply the inquirer had hith- 
 erto received, added, "But if this vill do as veil, Dummie, it is 
 quite at your sarvice!" Pausing reflectively fora moment, 
 Dummie responded, that he thought the thing proffered might 
 
 n
 
 12 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 do as well ; and thrusting it into his ample pocket he strode 
 away with as rapid a motion as the wind and the rain would 
 allow. He soon came to a nest of low and dingy buildings, at 
 the entrance to which, in half-effaced characters, was written 
 "Thames Court." Halting at the most conspicuous of these 
 buildings, an inn or alehouse, through the half-closed windows 
 of which blazed out in ruddy comfort the beams of the hospit- 
 able hearth, he knocked hastily at the door. He was admitted 
 by a lady of a certain age, and endowed with a comely rotun- 
 dity of face and person. 
 
 "Hast got it, Dummie?" said she quickly, as she closed the 
 door on the guest. 
 
 "Noa, noa! not exactly, but I thinks as ow " 
 
 "Pish, you fool!' cried the old woman, interrupting him 
 peevishly. "Vy, it is no use desaving me. You knows you 
 has only stepped from my boosing ken to another, and you has 
 not been arter the book at all. So there's the poor cretur 
 a-raving and a-dying, and you " 
 
 "Let I speak! interrupted Dummie in his turn. "I tells 
 you, I vent first to Mother Bussblone's, who, I knows, chops 
 the whiners morning and evening to the young ladies, and I 
 axes there for a Bible, and she says, says she, 'I 'as only a 
 'Companion to the Walter?' but you'll get a Bible, I thinks, at 
 Master Talkins", the cobbler, as preaches. So I goes to Mas- 
 ter Talkins, and he says, says he, 'I 'as no call for the Bible 
 'cause vy? I 'as a call vithout ; but mayhap you'll be a-get- 
 ting it at the butcher's hover the way, cause vy? the butcher'll 
 be damned ! ' So I goes hover the vay, and the butcher says, 
 says he, 'I 'as not a Bible; but I 'as a book of plays bound for 
 all the vorld just like 'un, and mayhap the poor cretur mayn't 
 see the difference.' So I takes the plays, Mrs. Margery, and 
 here they be sure/y/ And how's poor Judy?" 
 
 "Fearsome! she'll not be over the night, I'm a-thinking." 
 
 "Veil, I'll track up the dancers!" 
 
 So saying, Dummie ascended a doorless staircase, across the 
 entrance of which a blanket, stretched angularly from the wall 
 to the chimney, afforded a kind of screen ; and presently he 
 stood within a chamber, which the dark and painful genius of 
 Crabbe might have delighted to portray. The walls were white- 
 washed, and at sundry places strange figures and grotesque 
 characters had been traced by some mirthful inmate, in such 
 sable outline as the end of a smoked stick or the end of a 
 piece of charcoal is wont to produce. The wan and flickering 
 light afforded by a farthing candle gave a sort of grimness and
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 13 
 
 menace to these achievements of pictorial art, especially as they 
 more than once received embellishment from portraits of Satan, 
 such as he is accustomed to be drawn. A low fire burned 
 gloomily in the sooty grate; and on the hob hissed "the still 
 small voice" of an iron kettle. On a round deal table were 
 two vials, a cracked cup, a broken spoon of some dull metal; 
 and upon two or three mutilated chairs were scattered various 
 articles of female attire. On another table, placed below a 
 high, narrow, shutterless casement (athwart which, instead of a 
 curtain, a checked apron had been loosely hung, and now 
 waved fitfully to and fro in the gusts of wind that made easy 
 ingress through many a chink and cranny), were a looking- 
 glass, sundry appliances of the toilet, a box of course rouge, a 
 few ornaments of more show than value; and a watch, the reg- 
 ular and calm click of which produced that indescribably pain- 
 ful feeling which, we fear, many of our readers who have heard 
 the sound in a sick chamber can easily recall. A large tester- 
 bed stood opposite to this table, and the looking-glass partially 
 reflected curtains of a faded stripe, and ever and anon (as the 
 position of the sufferer followed the restless emotion of a disor- 
 dered mind), glimpses of the face of one on whom Death was 
 rapidly hastening. Beside this bed now stood Dummie a small, 
 thin man, dressed in a tattered plush jerkin, from which the 
 raindrops slowly dripped, and with a thin, yellow, cunning 
 physiognomy, grotesquely hideous in feature but not positively 
 villainous in expression. On the other side of the bed stood a 
 little boy of about three years old, dressed as if belonging to 
 the better classes, although the garb was somewhat tattered and 
 discolored. The poor child trembled violently, and evidently 
 looked with a feeling of relief on the entrance of Dummie. 
 And now there slowly, and with many a phthisical sigh, heaved 
 towads the foot of the bed the heavy frame of the woman who 
 had accosted Dummie below, and had followed him, hand pas- 
 sibus cequis, to the room of the sufferer ; she stood with a bottle 
 of medicine in her hand, shaking its contents up and down, 
 and with a kindly yet timid compassion spread over a counte- 
 nance crimsoned with habitual libations. This made the scene; 
 save that on a chair by the bedside lay a profusion of long, 
 glossy, golden ringlets, which had been cut from the head of 
 the sufferer when the fever had begun to mount upwards ; but 
 which, with a jealousy that portrayed the darling littleness of a 
 vain heart, she had seized and insisted on retaining near her; 
 and save that, by the fire, perfectly inattentive to the event about 
 to take place within the chamber, and to which we of the biped
 
 14 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 race attach so awful an importance, lay a large gray cat, curled 
 in a ball, and dozing with half-shut eyes, and ears that now and 
 then denoted, by a gentle inflection, the jar of a louder or 
 nearer sound than usual upon her lethargic senses. The dying 
 woman did not at first attend to the entrance either of Dummie 
 or the female at the foot of the bed ; but she turned herself 
 round towards the child, and grasping his arm fiercely, she drew 
 him towards her, and gazed on his terrified features with a look 
 in which exhaustion and an exceeding wanness of complexion 
 were even horribly contrasted by the glare and energy of 
 delirium. 
 
 "If you are like /;#," she muttered, "I will strangle you, 
 I will! Ay tremble! you ought to tremble, when your mother 
 touches you, or when he is mentioned. You have his eyes, 
 you have! Out with them, out! the devil sits laughing in 
 them! Oh! you weep, do you, little one! Well now, be still, 
 my love, be hushed! I would not harm thee! harm O God, 
 he is my child after all!" And at these words she clasped the 
 boy passionately to her breast, and burst into tears! 
 
 "Coom now, coom!" said Dummie soothingly. "Take the 
 stuff, Judith, and then ve'll talk over the hurchin!" 
 
 The mother relaxed her grasp of the boy, and turning towards 
 the speaker, gazed at him for some moments with a bewildered 
 stare: at length she appeared slowly to remember him, and 
 said, as she raised herself on one hand, and pointed the other 
 towards him with an inquiring gesture: 
 
 "Thou hast brought the book?" 
 
 Dummie answered by lifting up the book he had brought 
 from the honest butcher's. 
 
 "Clear the room, then!" said the sufferer, with that air of mock 
 command so common to the insane. "We would be alone!" 
 
 Dummie winked at the good woman at the foot of the bed ; 
 and she (though generally no easy person to order or to per- 
 suade) left, without reluctance, the sick chamber. 
 
 "If she be a-going to pray!" murmured our landlady (for that 
 office did the good matron hold), "I may indeed as well take 
 myself off, for it's not werry comfortable like to those who be 
 old to hear all that "ere!" 
 
 With this pious reflection the hostess of the Mug, so was the 
 hostelry called, heavily descended the creaking stairs. 
 
 "Now, man!" said the sufferer sternly: "swear that you will 
 never reveal, swear, I say! and by the great God, whose an- 
 gels are about this night, if ever you break the oath, I will come 
 back and haunt you to your dying day!"
 
 PAUL CLlFFOfcD. lg 
 
 Dummie' s face grew pale, for he was superstitiously affected by 
 the vehemence and the language of the dying woman, and he 
 answered, as he kissed the pretended Bible, that he swore to 
 keep the secret, as much as he knew of it, which, she must be 
 sensible, he said, was very little. As he spoke, the wind swept 
 with a loud and sudden gust down the chmney, and shook the 
 roof above them so violently as to loosen many of the crumb- 
 ling tiles, which fell one after the other, with a crashing noise, 
 on the pavement below. Dummie started in affright ; and per- 
 haps his conscience smote him for the trick he had played with 
 regard to the false Bible. But the woman, whose excited and 
 unstrung nerves led her astray fom one subject to another with 
 preternatural celerity, said, with an hysterical laugh, "See, 
 Dummie, they come in state for me ; give me the cap yonder ! 
 and bring the looking-glass!" 
 
 Dummie obeyed, and the woman, as she in a low tone 
 uttered something about the unbecoming color of the ribands, 
 adjusted the cap on her head ; and then saying in a regretful 
 and petulant voice, "Why should they have cut off my hair? 
 such a disfigurement!" bade Dummie desire Mrs. Margery once 
 more to ascend to her. 
 
 Left alone with her child, the face of the wretched mother 
 softened as she regarded him, and all the levities and all the 
 vehemences, if we may use the word, which, in the turbu- 
 lent commotion of her delirium, had been stirred upward to the 
 surface of her mind, gradually now sunk, as death increased 
 upon her, and a mother's anxiety rose to the natural level from 
 which it had been disturbed and abased. She took the child 
 to her bosom, and clasping him in her arms, which grew 
 weaker with every instant, she soothed him with the sort of 
 chant which nurses sing over their untoward infants ; but her 
 voice was racked and hollow, and as she felt it was so, the 
 mother's eyes filled with tears. Mrs. Margery now re-entered; 
 and, turning towards the hostess with an impressive calmness of 
 manner which astonished and awed the person she addressed, 
 the dying woman pointed to the child, and said : 
 
 "You have been kind to me, very kind, and may God bless 
 you for it! I have found that those whom the world calls the 
 worst are often the most human. But I am not going to thank 
 you as I ought to do, but to ask of you a last and exceeding 
 favor. Protect my child till he grows up : you have often said 
 you loved him you are childless yourself, and a morsel of 
 bread and a shelter for the night, which is all I ask of you to 
 give him, will not impoverish more legitimate claimants!"
 
 16 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Margery, fairly sobbing, vowed she would be a 
 mother to the child, and that she would endeavor to rear him 
 honestly, though a public-house was not, she confessed, the 
 best place for good examples! 
 
 "Take him!" cried the mother hoarsely, as her voice, fail- 
 ing her strength, rattled indistinctlv, and almost died within 
 her. "Take him, rear him as you will, as you can! any ex- 
 ample, any roof better than " Here the words were inaudible. 
 "And oh! may it be a curse, and a Give me the medicine, I 
 am dying." 
 
 The hostess, alarmed, hastened to comply, but before she 
 returned to the bedside the sufferer was insensible, nor did she 
 again recover speech or motion. A low and rare moan only 
 testified continued life, and within two hours that ceased, and 
 the spirit was gone. At that time our good hostess was herself 
 beyond the things of this outer world, having supported her 
 spirits during the vigils of the night with so many little liquid 
 stimulants, that they finally sunk into that torpor which generally 
 succeeds excitement. Taking, perhaps, advantage of the op- 
 portunity which the insensibility of the hostess afforded him, 
 Dummie, by the expiring ray of the candle that burnt in the 
 death chamber, hastily opened a huge box (which was generally 
 concealed under the bed, and contained the wardrobe of the 
 deceased), and turned with irreverent hand over the linens and 
 the silks, until quite at the bottom of the trunk he discovered 
 some packets of letters ; these he seized, and buried in the con- 
 veniences of his dress. He then, rising and replacing the box, 
 cast a longing eye towards the watch on the toilet-table, which 
 was of gold ; but he withdrew his gaze, and with a querulous 
 sigh, observed to himself, "The old blowen kenso' that, od rat 
 her! but, howsomever, I'll take this; who knows but it may be 
 of some sarvice tunnies to-day may be smash to-morrow ! "* 
 and he laid his coarse hand on the golden and silky tresses we 
 have described. "'Tis a rum business, and puzzles I! but 
 mum's the word, for my own little colquarren."t 
 
 With this brief soliloquy Dummie asscended the stairs, and 
 let himself out of the house. 
 
 * Meaning, what is of no value now may be precious hereafter, 
 t Colquarren neck.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Imagination fondly stoops to trace 
 
 The parlor splendors of that festive place." 
 
 Deserted Village. 
 
 THERE is little to interest in a narrative of early childhood, un- 
 less indeed one were writing on education. We shall not, 
 therefore, linger over the infancy of the motherless boy left to 
 the protection of Mrs. Margery Lobkins, or, as she was some- 
 times familiarly called, Peggy or Piggy Lob. The good dame, 
 drawing a more than sufficient income from the profits of a 
 house, which, if situated in an obscure locality, enjoyed very 
 general and lucrative repute; and being alone without kith or 
 kin, had no temptation to break her word to the deceased, and 
 she suffered the orphan to wax in strength and understanding 
 until the age of twelve, a period at which we are about to 
 reintroduce him to our readers. 
 
 The boy evinced great hardihood of temper, and no inconsid- 
 erable quickness of intellect. In whatever he attempted his 
 success was rapid, and a remarkable strength of limb and mus- 
 cle seconded well the dictates of an ambition turned, it must be 
 confessed, rather to physical . than mental exertion. It is not 
 to be supposed, however, that his boyish life passed in unbrok- 
 en tranquillity. Although Mrs. Lobkins was a good woman on 
 the whole, and greatly attached to her prottg/, she was violent 
 and rude in temper, or, as she herself more flatteringly ex- 
 pressed it, "her feelings were unkimmonly strong, " and alter- 
 nate quarrel and reconciliation constituted the chief occupa- 
 tions of l\\e protege's domestic life. As, previous to his becoming 
 the ward of Mrs. Lobkins, he had never received any other ap- 
 pellation than "the child," so the duty of christening him de- 
 volved upon our hostess of the Mug; and, after some delibera- 
 tion, she blessed him with the name of Paul. It was a name 
 of happy omen, for it had belonged to good Mrs. Lobkins's 
 grandfather, who had been three times transported, and twice 
 hanged (at the ; first occurrence of the latter description he had 
 been restored by the surgeons, much to the chagrin of a young 
 anatomist who was to have had the honor of cutting him up). 
 The boy did not seem likely to merit the distinguished appella- 
 tion he bore, for he testified no remarakble predisposition to 
 the property of other people. Nay, although he sometimes 
 emptied the pockets of any stray visitor to the coffee-room of 
 Mrs. Lobkins, it appeared an act originating rather in a love
 
 r PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of the frolic, than a desire of the profit ; for after the plun- 
 dered person had been sufficiently tormented by the loss, haply 
 of such utilities as a tobacco-box, or a handkerchief; after he 
 had, to the secret delight of Paul, searched every corner of the 
 apartment, stamped, and fretted, and exposed himself by his 
 petulance to the bitter objurgation of Mrs. Lobkins, our young 
 friend would quietly and suddenly contrive that the article 
 missed should return of its own accord to the pocket from which 
 it had disappeared. And thus, as our readers have doubtless 
 experienced, when they have disturbed the peace of a whole 
 household for the loss of some portable treasure which they 
 themselves are afterwards discovered to have mislaid, the unfor- 
 tunate victim of Paul's honest ingenuity, exposed to the col- 
 lected indignation of the spectators, and sinking from the ac- 
 cuser into the convicted, secretly cursed the unhappy lot 
 which not only vexed him with the loss of his property, but 
 made it still more annoying to recover it. 
 
 Whether it was that, on discovering these pranks, Mrs. Lob- 
 kins trembled for the future bias of the address they displayed, 
 or whether she thought that the folly of thieving without gain 
 required speedy and permanent correction, we cannot decide ; 
 but the good lady became at last extremely anxious to secure for 
 Paul the blessings of a liberal education. The key of knowledge 
 (the art of reading) she had, indeed, two years prior to the present 
 date obtained for him, but this far from satisfied her conscience : 
 nay, she felt that, if she could not also obtain for him the dis- 
 cretion to use it, it would have been wise even to have with- 
 held a key which the boy seemed perversely to apply to all locks 
 but the right one. In a word, she was desirous that he should 
 receive an education far superior to those whom he saw around 
 him. And attributing, like the most ignorant persons, too great 
 advantages to learning, she conceived that, in order to live as 
 decorously as the parson of the parish, it was only necessary to 
 know as much Latin. 
 
 One evening in particular, as the dame sat by her cheerful 
 fire, this source of anxiety was unusually active in her mind, 
 and ever and anon she directed unquiet and restless glances 
 towards Paul, who sat on a form at the opposite corner of the 
 hearth, diligently employed in reading the life and adventures 
 of the celebrated Richard Turpin. The form on which the boy 
 sat was worn to a glassy smoothness, save only in certain places, 
 where some ingenious idler or another had amused himself by 
 carving sundry names, epithets, and epigrammatic niceties of 
 language. It is said that the organ of carving upon wood is
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. Jp 
 
 prominently developed on all English skulls ; and the sagacious 
 Mr. Combe has placed this organ at the back of the head, in 
 juxtaposition to that of destructiveness, which is equally large 
 among our countrymen, as is notably evinced upon all railings, 
 seats, temples, and other things belonging to other people. 
 
 Opposite to the fireplace was a large deal table, at which 
 Dummie, surnamed Dunnaker, seated near the dame, was 
 quietly ruminating over a glass of hollands and water. Farther 
 on, at another table in the corner of the room, a gentleman 
 with a red wig, very rusty garments, and linen which seemed as 
 if it had been boiled in saffron, smoked his pipe, apart, silent, 
 and apparently plunged in meditation. This gentleman was no 
 other than Mr. Peter Mac Grawler, the editor of a magnificent 
 periodical, entitled "The Asingeum," which was written to prove 
 that whatever is popular is necessarily bad, a valuable and 
 recondite truth, which "The Asinaeum" had satisfactorily dem- 
 onstrated by ruining three printers and demolishing a publisher. 
 We need not add that Mr. Mac Grawler was Scotch by birth, 
 since we believe it is pretty well known that all periodicals of 
 this country have, from time immemorial, been monopolized by 
 the gentleman of the land of Cakes : we know not how it may be 
 the fashion to eat the said cakes in Scotland, but here the good 
 emigrators seem to like them carefully buttered on both sides. 
 By the side of the editor stood a large pewter tankard ; above 
 him hung an engraving of the "wonderfully fat boar, formerly in 
 the possession of Mr. Pattern, grazier." To his left rose the 
 dingy form of a thin, upright clock in an oaken case ; beyond 
 the clock, a spit and a musket were fastened in parallels to the 
 wall. Below those twin emblems of war and cookery were four 
 shelves, containing plates of pewter and delf, and terminating, 
 centaur-like, in a sort of dresser. At the other side of these 
 domestic conveniences was a picture of Mrs. Lobkins, in a 
 scarlet body, and a hat and plume. At the back of the fair 
 rTos'tess stretched the blanket we have before mentioned. As a 
 relief to the monotonous surface of this simple screen, various 
 ballads and learned legends were pinned to the blanket. There 
 might you read in verses, pathetic and unadorned, how 
 
 ' ' Sally loved a sailor lad 
 As fought with famous Shovel ! " 
 
 There might you learn, if of two facts so instructive you were 
 before unconscious, that 
 
 " Ben the toper loved his bottle 
 Charley only loved the lasses ! "
 
 20 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 When of these, and various other poetical effusions, you were 
 somewhat wearied, the literary fragments in humbler prose 
 afforded you equal edification and delight. There might you 
 fully enlighten yourself as to the "Strange and Wonderful 
 News from Kensington, being a most full and true Relation 
 how a Maid there is supposed to have been carried away by an 
 Evil Spirit, on Wednesday, i5th of April last, about Mid- 
 night." There too, no less interesting and no less veracious, 
 was that uncommon anecdote, touching the chief of many- 
 throned powers, entitled, "The Divell of Mascon ; or the true 
 Relation of the Chief Things which an Unclean Spirit did and 
 said at Mascon, in Burgundy, in the house of one Mr. Fran- 
 cis Pereaud : now made English by One that hath a Particular 
 Knowledge of the Truth of the Story." 
 
 Nor were these materials for Satanic history the only prosaic 
 and faithful chronicles which the bibliothecal blanket afforded : 
 equally wonderful, and equally indisputable, was the account of 
 "a young lady, the daughter of a duke, with three legs, and the 
 face of a porcupine." Nor less so, "The Awful Judgment of 
 God upon Swearers, as exemplified in the case of John Stiles, 
 who Dropped down Dead after Swearing a Great Oath, and on 
 stripping the unhappy man they found 'Swear not -at all' 
 written on the tail of his shirt!" 
 
 Twice had Mrs. Lobkins heaved a long sigh, as her eyes 
 turned from Paul to the tranquil countenance of Dummie Dun- 
 naker, and now, reseating herself in her chair, as a motherly 
 anxiety gathered over her visage : 
 
 "Paul, my ben cull," said she, "what gibberish hast got 
 there?" 
 
 "Turpin, the great highwayman !" answered the young stu- 
 dent, without lifting his eyes from the page, through which he 
 was spelling his instructive way. 
 
 "Oh! he be's a chip of the right block, dame!" said 
 Mr. Dunnaker, as he applied his pipe to an illumined piece 
 of paper. "He'll ride a oss foaled by a hacorn yet, I 
 varrant!" 
 
 To this prophecy the dame replied only with a look of indig- 
 nation, and rocking herself to and fro in her huge chair, she 
 remained for some moments in silent thought. At last she again 
 wistfully eyed the hopeful boy, and calling him to her side com- 
 municated some order in a dejected whisper. Paul, on per- 
 ceiving it, disappeared behind the blanket, and presently re- 
 turned with a bottle and a wine-glass. With an abstracted 
 gesture, and an air that betokened continued meditation, the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 21 
 
 good dame took the inspiring cordial from the .land of her 
 youthful cup-bearer: 
 
 " And ere a man had power to say ' Behold '! 
 The jaws of Lobkins had devoured it up : 
 So quick bright things come to confusion ! " 
 
 The nectarean beverage seemed to operate cheerily on the 
 matron's system ; and placing her hand on the boy's curling head, 
 she said (like Andromache, dakruon gelesasa, or, as Scott hath 
 it, "With a smile in her cheek, but a tear in her eye") 
 
 "Paul, thy heart be good! thy heart be good! Thou didst 
 not spill a drop of the tape ! Tell me, my honey, why didst 
 thou lick Tom Tobyson?" 
 
 "Because," answered Paul, "he said as how you ought to 
 have been hanged long ago ! ' ' 
 
 "Tom Tobyson is a good-for-nought," reurned the dame, 
 "and deserves to shove the tumbler;* but, oh, my child! be 
 not too venturesome in taking up the sticks for a blowen. It 
 has been the ruin of many a man afore you, and when two men 
 goes to quarrel for a 'oman, they doesn't know the natur of the 
 thing they quarrels about ; mind thy latter end, Paul, and rev- 
 erence the old, without axing what they has been before they 
 passed into the wale of years ; thou may'st get me my pipe, 
 Paul; it is up-stairs, under the pillow." 
 
 While Paul was accomplishing his errand, the lady of the 
 Mug, fixing her eyes upon Mr. Dunnaker, said, "Dummie, 
 Dummie, if little Paul should come to be scragged!" 
 
 "Whish!" muttered Dummie, glancing over his shoulder at 
 Mac Crawler, "mayhap that gemman, " here his voice became 
 scarcely audible even to Mrs. Lobkins ; but his whisper seemed 
 to imply an insinuation that the illustrious editor of "The Asin- 
 seum" might be either an informer, or one of those heroes on 
 whom an informer subsists. 
 
 Mrs. Lobkins's answer, couched in the same key, appeared to 
 satisfy Dunnaker, for, with a look of great contempt, he 
 chucked up his head, and said, "Oho! that be all, be it!" 
 
 Paul here reappeared with the pipe, and the dame, having filled 
 the tube, leaned forward, and lighted the Virginian weed from 
 the blower of Mr. Dunnaker. As in this interesting occupation 
 the heads of the hostess and the guest approached each other, 
 the glowing light playing cheerily on the countenance of each, 
 there was an honest simplicity in the picture that would have 
 merited the racy and vigorous genius of a Cruikshank. As 
 soon as the Promethean spark had been fully communicated to 
 
 * B whipped at the cart's tail.
 
 32 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the lady's t ibe, Mrs. Lobkins, still possessed by the gloomy 
 ideas she had conjured up, repeated : 
 
 "Ah, Dummie, if little Paul should be scragged!" Dummie, 
 withdrawing the pipe from his mouth, heaved a sympathizing 
 puff, but remained silent ; and Mrs. Lobkins, turning to Paul, 
 who stood with mouth open and ears erect at this boding ejacu- 
 lation, said: 
 
 "Dost think, Paul, they'd have the heart to hang thee?" 
 
 "I think they'd have the rope, dame!" returned the youth. 
 
 "But you need not go for to run your neck into the noose!" 
 said the matron ; and then, inspired by the spirit of moralizing, 
 she turned round to the youth, and gazing upon his attentive 
 countenance, accosted him with the following admonitions: 
 
 "Mind thy kittychism, child, and reverence old age. Never 
 steal, 'specially when any one be in the way. Never go snacks 
 with them as be older than you, 'cause why? the older a cove 
 be, the more he cares for his self, and the less for his partner. 
 At twenty, we diddles the public; at forty we diddles our 
 cronies! Be modest, Paul, and stick to your sitivation in life. 
 Go not with fine tobymen, who burn out like a candle wot has 
 a thief in it, all flare and gone in a whiffy ! Leave liquor to 
 the aged, who can't do without it. Tape often proves a halter, 
 and there be's no ruin like blue ruin ! Read your Bible, and 
 talk like a pious 'un. People goes more by your Avords than 
 your actions. If you wants what is not your own, try and do 
 without it ; and if you cannot do without it, take it away by 
 insinivation, not bluster. They as swindles does more and 
 risks less than they as robs; and if you cheats toppingly you 
 may laugh at the topping cheat.* And now go play." 
 
 Paul seized his hat, but lingered ; and the dame, guessing at 
 the signification of the pause, drew forth, and placed in the 
 boy's hand the sum of five halfpence and one farthing. "There, 
 boy," quoth she, and she stroked his head fondly when she 
 spoke; "you does right not to play for nothing, it's loss of 
 time ! but play with those as be less than yoursel', and then 
 you can go for to beat 'em if they says you go for to cheat!" 
 
 Paul vanished ; and the dame, laying her hand on Dummie's 
 shoulder, said: 
 
 "There be nothing like a friend in need, Dummie; and some- 
 how or other, I thinks as how you knows more of the horrigin 
 'of that 'ere lad than any of us!" 
 
 "Me, dame!" exclaimed Dummie; with a broad gaze of 
 astonishment. 
 
 * Callows.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 23 
 
 "Ah, you! you knows as how the mother saw more of you 
 just afore she died, than she did of 'ere one of us. Noar, now 
 noar, now! tell us all about 'un. Did she steal 'un, think ye ?" 
 
 "Lauk, mother Margery! dost think I knows? Vot put such 
 a crotchet in your 'ead?" 
 
 "Well!" said the dame, with a disappointed sigh, "I always 
 thought as how you were more knowing about it than you owns. 
 Dear, dear, I shall never forgit the night when Judith brought 
 the poor cretur here ; you knows she had been some months in 
 my house afore ever I see'd the urchin, and when she brought 
 it, she looked so pale and ghostly, that I had not the heart to 
 say a word, so I stared at the brat, and it stretched out its wee 
 little hands to me. And the mother frowned at it, and throwed 
 it into my lap ! ' ' 
 
 "Ah! she was a hawful voman, that 'ere !" said Dummie, 
 shaking his head. "But howsomever, the hurchin fell into 
 good hands; for I be's sure you 'as been a better mother to 'un 
 than the raal 'un!" 
 
 "I was always a fool about childer, " rejoined Mrs. Lobkins; 
 "and I thinks as how little Paul was sent to be a comfort to my 
 latter end! fill the glass, Dummie. " 
 
 "I 'as heard ow Judith was once blowen to a great lord!" said 
 Dummie. 
 
 "Like enough!" returned Mrs. Lobkins; "likeenough! She 
 was always a favorite of mine, for she had a spuret (spirit) as 
 big as my own ; and she paid her rint like a decent body, for 
 all she was out of her sinses, or nation like it." 
 
 "Ay, I knows as how you liked her, 'cause vy? 'tis not 
 your vay to let a room to a voman! You says as how 'tis not 
 respectable, and you only likes men to wisit the Mug!" 
 
 "And I doesn't like all of them as comes here !" answered 
 the dame: "'specially for Paul's sake; but what can a lone 
 'oman do? Many's the gentleman highwayman wot comes here, 
 whose money is as good as the clerk's of the parish. And when 
 a bob* is in my hand, what does it sinnify whose hand it was in 
 afore?" 
 
 "That's what I call being sinsible and practical '," said Dum- 
 mie approvingly. "And, arter all, though you 'as a mixture 
 like, I does not know a halehouse where a cove is better enter- 
 tained, nor meets of a Sunday more illegant company, than the 
 Mug!" 
 
 Here the conversation, which the reader must know had 
 been sustained in a key inaudible to a third person, received a 
 
 * Shilling.
 
 24 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 check from Mr. Peter Mac Crawler, who, having finished his 
 revery and his tankard, now rose to depart. First, however, 
 approaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he had gone on 
 credit for some days, and demanded the amount of his bill. 
 Glancing towards certain chalk hieroglyphics inscribed on the 
 wall at the other side of the fireplace, the dame answered that 
 Mr. Mac Grawler was indebted to her for the sum of one shil- 
 ling and ninepence three farthings. 
 
 After a short preparatory search in his waistcoat pockets the 
 critic hunted into one corner a solitary half-crown, and having 
 caught it between his finger and thumb, he gave it to Mrs. Lob- 
 kins, and requested change. 
 
 As soon as the matron felt her hand anointed with what has 
 been called by some ingenious Johnson of St. Giles's "the oil of 
 palms," her countenance softened into a complacent smile; 
 and when she gave the required change to Mr. Mac Grawler, 
 she graciously hoped as how he would recommend the Mug 
 to the public. 
 
 "That you may be sure of," said the editor of "The 
 A.sinaeum." "There is not a place where I am so much at 
 home." 
 
 With that the learned Scotsman buttoned his coat and went 
 his way. 
 
 "How spiteful the world be!" said Mrs. Lobkins after a pause, 
 " 'specially if a 'oman keeps a fashionable sort of a public! 
 When Judith died, Joe, the dog's meat man, said I war all the 
 better for it, and that she left I a treasure to bring up the urchin. 
 One would think a thumper makes a man richer, 'cause why? 
 every man thumps! I got nothing more than a watch and ten 
 guineas when Judy died, and sure that scarce paid for the 
 burrel (burial)." 
 
 "You forgits the two quids* I give you for the hold box of 
 rags, much of a treasure I found there!" said Dummie, with 
 sycophantic archness. 
 
 "Ay," cried the dame, laughing, "I fancies you war not 
 pleased with the bargain. I thought you war too old a rag- 
 merchant to be so free with the blunt : howsomever, I suppose 
 it war the tinsel petticoat as took you in!" 
 
 "As it has rnony a viser man than the like of I," rejoined 
 Dummie, who to his various secret professions added the 
 ostensible one of a rag-merchant and dealer in broken glass. 
 
 The recollection of her good bargain in the box of rags 
 opened our landlady's heart. 
 
 * Guineas.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 25 
 
 "Drink, Dummie," said she good-humoredly, "drink, I 
 scorns to score lush to a friend." 
 
 Dummie expressed his gratitude, refilled his glass, and the 
 hospitable matron, knocking out from her pipe the dying ashes, 
 thus proceeded : 
 
 "You sees, Dummie, though I often beats the boy, I laves 
 him as much as if I war his raal mother. I wants to make him 
 an honor to his country and an ixciption to my family!" 
 
 "Who all flashed their ivories at Surgeons' Hall!" added the 
 metaphorical Dummie. 
 
 "True!" said the lady, "they died game, and I ben't ashamed 
 of 'em. But I owes a duty to Paul's mother, and I wants 
 Paul to have a long life. I would send him to school, but you 
 knows as how the boys only corrupt one another. And so, I 
 should like to meet with some decent man as a tutor, to teach 
 the lad Latin and vartue!" 
 
 "My eyes!" cried Dummie, aghast at the grandeur of this 
 desire. 
 
 "The boy is 'cute enough, and he loves reading, " continued 
 the dame. "But I does not think the books he gets hold of will 
 teach him the way to grow old." 
 
 "And ow came he to read anyhows?" 
 
 "Ranting Rob, the strolling player, taught him his letters, and 
 said he'd a deal of janius." 
 
 "And why should not Ranting Rob tache the boy Latin and 
 vartue?" 
 
 ' 'Cause Ranting Rob, poor fellow, -was lagged for doing a 
 +annyf"* answered the dame despondently. 
 
 There was a long silence : it was broken by Mr. Dummie : 
 slapping his thigh with the gesticulatory vehemence of an Ugo 
 Foscolo, that gentleman exclaimed: 
 
 "I 'as it! I 'as thought of a tutor for leetle Paul!" 
 
 "Who's that? you quite frightens me; you 'as no marcy on 
 my narves," said the dame fretfully. 
 
 "Vy it be the gemman vot writes," said Dummie, put- 
 ting his finger to his nose; "the gemman vot payed you so 
 flashly." 
 
 "What! the Scotch gemman?" 
 
 "The werry same," returned Dummie. 
 
 The dame turned in her chair, and refilled her pipe. It was 
 evident from her manner that Mr. Dunnaker's suggestion had 
 made an impression on her. But she recognized two doubts as 
 to its feasibility : one, whether the gentleman proposed would be 
 
 * Transported for burglary.
 
 26 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 adequate to the task ; the other, whether he would be willing to 
 undertake it. 
 
 In the midst of her meditations on this matter, the dame was 
 interrupted by the entrance of certain claimants on her hospi- 
 tality ; and Dummie soon after taking his leave, the suspense 
 of Mrs. Lobkins's mind touching the education of little Paul 
 remained the whole of that day and night utterly unrelieved. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " I own that I am envious of the pleasure you will have in finding your- 
 self more learned than other boys even those who are older than yourself } 
 What honor this will do you ! What distinctions, what applauses will follow 
 wherever you go ! " LORD CHESTERFIELD'S Letters to his Son. 
 
 " Example, my boy example is worth a thousand precepts." 
 
 MAXIMILIAN SOLEMN. 
 
 TARPEI A was crushed beneath the weight of ornaments ! The 
 language of the vulgar is a sort of Tarpeia! We have therefore 
 relieved it of as many gems as we were able; and, in the fore- 
 going scene, presented it to the gaze of our readers simplex mun- 
 ditiis. Nevertheless, we could timidly imagine some gentler 
 beings of the softer sex rather displeased with the tone of the 
 dialogue we have given, did we not recollect how delighted they 
 are with the provincial barbarities of the sister kingdom, when- 
 ever they meet them poured over the pages of some Scottish 
 story-teller. As, unhappily for mankind, broad Scotch is not 
 yet the universal language of Europe, we suppose our country- 
 women will not be much more unacquainted with the dialect of 
 their own lower orders, than with that which breathes nasal 
 melodies over the paradise of the North. 
 
 It was the next day, at the hour of twilight, when Mrs. Mar- 
 gery Lobkins, after a satisfactory tete-ci-tte with Mr. Mac 
 Grawler, had the happiness of thinking that she had provided a 
 tutor for little Paul. The critic having recited to her a con- 
 siderable portion of Propria qua Maribus, the good lady had 
 no longer a doubt of his capacities for teaching ; and, on the 
 other hand, when Mrs. Lobkins entered on the subject of 
 remuneration the Scotsman professed himself perfectly willing 
 to teach any and every thing that the most exacting guardian 
 could require. It was finally settled that Paul should attend 
 Mr. Mac Grawler two hours a day ; that Mr. Mac Grawler 
 should be entitled to such animal comforts of meat and drink as
 
 PAUL CLIFFORtX 27 
 
 the Mug afforded ; and, moreover, to the weekly stipend of two 
 shillings and sixpence, the shillings for instruction in the classics, 
 and the sixpence for all other humanities; or, as Mrs. Lob- 
 kins expressed it, "two bobs for the Latin, and a sice for the 
 vartue!" 
 
 Let not thy mind, gentle reader, censure us for a deviation 
 from probability, in making so excellent and learned a gentle- 
 man as Mr. Peter Mac Crawler the familiar guest of the lady 
 of the Mug. First, thou must know that our story is cast in 
 a period antecedent to the present, and one in which the old 
 jokes against the circumstances of author and of critic had their 
 foundation in truth; secondly, thou must know, that by some 
 curious concatenation of circumstances, neither bailiff nor 
 bailiff's man was ever seen within the four walls continent of 
 Mrs. Margery Lobkins; thirdly, the Mug was nearer than any 
 other house of public resort to the abode of the critic ; fourthly, 
 it afforded excellent porter; and fifthly O reader, thou dost 
 Mrs. Margery Lobkins a grievous wrong, if thou supposes! 
 that her door was only open to those mercurial gentry 
 who are afflicted with the morbid curiosity to pry into the 
 mysteries of their neighbor's pockets other visitors of fair 
 repute were not unoften partakers of the good matron's hos- 
 pitality ; although it must be owned that they generally occu- 
 pied the private room in preference to the public one ; and 
 sixthly, sweet reader (we grieve to be so prolix), we would just 
 hint to thee, that Mr. Mac Crawler was one of those vast-minded 
 sages who, occupied in contemplating morals in the great scale, 
 do not fritter down their intellects by a base attention to min- 
 ute details. So that, if a descendant of Langfanger did some- 
 times cross the venerable Scot in his visit to the Mug, the ap- 
 parition did not revolt that benevolent moralist so much as, 
 were it not for the above hint, thy ignorance might lead thee 
 to imagine. 
 
 It is said that Athenodorus the Stoic contributed greatly by 
 his conversation to amend the faults of Augustus, and to effect 
 the change visible in that fortunate man after his accession to 
 the Roman empire. If this be true, it may throw a new light 
 on the character of Augustus, and, instead of being the hypo- 
 crite, he was possibly the convert. Certain it is that there are 
 few vices which cannot be conquered by wisdom: and yet, 
 melancholy to relate, the instruction of Peter Mac Crawler 
 produced but slender amelioration in the habits of the youthful 
 Paul. That ingenious stripling had, we have already seen, 
 under the tuition of Ranting Rob, mastered the art of reading ;
 
 28 fAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 nay, he could even construct and link together certain curious 
 pot-hooks, which himself and Mrs. Lobkins were wont gracious- 
 ly to term "writing." So far, then the way of Mac Grawler was 
 smoothed and prepared. 
 
 But, unhappily, all experienced teachers allow that the main 
 difficulty is not to learn, but to unlearn, and the mind of Paul 
 was already occupied by a vast number of heterogeneous mis- 
 cellanies, which stoutly resisted the ingress either of Latin or 
 of virtue. Nothing could wean him from an ominous affection 
 for the history of Richard Turpin: it was to him what, it has 
 been said, the Greek authors should be to the Academician, 
 a study by day, and a dream by night. He was docile enough 
 during lessons, and sometimes even too quick in conception 
 for the stately march of Mr. Mac Crawler's intellect. But it 
 not unfrequently happened, that when that gentleman attempted 
 to rise, he found himself, like the lady in Comus, adhering 
 to 
 
 " A venomed seat 
 Smeared with gums of glutinous heat " ; 
 
 or his legs had been secretly united under the table, and the 
 tie was not to be broken without overthrow to the superior 
 powers; these, and various other little sportive machinations 
 wherewith Paul was wont to relieve the monotony of literature, 
 went far to disgust the learned critic with his undertaking. 
 But "the tape" and the treasury of Mrs. Lobkins re-smoothed, 
 as it were, the irritated bristles of his mind, and he continued 
 his labors with this philosophical reflection: "Why fret myself? 
 If a pupil turn out well, it is clearly to the credit of his master; 
 if not, to the disadvantage of himself." Ot course, a similar 
 suggestion never forced itself into the mind of Dr.Keate.* At 
 Eton, the very soul of the honest head-master is consumed by 
 his zeal for the welfare of little gentlemen in stiff cravats. 
 
 But to Paul, who was predestined to enjoy a certain quantum 
 of knowledge, circumstances happened, in the commencement 
 of the second year of his pupilage, which prodigiously acceler- 
 ated the progress of his scholastic career. 
 
 At the apartment of Mac Grawler Paul one morning en- 
 countered Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, a young man of great 
 promise, who pursued the peaceful occupation of chronicling 
 in a leading newspaper, "Horrid Murders," "Enormous Mel- 
 ons," and "Remarkable Circumstances." This gentleman, hav- 
 ing the advantage of some years' seniority over Paul, was slow 
 in unbending his dignity ; but observing at last the eager and 
 
 * A celebrated Principal of Eton.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 2$ 
 
 respectful attention with which the stripling listened to a most 
 veracious detail of five men being inhumanly murdered in Can- 
 terbury Cathedral by the Reverend Zedekiah Fooks Barnacle, 
 he was touched by the impression he had created, and shaking 
 Paul graciously by the hand, he told him there was a deal of 
 natural shrewdness in his countenance ; and that Mr. Augus- 
 tus Tomlinson did not doubt but that he (Paul) might have the 
 honor to be murdered himself one of these days. "You under- 
 stand me!" continued Mr. Augustus, "I mean murdered in 
 effigy, assassinated in type, while you yourself, unconscious 
 of the circumstance, are quietly enjoying what you imagine to 
 be your existence. We never kill common persons: to say 
 truth, our chief spite is against the Church ; we destroy bishops 
 by wholesale. Sometimes indeed, we knock off a leading bar- 
 rister or so; ar.rl express the anguish of the junior counsel at a 
 ?oss so decirur^ve to their interests. But that is only a stray 
 hit ; and the slain barrister often lives to become attorney gen- 
 eral, renounce whig principles, and prosecute the very press 
 that destroyed him. Bishops are our proper food : we send 
 them to heaven on a sort of flying griffin, of which the back is 
 
 an apoplexy, and the wings are puffs. The Bishop of , whom 
 
 we despatched in this manner the other day, being rather a face- 
 tious personage, wrote to remonstrate with us thereon ; observ- 
 ing, that though heaven was a very good translation for a bishop, 
 yet that, in such cases, he preferred 'the original to the trans- 
 lation.' As we murder bishops, so is there another class of 
 persons whom we only afflict with lethiferous diseases. This 
 latter tribe consists of his Majesty and his Majesty's ministers. 
 Whenever we cannot abuse their measures, we always fall foul 
 on their health. Does the king pass any popular law? we im- 
 mediately insinuate that his constitution is on its last legs. 
 Does the minister act like a man of sense? we instantly ob- 
 serve, with great regret, that his complexion is remarkably pale. 
 There is one manifest advantage in diseasing people, instead of 
 absolutely destroying them. The public may flatly contradict 
 us in one case, but it never can in the other ; it is easy to prove 
 that a man is alive, but utterly impossible to prove that he is in 
 health. What if some opposing newspaper take up the cudgels 
 in his behalf, and assert that the victim of all Pandora's com- 
 plaints, whom we send tottering to the grave, passes one-half 
 the day in knocking up a 'distinguished company' at a shoot- 
 ing-party, and the other half in outdoing the same 'distinguished 
 company' after dinner. What if the afflicted individual him- 
 self write us word that he never was better in his life? We
 
 30 PAUL CLIFFORD.. 
 
 have only mysteriously to shake our heads and observe that to 
 contradict is not to prove, that it is little likely that our author- 
 ity should have been mistaken, and (we are very fond of an 
 historical comparison) beg our readers to remember that when 
 Cardinal Richelieu was dying, nothing enraged him so much 
 as hinting that he was ill. In short, if Horace is r.'ght, we are 
 the very princes of poets ; for I daresay, Mr. Mac Grawler, 
 that you and you too, my little gentleman perfectly remem- 
 ber the words of the wise old Roman, 
 
 ' Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur 
 Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit, 
 Irritat, mulcel, falsis terroribus implet.'"* 
 
 Having uttered this quotation with considerable self-compla- 
 cency, and thereby entirely completed his conquest over Paul, 
 Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, turning to Mac Grawler, concluded 
 his business with that gentleman, which was of a literary nature, 
 namely a joint composition against a man who, being under 
 five-and-twenty, and too poor to give dinners, had had the im- 
 pudence to write a sacred poem. The critics were exceedingly 
 bitter at this ; and having very little to say against the poem, 
 the Court journals called the author a "coxcomb," and the 
 liberal ones "the son of a pantaloon!" 
 
 There was an ease, a spirit, a life about Mr. Augustus Tom- 
 linson which captivated the senses of our young hero : then, 
 too, he was exceedingly smartly attired ; wore red heels and 
 a bag; had what seemed to Paul quite the air of a "man of fash- 
 ion" ; and, above all, he spouted the Latin with a remarkable 
 grace ! 
 
 Some days afterwards Mac Grawler sent our hero to Mr. 
 Tomlinson's lodgings with his share of the joint abuse upon the 
 poet. 
 
 Doubly was Paul's reverence for Mr. Augustus Tomlinson 
 increased by a sight of his abode. He found him settled in a 
 polite part of the town, in a very spruce parlor, the contents of 
 which manifested the universal genius of the inhabitant. It 
 hath been objected unto us by a most discerning critic, that we 
 are addicted to the drawing of "universal geniuses. "We plead 
 Not Guilty in former instances ; we allow the soft impeach- 
 ment in the instance of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. Over his 
 fireplace were arranged boxing gloves and fencing foils. On his 
 table lay a cremona and a flageolet. On one side of the wall 
 were shelves containing the Covent Garden Magazine, Burn's 
 
 * He appears to me to be, to the fullest extent, a poet, who airily torments my breast, 
 irritates, soothes, fills it with unreal terrors,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 3! 
 
 Justice, a pocket Horace, a Prayer-book, Excerpta ex Tacito, 
 a volume of Plays, Philosophy made Easy, and a Key to all 
 Knowledge. Furthermore, there were on another table a rid- 
 ing-whip, and a driving-whip, and a pair of spurs, and three 
 guineas, with a little mountain of loose silver. Mr. Augustus 
 was a tall, fair young man, with a freckled complexion; green 
 eyes and red eyelids ; a smiling mouth, rather under-jawed ; a 
 sharp nose; and a prodigiously large pair of ears. He was 
 robed in a green damask dressing-gown ; and he received the 
 tender Paul most graciously. 
 
 There was something very engaging about our hero. He 
 was not only good-looking, and frank in aspect, but he had that 
 appearance of briskness and intellect which belongs to an em- 
 bryo rogue. Mr. Augustus Tomlinson professed the greatest 
 regard for him ; asked him if he could box ; made him put on a 
 pair of gloves ; and, very condescendingly, knocked him down 
 three times successively. Next he played him, both upon his 
 flageolet and his cremona, some of the most modish airs. 
 Moreover, he sang him a little song of his own composing. He 
 then, taking up the driving-whip, flanked a fly from the oppo- 
 site wall, and throwing himself (naturally fatigued with his 
 numerous exertions) on his sofa, he observed, in a careless 
 tone, that he and his friend Lord Dunshunner were universally 
 esteemed the best whips in the metropolis. "I," quoth Mr. 
 Augustus, "am the best on the road; but my lord is a devil at 
 turning a corner." 
 
 Paul, who had hithero lived too unsophisticated a life to be 
 aware of the importance of which a lord would naturally be in 
 the eyes of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, was not so much struck 
 with the grandeur of the connection as the murderer of the 
 journals had expected. He merely observed, by way of compli- 
 ment, that Mr. Augustus and his companion seemed to be 
 "rolling kiddies." 
 
 A little displeased with this metaphorical ramark for it may 
 be observed that "rolling kiddy" is, among the learned in such 
 lore, the customary expression for "a smart thief" the uni- 
 versal Augustus took that liberty to which, by his age and sta- 
 tion, so much superior to those of Paul, he imagined himself 
 entitled, and gently reproved our hero for his indiscriminate 
 use of flash phrases. 
 
 "A lad of your parts," said he, "for I see you are clever bv 
 your eye, ought to be ashamed of using such vulgar expres- 
 sions. Have a nobler spirit, a loftier emulation, Paul, than 
 that which distinguishes the little ragamuffins of the street.
 
 32 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Know that, in this country, genius and learning carry every- 
 thing before them ; and if you behave yourself properly, you 
 may, one day or another, be as high in the world as myself." 
 
 At this speech Paul looked wistfully round the spruce parlor, 
 and thought what a fine thing it would be to be lord of such a 
 domain, together with the appliances of flageolet and cremona, 
 boxing-gloves, books, fly-flanking flagellum, three guineas, with 
 the little mountain of silver, and the reputation shared only 
 with Lord Dunshunner of being the best whip in London. 
 
 "Yes!" continued Tomlinson, with conscious pride, "I owe 
 my rise to myself. Learning is better than house and land. 
 Jpoctrina sedvim, ' etc., you know what old Horace says? Why, 
 sir, you would not believe it ; but I was the man who killed his 
 majesty the King of Sardinia in our yesterday's paper. Noth- 
 ing is too arduous for genius. Fag hard, my boy, and you may 
 rival for the thing, though difficult, may not be impossible 
 Augustus Tomlinson!" 
 
 At the conclusion of this harangue, a knock at the door being 
 heard, Paul took his departure, and met in the hall a fine- 
 looking person dressed in the height of the fashion, and wear- 
 ing a pair of prodigiously large buckles in his shoes. Paul 
 looked, and his heart swelled. "I may rival," thought he 
 those were his very words "I may rival for the thing, 
 though difficult, is not impossible Augustus Tomlinson!" 
 Absorbed in meditation he went silently home. The next day 
 the memoirs of the great Turpin were committed to the flames, 
 and it was noticeable that henceforth Paul observed a choicer pro- 
 priety of words, that he assumed a more refined air of dignity, 
 jind that he paid considerably more attention than heretofore 
 to the lessons of Mr. Peter Mac Crawler. Although it must 
 be allowed that our young hero's progress in the learned lan- 
 guages was not astonishing, yet an early passion for reading 
 growing stronger and stronger by application, repaid him at 
 last with a tolerable knowledge of the mother-tongue. We 
 must, however, add that his more favorite and cherished stud- 
 ies were scarcely of that nature which a prudent preceptor 
 would have greatly commended. They lay chiefly among 
 novels, plays, and poetry, which last he affected to that degree 
 that he became somewhat of a poet himself. Nevertheless 
 .these literary avocations, profitless as they seemed, gave a cer- 
 tain refinement to his tastes which they were not likely other- 
 wise to have acquired at the Mug; and while they aroused 
 his ambition to see something of the gay life they depicted, 
 they imparted to his temper a tone of enterprise and of thought-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 33 
 
 less generosity, which perhaps contributed greatly to counter- 
 act those evil influences towards petty vice, to which the exam- 
 ples around him must have exposed his tender youth. But, 
 alas ! a great disappointment to Paul's hope of assistance and 
 companionship in his literary labors befell him. Mr. Augustus 
 Tomlinson one bright morning disappeared, leaving word with 
 his numerous friends that he was going to accept a lucrative sit- 
 uation in the North of England. Notwithstanding the shock 
 this occasioned to the affectionate heart and aspiring temper of 
 our friend Paul, it abated not his ardor in that field of science 
 which it seemed that the distinguished absentee had so suc- 
 cessfully cultivated. By little and little he possessed himself 
 (in addition to the literary stores we have alluded to) of all it 
 was in the power of the wise and profound Peter Mac Crawler 
 to impart unto him ; and at the age of sixteen he began (O the 
 presumption of youth ! ) to fancy himself more learned than hi* 
 master. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 '* He had now become a young man of extreme fashion, and as much 
 rfyandu in society as the utmost and most exigent coveter of London celeb- 
 rity could desire. He was, of course, a member of the clubs, etc., etc., etc. 
 He was, in short, of that oft described set before whom all minor beaux 
 sink into insignificance, or among whom they eventually obtain a subaltern 
 grade, by a sacrifice of a due portion of their fortune." Almacks Revisited, 
 
 BY the soul of the great Malebranche, who made "A Search 
 after Truth," and discovered everything beautiful except that 
 which he searched for by the soul of the great Malebranche, 
 whom Bishop Berkely found suffering under an inflammation 
 in the lungs, and very obligingly talked to death, an instance 
 of conversational powers worthy the envious emulation of all 
 great metaphysicians and arguers ; by the soul of that illustri- 
 ous man, it is amazing to us what a number of truths there are 
 broken up into little fragments, and scattered here and there 
 through the world. What a magnificent museum a man might 
 make of the precious minerals, if he would but go out with his 
 basket under his arm, and his eyes about him! We ourselves 
 picked up, this very day, a certain small piece of truth, with 
 which we propose to explain to thee, fair reader, a sinister turn 
 in the fortunes of Paul. "Wherever," says a living sage, "you 
 see dignity, you may be sure there is expense requisite to sup- 
 port it."* So was it with Paul. A young gentleman who was 
 
 * " Popular Fallacies."
 
 34 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 heir-presumptive to the Mug, and who enjoyed a handsome 
 person with a cultivated mind, was necessarily of a certain sta- 
 tion of society, and an object of respect in the eyes of the 
 manoeuvring mammas of the vicinity of Thames Court. Many 
 were the parties of pleasure to Deptford and Greenwich which 
 Paul found himself compelled to attend ; and we need not re- 
 fer our readers to novels upon fashionable life to inform them 
 that, in good society, the gentlemen always pay for the ladies ! 
 Nor was this all the expense to which his expectations exposed 
 him. A gentleman could scarcely attend these elegant festivi- 
 ties without devoting some little attention to his dress ; and a 
 fashionable tailor plays the deuce with one's yearly allowance! 
 
 We who reside be it known to you, reader, in Little Brittany, 
 are not very well acquainted with the manners of the better 
 class in St. James's. But there was one great vice among the 
 fine people about Thames Court which we make no doubt does 
 not exist anywhere else, viz., these fine people were always in 
 an agony to seem finer than they were ; and the more airs a 
 gentleman or a lady gave him or herself, the more important 
 they became. Joe, the dog's-meat man, had indeed got into 
 society, entirely from a knack of saying impertinent tilings to 
 everybody ; and the smartest exclusives of the place, who sel- 
 dom visited any one where there was not a silver teapot, used to 
 think Joe had a great deal in him because he trundled his cart 
 with his head in the air, and one day gave the very beadle of 
 the parish "the cut direct.' 
 
 Now this desire to be so exceedingly fine not only made the 
 society about Thames Court unpleasant, but expensive. Every 
 one vied with his neighbor; and as the spirit of rivalry is 
 particularly strong in youthful bosoms, we can scarcely wonder 
 that it led Paul into many extravagances. The evil of all cir- 
 cles that profess to be select is high play, and the reason is ob- 
 vious : persons who have the power to bestow on another an 
 advantage he covets would rather sell it than give it ; and Paul, 
 gradually increasing in popularity and ton, found himself, in 
 spite of his classical education, no match for the finished or, 
 rather, finishing gentlemen with whom he began to associate. 
 His first admittance into the select coterie of these men of the 
 world was formed at the house of Bachelor Bill, a person of 
 great notoriety among that portion of the Mite which emphati- 
 cally entitles itself "Flash !" However, as it is our rigid inten- 
 tion in this work to portray at length no episodical characters 
 whatsoever, we can afford our readers but a slight and rapid 
 sketch of Bachelor Bill.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 35 
 
 This personage was of Devonshire extraction. His mother 
 had kept the pleasantest public-house in town, and at her death 
 Bill succeeded to her property and popularity. All the young 
 ladies in the neighborhood of Fiddler's Row, where he resided, 
 set their caps at him : all the most fashionable prigs, or toby- 
 men, sought to get him into their set; and the most crack 
 blowen in London would have given her ears at any time for a 
 loving word from Bachelor Bill. But Bill was a long-headed, 
 prudent fellow, and of a remarkably cautious temperament. 
 He avoided marriage and friendship, viz., he was neither plun- 
 dered nor cornuted. He was a tall, aristocratic cove, of a 
 devilish neat address, and very gallant, in an honest way, to 
 the blowens. Like most single men, being very much the gen- 
 tleman so far as money was concerned, he gave them plenty of 
 "feeds," and from time to time a very agreeable "hop." His 
 "bingo"* was unexceptionable ; and as for his " stark-naked, "f 
 it was voted the most brilliant thing in nature. In a very short 
 time, by his blows-out and his bachelorship, for single men 
 always arrive at the apex of haut ton more easily than mar- 
 ried, he became the very glass of fashion ; and many were the 
 tight apprentices, even at the west end of the town, who used 
 to turn back in admiration of Bachelor Bill, when, of a Sun- 
 day afternoon, he drove down his varment gig to his snug little 
 box on the borders of Turnham Green. Bill's happiness was 
 not, however, wholly without alloy. The ladies of pleasure 
 are always so excessively angry when a man does not make love 
 to them, that there is nothing they will not say against him ; 
 and the fair matrons in the vicinity of Fiddler's Row spread all 
 manner of unfounded reports against poor Bachelor Bill. By 
 degrees, however, for, as Tacitus has said, doubtless with 
 a prophetic eye to Bachelor Bill, "the truth gains by delay," 
 these reports began to die insensibly away ; and Bill now wax- 
 ing near to the confines of middle age, his friends comfortably 
 settled for him that he would be Bachelor Bill all his life. For 
 the rest, he was an excellent fellow ; gave his broken victuals 
 to the poor ; professed a liberal turn of thinking, and in all 
 quarrels among the blowens (your crack blowens are a quarrel- 
 some set ! ) always took part with the weakest. Although Bill 
 affected to be very select in his company, he was never forget- 
 ful of his old friends : and Mrs. Margery Lobkins having been 
 very good to him when he was a little boy in a skeleton jacket, 
 he invariably sent her a card to his soirees. The good lady, 
 however, had not of late years deserted her chimney corner. 
 
 * Brandy. t Oin.
 
 36 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Indeed, the racket of fashionable life was too much for her 
 nerves, and the invitation had become a customary form not 
 expected to be acted upon, but not a whit the less regularly 
 used for that reason. As Paul had now attained his sixteenth 
 year, and was a fine, handsome lad, the dame thought he would 
 make an excellent representative of the Mug's mistress; and 
 that, for her protigd, a ball at Bill's house would be no bad 
 commencement of "Life in London." Accordingly, she inti- 
 mated to the Bachelor a wish to that effect, and Paul received 
 the following invitation from Bill : 
 
 "Mr. William Duke gives a hop and feed in a quiet way on 
 Monday next, and hops Mr. Paul Lobkins will be of the 
 party. N.B. Gentlemen is expected to come in pumps." 
 
 When Paul entered, he found Bachelor Bill leading off the 
 ball to the tune of "Drops of Brandy," with a young lady to 
 whom because she had been a strolling player the Ladies 
 Patronesses of Fiddler's Row had thought proper to behave with 
 a very cavalier civility. The good bachelor had no notion, as 
 he expressed it, of such tantrums, and he caused it to be cir- 
 culated among the finest of the blowens, that "he expected all 
 who kicked their heels at his house would behave decent and 
 polite to young Mrs. Dot." This intimation, conveyed to the 
 ladies with all that insinuating polish for which Bachelor Bill 
 was so remarkable, produced a notable effect; and Mrs. Dot, 
 being now led off by the flash Bachelor, was overpowered with 
 civilities the rest of the evening. 
 
 When the dance was ended, Bill very politely shook hands 
 with Paul, and took an early opportunity of introducing him to 
 some of the most "noted characters" of the town. Among, 
 these was the smart Mr. Allfair, the insinuating Henry Finish, 
 the merry Jack Hookey, the knowing Charles Trywit, and var- 
 ious others equally noted for their skill in living handsomely 
 upon their own brains, and the personals of other people. To 
 say truth, Paul, who at that time was an honest lad, was less 
 charmed than he had anticipated by the conversation of those 
 chevaliers of industry. He was more pleased with the clever, 
 though self-sufficient remarks of a gentleman with a remarkably 
 fine head of hair, and whom we would more impressively than 
 the rest introduce to our reader, under the appellation of Mr. 
 Edward Pepper, generally termed Long Ned. As this worthy 
 was destined afterwards to be an intimate associate of Paul, 
 our main reason for attending the hop at Bachelor Bill's is to 
 note, as the importance of the event deserves, the epoch of the 
 commencement of their acquaintance.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 37 
 
 Long Ned and Paul happened to sit next to each other at 
 supper, and they conversed together so amicably that Paul, in 
 the hospitality of his heart, expressed a hope that "he should 
 see Mr. Pepper at the Mug!" 
 
 "Mug Mug!" repeated Pepper, half shutting his eyes with 
 the air of a dandy about to be impertinent; "Ah, the name of 
 a chapel, is it not? There's a sect called the Muggletonians, 
 I think?" 
 
 "As to that," said Paul, coloring at this insinuation against 
 the Mug, "Mrs. Lobkins has no more religion than her betters; 
 but the Mug is a very excellent house, and frequented by the 
 best possible company." 
 
 "Don't doubt it!" said Ned. "Remember now that I was 
 once there, and saw one Dummie Dunnaker is not that the 
 name? I recollect some years ago, when I first came out, 
 that Dummie and I had an adventure together; to tell you the 
 truth, it was not the sort of thing I would do now. But, would 
 you believe it, Mr. Paul? this pitiful fellow was quite rude to 
 me the only time I ever met him since ; that is to say, the only 
 time I ever entered the Mug. I have no notion of such airs in 
 a merchant a merchant of rags ! Those commercial fellows 
 are getting quite insufferable!" 
 
 "You surprise me!" said Paul. "Poor Dummie is the last 
 man to be rude. He is as civil a creature as ever lived." 
 
 "Or sold a rag!" said Ned. "Possibly! Don't doubt his 
 amiable qualities in the least. Pass the bingo, my good fellow. 
 Stupid stuff, this dancing!" 
 
 "Devilish stupid!" echoed Harry Finish, across the table. 
 "Suppose we adjourn to Fish Lane, and rattle the ivories! 
 What say you, Mr. Lobkins?" 
 
 Afraid of the "ton's stern laugh, which scarce the proud 
 philosopher can scorn," and not being very partial to danc- 
 ing, Paul assented to the proposition ; and a little party, con- 
 sisting of Harry Finish, Allfair, Long Ned, and Mr. Hookey, 
 adjourned to Fish Lane, where there was a club, celebrated 
 among men who live by their wits, at which "lush" and "baccy" 
 were gratuitously sported in the most magnificent manner. 
 Here the evening passed away very delightfully, and Paul 
 went home without a "brad" in his pocket. 
 
 From that time Paul's visits to Fish Lane became unfortu- 
 nately regular ; and in a very short period, we grieve to say, 
 Paul became that distinguished character, a gentleman of three 
 outs "out of pocket, out of elbows, and out of credit." The 
 only two persons whom he found willing to accommodate him
 
 38 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 with a slight loan, as the advertisements signed X. Y. have it, 
 were Mr. Dummie Dunnaker and Mr. Pepper, surnamed the 
 Long. The latter, however, while he obliged the heir to the 
 Mug, never condescended to enter that noted place of resort; 
 and the former, whenever he good-naturedly opened his purse- 
 strings, did it with a hearty caution to shun the acquaintance 
 of Long Ned. "A parson," said Dummie, "of wery danger- 
 ous morals, and not by no manner of means a fit sociate 
 for a young gemman of cracter like leetle Paul!" So ear- 
 nest was this caution, and so especially pointed at Long Ned, 
 although the company of Mr. Allfair or Mr. Finish might be 
 said to be no less prejudicial, that it is probable that stately 
 fastidiousness of manner, which Lord Normanby rightly ob- 
 serves, in one of his excellent novels, makes so many ene- 
 mies in the world, and which sometimes characterized the be- 
 havior of Long Ned, especially towards the men of commerce, 
 was a main reason why Dummie was so acutely and peculiarly 
 alive to the immoralities of that lengthy gentleman. At the 
 same time we must observe, that when Paul, remembering what 
 Pepper had said respecting his early adventure with Mr. Dun- 
 naker, repeated it to the merchant, Dummie could not conceal 
 a certain confusion, though he merely remarked, with a sort of 
 laugh, that it was not worth speaking about ; and it appeared 
 evident to Paul that something unpleasant to the man of rags, 
 which was not shared by the unconscious Pepper, lurked in the 
 reminiscence of their past acquaintance. Howbeit, the cir- 
 cumstance glided from Paul's attention the moment after- 
 wards ; and he paid, we are concerned to say, equally little 
 heed to the cautions against Ned with which Dummie regaled 
 him. 
 
 Perhaps (for we must now direct a glance towards his domes- 
 tic concerns) one great cause which drove Paul to Fish Lane 
 was the uncomfortable life he led at home. For though Mrs. 
 Lobkins was extremely fond of her protigt, yet she was pos- 
 sessed, as her customers emphatically remarked, "of the devil's 
 own temper" ; and her native coarseness never having been 
 softened by those pictures of gay society which had, in many a 
 novel and comic farce, refined the temperament of the roman- 
 tic Paul, her manner of venting her maternal reproaches was 
 certainly not a little revolting to a lad of some delicacy of feel- 
 ing. Indeed, it often occurred to him to leave her house alto- 
 gether, and seek his fortunes alone, after the manner of the in- 
 genuous Gil Bias, or the enterprising Roderick Random ; and 
 this idea, though conquered and reconquered, gradually swelled
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 39 
 
 and increased at his heart, even as swelleth that hairy ball 
 found in the stomach of some suffering heifer after its decease. 
 Among these projects of enterprise, the reader will hereafter 
 notice, that an early vision of the Green Forest Cave, in which 
 Turpin was accustomed, with a friend, a ham, and a wife, to 
 conceal himself, flitted across his mind. At this time he did 
 not, perhaps, incline to the mode of life practised by the hero 
 of the roads ; but he certainly clung not the less fondly to the 
 notion of the cave. 
 
 The melancholy flow of our hero's life was now, however, 
 about to be diverted by an unexpected turn, and the crude 
 thoughts of boyhood to burst, "like Ghilan's Giant Palm," into 
 the fruit of a manly resolution. 
 
 Among the prominent features of Mrs. Lobkins's mind was 
 a sovereign contempt for the unsuccessful ; the imprudence and 
 ill-luck of Paul occasioned her as much scorn as compassion. 
 And when, for the third time within a week, he stood, with a 
 rueful visage and with vacant pockets, by the dame's great 
 chair, requesting an additional supply, the tides of her wrath 
 swelled into overflow. 
 
 "Look you, my kinchin cove," said she, and in order to give 
 peculiar dignity to her aspect, she put on while she spoke a 
 huge pair of tin spectacles, "if so be as how you goes for to 
 think as how I shall go for to supply your wicious necessities, 
 you will find yourself planted in Queer Street. Blow me tight, 
 if I gives you another mag." 
 
 "But I owe Long Ned a guinea," said Paul; "and Dummie 
 Dunnaker lent me three crowns. It ill becomes your heir ap- 
 parent, my dear dame, to fight shy of his debts of honor." 
 
 "Taradididdle, don't think for to wheedle me with your 
 debts and your honor," said the dame in a passion. "Long 
 Ned is as long in the forks (fingers) as he is in the back: may 
 Old Harry fly off with him! And as for Dummie Dunnaker, 
 I wonders how you, brought up such a swell, and blest with the 
 wery best of hedications, can think of putting up with such 
 wulgar sociates ! I tells you what, Paul, you'll please to break 
 with them, smack and at once, or devil a brad you'll ever get 
 from Peg Lobkins." So saying, the old lady turned round in 
 her chair, and helped herself to a pipe of tobacco. 
 
 Paul walked twice up and down the apartment, and at last 
 stopped opposite the dame's chair: he was a youth of high 
 spirit, and though he was warm-hearted, and had a love for 
 Mrs. Lobkins, which her care and affection for him well de- 
 served, yet he was rough in temper, and not constantly smooth
 
 40 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 in speech : it is true that his heart smote him afterwards, when- 
 ever he had said anything to annoy Mrs. Lobkins; and he was 
 always the first to seek a reconciliation ; but warm words pro- 
 duce cold respect, and sorrow for the past is not always effica- 
 cious in amending the future. Paul then, puffed up with the van- 
 ity of his genteel education, and the friendship of Long Ned 
 (who went to Ranelagh, and wore silver clocked stockings), 
 stopped opposite to Mrs. Lobkins' chair, and said with great 
 solemnity: 
 
 "Mr. Pepper, madam, tays very properly that I must have 
 money to support myself like a gentleman : and as you won't 
 give it to me, I am determined, with many thanks for your past 
 favors, to throw myself on the world and seek my fortune." 
 
 If Paul was of no oily and bland temper, dame Margaret 
 Lobkins, it has been said, had no advantage on that score. We 
 dare say the reader has observed that nothing so enrages per- 
 sons on whom one depends as any expressed determination of 
 seeking independence. Gazing, therefore, for one moment at 
 the open but resolute countenance of Paul, while all the blood 
 of her veins seemed gathering in fire and scarlet to her enlarg- 
 ing cheeks, Dame Lobkins said : 
 
 "Ifeaks, Master Pride-in-duds! seek your fortune yourself, 
 will you ? This comes of my bringing you up, and letting you 
 eat the bread of idleness and charity, you toad of a thousand! 
 Take that and be d d to you!" and, suiting the action to the 
 word, the tube which she had withdrawn from her mouth, in 
 order to utter her gentle rebuke, whizzed through the air, 
 grazed Paul's cheek, and finished its earthly career by coming 
 in violent contact with the right eye of Dummie Dunnaker, who 
 at that exact moment entered the room. 
 
 Paul had winced for a moment to avoid the missive in the 
 next he stood perfectly upright ; his cheeks glowed, his chest 
 swelled ; and the entrance of Dummie Dunnaker, who was thus 
 made the spectator of the affront he had received, stirred his 
 blood into a deeper anger and a more bitter self-humiliation : all 
 his former resolutions of departure, all the hard words, the 
 coarse allusions, the practical insults he had at any time re- 
 ceived, rushed upon him at once. He merely cast one look at 
 the old woman, whose rage was now half subsided, and turned 
 slowly and in silence to the door. 
 
 There is often something alarming in an occurrence, merely 
 because it is that which we least expect: the astute Mrs. Lob- 
 kins, remembering the hardy temper and fiery passions of Paul, 
 had expected some burst of rage, some vehement reply ; and
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 4! 
 
 when she caught with one wandering eye his parting look, and 
 saw him turn so passively and mutely to the door, her heart 
 misgave her, she raised herself from her chair, and made 
 towards him. Unhappily for her chance of reconciliation, she 
 had that day quaffed more copiously of the bowl than usual, 
 and the signs of intoxication visible in her uncertain gait, her 
 meaningless eye, her vacant leer, her ruby cheek, all inspired 
 Paul with feelings which, at the moment, converted resentment 
 into something very much like aversion. He sprang from her 
 grasp to the threshold. "Where be you going, you imp of the 
 world?" cried the dame. "Get in with you, and say no more 
 on the matter ; be a bob-cull drop the bullies, and you shall 
 have the blunt!" 
 
 But Paul heeded not this invitation. 
 
 "I will eat the bread of idleness and charity no longer," 
 said he sullenly. "Good-by, and if ever I can pay you what 
 I have cost you, I will!" 
 
 He turned away as he spoke ; and the dame, kindling with 
 resentment at his unseemly return to her proffered kindness, 
 halloed after him, and bade that dark-colored gentleman who 
 keeps the fire-office below go along with him. 
 
 Swelling with anger, pride, shame, and a half-joyous feeling 
 of emancipated independence, Paul walked on he knew not 
 whither, with his head in the air, and his legs marshalling them- 
 selves into a military gait of defiance. He had not proceeded 
 far, before he heard his name uttered behind him ; he turned, 
 and saw the rueful face of Dummie Dunnaker. 
 
 Very inoffensively had that respectable person been employed 
 during the last part of the scene we have described, in caress- 
 ing his afflicted eye, and muttering philosophical observations 
 on the danger incurred by all those who are acquainted with 
 ladies of a choleric temperament : when Mrs. Lobkins, turning 
 round after Paul's departure, and seeing the pitiful person of 
 that Dummie Dunnaker, whose name she remembered Paul 
 had mentioned in his opening speech, and whom, therefore, 
 with an illogical confusion of ideas, she considered a party in 
 the late dispute, exhausted upon him all that rage which it was 
 necessary for her comfort that she should unburthen somewhere. 
 
 She seized the little man by the collar the tenderest of all 
 places in gentlemen similarly circumstanced with regard to the 
 ways of life and giving him a blow, which took effect on his 
 other and hitherto undamaged eye, cried out, "I'll teach you, 
 you blood-sucker (i.e., parasite), to spunge upon those as has 
 expectations! I'll teach you to cozen the heir of the Mug, you
 
 42 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 snivelling, whey-faced ghost of a farthing rushlight! What! 
 you'll lend my Paul three crowns, will you ; when you knows 
 as how you told me you could not pay me a pitiful tizzy? Oh, 
 you're a queer one I warrants; but you won't queer Margery 
 Lobkins. Out of my ken, you cur of the mange! out of my 
 ken ! and if ever I claps my sees on you again, or if ever 7 
 knows as how you makes a flat of my Paul, blow me tight, but 
 I'll weave you a hempen collar: I'll hang you, you dog, I will. 
 What! you will answer me, will you? O you viper, budge, and 
 begone!" 
 
 It was in vain that Dummie protested his innocence. A vio- 
 lent coup de pied broke off all further parlance. He made a 
 clear house of the Mug; and the landlady thereof, tottering 
 back to her elbow-chair, sought out another pipe, and, like all 
 imaginative persons when the world goes wrong with them, con- 
 soled herself for the absence of realities by the creations of 
 smoke. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dummie Dunnaker, muttering and murmuring 
 bitter fancies, overtook Paul, and accused that youth of having 
 been the occasion of the injuries he had just undergone. Paul 
 was not at that moment in the humor best adapted for the pa- 
 tient bearing of accusations ; he answered Mr. Dunnaker very 
 shortly; and that respectable individual, still smarting under 
 his bruises, replied with equal tartness. Words grew high, and 
 at length Paul, desirous of concluding the conference, clenched 
 his fist, and told the redoubted Dummie that he would "knock 
 him down." There is something peculiarly harsh and stun- 
 ning in those three hard, wirey, sturdy, stubborn monosyllables. 
 Their very sound makes you double your fist, if you are a hero ; 
 or your pace, if you are a peaceable man. They produced an 
 instant effect upon Dummie Dunnaker, aided as they were by 
 the effect of an athletic and youthful figure, already fast ap- 
 proaching to the height of six feet, a flushed cheek, and an eye 
 that bespoke both passion and resolution. The rag-merchant's 
 voice sunk at once, and with the countenance of a wronged 
 Cassius he whimpered forth : 
 
 "Knock me down! O leetle Paul, vot vicked vhids are 
 those ! Vot ! Dummie Dunnaker as has dandled you on his 
 knee mony's a time and oft! Vy, the cove's art is as ard as 
 junk, and as proud as a gardener's dog with a nosegay tied to 
 his tail." This pathetic remonstrance softened Paul's anger. 
 
 "Well, Dummie," said he, laughing, "I did not mean to 
 hurt you, and there's an end of it ; and I am very sorry for the 
 dame's ill conduct: and so I wish you a good-morning."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 43 
 
 "Vy, vere be you trotting to, leetle Paul?" said Dummie, 
 grasping him by the tail of the coat. 
 
 "The deuce a bit I know," answered our hero; "but I 
 think I shall drop a call on Long Ned." 
 
 "Avast there!" said Dummie, speaking under his breath; 
 "if so be as you von't blab, I'll tell you a bit of a secret. I 
 heered as ow Long Ned started for Hampshire this werry 
 morning on a toby consarn!* 
 
 "Ha!" said Paul, "then hang me if I know what to do!" 
 As he uttered these words, a more thorough sense of his desti- 
 tution (if he persevered in leaving the Mug) than he had hith- 
 erto felt rushed upon him ; for Paul had designed for a while 
 to throw himself on the hospitality of his Patagonian friend, 
 and now that he found that friend was absent from London, 
 and on so dangerous an expedition, he was a little puzzled what 
 to do with that treasure of intellect and wisdom which he car- 
 ried about upon his legs. Already he had acquired sufficient 
 penetration (for Charles Trywit and Harry Finish were excel- 
 lent masters for initiating a man into the knowledge of the 
 world) to perceive that a-person, however admirably may be 
 his qualities, does not readily find a welcome without a penny 
 in his pocket. In the neighborhood of Thames Court he had, 
 indeed, many acquaintances; but the fineness of his language, 
 acquired from his education, and the elegance of his air, in 
 which he attempted to blend, in happy association, the gallant 
 effrontery of Mr. Long Ned with the graceful negligence of Mr. 
 Augustus Tomlinson, had made him many enemies among those 
 acquaintances; and he was not willing, so great was our hero's 
 pride, to throw himself on the chance of their welcome, or to 
 publish, as it were, his exiled and crestfallen state. As for 
 those boon companions who had assisted him in making a wil- 
 derness of his pockets, he had already found that that was the 
 only species of assistance which they were willing to render 
 him : in a word, he could not for the life of him conjecture in 
 what quarter he should find the benefits of bed and board. 
 While he stood with his finger to his lip, undecided and mus- 
 ing, but fully resolved at least on one thing not to return to 
 the Mug, little Dummie, who was a good-natured fellow at 
 the bottom, peered up in his face, and said, "Vy, Paul, my 
 kid, you looks down in the chops: cheer up, care killed a 
 cat ! " 
 
 Observing that this appropriate and encouraging fact of nat- 
 ural history did not lessen the cloud upon Paul's brow, the 
 
 * Highway expedition.
 
 44 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 acute Dummie Dunnaker proceeded at once to the grand pana- 
 cea for all evils, in his own profound estimation. 
 
 "Paul, my ben cull," said he, with a knowing wink, and 
 nudging the young gentleman in the left side, "vot do you say 
 to a drop o' blue ruin? or, as you likes to be conish (genteel), 
 I doesn't care if I sports you a glass of port!" While Dunna- 
 ker was uttering this invitation, a sudden reminiscence flashed 
 across Paul : he bethought him at once of Mac Grawler ; and 
 he resolved forthwith to repair to the abode of that illustrious 
 sage, and petition at least for accommodation for the approach- 
 ing night. So soon as he had come to this determination, he 
 shook off the grasp of the amiable Dummie, and refusing, with 
 many thanks, his hospitable invitation, requested him to abstract 
 from the dame's house, and lodge within his own, until called 
 for, such articles of linen and clothing as belonged to Paul, and 
 could easily be laid hold of, during one of the matron's evening 
 siestas, by the shrewd Dunnaker. The merchant promised 
 that the commission should be speedily executed ; and Paul, 
 shaking hands with him, proceeded to the mansion of Mac 
 Grawler. 
 
 We must now go back somewhat in the natural course of our 
 narrative, and observe that, among the minor causes which had 
 conspired with the great one of gambling to bring our excellent 
 Paul to his present situation, was his intimacy with Mac Grawl- 
 er; for when Paul's increasing years and roving habits put an 
 end to the sage's instructions, there was thereby lopped off 
 from the preceptor's finances the weekly sum of two shillings 
 and sixpence, as well as the freedom of the dame's cellar and 
 larder ; and as, in the reaction of feeling, and the perverse 
 course of human affairs, people generally repent the most of 
 those actions once the most ardently incurred ; so poor Mrs. 
 Lobkins, imagining that Paul's irregularities were entirely 
 owing to the knowledge he had acquired from Mac Grawler's 
 instructions, grievously upbraided herself for her former folly, 
 in seeking for a superior education for her proie'ge ; nay, she 
 even vented upon the sacred head of Mac Grawler herself her 
 dissatisfaction at the results of his instructions. In like man- 
 ner, when a man who can spell comes to be hanged, the anti- 
 educationists accuse the spelling-book of his murder. High 
 words between the admirer of ignorant innocence and the propa- 
 gator of intellectual science ensued, which ended in Mac 
 Grawler's final expulsion from the Mug. 
 
 There are some young gentlemen of the present day addicted 
 to the adoption of Lord Byron's poetry, with the alteration of
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 45 
 
 new rhymes, who are pleased graciously to inform us that they 
 are born to be the ruin of all those who love them : an interest- 
 ing fact, doubtless, but which they might as well keep to them- 
 selves. It would seem, by the contents of this chapter, as if the 
 same misfortune were destined to Paul. The exile of Mac 
 Grawler, the insults offered to Dummie Dunnaker alike occa- 
 sioned by him appear to sanction that opinion. Unfortun- 
 ately, though Paul was a poet, he was not much of a sentimen- 
 talist ; and he has never given us the edifying ravings of his 
 remorse on those subjects. But Mac Grawler, like Dunnaker, 
 was resolved that our hero should perceive the curse of his 
 fatality ; and as he still retained some influence over the mind 
 of his quondam pupil, his accusations against Paul, as the origin 
 of his banishment, were attended with a greater success than 
 were the complaints of Dummie Dunnaker on a similar calam- 
 ity. Paul, who, like most people who are good for nothing, had 
 an excellent heart, was exceedingly grieved at Mac Crawler's 
 banishment on his account : and he endeavored to atone by 
 such pecuniary consolations as he was enabled to offer. These 
 Mac Grawler (purely, we may suppose, from a benevolent de- 
 sire to lessen the boy's remorse) scrupled not to accept ; and 
 thus, so similar often are the effects of virtue and of vice, the 
 exemplary Mac Grawler conspired with the unprincipled Long 
 Ned and the heartless Henry Finish in producing that unenvi- 
 able state of vacuity which now saddened over the pockets of 
 Paul. 
 
 As our hero was walking slowly towards the sage's abode, 
 depending on his gratitude and friendship for a temporary shel- 
 ter, one of those lightning flashes of thought which often illu- 
 mine the profoundest abyss of affliction darted across his mind. 
 Recalling the image of the critic, he remembered that he had 
 seen that ornament of "The Asinaeum" receive sundry sums 
 for his critical lucubrations. 
 
 "Why," said Paul, seizing on that fact, and stopping short 
 in the street, "why should I not turn critic myself." 
 
 The only person to whom one ever puts a question with a 
 tolerable certainty of receiving a satisfactory answer is one's 
 self. The moment Paul started this luminous suggestion, it 
 appeared to him that he had discovered the mines of Potosi. 
 Burning with impatience to discuss with the great Mac Grawler 
 the feasibility of his project, he quickened his pace almost into 
 a run, and in a very few minutes, having only overthrown one 
 chimney-sweeper and two applewomen by the way, he arrived 
 at the sage's door.
 
 46 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FORTUNE had smiled upon Mr. Mac Grawler since he first 
 undertook the tuition of Mrs. Lobkins's proteg&. He now in- 
 habited a second-floor, and defied the sheriff and his evil 
 spirits. It was at the dusk of evening that Paul found him at 
 home and alone. 
 
 Before the mighty man stood a pot of London porter ; a can- 
 dle, with an unregarded wick, shed its solitary light upon his 
 labors ; and an infant cat played sportively at his learned feet, 
 beguiling the weary moments with the remnants of the spiral 
 cap wherewith, instead of laurel, the critic had hitherto adorned 
 his brows. So soon as Mac Grawler, piercing through the 
 gloomy mist which hung about the chamber, perceived the 
 person of the intruder, a frown settled upon his brow. 
 
 "Have I not told you, youngster!" he growled, "never to 
 enter a gentleman's room without knocking? I tell you, sir, 
 that manners are no less essential to human happiness than vir- 
 tue ; wherefore, never disturb a gentleman in his avocations, 
 and sit yourself down without molesting the cat!" 
 
 Paul, who knew that his respected tutor disliked any one to 
 trace the source of the wonderful spirit which he infused into 
 his critical compositions, affected not to perceive the pewter 
 Hippocrene, and with many apologies for his want of prepara- 
 tory politeness, seated himself as directed. It was then that 
 the following edifying conversation ensued. 
 
 "The ancients," quoth Paul, "were very great men, Mr. 
 Mac Grawler." 
 
 "They were so, sir," returned the critic; "we make it a rule 
 in our profession to assert that fact ! ' ' 
 
 "But, sir," said Paul, "they were wrong now and then." 
 
 "Never, Ignoramus; never!" 
 
 "They praised poverty, Mr. Mac Grawler!" said Paul, with 
 a sigh. 
 
 "Hem!" quoth the critic, a little staggered, but presently 
 recovering his characteristic acumen, he observed: 
 
 "It is true, Paul; but that was the poverty of other people." 
 
 There was a slight pause. "Criticism," renewed Paul, "must 
 be a most difficult art." 
 
 "A-hem! And what art is there, sir, that is not difficult; 
 at least, to become a master of?" 
 
 "True," sighed Paul; "or else " 
 
 "Or what else, boy?" repeated Mr. Mac Grawler, seeing
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 47 
 
 that Paul hesitated, either from fear of his superior knowledge, 
 as the critic's vanity suggested, or from (what was equally 
 likely) want of a word to express his meaning. 
 
 "Why, I was thinking, sir," said Paul, with that desper- 
 ate courage which gives a distinct and loud intonation to the 
 voice of all who set, or think they set, their fate upon a cast: 
 "I was thinking that I should like to become a critic 
 myself!" 
 
 "W h e w!" whistled Mac Crawler, elevating his eye- 
 brows; "w h e w! great ends have come of less begin- 
 nings!" 
 
 Encouraging as this assertion was, coming as it did from the 
 lips of so great a man and so great a critic, at the very moment 
 too when nothing short of an anathema against arrogance and 
 presumption was expected to issue from those portals of wis- 
 dom : yet, such is the fallacy of all human hopes, that Paul's of 
 a surety would have been a little less elated, had he, at the 
 same time his ears drank in the balm of these gracious words, 
 been able to have dived into the source whence they emanated. 
 
 "Know thyself!'! was a precept the sage Mac Crawler had 
 endeavored to obey: consequently the result of his obedience 
 was, that even by himself he was better known than trusted. 
 Whatever he might appear to others, he had in reality no vain 
 faith in the infallibility of his own talents and resources ; as 
 well might a butcher deem himself a perfect anatomist from the 
 frequent amputation of legs of mutton, as the critic of "The 
 Asinseum" have laid "the flattering unction to his soul" that 
 he was really skilled in the art of criticism, or even acquainted 
 with one of its commonest rules, because he could with all 
 speed cut up and disjoint any work, from the smallest to the 
 greatest, from the most superficial to the most superior; and 
 thus it was that he never had the want of candor to deceive 
 himself as to his own talents. Paul's wish, therefore, was no 
 sooner expressed, than a vague but golden scheme of future 
 profit illumed the brain of Mac Crawler in a word, he resolved 
 that Paul should henceforward share the labor of his critiques ; 
 and that he, Mac Crawler, should receive the whole profits in 
 return for the honor thereby conferred on his coadjutor. 
 
 Looking, therefore, at our hero with a benignant air, Mr. 
 Mac Crawler thus continued: 
 
 "Yes, I repeat, great ends have come from less beginnings! 
 Rome was not built in a day, and I, Paul, I myself was not 
 always the editor of 'The Asinseum.' You say wisely, criti- 
 cism is a great science a very great science and it may be
 
 48 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 divided into three branches; viz. 'to tickle, to slash, and to 
 plaster.' In each of these three, I believe without vanity, I am 
 a profound adept! I will initiate you into all. Your labors 
 shall begin this very evening. I have three works on my table, 
 they must be despatched by to-morrow night ; I will take the 
 most arduous, I abandon to you the others. The three consist 
 of a Romance, an Epic in twelve books, and an Inquiry into 
 the Human Mind, in three volumes; I, Paul, will tickle the 
 Romance, you this very evening shall plaster the Epic and slash 
 the Inquiry!" 
 
 "Heavens, Mr. Mac Grawler!" cried Paul, in consternation 
 "what do you mean? I should never be able to read an epic 
 in twelve books, and I should fall asleep in the first page of the 
 Inquiry. No, no, leave me the romance, and take the other 
 two under your own protection!" 
 
 Although great genius is always benevolent, Mr. Mac Grawlei 
 could not restrain a smile of ineffable contempt at the simplic- 
 ity of his pupil. 
 
 "Know, young gentleman," said he solemnly, "that the 
 romance in question must be tickled ; it is not given to raw be- 
 ginners to conquer that great mystery of our science." 
 
 "Before we proceed farther, explain the words of the art," 
 said Paul impatiently. 
 
 "Listen, then," rejoined Mac Grawler; and as he spoke the 
 candle cast an awful glimmering on his countenance, "To slash 
 is, speaking grammatically, to employ the accusative, or accus- 
 ing case ; you must cut up your book right and left, top and 
 bottom, root and branch. To plaster a book, is to employ the 
 dative, or giving case, and you must bestow on the work all the 
 superlatives in the language ; you must lay on your praise thick 
 and thin, and not leave a crevice untrowelled. But to tickle, 
 sir, is a comprehensive word, and it comprises all the infinite 
 varieties that fill the interval between slashing and plastering. 
 This is the nicety of the art, and you can only acquire it by 
 practice; a few examples will suffice to give you an idea of its 
 delicacy. 
 
 "We will begin with the encouraging tickle. 'Although this 
 work is : f ull of faults ; though the characters are unnatural, the 
 plot utterly improbable, the thoughts hackneyed, and the style 
 ungrammatical ; yet we would by no means discourage the 
 author from proceeding ; and in the mean while we confidently 
 recommend his work to the attention of the reading public.' 
 
 "Take, now, the advising tickle. 
 
 " 'There is a good deal of merit in these little volumes, al-
 
 CLIFFORD. 49 
 
 though we must regret the evident haste in which they were 
 written. The author might do better; we recommend him 
 a study of the best writers,' then conclude by a Latin 
 quotation, which you may take from one of the mottoes in the 
 Spectator, 
 
 ' ' Now, young gentleman, for a specimen of the metaphorical 
 tickle. 
 
 " 'We beg this poetical aspirant to remember the fate of Pyre- 
 nseus, who, attempting to pursue the Muses, forgot that he had 
 not the wings of the goddesses, flung himself from the loftiest 
 ascent he could reach, and perished.' 
 
 "This you see, Paul, is a loftier and more erudite sort of 
 tickle, and may be reserved for one of the Quarterly Reviews. 
 Never throw away a simile unnecessarily. 
 
 "Now for a sample of the facetious tickle. 
 
 ''Mr. has obtained a considerable reputation ! Some 
 
 fine ladies think him a great philosopher, and he has been 
 praised in our hearing by some Cambridge Fellows, for his 
 knowledge of fashionable society.' 
 
 "For this sort of tickle we generally use the dullest of our 
 tribe, and I have selected the foregoing example from the criti- 
 cisms of a distinguished writer in 'The Asinaeum,' whom we 
 call, par excellence, the Ass. 
 
 "There is a variety of other tickles; the familiar, the vulgar, 
 the polite, the good-natured, the bitter : but in general all tickles 
 may be supposed to signify, however disguised, one or other 
 of these meanings: 'This book would be exceedingly good if it 
 were not exceedingly bad' ; or, 'This book would be exceed- 
 ingly bad if it were not exceedingly good.' 
 
 "You have now, Paul, a general idea of the superior art 
 required by the tickle?" 
 
 Our hero signified his assent by a sort of hysterical sound 
 between a laugh and a groan. Mac Grawler continued: 
 
 "There is another grand difficulty attendant on this class of 
 criticism, it is generally requisite to read a few pages of the 
 work ; because we seldom tickle without extracting, and it re- 
 quires some judgment to make the context agree with the ex- 
 tract ; but it is not often necessary to extract when you slash or 
 when you plaster; when you slash, it is better in general to 
 conclude with : 
 
 ' 'After what we have said, it is unnecessary to add that we 
 cannot offend the taste of our readers by any quotation from 
 this execrable trash.' And when you plaster, you may wind 
 up with, 'We regret that our limits will not allow us to give any
 
 56 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 extracts from this wonderful and unrivalled work. We must 
 refer our readers to the book itself.' 
 
 "And now, sir, I think I have given you a sufficient outline 
 of the noble science of Scaliger and Mac Grawler. Doubtless 
 you are reconciled to the task I have allotted you ; and while I 
 tickle the Romance, you will slash the Inquiry and plaster the 
 Epic!" 
 
 "I will do my best, sir!" said Paul, with that modest yet 
 noble simplicity which becomes the virtuously ambitious: and 
 Mac Grawler forthwith gave him pen and paper, and set him 
 down to his undertaking. 
 
 He had the good fortune to please Mac Grawler, who, after 
 having made a few corrections in style, declared he evinced a 
 peculiar genius in that branch of composition. And then it 
 was that Paul, made conceited by praise, said, looking con- 
 temptuously in the face of his preceptor, and swinging his legs 
 to and fro; "And what, sir, shall I receive for the plastered 
 Epic and the slashed Inquiry?" As the face of the school-boy 
 who, when guessing, as he thinks rightly, at the meaning of 
 some mysterious word in Cornelius Nepos, receiveth not the 
 sugared epithet of praise, but a sudden stroke across the 03 
 humerosve* even so, blank, puzzled, and thunder-stricken, 
 waxed the face of Mr. Mac Grawler, at the abrupt and as* 
 tounding audacity of Paul. 
 
 "Receive!" he repeated, "receive! Why, you impudent, 
 ungrateful puppy, would you steal the bread from your old 
 master? If I can obtain for your crude articles an admission 
 into the illustrious pages of 'The Asinseum,' will you not be 
 sufficiently paid, sir, by the honor? Answer me that. Anoth- 
 er man, young gentleman, would have charged you a premium 
 for his instructions; and here have I, in one lesson, imparted 
 to you all the mysteries of the science, and for nothing! And 
 you talk to me of 'receive!' 'receive!' Young gentleman, in 
 the words of the immortal bard, 'I would as lief you had talked 
 to me of ratsbane' !" 
 
 "In fine, then, Mr. Mac Grawler, I shall get nothing for my 
 trouble?" said Paul. 
 
 "To be sure not, sir; the very best writer in 'The Asinasum' 
 only gets three shillings an article!" Almost more than he de- 
 serves, the critic might have added ; for he who writes for 
 nobody should receive nothing! 
 
 "Then, sir," quoth the mercenary Paul profanely, and ris- 
 ing, he kicked with one kick the cat, the Epic, and the In- 
 
 * Face or shoulders.
 
 AUL CLIFFORD. gt 
 
 quirer to the other end of the room; "Then, sir, you may all 
 go to the devil!" 
 
 We do not, O gentle reader! seek to excuse this hasty anath- 
 ema; the habits of childhood will sometimes break forth des- 
 pite of the after blessings of education. And we set not up 
 Paul for thine imitation as that model of virtue and wisdom 
 which we design thee to discover in Mac Grawler. 
 
 When that great critic perceived Paul had risen and was re- 
 treating in high dudgeon towards the door, he rose also, and 
 repeating Paul's last words, said, " 'Go to the devil!' Not so 
 quick, young gentleman, -festina lente, all in good time. 
 What though I did, astonished at your premature request, say 
 that you should receive nothing; yet my great love for you 
 may induce me to bestir myself on your behalf. 'The 
 Asinaeum,' it is true, only gives three shillings an article in gen- 
 eral ; but I am its editor, and will intercede with the proprie- 
 tors on your behalf. Yes, yes. I will see what is to be done. 
 Stop a bit, my boy." 
 
 Paul, though very irascible, was easily pacified : he reseated 
 himself, and, taking Mac Crawler's hand, said: 
 
 "Forgive me for my petulance, my dear sir; but, to tell you 
 the honest truth, I am very low in the world just at present, and 
 must get money in some way or another : in short, I must either 
 pick pockets or write (not gratuitously) for the 'The Asinaeum." 
 
 And, without farther preliminary, Paul related his present cir- 
 cumstances to the critic; declared his determination not to 
 return to the Mug; and requested, at least, from the friend- 
 ship of his old preceptor the accommodation of shelter for that 
 night. 
 
 Mac Grawler was exceedingly disconcerted at hearing so bad 
 an account of his pupil's finances as well as prospects; for he 
 had secretly intended to regale himself that evening with a bowl 
 of punch, for which he purposed that Paul should pay; but as 
 he knew the quickness of parts possessed by the young gentle- 
 man, as also the great affection entertained for him by Mrs. 
 Lobkins, who, in all probability, would solicit his return the 
 next day, he thought it not unlikely that Paul would enjoy the 
 same good fortune as that presiding over his feline companion, 
 which, though it had just been kicked to the other end of the 
 apartment, was now resuming its former occupation, unhurt, and 
 no less merrily than before. He, therefore, thought it would 
 be imprudent to discard his quondam pupil, despite of his pres- 
 ent poverty; and, moreover, although the first happy project 
 of pocketing all the profits derivable from Paul's industry was
 
 CLiFFORQ. 
 
 now abandoned, he still perceived great facility in pocketing a 
 part of the same receipts. He therefore answered Paul very 
 warmly, that he fully sympathized with him in his present mel- 
 ancholy situation ; that, so far as he was concerned, he would 
 share his last shilling with his beloved pupil, but that he re- 
 gretted at that moment he had only eleven-pence halfpenny in 
 his pocket ; that he would, however, exert himself to the utmost 
 in procuring an opening for Paul's literary genius; and that, 
 if Paul liked to take the slashing and plastering part of the busi- 
 ness on himself, he would willingly surrender it to him, and 
 give him all the profits, whatever they might be. En attendant, 
 he regretted that a violent rheumatism prevented his giving up 
 his own bed to his pupil, but that he might, with all the pleas- 
 ure imaginable, sleep upon the rug before the fire. Paul was 
 so affected by this kindness in the worthy man, that, though 
 not much addicted to the melting mood, he shed tears of grati- 
 tude; he insisted, however, on not receiving the whole reward 
 of his labors ; and at length it was settled, though with a noble 
 reluctance on the part of Mac Crawler, that it should be equally 
 shared between the critic and the critic's protege" ; the half 
 profits being reasonably awarded to Mac Grawler for his in- 
 structions and his recommendation. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Bad events peep out o' the tail of good purposes." 
 
 Bartholomew Fair. 
 
 IT was not long before there was a visible improvement in 
 the pages of "The Asinseum" : the slashing part of that incom- 
 parable journal was suddenly' conceived and carried on with a 
 vigor and spirit which astonished the hallowed few who contrib- 
 uted to its circulation. It was not difficult to see that a new 
 soldier had been enlisted in the service ; there was something 
 so fresh and hearty about the abuse, that it could n-ever have 
 proceeded from the worn-out acerbity of an old slasher. To 
 be sure, a little ignorance of ordinary facts, and an innovating 
 method of applying words to meanings which they never were 
 meant to denote, were now and then distinguishable in the crit- 
 icisms of the new Achilles : nevertheless it was easy to attribute 
 these peculiarities to an original turn of thinking; and the rise 
 of the paper upon the appearance of a series of articles upon 
 contemporary authors, written by this "eminent hand," was so
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. $$ 
 
 remarkable, that fifty copies a number perfectly unprece- 
 dented in the annals of "The Asinseum" were absolutely sold 
 in one week: indeed, remembering the principle on which it 
 was founded, one sturdy old writer declared that the journal 
 would soon do for itself and become popular. There was a 
 remarkable peculiarity about the literary debutant, who signed 
 himself "Nobilitas." He not only put old words to a new 
 sense, but he used words which had never, among the general 
 run of writers, been used before. This was especially remark- 
 able in the application of hard names to authors. Once, in 
 censuring a popular writer for pleasing the public, and thereby 
 growing rich, the "eminent hand" ended with "He who sur- 
 reptitiously accumulates bustle * is, in fact, nothing better than 
 a buzz gloak ! " f 
 
 These enigmatical words and recondite phrases imparted a 
 great air of learning to the style of the new critic ; and, from 
 the unintelligible sublimity of his diction, it seemed doubtful 
 whether he was a poet from Highgate, or a philosopher from 
 Koningsburg. At all events, the reviewer preserved his incog- 
 nito, and, while his praises were rung at no less than three tea- 
 tables, even glory appeared to him less delicious than disguise. 
 
 In this incognito, reader, thou hast already discovered Paul; 
 and now, we have to delight thee with a piece of unexampled 
 morality in the excellent Mac Grawler. That worthy Mentor, 
 perceiving that there was an inherent turn for dissipation and 
 extravagance in our hero, resolved magnanimously rather to 
 bring upon himself the sins of treachery andmal-appropriation, 
 than suffer his friend and former pupil to incur those of waste- 
 fulness and profusion. Contrary, therefore, to the agreement 
 made with Paul, instead of giving that youth the half of those 
 profits consequent on his brilliant lucubrations, he imparted to 
 him only one fourth, and, with the utmost tenderness for Paul's 
 salvation, applied the other three portions of the same to his 
 own necessities. The best actions are, alas! often misconstrued 
 in this world ; and we are now about to record a remarkable in- 
 stance of that melancholy truth. 
 
 One evening Mac Grawler, having "moistened his virtue" in 
 the same manner that the great Cato is said to have done, in 
 the confusion which such a process sometimes occasions in the 
 best regulated heads, gave Paul what appeared to him the out- 
 line of a certain article, which he wished to be slashingly filled 
 up, but what in reality was the following note from the editor 
 of a monthly periodical 
 
 * Money. t Pickpocket.
 
 54 t>AUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "SIR: 
 
 "Understanding that my friend, Mr. , proprietor of 'The 
 
 Asinaeum,' allows the very distinguished writer whom you have 
 introduced to the literary world, and who signs himself 'Nobil- 
 itas,' only five shillings an article, I beg, through you, to tender 
 him double that sum : the article required will be of an ordi- 
 nary length. "I am, sir, etc. 
 
 Now that very morning Mac Crawler had informed Paul of 
 this offer, altering only, from the amiable motives we have al- 
 ready explained, the sum of ten shillings to that of four ; and 
 no sooner did Paul read the communication we have placed 
 before the reader, than, instead of gratitude to Mac Grawler for 
 his consideration of Paul's moral infirmities, he conceived 
 against that gentleman the most bitter resentment. He did 
 not, however, vent his feelings at once upon the Scotsman ; in- 
 deed, at that moment, as the sage was in a deep sleep under the 
 table, it would have been to no purpose had he unbridled his 
 indignation. But he resolved without loss of time to quit the 
 abode of the critic. "And, indeed," said he, soliloquizing, "I 
 am heartily tired of this life, and shall be very glad to seek 
 some other employment. Fortunately, I have hoarded up five 
 guineas and four shillings, and with that independence in my 
 possession, since I have foresworn gambling, I cannot easily 
 starve." 
 
 To this soliloquy succeeded a misanthropical revery upon the 
 faithlessness of friends; and the meditation ended in Paul's 
 making up a little bundle of such clothes, etc., as Dummie had 
 succeeded in removing from the Mug, and which Paul had 
 taken from the rag-merchant's abode one morning when Dum- 
 mie was abroad. 
 
 When this easy task was concluded, Paul wrote a short and 
 upbraiding note to his illustrious preceptor, and left it unsealed 
 on the table. He then, upsetting the ink-bottle on Mac 
 Crawler's sleeping countenance, departed from the house, and 
 strolled away he cared not whither. 
 
 The evening was gradually closing as Paul, chewing the cud 
 of his bitter fancies, found himself on London Bridge. He 
 paused there, and, leaning over the bridge, gazed wistfully on 
 the gloomy waters that rolled onward, caring not a minnow for 
 the numerous charming young ladies who have thought proper 
 to drown themselves in those merciless waves, thereby depriv- 
 ing many a good mistress of an excellent housemaid or an in-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 55 
 
 valuable cook, and many a treacherous Phaon of letters begin- 
 ning with "Parjured Villen" and ending with "Your affectionot 
 but molaacolly Molly." 
 
 While thus musing, he was suddenly accosted by a gentle- 
 man in boots and spurs, having a riding-whip in one hand, and 
 the other hand stuck in the pocket of his inexpressibles. The 
 hat of the gallant was gracefully and carefully put on, so as to 
 derange as little as possible a profusion of dark curls which, 
 streaming with unguents, fell low not only on either side of the 
 face, but on the neck and even the shoulders of the owner. 
 The face was saturnine and strongly marked, but handsome and 
 striking. There was a mixture of frippery and sternness in its 
 expression, something between Madame Vestris and T. P. 
 Cooke, or between "lovely Sally" and a "Captain bold of 
 Halifax." The stature of this personage was remarkably tall, 
 and his figure was stout, muscular, and well knit. In fine, to 
 complete his portrait, and give our readers of the present day 
 an exact idea of this hero of the past, we shall add that he 
 was altogether that sort of gentleman one sees swaggering in 
 the Burlington Arcade, with his hair and hat on one side, and 
 a military cloak thrown over his shoulders; or prowling in 
 Regent Street, towards the evening, ^vhiskered and cigarred. 
 
 Laying his hand on the shoulder of our hero, this gentleman 
 said, with an affected intonation of voice : 
 
 "How dost my fine fellow ? Long since I saw you ! Dammee, 
 but you look the worse for wear. What hast thou been doing 
 with thyself?" 
 
 "Ha!" cried our hero, returning the salutation of the stran- 
 ger, "and is it Long Ned whom I behold? I am indeed glad 
 to meet you ; and I say, my friend, I hope what I heard of you 
 is not true!" 
 
 "Hist!" said Long Ned, looking round fearfully, and sinking 
 his voice, "never talk of what you hear of gentlemen, except 
 you wish to bring them to their last dying speech and confes- 
 sion. But come with me, my lad ; there is a tavern hard by, 
 and we may as well discuss matters over a pint of wine. You 
 look cursed seedy, to be sure, but I can tell Bill the waiter 
 famous fellow, that Bill! that you are one of my tenants, 
 come to complain of my steward, who has just distrained you 
 for rent, you dog! No wonder you look so worn in the 
 rigging. Come, follow me. I can't walk with thee. It would 
 look too like Northumberland House and the butcher's abode 
 next door taking a stroll together." 
 
 "Really, Mr. Pepper," said our hero, coloring, and by no
 
 56 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 means pleased with the ingenious comparison of his friend, "if 
 you are ashamed of my clothes, which I own might be newer, 
 I will not wound you with my " 
 
 "Pooh! my lad pooh!" cried Long Ned, interrupting him; 
 "never take offence. I never do. I never take anything but 
 money, except, indeed, watches. I don't mean to hurt your 
 feelings; all of us have been poor once. 'Gad, I remember 
 when I had not a dud on my back, and now, you see me you 
 see me, Paul! But come, 'tis only through the streets you 
 need separate from me. Keep a little behind very little that 
 will do. Ay, that will do," repeated Long Ned mutteringly 
 to himself, "they'll take him for a bailiff. It looks handsome 
 nowadays to be so attended. It shows one had credit 
 once ! ' ' 
 
 Meanwhile Paul, though by no means pleased with the con- 
 tempt expressed for his personal appearance by his lengthy as- 
 sociate, and impressed with a keener sense than ever of the 
 crimes of his coat and the vices of his other garment "O 
 breathe not its name!" followed doggedly and sullenly the 
 strutting steps of the coxcombical Mr. Pepper. That person- 
 age arrived at last at a small tavern, and arresting a waiter who was 
 running across the passage into the coffee-room with a dish of 
 hung-beef, demanded (no doubt from a pleasing anticipation of 
 a similar pendulous catastrophe) a plate of the same excellent 
 cheer, to be carried, in company with a bottle of port, into a 
 private apartment. No sooner did he find himself alone with 
 Paul, than, bursting into a loud laugh, Mr. Ned surveyed his 
 comrade from head to foot through an eyeglass which he wore 
 fastened to his button-hole by a piece of blue riband. 
 
 "Well, 'gad now," said he, stopping ever and anon, as if to 
 laugh the more heartily, "stab my vitals, but you are a comical 
 quiz ; I wonder what the women would say, if they saw the 
 dashing Edward Pepper, Esquire, walking arm in arm with 
 thee at Ranelagh or Vauxhall? Nay, man, never be down- 
 cast; if I laugh at thee, it is only to make thee look a little mer- 
 rier thyself. Why, thou lookest like a book of my grandfather's 
 called Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy j and faith, a shabbier 
 bound copy of it I never saw." 
 
 "These jests are a little hard," said Paul, struggling between 
 anger and an attempt to smile ; and then recollecting his late 
 literary occupations, and the many extracts he had taken from 
 Gleanings of the Belles Lettres, in order to impart elegance to 
 his criticisms, he threw out his hand theatrically, and spouted 
 with a solemn face :
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 57 
 
 " Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, 
 Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest ! " 
 
 "Well now, prithee forgive me," said Long Ned", composing 
 his features; "and just tell me what you have been doing the 
 last two months." 
 
 "Slashing and plastering!" said Paul, with conscious pride. 
 
 "Slashing and what! The boy's mad! What do you mean, 
 Paul?" 
 
 "In other words," said our hero, speaking very slowly, 
 "know, O very Long Ned! that I have been critic to 'The 
 Asinaeum.' ' 
 
 If Paul's comrade laughed at first, he now laughed ten 
 times more merrily than ever. He threw his length of limb 
 upon a neighboring sofa, and literally rolled with cachinnatory 
 convulsions ; nor did his risible emotions subside until the en- 
 trance of the hung-beef restored him to recollection. Seeing, 
 then, that a cloud lowered over Paul's countenance, he went up 
 to him, with something like gravity ; begged his pardon for his 
 want of politeness ; and desired him to wash away all unkind- 
 ness in a bumper of port. Paul, whose excellent disposition 
 we have before had occasion to remark, was not impervious to 
 his friend's apologies. He assured Long Ned that he quite 
 forgave him for his ridicule of the high situation he (Paul) had 
 enjoyed in the literary world : that it was the duty of a public 
 censor to bear no malice ; and that he should be very glad to 
 take his share in the interment of the hung-beef. 
 
 The pair now sat down to their repast, and Paul, who had 
 fared but meagerly in that Temple of Athena over which Mac 
 Crawler presided, did ample justice to the viands before him. 
 By degrees, as he ate and drank, his heart opened to his com- 
 panion ; and, laying aside that Asinseum dignity which he had 
 at first thought it incumbent on him to assume, he entertained 
 Pepper with all the particulars of the life he had lately passed. 
 He narrated to him his breach with Dame Lobkins; his 
 agreement with Mac Crawler; the glory he had acquired, and 
 the wrongs he had sustained ; and he concluded, as now the 
 second bottle made its appearance, by stating his desire of ex- 
 changing, for some more active profession, that sedentary 
 career which he had so promisingly begun. 
 
 This last part of Paul's confessions secretly delighted the 
 soul of Long Ned; for that experienced collector of the high- 
 ways (Ned, was, indeed, of no less noble a profession) had 
 long fixed an eye upon our hero, as one whom he thought likely 
 to be an honor to that enterprising calling which he espoused,
 
 58 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and a useful assistant to himself. He had not, in his earlier 
 acquaintance with Paul, when the youth was under the roof 
 and the surveillance of the practised and wary Mrs. Lobkins, 
 deemed it prudent to expose the exact nature of his own 
 pursuits, and had contented himself by gradually ripening the 
 mind and the finances of Paul into that state when the proposi- 
 tion of a leap from a hedge would not be likely greatly to revolt 
 the person to whom it was made. He now thought that time 
 nea'r at hand; and, filling our hero's glass up to the brim, thus 
 artfully addressed him : 
 
 "Courage, my friend! Your narration has given me a sensi- 
 ble pleasure ; for, curse me, if it has not strengthened my fav- 
 orite opinion that everything is for the best. If it had not 
 been for the meanness of that pitiful fellow, Mac Crawler, you 
 might still be inspired with the paltry ambition of earning a 
 few shillings a week, and vilifying a parcel of poor devils in the 
 what-d'ye-call-it, with a hard name ; whereas, now, my good 
 Paul, I trust I shall be able to open to your genius a new 
 career, in which guineas are had for the asking; in which you 
 may wear fine clothes, and ogle the ladies at Ranelagh ; and 
 when you are tired of glory and liberty. Paul, why you have 
 only to make your bow to an heiress, or a widow with a 
 spanking jointure, and quit the hum of men like a Cin- 
 natus!" 
 
 Though Paul's perception into the abstruser branches of 
 morals was not very acute, and at that time the port wine had 
 considerably confused the few notions he possessed upon "the 
 beauty of virtue," yet he could not but perceive that Mr. 
 Pepper's insinuated proposition was far from being one which 
 the bench of bishops, or a synod of moralists, would conscien- 
 tiously have approved : he consequently remained silent ; and 
 Long Ned, after a pause, continued : 
 
 "You know my genealogy, my good fellow? I was the son 
 of Laywer Pepper, a shrewd old dog, but as hot as Calcutta; 
 and the grandson of Sexton Pepper, a great author, who 
 wrote verses on tombstones, and kept a stall of religious tracts 
 in Carlisle. My grandfather, the sexton, was the best temper 
 of the family ; for all of us are a little inclined to be hot in the 
 mouth. Well, my fine fellow, my father left me his blessing, 
 and this devilish good head of hair. I lived for some years on 
 my own resources. I found it a particularly inconvenient mode 
 life, and of late I have taken to live on the public. My father 
 and grandfather did it before me, though in a different line. 
 "Pis the pleasantest plan in the world. Follow my example,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 59 
 
 and your coat shall be as spruce as my own. Master Paul, 
 your health!" 
 
 "But, O longest of mortals!" said Paul, refilling his glass, 
 "though the public may allow you to eat your mutton off their 
 backs for a short time, they will kick up at last, and upset you 
 and your banquet: in other words (pardon my metaphor, 
 dear Ned, in remembrance of the part I have lately maintained 
 in 'The Asinseum,' that most magnificent and metaphorical of 
 journals ! ), in other words, the police will nab thee at last ; and 
 thou wilt have the distinguished fate, as thou already hast the 
 distinguished characteristic, of Absalom!" 
 
 "You mean that I shall be hanged," said Long Ned. "That 
 may or may not be ; but he who fears death never enjoys life. 
 Consider, Paul, that though hanging is a bad fate, starving is a 
 worse ; wherefore fill your glass, and let us drink to the health 
 of that great donkey, the people, and may we never want sad- 
 dles to ride it!" 
 
 "To the great donkey," cried Paul, tossing off his bumper 
 "may your (y]ears be as long! But I own to you, my friend, 
 that I cannot enter into your plans. And, as a token of my 
 resolution, I shall drink no more, for my eyes already begin to 
 dance in the air : and if I listen longer to your resistless elo- 
 quence, my feet may share the same fate!" 
 
 So saying, Paul rose ; nor could any entreaty, on the part of 
 his entertainer, persuade him to resume his seat. 
 
 "Nay, as you will," said Pepper, affecting a nonchalant tone, 
 and arranging his cravat before the glass. "Nay, as you will. 
 Ned Pepper requires no man's companionship against his lik- 
 ing : and if the noble spark of ambition be not in your bosom, 
 'tis no use spending my breath in blowing at what only existed 
 in my too flattering opinion of your qualities. So, then, you 
 propose to return to Mac Grawler (the scurvy old cheat!) and 
 pass the inglorious remainder of your life in the mangling of 
 authors and the murder of grammar? Go, my good fellow, 
 go! scribble again and forever for Mac Grawler, and let him 
 live upon thy brains, instead of suffering thy brains to 
 
 "Hold!" cried Paul. "Although I may have some scruples 
 which prevent my adoption of that rising line of life you have 
 proposed to me, yet you are very much mistaken if you imagine 
 me so spiritless as any longer to subject myself to the frauds of 
 that rascal Mac Grawler. No! My present intention is to pay 
 my old nurse a visit. It appears to me passing strange, that 
 though I have left her so many weeks, she has never relented 
 enough to track me out, which one would think would have
 
 60 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 been no difficult matter : and now you see that I am pretty well 
 off, having five guineas and four shillings, all my own, and she 
 can scarcely think I want her money, my heart melts to her, 
 and I shall go and ask pardon for my haste." 
 
 "Pshaw! sentimental," cried Long Ned, a little alarmed at 
 the thought of Paul's gliding from those clutches which he 
 thought had now so firmly closed upon him. "Why, you 
 surely don't mean, after having once tasted the joys of indepen- 
 dence, to go back to the boozing ken, and bear all Mother 
 Lobkins' drunken tantarums ! Better have stayed with Mac 
 Grawler of the two ! " 
 
 "You mistake me," answered Paul; "I mean solely to make 
 it up with her, and get her permission to see the world. My 
 ultimate intention is to travel." 
 
 "Right"; cried Ned, "on the high-road and on horse- 
 back, I hope!" 
 
 "No, my Colossus of Roads! No! I am in doubt whether 
 or not I shall enlist in a marching regiment, or (give me your 
 advice on it) I fancy I have a great turn for the stage, ever 
 sinct I saw Garrick in Richard. Shall I turn stroller? It 
 must be a merry life." 
 
 "Oh, the devil!" cried Ned. "Imyself once did Cassioin a 
 barn, and every one swore I enacted the drunken scene to per- 
 fection ; but you have no notion what a lamentable life it is to 
 a man of any susceptibility. No, my friend. No ! There is 
 only one line in all the old plays worthy thy attention : 
 
 ' Toby or not toby* that is the question.' 
 
 I forget the rest!" 
 
 "Well!',' said our hero, answering in the same jocular vein, 
 "I confess,' I have ' the actor's high ambition.' It is astonishing 
 how my heart beat, when Richard cried out, 'Come bustle ,\ 
 bustle ! ' Yes, Pepper avaunt ! : 
 
 ' A thousand hearts are great within my bosom.' " 
 
 "Well, well," said Long Ned, stretching himself, "since you 
 are so fond of the play, what say you to an excursion thither 
 to-night? Garrick acts!" 
 
 "Done!" cried Paul. 
 
 "Done!" echoed Long Ned, rising with that bias/ air which 
 distinguishes the matured man of the world from the enthusi- 
 astic tyro. "Done! and we will adjourn afterwards to the 
 White Horse." 
 
 * The highway. t Money.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD 
 
 "But stay a moment," said Paul; "if you remember, I owed 
 you a guinea when I last saw you : here it is ! " 
 
 "Nonsense," exclaimed Long Ned, refusing the money, 
 "nonsense! you want the money at present; pay me when you 
 are richer. Nay, never be coy about it : debts of honor are 
 not paid now as they used to be, We lads of the Fish Lane 
 Club have changed all that. Well, well, if I must." 
 
 And Long Ned, seeing that Paul insisted, pocketed the 
 guinea. When this delicate matter had been arranged : 
 
 "Come," said Pepper, "come get your hat; but bless me! I 
 have forgotten one thing." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Why, my fine Paul, consider, the play is a bang-up sort of 
 place; look at your coat and your waistcoat, that's all!" 
 
 Our hero was struck dumb with this argumentum ad hominem. 
 But Long Ned, after enjoying his perplexity, relieved him 
 of it, by telling him that he knew of an honest tradesman who 
 kept a ready-made shop, just by the theatre, and who would fk 
 him out in a moment. In fact Long Ned was as good as his 
 word ; he carried Paul to a tailor, who gave him for the sum of 
 thirty shillings, half ready money, half on credit, a green coat 
 with a tarnished gold lace, a pair of red inexpressibles, and a 
 pepper-and-salt-waistcoat ; it is true, they were somewhat of the 
 largest, for they had once belonged no less a person than Long 
 Ned himself: but Paul did not then regard those niceties of 
 apparel, as he was subsequently taught to do by Gentleman 
 George (a personage hereafter to be introduced to our reader), 
 and he went to the theatre as well satisfied with himself as if 
 he had been Mr. T , or the Count de M . 
 
 Our adventurers are now quietly seated in the theatre, and 
 we shall not think it necessary to detail the performance they 
 saw, or the observations they made. Long Ned was one of 
 those superior beings of the road who would not for the world 
 have condescended to appear anywhere but in the boxes, and, 
 accordingly, the friends procured a couple of places in the 
 dress-tier. In the next box to the one our adventurers adorneci 
 they remarked, more especially than the rest of the audience, a 
 gentleman and a young lady seated next each other: the latter, 
 who was about thirteen years old, was so uncommonly beauti- 
 ful, that Paul, despite his dramatic enthusiasm, could scarcely 
 divert his eyes from her countenance to the stage. Her hair, 
 of a bright and fair auburn, hung in profuse ringlets about her 
 neck, shedding a softer shade upon a complexion in which the 
 roses seemed just budding, as it were, into blush. Her eyes,
 
 62 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 large, blue, and rather languishing than brilliant, were cur- 
 tained by the darkest lashes; her mouth seemed literally girt 
 with smiles; so numberless were the dimples, that, every time 
 the full, ripe, dewy lips were parted, rose into sight ; and the en- 
 chantment of the dimples was aided by two rows of teeth more 
 dazzling than the richest pearls that ever glittered on a bride. 
 But the chief charm of the face was its exceeding and touching 
 air of innocence and girlish softness ; you might have gazed for 
 ever upon that first unspeakable bloom, that all untouched and 
 stainless down, which seemed as if a very breath could mar it. 
 Perhaps the face might have wanted animation ; but, per- 
 haps, also, it borrowed from that want an attraction ; the re- 
 pose of the features was so soft and gentle, that the eye wan- 
 dered there with the same delight, and left it with the same re- 
 luctance, which it experiences in dwelling on or in quitting those 
 hues which are found to harmonize the most with its vision. 
 But while Paul was feeding his gaze on this young beauty, the 
 keen glances of Long Ned had found an object no less fasci- 
 nating in a large gold watch which the gentleman who accompa- 
 nied the damsel ever and anon brought to his eye, as if he were 
 waxing a little weary of the length of the pieces or the lingering 
 progression of time. 
 
 "What a beautiful face!" whispered Paul. 
 
 "Is the face gold, then, as well as the back?" whispered 
 Long Ned in return. 
 
 Our hero started, frowned, and despite the gigantic stature 
 of his comrade, told him, very angrily, to find some other sub- 
 ject for jesting. Ned in his turn stared, but made no reply. 
 
 Meanwhile Paul, though the lady was rather too young to 
 fall in love with, began wondering what relationship her com- 
 panion bore to her. Though the gentleman altogether was 
 handsome, yet his features, and the whole character of his face, 
 were widely different from those on which Paul gazed with such 
 delight. He was not, seemingly, above five-and-forty, but his 
 forehead was knit into many a line and furrow ; and in his eyes 
 the light, though searching, was more sober and staid than be- 
 came his years. A disagreeable expression played about the 
 mouth, and the shape of the face, which was long and thin, 
 considerably detracted from the prepossessing effect of a hand- 
 some aquiline nose, fine teeth, and a dark, manly, though sal- 
 low complexion. There was a mingled air of shrewdness and 
 distraction in the expression of his face. He seemed to pay 
 very little attention to the play, or to anything about him ; but 
 he testified very considerable alacrity when the play was over
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 63 
 
 in putting her cloak around his young companion, and in 
 threading their way through the thick crowd that the boxes 
 were now pouring forth. 
 
 Paul and his companion silently, and each with very differ- 
 ent motives from the other, followed them. They were now at 
 the door of the theatre. 
 
 A servant stepped forward and informed the gentleman that 
 his carriage was a few paces distant, but that it might be some 
 time before it could drive up to the theatre. 
 
 "Can you walk to the carriage, my dear?" said the gentle- 
 man to his young charge ; and she answering in the affirmative, 
 they both left the house, preceded by the servant. 
 
 "Come on! " said Long Ned hastily, and walking in the 
 same direction which the strangers had taken. Paul readily 
 agreed ; they soon overtook the strangers. Long Ned walked 
 the nearest to the gentleman, and brushed by him in passing. 
 Presently a voice cried, " Stop thief!" and Long Ned saying 
 to Paul, "Shift for yourself run!" darted from our hero's 
 side into the crowd, and vanished in a twinkling. Before 
 Paul could recover his amaze, he found himself suddenly 
 seized by the collar; he turned abruptly, and saw the dark 
 face of the young lady's companion. 
 
 "Rascal!" cried the gentleman, "my watch!" 
 
 ' 'Watch ! ' ' repeated Paul, bewildered ; and only for the sake 
 of the young lady refraining from knocking down his arrester. 
 "Watch!" 
 
 "Ay, young man!" cried a fellow in a great-coat, who now 
 suddenly appeared on the other side of Paul ; "this gentleman's 
 watch; please your honor (addressing the complainant), /be a 
 watch too, shall I take up this chap?" 
 
 "By all means," cried the gentleman; "I would not have 
 lost my watch for twice its value. I can swear I saw this fel- 
 low's companion snatch it from my fob. The thief's gone ; but 
 we have at least the accomplice. I give him in strict charge to 
 you, watchman; take the consequences if you let him escape." 
 
 The watchman answered, sullenly, that he did not want to be 
 threatened, and he knew how to discharge his duty. 
 
 "Don't answer me, fellow! said the gentleman haughtily; 
 "do as I tell you!" And, after a little colloquy, Paul found 
 himself suddenly marched off between two tall fellows, who 
 looked prodigiously inclined to eat him. By this time he had 
 recovered his surprise and dismay : he did not want the pene- 
 tration to see that his companion had really committed the 
 offence for which hf was charged ; and he also foresaw that
 
 64 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the circumstance might be attended with disagreeable conse- 
 quences to himself. Under all the features of the case, he 
 thought that an attempt to escape would not be an imprudent 
 proceeding on his part ; accordingly, after moving a few paces 
 very quietly and very passively, he watched his opportunity, 
 wrenched himself from the gripe of the gentleman on his left, 
 and brought the hand thus released against the cheek of the 
 gentleman on his right with so hearty a good will as to cause 
 him to relinquish his hold, and retreat several paces towards 
 the areas in a slanting position. But that roundabout sort of 
 blow with the left fist is very unfavorable towards the preserva- 
 tion of a firm balance ; and before Paul had recovered suffi- 
 ciently to make an effectual "bolt," he was prostrated to the 
 earth by a blow from the other and undamaged watchman, 
 which utterly deprived him of his senses ; and when he recov- 
 ered those useful possessions (which a man may reasonably 
 boast of losing, since it is only the minority who have them to 
 lose), he found himself stretched on a bench in the watchhouse. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " Begirt with many a gallant slave, 
 Apparell'd as becomes the brave, 
 Old Giaffir sat in his divan : 
 ***** 
 Much I misdoubt this wayward boy 
 Will one day work me more annoy." 
 
 Bride of A by do s. 
 
 'THE learned and ingenious John Schweighaeuser, a name 
 facile to spell and mellifluous to pronounce) hath been pleased, 
 in that Appendix continens partiatlam doctrince de mente hu- 
 mand, which clpseth the volume of his Opuscula Academica, to 
 observe (we translate from memory) that, "in the infinite vari- 
 ety of things which in the theatre of the world occur to a man's 
 survey, or in some manner or another affect his body or his 
 mind, by far the greater part are so contrived as to bring to 
 him rather some sense of pleasure than of pain or discomfort." 
 Assuming that this holds generally good in well-constituted 
 frames, we point out a notable example in the case of the in- 
 carcerated Paul, for, although that youth was in no agreeable 
 situation at the time present, and although nothing very encour- 
 aging smiled upon him from the prospects of the future, yet,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 65 
 
 as soon as he had recovered his consciousness, and given him- 
 self a rousing shake, he found an immediate source of pleasure 
 in discovering, first, that seveial ladies and gentlemen bore him 
 company in his imprisonment ; and, secondly, in perceiving a 
 huge jug of water within his reach, which, as his awaking 
 sensation was that of burning thirst, he delightedly emptied at 
 a draught. He then, stretching himself, looked around with 
 a wistful earnestness, and discovered a back turned towards 
 him, and recumbent on the floor, which, at the very first 
 glance, appeared to him familiar. "Surely," thought he, "I 
 know that frieze coat, and the peculiar turn of those narrow 
 shoulders." Thus soliloquizing, he raised himself, and putting 
 out his leg, he gently kicked the reclining form. "Muttering 
 strange oaths," the form turned round, and, raising itself upon 
 that inhospitable part of the body in which the introduction of 
 foreign feet is considered anything but an honor, it fixed its 
 dull blue eyes upon the face of the disturber of its slumbers, 
 gradually opening them wider and wider, until they seemed to 
 have enlarged themselves into proportions fit for the swallow- 
 ing of the important truth that burst upon them, and then from 
 the mouth of the creature issued: 
 
 "Queer my glims, if that ben't little Paul!" 
 
 "Ay, Dummie, here I am! Not been long without being 
 laid by the heels, you see ! Life is short ; we must make the 
 best use of our time!" 
 
 Upon this, Mr. Dunnaker (it was no less respectable a per- 
 son) scrambled up from the floor, and seating himself on the 
 bench beside Paul, said, in a pitying tone: 
 
 "Vy, laus-a-me! if you ben't knocked o' the head! Your 
 pole's as bloody as Murphy's face* ven his throat's cut!" 
 
 "Tis only the fortune of war, Dummie, and a mere trifle: 
 the heads manufactured at Thames Court are not easily put out 
 of order. But tell me, how came you here?" 
 
 "Vy, I had been lushing heavy vet " 
 
 "Till you grew light in the head, eh? and fell into the 
 kennel." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Mine is a worse business than that, I fear" ; and therewith 
 Paul, in a lower voice, related to the trusty Dummie the train 
 of accidents which had conducted him to his present asylum. 
 Dummie's face elongated as he listened: however, when the 
 narrative was over, he endeavored such consolatory palliatives 
 as occurred to him. He represented, first, the possibility that 
 
 * " Murphy's face," unlearned reader, appeareth, in Irish phrase, to mean " pig's head.*
 
 66 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the gentleman might not take the trouble to appear; secondly, 
 the certainty that no watch was found about Paul's per- 
 son ; thirdly, the fact that, even by the gentleman's confession, 
 Paul had not been the actual offender ; fourthly, if the worst 
 came to the worst, what were a few weeks', or even months', 
 imprisonment? 
 
 "Blow me tight!" said Dummie, "if it ben't as good a vay 
 of passing the time as a cove as is fond of snuggery need 
 desire!" 
 
 This observation had no comfort for Paul, who recoiled, with 
 all the maiden coyness of one to whom such unions are unfa- 
 miliar, from a matrimonial alliance with the snuggery of the 
 House of Correction. He rather trusted to another source for 
 consolation. In a word, he encouraged the flattering belief 
 that Long Ned, finding that Paul had been caught instead of 
 himself, would have the generosity to come forward and excul- 
 pate him from the charge. On hinting this idea to Dummie, 
 that accomplished "man about town" could not for some time 
 believe that any simpleton could be so thoroughly unac- 
 quainted with the world as seriously to entertain so ridiculous 
 a notion ; and, indeed, it is somewhat remarkable that such a 
 hope should ever have told its flattering tale to one brought up 
 in the house of Mrs. Margaret Lobkins. But Paul, we have 
 seen, had formed many of his notions from books ; and he had 
 the same fine theories of your "moral rogue," that possess the 
 minds of young patriots when they first leave college for the 
 House of Commons, and think integrity a prettier thing than 
 office. 
 
 Mr. Dunnaker urged Paul, seriously, to dismiss so vague and 
 childish a fancy from his breast, and rather to think of what 
 line of defence it would be best for him to pursue. This sub- 
 ject being at length exhausted, Paul recurred to Mrs. Lobkins, 
 and inquired whether Dummie had lately honored that lady 
 with a visit. 
 
 Mr. Dunnaker replied that he had, though with much diffi- 
 culty, appeased her anger against him for his supposed abet- 
 ment of Paul's excesses, and that of late she had held sundry 
 conversations with Dummie respecting our hero hmself. Upon 
 questioning Dummie further, Paul learned the good matron's 
 reasons for not evincing that solicitude for his return which 
 our hero had reasonably anticipated. The fact was, that she, 
 having no confidence whatsoever in his own resources indepen- 
 dent of her, had not been sorry of an opportunity effectually, 
 as she hoped, to humble that pride which had so revolted her ;
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 67 
 
 and she pleased her vanity by anticipating the time when Paul, 
 starved into submission, would gladly and penitently re-seek 
 the shelter of her roof, and, tamed as it were by experience, 
 would never again kick against the yoke which her matronly 
 prudence thought it fitting to impose upon him. She contented 
 herself, then, with obtaining from Dummie the intelligence 
 that our hero was under Mac Crawler's roof, and, therefore, 
 out of all positive danger to life and limb; and, as she could 
 not foresee the ingenious exertions of intellect by which Paul 
 had converted himself into the "Nobilitas" of "The Asinseum," 
 and thereby saved himself from utter penury, she was perfectly 
 convinced, from her knowledge of character, that the illus- 
 trious Mac Crawler would not long continue that protection to 
 the rebellious prote'gt, which, in her opinion, was his only 
 preservative from picking pockets or famishing. To the former 
 decent alternative she knew Paul's great and jejune aversion, 
 and she consequently had little fear for his morals or his safety, 
 in thus abandoning him for a while to chance. Any anxiety, too, 
 that she might otherwise have keenly experienced was deadened 
 by the habitual intoxication now increasing upon the good lady 
 with age, and which, though at times she could be excited to 
 all her characteristic vehemence, kept her senses for the most 
 part plunged into a Lethaean stupor; or, to speak more cour- 
 teously, into a poetical abstraction from the things of the 
 external world. 
 
 "Rut," said Dummie, as by degrees he imparted the solution 
 of the dame's conduct to the listening ear of his companion ; 
 "But I hopes as how ven you be out of this ere scrape, leetle 
 Paul, you vill take varning, and drop Meester Pepper's ac- 
 quaintance (vich, I must say, I vas alvays a sorry to see you 
 hencourage), and go home to the Mug, and f am. grasp the old 
 mort, for she has not been like the same cretur ever since you 
 vent. She's a delicate-arted oman, that Piggy Lob!" 
 
 So approving a panegyric on Mrs. Margaret Lobkins might, 
 at another time, have excited Paul's risible muscles; but at that 
 moment he really felt compunction for the unceremonious 
 manner in which he had left her, and the softness of regretful 
 affection imbued in its hallowing colors even the image of 
 Piggy Lob. 
 
 In conversation of this intellectual and domestic description 
 the night and ensuing morning passed away, till Paul found 
 himself in the awful presence of Justice Burnflat. 
 
 Several cases were disposed of before his own, and among 
 others Mr. Dummie Dunnaker obtained his release, though not
 
 68 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 without a severe reprimand for his sin of inebriety, which no 
 doubt sensibly affected the ingenuous spirit of that noble char- 
 acter. At length Paul's turn came. He heard, as he took his 
 station, a general buzz. At first he imagined it was at his 
 own interesting appearance; but, raisirg his eyes, he perceived 
 that it was at the entrance of the gentleman who was to 
 become his accuser. 
 
 "Hush," said some one near him, "'tis Lawyer Brandon. 
 Ah. he's a cute fellow ! It will go hard with the person he 
 complains of." 
 
 There was a happy fund of elasticity of spirit about our hero ; 
 and though he had not the good fortune to have "a blighted 
 heart," a circumstance which, by the poets and philosophers of 
 the present day, is supposed to inspire a man with wonderful 
 courage, and make him impervious to all misfortunes ; yet he 
 bore himself up with wonderful courage under his present trying 
 situation, and was far from overwhelmed, though he was cer- 
 tainly a little damped, by the observation he had just heard. 
 
 Mr. Brandon was, indeed, a barrister of considerable repu- 
 tation, and in high esteem in the world, not only for talent, but 
 also for a great austerity of manners, which, though a little 
 mingled with sternness and acerbity for the errors of other 
 men,, was naturally thought the more praiseworthy on that ac- 
 count; there being, as persons of experience are doubtless 
 aware, two divisions in the first class of morality: imprimis, a 
 great hatred for the vices of one's neighbor; secondly, the 
 possession of virtues in one's self. 
 
 Mr. Brandon was received with great courtesy by Justice 
 Burnflat, and as he came, watch in hand (a borrowed watch), 
 saying that his time was worth five guineas a moment, the justice 
 proceeded immediately to business. Nothing could be clearer, 
 shorter, or more satisfactory, than the evidence of Mr. Brandon. 
 The corroborative testimony of the watchman followed ; and 
 then Paul was called upon for his defence. This was equally 
 urief with the charge; but, alas! it was not equally satisfactory. 
 It consisted in a firm declaration of his innocence. His com- 
 rade, he confessed, might have stolen the watch, but he humbly 
 suggested that that was exactly the very reason why he had not 
 stolen it. 
 
 "How long, fellow," asked Justice Burnflat, "have you known 
 your companion?" 
 
 "About half a year!" 
 
 "And what is his name and calling?" 
 
 Paul hesitated, and declined to answer,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 69 
 
 ",\ sad piece of business!" said the justice, in a melancholy 
 cone, and shaking his head portentously. 
 
 The lay wer acquiesced in the aphorism ; but with great mag- 
 nanimity observed, that he did not wish to be hard upon the 
 young man. His youth was in his favor, and his offence was 
 probably the consequence of evil company. He suggested, 
 therefore, that as he must be perfectly aware of the address of 
 his friend, he should receive a full pardon if he would immedi- 
 ately favor the magistrate with that information. He con- 
 cluded by remarking, with singular philanthropy, that it was 
 not the punishment of the youth, but the recovery of his watch, 
 that he desired. 
 
 Justice Burnftat, having duly impressed upon our hero's mind 
 the disinterested and Christian mercy of the complainant, and 
 the everlasting obligation Paul was under to him for its display, 
 now repeated, with double solemnity, those queries respecting 
 the habitation and name of Long Ned, which our hero had be- 
 fore declined to answer. 
 
 Grieved are we to confess that Paul, ungrateful for, and 
 wholly untouched by, the beautiful benignity of Lawyer Bran- 
 don, continued firm in his stubborn denial to betray his com- 
 rade, and with equal obduracy he continued to insist upon his 
 own innocence and unblemished respectability of character. 
 
 "Your name, young man?" quoth the justice. "Yourname, 
 you say, is Paul Paul what? you have many an alias, I'll be 
 bound." 
 
 Here the young gentleman again hesitated : at length he re- 
 plied : 
 
 "Paul Lobkins, your worship. " 
 
 "Lobkins!" repeated the judge; "Lobkins! Come hither, 
 Saunders: have not we that name down in our black books?" 
 
 "So please your worship," quoth a little stout man, very use- 
 ful in many respects to the Festus of the police, "there is one 
 Peggy Lobkins, who keeps a public-house, a sort of flash ken, 
 called the Mug, in Thames Court, not exactly in our beat, 
 your worship." 
 
 "Ho, ho!" said Justice Burnflat, winking at Mr. Brandon, 
 "we must sift this a little. Pray, Mr. Paul Lobkins, what re- 
 lation is the good landlady of the Mug, in Thames Court, to 
 yourself?" 
 
 "None at all, sir," said Paul hastily ; "she's only a friend!" 
 
 Upon this there was a laugh in the court. 
 
 "Silence," cried the justice: "and I dare say, Mr. Paul 
 Lobkins, that this friend of yours will vouch for the respecta-
 
 70 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 bility of your character, upon which you are pleased to value 
 yourself!" 
 
 "I have not a doubt of it, sir," answered Paul; and there 
 was another laugh. 
 
 "And is there any other equally weighty and praiseworthy 
 friend of yours who will do you the like kindness?" 
 
 Paul hesitated ; and at that moment, to the surprise of the 
 court, but, above all, to the utter and astounding surprise of 
 himself, two gentlemen, dressed in the height of the fashion, 
 pushed forward, and, bowing to the justice, declared themselves 
 ready to vouch for the thorough respectability and unimpeach- 
 able character of Mr. Paul Lobkins, whom they had known, 
 they said, for many years, and for whom they had the greatest 
 respect. While Paul was surveying the persons of these kind 
 friends, whom he never remembered to have seen before in the 
 course of his life, the lawyer, who was a very sharp fellow, 
 whispered to the magistrate ; and that dignitary nodding as in 
 assent, and eyeing the new comers, inquired the names of Mr. 
 Lobkins's witnesses. 
 
 "Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert, and Mr. William Howard Russell," 
 were the several replies. 
 
 Names so aristocratic produced a general sensation. But the 
 impenetrable justice, calling the same Mr. Saunders he had ad- 
 dressed before, asked him to examine well the countenances of 
 Mr. Lobkins's friends. 
 
 As the alguazil eyed the features of the memorable Don 
 Raphael and the illustrious Manuel Morales, when the former of 
 those accomplished personages thought it convenient to assume 
 the travelling dignity of an Italian prince, son of the sovereign 
 of the valleys which lie between Switzerland, the Milanese, and 
 Savoy, while the latter was contented with being servant to 
 Monscigneur le Prince ; even so, with far more earnest- 
 ness than respect, did Mr. Saunders eye the features of those 
 high-born gentlemen, Messrs. Eustace Fitzherbert and William 
 Howard Russell; but, after along survey, he withdrew his 
 eyes, made an unsatisfactory and unrecognizirig gesture to the 
 magistrate, and said : ' ' Please your worship, they are none of my 
 flock ; but Bill Troutling knows more of this sort of gente 1 
 chaps than I does." 
 
 "Bid Bill Troutling appear!" was the laconic order. 
 
 At that name a certain modest confusion might have been 
 visible in the faces of Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert and Mr. William 
 Howard Russell, had not the attention of the court been imme- 
 diately directed to another case. A poor woman had been
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. ?1 
 
 commited for seven days to the house of correction on a charge 
 of disrespectability. Her husband, the person most interested 
 in the matter, now came forward to disprove the charge ; and 
 by help of his neighbors he succeeded. 
 
 "It is all very true," said Justice Burnflat; "but as your 
 wife, my good fellow, will be out in five days, it will be scarce- 
 ly worth while to release her now."* 
 
 So judicious a decision could not fail of satisfying the husband ; 
 and the audience became from that moment enlightened as to 
 a very remarkable truth, viz., that five days out of seven bear 
 a peculiarly small proportion to the remaining two ; and that 
 people in England have so prodigious a love for punishment, 
 that though it is not worth while to release an innocent woman 
 from prison five days sooner than one would otherwise have 
 done, it is exceedingly well worth while to commit her to prison 
 for seven ! 
 
 When the husband, passing his rough hand across his eyes, 
 and muttering some vulgar impertinence or another, had with- 
 drawn, Mr. Saunders said : 
 
 "Here be Bill Troutling, your worship!" 
 
 "Oh, well," quoth the justice; "and now, Mr. Eustace 
 Fitz Hollo, how's this! where are Mr. William Howard 
 Russell and his friend Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert?" 
 
 " Echo answered Where ?" 
 
 Those noble gentlemen, having a natural dislike to be con- 
 fronted with so low a person as Mr. Bill Troutling, had, the 
 instant public interest was directed from them, silently disap- 
 peared from a scene where their rank in life seemed so little 
 regarded. If, reader, you should be anxious to learn from 
 what part of the world the transitory visitants appeared, know 
 that they were spirits sent by that inimitable magician, Long 
 Ned, partly to report how matters fared in the court ; for Mr. 
 Pepper, in pursuance of that old policy which teaches that the 
 nearer the fox is to the hunters the more chance he has of being 
 overlooked, had, immediately on his abrupt departure from 
 Paul, dived into a house in the very street where his ingenuity 
 had displayed itself, and in which oysters and ale nightly al- 
 lured and regaled an assembly that, to speak impartially, was 
 more numerous than select : there had he learned how a pick- 
 pocket had been seized for unlawful affection to another man's 
 watch ; and there while he quietly seasoned his oysters, had he, 
 with his charactistic acuteness, satisfied his mind by the con- 
 
 * A fact, occurring in the month of January, i8y>. Vide The Morning Utrald.
 
 72 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 viction that that arrested unfortunate was no other than Paul. 
 Partly, therefore, as a precaution for his own safety, that he 
 might receive early intelligence should Paul's defence make a 
 change of residence expedient, and partly (out of the friendli- 
 ness of fellowship) to back his companion with such aid as the 
 favorable testimony of two well-dressed persons, little known 
 "about town," might confer, he had despatched those celestial 
 beings, who had appeared under the mortal names of Eustace 
 Fitzherbert and William Howard Russell, to the imperial court 
 of Justice Burnflat. Having thus accounted for the apparition 
 (the disapparition requires no commentary) of Paul's "friends," 
 we return to Paul himself. 
 
 Despite the perils with which he was girt, our young hero 
 fought out to the last, but the justice was not by any means 
 willing to displease Mr. Brandon; and observing that an in- 
 credulous and biting sneer remained stationary on that gentle- 
 man's lip during the whole of Paul's defence, he could not but 
 shape his decision according to the well-known acuteness of 
 the celebrated lawyer. Paul was accordingly sentenced to re- 
 tire for three months to that country-house situated at Bride- 
 well, to which the ungrateful functionaries of justice often ban- 
 ish their most active citizens. 
 
 As soon as the sentence was passed, Brandon, whose keen 
 eyes saw no hope of recovering his lost treasure, declared that 
 the rascal had perfectly the Old-Bailey cut of countenance; 
 and that he did not doubt but, if ever he lived to be a judge, 
 he should also live to pass a very different description of sen- 
 tence on the offender. 
 
 So saying, he resolved to lose no more time, and very 
 abruptly left the office, without any other comfort than the re- 
 membrance that, at all events, he had sent the boy to a place 
 where, let him be ever so innocent at present, he was certain 
 to come out as much inclined to be guilty as his friends could 
 desire ; joined to such moral reflection as the tragedy of Bom- 
 bastes Furioso might have afforded to himself in that senten- 
 tious and terse line, 
 
 " Thy watch is gone, watches are made to go / " 
 
 Meanwhile, Paul was conducted in state to his retreat, in 
 company with two other offenders, one a middle-aged man, 
 though a very old "Jih," who was sentenced forgetting money 
 under false pretences, and the other a little boy, who had been 
 found guilty of sleeping under a colonnade ; it being the espe- 
 cial beauty of the English law to make no fine-drawn and non-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 sensical shades of difference between vice and misfortune, and 
 its peculiar method of protecting the honest being to make as 
 many rogues as possible in as short a space of time. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " Common Sense. What is the end of punishment as regards the individual 
 punished ? 
 
 Custom. To make him better ! 
 
 Common Sense. How do you punish young offenders who are (from 
 their youth) peculiarly alive to example, and whom it is therefore more easy 
 either to ruin or refoim than the matured? 
 
 Custom. We send them to the House of Correction, to associate with 
 the d dest rascals in the country ! " 
 
 Dialogue between Common Sense and Custom. Very scarce. 
 
 As it was rather late in the day when Paul made his first 
 entree at Bridewell, he passed that night in the "receiving- 
 room." The next morning, as soon as he had been examined 
 by the surgeon, and clothed in the customary uniform, he was 
 ushered, according to his classification, among the good com- 
 pany who had been considered guilty of that compendious 
 offence, "a misdemeanor." Here a tall gentleman marched up 
 to him, and addressed him in a certain language, which might 
 be called the freemasonry of flash ; and which Paul, though he 
 did not comprehend verbatim, rightly understood to be an in- 
 quiry whether he was a thorough rogue and an entire rascal. 
 He answered half .in confusion, half in anger; and his reply 
 was so detrimental to any favorable influence he might other- 
 wise have exercised over the interrogator, that the latter per- 
 sonage, giving him a pinch in the ear, shouted out, "Ramp, 
 ramp ! ' ' and, at that significant and awful word, Paul found 
 himself surrounded in a trice by a whole host of ingenious tor- 
 mentors. One pulled this member, another pinched that ; one 
 cuffed him before, and another thrashed him behind. By 
 way of interlude to this pleasing occupation, they stripped him 
 of the very few things that in his change of dress he had re- 
 tained. One carried off his handkerchief, a second his neck- 
 cloth, and a third, luckier than either, possessed himself of a 
 pair of cornelian shirt-buttons, given to Paul as a gage d 1 amour 
 by a young lady who sold oranges near the Tower. Happily, 
 before this initiatory process, technically termed "ramping," 
 and exercised upon all new comers who seem to have a spark 
 of decency in them, had reduced the bones of Paul, who fought
 
 74 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 tooth and nail in his defence, to the state of magnesia, a man 
 of a grave aspect, who had hitherto plucked his oakum in 
 quiet, suddenly rose, thrust himself between the victim and the 
 assailants, and desired the latter, like one having authority, 
 to leave the lad alone, and go and be d d. 
 
 This proposal to resort to another place for amusement, 
 though uttered in a very grave and tranquil manner, produced 
 that instantaneous effect which admonitions from great rogues 
 generally work upon little. Messieurs the "rampers" ceased 
 from their amusements, and the ringleader of the gang, thump- 
 ing Paul heartily on the back, declared he was a capital fellow, 
 and it was only a bit of a spree like, which he hoped had not 
 given any offence. 
 
 Paul, still clenching his fist, was about to answer in no paci- 
 fic mood, when a turnkey, who did not care in the least how 
 many men he locked up for an offence, but who did not at all 
 like the trouble of looking after any one of his flock to see that 
 the offence was not committed, now suddenly appeared among 
 the set ; and, after scolding them for the excessive plague they 
 were to him, carried off two of the poorest of the mob to soli- 
 tary confinement. It happened, of course, that these two had 
 not taken the smallest share in the disturbance. This scene 
 over, the company returned to picking oakum, the tread- 
 mill, that admirably just invention, by which a strong man suf- 
 fers no fatigue, and a weak one loses his health for life, not 
 having been then introduced into our excellent establishments 
 for correcting crime. Bitterly, and with many dark and wrath- 
 ful feelings, in which the sense of injustice at punishment alone 
 bore him up against the humiliations to which he was subjected ; 
 bitterly, and with a swelling heart, in which the thoughts that 
 lead to crime were already forcing their way through a soil sud- 
 denly warmed for their growth, did Paul bend over his employ- 
 ment. He felt himself touched on the arm ; he turned, and 
 saw that the gentleman who had so kindly delivered him from 
 his tormentors was now sitting next to him. Paul gazed long 
 and earnestly upon his neighbor, struggling with the thought 
 that he had beheld that sagacious countenance in happier 
 times, although now, alas ! it was altered, not only by time and 
 vicissitude, but by that air of gravity which the cares of man- 
 hood spread gradually over the face of the most thoughtless, 
 until all doubt melted away, and he exclaimed : 
 
 "Is that you, Mr. Tomlinson? How glad I am to see you 
 here!" 
 
 "And I," returned the quondam murderer for the newspa-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 75 
 
 pers, with a nasal twang, "should be very glad to see myself 
 anywhere else!" 
 
 Paul made no answer, and Augustus continued : 
 
 'To a wise man all places are the same,' so it has been 
 said. I don't believe it, Paul ; I don't believe it. But a truce 
 to reflection. I remembered you the moment I saw you, 
 though you are surprisingly grown. How is my friend Mac 
 Crawler? still hard at work for 'The Asinaeum '?" 
 
 "I believe so," said Paul sullenly, and hastening to change 
 the conversation; "but tell me, Mr. Tomlinson, how came you 
 hither? I heard you had gone down to the north of England 
 to fulfil a lucrative employment." 
 
 "Possibly! the world always misrepresents the actions of 
 those who are constantly before it!" 
 
 "It is very true," said Paul; "and I have said the same 
 thing myself a hundred times in 'The Asinaeum,' for we were 
 never too lavish of our truths in that magnificent journal. 'Tis 
 astonishing what a way we made three ideas go." 
 
 "You remind me of myself and my newspaper labors," re- 
 joined Augustus Tomlinson: "I am not quite sure that /had 
 so many as three ideas to spare ; for, as you say, it is astonish- 
 ing how far that number may go, properly managed. It is 
 with writers as with strolling players, the same three ideas that 
 did for Turks in one scene do for Highlanders in the next: 
 but you must tell me your history one of these days, and you 
 shall hear mine." 
 
 "I should be excessively obliged to you for your confi- 
 dence," said Paul, "and I doubt not but your life must be 
 excessively entertaining. Mine, as yet, has been but insipid. 
 The lives of literary men are not fraught with adventure ; and 
 I question whether every writer in 'The Asinaeum' has not led 
 pretty nearly the same existence as that which I have sus- 
 tained myself." 
 
 In conversation of this sort our newly restored friends passed 
 the remainder of the day, until the hour of half-past four, when 
 the prisoners are to suppose night has begun, and be locked up 
 in their bedrooms. Tomlinson then, who was glad to re-find 
 a person who had known him in his beaux jours, spoke pri- 
 vately to the turnkey; and the result of the conversation 
 was the coupling Paul and Augustus in the same chamber, 
 which was a sort of stone box, that generally accommodated 
 three, and was for we have measured it, as we would have 
 measured the cell of the prisoner of Chillon just eight feet 
 by six.
 
 76 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 We do not intend, reader, to indicate, by broad colors and 
 in long detail, the moral deterioration of our hero ; because we 
 have found, by experience, that such pains on our part do little 
 more than make thee blame our stupidity instead of lauding 
 our intention. We shall therefore only work out our moral by 
 subtle hints and brief comments ; and we shall now content 
 ourselves with reminding thee that hitherto thou hast seen Paul 
 honest in the teeth of circumstances. Despite the contagion 
 of the Mug ; despite his associates in Fish Lane ; despite his 
 intimacy with Long Ned, thou hast seen him brave temptation, 
 and look forward to some other career than that of robbery and 
 fraud. Nay, even in his destitution, when driven from the 
 abode of his childhood, thou hast observed how, instead of 
 resorting to some more pleasurable or libertine road of life, he 
 betook himself at once to the dull roof and insipid employments 
 of Mac Crawler, and preferred honestly earning his subsistence 
 by the sweat of his brain to recurring to any of the numerous 
 ways of living on others with which his experience among the 
 worst part of society must have teemed, and which, to say the 
 least of them, are more alluring to the young and adventurous 
 than the barren paths of literary labor. Indeed, to let thee 
 into a secret, it had been Paul's daring ambition to raise him- 
 self into a worthy member of the community. His present cir- 
 cumstances, it may hereafter be seen, made the cause of a great 
 change in his desires ; and the conversation he held that night 
 with the ingenious and skilful Augustus went more towards fit- 
 ting him for the hero of this work than all the habits of his 
 childhood or the scenes of his earlier youth. Young people 
 are apt, erroneously, to believe that it is a bad thing to be ex- 
 ceedingly wicked. The House of Correction is so called, 
 because it is a place where so ridiculous a notion is invariably 
 corrected. 
 
 The next day Paul was surprised by a visit from Mrs. Lob- 
 kins, who had heard of his situation and its causes from the 
 friendly Dummie, and who had managed to obtain from Justice 
 Burnflat an order of admission. They met, Pyramus and 
 Thisbe like, with a wall, or rather an iron gate, between them: 
 and Mrs. Lobkins, after an ejaculation of despair at the obsta- 
 cle, burst weepingly into the pathetic reproach : 
 
 "O Paul, thou hast brought thy pigs to a fine market!" 
 "Tis a market proper for pigs, dear dame, " said Paul, who, 
 though with a tear in his eye, did not refuse a joke as bitter as 
 it was inelegant; "for, of all others, it is the spot where a man 
 learns to take care of his bacon."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 77 
 
 "Hold your tongue!" cried the dame angrily. "What busi- 
 ness has you to gabble on so while you are in limbo?" 
 
 "Ah, dear dame," said Paul, "we can't help these rubs and 
 stumbles on our road to preferment!" 
 
 "Road to the scragging post!" cried the dame. "I tells 
 you, child, you'll live to be hanged in spite of all my care and 
 'tention to you, though I hedicated you as a scholard, and always 
 hoped as how you would grow up to be an honor to your " 
 
 "King and country," interrupted Paul. "We always say 
 honor to king and country, which means getting rich and pay- 
 ing taxes. 'The more taxes a man pays, the greater honor he 
 is to both,' as Augustus says. Well, dear dame, all in good 
 time." 
 
 "What! you is merry, is you? Why does not you weep? 
 Your heart is as hard as a brickbat. It looks quite unnatural 
 and hyena-like, to be so devil- me-carish !' ' So saying, the good 
 dame's tears gushed forth with the bitterness of a despairing 
 Parisina. 
 
 "Nay, nay," said Paul, who, though he suffered far more 
 intensely, bore the suffering far more easily than his patroness, 
 "we cannot mend the matter by crying. Suppose you see what 
 can be done for me. I dare say you may manage to soften the 
 justice's sentence by a little 'oil of palms' ; and if you can get 
 me out before I am quite corrupted a day or two longer in 
 this infernal place will do the business I promise you that I will 
 not only live honestly myself, but with people who live in the 
 same manner." 
 
 "Buss me, Paul," said the tender Mrs. Lobkins, "buss me, 
 oh! but I forgits the gate; I'll see what can be done. And 
 here, my lad, here's summat for you in the mean while a drop 
 o' the cretur, to preach comfort to your poor stomach. Hush! 
 smuggle it through, or they'll see you." 
 
 Here the dame endeavored to push a stone bottle through 
 the bars of the gate; but, alas! though the neck passed 
 through, the body refused, and the dame was forced to extract 
 the "cretur." Upon this, the kind-hearted woman renewed 
 her sobbings ; and so absorbed was she in her grief, that, seem- 
 ingly quite forgetting for what purpose she had brought the 
 bottle, she applied it to her own mouth, and consoled herself 
 with that elixir vita which she had originally designed for Paul. 
 
 This somewhat restored her; and after a most affecting scene 
 the dame reeled off with the vacillating steps natural to woe, 
 promising, as she went, that, if love or money could shorten 
 Paul's confinement, neither should be wanting. We are rather
 
 78 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 at a loss to conjecture the exact influence which the former of 
 these arguments, urged by the lovely Margaret, might have 
 had upon Justice Burnflat. 
 
 When the good dame had departed Paul hastened to repick 
 his oakum and rejoin his friend. He found the worthy Augus- 
 tus privately selling little elegant luxuries, such as tobacco, gin, 
 and rations of daintier viands than the prison allowed; for 
 Augustus, having more money than the rest of his companions, 
 managed, through the friendship of the turnkey, to purchase 
 secretly, and to resell at about four hundred per cent., such 
 comforts as the prisoners especially coveted.* 
 
 "A proof," said Augustus dryly to Paul, "that, by prudence 
 and exertion, even in those places where a man cannot turn 
 himself, he may manage to turn a penny ! ' ' 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " ' Relate at large, my godlike guest,' she said, 
 4 The Grecian stratagems, the town betrayed ! ' " 
 
 DRYDEN'S Virgil, b. ii. ^En. 
 
 " Descending thence, they 'scaped ! " Ibid. 
 
 A GREAT improvement had taken place in the character of 
 Augustus Tomlinson since Paul had last encountered that illus- 
 trious man. Then, Augustus had affected the man of pleas- 
 ure the learned lounger about town the all-accomplished 
 Pericles of the papers gaily quoting Horace gravely flanking 
 a fly from the leader of Lord Dunshunner. Now, a more seri- 
 ous, yet not a less supercilious air had settled upon his fea- 
 tures; the pretence of fashion had given away to the pretence 
 of wisdom ; and, from the man of pleasure, Augustus Tomlin- 
 son had grown to the philosopher. With this elevation alone, too, 
 he was not content: he united the philosopher with the politi- 
 cian ; and the ingenious rascal was pleased especially to pique 
 himself upon being "a moderate Whig!" "Paul," he was 
 wont to observe, "believe me, moderate Whiggism is a most 
 excellent creed. It adapts itself to every possible change, to 
 every conceivable variety of circumstance. It is the only pol- 
 itics for us who are the aristocrats of that free body who rebel 
 
 * A very common practice at the Bridewells. The governor at the Coldbath-Fields, 
 apparently a very intelligent and active man, every way fitted for a most arduous^ under- 
 taking, informed us, in the only conversation we have had the honor to hold with him. 
 that he thought he had nearly, or quite, destroyed in his jurisdiction this illegal method ot
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 79 
 
 against tyrannical laws! for, hang it, I am none of your demo- 
 crats. Let there be dungeons and turnkeys for the low rascals 
 who whip clothes from the hedge where they hang to dry, or 
 steal down an area in quest of a silver spoon ; but houses of 
 correction are not made for men who have received an enlight- 
 ened education ; who abhor your petty thefts as much as a 
 justice of peace can do, who ought never to be termed dis- 
 honest in their dealings, but, if they are found out, 'unlucky in 
 their speculations /'* A pretty thing, indeed, that there should 
 be distinctions of rank among other members of the commu- 
 nity, and none among us! Where's your boasted British con- 
 stitution, I should like to know ; where are your privileges of aris- 
 tocracy, if I, who am a gentleman born, know Latin, and have 
 lived in the best society, should be thrust into this abominable 
 place with a dirty fellow, who was born in a cellar, and could 
 never earn more at a time than would purchase a sausage? 
 No, no! none of your levelling principles for me! I am liberal, 
 Paul, and love liberty; but, thank Heaven, I despise your 
 democracies ! ' ' 
 
 Thus, half in earnest, half veiling a natural turn to sarcasm, 
 would this moderate Whig run on for the hour together, during 
 those long nights, commencing at half-past four, in which he 
 and Paul bore each other company. 
 
 One evening, when Tomlinson was so bitterly disposed to be 
 prolix that Paul felt himself somewhat wearied by his eloquence, 
 our hero, desirous of a change in the conversation, reminded 
 Augustus of his promise to communicate his history; and the 
 philosophical Whig, nothing loath to speak of himself, cleared 
 his throat, and began. 
 
 HISTORY OF AUGUSTUS TOMLTNSON. 
 
 "Never mind who was my father, nor what was my native 
 place! My first ancestor was Tommy Linn (his heir became 
 Tom Linn's son) you have heard the ballad in his praise: 
 
 ' Tommy Linn is a Scotchman born, 
 His head is bald, and his beard is shorn ; 
 He had a cap made of a hare skin, 
 An elder man is Tommy Linn ! ' f 
 
 "There was a sort of prophecy respecting my ancestor's de 
 
 * A phrase applied to a noted defaulter of the public money, 
 t Se Ritson's North Cmniry CAfritttr.
 
 So PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 scendants darkly insinuated in the concluding stanza of this 
 
 ballad: 
 
 ' Tommy Linn, and his wife, and his wife's mother, 
 They all fell into the fire together ; 
 They that lay undermost got a hot skin. 
 " We are not enough ! " said Tommy Linn.' * 
 
 "You see the prophecy; it is applicable both to gentlemen 
 rogues and to moderate Whigs ; for both are undermost in the 
 world, and both are perpetually bawling out, ' We are not 
 enough ! ' 
 
 "I shall begin my own history by saying, I went to a North 
 Country school ; where I was noted for my aptness in learning, 
 and my skill at 'prisoner's base' upon my word I purposed 
 no pun ! I was intended for the church : wishing, betimes, to 
 instruct myself in its ceremonies, I persuaded my school- 
 master's maid-servant to assist me towards promoting a christen- 
 ing. My father did not like this premature love for the sacred 
 rites. He took me home ; and, wishing to give my clerical 
 ardor a different turn, prepared me for writing sermons, by 
 reading me a dozen a day. I grew tired of this, strange as it 
 may seem to you, 'Father,' said I, one morning, 'it is no use 
 talking, I will not go into the church that's positive. ive 
 me your blessing, and a hundred pounds, and I'll go up to 
 London, and get a living instead of a curacy.' My father 
 stormed, but I got the better at last. I talked of becoming a 
 private tutor; swore I had heard nothing was so easy, the 
 only things wanted were pupils ; and the only way to get them 
 was to go to London, and let my learning be known. My 
 poor father! well, he's gone, and I am glad of it now!" (the 
 speaker's voice faltered) "I got the better. I say, and I came to 
 town, where I had a relation a bookseller. Through his in- 
 terest I wrote a book of Travels in ^Ethiopia for an earl's son, 
 who wanted to become a lion ; and a Treatise on the Greek 
 Particle, dedicated to the prime minister, for a dean, who 
 wanted to become a bishop, Greek being, next to interest, the 
 best road to the mitre. These two achievements were liberally 
 paid; so I took a lodging in a first floor, and resolved to make 
 a bold stroke for a wife. What do you think I did? Nay, never 
 guess, it would be hopeless. First, I went to the best tailor, 
 and had my clothes sewn on my back ; secondly, I got the 
 peerage and its genealogies by heart ; thirdly, I marched one 
 night, with the coolest deliberation possible, into the house of 
 a duchess, who was giving an immense rout ! The newspapers 
 
 * ibid.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD, 8l 
 
 had inspired me with this idea. I had read of the vast crowds 
 which a lady 'at home' sought to win to her house. I had read 
 of staircases impassable, and ladies carried out in a fit; and 
 common-sense told me how impossible it was that the fair re- 
 ceiver should be acquainted with the legality of every importa- 
 tion. I therefore resolved to try my chance, and entered the 
 body of Augustus Tomlinson, as a piece of stolen goods. Faith! 
 the first night I was shy. I stuck to the staircase, and ogled an 
 old maid of quality, whom I had heard announced as Lady 
 Margaret Sinclair. Doubtless, she had never been ogled before ; 
 and she was evidently enraptured with my glances. The next 
 
 night I read of a ball at the Countess of . My heart beat aL 
 
 if I were going to be whipped ; but I plucked up courage, and 
 repaired to her ladyship's. There I again beheld the divine 
 Lady Margaret; and, observing that she turned yellow, by way 
 of a blush, when she saw me, I profited by the port I had drunk 
 as an encouragement to my entree, and lounging up in the most 
 modish way possible, I reminded her ladyship of an introduc- 
 tion with which I said I had once been honored at the Duke of 
 Dash well's, and requested her hand for the next cotillon. Oh, 
 Paul ! fancy my triumph ! the old damsel said with a sigh, 'She 
 remembered me very well, ' ha ! ha ! ha ! and I carried her off to 
 the cotillon like another Theseus bearing away a second Ariadne. 
 Not to be prolix on this part of my life, I went night after 
 night to balls and routs, for admission to which half the fine 
 gentlemen in London would have given their ears. And I im- 
 proved my time so well with Lady Margaret, who was her own 
 mistress, and had five thousand pounds a devilish bad portion 
 for some, but not to be laughed at by me that I began to think 
 when the happy day should be fixed. Meanwhile, as Lady 
 Margaret introduced me to some of her friends, and my lodg- 
 ings were in a good situation, I had been honored with some 
 real invitations. The only two questions I ever was asked were 
 (carelessly), 'Was I the only son?' and on my veritable answer 
 'Yes!' 'What (this was more warmly put) what was my 
 county?' Luckily, my county was a wide one, Yorkshire ; and 
 any of its inhabitants whom the fair interrogators might have 
 questioned about me could only have answered, 'I was not in 
 their part of it.' 
 
 "Well, Paul, I grew so bold by success, that the devil one 
 day put into my head to go to a great dinner-party at the Duke 
 of Dashwell's. I went, dined, nothing happened: I came 
 away, and the next morning I read in the papers: 
 
 ' 'Mysterious affair, person lately going about, first
 
 82 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 houses most fashionable parties nobody knows Duke of 
 Dashwell's yesterday. Duke not like to make disturbance 
 as royalty present.'* 
 
 "The journal dropped from my hands. At that moment, 
 the girl of the house gave me a note from Lady Margaret, 
 alluded to the paragraph ; wondered who was ' the Stranger' ; 
 
 hoped to see me that night at Lord A 's, to whose party 
 
 I said I had been asked; speak then more fully on those 
 matters I had touched on ! in short, dear Paul, a tender epistle! 
 All great men are fatalists : I am one now : fate made me a mad- 
 man : in the very face of this ominous paragraph I mustered up 
 
 courage, and went that night to Lord A 's. The fact is, 
 
 my affairs were in confusion ; I was greatly in debt : I knew it 
 was necessary to finish my conquest over Lady Margaret as soon 
 
 as possible ; and Lord A 's seemed the best place for the 
 
 purpose. Nay, I thought delay so dangerous, after the cursed 
 paragraph, that a day might unmask me, and it would be better 
 therefore not to lose an hour in finishing the play of 'The 
 Stranger,' with the farce of the 'Honey Moon.' Behold me 
 
 then at Lord A 's, leading off Lady Margaret to the dance. 
 
 Behold me whispering the sweetest of things in her ear. Im- 
 agine her approving my suit, and gently chiding me for talking 
 of Gretna Green. Conceive all this, my dear fellow, and just 
 at the height of my triumph, dilate the eyes of your imagination, 
 
 and behold the stately form of Lord A , my noble host, 
 
 marching up to me, while a voice that, though low and quiet 
 as an evening breeze, made my heart sink into my shoes, said, 
 'I believe, sir, you have received no invitation from Lady 
 A ?' 
 
 "Not a word could I utter, Paul, not a word. Had it been 
 the high-road instead of a ball-room, I could have talked loudly 
 enough, but I was under a spell. 'Ehem!' I faltered at 
 last: 'E-h-e-m! Some mis-take, I I.' There I stopped. 
 Sir,' said the Earl, regarding me with a grave sternness, 'you 
 had better withdraw!' 
 
 ' 'Bless me! what's all this?' cried Lady Margaret, dropping 
 my palsied arm, and gazing on me as if she expected me to 
 talk like a hero. 
 
 ' 'Oh,' said I, 'Eh-e-m, eh-e-m, I will exp-lain to-mor- 
 row, ehem, e-h-e-m.' I made to the door; all the eyes 
 in the room seemed turned ' into burning glasses, and blis- 
 tered the very skin on my face. I heard a gentle shriek as I 
 \efttheapartment; Lady Margaret fainting, I suppose! There 
 
 * Fact.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 3 
 
 ended my courtship and my adventures in 'the best society.' 
 I fell melancholy at the ill success of my scheme. You must 
 allow, it was a magnificent project. What moral courage! I 
 admire myself when I think of it. Without an introduction, 
 without knowing a soul, to become, all by my own resolution, 
 free of the finest houses in London, dancing with earls' daugh- 
 ters, and all but carrying off an earl's daughter myself as my 
 wife. If I had, the friends-///^/ have done something forme; 
 and Lady Margaret Tomlinson might perhaps have introduced 
 the youthful genius of her Augustus to Parliament or the minis- 
 try. Oh, what a fall was there ! yet faith, ha ! ha ! ha ! I 
 could not help laughing, despite of my chagrin, when I remem- 
 bered that for three months I had imposed on these 'delicate 
 exclusives, ' and been literally invited by many of them, who 
 would not have asked the younger sons of their own cousins ; 
 merely because I lived in a good street, avowed myself an 
 only child, and talked of my property in Yorkshire! Ha, ha! 
 how bitter the mercenary dupes must have felt when the dis- 
 covery was made! what a pill for the good matrons who had 
 coupled my image with that of some filial Mary or Jane, na ! 
 ha! ha! the triumph was almost worth the mortification. How- 
 ever, as I said before, I fell melancholy on it, especially as my 
 duns became menacing. So, I went to consult with my cousin 
 the bookseller: he recommended me to compose for the jour- 
 nals, and obtained me an offer. I went to work very patiently 
 for a short time, and contracted some agreeable friendships 
 with gentlemen whom I met at an ordinary in St. James's. 
 Still, my duns, though I paid them by driblets, were the plague 
 of my life : I confessed as much to one of my new friends. 
 'Come to Bath with me,' quoth he, 'for a week, and you shall 
 return as rich as a Jew.' I accepted the offer, and went to 
 Bath in my friend's chariot. He took the name of Lord Dun- 
 shunner, an Irish peer who had never been out of Tipperary, 
 and was not therefore likely to be known at Bath. He 
 took also a house for a year, filled it with wines, books, and a 
 sideboard of plate: as he talked vaguely of setting up his 
 younger brother to stand for the town at the next Parliament, 
 he bought these goods of the townspeople, in order to encour- 
 age their trade: I managed secretly to transport them to Lon- 
 don and sell them; and as we disposed of them fifty per cent, 
 under cost price, our customers, the pawnbrokers, were not very 
 inquisitive. We lived a jolly life at Bath for a couple of 
 months, and departed one night, leaving our housekeeper to 
 answer all interrogatories. V,\> h id taken the precaution to
 
 84 PAtJL CLIFFORD, 
 
 wear disguises, had stuffed ourselves out, and changed the 
 hues of our hair: my noble friend was an adept in these trans- 
 formations, and though the police did not sleep on the busi- 
 ness, they never stumbled on us. I am especially glad we 
 were not discovered, for I liked Bath excessively, and I in- 
 tend to return there some of these days and retire from the 
 world on an heiress! 
 
 "Well, Paul, shortly after this adventure, I made your ac- 
 quaintance. I continued ostensibly my literary profession, but 
 only as a mask for the labors I did not profess. A circum- 
 stance obliged me to leave London rather precipitately. Lord 
 Dunshunner joined me in Edinburgh. D n it, instead of 
 doing anything there, we were done! The veriest urchin that 
 ever crept through the High Street is more tnan a match for 
 the most scientific of Englishmen. With us it is art; with the 
 Scotch it is nature. They pick your pockets, without using 
 their fingers for it ; and they prevent reprisal, by having noth- 
 ing for you to pick. 
 
 "We left Edinburgh with very long faces, and at Carlisle we 
 found it necessary to separate. For my part, I went as a valet 
 to a. nobleman who had just lost his last servant at Carlisle by a 
 fever : my friend gave me the best of characters. My new mas- 
 ter was a very clever man. He astonished people at dinner by 
 the impromptus he prepared at breakfast ; in a word, he was 
 a wit. He soon saw, for he was learned himself, that I had 
 received a classical education, and he employed me in the con- 
 fidential capacity of finding quotations for him. I classed these 
 alphabetically and under three heads : 'Parliamentary, Liter- 
 ary, Dining-out.' These were again subdivided into 'Fine/- 
 "Learned," and 'Jocular'; so that my master knew at once 
 where to refer for genius, wisdom, and wit. He was delighted 
 with my management of his intellects. In compliment to him, 
 I paid more attention to politics than I had done before, for he 
 was a 'great Whig, ' and uncommonly liberal in everything, 
 but money ! Hence, Paul, the origin of my political principles ; 
 and, I thank Heaven, there is not now a rogue in England who 
 is a better, that is to say, more of a moderate Whig than your 
 humble servant ! I continued with him nearly a year. He 
 discharged me for a fault worthy of my genius; other servants 
 may lose the watch or the coat of their master; I went at 
 nobler game and lost him his private character! ''' 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 ' 'Why, I was enamoured of a lady who would not have looked 
 ^t me as Mr. Tomlinson; so I took my master's clothes, and
 
 i>AtiL 
 
 occasionally his carriage, and made love to my nymph, as Lord 
 
 . Her vanity made her indiscreet. The Tory papers got 
 hold of it; and my master, in a change of ministers, was declared 
 by George the Third to be 'too gay for a Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer.' An old gentleman who had had fifteen children by a 
 wife like a Gorgon was chosen instead of my master : and al- 
 though the new minister was a fool in his public capacity, the 
 moral public were perfectly content with him, because of his 
 private virtues ! 
 
 "My master was furious, made the strictest inquiry, found 
 me out, and turned me out too ! 
 
 "A Whig not in place has an excuse for disliking the consti- 
 tution. My distress almost made me a republican ; but, true 
 to my creed, I must confess that I would only have levelled 
 upwards. I especially disaffected the inequality of riches: I 
 looked moodily on every carriage that passed. I even frowned 
 like a second Catiline at the steam of a gentleman's kitchen ! 
 My last situation had not been lucrative ; I had neglected my 
 perquisites, in my ardor for politics. My master, too, refused 
 to give me a character : who would take me without one? 
 
 "I was asking myself this melancholy question one morning, 
 when I suddenly encountered one of the fine friends I had 
 picked up at my old haunt, the ordinary, in St. James's. His 
 name was Pepper." 
 
 "Pepper!" cried Paul. 
 
 Without heeding the exclama.tion, Tomlinson continued : 
 
 "We went to a tavern and drank a bottle together. Wine 
 made me communicative; it also opened my comrade's heart. 
 He asked me to take a ride with him that night toward* 
 Hounslow: I did so, and found a purse," 
 
 "How fortunate! Where?" 
 
 "In a gentleman's pocket. I was so pleased with my luck, 
 that I went the same road twice a week, in order to see if I 
 could pick up any more purses. Fate favored me, and I lived 
 for a long time the life of the blest. Oh, Paul, you know not 
 you know not what a glorious life is that of a highwayman : 
 but you shall taste it one of these days; you shall, on my 
 honor. 
 
 "I now lived with a club of honest fellows: we called our- 
 selves 'The Exclusives, ' for we were mighty reserved in our 
 associates, and only those who did business on a grand scale 
 were admitted into our set. For my part, with all my love for 
 my profession, I liked ingenuity still better than force, and pre- 
 ferred what the vulgar call s-.vindling, even to the highroad.
 
 86 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 On an expedition of this sort, I rode once into a country town, 
 and saw a crowd assembled in one corner; I joined it, and, - 
 guess my feelings! beheld my poor friend, Viscount Dun- 
 shunner, just about to be hanged! I rode off as fast as I 
 could ; I thought I saw Jack Ketch at my heels. My horse 
 threw me at a hedge, and I broke my collar-bone. In the con- 
 finement that ensued gloomy ideas floated before me. I did 
 not like to be hanged! so I reasoned against my errors, and 
 repented. I recovered slowly, returned to town, and repaired 
 to my cousin the bookseller. To say truth, I had played him a 
 little trick : collected some debts of his by a mistake, very nat- 
 ural in the confusion incident on my distresses. However, he 
 was extremely unkind about it ; and the mistake, natural as it 
 was, had cost me his acquaintance. 
 
 "I went now to him with the penitential aspect of the prodigal 
 son, and, faith, he would not have made a, bad representation 
 of the fatted calf about to be killed on my return : so corpulent 
 looked he, and so dejected! 'Graceless reprobate!' he began, 
 'your poor father is dead ! ' I was exceedingly shocked ! but 
 never fear, Paul, I am not about to be pathetic. My father had 
 divided his fortune among all his children ; my share was 500. 
 The possession of this sum made my penitence seem much 
 more sincere in the eyes of my good cousin ! and after a very 
 pathetic scene he took me once more into favor. I now con- 
 sulted with him as to the best method of laying out my capital 
 and recovering my character. We could not devise any 
 scheme at the first conference ; but the second time I saw him, 
 my cousin said with a cheerful countenance, 'Cheer up, Augus- 
 tus, I have got thee a situation. Mr. Asgrave, the banker, will 
 take thee as a clerk. He is a most worthy man ; and having a 
 vast deal of learning, he will respect thee for thy acquirements.' 
 The same day I was introduced to Mr. Asgrave, who was a lit- 
 tle man with a fine bald benevolent head ; and after a long con- 
 versation which he was pleased to hold with me, I became one 
 of his quill-drivers. I don't know how it was, but by little 
 and little I rose in my master's good graces: I propitiated him 
 I fancy, by disposing of my 500, according to his advice: he 
 laid it out for me, on what he said was famous security, on a 
 landed estate. Mr. Asgrave was of social habits ; he had a 
 capital house and excellent wines. As he was not very partic- 
 ular in his company, nor ambitious of visiting the great, he of ten 
 suffered me to make one of his table, and was pleased to hold 
 long arguments with me about the ancients. I soon found 
 put that my master was a great moral philosopher ; and being
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 87 
 
 myself in weak health, sated with the ordinary pursuits of the 
 world, in which my experience had forestalled my years, and 
 naturally of a contemplative temperament, I turned my atten- 
 tion to the moral studies which so fascinated my employer. I 
 read through nine shelves full of metaphysicians, and knew ex- 
 actly the points in which those illustrious thinkers quarrelled with 
 each other, to the great advance of the science. My master 
 and I used to hold many a long discussion about the nature of 
 good and evil ; and as by help of his benevolent forehead, and a 
 clear dogged voice, he always seemed to our audience to be the 
 wiser and better man of the two, he was very well pleased with 
 our disputes. This gentleman had an only daughter, an awful 
 shrew with a face like a hatchet: but philosophers overcome 
 personal defects ; and thinking only of the good her wealth 
 might enable me to do to my fellow-creatures, I secretly made 
 love to her. You will say, that was playing my master but a 
 scurvy trick in return for his kindness: not at all. My master 
 himself had convinced me that there was no such virtue as grat- 
 itude. It was an error of vulgar moralists. I yielded to his 
 arguments, and at length privately espoused his daughter. The 
 day after this took place he summoned me to his study. 'So, 
 Augustus,' said he very mildly, 'you have married my daugh- 
 ter: nay, never look confused ; I saw a long time ago that you 
 were resolved to do so, and I was very glad of it.' 
 
 "I attempted to falter out something like thanks. 'Never 
 interrupt me!' said he. 'I had two reasons for being glad: 
 Firstly, because my daughter was the plague of my life, and I 
 wanted some one to take her off my hands ; secondly, because 
 I required your assistance on a particular point, and I could 
 not venture to ask it of any one but my son-in-law. In fine, 
 I wish to take you into partnership!" 
 
 ' 'Partnership!' cried I, falling on my knees. 'Noble, gen- 
 erous man!' 
 
 ' 'Stay a bit,' continued my father-in-law. 'What funds do 
 you think requisite for carrying on a bank? You look puzzled ! 
 Not a shilling! You will put in just as much as I do. You 
 will put in rather more: for you once put in five hundred 
 pounds, which has been spent long ago. / don't put in a shill- 
 ing of my own. I live on my clients, and I very willingly offer 
 you half of them!" 
 
 "Imagine, dear Paul, my astonishment, my dismay! I saw 
 myself married to a hideous shrew, son-in-law to a penniless 
 scoundrel, and cheated out of my whole fortune! Compare 
 this view of the question with that which had blazed on me
 
 88 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 when I contemplated being son-in-law to the rich Mr. Asgrave, 
 I stormed at first. Mr. Asgrave took up Bacon On the Ad- 
 vancement of Learning, and made no reply till I was cooled by 
 explosion. You will perceive that, when passion subsided, 1 
 necessarily saw that nothing was left for me but adopting my 
 father-in-law's proposal. Thus, by the fatality which attended 
 me, at the very time I meant to reform, I was forced into 
 scoundrelism, and I was driven into defrauding a vast number 
 of persons by the accident of being son-in-law to a great mor- 
 alist. As Mr. Asgrave was an indolent man, who passed his 
 mornings in speculations on virtue, I was made the active part- 
 ner. I spent the day at the counting-house ; and when I came 
 home for recreation my wife scratched my eyes out." 
 
 "But were you never recognized as 'the stranger,' or 'the 
 adventurer,' in your new capacity?" 
 
 "No; for, of course, I assumed, in all my changes, both 
 aliases and disguises. And, to tell you the truth, my marriage 
 so altered me that, what with a snuff-colored coat and a brown 
 scratch wig, with a pen in my right ear, I looked the very pic- 
 ture of staid respectability. My face grew an inch longer every 
 day. Nothing is so respectable as a long face! and a subdued 
 expression of countenance is the surest sign of commercial 
 prosperity. Well, we went on splendidly enough for about a 
 year. Meanwhile I was wonderfully improved in philosophy. 
 You have no idea how a scolding wife sublimes and rarefies 
 one's intellect. Thunder clears the air, you know ! At length, 
 unhappily for my fame (for I contemplated a magnificent moral 
 history of man, which, had she lived a year longer, I should 
 have completed), my wife died in child-bed. My father-in- 
 law and I were talking over the event, and finding fault with 
 civilization, by the enervating habits by which women die of 
 their children, instead of bringing them forth without being 
 even conscious of the circumstance, when a bit of paper, sealed 
 awry, was given to my partner: he looked over it, finished the 
 discussion, and then told me our bank had stopped payment. 
 'Now, Augustus,' said he, lighting his pipe with the bit of 
 paper, 'you see the good of having nothing to lose!' 
 
 "We did not pay quite sixpence in the pound; but my part- 
 ner was thought so unfortunate that the British public raised a 
 subscription for him, and he retired on an annuity, greatly re- 
 spected and very much compassionated. As I had not been so 
 well known as a moralist, and had not the prepossessing advan- 
 tage of a bald benevolent head, nothing was done for me, and 
 I was turned once more on the wide world to moralize on the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 89 
 
 vicissitudes of fortune. My cousin the bookseller was no more, 
 and his son cut me. I took a garret in Warwick Court, and 
 with a few books, my only consolation, I endeavored to nerve 
 my mind to the future. It was at this time, Paul, that my stud- 
 ies really availed me. I meditated much, and I became a true 
 philosopher, viz. a practical one. My actions were henceforth 
 regulated by principle ; and, at some time or other, I will con- 
 vince you that the road of true morals never avoids the pockets 
 of your neighbor. So soon as my mind had made the grand 
 discovery which Mr. Asgrave had made before me, that one 
 should live according to a system, for if you do wrong, it is 
 then your system that errs, not you, I took to the road, with- 
 out any of those stings of conscience which had hitherto an- 
 noyed me in such adventures. I formed one of a capital knot 
 of 'Free Agents,' whom I will introduce to you some day or 
 other, and I soon rose to distinction among them. But, about 
 six weeks ago, not less than formerly preferring byways to 
 highways, I attempted to possess myself of a carriage, and 
 sell it at discount. I was acquitted on the felony ; but sent 
 hither by Justice Burnflat on the misdemeanor. Thus far, 
 my young friend, hath as yet proceeded the life of Augustus 
 Tomlinson." 
 
 The history of this gentleman made a deep impression on 
 Paul. The impression was strengthened by the conversations 
 subsequently holden with Augustus. That worthy was a dan- 
 gerous and subtle persuader. He had really read a good deal 
 of history, and something of morals ; and he had an ingenious 
 way of defending his rascally practices by syllogisms from the 
 latter, and examples from the former. These theories he 
 clenched, as it were, by a reference to the existing politics of 
 the day. Cheaters of the public, on false pretences, he 
 was pleased to term "moderate Whigs" ; bullying demanders of 
 your purse were "high Tories" ; and thieving in gangs was 
 " the effect of the spirit of party." There was this difference 
 between Augustus Tomlinson and Long Ned: Ned was the 
 acting knave ; Augustus the reasoning one ; and we may see, 
 therefore, by a little reflection, that Tomlinson was a far more 
 perilous companion than Pepper, for showy theories are always 
 more seductive to the young and clever than suasive examples, 
 and the vanity of the youthful makes them better pleased by 
 being convinced of a thing, than by being enticed to it. 
 
 A day or two after the narrative of Mr. Tomlinson, Paul was 
 again visited by Mrs. Lobkins ; for the regulations against fre- 
 quent visitors were not then so strictly enforced as we under-
 
 90 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 stand them to be now ; and the good dame came to deplore the 
 ill success of her interview with Justice Burnflat. 
 
 We spare the tender-hearted reader a detail of the affecting 
 interview that ensued. Indeed, it was but a repetition of the 
 one we have before narrated. We shall only say, as a proof of 
 Paul's tenderness of heart, that when he took leave of the good 
 matron, and bade "God bless her," his voice faltered, and the 
 tears stood in his eyes just as they were wont to do in the eyes 
 of George the Third when that excellent monarch was pleased 
 graciously to encore "God save the King!" 
 
 "I'll be hanged," soliloquized our hero, as he slowly bent 
 his course towards the subtle Augustus, "I'll be hanged 
 (humph ! the denunciation is prophetic), if I don't feel as grate- 
 ful to the old lady for her care of me as if she had never ill- 
 used me. As for my parents, I believe I have little to be grate- 
 ful for, or proud of, in that quarter. My poor mother, by all 
 accounts, seems scarcely to have had even the brute virtue of 
 maternal tenderness ; and in all human likelihood I shall never 
 know whether I had one father or fifty. But what matters it? 
 I rather like the better to be independent ; and, after all, what 
 do nine-tenths of us ever get from our parents but an ugly name, 
 and advice which, if we follow, we are wretched ; and if we 
 neglect, we are disinherited?" 
 
 Comforting himself with these thoughts, which perhaps took 
 their philosophical complexion from the conversations he had 
 lately held with Augustus, and which broke off into the mut- 
 tered air of 
 
 " Why should we quarrel for riches ?" 
 Paul repaired to his customary avocations. 
 
 In the third week of our hero's captivity, Tomlinson com- 
 municated to him a plan of escape that had occurred to his sa- 
 gacious brain. In the yard appropriated to the amusement of 
 the gentlemen "misdemeaning," there was a water-pipe that, 
 skirting the wall, passed over a door, through which, every 
 morning, the pious captives passed, in their way to the chapel. 
 By this Tomlinson proposed to escape ; for to the pipe which 
 reached from the door to the wall, in a slanting and easy direc- 
 tion, there was a sort of skirting-board ; and a dexterous and 
 nimble man might readily, by the help of this board, convey 
 himself along the pipe, until the progress of that useful con- 
 ductor (which was happily very brief) was stopped by the sum- 
 mit of the wall, where it found a sequel in another pipe, that 
 descended to the ground on the opposite side of the wall. Now, 
 on this opposite side was the garden of the prison ; in this gar
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 9! 
 
 den was a watchman ; and this watchman was the hobgoblin of 
 Tomlinson's scheme: "For, suppose us safe in the garden," 
 said he "what shall we do with this confounded fellow?" 
 
 "But that is not all," added Paul; "for even were there no 
 watchman, there is a terrible wall, which I noted especially last 
 week, when we were set to work in the garden, and which has 
 no pipe, save a perpendicular one, that a man must have the 
 legs of a fly to be able to climb!" 
 
 "Nonsense!" returned Tomlinson : "I will show you how to 
 climb the stubbornest wall in Christendom, if one has but the 
 coast clear : it is the watchman the watchman, we must 
 
 "What?" asked Paul, observing his comrade did not con- 
 clude the sentence. 
 
 It was some time before the sage Augustus replied ; he then 
 said, in a musing tone: 
 
 "I have been thinking, Paul, whether it would be consistent 
 with virtue, and that strict code of morals by which all my 
 actions are regulated, to slay the watchman!" 
 
 "Good heavens!" cried Paul, horror-stricken. 
 
 "And I have decided," continued Augustus solemnly, with 
 out regard to the exclamation, "that the action would be per- 
 fectly justifiable!" 
 
 "Villain!" exclaimed Paul, recoiling to the other end of the 
 stone box (for it was night) in which they were cooped. 
 
 "But," pursued Augustus, who seemed soliloquizing, and 
 whose voice, sounding calm and thoughtful, like Young's in the 
 fimous monologue in Hamlet, denoted that he heeded not the 
 imcourteous interruption; "but opinion does not always influ- 
 ence conduct; and although it may be virtuous to murder the 
 watchman, I have not the heart to do it. I trust in my future 
 history I shall not, by discerning moralists, be too severely cen- 
 sured for a weakness for which my physical temperament is 
 alone to blame!" 
 
 Despite the turn of the soliloquy, it was a long time before 
 Paul could be reconciled to further conversation with Augus- 
 tus; and it was only from the belief that the moralist had 
 leaned to the jesting vein that he at length resumed the con- 
 sultation. 
 
 The conspirators did not, however, bring their scheme that 
 night to any ultimate decision. The next day, Augustus, Paul, 
 and some others of the company, were set to work in the gar- 
 den ; and Paul then observed that his friend, wheeling a barrow 
 close by the spot where the watchman stood, overturned its 
 contents. The watchman was good-natured enough to assist
 
 92 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 him in refilling the barrow; and Tomlinson profited so well by 
 the occasion, that, that night, he informed Paul that they would 
 have nothing to dread from the watchman's vigilance. "He 
 has promised," said Augustus, "for certain con-si-de-ra-ti- 
 ons, to allow me to knock him down : he has also promised to 
 be so much hurt as not to be able to move until we are over the 
 wall. Our main difficulty now, then, is, the first step, 
 namely, to climb the pipe unperceived ! " 
 
 "As to that," said Paul, who developed, through the whole 
 of the scheme, organs of sagacity, boldness, and invention, 
 which charmed his friend, and certainly promised well for his 
 future career; "as to that, I think we may manage the first 
 ascent with less danger then you imagine; the mornings of 
 late, have been very foggy ; they are almost dark at the hour 
 we go to the chapel. Let you and I close the file : the pipe 
 passes just above the door; our hands, as we have tried, can 
 reach it ; and a spring of no great agility will enable us to raise 
 ourselves up to a footing on the pipe and the skirting-board. 
 The climbing, then, is easy ; and, what with the dense fog, and 
 our own quickness, I think we shall have little difficulty in 
 gaining the garden. The only precautions we need use are, to 
 wait for a very dark morning, and to be sure that we are the 
 last of the file, so that no one behind may give the alarm " 
 
 "Or attempt to follow our example, and spoil the pie by a 
 superfluous plum!" added Augustus. "You counsel admir- 
 ably ; and one of these days, if you are not hung in the mean 
 while, will, I venture to augur, be a great logician." 
 
 The next morning was clear and frosty ; but the day after 
 was, to use Tomlinson's simile, "as dark as if all the negroes 
 of Africa had been stewed down into air." "You might have 
 cut the fog with a knife," as the proverb says. Paul and 
 Augustus could not even see how significantly each looked at 
 the other 
 
 It was a remarkable trait of the daring temperament of the 
 former, that, young as he was, it was fixed that he should lead 
 the attempt. At the hour, then, for chapel, the prisoners 
 passed through the door. When it came to Paul's turn, he 
 drew himself by his hands to the pipe, and then creeping along 
 its sinuous course, gained the wall before he had even fetched 
 his breath. Rather more clumsily Augustus followed his 
 friend's example: once his foot slipped, and he was all but 
 over. He extended his hands involuntarily, and caught Paul 
 by the leg; Happily our hero had then gained the wall, to 
 which he was clinging, and for once in a way, one rogue raised
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 93 
 
 himself without throwing over another. Behold Tomlinson and 
 Paul now seated for an instant on the wall to recover breath ! 
 the latter then, the descent to the ground was not very great, 
 letting his body down by his hands, dropped into the 
 garden. 
 
 "Hurt?" asked the prudent Augustus in a hoarse whisper 
 before he descended from his "bad eminence," being even 
 willing 
 
 " To bear those ills he had, 
 Than fly to others that he knew not of." 
 
 without taking every previous precaution in his power. 
 
 "No! ' was the answer in the same voice, and Augustus 
 dropped. 
 
 So soon as this latter worthy had recovered the shock of his 
 fall, he lost not a moment in running to the other end of the 
 garden: Paul followed. By the way Tomlinson stopped at a 
 heap of rubbish, and picked up an immense stone ; when they 
 came to the part of the wall they had agreed to scale, they 
 found the watchman, about whom they needed not, by the by, 
 to have concerned themselves ; for had it not been arranged 
 that he was to have met them, the deep fog would have effect- 
 ually prevented him from seeing them : this faithful guardian 
 Augustus knocked down, not with the stone, but with ten guin- 
 eas ; he then drew forth from his dress a thickish cord which 
 he had procured, some days before, from the turnkey, and fas- 
 tening the stone firmly to one end, threw that end over the 
 wall. Now the wall had (as walls of great strength mostly 
 have) an overhanging sort ol battlement on either side, and the 
 stone, when flung over and drawn to the tether of the cord to 
 which it was attached, necessarily hitched against this projec- 
 tion ; and thus the cord was, as it were, fastened to the wall, and 
 Tomlinson was enabled by it to draw himself up to the top of the 
 barrier. He performed this feat with gymnastic address, like 
 one who had often practised it ; albeit, the discreet adven- 
 turer had not mentioned in his narrative to Paul any previous 
 occasion for the practice. As soon as he had gained the top of 
 the wall he threw down the cord to his companion, and in con- 
 sideration of Paul's inexperience in that manner of climbing, 
 gave the fastening to the rope an additional security by holding 
 it himself. With slowness and labor Paul hoisted himself up; 
 and then, by transferring the stone to the other side of the wall, 
 where it made, of course, a similar hitch, our two adventurers 
 were enabled successively to slide down, and consummate their 
 escape from the house of correction.
 
 94 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "Follow me now!" said Augustus, as he took to his heels; 
 and Paul pursued him through a labyrinth of alleys and lanes, 
 through which he shot and dodged with a variable and shifting 
 celerity that, had not Paul kept close upon him, would very 
 soon (combined with the fog) have snatched him from the eyes 
 of his young ally. Happily the immaturity of the morning, the 
 obscurity of the streets passed through, and, above all, the 
 extreme darkness of the atmosphere, prevented that detection 
 and arrest which their prisoner's garb would otherwise have 
 insured them. At length they found themselves in the fields ; 
 and, skulking along hedges, and diligently avoiding the high 
 road, they continued to fly onward, until they had advanced 
 several miles into "the bowels of the land." At that time "the 
 bowels" of Augustus Tomlinson began to remind him of their 
 demands; and he accordingly suggested the desirability of their 
 seizing the first peasant they encountered, and causing him to 
 exchange clothes with one of the fugitives, who would thus be 
 enabled to enter a public-house and provide for their mutual 
 necessities. Paul agreed to this proposition, and, accordingly, 
 they watched their opportunity and caught a ploughman. 
 Augustus stripped him of his frock, hat, and worsted stockings ; 
 and Paul, hardened by necessity and companionship, helped 
 to tie the poor ploughman to a tree. They then continued their 
 progress for about an hour, and, as the shades of evening fell 
 around them, they discovered a public-house. Augustus en- 
 tered, and returned in a few minutes laden with bread and 
 cheese, and a bottle of beer. Prison fare cures a man of dain- 
 tiness, and the two fugitives dined on these homely viands with 
 considerable complacency. They then resumed their journey, 
 and at length, wearied with exertion, they arrived at a lonely 
 haystack, where they resolved to repose for an hour or two.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 95 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 *' Unlike the ribald, whose licentious jest 
 Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest ; 
 From wealth and grandeur easy to descend, 
 Thou joy'st to lose the master in the friend ; 
 We round thy board the cheerful menials see, 
 Gay with the smile of bland equality ; 
 No social care the gracious lord disdains ; 
 Love prompts to love, and reverence reverence gains." 
 Translation of Luc AN to Pi so, prefixed to the Twelfth Paper of ' The 
 Rambler." 
 
 COYLY shone down the bashful stars upon our adventurers, 
 as, after a short nap behind the haystack, they stretched them- 
 selves, and, looking at each other, burst into an involuntary and 
 hilarious laugh at the prosperous termination of their exploit. 
 
 Hitherto they had been too occupied, first by their flight, 
 then by hunger, then by fatigue, for self-gratulation ; now they 
 rubbed their hands, and joked like runaway school-boys, at 
 their escape. 
 
 By degrees their thoughts turned from the past to the future; 
 and "Tell me, my dear fellow," said Augustus, "what you in- 
 tend to do. I trust I have long ago convinced you that it is no 
 sin 'to serve our friends' and to 'be true to our party' ; and 
 therefore, I suppose, you will decide upon taking to the road!" 
 
 "It is very odd," answered Paul, "that I should have any 
 scruples left after your lectures on the subject ; but I own to you 
 frankly, that, somehow or other, I have doubts whether thiev- 
 ing be really the honestest profession I could follow." 
 
 "Listen to me, Paul," answered Augustus; and his reply is 
 not unworthy of notice. "All crime and all excellence depend 
 upon a good choice of words. I see you look puzzled ; I will 
 explain. If you take money from the public, and say you have 
 robbed, you have indubitably committed a great crime; but if 
 you do the same, and say you have been relieving the necessi- 
 ties of the poor, you have done an excellent action: if, in 
 afterwards dividing this money with your companions, you say 
 you have been sharing booty, you have committed an offence 
 against the laws of your country; but if you observe that you 
 have been sharing with your friends the gains of your industry, 
 you have been performing one of the noblest actions of human- 
 ity. To knock a man on the head is neither virtuous nor 
 guilty, but it depends upon the language applied to the action
 
 g6 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 to make it murder or glory.* Why not say, then, that you 
 have testified ' the courage of a hero,' rather than ' the atrocity 
 of a ruffian ' ? This is perfectly clear, is it not ? " 
 
 " It seems so," answered Paul. 
 
 " It is so self-evident, that it is the way all governments are 
 carried on. Wherefore, my good Paul, we only do what all 
 other legislators do. We are never rogues so long as we call 
 ourselves honest fellows, and we never commit a crime so long 
 as we can term it a virtue ! What say you now?' ' 
 
 Paul smiled, and was silent a few moments before he replied : 
 
 "There is very little doubt but that you are wrong; yet if 
 you are, so are all the rest of the world. It is of no use to 
 be the only white sheep of the flock. Wherefore, my dear 
 Tomlinson, I will in future be an excellent citizen, relieve the 
 necessities of the poor, and share the gains of my industry with 
 my friends." 
 
 "Bravo!" cried Tomlinson. "And now that that is set- 
 tled, the sooner you are inaugurated the better. Since the 
 starlight has shone forth, I see that I am in a place I ought to 
 be very well acquainted with ; or, if you like to be suspicious, 
 you may believe that I have brought you purposely in this 
 direction: but first let me ask if you feel any great desire to 
 pass the night by this haystack, or whether you would like a 
 song and the punch-bowl almost as much as the open air, with 
 the chance of being eaten up in a pinch of hay by some stroll- 
 ing cow!" 
 
 "You may conceive my choice," answered Paul. 
 
 "Well, then, there is an excellent fellow near here who keeps 
 a public-house, and is a firm and generous patron of the lads of 
 the cross. At certain periods they hold weekly meetings at 
 his house : this is one of the nights. What say you? shall I 
 introduce you to the club?" 
 
 "I shall be very glad, if they will admit me!" returned Paul, 
 whom many and conflicting thoughts rendered laconic. 
 
 "Oh! no fear of that, under my auspices. To tell you the 
 truth, though we are a tolerant sect, we welcome every new 
 proselyte with enthusiasm. But are you tired?" 
 
 "A little; the house is not far, you say?" 
 
 "About a mile off," answered Tomlinson. "Lean on me." 
 
 Our wanderers, now leaving the haystack, struck across part 
 
 * We observe in a paragraph from an American paper, copied without comment into the 
 jllorning Chronicle, a singular proof of the truth of Tomlinson's philosophy. " Mr. Row- 
 land Stephenson (so runs the extract), the celebrated English banker, has just purchased a 
 considerable tract of land," etc. Most philosophical of paragraphists ! " Celebrated Eng- 
 lish banker ! " thai sentence is a better illustration of verbal fallacies than all Bentham s 
 treatises put together. "Celebrated / " O Mercury, what a dexterous epithet I
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 97 
 
 of Finchley Common, for the abode of the worthy publican was 
 felicitously situated, and the scene in which his guests cele- 
 brated their festivities was close by that on which they often 
 performed their exploits. 
 
 As they proceeded, Paul questioned his friend touching the 
 name and character of "mine host"; and the all-knowing 
 Augustus Tomlinson answered him, Quaker-like, by a ques- 
 tion: 
 
 "Have you never heard of Gentleman George?" 
 
 "What! the noted head of a flash public-house in the coun- 
 try? To be sure I have, often; my poor nurse, Dame Lobkins, 
 used to say he was the best-spoken man of the trade!" 
 
 "Ay, so he is still. In his youth George was a very hand- 
 some fellow, but a little too fond of his lass and his bottle to 
 please his father, a very staid old gentleman, who walked about 
 on Sundays in a bob-wig and a gold-headed cane, and was a 
 much better farmer on week-days than he was head of a public- 
 house. George used to be a remarkably smart-dressed fellow, 
 and so he is to this day. He has a great deal of wit, is a very 
 good whist-player, has a capital cellar, and is so fond of seeing 
 his friends drunk that he bought some time ago a large pewter 
 measure in which six men can stand upright. The girls, or 
 rather the old women, to which last he used to be much more 
 civil of the two, always liked him ; they say nothing is so fine 
 as his fine speeches, and they give him the title of 'Gentleman 
 George.' He is a nice, kind-hearted man in many things. Pray 
 Heaven we shall have no cause to miss him when he departs. 
 But, to tell you the truth, he takes more than his share of our 
 common purse." 
 
 "What, is he avaricious?" 
 
 "Quite the reverse; but he's so cursedly fond of building, 
 he invests all his money (and wants us to invest all ours) in 
 houses; and there's one confounded dog of a bricklayer who 
 runs him up terrible bills, a fellow called 'Cunning Nat,' who 
 is equally adroit in spoiling ground and improving ground rent. " 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 1 'Ah ! thereby hangs a tale. But we are near the place now ; 
 you will see a curious set." 
 
 As Tomlinson said this the pair approached a house standing 
 alone, and seemingly without any other abode in the vicinity. 
 It was of curious and grotesque shape, painted white, with a 
 Gothic chimney, a Chinese sign-post (on which was depicted 
 a gentleman fishing, with the words "The Jolly Angler" written 
 beneath), and a porch that would have been Grecian, if it had
 
 98 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 not been Dutch. It stood in a little field, with a hedge behind 
 it, and the common in front ! Augustus stopped at the door, 
 and, while he paused, bursts of laughter rang cheerily within. 
 
 "Ah, the merry boys!" he muttered: "I long to be with 
 them!" and then with his clenched fist he knocked four times 
 on the door. There was a sudden silence, which lasted about a 
 minute, and was broken by a voice within asking who was there. 
 Tomlinson answered by some cabalistic word ; the door was 
 opened, and a little boy presented himself. 
 
 "Well, my lad," said Augustus, "and how is your master? 
 Stout and hearty, if I may judge by his voice." 
 
 "Ay, Master Tommy, ay, he's boosing away at a fine rate in 
 the back-parlor, with Mr. Pepper and fighting Attie, and half- 
 a-score more of them. He'll be woundy glad to see you, I'll 
 be bound." 
 
 "Show this gentleman into the bar," rejoined Augustus, 
 "while I go and pay my respects to honest Geordie!" 
 
 The boy made a sort of a bow, and leading our hero into the 
 bar, consigned him to the care of Sal, a buxom barmaid, who 
 reflected credit on the taste of the landlord, and who received 
 Paul with marked distinction and a gill of brandy. 
 
 Paul had not long to play the amiable before Tomlinson re- 
 joined him with the information that Gentleman George would 
 be most happy to see him in the back parlor, and that he would 
 there find an old friend in the person of Mr. Pepper. 
 
 "What! is he here?" cried Paul. "The sorry knave! to let 
 me be caged in his stead!" 
 
 "Gently, gently, no misapplication of terms," said Augustus; 
 "that was not knavery, that was prudence, the greatest of all 
 virtues and the rarest. But come along, and Pepper shall 
 explain to-morrow." 
 
 Threading a gallery or passage, Augustus preceded our 
 hero, opened a door, and introduced him into a long, low apart- 
 ment, where sat round a table spread with pipes and liquor, 
 some ten or a dozen men, while at the top of the table, in an 
 arm-chair, presided Gentleman George. That dignitary was a 
 portly and comely gentleman, with a knowing look, and a 
 Welsh wig, worn, as the Morning Chronicle says of his Majes- 
 ty's hat, "in a degage" manner on one side." Being afflicted 
 with the gout, his left foot reclined on a stool ; and the attitude 
 developed, despite of a lamb's-wool stocking, the remains of 
 an exceedingly good leg. 
 
 As Gentleman George was a person of majestic dignity 
 among the E.mernts of the Cross, we trust we shall not be
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 99 
 
 thought irreverent in applying a few of the words by which the 
 foresaid Morning Chronicle depicted his Majesty, on the day 
 he laid the first stone of his father's monument, to the descrip- 
 tion of Gentleman George. 
 
 "He had on a handsome blue coat, and a white waistcoat'; 
 moreover, "he laughed most good-humoredly," as, turning to 
 Augustus Tomlinson, he saluted him with: 
 
 "So, this is the youngster you present to us? Welcome 
 to the Jolly Angler! Give us thy hand, young sir; I shall be 
 happy to blow a cloud with thee. "' 
 
 "With all due submission," said Mr. Tomlinson, "I think it 
 may first be as well to introduce my pupil and friend to his 
 future companions." 
 
 "You speak like a leary cove," cried Gentleman George, 
 still squeezing our hero's hand ; and, turning round in his 
 elbow-chair, he pointed to each member, as he severally intro- 
 duced his guests to Paul : 
 
 "Here," said he, "here's a fine chap at my right hand 
 (the person thus designated was a thin military-looking figure, 
 in a shabby riding frock, and with a commanding, bold, aquiline 
 countenance, a little the worse for wear) here's a fine chap 
 for you ; Fighting Attie we calls him : he's a devil on the road. 
 'Halt deliver must and shall can't and shan't do as I bid 
 you, or go to the devil,' that's all Fighting Attic's palaver; 
 and, 'sdeath, it has a wonderful way of coming to the point! 
 a famous cull is my friend Attie -an old soldier has seen the 
 world, and knows what is what; has lots of gumption and devil 
 a bit of blarney. Howsomever, the highflyers doesn't like him ; 
 and when he takes people's money, he need not be quite so 
 cross about it! Attie, let me introduce a new pal to you." 
 Paul made his bow. 
 
 "Stand at ease, man!" quoth the veteran, without taking 
 the pipe from his mouth. 
 
 Gentleman George then continued ; and, after pointing out 
 four or five of the company (among whom our hero discovered, 
 to his surprise, his old friends, Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert and 
 Mr. William Howard Russell), came, at length, to one with a 
 very red face, and a lusty frame of body. "That gentleman," 
 said he, "is Scarlet Jem ; a dangerous fellow for aflress, though 
 he says he likes robbing alone now, for a general press is not 
 half such a good thing as it used to be formerly. You have 
 no idea what a hand at disguising himself Scarlet Jem is. He 
 has an old wig which he generally does business in ; and you 
 would not go for to know him again, when he conceals himself
 
 100 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 under the wig. Oh, he s a precious rogue, is Scarlet Jem! 
 As for the cove on t'other side," continued the host of the 
 Jolly Angler, pointing to Long Ned, "all I can say of him, 
 good, bad, or indifferent, is, that he has an unkimmon fine 
 head of hair : and now, youngster, as you knows him, spose 
 you goes and sits by him, and he'll introduce you to the rest ; 
 for, split my wig! (Gentleman George was a bit of a swearer) 
 if I ben't tired, and so here's to your health; and if so be as 
 vour name's Paul, may you always rob Peter * in order to pay 
 Pauft " 
 
 This witticism of mine host's being exceedingly well re- 
 ceived, Paul went, amidst the general laughter, to take posses- 
 sion of the vacant seat beside Long Ned. That tall gentle- 
 man, who had hitherto been cloud-compelling (as Homer calls 
 Jupiter) in profound silence, now turned to Paul with the 
 warmest cordiality, declared himself overjoyed to meet his old 
 friend once more, and congratulated him alike on his escape from 
 Bridewell, and his admission to the councils of Gentleman 
 George. But Paul, mindful of that exertion of "prudence" on 
 the part of Mr. Pepper, by which he had been left to his fate 
 and the mercy of Justice Burnflat, received his advances very 
 sullenly. This coolness so incensed Ned, who was naturally 
 choleric, that he turned his back on our hero, and being of an 
 aristocratic spirit, muttered something about "upstart, and vul- 
 gar clyfakers being admitted to the company of swell tobymen." 
 This murmur called all Paul's blood into his cheek; for 
 though he had been punished as a clyfaker (or pickpocket), 
 nobody knew better than Long Ned whether or not he was in- 
 nocent ; and a reproach from him came therefore with double 
 injustice and severity. In his wrath, he seized Mr. Pepper by 
 the ear, and, telling him he was a shabby scoundrel, challenged 
 him to fight. 
 
 So pleasing an invitation not being announced solto voce, 
 but in a tone suited to the importance of the proposition, every 
 one around heard it ; and before Long Ned could answer, the 
 full voice of Gentleman George thundered forth: 
 
 "Keep the peace there, you youngster ! What! are you just 
 admitted into our merry-makings, and must you be wrangling 
 already? Hark ye, gemmen, I have been plagued enough 
 with your quarrels before now, and the first cove as breaks the 
 present quiet of the Jolly Angler, shall be turned out neck and 
 crop shan't he, Attie?" 
 
 "Right about, march," said the hero. 
 
 * Peter : a portmanteau.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. IOI 
 
 "Ay, that's the word, Attie," said Gentleman George. 
 "And now, Mr. Pepper, if there be any ill blood 'twixt you 
 and the lad there, wash it away in a bumper of bingo, and let's 
 hear no more whatsomever about it." 
 
 "I'm willing," cried Long Ned, with the deferential air of a 
 courtier, and holding out his hand to Paul. Our hero, being 
 somewhat abashed by the novelty of his situation and the re- 
 buke of Gentleman George, accepted, though with some reluc- 
 tance, the proffered courtesy. 
 
 Order being thus restored, the conversation of the convivia- 
 lists began to assume a most fascinating bias. They talked 
 with infinite gout of the sums they had levied on the public, 
 and the peculations they had committed for what one called 
 the "good of the community" and another the " established 
 order," meaning themselves. It was easy to see in what 
 school the discerning Augustus Tomlinson had learned the 
 value of words. 
 
 There was something edifying in hearing the rascals ! So 
 nice was their language, and so honest their enthusiasm for 
 their own interests, you might have imagined you were listening 
 to a coterie of cabinet ministers conferring on taxes, or debat- 
 ing on perquisites. 
 
 "Long may the Commons flourish!" cried punning Georgie, 
 filling his glass; "it is by the commons we're fed, and may 
 they never know cultiwation ! " 
 
 "Three times three!" shouted Long Ned: and the toast 
 was drunk as Mr. Pepper proposed. 
 
 "A little moderate cultivation of the commons, to speak 
 frankly," said Augustus Tomlinson modestly, "might not be 
 amiss; for it would decoy people into the belief that they 
 might travel safely ; and, after all, a hedge or a barley-field is 
 as good for us as a barren heath, where we have no shelter if 
 once pursued!" 
 
 "You talks nonsense, you spooney!" cried a robber of note, 
 called Bagshot; who, being aged, and having been a lawyer's 
 footboy, was sometimes denominated "Old Bags." "You 
 talks nonsense; these innowating ploughs are the ruin of 
 us. Every blade of corn in a common is an encroachment on 
 the constitution and rights of the gemmen highwaymen. I'm 
 old, and mayn't live to see these things; but, mark my words, 
 a time will come when a man may go from Lunnun to 
 Johnny Groat's without losing a penny by one of us; when 
 Hounslow will be safe, and Finchley secure. My eyes, what a 
 sad thing for us that'll be!"
 
 102 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 The venerable old man became suddenly silent, and the 
 tears started to his eyes. Gentleman George had a great hor- 
 ror of blue devils, and particularly disliked all disagreeable 
 subjects. 
 
 "Thunder and oons, Old Bags!" quoth mine host of the 
 Jolly Angler, "this will never do; we're all met here to be 
 merry, and not to listen to your mullancolly taratarantarums. 
 I says, Ned Pepper, spose you tips us a song, and I'll beat 
 time with my knuckles." 
 
 Long Ned, taking the pipe from his mouth, attempted, like 
 Walter Scott's Lady Heron, one or two pretty excuses: these 
 being drowned by an universal shout, the handsome purloinei 
 gave the following song, to the tune of "Time has not thinned 
 my flowing hair." 
 
 LONG NED'S SONG. 
 
 i. 
 
 Oh, if my hands adhere to cash, 
 
 My gloves at least are clean, 
 
 And rarely have the gentry flash 
 
 In sprucer clothes been seen. 
 
 II. 
 Sweet Public, since your coffers must 
 
 Afford our wnts relief, 
 Oh ! soothes it not to yield the dust 
 To such a charming thief? 
 
 III. 
 I never robbed a single coach 
 
 But with a lover's air ; 
 
 And though you might my course reproach, 
 You never could my hair. 
 IV. 
 
 John Bull, who loves a harmless joke, 
 
 Is apt at me to grin, 
 But why be cross with laughing folk, 
 
 Unless they laugh and win ? 
 
 v. 
 John Bull hns money in his box ; 
 
 And though his wit's divine, 
 Yet let me laugh at Johnny's locks 
 
 And John may laugh at mine ! " 
 
 ' 'And John may laugh at mine,' excellent!" cried Gentle- 
 man George, lighting his pipe and winking at Attie, "I hears 
 as how you be a famous fellow with the lasses." 
 
 Ned smiled and answered: "No man should boast ; but " 
 Pepper paused significantly, and then glancing at Attie, said:
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 10$ 
 
 "Talking of lasses, it is my turn to knock down a gentleman 
 for a song, and I knock down Fighting Attie. ' ' 
 
 "I never sing," said the warrior. 
 
 "Treason, treason," cried Pepper. "It is the law, and you 
 must obey the law; so begin." 
 
 "It is true, Attie," said Gentleman George. 
 
 There was no appeal from the honest publican's fiat; so, in 
 a quick and laconic manner, it being Attic's favorite dogma 
 that the least said is the soonest mended, the warrior sung as 
 follows : 
 
 FIGHTING ATTIE'S SONG. 
 Air " He was famed for deeds of arms." 
 
 " Rise at six dine at two 
 Rob your man without ado 
 Such my maxims if you doubt 
 Their wisdom, to the right about ! " 
 
 (Signing to a sallow gentleman on the same side of the 
 
 table to send up the brandy bowl.) 
 " Pass round the bingo, of a gun, 
 You musky, dusky, husky son ! " * 
 
 (The sallow gentleman, in a hoarse voice,) 
 " Attie the bingo's now with me, 
 I can't resign it yet, d'ye see ! " 
 
 (Attie, seizing the bowl,) 
 " Resign, resign it cease your dust ! " 
 
 ( Wresting it away, and fiercely regarding the sallow 
 
 gentleman?) 
 " You have resign'd it and you must." 
 
 CHORUS. 
 " You have resign'd it and you must." 
 
 While the chorus, laughing at the discomfited tippler, yelled 
 forth the emphatic words of the heroic Attie, that personage 
 emptied the brandy at a draught, resumed his pipe, and, in as 
 few words as possible, called on Bagshot for a song,. The ex- 
 cellent old highwayman, with great diffidence, obeyed the re- 
 quest, cleared his throat, and struck off with a ditty somewhat 
 to the tune of "The Old Woman." 
 
 * Much of whatever amusement might be occasioned by the not (we trust) ill-natured 
 travesties of certain eminent characters in this part of our work, when first published, like 
 all political allusions, loses point and becomes obscure as the applications cea.se to be 
 familiar. It is already necessary, perhaps, to say, that Fighting Attie herein typifies or 
 illustrates the Duke of Wellington s abrupt dismissal of Mr. Huskisson.
 
 104 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 OLD BAGS' SONG. 
 
 Are the days then gone, when on Hounslow Heath 
 
 We flash'd our nags ? 
 When the stoutest bosoms quail'd beneath 
 
 The voice of Bags ? 
 Ne'er was my work half undone, lest 
 
 I should be nabb'd : 
 Slow was old Bags, but he never ceased 
 
 'Till the whole was grabb'd. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 'Till the whole was grabb'd. 
 
 When the slow coach paused, and the gemmen stoim'd, 
 
 / bore the brunt 
 And the only sound which my grave lips form'd 
 
 Was " blunt " still ' ' blunt ! " 
 Oh, these jovial days are ne'er forgot ! 
 
 But the tape lags 
 When I be's dead, you'll drink one pot 
 
 To poor old Bags ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 To poor old Bags ! 
 
 "Ay, that we will, my dear Bagshot," cried Gentleman 
 George affectionately ; but, observing a tear in the fine old fel- 
 low's eye, he added, "Cheer up. What, ho! cheer up! 
 Times will improve, and Providence may yet send us one good 
 year, when you shall be as well off as ever! You shakes your 
 poll. Well, don't be humdurgeoned, but knock down a gem- 
 man." 
 
 Dashing away the drop of sensibility, the veteran knocked 
 down Gentleman George himself. 
 
 "Oh, dang it ! " said George, with an air of dignity, "I ought 
 to skip, since I finds the lush; but howsomever here goes:" 
 
 GENTLEMAN GEORGE'S SONG. 
 
 Air "Old King Cole." 
 I be's the cove the merry old cove, 
 
 Of whose max all the rufflers sing. 
 And a lushing cove, I thinks, by Jove, 
 
 Is as great as a sober king ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Is as great as a sober king. 
 
 Whatever the noise as is made by the boys, 
 
 At the bar as they lush away ; 
 The devil a noise my peace alloys, 
 As long as the rascals pay ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 As long as the rascals pay J
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. IO$ 
 
 What if I sticks my stones and my bricks 
 With mortar I takes from the snobbish ? 
 
 All who can feel for the public weal, 
 Likes the public-house to be bobbish. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 Likes the public-house to be bobbish. 
 
 "There, ^emmen!" said the publican stopping short "that's 
 the pith of the matter, and split my wig but I'm short of breath 
 now. So, send round the brandy, Augustus : you sly dog, you 
 keeps it all to yourself." 
 
 By this time the whole conclave were more than half-seas 
 over, or, as Augustus Tomlinson expressed it, "their more aus- 
 tere qualities were relaxed by a pleasing and innocent indul- 
 gence." Paul's eyes reeled, and his tongue ran loose. By de- 
 grees the room swam round, the faces of his comrades altered, 
 the countenance of Old Bags assumed an awful and menacing 
 air. He thought Long Ned insulted him, and that Old Bags 
 took the part of the assailant, doubled his fists, and threatened 
 to put the plaintiff's nob into chancery, if he disturbed the 
 peace of the meeting. Various other imaginary evils beset 
 him. He thought he had robbed a mail-coach in company with 
 Pepper; that Tomlinson informed against him, and that Gen- 
 tleman George ordered him to be hanged ; in short, he labored 
 under a temporary delirium, occasioned by a sudden reverse of 
 fortune from water to brandy ; and the last thing of which he 
 retained any recollection, before he sunk under the table, in 
 company with Long Ned, Scarlet Jem, and Old Bags, was the 
 bearing his part in the burthen of what appeared to him a 
 chorus of last dying speeches and confessions, but what in 
 reality was a song made in honor of Gentleman George, and 
 sung by his grateful guests as a finale to the festivities. It ran 
 thus: 
 
 THE ROBBER'S GRAND TOAST. 
 
 A tumbler of blue ruin, fill, fill for me ! 
 
 Red tape those as likes it may drain, 
 But whatever the lush, it a bumper must be, 
 
 If we ne'er drinks a bumper again ! 
 Now now in the crib, where a ruffler may lie, 
 
 Without fear that the traps should distress him, 
 With a drop in the mouth, and a drop in the eye, 
 
 Here's to Gentleman George God bless him ! 
 God bless him God bless him ! 
 
 Here's to Gentleman George God bless him ! 
 
 'Mong the pals of the Prince, I have heard it's the go, 
 Before they have tippled enough,
 
 106 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 To smarten their punch with the best cuva^oa, 
 
 More conish to render the stuff ! 
 I boast not such lush ! but whoever his glass 
 
 Does not like, I'll be hanged if I press him ! 
 Upstanding, my kiddies round, round let it pass ! 
 
 Here's to Gentleman George God bless him ! 
 God bless him God bless him ! 
 
 Here's to Gentleman George God bless him ! 
 
 See see the fine fellow grows weak on the stumps, 
 
 Assist him, ye rascals, to stand ! 
 
 Why, ye stir not a peg ! Are you all in the dumps ? 
 Fighting Atlie, go, lend him a hand ! 
 
 (The robbers crowd around Gentleman George, each, under 
 pretence of supporting him, pulling him first one way and 
 then another.) 
 
 Come, lean upon me at your service I am ! 
 
 Get away from his elbow, you whelp ! him. 
 You'll only upset them 'ere fellows but sham ! . 
 
 Here's to Gentleman George God help him ! 
 God help him God help him ! 
 
 Here's to Gentleman George God help him J" 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " I boast no song in magic wonders rife. 
 But yet, O Nature ! is there nought to prize, 
 Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life? 
 And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies 
 No form with which the soul may sympathize ? 
 Young, innocent, on wliose sweet forehead mild 
 The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise, 
 An inmate in the home of Albert smiled, 
 Or blest his noonday walk she was his only child." 
 
 Gertrude of Wyoming. 
 
 O TIME, thou hast played strange tricks with us! and we 
 bless the stars that made us a novelist, and permit us now to 
 retaliate. Leaving Paul to the instructions of Augustus Tom- 
 linson and the festivities of the Jolly Angler, and suffering him, 
 by slow but sure degrees, to acquire the graces and the reputa- 
 tion of the accomplished and perfect appropriator of other 
 men's possessions, we shall pass over the lapse of years with the 
 same heedless rapidity with which they have glided over us, 
 and summon our reader to a very different scene from those 
 which would be likely to greet his eyes, were he following the 
 adventures of our new Telemachus. Nor wilt thou, dear 
 reader, whom we make the umpire between ourselves and
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 107 
 
 those who never read the critics ; thou who hast, in the true 
 spirit of gentle breeding, gone Avith us among places where the 
 novelty of the scene has, we fear, scarcely atoned for the coarse- 
 ness, not giving thyself the airs of a dainty abigail ; not prat- 
 ing, lacquey-like, on the low company thou hast met ; nor wilt 
 thou, dear and, friendly reader, have cause to dread that we 
 shall weary thy patience by a "damnable iteration" of the same 
 localities. Pausing for a moment to glance over the divisions 
 of our story, which lies before us like a map, we feel that we 
 may promise in future to conduct thee among aspects of soci- 
 ety more familiar to thy habits ; where events flow to their al- 
 lotted gulf through landscapes of more pleasing variety, and 
 among tribes of a more luxurious civilization. 
 
 Upon the banks of one of fair England's fairest rivers, and 
 about fifty miles distant from London, still stands an old- 
 fashioned abode, which we shall here term Warlock Manor- 
 house. It is a building of brick, varied by stone copings, and 
 covered in great part with ivy and jasmine. Around it lie the 
 ruins of the elder part of the fabric, and these are sufficiently 
 numerous in extent, and important in appearance, to testify 
 that the mansion was once not without pretensions to the mag- 
 nificent. These remains of power, some of which bear date as 
 far back as the reign of Henry the Third, are sanctioned by 
 the character of the country immediately in the vicinity of the 
 old manor-house. A vast tract of waste land, interspersed 
 with groves of antique pollards, and here and there irregular 
 and sinuous ridges of green mound,, betoken to the expe- 
 rienced eye the evidence of a dismantled chase or park, which 
 must originally have been of no common dimensions. On one 
 side of the house the lawn slopes towards the river, divided 
 from a terrace, which forms the most important embellishment 
 of the pleasure-grounds, by that fence to which has been given 
 the ingenious and significant name of "ha-ha!" A few scat- 
 tered trees of giant growth are the sole obstacles that break the 
 view of the river, which has often seemed to us, at that partic- 
 ular passage of its course, to glide with unusual calmness and 
 serenity. On the opposite side of the stream there is a range 
 of steep hills, celebrated for nothing more romantic than their 
 property of imparting to the flocks that browse upon their short, 
 and seemingly stinted herbage, a flavor peculiarly grateful to the 
 lovers of that pastoral animal which changes its name into mut- 
 ton after its decease. Upon these hills the vestige of human 
 habitation is not visible ; and at times, when no boat defaces 
 the lonely smoothness of the river, and the evening has stilled
 
 io8 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the sounds of labor and of life, we know few scenes so utterly 
 tranquil, so steeped in quiet, as that which is presented by the 
 old, quaint-fashioned house and its antique grounds; the 
 smooth lawn, the silent, and (to speak truly, though disparag- 
 ingly) the somewhat sluggish river, together with the large hills 
 (to which we know, from simple, though metaphysical causes, 
 how entire an idea of quiet, and immovability, peculiarly at- 
 taches itself), and the white flocks those most peaceful of 
 God's creatures, that in fleecy clusters stud the ascent. 
 
 In Warlock House, at the time we refer to, lived a gentle- 
 man of the name of Brandon. He was a widower, and had 
 attained his fiftieth year, without casting much regret on the 
 past, or feeling much anxiety for the future. In a word, Joseph 
 Brandon was one of those careless, quiescent, indifferent men, 
 by whom a thought upon any subject is never recurred to with- 
 out a very urgent necessity. He was good-natured, inoffen- 
 sive, and weak ; and, if he was not an incomparable citizen, he 
 was, at least, an excellent vegetable. He was of a family of 
 high antiquity, and formerly of considerable note. For the last 
 four or five generations, however, the proprietors of Warlock 
 House, gradually losing something alike from their acres and 
 their consequence, had left to their descendant no higher rank 
 than that of a small country squire. One had been a Jacobite, 
 and had drunk out half a dozen farms in honor of Charley over 
 the water Charley over the water was no very dangerous per- 
 son, but Charley over the wine was rather more ruinous. The 
 next Brandon had been a fox-hunter, and fox-hunters live as 
 largely as patriotic politicians. Pausanias tells us that the same 
 people who were the most notorious for their love of wine 
 were also the most notorious for their negligence of affairs. 
 Times are not much altered since Pausanias wrote, and the 
 remark holds as good with the English as it did with the Phig- 
 alei. After this Brandon came one who, though he did not 
 scorn the sportsman, rather assumed the fine gentleman. He 
 married an heiress, who, of course, assisted to ruin him ; wish- 
 ing no assistance in so pleasing an occupation, he overturned 
 her (perhaps not on purpose), in a new sort of carriage which he 
 was learning to drive, and the good lady was killed on the spot. 
 She left the fine gentleman two sons, Joseph Brandon, the pres- 
 ent thane, and a brother some years younger. The elder, 
 being of a fitting age, was sent to school, and somewhat escaped 
 the contagion of the paternal mansion. But the younger Bran- 
 don, having only reached his fifth year at the time of his moth- 
 decease, was retained at home. Whether he was hand-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 109 
 
 some, or clever, or impertinent, or like his father about the 
 eyes (that greatest of all merits), we know not; but the wid- 
 ower became so fond of him that it was at a late period, and 
 with great reluctance, that he finally intrusted him to the 
 providence of a school. 
 
 Among harlots, and gamblers, and lords, and sharpers, and 
 gentlemen of the guards, together with their frequent accom- 
 paniment guards of the gentlemen viz. bailiffs, William 
 Brandon passed the first stage of his boyhood. He was about 
 thirteen when he was sent to school ; and being a boy of re- 
 markable talents, he recovered lost time so well, that when, at 
 the age of nineteen, he adjourned to the university, he had 
 scarcely resided there a single term before he had borne off two 
 of the highest prizes awarded to academical merit. From the 
 university he departed on the "grand tour," at that time 
 thought so necessary to complete the gentleman: he went in 
 company with a young nobleman, whose friendship he had won 
 at the university, stayed abroad more than two years, and on 
 his return he settled down to the profession of the law. 
 
 Meanwhile his father died, and his fortune, as a younger 
 brother, being literally next to nothing, and the family estate 
 (for his brother was not unwilling to assist him) being terribly 
 involved, it was believed that he struggled for some years with 
 very embarassed and penurious circumstances. During this 
 interval of his life, however, he was absent from London, and 
 by his brother supposed to have returned to the continent : at 
 length, it seems, he profited by a renewal of the friendship with 
 the young nobleman who had accompanied him abroad, reap- 
 peared in town, and obtained, through his noble friend, one or 
 two legal appointments of reputable emolument: soon after- 
 wards he got a brief on some cause where a major had been 
 raising a corps to his brother officer, with the better consent of 
 the brother-officer's wife than of the brother officer himself. 
 Brandon's abilities here, for the first time in his profession, 
 found an adequate vent ; his reputation seemed made at once ; 
 he rose rapidly in his profession, and, at the time we now 
 speak of, he was sailing down the full tide of fame and wealth, 
 the envy and the oracle of all young Templars and barristers, 
 who, having been starved themselves for ten years, began now 
 to calculate on the possibility of starving their clients. At an 
 early period in his career he had, through the good offices of 
 the nobleman we have mentioned, obtained a seat in the House 
 of Commons ; and though his eloquence was of an order much 
 better suited to the bar than the senate, he had nevertheless
 
 110 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 acquired a very considerable reputation in the latter, and wa? 
 looked upon by many as likely to win to the same brilliant for- 
 tunes as the courtly Mansfield a great man, whose political 
 principles and urbane address Brandon was supposed especially 
 to affect as his own model. Of unblemished integrity in pub- 
 lic life for, as he supported all things that exist with the most 
 unbending rigidity, he could not be accused of inconsistency 
 William Brandon was (as we have said in a former place of 
 unhappy memory to our hero) esteemed in private life the most 
 honorable, the most moral, even the most austere of men; and 
 his grave and stern repute on this score, joined to the dazzle of 
 his eloquence and forensic powers, had baffled in great measure 
 the rancor of party hostility, and obtained for him a character 
 for virtues almost as high and as enviable as that which he had 
 acquired for abilities. 
 
 While William was thus treading a noted and an honorable 
 career, his elder brother, who had married into a clergyman's 
 family, and soon lost his consort, had with his only child, a 
 daughter named Lucy, resided in his paternal mansion in un- 
 disturbed obscurity. The discreditable character and habits of 
 the preceding lords of Warlock, which had sunk their respect- 
 ability in the county, as well as curtailed their property, had 
 rendered the surrounding gentry little anxious to cultivate the 
 intimacy of the present proprietor; and the heavy mind and 
 retired manners of Joseph Brandon were not calculated to 
 counterbalance the faults of his forefathers, nor to reinstate 
 the name of Brandon in its ancient popularity and esteem. 
 Though dull and little cultivated, the squire was not without 
 his "proper pride" ; he attempted not to intrude himself where 
 he was unwelcome, avoided county meetings and county balls, 
 smoked his pipe with the parson, and not unoften with the sur- 
 geon and solicitor, and suffered his daughter Lucy to educate 
 herself, with the help of the parson's wife, and to ripen (for 
 Nature was more favorable to her than Art) into the very pret- 
 tiest girl that the whole county we long to say the whole coun- 
 try at that time could boast of. Never did glass give back a 
 more lovely image than that of Lucy Brandon at the age of 
 nineteen. Her auburn hair fell in the richest luxuriance over 
 a brow never ruffled, and a cheek where the blood never slept; 
 with every instant the color varied, and at every variation that 
 smooth, pure, virgin cheek seemed still more lovely than be- 
 fore. She had the most beautiful laugh that one who loved 
 music could imagine, silvery, low, and yet so full of joy ! all 
 her movements, as the old parson said, seemed to keep time to
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. Ill 
 
 that laugh ; for mirth made a great part of her innocent and 
 childish temper ; and yet the mirth was feminine, never loud, 
 nor like that of young ladies who had received the last finish at 
 Highgate seminaries. Everything joyous affected her, and at 
 once ; air, flowers, sunshine, butterflies. Unlike heroines in 
 general, she very seldom cried, and she saw nothing charming 
 in having the vapors. But she never looked so beautiful as in 
 sleep ! and as the light breath came from her parted lips, and 
 the ivory lids closed over those eyes which only in sleep were 
 silent, and her attitude in her sleep took that ineffable grace 
 belonging solely to childhood, or the fresh youth into which 
 childhood merges, she was just what you might imagine asleep- 
 ing Margaret, before that most simple and gentle of all a poet's 
 visions of womanhood had met with Faust, or her slumbers 
 been ruffled with a dream of love. 
 
 We cannot say much for Lucy's intellectual acquirements; 
 she could, thanks to the parson's wife, spell indifferently well, 
 and write a tolerable hand; she made preserves, and sometimes 
 riddles it was more difficult to question the excellence of the 
 former than to answer the queries of the latter. She worked to 
 the admiration of all who knew her, and we beg leave to say 
 that we deem that "an excellent thing in woman." She made 
 caps for herself and gowns for the poor, and now and then she 
 accomplished the more literary labor of a stray novel that had 
 wandered down to the Manor-house, or an abridgement of an- 
 cient history, in which was omitted everything but the proper 
 names. To these attainments she added a certain modicum of 
 skill upon the spinet, and the power of singing old songs with 
 the richest and sweetest voice that ever made one's eyes moist- 
 en, or one's heart beat. 
 
 Her moral qualities were more fully developed than her men- 
 tal. She was the kindest of human beings ; the very dog that 
 had never seen her before knew that truth at the first glance, 
 and lost no time in making her acquaintance. The goodness 
 of her heart reposed upon her face like sunshine, and the old 
 wife at the lodge said poetically and truly of the effect it pro- 
 duced, that "one felt warm when one looked on her." If we 
 could abstract from the description a certain chilling transpar- 
 ency, the following exquisite verses of a forgotten poet * might 
 express the purity and lustre of her countenance: 
 
 " Her face was like the milky way i' the sky. 
 A meeting of gentle lights without a name." 
 
 She was surrounded by pets of all kinds, ugly and hand' 
 
 .Suckling.
 
 112 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 some, from Ralph, the raven, to Beauty, the pheasant, and 
 from Bob, the sheep-dog without a tail, to Beau, the Blenheim 
 with blue ribands round his neck; all things loved her, and she 
 loved all things. It seemed doubtful at that time whether she 
 would ever have sufficient steadiness and strength of character. 
 Her beauty and her character appeared so essentially woman- 
 like soft, yet lively, buoyant, yet caressing, that you could 
 scarcely place in her that moral dependence that you might in a 
 character less amiable, but less yieldingly feminine. Time, 
 however, and circumstance, which alter and harden, were to 
 decide whether the inward nature did not possess some latent 
 and yet undiscovered properties. Such was Lucy Brandon, in 
 the year , and in that year, on a beautiful autumnal evening, 
 we first introduce her personally to our readers. 
 
 She was sitting on a garden-seat by the river-side with her 
 father, who was deliberately conning the evening paper of a 
 former week, and gravely seasoning the ancient news with the 
 inspirations of that weed which so bitterly excited the royal in- 
 dignation of our British Solomon. It happens, unfortunately 
 for us for outward peculiarities are scarcely worthy the dig- 
 nity to which comedy, whether in the drama or the narrative, 
 aspires that Squire Brandon possessed so few distinguishing 
 traits of mind that he leaves his delineator little whereby to 
 designate him, save a confused and parenthetical habit of 
 speech, by which he very often appeared to those who did 
 not profit by long experience, or close observation, to say ex- 
 actly, and somewhat ludicrously, that which he did not mean 
 to convey. 
 
 "I say, Lucy," observed Mr. Brandon, but without lifting 
 his eyes from the paper; "I say, corn has fallen think of 
 that, girl, think of that ! These times, in my opinion (ay, and 
 in the opinion of wiser heads than mine, though I do not mean 
 to say that I have not some experience in these matters, which 
 is more than can be said of all our neighbors), are very curi- 
 ous, and even dangerous." 
 
 "Indeed, papa!" answered Lucy. 
 
 "And I say, Lucy, dear," resumed the squire after a short 
 pause, "there has been (and very strange it is, too, when one 
 considers the crowded neighborhood Bless me ! what times 
 these are ! ) a shocking murder committed upon (the tobacco-stop- 
 per there it is) think, you know, girl just by Epping! an 
 old gentleman ! ' ' 
 
 "Dear, how shocking! by whom?" 
 
 "Ay, that's the question! The coroner's inquest has (what
 
 i>AUL CLIFFORD. 41$ 
 
 a blessing it is to live in a civilized country, where a man does 
 not die without knowing the why and wherefore!) sat on the 
 body, and declared (it is very strange, but they don't seem to 
 have made much discovery ; for why? we knew as much be- 
 fore) that the body was found (it was found on the floor, 
 Lucy), murdered ; murdered or murderers (in the bureau^ 
 which was broken open, they found the money left quite un- 
 touched) unknown ! ' ' 
 
 Here there was again a slight pause, and passing to another 
 side of the paper, Mr. Brandon resumed in a quicker tone: 
 
 "Ha! well, now this is odd! But he's a deuced clever fel- 
 low, Lucy! that brother of mine has (and in a very honorable 
 manner too, which I am sure is highly creditable to the family, 
 though he has not taken too much notice of me lately a cir- 
 cumstance which, considering I am his elder brother I am a 
 little angry at) distinguished himself in a speech, remarkable, 
 the paper says, for its great legal (1 wonder, by the by, 
 whether William could get me that agistment-money ! 'tis a 
 heavy thing to lose; but going to law, as my poor father used 
 to say, is like fishing for gudgeons [not a bad little fish, we can 
 have some for si4pper\ -with guineas} knowledge, as well as 
 its splendid and overpowering (I do love Will for keeping up 
 the family honor; I am sure it is more than I have done 
 heighho!) eloquence ! " 
 
 "And on what subject has he been speaking, papa?" 
 
 "Oh, a very fine subject; what you called a (it is astonish- 
 ing that in this country there should be such a wish for taking 
 away people's characters, which, for my part, I don't see is a 
 bit more entertaining than what you are always doing playing 
 with those stupid birds) libel!" 
 
 "But is not my Uncle William coming down to see us? He 
 promised to do so, and it made you quite happy, papa, for two 
 days. I hope he will not disappoint you ; and I am sure that 
 it is not his fault if he ever seems to neglect you. He spoke of 
 you to me, when I saw him, in the kindest and most affection- 
 ate manner. I do think, my dear father, that he loves you 
 very much." 
 
 "Ahem!" said the squire, evidently flattered, and yet not 
 convinced. "My brother Will is a very acute fellow, and I 
 make no my dear little girl question, but that (when you 
 have seen as much of the world as I have, you will grow suspi- 
 cious) he thought that any good word said of me to my 
 daughter would (you see, Lucy, I am as clear-sighted as my 
 neighbors, though I don't give myself all their airs ; which I very
 
 U4 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 well might do, considering my great great great grandfather, 
 Hugo Brandon, had a hand in detecting the gunpowder 
 plot) be told to me again!" 
 
 "Nay, but I am quite sure my uncle never spoke of you to 
 me with that intention." 
 
 "Possibly, my dear child; but when (the evenings are much 
 shorter than they were!) did you talk with your uncle 
 about me?" 
 
 "Oh, when staying with Mrs. Warner, in London; to be 
 sure, it is six years ago ; but I remember it perfectly. I recol- 
 lect, in particular, that he spoke of you very handsomely to 
 Lord Mauleverer, who dined with him one evening when I was 
 there, and when my uncle was so kind as to take me to the 
 play. I was afterwards quite sorry that he was so good- 
 natured, as he lost (you remember I told you the story) a 
 very valuable watch." 
 
 "Ay, ay, I remember all about that, and so, how long friend- 
 ship lasts with some people! Lord Mauleverer dined with 
 William ! What a fine thing it is for a man (it is what I never 
 did, indeed, I like being what they call 'Cock of the Walk ' 
 let me see, now I think of it, Pillum comes to-night to play a 
 hit at backgammon) to make friends with a great man early 
 in (yet Will did not do it very early, poor fellow ! he struggled 
 first with a great deal of sorrow hardship that is ) life! It 
 is many years now since Will has been hand-and-glove with my 
 ('tis a bit of a puppy) Mauleverer, what do you think of his 
 lordship?" 
 
 "Of Lord Mauleverer? Indeed I scarcely observed him; 
 but he seemed a handsome man and was very polite. Mrs. 
 Warner said he had been a very wicked person when he was 
 young, but he seems good-natured enough now, papa." 
 
 "By the by," said the squire, "his lordship has just been 
 made (this new ministry seems very unlike the old, which 
 rather puzzles me; for I think it is my duty, d'ye see, Lucy, 
 always to vote for his Majesty's government, especially seeing 
 that old Hugo Brandon had a hand in detecting the gunpowder 
 plot ; and it is a little odd, at least at first to think that good 
 now, which one has always before been thinking abominable) 
 Lord Lieutenant of the county." 
 
 "Lord Mauleverer our Lord Lieutenant?" 
 
 "Yes, child; and since his lordship is such a friend of my 
 brother's, I should think, considering especially what an old 
 family in the county we are, not that I wish to intrude myself 
 where I am not thought as fine as the rest that he would be
 
 JPAtJL CLIFFORD. 11$ 
 
 more attentive to us than Lord - was ; but that, my dear 
 Lucy, puts me in mind of Pillum, and so, perhaps, you would 
 like to walk to the parson's, as it is a fine evening. John 
 shall come for you at nine o'clock with (the moon is not up 
 then) the lantern." 
 
 Leaning on his daughter's willing arm, the good old man 
 then rose and walked homeward; and so soon as she had 
 wheeled round his easy chair, placed the backgammon-board on 
 the table, and wished the old gentleman an easy victory over 
 his expected antagonist the apothecary, Lucy tied down her 
 bonnet, and took her way to the rectory. 
 
 When she arrived at the clerical mansion, and entered the 
 drawing-room, she was surprised to find the parson's wife, a 
 good, homely, lethargic old lady, run up to her, seemingly in 
 a state of great nervous agitation, and crying : 
 
 "Oh, my dear Miss Brandon! which way did you come? 
 Did you meet nobody by the road? Oh, I am so frightened! 
 Such an accident to poor dear Dr. Slopperton ! Stopped in 
 the king's highway, robbed of some tithe-money he had just 
 received from Farmer Slowforth : if it had not been for that 
 dear angel, good young man, God only knows whether I might 
 not have been a disconsolate widow by this time!" 
 
 While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy's 
 eye glancing round the room discovered in an arm-chair the 
 round and oily little person of Dr. Slopperton, with a counte- 
 nance from which all the carnation hues, save in one circular 
 excrescence on the nasal member, that was left, like the last rose 
 of summer, blooming alone, were faded into an aspect of miser- 
 able pallor: the little man tried to conjure up a smile while his 
 wife was narrating his misfortune, and to mutter forth some 
 syllable of unconcern ; but he looked, for all his bravado, so 
 exceedingly scared, that Lucy would, despite herself, have 
 laughed outright, had not her eye rested upon the figure of a 
 young man who had been seated beside the reverend gentle- 
 man, but who had risen at Lucy's entrance, and who now 
 stood gazing upon her intently, but with an air of great respect. 
 Blushing deeply and involuntarily, she turned her eyes hastily 
 away, and approaching the good doctor, made her inquiries 
 into the present state of his nerves in a graver tone than she 
 had a minute before imagined it possible that she should have 
 been enabled to command. 
 
 "Ah! my good young lady," said the doctor, squeezing her 
 hand, "I may, I may say the church for am I not its min- 
 ister? was in imminent danger ; but this excellent gentleman.
 
 fl6 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 prevented the sacrilege, at least in great measure. I only lost 
 some of my dues my rightful dues for which I console my- 
 self with thinking that the infamous and abandoned villain 
 will suffer hereafter." 
 
 "There cannot be the least doubt of ///#/," said the young 
 man : ' 'had he only robbed the mail coach, or broken into a gen- 
 tleman's house, the offence might have been expiable; but to 
 rob a clergyman, and a rector, too! Oh, the sacrilegious dog!" 
 
 "Your warmth does you honor, sir," said the doctor, begin- 
 ning now to recover; "and I am very proud to have made the 
 acquaintance of a gentleman of such truly religious opinions!" 
 
 "Ah?" cried the stranger, "my foible, sir if I may so 
 speak is a sort of enthusiastic fervor for the Protestant Es- 
 tablishment. Nay, sir, I never come across the very nave of 
 the church, without feeling an indescribable emotion a kind 
 of sympathy, as it were, with with you understand me, sir 
 I fear I express myself ill." 
 
 "Not at all, not at all!" exclaimed the doctor: "such senti- 
 ments are uncommon in one so young." 
 
 "Sir, I learned them early in life from a friend and precep- 
 tor of mine, Mr. Mac Grawler, and I trust they may continue 
 with me to my dying day." 
 
 Here the doctor's servant entered with (we borrow a phrase 
 
 from the novel of ) "the tea-equipage," and Mrs. Slop- 
 
 perton, betaking herself to its superintendence, inquired, with 
 more composure than hitherto had belonged to her demeanor, 
 what sort of a looking creature the ruffian was? 
 
 "I will tell you, my dear, I will tell you, Miss Lucy, all 
 about it. I was walking home from Mr. Slowforth's, with his 
 money in my pocket, thinking, my love, of buying you that 
 topaz cross you wished to have." 
 
 "Dear good man!" cried Mrs. Slopperton; "what a fiend it 
 must have been to rob so excellent a creature." 
 
 "And," resumed the doctor, "it also occurred to me that the 
 Madeira was nearly out the Madeira, I mean, with the red 
 seal ; and I was thinking it might not be amiss to devote part 
 of the money to buy six dozen more; and the remainder, my 
 love, which would be about one pound eighteen, I thought I 
 would divide, 'for he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the 
 Lord ! ' among the thirty poor families on the common : that 
 is, if they behaved well, and the apples in the back garden 
 were not feloniously abstracted!" 
 
 "Excellent, charitable man!" ejaculated Mrs. Slopperton. 
 
 "While I was thus meditating I lifted my eyes and saw before
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 117 
 
 me two men ; one of prodigious height, and with a great profu- 
 sion of hair about his shoulders; the other was smaller, and 
 wore his hat slouched over his face; it was a very large hat. 
 My attention was arrested by the singularity of the tall person's 
 hair, and while I was smiling at its luxuriance, I heard him say 
 to his companion : 'Well, Augustus, as you are such a moral 
 dog, he is in your line, not mine: so I leave him to you.' Lit- 
 tle did I think these words related to me. No sooner were 
 they uttered than the tall rascal leaped over a gate and disap- 
 peared; the other fellow then marching up to me, very 
 smoothly asked me the way to the church, and while I was ex- 
 plaining to him to turn first to the right and then to the left, and 
 so on for the best way is, you know, exceedingly crooked the 
 hypocritical scoundrel seized me by the collar, and cried out: 
 'Your money, or your life!' I do assure you that I never 
 trembled so much; not, my dear Miss Lucy, so much for my 
 own sake, as for the sake of the thirty poor families on the 
 common, whose wants it had been my intention to relieve. I 
 gave up the money, finding my prayers and expostulations 
 were in vain; and the dog then, brandishing over my head an 
 enormous bludgeon, said what abominable language! 'I 
 think, doctor, I shall put an end to an existence deroga- 
 tory to yourself and useless to others.' At that moment the 
 young gentleman beside me sprang over the very gate by which 
 the tall ruffian had disappeared, and cried, 'Hold, villain!' 
 On seeing my deliverer the coward started back, and plunged 
 into a neighboring wood. The good young gentleman pursued 
 him for a few moments, but then returning to my aid, con- 
 ducted me home; and as we used to say at school: 
 
 " ' Te rediisse incolumem gaudeo.' 
 
 Which, being interpreted, means, (sir, excuse a pun, I am 
 sure so great a friend to the church understands Latin) that 
 I am very glad to get back safe to my tea. He! he! And now, 
 Miss Lucy, you must thank that young gentleman for having 
 saved the life of your pastoral teacher, which act will no 
 doubt be remembered at the Great Day!" 
 
 As Lucy, looking towards the stranger, said something in 
 compliment, she observed a vague, and, as it were, covert 
 smile upon his countenance, which immediately, and as if by 
 sympathy, conjured one to her own. The hero of the adven- 
 ture, however, in a very grave tone, replied to her compliment, 
 at the same time bowing profoundly : 
 
 "Mention it not, madam! I were unworthy of the name of
 
 Ii8 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 a Briton and a man, could I pass the highway without relieving 
 the distress, or lightening the burthen, of a fellow-creature. 
 And," continued the stranger, after a momentary pause, color- 
 ing while he spoke, and concluding in the high-flown gallantry 
 of the day, "methinks it were sufficient reward, had I saved 
 the whole church, instead of one of its most valuable members, 
 to receive the thanks of a lady whom I might reasonably take 
 for one of those celestial beings to whom we have been piously 
 taught that the church is especially the care!" 
 
 Though there might have been something really ridiculous in 
 this overstrained compliment, coupled as it was with the pres- 
 ervation of Dr. Slopperton, yet, coming from the mouth of one 
 whom Lucy thought the very handsomest person she had ever 
 seen, it appeared to her anything but absurd ; and, for a very 
 long time afterwards, her heart thrilled with pleasure when she 
 remembered that the cheek, of the speaker had glowed, and 
 his voice had trembled, as he spoke it. 
 
 The conversation now, turning from robbers in particular, 
 dwelt upon robberies in general. It was edifying to hear the 
 honest indignation with which the stranger spoke of the lawless 
 depredators with whom the country, in that day of Macheaths, 
 was infested. 
 
 "A pack of infamous rascals!" said he, in a glow; "who 
 attempt to justify their misdeeds by the example of honest 
 men; and who say that they do no more than is done by law- 
 yers and doctors, soldiers, clergymen, and ministers of state. 
 Pitiful delusion, or rather shameless hypocrisy!" 
 
 "It all comes of educating the poor," said the doctor. "The 
 moment they pretend to judge the conduct of their betters, 
 there's an end of all order ! They see nothing sacred in the 
 laws, though we hang the dogs ever so fast; and the very 
 peers of the land, spiritual and temporal, cease to be venerable 
 in their eyes." 
 
 "Talking of peers," sad Mrs. Slopperton, "I hear that Lord 
 Mauleverer is to pass by this road to-night, on his way to 
 Mauleverer Park. Do you know his lordship, Miss Lucy? he 
 is very intimate with your uncle." 
 
 "I have only seen him once," answered Lucy. 
 
 "Are you sure that his lordship will come this road?" asked 
 the stranger carelessly: "I heard something of it this morning, 
 but did not know it was settled." 
 
 "Oh, quite so!" rejoined Mrs. Slopperton. "His lord- 
 ship's gentleman wrote for post-horses to meet his lordship 
 at Wyburn, about three miles on the other side of the village,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 1 19 
 
 at ten o'clock to-night. His lordship is very impatient of 
 delay." 
 
 "Pray," said the doctor, who had not much heeded this 
 turn in the conversation, and was now "on hospitable cares 
 intent"; "pray, sir, if not impertinent, are you visiting, 
 or lodging in the neighborhood; or will you take a bed 
 with us?" 
 
 "You are extremely kind, my dear sir, but I must soon wish 
 you good-evening. I have to look after a little property I have 
 some miles hence, which, indeed, brought me down into this 
 part of the world." 
 
 "Property! in what direction, sir, if I may ask?" quoth the 
 doctor; "I know the country for miles." 
 
 "Do you, indeed? Where's my property, you say? Why, it 
 is rather difficult to describe it, and it is, after all, a mere trifle : 
 it is only some common-land near the high-road, and I came 
 down to try the experiment of hedging and draining." 
 
 " 'Tis a good plan, if one has capital, and does not require 
 a speedy return." 
 
 "Yes; but one likes a good interest for the loss of principal, 
 and a speedy return is always desirable; although, alas! it is 
 often attended with risk!" 
 
 "I hope, sir," said the doctor, "if you must leave us so 
 soon, that your property will often bring you into our neigh- 
 borhood." 
 
 "You overpower me with so much unexpected goodness," 
 answered the stranger. "To tell you the truth, nothing can 
 give me greater pleasure than to meet those again who have 
 once obliged me." 
 
 "Whom you have obliged, rather!" cried Mrs. Slopperton, 
 and then added, in a loud whisper to Lucy: "How modest! 
 but it is always so with true courage!" 
 
 "I assure you, madam," returned the benevolent stranger, 
 "that I never think twice of the little favors I render my 
 fellow-men ; my only hope is, that they may be as forgetful as 
 myself." 
 
 Charmed with so much unaffected goodness of disposition, 
 the Dr. and Mrs. Slopperton now set up a sort of duet in 
 praise of their guest : after enduring their commendations and 
 compliments for some minutes with much grimace of disavowal 
 and diffidence, the stranger's modesty seemed at last to take 
 pain at the excess of their gratitude; and, accordingly, point- 
 ing to the clock which was within a few minutes of nine, he 
 said:
 
 120 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ' I fear, my respected host, and my admired hostess, that I 
 .must now leave you; I have far to go." 
 
 "But are you yourself not afraid of the highwaymen?" cried 
 Mrs. Slopperton, interrupting him. 
 
 "The highwaymen!" said the stranger, smiling: "No! I do 
 not fear them; besides, I have little about me worth robbing." 
 
 "Do you superintend your property yourself?" said the doc- 
 tor, who farmed his own glebe, and who, unwilling to part with 
 so charming a guest, seized him now by the button. 
 
 "Superintend it myself! Why, not exactly. There is a 
 bailiff, whose views of things don't agree with mine, and who 
 now and then gives me a good deal of trouble!" 
 
 "Then why don't you discharge him altogether?" 
 
 "Ah! I wish I could: but 'tis a necessary evil. We landed 
 proprietors, my dear sir, must always be plagued with some- 
 thing of the sort. For my part, I have found those cursed 
 bailiffs would take away, if they could, all the property one has 
 been trying to accumulate. But," abruptly changing his 
 manner into one of great softness, "could I not proffer my 
 services, and my companionship to this young lady? Would she 
 allow me to conduct her home and, indeed, stamp this day 
 upon my memory as one of the few delightful ones I have ever 
 known?" 
 
 "Thank you, dear sir," said Mrs. Slopperton, answering at 
 once for Lucy; "it is very considerate of you; and I am sure, 
 my love, I could not think of letting you go home alone with 
 old John, after such an adventure to the poor, dear doctor." 
 
 Lucy began an excuse which the good lady would not hear. 
 But as the servant whom Mr. Brandon was to send with a lan- 
 tern to attend his daughter home had not arrived, and as Mrs. 
 Slopperton, despite her prepossessions in favor of her husband's 
 deliverer, did not fora moment contemplate his accompanying, 
 without any other attendance, her young friend across the 
 fields at that unseasonable hour, the stranger was forced, for 
 the present, to reassume his seat; an open harpsichord at one 
 end of the room gave him an opportunity to make some re- 
 mark upon music, and this introducing an culogium on Lucy's 
 voice from Mrs. Slopperton, necessarily ended in a request to 
 Miss Brandon to indulge the stranger with a song. Never had 
 Lucy who was not a shy girl she was too innocent to be bash- 
 ful felt nervous hitherto in singing before a stranger; but now 
 she hesitated and faltered, and went through a whole series of 
 little natural affectations before she complied with the request. 
 She chose a song composed somewhat after the old English
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 121 
 
 school, which at that time was reviving into fashion. The 
 song, though conveying a sort of conceit, was not, perhaps, al- 
 together without tenderness ; it was a favorite with Lucy, she 
 scarcely knew why, and ran thus : 
 
 LUCY'S SONG. 
 
 Why sleep, ye gentle flowers, ah, why, 
 
 When tender eve is falling, 
 And starlight drinks the happy sigh 
 
 Of winds to fairies calling ? 
 
 Calling with low and plaining note, 
 
 Most like a ringdove chiding, 
 Or flute faint-heard from distant boat 
 
 O'er smoothest waters gliding. 
 
 Lo, round you steals the wooing breeze 
 
 Lo, on you falls the dew ! 
 O Sweets, awake, for scarcely these 
 
 Can charm while wanting you ! 
 
 Wake ye not yet while fast below 
 
 The silver time is fleeing ? 
 O Heart of mine, those flowers but show 
 
 Thine own contented being. 
 
 The twilight but preserves the bloom, 
 
 The sun can but decay ; 
 The warmth that brings the rich perfume 
 
 But steals the life away. 
 
 O Heart, enjoy thy present calm, 
 
 Rest peaceful in the shade, 
 And dread the sun that gives the balm 
 
 To bid the blossom fade. 
 
 When Lucy ended, the stranger's praise was less loud than 
 either the doctor's or his lady's ; but how far more sweet it 
 was ! and for the first time in her life Lucy made the discovery 
 that eyes can praise as well as lips. For our part, we have 
 often thought that that discovery is an epoch in life. 
 
 It was now that Mrs. Slopperton declared her thorough con- 
 viction that the stranger himself could sing. "He had that 
 about him," she said, "which made her sure of it." 
 
 "Indeed, dear madam," said he, with his usual undefinable 
 half-frank, half-latent smile, "my voice is but so-so, and my 
 memory so indifferent, that even in the easiest passages I soon 
 come to a stand. My best notes are in the falsetto, and as for 
 my execution but we won't talk of that.'" 
 
 " Nay, nay; you are so modest," said Mrs. Slopperton: "I 
 am sure you could oblige us if you would."
 
 122 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "Your command," said the stranger, moving to the harpsi- 
 chord, "is all-sufficient; and since you, madam "(turning to 
 Lucy), "have chosen a song after the old school, may I find 
 pardon if I do the same? My selection is, to be sure, from 
 a lawless song-book, and is supposed to be a ballad by Robin 
 Hood, or, at least, one of his merry men ; a very different sort 
 of outlaws from the knaves who attacked you, sir!" 
 
 With this preface, the stranger sung to a wild yet jovial air, 
 with a tolerable voice, tke following effusion : 
 
 THE LOVE OF OUR PROFESSION ; OR, THE ROBBER'S LIFE, 
 
 " On the stream of the world, the robber's life 
 
 Is borne on the blithest wave ; 
 Now it bounds into light in a gladsome strife, 
 Now it laughs in its hiding cave. 
 
 At his maiden's lattice he stays the rein, 
 
 How still is his courser proud ! 
 (But still as a wind when it hangs o'er the main 
 
 In the breast of the boding cloud) 
 
 With the champed bit and the arched crest, 
 
 And the eye of a listening deer, 
 Like valor, fretful most in rest, 
 
 Least chaf'd when in career. 
 
 Fit slave to a lord whom all else refuse 
 
 To save at his desperate need ; 
 By my troth ! I think one whom the world pursues 
 
 Hath a right to a gallant steed. 
 
 ' Away, my beloved, I hear their feet ! 
 
 I blow thee a kiss, my fair, 
 And I promise to bring thee, when next we meet, 
 
 A braid for thy bonny hair. 
 
 ' Hurra ! for the booty ! my steed, hurra ! 
 
 Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we ; 
 And the coy moon smiles on our merry way, 
 
 Like my own love timidly.' 
 
 The parson he rides with a jingling pouch, 
 
 How it blabs of the rifled poor ! 
 The courtier he lolls in his gilded coach, 
 
 How it smacks of a sinecure ! 
 
 The lawyer revolves in his whirling chaise 
 
 Sweet thoughts of a mischief done ; 
 And the lady that knoweth the card she plays 
 
 Is counting her guineas won ! 
 
 ' Ho, lady ! What, holla, ye sinless men ? 
 
 My claim ye can scarce refuse ; 
 For when honest folk live on their neighbors, then 
 
 They encroach on the robber's dues ! '
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 123 
 
 The lady changed cheek like a bashful maid, 
 
 The lawyer talk'd wondrous fair, 
 The parson blasphemed, and the courtier pray'd, 
 
 And the robber bore off his share. 
 
 ' Hurra ! for the revel ! my steed, hurra ; 
 
 Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we ! 
 It is ever a virtue, when others pay, 
 To ruffle it merrily ! ' 
 
 Oh ! there never was life like the robber's so 
 
 Jolly, and bold, and free ; 
 And its end why, a cheer from the crowd below, 
 
 And a leap from a leafless tree ! " 
 
 This very moral lay being ended, Mrs. Slopperton declared 
 it was excellent though she confessed she thought the senti- 
 ments rather loose. Perhaps the gentleman might be induced 
 to favor them with a song of a more refined and modern turn 
 something sentimental, in short. Glancing towards Lucy the 
 stranger answered that he only knew one song of the kind Mrs. 
 Slopperton specified, and it was so short that he could scarcely 
 weary her patience by granting her request. 
 
 At this moment the river, whch was easily descried from the 
 windows of the room, glimmered in the star-light, and directing 
 his looks towards the water, as if the scene had suggested to 
 him the verses he sung, he gave the following stanzas in a very 
 low, sweet tone, and with a far purer taste than, perhaps 
 would have suited the preceding and ruder song. 
 
 THE WISH. 
 
 "As sleeps the dreaming Eve below, 
 Its holiest star keeps ward above, 
 And yonder wave begins to glow, 
 
 Like Friendship bright'ning into Love ! 
 
 Ah ! would thy bosom were that stream, 
 
 Ne'er woo'd save by the virgin air ! 
 Ah ! would that I were that star, whose beam 
 
 Looks down and finds its image there ! " 
 
 Scarcely was the song ended before the arrival of Miss Bran- 
 don's servant was announced, and her destined escort, starting 
 up, gallantly assisted her with her cloak and her hood happy, 
 no doubt, to escape, in some measure, the overwhelming com- 
 pliments of his entertainers. 
 
 "But," said the doctor, as he shook hands with his deliv- 
 erer, "by what name shall I remember and" (lifting his rev- 
 erend eyes) "pray for the gentleman to whom I am so much 
 indebted?"
 
 124 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ""You are very kind," said the stranger; "my name is Clif- 
 ford. Madam" (turning to Lucy), "may I offer my hand 
 down the stairs?" 
 
 Lucy accepted the courtesy, and the stranger was half-way 
 down the staircase, when the doctor, stretching out his little 
 neck, exclaimed: 
 
 "Good-evening, sir! I do hope we shall meet again." 
 
 "Fear not," said Mr. Clifford, laughing gayly, "I am too 
 great a traveller to make that hope a matter of impossibility. 
 Take care, madam one step more. ' ' 
 
 The night was calm and tolerably clear, though the moon 
 had not yet risen, as Lucy and her companion passed through 
 the fields, with the servant preceding them at a little distance 
 with the lantern. 
 
 After a pause of some length Clifford said, with a little hesi- 
 tation, "Is Miss Brandon related to the celebrated barrister of 
 her name?" 
 
 "He is my uncle," said Lucy; 4i do you know him?" 
 
 "Only your uncle?" said Clifford, with vivacity, and evad- 
 ing Lucy's question. "I feared hem! hem! that is, I 
 thought he might have been a nearer relation." There was 
 another, but a shorter pause, when Clifford resumed, in a low 
 voice, "Will Miss Brandon think me very presumptuous if I 
 say that a countenance like hers, once seen, can never be for- 
 gotten; and I believe, some years since, I had the honor to see 
 her in London at the theatre? It was but a momentary and 
 distant glance I was then enabled to gain ; and yet," he added, 
 significantly, "it sufficed!" 
 
 "I was only once at the theatre while in London, some years 
 ago," said Lucy, a little embarassed; "and, indeed, an un- 
 pleasant occurrence which happened to my uncle, with whom 
 I was, is sufficient to make me remember it." 
 
 "Ha! and what was it?" 
 
 "Why, in going out of the play-house, his watch was stolen 
 by some dexterous pickpocket." 
 
 "Was the rogue caught?" asked the stranger. 
 
 "Yes; and was sent the next day to Bridewell. My uncle 
 said he was extremely young, and yet quite hardened. I 
 remember that I was foolish enough, when I heard of his sen- 
 tence, to beg very hard that my uncle would intercede for him ; 
 but in vain." 
 
 "Did you, indeed, intercede for him?" sa'id the stranger, in 
 so earnest a tone that Lucy colored for the twentieth time that 
 night, without seeing any necessity for the blush. Clifford
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 125 
 
 continued in a gayer tone, "Well, it is surprising how rogues 
 hang together. I should not be greatly surprised if the person 
 who despoiled your uncle were one of the same gang as the ras- 
 cal who so terrified your worthy friend the doctor. But is this 
 handsome old place your home?" 
 
 "This is my home," answered Lucy; "but it is an old-fash- 
 ioned, strange place; and few people, to whom it was not en- 
 deared by associations, would think it handsome." 
 
 "Pardon me!" said Lucy's companion, stopping and survey- 
 ing, with a look of great interest, the quaint pile, which now 
 stood close before them ; its dark bricks, gable-ends, and ivied 
 walls, tinged by the starry light of the skies, and contrasted by 
 the river, which rolled in silence below. The shutters to the 
 large oriel window of the room, in which the squire usually sat, 
 were still unclosed, and the steady and warm light of the apart- 
 ment shone forth, casting a glow, even to the smooth waters of 
 the river : at the same moment, too, the friendly bark of the 
 house-dog was heard, as in welcome ; and was followed by the 
 note of the great bell, announcing the hour for the last meal 
 of the old-fashioned and hospitable family. 
 
 "There is a pleasure in this!" said the stranger uncon- 
 sciously, and with a half-sigh: "I wish I had a home!" 
 
 "And have you not a home?" said Lucy, with naivete. 
 
 "As much as a bachelor can have, perhaps," answered Clif- 
 ford, recovering without an effort his gayety and self-posses- 
 sion. "But you know we wanderers are not allowed the same 
 boast as the more fortunate Benedicts; we send our hearts in 
 search of a home, and we lose the one without gaining the 
 other. But I keep you in the cold, and we are now at your 
 door." 
 
 "You will come in, of course!" said Miss Brandon, "and 
 partake of our evening cheer." 
 
 The stranger hesitated for an instant, and then said in a 
 quick tone : 
 
 "No! many many thanks; it is already late. Will Miss 
 Brandon accept my gratitude for her condescension in permit- 
 ting the attendance of one unknown to her?" As he thus 
 spoke, Clifford bowed profoundly over the hand of his beautiful 
 charge ; and Lucy, wishing him good-night, hastened, with a 
 light step, to her father's side. 
 
 Meanwhile Clifford, after lingering a minute, when the door 
 was closed on him, turned abruptly away and, muttering to 
 himself, repaired with rapid steps to whatever object he had 
 then in view.
 
 126 PAUL CLIFFORD 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "Up rouse ye, then, 
 My merry, merry men ! " JOANNA BAILL1E. 
 
 WHEN the moon rose that night there was one spot upon 
 which she palely broke, about ten miles distant from Warlock, 
 which the forewarned traveller would not have been eager to 
 pass, but which might not have afforded a bad study to such 
 artists as have caught from the savage painter of the Apen- 
 nines a love for the wild and the adventurous. Dark trees, 
 scattered far and wide over a broken, but verdant sward, made 
 the background ; the moon shimmered through the boughs as 
 she came slowly forth from her pavilion of cloud, and poured 
 a broader beam on two figures just advanced beyond the trees. 
 More plainly brought into light by her rays than his compan- 
 ion, here a horseman, clad in a short cloak that barely covered 
 the crupper of his steed, was looking to the priming of a large 
 pistol which he had just taken from his holster. A slouched 
 hat, and a mask of black crape, conspired with the action to 
 throw a natural suspicion on the intentions of the rider. His 
 horse, a beautiful dark gray, stood quite motionless, with 
 arched neck, and its short ears quickly moving to and fro, 
 demonstrative of that sagacious and anticipative attention which 
 characterizes the noblest of all tamed animals : you would not 
 have perceived the impatience of the steed but for the white 
 foam that gathered round the bit, and for an occasional and 
 unfrequent toss of the head. Behind this horseman, and par- 
 tially thrown into the dark shadow of the trees, another man, 
 similarly clad, was busied in tightening the girths of a horse 
 of great strength and size. As he did so he hummed, with no 
 unmusical murmur, the air of a popular drinking song. 
 
 '"Sdeath, Ned!" said his comrade, who had for some time 
 been plunged in a silent revery; '"'Sdeath! why can you not 
 stifle your love for the fine arts at a moment like this? That 
 hum of thine grows louder every moment, at last I expect it 
 will burst out into a full roar; recollect we are not at Gentle- 
 man George's now!" 
 
 "The more's the pity, Augustus," answered Ned. "Soho, 
 Little John; woaho, sir! a nice long night like this is made on 
 purpose for drinking. Will you sir? keep still then!" 
 
 ' 'Man never is, but always to be blest,' " said the moralizing 
 Tomlinson ; "you see you sigh for other scenes even when you 
 have a fine night and the chance of a God-send before you."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. I2"J 
 
 "Ay, the night is fine enough," said Ned, who was rather a 
 grumbler, as, having finished his groom-like operation, he now 
 slowly mounted. "D n it, Oliver* looks out as broadly as 
 if he were going to blab. For my part, I love a dark night, 
 with a star here and there winking at us, as much as to say, 'I 
 see you, my boys, but I won't say a word about it,' and a small 
 pattering, drizzling, mizzling rain that prevents Little John's 
 hoofs being heard, and covers one's retreat, as it were. Be- 
 sides, when one is a little wet, it is always necessary to drink 
 the more, to keep the cold from one's stomach when one gets 
 home." 
 
 "Or in other words," said Augustus, who loved a maxim 
 from his very heart, "light wet cherishes heavy wet!" 
 
 "Good!" said Ned, yawning. "Hang it, I wish the cap- 
 tain would come. Do you know what o'clock it is? Not far 
 short of eleven, I suppose?" 
 
 "About that! Hist, is that a carriage no it is only a sud- 
 den rise in the wind." 
 
 "Very self-sufficient in Mr. Wind to allow himself to be 
 raised without our help!" said Ned: "by the way, we are of 
 course to go back to the Red Cave." 
 
 "So Captain Lovett says. Tell me, Ned, what do you think 
 of the new tenant Lovett has put into the cave?" 
 
 "Oh, I have strange doubts there," answered Ned, shaking 
 the hairy honors of his head. "I don't half like it; consider, 
 the cave is our stronghold, and ought only to be known " 
 
 "To men of tried virtue," interrupted Tomlinson. "I agree 
 with you; I must try and get Lovett to discard his singular 
 protigt, as the French say. ' ' 
 
 " 'Gad, Augustus, how came you by so much learning? You 
 know all the poets by heart, to say nothing of Latin and 
 French." 
 
 "Oh, hang it, I was brought up, like the captain, to a literary 
 way of life." 
 
 "That's what makes you so thick with him, I suppose. He 
 writes (and sings too) a tolerable song, and is certainly a 
 deuced clever fellow. What a rise in the world he has made! 
 Do you recollect what a poor sort of way he was in when you 
 introduced him at Gentleman George's? and now he's the 
 Captain Crank of the gang." 
 
 "The gang! the company you mean. Gang, indeed! one 
 would think you were speaking of a knot of pickpockets. Yes 
 Lovett is a clever fellow ; and thanks to me, a very decent 
 
 * The moon.
 
 128 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 philosopher!" It is impossible to convey to our reader the 
 grave air of importance with which Tomlinson made his con- 
 cluding laudation. "Yes," said he after a pause, "he has a 
 bold, plain way of viewing things, and, like Voltaire, he be- 
 comes a philosopher by being a Man of Sense! Hist! see my 
 horse's ears! some one is coming, though I don't hear him! 
 Keep watch ! ' ' 
 
 The robbers grew silent, the sound of distant hoofs was in- 
 distinctly heard, and, as it came nearer, there was a crash of 
 boughs, as if a hedge had been ridden through ; presently the 
 moon gleamed picturesquely on the figure of a horseman, ap- 
 proaching through the copse in the rear of the robbers. Now 
 he was half seen among the sinuosities of his forest path ; now 
 in full sight, now altogether hid ; then his horse neighed impa- 
 tiently ; now he again came in sight, and in a moment more he 
 had joined the pair ! The new comer was of a tall and sinewy 
 frame, and in the first bloom of manhood. A frock of dark 
 green, edged with a narrow silver lace and buttoned from the 
 throat to the middle, gave due effect to an upright mien, a 
 broad chest, and a slender, but rounded waist, that stood in 
 no need of the compression of the tailor. A short riding- 
 cloak, clasped across the throat with a silver buckle, hung 
 picturesquely over one shoulder, while his lower limbs 
 were cased in military boots, which, though they rose above 
 the knee, were evidently neither heavy nor embarrassing to the 
 vigorous sinews of the horseman. The caparisons of the 
 steed the bit, the bridle, the saddle, the holster were accord- 
 ing to the most approved fashion of the day ; and the steed 
 itself was in the highest condition and of remarkable beauty. 
 The horseman's air was erect and bold ; a small but coal-black 
 mustachio heightened the resolute expression of his short, 
 curved lip ; and from beneath the large hat which overhung his 
 brow, his long locks escaped, and waved darkly in the keen 
 night air. Altogether, horseman and horse exhibited a gallant 
 and even a chivalrous appearance, which the hour and the 
 scene heightened to a dramatic and romantic effect. 
 
 "Ha! Lovett." 
 
 "How are you, my merry men?" were the salutations ex- 
 changed. 
 
 "What news?" said Ned. 
 
 "Brave news! look to it. My lord and his carriage will be 
 by in ten minutes at most." 
 
 "Have you got anything more out of the parson I frightened 
 so gloriously?" asked Augustus.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 129 
 
 "No; more of that hereafter. Now for our new prey!" 
 
 "Are you sure our noble friend will be soon at hand?" said 
 Tomlinson patting his steed, that now pawed in excited hi- 
 larity. 
 
 "Sure! I saw him change horses; I was in the stable-yard 
 at the time ; he got out for half an hour, to eat, I fancy ; be 
 sure that I played him a trick in the meanwhile." 
 
 "What force?" asked Ned. 
 
 "Self and servant." 
 
 "The post-boys?" 
 
 "Ay, I forgot them. Never mind, you must frighten 
 them." 
 
 "Forwards!" cried Ned, and his horse sprang from his 
 armed heel. 
 
 "One moment," said Lovett; "I must put on my mask 
 soho Robin, soho! Now for it forwards!" 
 
 As the trees rapidly disappeared behind them, the riders en- 
 tered, at a hand gallop, on a broad tract of waste land inter- 
 spersed with dykes, and occasionally fences of hurdles, over 
 which their horses bounded like quadrupeds well accustomed 
 to such exploits. 
 
 Certainly at that moment, what with the fresh air, the fitful 
 moonlight now breaking broadly out, now lost in a rolling 
 cloud, the exciting exercise, and that racing and dancing stit 
 of the blood, which all action, whether evil or noble in its na- 
 ture, raises in our veins ; what with all this, we cannot but allow 
 the fascination of that lawless life the fascination so great, 
 that one of the most noted gentlemen highwaymen of the day, 
 one too who had received an excellent education, and mixed in 
 no inferior society, is reported to have said when the rope was 
 about his neck, and the good Ordinary was exhorting him to 
 repent of his ill-spent life, "Ill-spent, you dog! Gad! (smack- 
 ing his lips) it was delicious!" 
 
 "Fie! fie! Mr. , raise your thoughts to heaven!" 
 
 "But a canter across a common oh!" muttered the crimi- 
 nal ; and his soul cantered off to eternity. 
 
 So briskly leaped the heart of the leader of the three, that, 
 as they now came in view of the main road, and the distant 
 wheel of a carriage whirred on the ear, he threw up his right 
 hand with a joyous gesture, and burst into a boyish exclamation 
 of hilarity and delight. 
 
 "Whist, captain!" said Ned, checking his own spirits with a 
 mock air of gravity, "let us conduct ourselves like gentlemen ; 
 it is only your low fellows who get into such confoundedly high
 
 130 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 spirits ; men of the world like us should do everything as if their 
 hearts were broken." 
 
 "Melancholy* ever cronies with Sublimity, and Courage is 
 sublime," said Augustus, with the pomp of a maxim-maker. 
 
 "Now for the hedge!" cried Lovett, unheeding his com- 
 rades, and his horse sprang into the road. 
 
 The three men now were drawn up quite still and motionless 
 by the side of the hedge. The broad road lay before them, curv- 
 ing out of sight on either side ; the ground was hardening un- 
 der an early tendency to frost, and the clear ring of approach- 
 ing hoofs sounded on the ear of the robbers, ominous, haply, 
 of the chink of "more attractive metal" about, if Hope told 
 no flattering tale, to be their own. 
 
 * A maxim which would have pleased Madame de Stael, who thought that philosophy 
 consisted in fine sentiments. In the Life of Lord Byron, just published by Mr. Moore, 
 the distinguished biographer makes a similar assertion to that of the sage Augustus : 
 " When did ever a sublime thought spring up in the soul that Melancholy was not to be 
 found, however latent, in its neighborhood ? Now, with due deference to Mr. Moore 
 this is a very sickly piece of nonsense, that has not even an atom of truth to stand on. 
 
 vicinity of that lofty image, lurks the jaundiced face of this eternal bete noir of Mr. 
 Moore s ? Again, in that sublimest passage in the sublimest of the Latin poets (Lucretius), 
 which bursts forth in honor of Epicurus,* is there anything that speaks to us of sadness ? 
 On the contrary, in the three passages we have referred to, especially in the two first 
 quoted, there is something splendidly luminous and cheering. Joy is often a great source 
 of the sublime ; the suddenness of its ventings would alone suffice to make it so. What 
 can be more sublime than the triumphant Psalms of '.David, intoxicated as they are with 
 an almost delirium of transport ? Even in the gloomiest passages of the poets, where we 
 recognize sublimity, we do not often find melancholy. We are stricken by terror, appalled 
 by awe, but seldom softened into sadness. In fact, Melancholy rather belongs to another 
 class of feelings than those excited by a sublime passage or those which engender its com- 
 position. On one hand, in the loftiest flights of Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare, we will 
 challenge a critic to discover this " green sickness " which Mr. Moore would convert into 
 the magnificence of the plague. On the other hand, where is the evidence that Melancholy 
 made the habitual temperaments of those divine men ? Of Homer we know nothing ; of 
 Shakespeare and Milton, we have reason to believe the ordinary temperament was consti- 
 tutionally cheerful. The latter boasts of it. A thousand instances, in contradiction to an 
 assertion it were not worth while to contradict, were it not so generally popular, so highly 
 sanctioned, and so eminently pernicious to everything that is manly and noble in literature, 
 rush to our memory. But we think we have already quoted enough to disprove the sen- 
 tence, which the illustrious biographer has himself disproved in more than twenty passages, 
 which, if he is pleased to forget, we thank Heaven posterity never will. Now we are on 
 the subject of this Life, so excellent in many respects, we can not but observe that we 
 think the whole scope of its philosophy utterly unworthy of the accomplished mind of the 
 writer ; the philosophy consists of an unpardonable distorting of general truths to suit the 
 peculiarities of an individual, noble indeed, but proverbially morbid and eccentric. A 
 striking instance of this occurs in the labored assertion that poets make but sorry domestic 
 characters. What ! because Lord Byron is said to have been a bad husband, was (to jgo no 
 further back for examples) was Walter Scott a bad husband ? or was Campbell ? or is Mr. 
 Moore himself? Why, in (the Fname -of justice, should it be insinuated that Milton wa* 
 a bad husband, when, as far as any one can judge of the matter, it was Mrs. Milton who 
 was the bad wife ? And why, oh ! why should we be told by Mr. Moore, a man who, to 
 judge by Captain Rock and the Epicurean, wants neither learning nor diligence why are 
 we to be told, with peculiar emphasis, that Lord Bacon never married, when Lord Bacon 
 not only married, but his marriage was so advantageous as to be an absolute epoch in his 
 career ? Really, really, one begins to beliere that there is not such a thing as a fact in the 
 world ! 
 
 * " Primus Graius homo mortaleis tollere, contra," etc. 
 To these instances we might especially add the odes of Pindar, Horace, and Campbell.
 
 PAUL CLIFFURD. 131 
 
 Presently the long-expected vehicle made its appearance at 
 the turn of the road, and it rolled rapidly on behind four fleet 
 post-horses. 
 
 "You, Ned, with your large steed, stop the horses; you 
 Augustus, bully the post-boys; leave me to do the rest," said 
 the captain. 
 
 "As agreed," returned Ned laconically. "Now, look at 
 me!" and the horse of the vain highwayman sprang from its 
 shelter. So instantaneous were the operations of these experi- 
 enced tacticians, that Lovett's orders were almost executed in a 
 briefer time than it had cost him to give them. 
 
 The carriage being stopped, and the post-boys white and 
 trembling, with two pistols (levelled by Augustus and Pepper) 
 cocked at their heads, Lovett dismounting threw open the 
 door of the carriage, and in a very civil tone, and with a very 
 bland address, accosted the inmate. 
 
 "Do not be alarmed, my lord, you are perfectly safe; we 
 only require your watch and purse." 
 
 "Really," answered a voice still softer than that of the rob- 
 ber, while a marked and somewhat French countenance, 
 crowned with a fur cap, peered forth at the arrester, "really, 
 sir, your request is so modest that I were worse than cruel to 
 refuse you. My purse is not very full, and you may as well 
 have it as one of my rascally duns; but my watch I have a 
 love for, and " 
 
 "I understand you, my lord," interrupted the highwayman. 
 "What do you value your watch at?" 
 
 "Humph; to you it may be worth some twenty guineas." 
 
 "Allow me to see it!" 
 
 "Your curiosity is extremely gratifying," returned the 
 nobleman, as with great reluctance he drew forth a gold re- 
 peater, set, as was sometimes the fashion of that day, in 
 precious stones. The highwayman looked slightly at the 
 bauble. 
 
 "Your lordship," said he, with great gravity, "was too 
 modest in your calculation ; your taste reflects greater credit on 
 you : allow me to assure you that your watch is worth fifty 
 guineas to us at the least. To show you that I think so most 
 sincerely, I will either keep it, and we will say no more on the 
 matter; or I will return it to you upon your word of honor 
 that you will give me a check for fifty guineas payable, by your 
 real bankers, to 'bearer for self." Take your choice; it is 
 quite immaterial to me!" 
 
 "Upon my honor, sir," said the traveller, with some surprise
 
 132 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 struggling to his features, "your coolness and self-possession 
 are quite admirable. I see you know the world." 
 
 "Your lordship flatters me!" returned Lovett, bowing. 
 "How do you decide?" 
 
 "Why, is it possible to write drafts without ink, pen, or 
 paper?" 
 
 Lovett drew back, and while he was searching in his pockets 
 for writing implements, which he always carried about him, 
 the traveller seized the opportunity, and, suddenly snatching 
 a pistol from the pocket of the carriage, levelled it full at the 
 head of the robber. The traveller was an excellent and prac- 
 ticed shot; he was almost within arm's length of his intended 
 victim ; his pistols were the envy of all his Irish friends. He 
 pulled the trigger the powder flashed in the pan, and the 
 highwayman, not even changing countenance, drew forth a 
 small ink-bottle, and placing a steel pen in it, handed it to the 
 nobleman, saying, with incomparable sang froid, "Would you 
 like, my lord, to try the other pistol? If so, oblige me by a 
 quick aim, as you must see the necessity of despatch. If not, 
 here is the back of a letter, on which you can write the 
 draft." 
 
 The traveller was not a man apt to become embarrassed in 
 anything save his circumstances: but he certainly felt a little 
 discomposed and confused as he took the paper, and, uttering 
 some broken words, wrote the check. The highwayman 
 glanced over it, saw it was written according to form, and then 
 with a bow of cool respect, returned the watch, and shut the 
 door of the carriage. 
 
 Meanwhile the servant had been shivering in front boxed 
 up in that solitary convenience termed, not euphoniously, a 
 dickey. Him the robber now briefly accosted. 
 
 "What have you got about you belonging to your master?" 
 
 "Only his pills, your honor! which I forgot to put in the 
 
 "Pills! throw them down to me!" The valet tremblingly ex- 
 tracted from his side pocket a little box, which he threw down, 
 and Lovett caught in his hand. 
 
 He opened the box, counted the pills: 
 
 "One, two, four, twelve, Aha!" He reopened the 
 carriage door. 
 
 "Are these your pills, my lord?" 
 
 The wondering peer, who had begun to resettle himself in 
 the corner of his carriage, answered that they were. 
 
 "My lord, I see you are in a high state of fever; you were 
 A little delirious just now when you snapped a pistol in your
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 133 
 
 friend's face. Permit me to recommend you a prescription 
 swallow off all these pills!" 
 
 "My God!" cried the traveller, startled into earnestness-. 
 "What do you mean? twelve of those pills would kill a man!" 
 
 "Hear him!" said the robber, appealing to his comrades, 
 who roared with laughter. "What, my lord, would you rebel 
 against your doctor? Fie, fie! be persuaded." 
 
 And with a soothing gesture he stretched the pill-box towards 
 the recoiling nose of the traveller. But though a man who 
 could as well as any one make the best of a bad condition, the 
 traveller was especially careful of his health ; and so obstinate 
 was he where that was concerned, that he would rather have 
 submitted to the effectual operation of a bullet than incurred 
 the chance operation of an extra pill. He, therefore, with 
 great indignation, as the box was still extended towards him, 
 snatched it from the hand of the robber, and, flinging it across 
 the road, said, with dignity : 
 
 "Do your worst, rascals! But, if you leave me alive, 
 you shall repent the outrage you have offered to one of his 
 Majesty's household!" Then, as if becoming sensible of the 
 ridicule of affecting too much in his present situation, he 
 added in an altered tone: "And now, for Heaven's sake, shut 
 the door; and if you must kill somebody, there's my servant 
 on the box he's paid for it." 
 
 This speech made the robbers laugh more than ever; and 
 Lovett, who liked a joke even better than a purse, immediately 
 closed the carriage door, saying : 
 
 "Adieu! my lord; and let me give you a piece of advice; 
 whenever you get out at a country inn, and stay half-an-hour 
 while your horses- are changing, take your pistols with you, or 
 you may chance to have the charge drawn." 
 
 With this admonition the robber withdrew; and seeing that 
 the valet held out to him a long green purse, he said, gently 
 shaking his head : 
 
 "Rogues should not prey on each other, my good fellow. 
 You rob your master so do we let each keep what he has got. " 
 
 Long Ned and Tomlinson then backing their horses, the 
 carriage was freed ; and away started the post-boys at a pace 
 which seemed to show less regard for life than the robbers 
 themselves had evinced. 
 
 Meanwhile the captain remounted his steed, and the three 
 confederates, bounding in gallant style over the hedge through 
 which they had previously gained the road, galloped off in the 
 same direction they had come ; the moon ever and anon bring-
 
 134 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ing into light their flying figures, and the sound of many a joy- 
 ous peal of laughter ringing through the distance along the 
 frosty air. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " What is here ? 
 
 Gold? * * * 
 
 Thus much of this will make white black foul fair." 
 
 Timon of Athens. 
 " Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly drest, 
 
 Fresh as a bridegroom." Henry IV, 
 " I do not know the man I should avoid 
 
 So soon as that spare Cassius ! He reads much. 
 
 He is a great observer : and he looks 
 
 Quite thiough the deeds of men. 
 
 Often he smiles ; but smiles in such a sort, 
 
 As if he mocked himself or scorned his spirit, 
 
 That could be moved to smile at anything." Julius Ccesar 
 
 THE next day, late at noon, as Lucy was sitting with her 
 father, not as usual engaged either in work or in reading, but 
 seemingly quite idle, with her pretty foot upon the squire's gouty 
 stool, and her eyes fixed on the carpet, while her hands (never 
 were hands so soft and so small as Lucy's, though they may 
 have been eclipsed in whiteness) were lightly clasped together 
 and reposed listlessly on her knees, the surgeon of the village 
 abruptly entered with a face full of news and horror. Old 
 Squire Brandon was one of those persons who always hear 
 news, whatever it may be, later than any of their neighbors ; 
 and it was not till all the gossips of the neighborhood had 
 picked the bone of the matter quite bare, that he was now in- 
 formed, through the medium of Mr. Pillum, that Lord Maul- 
 everer had on the preceding night been stopped by three high- 
 waymen in his road to his country seat, and robbed to a con- 
 siderable amount. 
 
 The fame of the worthy Doctor Slopperton's mal-adventurc 
 having, long ere this, spread far and wide, the whole neigh- 
 borhood was naturally thrown into great consternation. Magis- 
 trates were sent to, large dogs borrowed, blunderbusses 
 cleaned, and a subscription made throughout the parish for the 
 raising of a patrol. There seemed little doubt but that the 
 offenders, in either case, were members of the same horde ; 
 and Mr. Pillum, in his own mind, was perfectly convinced that 
 they meant to encroach upon his trade, and destroy all the sur- 
 rounding householders who were worth the .trouble.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 135 
 
 The next week passed in the most diligent endeavors, on the 
 part of the neighboring magistrates and yeomanry, to detect 
 and seize the robbers, but their labors were utterly fruitless ; 
 and one justice of peace, who had been particularly active, was 
 himself entirely "cleaned out" by an old gentleman, who, 
 under the name of Mr. Bagshot rather an ominous cogno- 
 men offered to conduct the unsuspicious magistrate to the 
 very spot where the miscreants might be seized. No sooner, 
 however, had he drawn the poor justice away from his com- 
 rades into a lonely part of the road, than he stripped him to 
 his shirt. He did not even leave his worship his flannel draw- 
 ers, though the weather was as bitter as the dog days of eigh- 
 teen hundred and twenty-nine. 
 
 " 'Tis not my way," said the hoary ruffian, when the justice 
 petitioned at least for the latter article of attire; " 'tis not my 
 way; I be's slow about my work, but I does it thoroughly 
 so off with your rags, old 'un." 
 
 This was, however the only additional instance of aggression 
 in the vicinity of Warlock Manor-house ; and, by degrees, as the 
 autumn declined, and no farther enormities were perpetrated, 
 people began to look out for a new topic of conversation. 
 This was afforded them by a piece of unexpected good fortune 
 to Lucy Brandon. 
 
 Mrs. Warner, an old lady to whom she was slightly related, 
 and with whom she had been residing during her brief and 
 only visit to London, died suddenly, and in her will declared 
 Lucy to be her sole heiress. The property, which was in the 
 funds, and which amounted to sixty thousand pounds, was to be 
 enjoyed by Miss Brandon immediately on her attaining her 
 twenty-first year ; meanwhile the executors to the will were to 
 pay to the young heiress the annual sum of six hundred pounds. 
 The joy which this news created in Warlock Manor-house may 
 easily be conceived. The squire projected improvements 
 here, and repairs there ; and Lucy, poor girl, who had no idea 
 of money for herself, beyond the purchase of a new pony, or 
 a gown from London, seconded with affectionate- pleasure all 
 her father's suggestions, and delighted herself with the reflec- 
 tion that those fine plans, which were to make the Brandons 
 greater than the Brandons ever were before, were to be realized 
 by her own, own money ! It was at this identical time that 
 the surrounding gentry made a simultaneous and grand discov- 
 ery viz. of the astonishing merits and great good sense of Mr. 
 Joseph Brandon. It was a pity, they observed, that he was of 
 so reserved and shy a turn ; it was not becoming in a gentle-
 
 l$ PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 man of so ancient a family. But why should they not en- 
 deavor to draw him from his retirement into those more public 
 scenes which he was doubtless well calculated to adorn? 
 
 Accordingly, as soon as the first month of mourning had ex- 
 pired, several coaches, chariots, chaises, and horses, which had 
 never been seen at Warlock Manor-house before, arrived there 
 one after the other in the most friendly manner imaginable. 
 Their owners admired everything; the house was such a fine 
 relic of old times! for their parts they liked an oak staircase! 
 and those nice old windows! and what a beautiful peacock! 
 and, Heaven save the mark ! that magnificent chestnut-tree was 
 worth a forest! Mr. Brandon was requested to make one of 
 the county hunt, not that he any longer hunted himself, 
 but that his name would give such consequence to the thing ! 
 Miss Lucy must come to pass a week with her dear friends 
 the Honorable Misses Sansterre! Augustus, their brother, had 
 such a sweet lady's horse! In short, the customary change 
 which takes place in people's characters after the acquisition of 
 a fortune, took place in the characters of Mr. and Miss Bran- 
 don ; and when people became suddenly amiable, it is no won- 
 der that they should suddenly gain a vast accession of friends. 
 
 But Lucy, though she had seen so little of the world, was 
 not quite blind ; and the squire, though rather obtuse, was not 
 quite a fool. If they were not rude to their new visitors, they 
 were by no means overpowered with gratitude at their conde- 
 scension. Mr. Brandon declined subscribing to the hunt, and 
 Miss Lucy laughed in the face of the Honorable Augustus 
 Santerre. Among their new guests, however, was one who 
 to great knowledge of the world joined an extreme and even 
 brilliant polish of manners, which at least prevented deceit 
 from being disagreeable, if not wholly from being unseen : this 
 was the new lieutenant of the county, Lord Mauleverer. 
 
 Though possessed of an immense property in that district, 
 Lord Mauleverer had hitherto resided but little on his estates. 
 He w as one of those gay lords who are now somewhat uncom- 
 mon in this country after mature manhood is attained, who 
 live an easy and rakish life, rather among their parasites than 
 their equals, and who yet, by aid of an agreeable manner, 
 natural talents, and certain graceful and light cultivation of 
 mind (not the less pleasant for its being universally colored 
 with worldliness, and an amusing rather than offensive regard for 
 self), never lose their legitimate station in society ; who are 
 oracles in dress, equipages, cookery, and beauty, and, hav- 
 ing no character of their own, are able to fix by a single word
 
 fcAUL CLIFFORD. 137 
 
 a character upon any one else. Thus, while Mauleverer 
 rather lived the dissolute life of a young nobleman who pre- 
 fers the company of agreeable demireps to that of wearisome 
 duchesses, than maintained the decorous state befitting a ma- 
 ture age, and an immense interest in the country, he was quite 
 as popular at court, where he held a situation in the house- 
 hold, as he was in the green-room, where he enchanted every 
 actress on the right side of forty. A word from him in the 
 legitimate quarters of power went farther than an harangue 
 from another; and even the prudes, at least, all those who 
 had daughters, confessed "that his lordship was a very inter- 
 esting character." Like Brandon, his familiar friend, he had 
 risen in the world (from the Irish baron to the English earl) 
 without having ever changed his politics, which were ultra- 
 Tory; and we need not observe that he was deemed, like 
 Brandon, a model of public integrity. He was possessed of 
 two places under government, six votes in the House of Com- 
 mons, and eight livings in the Church ; and we must add, in 
 justice to his loyal and religious principles, that there was not 
 in the three kingdoms a firmer friend to the existing establish- 
 ments. 
 
 Whenever a nobleman does not marry, people try to take 
 away his character. Lord Mauleverer had never married ; the 
 Whigs had been very bitter on the subject ; they even alluded 
 to it in the House of Commons, that chaste assembly, where 
 the never- failing subject of reproach against Mr. Pitt was the 
 not being of an amorous temperament ; but they had not hitherto 
 prevailed against the stout earl's celibacy. It is true, that if 
 he was devoid of a wife, he had secured to himself plenty of 
 substitutes ; his profession was that of a man of gallantry ; and 
 though he avoided the daughters, it was only to make love to 
 the mothers. But his lordship had now attained a certain age, 
 and it was at last circulated among his friends that he intended 
 to look out for a Lady Mauleverer. 
 
 "Spare your caresses, " said his toady-in-chief to a certain 
 duchess, who had three portionless daughters: "Mauleverer 
 has sworn that he will not choose among your order : you know 
 his high politics, and you will not wonder at his declaring him- 
 self averse in matrimony as in morals, to a community of 
 goods." 
 
 The announcement of the earl's matrimonial design, and the 
 circulation of this anecdote, set all the clergymen's daughters 
 in England on a blaze of expectation ; and when Mauleverer 
 came to shire, upon obtaining the honor of the lieu-
 
 138 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 tenancy, to visit his estates and court the friendship of his neigh- 
 bors, there was not an old-young lady of forty, who worked in 
 broad-stitch and had never been to London above a week at a 
 time, who did not deem herself exactly the sort of person sure 
 to fascinate his lordship. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when the travelling chariot of 
 this distinguished person, preceded by two out-riders in the 
 earl's undress livery of dark green, stopped at the hall door of 
 Warlock House. The squire was at home, actually and meta- 
 phorically ; for he never dreamed of denying himself to any 
 one, gentle or simple. The door of the carriage being opened, 
 there descended a small slight man, richly dressed (for lace and 
 silk vestments were not then quite discarded, though gradually 
 growing less the mode), and of an air prepossessing, and dis- 
 tinguished^ rather than dignified. His years for his counte- 
 nance, though handsome, was deeply marked, and evinced the 
 tokens of dissipation seemed more numerous than they really 
 were ; and, though not actually past middle age, Lord Maul- 
 everer might fairly have received the unpleasing epithet of 
 elderly. However, his step was firm, his gait upright, and his 
 figure was considerably more youthful than his physiognomy. 
 The first compliments of the day having passed, and Lord 
 Mauleverer having expressed his concern that his long and fre- 
 quent absence from that county had hitherto prevented his 
 making the acquaintance of Mr. Brandon, the brother of one 
 of his oldest and most esteemed friends, conversation became 
 on both sides rather an effort; Mr. Brandon first introduced 
 the subject of the weather, and the turnips; inquired whether 
 his lordship was not very fond (for his part he used to be, 
 but lately the rheumatism had disabled him, he hoped his lord- 
 ship was not subject to that complaint] of shooting ! 
 
 Catching only the last words, for, besides the awful com- 
 plexity of the squire's sentences, Mauleverer was slightly 
 afflicted by the aristocratic complaint of deafness, the earl 
 answered with a smile: 
 
 "The complaint of shooting! Very good indeed, Mr. Bran- 
 don ; it is seldom that I have heard so witty a phrase. No, I 
 am not in the least troubled with that epidemic. It is a disor- 
 der very prevalent in this country." 
 
 "My lord!" said the squire, rather puzzled; and then ob- 
 serving that Mauleverer did not continue, he thought it expe- 
 dient to start another subject. 
 
 "I was exceedingly grieved to hear that your lordship, in 
 travelling to Mauleverer Park (that is a very ugly road across
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 139 
 
 the waste land ; the roads in this county are in general pretty 
 good for my own part, when I was a magistrate I was very 
 strict in that respect) was robbed. You have not yet, I 
 believe, detected (for my part, though I do not profess to be 
 much of a politician, I do think that in affairs of robbery there 
 is a great deal of remissness in the ministers) the villains ! " 
 
 "Our friend is disaffected!" thought the lord-lieutenant, 
 imagining that the last opprobrious term was applied to the re- 
 spectable personages specified in the parenthesis. Bowing with 
 a polished smile to the squire, Mauleverer replied aloud, that he 
 was extremely sorry that their conduct (meaning the ministers) 
 did not meet with Mr. Brandon's approbation. 
 
 "Well," thought the squire, "that is playing the courtier 
 with a vengeance!" "Meet with my approbation!" said he 
 warmly: "how could your lordship think me (for though I 
 am none of your saints, I am, I hope, a good Christian; an 
 excellent one judging from your words, your lordship must 
 be /) so partial to crime ! " 
 
 "7 partial to crime!" returned Mauleverer, thinking he had 
 stumbled unawares on some outrageous democrat, yet smiling 
 as softly as usual; "you judge me harshly, Mr. Brandon! you 
 must do me more .justice, and you can only do that by know- 
 ing me better." 
 
 Whatever unlucky answer the squire might otherwise have 
 made, was cut off by the entrance of Lucy; and the earl 
 secretly delighted at the interruption, rose to render her his 
 homage, and to remind her of the introduction he had formerly 
 been so happy as to obtain to her through the friendship of Mr. 
 W r illiam Brandon, "a friendship," said the gallant nobleman, 
 "to which I have often before been indebted, but which was 
 never more agreeably exerted on my behalf." 
 
 Upon this Lucy, who, though she had been so painfully 
 bashful during her meetings with Mr. Clifford, felt no over- 
 powering diffidence in the presence of so much greater a per- 
 son, replied laughingly, and the earl rejoined by a second com- 
 pliment. Conversation was now no longer an effort; and 
 Mauleverer, the most consummate of epicures, whom even roy- 
 alty trembled to ask without preparation, on being invited by 
 *He unconscious squire to partake of the family dinner, eagerly 
 accepted the invitation. It was long since the knightly walls 
 cf Warlock had been honored by the presence of a guest so 
 courtly. The good squire heaped his plate with a profusion of 
 soiled beef; and while the poor earl was contemplating in dis- 
 may the alps upon alps which he was expected to devour, the
 
 140 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 gray-headed butler, anxious to serve him with alacrity, 
 whipped away the overloaded plate, and presently returned it, 
 yet more astoundingly surcharged with an additional world of 
 a composition of stony color and sudorific aspect, which, after 
 examining in mute attention for some moments, and carefully 
 removing as well as he was able, to the extreme edge of his 
 plate, the earl discovered to be suet pudding. 
 
 "You eat nothing, my lord," cried the squire; "let me give 
 you (this is more underdone;)" holding between blade and 
 fork in middle air a horrent fragment of scarlet, shaking its 
 gory locks, "another slice." 
 
 Swift at the word dropped upon Mauleverer's plate the harpy 
 finger and ruthless thumb of the gray-headed butler. 
 
 "Not a morsel more," cried the earl, struggling with the 
 murtherous domestic. "My dear sir, excuse me; I assure you 
 I have never ate such a dinner before never!" 
 
 "Nay, now!" quoth the squire, expostulating, "you really 
 (and this air is so keen that your lordship should indulge your 
 appetite, if you follow- the physician's advice) eat nothing !" 
 
 Again Mauleverer was at fault. 
 
 "The physicians are right, Mr. Brandon," said he; "very 
 right, and I am forced to live abstemiously : indeed I do not know 
 whether if I were to exceed at your hospitable table, and attack 
 all that you would bestow upon me, I should ever recover it. 
 You would have to seek a new lieutenant for your charming 
 county, and on the tomb of the last Mauleverer the hypocritical 
 and unrelated heir would inscribe, 'Died of the visitation of 
 Beef, John, Earl, etc.' ' 
 
 Plain as the meaning of this speech might have seemed to 
 others, the squire only laughed at the effeminate appetite of 
 the speaker, and inclined to think him an excellent fellow for 
 jesting so good-humoredly on his own physical infirmity. But 
 Lucy had the tact of her sex, and taking pity on the earl's 
 calamitous situation, though she certainly never guessed at its 
 extent, entered with so much grace and ease into the conver- 
 sation which he sought to establish between them, that Maul- 
 everer's gentleman, who had hitherto been pushed aside by the 
 zeal of the gray-headed butler, found an opportunity, when the 
 squire was laughing and the butler staring, to steal away the 
 overburthened plate unsuspected and unseen. 
 
 In spite, however, of these evils of board and lodgment, 
 Mauleverer was exceedingly well pleased with his visit ; nor did 
 he terminate it till the shades of night had begun to close, and 
 the distance from his own residence conspired with experience
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 14* 
 
 to remind him that it was possible for a highwayman's audac- 
 ity to attack the equipage even of Lord Mauleverer. He then 
 reluctantly re-entered his carriage, and, bidding the postillions 
 drive as fast as possible, wrapped himself in his roquelaire, and 
 divided his thoughts between Lucy Brandon and the homard 
 au gratin with which he purposed to console himself immedi- 
 ately on his return home. However, Fate, which mocks our 
 most cherished hopes, ordained that on arriving at Mauleverer 
 Park the owner should be suddenly afflicted with a loss of ap- 
 petite, a coldness in the limbs, a pain in the chest, and various 
 other ungracious symptoms of portending malady. Lord 
 Mauleverer went straight to bed ; he remained there for some 
 days, and when he recovered his physicians ordered him to 
 Bath. The Whig Methodists, who hated him, ascribed his ill- 
 ness to Providence ; and his lordship was firmly of opinion that 
 it should be ascribed to the beef and pudding. However this 
 be, there was an end, for the present, to the hopes of young 
 ladies of forty, and to the intended festivities at Mauleverer 
 Park. "Good Heavens!" said the Earl, as his carriage wheels 
 turned from his gates, "what a loss to country tradesmen may 
 be occasioned by a piece of underdone beef, especially if it be 
 boiled!" 
 
 About a fortnight had elapsed since Mauleverer 's meteoric 
 visit to Warlock House, when the Squire received from his 
 brother the following epistle : 
 
 "Mv DEAR JOSEPH: 
 
 "You know my numerous avocations, and, amid the press of 
 business which surrounds me, will, I am sure, forgive me for 
 being a very negligent and remiss correspondent. Neverthe- 
 less, I assure you, no one can more sincerely sympathize in 
 that good fortune which has befallen my charming niece, and 
 of which your last letter informed me, than I do. Pray give 
 my best love to her, and tell her how complacently I look 
 forward to the brilliant sensation she will create, when her 
 beauty is enthroned upon that rank which, I am quite sure, it 
 will one day or other command. 
 
 "You are not aware, perhaps, my dear Joseph, that I have 
 for some time been in a very weak and declining state of health. 
 The old nervous complaint in my face has of late attacked me 
 grievously, and the anguish is sometimes so great that I am 
 scarcely able to bear it. I believe the great demand which my 
 profession makes upon a frame of body never strong, and now 
 beginning prematurely to feel the infirmities of time, is the real
 
 *42 PAUL CLIFFORD 
 
 cause of my maladies. At last, however, I must absolutely 
 punish my pocket, and indulge my inclinations by a short 
 respite from toil. The doctors sworn friends, you know, to 
 the lawyers, since they make common cause against mankind, 
 have peremptorily ordered me to lie by, and to try a short 
 course of air, exercise, social amusements, and the waters of 
 Bath. Fortunately this is vacation time, and I can afford to 
 lose a few weeks of emolument, in order, perhaps, to secure 
 many years of life. I purpose, then, early next week, repair- 
 ing to that melancholy reservoir of the gay, where persons 
 dance out of life and are fiddled across the Styx. In a word, 
 I shall make one of the adventurers after health who seek the 
 goddess at King Bladud's pump-room. Will you and dear 
 Lucy join me there? I ask it of your friendship, and I am 
 quite sure that neither of you will shrink aghast at the pro- 
 posal of solacing your invalid relation. At the same time that I 
 am recovering health, my pretty niece will be avenging Pluto, by 
 consigning to his dominions many a better and younger hero 
 in my stead. And it will be a double pleasure to me to see all 
 the hearts, etc., I break off, for what can I say on that subject 
 which the little coquette does not anticipate? It is high time 
 that Lucy should see the world ; and though there are many at 
 Bath, above all places, to whom the heiress will be an object of 
 interested attentions, yet there are also many in that crowded 
 city by no means undeserving her notice. What say you, dear 
 Joseph? But I know already; you will not refuse to keep 
 company with me in my little holiday, and Lucy's eyes are 
 already sparkling at the idea of new bonnets, Milsom Street, a 
 thousand adorers, and the Pump-room. 
 
 "Ever, dear Joseph, 
 
 "Yours affectionately, 
 
 "WILLIAM BRANDON. 
 
 "P. S. I find that rny friend Lord Mauleverer is at Bath; 
 I own that is an additional reason to take me thither ; by a 
 letter from him, received the other day, I see that he has paid 
 you a visit, and he now raves about his host and the heiress. 
 Ah, Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy! are you going to conquer him 
 whom all London has, for years more than I care to tell (yet 
 not many, for Mauleverer is still young), assailed in vain? 
 Answer me!" 
 
 This letter created a considerable excitement in Warlock 
 House, The old squire was extremely fond of his brother,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. *43 
 
 and grieved to the heart to find that he spoke so discourag- 
 ingly of his health. Nor did the squire for a moment hesitate 
 at accepting the proposal to join his distinguished relative at 
 Bath. Lucy also, who had for her uncle, possibly from his 
 profuse yet not indelicate flattery, a very great regard and in- 
 terest, though she had seen but little of him, urged the squire 
 to lose no time in arranging matters for their departure, so as 
 to precede the barrister, and prepare everything for his arrival. 
 The father and daughter being thus agreed, there was little 
 occasion for delay ; an answer to the invalid's letter was sent 
 by return of post, and on the fourth day from their receipt of 
 the said epistle the good old squire, his daughter, a country 
 girl, by way of abigail, the gray-headed butler, and two or 
 three live pets, of the size and habits most convenient for trav- 
 elling, were on their way to a city which at that time was gayer, 
 at least, if somewhat less splendid, than the metropolis. 
 
 On the second day of their arrival at Bath, Brandon (as in 
 future, to avoid confusion, we shall call the younger brother, 
 giving to the elder his patriarchal title of squire) joined them. 
 
 He was a man seemingly rather fond of parade, though at 
 heart he disrelished and despised it. He came to their lodg- 
 ing, which had not been selected in the very best part of the 
 town, in a carriage and six, but attended only by one favorite 
 servant. 
 
 They found him in better looks and better spirits than they 
 had anticipated. Few persons, when he liked it, could be 
 more agreeable than William Brandon; but at times there mixed 
 with his conversation a bitter sarcasm, probably a habit ac- 
 quired in his profession, or an occasional tinge of morose and 
 haughty sadness, possibly the consequence of his ill-health. 
 Yet his disorder, which was somewhat approaching to that pain- 
 ful affliction the tic doloureux, though of fits more rare in occur- 
 rence than those of that complaint ordinarily are, never seemed 
 even for an instant to operate upon his mood, whatever that 
 might be. That disease worked unseen; not a muscle of his 
 face appeared to quiver; the smile never vanished from his 
 mouth, the blandness of his voice never grew faint as with pain, 
 and, in the midst of intense torture, his resolute and stern 
 mind conquered every external indication; nor could the most 
 observant stranger have noted the moment when the fit at- 
 tacked or released him. There was something inscrutable 
 about the man. You felt that you took his character upon 
 trust, and not on your own knowledge. The acquaintance of 
 years would have left you equally dark as to his vices or his
 
 144 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 virtues. He varied often, yet in each variation he was equally 
 undiscoverable. Was he performing a series of parts, or was it 
 the ordinary changes of a man's true temperament that you 
 beheld in him? Commonly smooth, quiet, attentive, flattering 
 in social intercourse ; he was known in the senate and courts 
 of law for a cold asperity, and a caustic venom, scarcely 
 rivalled even in those arenas of contention. It seemed as if 
 the bitterer feelings he checked in private life, he delighted to 
 indulge in public. Yet, even there, he gave not way to mo- 
 mentary petulance or gushing passion; all seemed with him sys- 
 tematic sarcasm, or habitual sternness. He outraged no form of 
 ceremonial, or of society. He stung, without appearing con- 
 scious of the sting; and his antagonist writhed not more be- 
 neath the torture of his satire, than the crushing contempt of 
 his self-command. Cool, ready, armed and defended on all 
 points, sound in knowledge, unfailing in observation, equally 
 consummate in sophistry when needed by himself, and instan- 
 taneous in detecting sophistry in another; scorning no art, 
 however painful; begrudging no labor, however weighty; min- 
 ute in detail, yet not the less comprehending the whole subject 
 in a grasp ; such was the legal and public character William 
 Brandon had established, and such was the fame he joined to 
 the unsullied purity of his moral reputation But to his friends 
 he seemed only the agreeable, clever, lively, and, if we may 
 use the phrase innocently, the worldly man never affecting a 
 superior sanctity, or an over-anxiety to forms, except upon 
 great occasions; and rendering his austerity of manners the 
 more admired, because he made it seem so unaccompanied by 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 "Well," said Brandon, as he sat after dinner alone with his 
 relations, and had seen the eyes of his brother close in diurnal 
 slumber, "tell me, Miss Lucy, what you think of Lord Maul- 
 everer; do you find him agreeable?" 
 
 "Very; too much so, indeed!" 
 
 "Too much so! that is an uncommon fault, Lucy; unless 
 you mean to insinuate that you find him too agreeable for your 
 peace of mind." 
 
 "Oh, no! there is little fear of that. All that I meant to ex- 
 press was, that he seems to make it the sole business of his life 
 to be agreeable ; and that one imagines he has gained that end 
 by the loss of certain qualities which one would have liked 
 better." 
 
 "Umph! and what are they?" 
 
 "Truth, sincerity, independence, and honesty of mind."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 145 
 
 "My dear Lucy, it has been the professional study of my 
 life to discover a man's character, especially as far as truth is 
 concerned, in as short a time as possible ; but you excel me by 
 intuition, if you can tell whether there be sincerity in a cour- 
 iier's character at the first interview you have with him." 
 
 "Nevertheless, I am sure of my opinion," said Lucy, laugh- 
 ing; "and I will tell you one instance I observed among a 
 hundred. Lord Mauleverer is rather deaf, and he imagined, 
 in conversation, that my father said one thing it was upon a 
 very trifling subject, the speech of some member of parlia- 
 ment (the lawyer smiled) when in reality he meant to say 
 another. Lord Mauleverer, in the warmest manner in the 
 world, chimed in with him, appeared thoroughly of his opin- 
 ion, applauded his sentiments, and wished the whole country 
 of his mind. Suddenly my father spoke; Lord Mauleverer 
 bent down his ear, and found that the sentiments he had so 
 lauded were exactly those my father the least favored. No 
 sooner did he make this discovery, than he wheeled round 
 again, dexterously and gracefully, I allow; condemned all that 
 he had before extolled, and extolled all that he had before 
 abused!" 
 
 "And is that all, Lucy?" said Brandon, with a keener sneer 
 on his lip than the occasion warranted. "Why, that is what 
 every one does ; only some more gravely than others. Maul- 
 everer in society ; I, at the bar ; the minister in parliament ; 
 friend to friend ; lover to mistress ; mistress to lover ; half of 
 us are employed in saying white is black, and the other half in 
 swearing that black is white. There is only one difference, 
 my pretty niece, between the clever man and the fool; the 
 fool says what is false while the colors stare in his face and 
 give him the lie; but the clever man takes, as it were, a brush, 
 and literally turns the black into white, and the white into 
 black, before he makes the assertion, which is then true. The 
 fool changes, and is a liar; the clever man makes the colors 
 change, and is a genius. But this is not for your young years 
 yet, Lucy." 
 
 "But I can't see the necessity of seeming to agree with peo- 
 ple," said Lucy simply; "surely they would be just as well 
 pleased if you differed from them civilly and with respect?" 
 
 "No, Lucy," said Brandon, still sneering; "to be liked, it 
 is not necessary to be anything but compliant; lie, cheat, 
 make every word a snare, and every act a forgery but never 
 contradict. Agree with people, and they make a couch for 
 you in their hearts. You know the story of Dante and the
 
 146 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 buffoon. Both were entertained at the court of the vain ped- 
 ant, who called himself Prince Scaliger; the former poorly, 
 the latter sumptuously. 'How comes it,' said the buffoon to 
 the poet, 'that I am so rich and you so poor?' 'I shall be as 
 rich as you,' was the stinging and true reply, 'whenever I can 
 find a patron as like myself as Prince Scaliger is like you!' ' 
 
 "Yet my birds," said Lucy, caressing the goldfinch, which 
 nestled to her bosom, "are not like me, and I love them. Nay, 
 I often think I could love those better who differ from me the 
 most. I feel it so in books, when, for instance, I read a novel 
 or a play ; and you, uncle, I like almost in proportion to my 
 perceiving in myself nothing in common with you." 
 
 "Yet," said Brandon, "you have in common with me a love 
 for old stories of Sir Hugo, and Sir Rupert, and all the other 
 'Sirs ' of our mouldered and by-gone race. So you shall sing 
 me the ballad about Sir John de Brandon, and the dragon he 
 slew in the Holy Land. We will adjourn to the drawing- 
 room, not to disturb your father." 
 
 Lucy agreed, took her uncle's arm, repaired to the drawing- 
 room, and, seating herself at the harpsichord, sang to an in- 
 spiriting, yet somewhat rude air, the family ballad her uncle 
 had demanded. 
 
 It would have been amusing to note in the rigid face of the 
 hardened and habitual man of peace and parchments, a certain 
 enthusiasm which ever and anon crossed his cheek, as the verses 
 of the ballad rested on some allusion to the knightly House of 
 Brandon, and its old renown. It was an early prejudice, 
 breaking out despite of himself a flash of character, stricken 
 from the hard fossil in which it was imbedded. One would have 
 supposed that the silliest of all prides (for the pride of money, 
 though meaner, is less senseless), family pride, was the last 
 weakness which at that time the callous and astute lawyer 
 would have confessed, even to himself. 
 
 "Lucy," said Brandon, as the song ceased, and he gazed on 
 his beautiful niece with a certain pride in his aspect, "I long 
 to witness your first appearance in the world. This lodging, 
 my dear, is not fit but pardon me! what I was about to say is 
 this ; your father and yourself are here at my invitatior and 
 in my house you must dwell; you are my guests, no'i ^1^? 
 host and hostess. I have, therefore, already directed my ser- 
 vant to secure me a house, and provide the necessary establish- 
 ment ; and I make no doubt, as he is a quick fellow, that 
 within three days all will be ready. You must then be the 
 magnet of my abode, Lucy; and, meanwhile, you must explain
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 14? 
 
 this to my brother, and, for you know his jealous hospitality, 
 obtain his acquiescence." 
 
 "But "began Lucy. 
 
 "But me nobuts," said Brandon, quickly, but with an affec- 
 tionate tone of wilfulness; "and now, as I feel very much 
 fatigued with my journey, you must allow me to seek my own 
 room." 
 
 "I will conduct you to it myself," said Lucy, for she was 
 anxious to show her father's brother the care and forethought 
 which she had lavished on her arrangements for his comfort. 
 Brandon followed her into an apartment which his eye knew at 
 a glance had been subjected to that female superintendence 
 which makes such uses from what men reject as insignificant ; 
 and he thanked her with more than his usual amenity, for the 
 grace which had presided over, and the kindness which had 
 dictated, her preparations. As soon as he was left alone, he 
 wheeled his arm-chair near the clear, bright fire, and resting 
 his face upon his hand, in the attitude of a man who prepares 
 himself, as it were, for the indulgence of meditation, he 
 muttered : 
 
 "Yes! these women are, first what Nature makes them, and 
 that is good: next, what -we make them, and that is evil! 
 Now, could I persuade myself that we ought to be nice as to 
 the use we put these poor puppets to, I should shrink from 
 enforcing the destiny whch I have marked for this girl. But 
 what a pitiful consideration, and he is but a silly player who 
 loses his money for the sake of preserving his counters. So 
 the young lady must go as another score to the fortunes of 
 William Brandon. After all, who suffers? Not she. She will 
 have wealth, rank, honor: I shall suffer, to yield so pretty 
 and pure a gem to the coronet of faugh ! How I despise that 
 dog! but how I could hate, crush, mangle him, could I believe 
 that he despised me! Could he do so? Umph! No, I have 
 resolved myself, that is impossible. Well, let me hope (hat 
 matrimonial point will be settled ; and now, let me consider 
 what next step I shall take for myself myself! Ay only my- 
 self ! With me perishes the last male of Brandon. But the 
 light shall not go out under a bushel." 
 
 As he said this the soliloquist sunk into a more absorbed, 
 and a silent revery, from which he was disturbed by the en- 
 trance of his servant. Brandon, who was never a dreamer, 
 save when alone, broke at once from his reflections. 
 
 "You have obeyed my orders, Barlow?" said he. 
 
 "Yes, sir," answered the domestic. "I have taken the best
 
 148 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 house yet unoccupied, and when Mrs. Roberts (Brandon's 
 housekeeper) arrives from London, everything will, I trust, be 
 exactly to your wishes." 
 
 "Good! And you gave my note to Lord Mauleverer?" 
 
 "With my own hands, sir; his lordship will await you at 
 home all to-morrow." 
 
 "Very well! and now, Barlow, see that your room is within 
 call (bells, though known, were not common at that day), and 
 give out that I am gone to bed, and must not be disturbed. 
 What's the hour?" 
 
 "Just on the stroke of ten, sir." 
 
 "Place on that table my letter-case, and the inkstand. Look 
 in, to help me to undress, at half-past one ; I shall go to bed 
 at that hour. And stay be sure, Barlow, that my brother 
 believes me retired for the night. He does not know my hab- 
 its, and will vex himself if he thinks I sit up so late in my 
 present state of health." 
 
 Drawing the table with its writing appurtenances near to his 
 master, the servant left Brandon once more to his thoughts or 
 his occupations. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Setvant. Get away, I say, wid dat nasty bell. 
 
 Punch. Do you call this a bell ? {patting if). It is an organ. 
 
 Servant. I say it is a bell a nasty bell ! 
 
 Punch. I say it is an organ (striking him with it). What do you say it is 
 
 now? 
 Servant. An organ, Mr. Punch ! 
 
 The Tragical Comedy of Punch and Judy. 
 
 THE next morning, before Lucy and her father had left their 
 apartments, Brandon, who was a remarkably early riser, had 
 disturbed the luxurious Mauleverer in his first slumber. Al- 
 though the courtier possessed a villa some miles from Bath, he 
 preferred a lodging in town, both as being warmer than a rarely 
 inhabited country-house, and as being to an indolent man more 
 immediately convenient for the gayeties and the waters of the 
 medicinal city. 
 
 As soon as the Earl had rubbed his eyes, stretched himself, 
 and prepared himself for the untimeous colloquy, Brandon 
 poured forth his excuses for the hour he had chosen for a visit. 
 
 "Mention it not, my dear Brandon," said the good-natured 
 nobleman, with a sigh; "I am glad at any hour to see you,
 
 J'AUL CLIFFORD. *4<) 
 
 and I am very sure that what you have to communicate is 
 always worth listening to." 
 
 "It was only upon public business, though of rather a more 
 important description than usual, that I ventured to disturb 
 you," answered Brandon, seating himself on a chair by the 
 bedside. "This morning an hour ago I received by private 
 express a letter from London, stating that a new arrangement 
 will positively be made in the Cabinet ; nay, naming the very 
 promotions and changes. I confess that as my name occurred, 
 as also your own, in these nominations, I was anxious to have 
 the benefit of your necessarily accurate knowledge on the sub- 
 ject, as well as of your advice." 
 
 "Really, Brandon," said Mauleverer, with a half-peevish 
 smile, "any other hour in the day would have done for 'the 
 business of the nation,' as the newspapers call that troublesome 
 farce we go through ; and I had imagined you would not have 
 broken my nightly slumbers, except for something of real im- 
 portance the discovery of a new beauty, or the invention of 
 a new dish." 
 
 "Neither the one nor the other could you have expected 
 from tne y my dear lord," rejoined Brandon. "You know 
 the dry trifles in which a lawyer's life wastes itself away; 
 and beauties and dishes have no attraction for us, except the 
 former be damsels deserted, and the latter patents invaded. 
 But my news, after all, is worth hearing, unless you have 
 heard it before." 
 
 "Not I! but I suppose I shall hear it in the course of the 
 day : pray Heaven I be not sent for to attend some plague of 
 a council. Begin!" 
 
 "In the first place, Lord Duberly resolves to resign, unless 
 this negotiation for peace be made a Cabinet question." 
 
 "Pshaw! let him resign. I have opposed the peace so long 
 that it is out of the question. Of course, Lord Wanstead will 
 not think of it, and he may count on my boroughs. A peace! 
 shameful, disgraceful, dastardly proposition!" 
 
 "But, my dear lord, my letter says, that this unexpected 
 firmness on the part of Lord Duberly has produced so great a 
 sensation, that, seeing the impossibility of forming a durable 
 Cabinet without him, the King has consented to the negotia- 
 tion, and Duberly stays in!" 
 
 "The devil! What next?" 
 
 "Raff den and Sternhold go out in favor of Baldwin and 
 Charlton. and in the hope that you will lend your aid to " 
 
 "I!" said Lord Mauleverer, very angrily; "I lend my
 
 150 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 aid to Baldwin, the Jacobin, and Charlton, the son of A 
 brewer ! ' ' 
 
 "Very true!" continued Brandon. "But in the hope that 
 you might be persuaded to regard the new arrangements with 
 an indulgent eye, you are talked of instead of the Duke of 
 for the vacant Garter and the office of chamberlain." 
 
 "You don't mean it!" cried Mauleverer, starting from his 
 btd. 
 
 "A few other (but, I hear, chiefly legal) promotions are to 
 be made. Among the rest, my learned brother, the democrat 
 Sarsden, is to have a silk gown ; Cromwell is to be attorney- 
 general ; and, between ourselves, they have offered me a 
 judgeship. " 
 
 "But the Garter!" said Mauleverer, scarcely hearing the 
 rest of the lawyer's news, "the whole object, aim, and ambi- 
 tion of my life. How truly kind in the King! After all," 
 continued the Earl, laughing, and throwing himself back, 
 "opinions are variable truth is not uniform the times 
 change, not we and we must have peace instead of war!" 
 
 "Your maxims are indisputable, and the conclusion you 
 come to is excellent," said Brandon. 
 
 "Why, you and I, my dear fellow," said the Earl, "who 
 know men, and who have lived all our lives in the world, must 
 laugh behind the scenes at the cant we wrap in tinsel, and 
 send out to stalk across the stage. We know that our Corio- 
 lanus of Tory integrity is a corporal kept by a prostitute ; and 
 the Brutus of Whig liberty is a lacquey turned out of place for 
 stealing the spoons; but we must not tell this to the world. 
 So, Brandon, you must write me a speech for the next session, 
 and be sure it has plenty of general maxims, and concludes 
 with 'my bleeding country!' ' 
 
 The lawyer smiled. "You consent then to the expulsion ot 
 Sternhold and Raffden? for, after all, that is the question. 
 Our British vessel, as the d d metaphor-mongers call the 
 State, carries the public good safe in the hold like brandy ; 
 and it is only when fear, storm, or the devil makes the 
 rogues quarrel among themselves, and break up the casks, 
 that one gets above a thimbleful at a time. We should go on 
 fighting with the rest of the world for ever, if the ministers 
 had not taken to fight among themselves." 
 
 "As for Sternhold," said the Earl, " 'tis a vulgar dog, and 
 voted for economical reform. Besides, I don't know him; he 
 may go to the devil for aught I care ; but Raffden must be 
 dealt handsomely with, or, despite the Garter, I will fall
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 15! 
 
 back among the Whigs, who, after all, give tolerable 
 dinners." 
 
 "But why, my lord, must Raff den be treated better than his 
 brother recusant?" 
 
 "Because he sent me, in the handsomest manner possible, 
 a pipe of that wonderful Madeira, which you know I consider 
 the chief grace of my cellars, and he gave up a canal navigation 
 bill, which would have enriched his whole county, when he 
 knew that it would injure my ^property. No, Brandon, curse 
 public cant; we know what that is. But we are gentlemen, 
 and our private friends must not be thrown overboard, un- 
 less, at least, we do it in the civilest manner we can." 
 
 "Fear not," said the lawyer; "you have only to say the 
 word, and the Cabinet can cook up an en.bassy to Owhyhee, 
 and send Raff den there with a stipend of five thousand a year." 
 
 "Ah! that's well thought of; or we might give him a grant 
 of a hundred thousand acres in one of the colonies, or let him 
 buy crown-land at a discount of eighty per cent. So that's 
 settled." 
 
 "And now, my dear friend," said Brandon, "I will tell you 
 frankly why I come so early ; I am required to give a hasty 
 answer to the proposal I have received, namely, of the judge- 
 ship. Your opinion?" 
 
 "A judgeship! you a judge? What! forsake your brilliant 
 career for so petty a dignity? You jest!" 
 
 "Not at all, listen. You know how bitterly I have op- 
 posed this peace, and what hot enemies I have made among 
 the new friends of the administration : 'on the one hand, these 
 enemies insist on sacrificing me; and on the other, if I were to 
 stay in the Lower House and speak for what I have before op- 
 posed, I should forfeit the support of a great portion of my own 
 party: hated by one body, and mistrusted by the other, a seat 
 in the House of Commons ceases to be an object. It is pro- 
 posed that I should retire on the dignity of a judge, with the 
 positive and pledged, though secret, promise of the first vacancy 
 among the chiefs. The place of chief justice or chief baron is 
 indeed the only fair remuneration for my surrender of the gains 
 of my profession, and the abandonment of my parliamentary 
 and legal career; the title, which will of course be attached to 
 it, might go (at least, by an exertion of interest), to the eldest 
 son of my niece, in case she married a commoner: or," added 
 he, after a pause, "her second son in case she married a 
 peer." 
 
 "Ha true!" said Mauleverer quickly, and as if struck by
 
 152 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 some sudden thought; "and your charming niece, Brandon 
 would be worthy of any honor either to her children or herself. 
 You do not know how struck I was with her; there is some- 
 thing so graceful in her simplicity; and in .her manner of 
 smoothing down the little rugosities of Warlock House, there 
 was so genuine and so easy a dignity, that I declare I almost 
 thought myself young again, and capable of the self-cheat of 
 believing myself in love. But, oh! Brandon, imagine me at 
 your brother's board! me, for. whom ortolans are too substan- 
 tial, and who feel, when I tread, the slightest inequality in the 
 carpets of Tournay! imagine me, dear Brandon, in a black 
 wainscot room, hung round with your ancestors in brown wigs 
 with posies in their button-holes, an immense fire on one side, 
 and a thorough draught on the other ; a huge circle of beef 
 before me, smoking like Vesuvius, and twice as large ; a plate- 
 ful (the plate was pewter is there not a metal so called?) of 
 this mingled flame and lava set under my very nostril, and 
 upon pain of ill-breeding to be despatched down my proper 
 mouth ; an old gentleman in fustian breeches and worsted 
 stockings, by way of butler, filling me a can of ale, and your 
 worthy brother asking me if I would not prefer port ; a lean 
 footman in livery (such a livery, ye gods!) scarlet, blue, yellow, 
 and green, a rainbow ill-made! on the opposite side of the 
 table looking at the 'Lord' with eyes and mouth equally open, 
 and large enough to swallow me, and your excellent brother 
 himself at the head of the table glowing through the mists of 
 the beef, like the rising sun in a sign-post and then, Brandon, 
 turning from this image, behold beside me the fair, delicate, 
 aristocratic, yet simple loveliness of your niece, and but you 
 look angry I have offended you." 
 
 It was high time for Mauleverer to ask that question ; for, 
 during the whole of the earl's recital, the dark face of his com- 
 panion had literally burnt with rage : and here we may observe 
 how generally selfishness, which makes the man of the world, 
 prevents its possessor, by a sort of paradox, from being con- 
 summately so. For Mauleverer, occupied by the pleasure he 
 felt at his own wit, and never having that magic sympathy 
 with others which creates the incessantly keen observer, had 
 not, for a moment, thought that he was offending to the quick 
 the hidden pride of the lawyer. Nay, so little did he suspect 
 Brandon's real weaknesses, that he thought him a philosopher, 
 who would have laughed alike at principles and people, how- 
 ever near to him might be the latter, and however important 
 the former. Mastering by a single effort, which restored his
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 153 
 
 cheek to its usual steady hue, the outward signs of his dis- 
 pleasure, Brandon rejoined; 
 
 "Offend me! by no means, my dear lord. I do not wonder at 
 your painful situation in an old country gentleman's house, 
 which has not for centuries offered scenes fit for the presence 
 of so distinguished a guest. Never, I may say, since the time 
 when Sir Charles de Brandon entertained Elizabeth at Warlock ; 
 and your ancestor (you know my old musty studies on those 
 points of obscure antiquity), John Mauleverer, who was a 
 noted goldsmith of London, supplied the plate for the occa- 
 sion." 
 
 "Fairly retorted, "said Mauleverer, smiling; for though the 
 Earl had a great contempt for low birth, set on high places, in 
 other men, he was utterly void of pride in his own family. 
 "Fairly retorted! but I never meant anything else but a laugh 
 at your brother's housekeeping; a joke, surely, permitted to a 
 man whose own fastidiousness on these matters is so standing 
 a jest. But, by heavens, Brandon ! to turn from these subjects, 
 your niece is the prettiest girl I have seen for twenty years ; 
 and if she would forget my being the descendant of John Maul- 
 everer, the noted goldsmith of London, she may be Lady 
 Mauleverer as soon as she pleases." 
 
 "Nay, now, let us be serious, and talk of the judgeship," said 
 Brandon, affecting to treat the proposal as a joke. 
 
 ' 'By the soul of Sir Charles de Brandon, I am serious ! ' ' cried 
 the Earl; "and as a proof of it, I hope you will let me pay my 
 respects to your niece to-day ; not with my offer in my hand, 
 yet for it must be a love match on both sides. ' ' And the 
 Earl, glancing towards an opposite glass, which reflected his 
 attenuated but comely features, beneath his velvet night-cap 
 trimmed with Mechlin, laughed half-triumphantly as he spoke. 
 
 A sneer just passed the lips of Brandon, and as instantly van- 
 ished ; while Mauleverer continued: 
 
 "And as for the judgeship, dear Brandon, I advise you to 
 accept it, though you know best ; and I do think no man will 
 stand a fairer chance of the chief -justiceship : or, though it be 
 somewhat unusual for 'Common' lawyers, why not the woolsack 
 itself? As you say, the second son of your niece might inherit 
 the dignity of the peerage!" 
 
 "Well, I will consider of it favorably," said Brandon, and 
 soon afterwards he left the nobleman to renew his broken re- 
 pose. 
 
 "I can't laugh at that man," said Mauleverer to himself, 
 as he turned round in his bed, "though he has much that
 
 154 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 I should laugh at in another; and faith, there is one little 
 matter I might well scorn him for, if I were not a philosopher. 
 'Tis a pretty girl, his niece, and with proper instructions might 
 do one credit; besides she has 60,000. ready money; and, 
 faith, I have not a shilling for my own pleasure, though I have, 
 or, alas ! had, fifty thousand a-year for that of my establish- 
 ment! In all probability she will be the lawyer's heiress, and 
 he must have made, at least, as much again as her portion; 
 nor is he, poor devil, a very good life. Moreover, if he rise to 
 the peerage? and the second son Well! well! it will not be 
 such a bad match for the goldsmith's descendant either!" 
 
 With that thought Lord Mauleverer fell asleep. He rose 
 about noon, dressed himself with unusual pains, and was just 
 going forth on a visit to Miss Brandon, when he suddenly re- 
 membered that her uncle had not mentioned her address or his 
 own. He referred to the lawyer's note of the preceding even- 
 ing; no direction was inscribed on it; and Mauleverer was 
 forced, with much chagrin, to forego for that day the pleasure 
 he had promised himself. 
 
 In truth the wary lawyer, who, as we have said, despised 
 show and outward appearances as much as any man, was yet 
 sensible of their effect even in the eyes of a lover; and more- 
 over, Lord Mauleverer was one whose habits of life were cal- 
 culated to arouse a certain degree of vigilance on points of 
 household pomp, even in the most unobservant. Brandon 
 therefore resolved that Lucy should not be visited by her ad- 
 mirer till the removal to their new abode was effected ; nor 
 was it till the third day from that on which Mauleverer had 
 held with Brandon the interview we have recorded, that the 
 Earl received a note from Brandon, seemingly turning only on 
 political matters, but inscribed with the address and direction 
 in full form. 
 
 Mauleverer answered it in person. He found Lucy at home, 
 and more beautiful than ever ; and from that day his mind was 
 made up, as the mammas say, and his visits became constant.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " There is a festival where knights and dames, 
 And aught that wealth or lofty lineage claims, 
 Appear. 
 
 ****** 
 
 'Tis he how came he hence ? what doth he here? " Lara. 
 
 THERE are two charming situations in life for a woman: 
 one, the first freshness of heiress-ship and beauty; the other, 
 youthful widowhood with a large jointure. It was at least 
 Lucy's fortune to enjoy the first. No sooner was she fairly 
 launched into the gay world than she became the object of 
 universal idolatry. Crowds followed her wherever she moved: 
 nothing was talked of, or dreamed of, toasted, or betted on, 
 feut Lucy Brandon ; even her simplicity, and utter ignorance of 
 the arts of fine life, enhanced the eclat of her reputation. 
 Somehow or other, young people of the gentler sex are rarely 
 ill-bred, even in their eccentricities; and there is often a great 
 deal of grace in inexperience. Her uncle, who accompanied 
 her everywhere, himself no slight magnet of attraction, viewed 
 her success with a complacent triumph which he suffered no 
 one but her father or herself to detect. To the smooth cool- 
 ness of his manner, nothing would have seemed more foreign 
 than pride at the notice gained by a beauty, or exultation at 
 any favor won from the caprices of fashion. As for the good 
 old squire, one would have imagined him far more the invalid 
 than his brother. He was scarcely ever seen ; for though he 
 went everywhere, he was one of those persons who sink into a 
 corner the moment they enter a room. Whoever discovered 
 him in his retreat, held out their hands, and exclaimed, "God 
 bless me! you here! We have not seen you for this age!" 
 Now and then, if in a very dark niche of the room a card-table 
 had been placed, the worthy gentleman toiled through an ob- 
 scure rubber, but more frequently he sat with his hands 
 clasped, and his mouth open, counting the number of candles 
 in the room, or calculating "when that stupid music would be 
 over." 
 
 Lord Mauleverer, though a polished and courteous man, 
 whose great object was necessarily to ingratiate himself with 
 the father of his intended bride, had a horror of being bored 
 which surpassed all other feelings in his mind. He could not, 
 therefore, persuade himself to submit to the melancholy duty 
 of listening to the squire's "linked speeches long drawn out."
 
 156 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 He always glided by the honest man's station, seemingly in an 
 exceeding hurry, with a "Ah, my dear sir, how do you do? 
 How delighted I am to see you! And your incomparable 
 daughter? Oh, there she is! pardon me, dear sir you see 
 my attraction!" 
 
 Lucy, indeed, who never forgot any one (except herself oc- 
 casionally), sought her father's retreat as often as she was able ; 
 but her engagements were so incessant that she no sooner lost 
 one partner, than she was claimed and carried off by another. 
 However, the squire bore his solitude with tolerable cheerful- 
 ness, and always declared that "he was very well amused; 
 although balls and concerts were necessarily a little dull to one 
 who came from a fine old place like Warlock Manor-house, 
 and it was not the same thing that pleased young ladies (for, to 
 them, that fiddling and giggling till two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing might be a very pretty way of killing time'), and their 
 papas ! " 
 
 What considerably added to Lucy's celebrity was the 
 marked notice and admiration of a man so high in rank and 
 ton as Lord Mauleverer. That personage, who still retained 
 much of a youthful mind and temper, and who was in his 
 nature more careless than haughty, preserved little or no state 
 in his intercourse with the social revellers at Bath. He cared 
 not whither he went, so that he was in the train of the young 
 beauty; and the most fastidious nobleman of the English 
 court was seen in every second and third rate set of a great 
 watering-place, the attendant, the flirt, and often the ridicule 
 of the daughter of an obscure and almost insignificant country 
 squire. Despite the honor of so distinguished a lover, and 
 despite all the novelties of her situation, the pretty head of 
 Lucy Brandon was as yet, however, perfectly unturned ; and as 
 for her heart, the only impression that it had ever received was 
 made by that wandering guest of the village rector, whom she had 
 never again seen, but who yet clung to her imagination, invested 
 not only with all the graces which in right of a singularly hand- 
 some person he possessed, but with those to which he never 
 could advance a claim, more dangerous to her peace, from 
 the very circumstance of their origin in her fancy, not his 
 merits. 
 
 They had now been some little time at Bath, and Brandon's 
 Srief respite was pretty nearly expired, when a public ball of 
 mcommon and manifold attraction was announced. It was to 
 ?>e graced not only by the presence of all the surrounding fam- 
 ilies, but also by that of royalty itself; it being an acknowl-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 157 
 
 edged fact that people dance much better, and eat much more 
 supper, when any relation to a king is present. 
 
 "I must stay for this ball, Lucy," said Brandon, who, after 
 spending the day with Lord Mauleverer, returned home in a 
 mood more than usually cheerful: "I must stay for this one ball, 
 Lucy, and witness your complete triumph, even though it will 
 be necessary to leave you the very next morning." 
 
 "So soon!" cried Lucy. 
 
 "So soon!" echoed the uncle with a smile. "How good 
 you are to speak thus to an old valetudinarian, whose company 
 must have fatigued you to death! Nay, no pretty denials! 
 But the great object of my visit to this place is accomplished: I 
 have seen you, I have witnessed your debut in the great world, 
 with, I may say, more than a father's exultation, and I go back 
 to my dry pursuits with the satisfaction of thinking our old and 
 withered genealogical tree has put forth one blossom worthy of 
 its freshest day." 
 
 "Uncle!" said Lucy, reprovingly, and holding up her taper 
 finger with an arch smile, mingling with a blush, in which the 
 woman's vanity spoke, unknown to herself. 
 
 "And why that look, Lucy?" said Brandon. 
 
 "Because because well, no matter! You have been bred 
 to that trade in which, as you say yourself, men tell untruths 
 for others, till they lose all truth for themselves. But, let us 
 talk of you, not me; are you really well enough to leave us? " 
 
 Simple and even cool as the words of Lucy's question, when 
 written, appear, in her mouth, they took so tender, so anxious a 
 tone, that Brandon, who had no friend, nor wife, nor child, 
 nor any one in his household, in whom interest in his health 
 or welfare was a thing of course, and who was consequently 
 wholly unaccustomed to the accent of kindness, felt himself 
 of a sudden, touched and stricken. 
 
 "Why, indeed, Lucy," said he, in a less artificial voice than 
 that in which he usually spoke, "I should like still to profit by 
 your cares, and forget my infirmities and pains in your society ; 
 but I cannot: the tide of events, like that of nature, waits not 
 our pleasure!" 
 
 "But we may take our own time for setting sail!" said 
 Lucy. 
 
 "Ay, this comes of talking in metaphor," rejoined Brandon, 
 smiling; "they who begin it always get the worst of it. In 
 plain words, dear Lucy, I can give no more time to my own 
 ailments. A lawyer cannot play truant in term time without " 
 
 "Losing a few guineas!" said Lucy, interrupting him.
 
 158 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "Worse than that his practice and his name!" 
 "Better those than health and peace of mind." 
 "Out on you no!" said Brandon quickly, and almost 
 fiercely; "we waste all the greenness and pith of our life in 
 striving to gain a distinguished slavery ; and when it is gained, 
 we must not think that an humble independence would have 
 been better! If we ever admit that thought, what fools what 
 lavish fools we have been! No!" continued Brandon, after a 
 momentary pause, and in a tone milder and gayer, though not 
 less characteristic of the man's stubbornness of will, "after los- 
 ing all youth's enjoyments and manhood's leisure, in order 
 that in age, the mind, the all-conquering mind, should break 
 its way at last into the applauding opinions of men, I should be 
 an effeminate idler indeed, did I suffer, so long as its jarring 
 parts hold together, or so long as I have the power to com- 
 mand its members, this weak body to frustrate the labor of its 
 better and nobler portion, and command that which it is 
 ordained to serve." 
 
 Lucy knew not while she listened, half in fear, half in admi- 
 ration, to her singular relation, that at the very moment he thus 
 spoke his disease was preying upon him in one of its most re- 
 lentless moods, without the power of wringing from him a sin- 
 gle outward token of his torture. But she wanted nothing to 
 increase her pity and affection for a man who, in consequence, 
 perhaps, of his ordinary surface of worldly and cold properties 
 of temperament, never failed to leave an indelible impression 
 on all who had ever seen that temperament broken through by 
 deeper, though often by more evil feelings. 
 
 "Shall you go to Lady -'s rout?" asked Brandon easily, 
 
 sliding back into common topics. "Lord Mauleverer re- 
 quested me to ask you." 
 
 "That depends on you and my father!" 
 
 "If on me, I answer yes!" said Brandon. "I like hearing 
 Mauleverer, especially among persons who do not understand 
 him : there is a refined and subtle sarcasm running through the 
 commonplaces of his conversation, which cuts the good fools, like 
 the invisible sword in the fable, that lopped off heads without 
 occasioning the owners any other sensation than a pleasing and 
 self-complacent titillation. How immeasurably superior he is 
 in manner and address to all we meet here; does it not strike 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes no I can't say that it does exactly," rejoined Lucy. 
 
 "Is that confusion tender?" thought Brandon. 
 
 "In a word," continued Lucy, "Lord Mauleverer is one
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 159 
 
 whom I think pleasing, without fascination ; and amusing, with- 
 out brilliancy. He is evidently accomplished in mind, and 
 graceful in manner; and withal, the most uninteresting person 
 I ever met." 
 
 "Women have not often thought so!" said Brandon. 
 
 "I cannot believe that they can think otherwise." 
 
 A certain expression, partaking of scorn, played over Bran- 
 don's hard features. It was a noticeable trait in him, that 
 while he was most anxious to impress Lucy with a favorable 
 opinion of Lord Mauleverer, he was never quite able to mask 
 a certain satisfaction at any jest at the Earl's expense, or any 
 opinion derogatory to his general character for pleasing the 
 opposite sex; and this satisfaction was no sooner conceived 
 than it was immediately combated by the vexation he felt, that 
 Lucy did not seem to share his own desire that she should be- 
 come the wife of the courtier. There appeared as if, in that 
 respect, there was a contest in his mind between interest on 
 one hand, and private dislike, or contempt, on the other. 
 
 "You judge women wrongly!" said Brandon. "Ladies 
 never know each other; of all persons, Mauleverer is best cal- 
 culated to win them, and experience has proved my assertion. 
 The proudest lot I know for a woman would be the thorough 
 conquest of Lord Mauleverer ; but it is impossible. He may 
 be gallant, but he will never be subdued. He defies the whole 
 female world, and with justice and impunity. Enough of him. 
 Sing to me, dear Lucy." 
 
 The time for the ball approached, and Lucy, who was a 
 charming girl, and had nothing of the angel about her, was 
 sufficiently fond of gayety, dancing, music, and admiration, to 
 feel her heart beat high at the expectation of the event. 
 
 At last, the day itself came. Brandon dined alone with 
 Mauleverer, having made the arrangement that he, with the 
 Earl, was to join his brother and niece at the ball. Maul- 
 everer, who hated state, except on great occasions, when no man 
 displayed it with a better grace, never suffered his servants to 
 wait at dinner when he was alone, or with one of his peculiar 
 friends. The attendants remained without, and were sum- 
 moned at will by a bell laid beside the host. 
 
 The conversation was unrestrained. 
 
 "I am perfectly certain, Brandon," said Mauleverer, "that 
 if you were to live tolerably well, you would soon get the better 
 of your nervous complaints. It is all poverty of blood, believe 
 me. Some more of the fins, eh? No! Oh, hang your abstemi- 
 ousness, it is d d unfriendly to eat so little! Talking of fins
 
 160 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and friends heaven defend me from ever again forming an 
 intimacy with a pedantic epicure, especially if he puns!" 
 
 "Why, what has a pedant to do with fins?" 
 
 "I will tell you (Ah, this Madeira!) I suggested to Lord 
 Dareville, who affects the gourmand, what a capital thing a 
 dish all fins (turbot's fins) might be made. 'Capital!' said 
 he, in a rapture, 'dine on it with me to-morrow.' ' Volou- 
 tiers ! ' said I. The next day, after indulging in a pleasing 
 revery all the morning as to the manner in which Dareville's 
 cook, who is not without genius, would accomplish this grand 
 idea, I betook myself punctually to my engagement. Would 
 you believe it? When the cover was removed, the sacrilegious 
 dog of an Amphitryon had put into the dish Cicero de Finibus. 
 'There is a work all fins!' said he." 
 
 "Atrocious jest!" exclaimed Brandon solemnly. 
 
 "Was it not? Whenever the gastronomists set up a religious 
 inquisition, I trust they will roast every impious rascal who 
 treats the divine mystery with levity. Pun upon cooking, in- 
 deed ! Apropos of Dareville, he is to come into the admin- 
 istration." 
 
 "You astonish me!" said Brandon; "I never heard that; 
 I don't know him. He has very little power; has he any 
 talent?" 
 
 "Yes, a very great one, acquired though !" 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "A pretty wife!" 
 
 "My lord!" exclaimed Brandon, abruptly, and half rising 
 from his seat. 
 
 Mauleverer looked up hastily, and, on seeing the expression 
 of his companion's face, colored deeply; there was a silence 
 for some moments. 
 
 "Tell me," said Brandon indifferently, helping himself to 
 vegetables, for he seldom touched meat ; and a more amusing 
 contrast can scarcely be conceived than that between the ear- 
 nest epicurism of Mauleverer, and the careless contempt of the 
 sublime art manifested by his guest; "tell me, you who neces- 
 sarily know everything, whether the government really is set- 
 tled, whether you are to have the Garter, and I (mark the 
 difference!) the judgeship." 
 
 "Why so, I imagine, it will be arranged; viz., if you will 
 consent to hang up the rogues, instead of living by the fools!" 
 
 "One may unite both!" returned Brandon. "But I believe, 
 in general, it is vice versa, for we live by the rogues, and it is 
 only the fools we are able to hang up. You ask me if I will
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. l6l 
 
 take the judgeship. I would not no, I would rather cut my 
 hand off (and the lawyer spoke with great bitterness) for- 
 sake my present career, despite all the obstacles that now en- 
 cumber it, did I think that this miserable body would suffer 
 me for two years longer to pursue it." 
 
 "You shock me!" said Mauleverer, a little affected, but 
 nevertheless applying the cayenne to his cucumber with his 
 usual unerring nicety of tact; "you shock me, but you are 
 considerably better than you were." 
 
 "It is not," continued Brandon, who was rather speaking to 
 himself than to his friend "it is not that I am unable to con- 
 quer the pain, and to master the recreant nerves ; but I feel 
 myself growing weaker and weaker beneath the continual ex- 
 ertion of my remaining powers, and I shall die before I have 
 gained half my objects, if I do not leave the labors which are 
 literally tearing me to pieces." 
 
 "But," said Lord Mauleverer, who was the idlest of men, 
 "the judgeship is not an easy sinecure." 
 
 "No! but there is less demand on the mind in that station, 
 than in my present one" ; and Brandon paused before he con- 
 tinued. "Candidly, Mauleverer, you do not think they will 
 deceive me? . You do not think they mean to leave me to this 
 political death without writing 'Resurgam' over the hatchment?" 
 
 "They dare not!" said Mauleverer, quaffing his fourth glass 
 of Madeira. 
 
 "Well ! I have decided on my change of life," said the law- 
 yer, with a slight sigh. 
 
 "So have I on my change of opinion," chimed in the Earl. 
 "I will tell you what opinions seem to me like." 
 
 "What?" said Brandon abstractedly. 
 
 " Tree s ! " answered Mauleverer quaintly. "If they can be 
 made serviceable by standing, don't part with a stick; but 
 when they are of that growth that sells well, or whenever they 
 shut out a fine prospect, cut them down, and pack them off 
 by all manner of means! And now for the second course." 
 
 "I wonder," said the Earl, when our political worthies were 
 again alone, "whether there ever existed a minister who cared 
 three straws for the people; many care for their party ', but as 
 for the country " 
 
 "It is all fiddlestick!" added the lawyer, with more signifi- 
 cance than grace. 
 
 "Right; it is all fiddlestick, as you tersely express it. 
 King, Constitution, and Church, forever! which, being inter- 
 preted, means, first, King, or Crown influence, judgeships,
 
 1&2 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and Garters; secondly, Constitution, or fees to the lawyers, 
 places to the statesmen, laws for the rich, and Game Laws for 
 the poor; thirdly, Church, or livings for our younger sons, and 
 starving for their curates !" 
 
 "Ha, ha!" said Brandon, laughing sardonically; "we know 
 human nature ! ' ' 
 
 "And how it may be gulled!" quoth the courtier. "Here's 
 a health to your niece ! and may it not be long before you hail 
 her as your friend's bride!" 
 
 "Bride, et catera, " said Brandon, with a sneer, meant only 
 for his own satisfaction. "But mark me, my dear lord, do not 
 be too sure of her ; she is a singular girl, and of more indepen- 
 dence than the generality of women. She will not think of 
 your rank and station in estimating you ; she will think only of 
 their owner ; and pardon me if I suggest to you, who know the 
 sex so well, one plan that it may not be unadvisable for you to 
 pursue. Don't let her fancy you entirely hers; rouse her jeal- 
 ousy, pique her pride; let her think you unconquerable, and, 
 unless she is unlike all women, she will want to conquer you." 
 
 The Earl smiled. "I must take my chance!" said he, with 
 a confident tone. 
 
 : "The hoary coxcomb!" muttered Brandon, between his 
 teeth; "now will his folly spoil all." 
 
 "And that reminds me," continued Mauleverer, "that time 
 wanes, and dinner is not over; let us not hurry, but let us be 
 silent, to enjoy the more. These truffles in champagne do 
 taste them, they would raise the dead." 
 
 The lawyer smiled, and accepted the kindness, though he 
 left the delicacy untouched ; and Mauleverer, whose soul was 
 in his plate, saw not the heartless rejection. 
 
 Meanwhile, the youthful beauty had already entered the thea- 
 tre of pleasure, and was now seated with the squire, at the 
 upper end of the half-filled ball room. 
 
 A gay lady of the fashion at that time, and of that half and half 
 rank to which belonged the aristocracy of Bath, one of those 
 curious persons we meet with in the admirable novels of Miss 
 Burney, as appertaining to the order of fine ladies, made the 
 trio with our heiress and her father, and pointed out to them 
 by name the various characters that entered the apartments. 
 She was still in the full tide of scandal, when an unusual sen- 
 sation was visible in the environs of the door ; three strangers 
 of marked mien, gay dress, and an air which, though differing 
 in each, was in all alike remarkable for a sort of "dashing" 
 assurance, made their entree. One was of uncommon height,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 163 
 
 and possessed of an exceedingly fine head of hair ; another was 
 of a more quiet and unpretending aspect, but, nevertheless, he 
 wore upon his face a supercilious, yet not ill-humored expres- 
 sion ; the third was many years younger than his companions, 
 strikingly handsome in face and figure, altogether of a better 
 taste in dress, and possessing a manner that, though it had 
 equal ease, was not equally noticeable for impudence and 
 swagger. 
 
 "Who can those be?" said Lucy's female friend in a won- 
 dering tone, "I never saw them before; they must be great 
 people they have all the airs of persons of quality ! Dear, 
 how odd that I should not know them!" 
 
 While the good lady, who, like all good ladies of that stamp, 
 thought people of quality had airs, was thus lamenting her 
 ignorance of the new comers, a general whisper of a similar 
 import was already circulating round the room; "Who are 
 they?" and the universal answer was, "Can't tell never saw 
 them before!" 
 
 Our strangers seemed by no means displeased with the evi- 
 dent and immediate impression they had made. They stood 
 in the most conspicuous part of the room, enjoying among them- 
 selves, a low conversation, frequently broken by fits of laughter ; 
 tokens, we need not add, of their super-eminently good breed- 
 ing. The handsome figure of the youngest stranger, and the 
 simple and seemingly unconscious grace of his attitudes, were 
 not, however, unworthy of the admiration he excited ; and even 
 his laughter, rude as it really was, displayed so dazzling a set 
 of teeth, and was accompanied by such brilliant eyes, that 
 before he had been ten minutes in the room there was scarcely 
 a young lady under thirty-nine not disposed to fall in love 
 with him. 
 
 Apparently heedless of the various remarks which reached 
 their ears, our strangers, after they had from their station suffi- 
 ciently surveyed the beauties of the ball, strolled arm-in-arm 
 through the rooms. Having sauntered through the ball and 
 card-rooms, they passed the door that led to the entrance 
 passage, and gazed, with other loiterers, upon the new comers 
 ascending the stairs. Here the two younger strangers renewed 
 their whispered conversation, while the eldest, who was also 
 the tallest one, carelessly leaning against the wall, employed 
 himself for a few moments in thrusting his fingers through his 
 hair. In finishing this occupation, the peculiar state of his 
 ruffles forced itself upon the observation of our gentleman, 
 who, after gazing for some moments on an envious rent in the
 
 164 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 right ruffle, muttered some indistinct words, like; "the cock of 
 that confounded pistol, "and then tucked up the mutilated or- 
 nament with a peculiarly nimble motion of the fingers of his 
 left hand: the next moment, diverted by a new care, the 
 stranger applied his digital members to the arranging and 
 caressing of a remarkably splendid brooch, set in the bosom 
 of a shirt, the rude texture of which formed a singular con- 
 trast with the magnificence of the embellishment, and the 
 fineness of the one ruffle suffered by our modern Hyperion to 
 make its appearance beneath his cinnamon-colored coat-sleeve. 
 These little personal arrangements completed, and a dazzling 
 snuff-box released from the confinement of a side-pocket, tapped 
 thrice, and lightened of two pinches of its titillating luxury, 
 the stranger now, with the guardian eye of friendship, directed 
 a searching glance to the dress of his friends. There, all ap- 
 peared meet for his strictest scrutiny, save, indeed, that the 
 supercilious-looking stranger having just drawn forth his gloves, 
 the lining of his coat-pocket which was rather soiled into the 
 bargain had not returned to its internal station; the tall 
 stranger, seeing this little inelegance, kindly thrust three fingers 
 with a sudden and light dive into his friend's pocket, and effec- 
 tually repulsed the forwardness of the intrusive lining. The 
 supercilious stranger no sooner felt the touch, than he started 
 back, and whispered his officious companion: 
 
 "What! among friends, Ned! Fie now; curb the nature in 
 thee for one night, at least." 
 
 Before he of the flowing locks had time to answer, the 
 master of the ceremonies, who had for the last three minutes 
 been eyeing the strangers through his glass, stepped forward 
 with a sliding bow, and the handsome gentleman taking upon 
 himself the superiority and precedence over his comrades, was 
 the first to return the courtesy. He did this with so good a 
 grace, and so pleasing an expression of countenance, that the 
 censor of bows was charmed at once, and, with a second and 
 more profound salutation, announced himself and his office. 
 
 "You would like to dance, probably, gentlemen?" he asked, 
 glancing at each, but directing his words to the one who had 
 prepossessed him. 
 
 "You are very good," said the comely stranger; "and, for 
 my part, I shall be extremely indebted to you for the exercise 
 of your powers in my behalf. Allow me to return with you to 
 the ball-room and I can there point out to you the objects of 
 my especial admiration." 
 
 The master of the ceremonies bowed as before, and he and
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. l6({ 
 
 his new acquaintance strolled into the ball-room, followed by 
 the two comrades of the latter. 
 
 "Have you been long in Bath, sir?" inquired the monarch of 
 the rooms. 
 
 "No, indeed! we only arrived this evening." 
 
 "From London?" 
 
 "No: we made a little tour across the country." 
 
 "Ah! very pleasant, this fine weather." 
 
 "Yes; especially in the evenings." 
 
 "Oho! romantic!" thought the man of balls, as he rejoined 
 aloud, "Why the nights are agreeable, and the moon is partic- 
 ularly favorable to us." 
 
 ' ' Not always ! ' ' quoth the stranger. 
 
 "True true, the night before last was dark; but, in gen- 
 eral, surely the moon has been very bright." 
 
 The stranger was about to answer, but checked himself, and 
 simply bowed his head as in assent. 
 
 "I wonder who they are!" thought the master of the cere- 
 monies. "Pray, sir," said he in a low tone, "is that gentle- 
 man that tall gentleman, any way related to Lord ? I 
 
 cannot but think I see a family likeness." 
 
 "Not in the least related to his lordship," answered the 
 stranger; "but he is of a family that have made a noise in the 
 world; though he (as well as my other friend) is merely a com- 
 moner!" laying a stress on the last word. 
 
 "Nothing, sir, can be more respectable than a commoner of 
 family," returned the polite Mr. , with a bow. 
 
 "I agree with you, sir," answered the stranger, with an- 
 other. "But, heavens!" and the stranger started; for at 
 that moment his eye caught for the first time, at the far end of 
 the room, the youthful and brilliant countenance of Lucy 
 Brandon, "do I see rightly? or is that Miss Brandon?" 
 
 "It is indeed that lovely young lady," said Mr. . "I 
 
 congratulate you on knowing one so admired. I suppose that 
 you, being blessed with her acquaintance, do not need the for- 
 mality of my introduction?" 
 
 "Umph!"said the stranger, rather shortly and uncourteously. 
 "No! Perhaps you had better present me!" 
 
 "By what name shall I have that honor, sir?" discreetly in- 
 quired the nomenclator. 
 
 "Clifford!" answered the stranger; "Captain Clifford!" 
 
 Upon this the prim master of the ceremonies, threading his 
 path through the now fast-filling room, approached towards 
 Lucy to obey Mr. Clifford's request. Meanwhile, that gentle*
 
 Ib6 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 man, before he followed the steps of the tutelary spirit of the 
 place, paused, and said to his friends, in a tone careless, yet 
 not without command, "Hark ye, gentlemen, oblige me by 
 being as civil and silent as ye are able, and don't thrust your- 
 selves upon me, as you are accustomed to do, whenever you 
 see no opportunity of indulging me with that honor with the 
 least show of propriety ! " So saying, and waiting no reply, Mr. 
 Clifford hastened after the master of the ceremonies. 
 
 "Our friend grows mighty imperious!" said Long Ned, 
 whom our readers have already recognized in the tall stranger. 
 
 " 'Tis the way with your rising geniuses," answered the 
 moralizing Augustus Tomlinson. "Suppose we go to the card- 
 room, and get up a rubber!" 
 
 "Well thought of," said Ned, yawning a thing he was very 
 apt to do in society; "and I wish nothing worse to those who 
 try our rubbers, than that they may be well cleaned by them." 
 Upon this witticism the Colossus of Roads, glancing towards 
 the glass, strutted off arm-in-arm with his companion to the 
 card-room. 
 
 During this short conversation the re-introduction of Mr. 
 Clifford (the stranger of the Rectory and deliverer of Dr. Slop- 
 perton) to Lucy Brandon had been effected, and the hand of 
 the heiress was already engaged (according to the custom of 
 that time) for the two ensuing dances. 
 
 It was about twenty minutes after the above presentation 
 had taken place that Lord Mauleverer and William Brandon 
 entered the rooms ; and the buzz created by the appearance of 
 the noted peer and the distinguished lawyer had scarcely sub- 
 sided, before the royal personage expected to grace the "fes- 
 tive scene" (as the newspapers say of a great room with plenty 
 of miserable-looking people in it) arrived. The most attrac- 
 tive persons in Europe may be found among the royal family 
 of England, and the great personage then at Bath, in conse- 
 quence of certain political intrigues, wished, at that time espe- 
 cially, to make himself as popular as possible. Having gone 
 the round of the old ladies, and assured them, as the Court 
 Journal assures the old ladies at this day, that they were 
 "morning stars," and "swan-like wonders," the Prince espied 
 Brandon, and immediately beckoned to him with a familiar 
 gesture. The smooth but saturnine lawyer approached the 
 royal presence with the manner that peculiarly distinguished him, 
 and which blended, in no ungraceful mixture, a species of stiff- 
 ness, that passed with the crowd for native independence, with 
 a supple insinuation, that was usually deemed the token of
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 167 
 
 latent benevolence of heart. There was something, indeed, in 
 Brandon's address that always pleased the great; and they 
 liked him the better, because, though he stood on no idle politi- 
 cal points, mere differences in the view taken of a hair-breadth, 
 such as a corn law, or a Catholic bill ; alteration in the church, 
 or a reform in Parliament ; yet he invariably talked so like a 
 man of honor (except when with Mauleverer), that his urban- 
 ity seemed attachment to individuals ; and his concessions to 
 power, sacrifices of private opinion for the sake of obliging 
 his friends. 
 
 "I am very glad, indeed," said the royal personage, "to see 
 Mr. Brandon looking so much better. Never was the Crown 
 in greater want of his services; and, if rumor speak true, they 
 will soon be required in another department of his profession." 
 
 Brandon bowed, and answered : 
 
 "So please Your Royal Highness, they will always be at the 
 command of a king from whom I have experienced such kind- 
 ness, in any capacity for which His Majesty may deem them 
 fitting." 
 
 "It is true, then!" said His Royal Highness, significantly. 
 "I congratulate you! The quiet dignity of the bench must 
 seem to you a great change after a career so busy, and 
 restless?" 
 
 "I fear I shall feel so at first, Your Royal Highness," ans- 
 wered Brandon, "for I like even the toil of my profession; and 
 at this moment, when I am in full practice, it more than ever 
 but (checking himself at once) His Majesty's wishes, and my 
 satisfaction in complying with them, are more than sufficient to 
 remove any momentary regret I might otherwise have felt in 
 quitting those toils which have now become to me a second 
 nature." 
 
 "It is possible," rejoined the Prince, "that His Majesty 
 took into consideration the delicate state of health which, in 
 common with the whole public, I grieve to see the papers have 
 attributed to one of the most distinguished ornaments of the 
 bar. ' ' 
 
 "So please Your Royal Highness," answered Brandon, 
 coolly, and with a smile which the most piercing eye could not 
 have believed the mask to the agony then gnawing at his 
 nerves, "it is the interest of my rivals to exaggerate the little 
 ailments of a weak constitution. I thank Providence that I 
 am now entirely recovered; and at no time of my life have I 
 been less unable to discharge so far as my native and mental 
 incapacities will allow the duties of any occupation, however
 
 l68 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 arduous. Nay, as the brute grows accustomed to the mill, so 
 have I grown wedded to business ; and even the brief relaxa- 
 tion I have now allowed myself seems to me rather irksome 
 than pleasurable." 
 
 "I rejoice to hear you speak thus," answered His Royal 
 Highness warmly; "and I trust for many years, and," added 
 he, in a lower tone, "in the highest chamber of the senate, that 
 we may profit by your talents. The times are those in which 
 many occasions occur, that oblige all true friends of the Con- 
 stitution to quit minor employment for that great constitu- 
 tional one that concerns us all, the highest and the meanest; 
 and (the royal voice sank still lower) I feel justified in assuring 
 you, that the office of chief justice alone is not considered by 
 His Majesty as a sufficient reward for your generous sacrifice 
 of present ambition to the difficulties of government." 
 
 Brandon's proud heart swelled, and that moment the veri- 
 est pains of hell would scarcely have been felt. 
 
 While the aspiring schemer was thus agreeably engaged, 
 Mauleverer, sliding through the crowd with that grace which 
 charmed every one, old and young, and addressing to all he 
 knew some lively or affectionate remark, made his way to the 
 dancers, among whom he had just caught a glimpse of Lucy. 
 "I wonder," he thought, "whom she is dancing with. I hope 
 it is that ridiculous fellovv, Mossop, who tells a good story 
 against himself; or that handsome ass, Belmont, who looks at 
 his own legs, instead of seeming to have eyes for no one but 
 his partner. Ah ! if Tarquin had but known women as well as 
 I do, he would have had no reason to be rough with Lucretia. 
 'Tis a thousand pities that experience comes, in women, as in 
 the world, just when it begins to be no longer of use to us!" 
 
 As he made these moral reflections, Mauleverer gained the 
 dancers, and beheld Lucy listening, with downcast eyes and 
 cheeks that evidently blushed, to a young man, whom Maul- 
 everer acknowledged at once to be one of the best-looking fel- 
 lows he had ever seen. The stranger's countenance, despite 
 an extreme darkness of complexion, was, to be sure, from the 
 great regularity of the features, rather effeminate; but, on the 
 other hand, his figure, though slender and graceful, betrayed 
 to an experienced eye an extraordinary proportion of sinew and 
 muscle; and even the dash of effeminacy in the countenance 
 was accompanied by so manly and frank an air, and was so 
 perfectly free from all coxcombry or self-conceit, that it did 
 not in the least decrease the prepossessing effect of his appear- 
 ance. An angry and bitter pang shot across that portion of
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 169 
 
 Mauleverer's frame which the Earl thought fit, for want of 
 another name, to call his heart. "How cursedly pleased she 
 looks!" muttered he. "By heaven! that stolen glance under 
 the left eyelid, dropped as suddenly as it is raised ! and he 
 ha! how firmly he holds that little hand. I think I see 
 him paddle with it ; and then the dog's earnest, intent look 
 and she all blushes! though she dare not look up to meet his 
 gaze, feeling it by intuition. Oh! the demure, modest, shame- 
 faced hypocrite! How silent she is! She can prate enough 
 to me ! I would give my promised Garter if she would talk to 
 him. Talk talk laugh prattle only simper, in God's name 
 and I shall be happy! But that bashful, blushing silence it 
 is unsupportable. Thank Heaven, the dance is over! Thank 
 Heaven, again! I have not felt such pains since the last 
 nightmare I had, after dining with her father!" 
 
 With a face all smiles, but with a mien in which more dig- 
 nity than he ordinarily assumed was worn, Mauleverer now 
 moved towards Lucy, who was leaning on her partner's arm. 
 The Earl, who had ample tact where his consummate selfish- 
 ness did not warp it, knew well how to act the lover, without 
 running ridiculously into the folly of seeming to play the hoary 
 dangler. He sought rather to be lively than sentimental ; and 
 beneath the wit to conceal the suitor. 
 
 Having paid then, with a careless gallantry, his first compli- 
 ments, he entered into so animated a conversation, inter- 
 spersed with so many naive yet palpably just observations on 
 the characters present, that perhaps he had never appeared to 
 more brilliant advantage. At length, as the music was about 
 to recommence, Mauleverer, with a careless glance at Lucy's 
 partner, said, "Will Miss Brandon now allow me the agreeable 
 duty of conducting her to her father?" 
 
 "I believe," answered Lucy, and her voice suddenly became 
 timid, "that, according to the laws of the rooms, I am engaged 
 to this gentleman for another dance." 
 
 Clifford, in an assured and easy tone, replied in assent. 
 
 As he spoke Mauleverer honored him with a more accurate 
 survey than he had hitherto bestowed upon him ; and whether 
 or not there was any expression of contempt or supercilious- 
 ness in the survey, it was sufficient to call up the indignant 
 blood to Clifford's cheek. Returning the look with interest, 
 he said to Lucy, "I believe, Miss Brandon, that the dance is 
 about to begin"; and Lucy, obeying the hint, left the aristo- 
 cratic Mauleverer to his own meditations. 
 
 At that moment the master of the ceremonies came bowing
 
 I7<5 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 by, half afraid to address so great a person as Mauleverer, but 
 willing to show his respect by the profoundness of his salu- 
 tation. 
 
 "Aha! my dear Mr. !" said the Earl, holding out both 
 
 his hands to the Lycurgus of the rooms; "how are you? Pray 
 can you inform me who that young man is, now dancing 
 with Miss Brandon?" 
 
 "It is let me see. Oh! it is a Captain Clifford, my lord! 
 a very fine young man, my lord ! Has your lordship never 
 met him?' ' 
 
 "Never! who is he? One under your more especial patron- 
 age?" said the Earl, smiling. 
 
 "Nay, indeed!" answered the master of the ceremonies, 
 with a simper of gratification ; "I scarcely know who he is yet ; 
 the captain only made his appearance here to-night for the first 
 time. He came with two other gentlemen ah! there they 
 are!" and he pointed the Earl's scrutinizing attention to the 
 elegant forms of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson and Mr. Ned Pep- 
 per, just emerging from the card-rooms. The swagger of the 
 latter gentleman was so peculiarly important that Mauleverer, 
 angry as he was, could scarcely help laughing. The master of 
 the ceremonies noted the Earl's countenance, and remarked, 
 that "that fine-looking man seemed disposed to give himself 
 airs " 
 
 "Judging from the gentleman's appearance, " said the Earl 
 drily (Ned's face, to say truth, did betoken his affection for 
 the bottle), "I should imagine that he was much more accus- 
 tomed to give himself thorough draughts !" 
 
 "Ah!" renewed the arbiter elegantiarum, who had not 
 heard Mauleverer 's observation, which was uttered in a very 
 low voice, "Ah! they seem real dashers!" 
 
 "Dashers!" repeated Mauleverer; "true, haberdashers!" 
 
 Long Ned now, having in the way of his profession acquitted 
 himself tolerably well at the card-table, thought he had pur- 
 chased the right to parade himself through the rooms, and 
 show the ladies what stuff a Pepper could be made of. 
 
 Leaning with his left hand on Tomlinson's arm, and em- 
 ploying the right in fanning himself, furiously with his huge 
 chapeau bras, the lengthy adventurer stalked slowly along, 
 now setting out one leg jauntily, now the other, and ogling 
 "the ladies" with a kind of Irish look, viz., a look between a 
 wink and a stare. 
 
 Released from the presence of Clifford, who kept a certain 
 check on his companions, the apparition of Ned became glar-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 17! 
 
 ingly conspicuous; and wherever he passed, a universal whis- 
 per succeeded. 
 
 "Who can he be?" said the Widow Matemore ; " 'tis a droll 
 creature; but what a head of hair!" 
 
 "For my part," answered the spinster Sneeral], "I think he 
 is a linen-draper in disguise; for I heard him talk to his com- 
 panions of 'tape.' ' 
 
 "Well, well," thought Mauleverer, "it would be but kind to 
 seek out Brandon, and hint to him in what company his niece 
 seems to have fallen!" And so thinking, he glided to the cor- 
 ner where, with a gray-headed old politician, the astute lawyer 
 was conning the affairs of Europe. 
 
 In the interim, the second dance had ended, and Clifford 
 was conducting Lucy to her seat, each charmed with the other, 
 when he found himself abruptly tapped on the back, and, turn- 
 ing round in alarm, for such taps were not unfamiliar to him, 
 he saw the cool countenance of Long Ned, with one finger 
 sagaciously laid beside the nose. 
 
 "How now?" said Clifford, between his ground teeth, "did 
 I not tell thee to put that huge bulk of thine as far from me 
 as possible?" 
 
 "Humph!" grunted Ned, "if these are my thanks, I may as 
 well keep my kindness to myself; but know you, my kid, that 
 lawyer Brandon is here, peering through the crowd, at this 
 very moment, in order to catch a glimpse of that woman's face 
 of thine." 
 
 "Ha!" answered Clifford, in a very quick tone, "begone 
 then! I will meet you without the rooms immediately." 
 
 Clifford now turned to his partner, and bowing very low, in 
 reality to hide his face from those sharp eyes which had once 
 seen it in the court of Justice Burnflat, said, "I trust, madam, I 
 shall have the honor to meet you again ; is it, if I may be 
 allowed to ask, with your celebrated uncle that you are stay- 
 ing, or" 
 
 "With my father," answered Lucy, concluding the sentence 
 Clifford had left unfinished; "but my uncle has been with us, 
 though I fear he leaves us to-morrow." 
 
 Clifford's eyes sparkled; he made no answer, but, bowing 
 again, receded into the crowd, and disappeared. Several times 
 that night did the brightest eyes in Somersetshire rove anx- 
 iously round the rooms in search of our hero; but he was 
 seen no more. 
 
 It was on the stairs that Clifford encountered his comrades ; 
 taking an arm of each, he gained the door without any adven-
 
 172 tAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ture worth noting, save that, being kept back by the crowd for 
 a few moments, the moralizing Augustus Tomlinson, who hon- 
 ored the moderate Whigs by enrolling himself among their 
 number, took up, pour passer le temp^ a tall gold-headed cane, 
 and, weighing it across his finger with a musing air, said, 
 "Alas! among our supporters we often meet heads as heavy, 
 but of what a different metal!" The crowd now permitting, 
 Augustus was walking away with his companions, and, in that 
 absence of mind characteristic of philosophers, unconsciously 
 bearing with him the gold-headed object of his reflection, when 
 a stately footman stepping up to him, said, "Sir, my cane!" 
 
 "Cane, fellow!" said Tomlinson. "Ah, I am so absent! 
 Here is thy cane. Only think of my carrying off the man's 
 cane, Ned! ha! ha!" 
 
 "Absent, indeed!" grunted a knowing chairman, watching 
 the receding figures of the three gentlemen. "Body o' me! 
 but it was the cane that was about to be absent!" 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Whackum. "My dear rogues, dear boys, Bluster and Dingboy ! you are 
 the bravest fellows that ever scoured yet ! " SHADWELL'S Scourers. 
 
 " Cato, the Thessalian, was wont to say, that some things may be done 
 unjustly, that many things may be done justly." LORD BACON (being a 
 justification of every rascality). 
 
 ALTHOUGH our three worthies had taken unto themselves a 
 splendid lodging in Milsom Street, which to please Ned was 
 over a hair-dresser's shop; yet, instead of returning thither, or 
 repairing to such taverns as might seem best befitting their 
 fashion and garb, they struck at once from the gay parts of the 
 town, and tarried not till they reached a mean-looking ale- 
 house in a remote suburb. 
 
 The door was opened to them by an elderly lady ; and Clif- 
 ford, stalking before his companions into an apartment at the 
 back of the house, asked if the other gentlemen were come yet. 
 
 "No," returned the dame. "Old Mr. Bags came in about 
 ten minutes ago ; but, hearing more work might be done, he 
 went out again." 
 
 "Bring the lush and the pipes, old blone!" cried Ned, 
 throwing himself on a bench; "we are never at a loss for 
 company!". 
 
 "You, indeed, never can be, who are always inseparably
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 173 
 
 connected with the object of your admiration," said Tomlin- 
 son drily, and taking up an old newspaper. Ned, who, though 
 choleric, was a capital fellow, and could bear a joke on him- 
 self, smiled, and, drawing forth a little pair of scissors, began 
 trimming his nails. 
 
 "Curse me," said he, after a momentary silence, "if this 
 is not a devilish deal pleasanter than playing the fine gentleman 
 in that great room with a rose in one's buttonhole! What 
 say you. Master Lovett?" 
 
 Clifford (as henceforth, despite his other aliases, we shall de- 
 nominate our hero), who had thrown himself at full length on 
 a bench at the far end of the room, and who seemed plunged 
 into a sullen revery, now looked up for a moment, and then, 
 turning round and presenting the dorsal part of his body to 
 Long Ned, muttered, "Pish!" 
 
 "Harkye, Master Lovett!" said Long Ned, coloring. "I 
 don't know what has come over you of late; but I would have 
 you to learn that gentlemen are entitled to courtesy and polite 
 behavior: and so, d'ye see, if you ride your high horse upon 
 me, splice my extremities, if I won't have satisfaction!" 
 
 "Hist, man, be quiet," said Tomlinson philosophically, 
 snuffing the candles: 
 
 ' ' For companions to quarrel, 
 Is extremely immoral.' 
 
 Don't you see that the captain is in a revery? What good 
 man ever loves to be interrupted in his meditations? Even 
 Alfred the Great could not bear it ! Perhaps at this moment, 
 with the true anxiety of a worthy chief, the captain is design- 
 ing something for our welfare!" 
 
 "Captain, indeed!" muttered Long Ned, darting a wrathful 
 look at Clifford, who had not deigned to pay any attention to 
 Mr. Pepper's threat; "for my part, I cannot conceive wha<- 
 was the matter with us when we chose this green slip of the 
 gallows-tree for our captain of the district. To be sure, he did 
 very well at first, and that robbery of the old lord was not 
 ill-planned ; but lately " 
 
 "Nay, nay," quoth Augustus, interrupting the gigantic 
 grumbler, "the nature of man is prone to discontent. Allow 
 that our present design of setting up the gay Lothario, and try- 
 ing our chances at Bath for an heiress, is owing as much to 
 Lovett's promptitude as to our invention." 
 
 "And what good will come of it?" returned Ned, as he 
 lighted his pipe: "answer me that. Was I not dressed as fine
 
 174 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 as a lord, and did not I walk three times up and down that 
 great room without being a jot the better for it?" 
 
 "Ah! but you know not how many secret conquests you 
 may have made: you cannot win a prize by looking upon it." 
 
 "Humph!" grunted Ned, applying himself discontentedly 
 to the young existence of his pipe. 
 
 "As for the captain's partner," renewed Tomlinson, who 
 maliciously delighted in exciting the jealousy of the handsome 
 "tax-collector," for that was the designation by which Augus- 
 tus thought proper to style himself and companions; "I will 
 turn Tory if she be not already half in love with him ; and did 
 you hear the old gentleman who cut into our rubber say what a 
 fine fortune she had? Faith, Ned, it is lucky for us two that 
 we all agreed to go shares in our marriage speculations; I 
 fancy the worthy captain will think it a bad bargain for 
 himself. ' ' 
 
 "I am not so sure of that, Mr. Tomlinson," said Long Ned 
 sourly, eyeing his comrade. 
 
 "Some women may be caught by a smooth skin and a showy 
 manner, but real masculine beauty, eyes, color, and hair, 
 Mr. Tomlinson, must ultimately make its way: so hand me the 
 brandy and cease your jaw." 
 
 "Well, well," said Tomlinson, "I'll give you a toast: 'The 
 prettiest girl in England, and that's Miss Brandon!" 
 
 "You shall give no such toast, sir!" said Clifford, starting 
 from the bench. "What the devil is Miss Brandon to you? 
 And now, Ned" (seeing that the tall hero looked on him 
 with an unfavorable aspect), "here's my hand, forgive me if 
 I was uncivil. Tomlinson will tell you, in a maxim, men are 
 changeable. Here's to your health ; and it shall not be my 
 fault, gentlemen, if we have not a merry evening!" 
 
 This speech, short as it was, met with great applause from 
 the two friends ; and Clifford, as president, stationed himself 
 in a huge chair at the head of the table. Scarcely had he as- 
 sumed this dignity before the door opened, and half-a-dozen 
 of the gentlemen confederates trooped somewhat noisily into 
 the apartment. 
 
 "Softly, softly, messieurs," said the president, recovering 
 all his constitutional gayety, yet blending it with a certain neg- 
 ligent command "respect for the chair, if you please! 'Tis 
 the way with all assemblies where the public purse is a matter 
 of deferential interest!" 
 
 "Hear him!'" cried Tomlinson. 
 
 "What, my old friend Bags!" said the president: "you
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 175 
 
 have not come empty-handed, I will swear; your honest face 
 is like the table of contents to the good things in your 
 pockets!" 
 
 "Ah, Captain Clifford," said the veteran, groaning, and 
 shaking his reverend head, "I have seen the day when there 
 was not a lad in England forked so largely, so comprehen- 
 sively-like, as I did. But, as King Lear says at Common 
 Garden, 'I he's old now!' ' 
 
 "But your zeal is as youthful as ever, my fine fellow," said 
 the captain soothingly ; "and if you do not clean out the pub- 
 lic as thoroughly as heretofore, it is not the fault of your 
 inclinations." 
 
 "No, that it is not!" cried the "tax-collectors" unani- 
 mously. "And if ever a pocket is to be picked neatly, quietly, 
 and effectually," added the complimentary Clifford, "I do not 
 know to this day, throughout the three kingdoms, a neater, 
 quieter, and more effective set of fingers than Old Bags's!" 
 
 The veteran bowed disclaimingly, and took his seat among 
 the heartfelt good wishes of the whole assemblage. 
 
 "And now, gentlemen," said Clifford, as soon as the revel- 
 lers had provided themselves with their wonted luxuries, pota- 
 \ory and fumous, "let us hear your adventures, and rejoice our 
 eyes with their produce. The gallant Attie shall begin but 
 first, a toast, 'May those who leap from a hedge never leap 
 from a tree ! ' ' 
 
 This toast being drunk with enthusiastic applause, Fighting 
 Attie began the recital of his little history. 
 
 "You sees, captain," said he, putting himself in a martial 
 position, and looking Clifford full in the face, "that I'm not 
 addicted to much blarney. Little cry and much wool is my 
 motto. At ten o'clock, A.M., saw the enemy in the shape of 
 a Doctor of Divinity. 'Blow me,' says I to Old Bags, 'but 
 I'll do his reverence!' 'Blow me,' says Old Bags, 'but you 
 shant you'll have us scragged if you touches the church.' 
 'My grandmother!' says I. Bags tells the pals all in a fuss 
 about it what care I? I puts on a decent dress, and goes to 
 the doctor as a decayed soldier, wot supplies the shops in the 
 turning line. His reverence a fat jolly dog as ever you see 
 was at dinner over a fine roast pig. So I tells him I have some 
 bargains at home for him. Splice me, if the doctor did not 
 think he had got a prize! so he puts on his boots, and he 
 comes with me to my house,. But when I gets him into a 
 lane, out come my pops. 'Give up, doctor,' says I; 'others 
 must share the goods of the church now.' You has no idea
 
 176 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 what a row he made: but I did the thing, and there's an end 
 on't." 
 
 "Bravo, Attie!" cried Clifford, and the word echoed round 
 the board. Attie put a purse on the table, and the next gentle- 
 man was called to confession. 
 
 "It skills not, boots not," gentlest of readers, to record each 
 of the narratives that now followed one another. Old Bags, in 
 especial, preserved his well-earned reputation, by emptying 
 six pockets, which had been filled with every possible descrip- 
 tion of petty valuables. Peasant and prince appeared alike 
 to have come under his hands; and, perhaps, the good old 
 man had done in one town more towards effecting an equality 
 of goods among different ranks, than all the Reformers, from 
 Cornwall to Carlisle. Yet so keen was his appetite for the 
 sport, that the veteran appropriator absolutely burst into tears 
 at not having "forked more." 
 
 "I love a warm-hearted enthusiasm," cried Clifford, hand- 
 ling the movables, while he gazed lovingly on the ancient pur- 
 loiner: "May new cases never teach us to forget Old Bags!" 
 
 As soon as this "sentiment" had been duly drunk, and Mr. 
 Basghot had dried his tears and applied himself to his favorite 
 drink which by the way, was "blue ruin," the work of divis- 
 ion took place. The discretion and impartiality of the cap- 
 tain in this arduous part of his duty attracted universal admi- 
 ration ; and each gentleman having carefully pouched his share, 
 the youhful president hemmed thrice, and the society became 
 aware of a purposed speech. 
 
 "Gentlemen!" began Clifford, and his main supporter, 
 the sapient Augustus, shouted out "Hear!" "Gentlemen, 
 you all know that when, some months ago, you were pleased, 
 partly at the instigation of Gentleman George, God bless 
 him! partly from the exaggerated good opinion expressed of 
 me by my friends, to elect me to the high honor of the com- 
 mand of this district, I myself was by no means ambitious to 
 assume that rank, which I knew well was far beyond my mer- 
 its, and that responsibility which I knew, with equal certainty, 
 was too weighty for my powers. Your voices, however, over- 
 ruled my own ; and as Mr. Muddlepud, the great metaphysi- 
 cian, in that excellent paper 'The Asinseum' was wont to ob- 
 serve, ' the susceptibilities, innate, extensible, incomprehensible, 
 and eternal,' existing in my bosom, were infinitely more pow- 
 erful than the shallow suggestions of reason that ridiculous 
 thing which all wise men and judicious Asinseans sedulously 
 stifle."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 177 
 
 "Plague take the man, what is he talking about?" said Long 
 Ned, who we have seen was of an envious temper, in a whisper 
 to Old Bags. Old Bags shook his head. 
 
 "In a word, gentlemen," renewed Clifford, "your kindness 
 overpowered me; and, despite my cooler inclinations, I ac- 
 cepted your flattering proposal. Since then I have endeav- 
 ored, so far as I have been able, to advance your interests ; I 
 have kept a vigilant eye upon all my neighbors; I have, from 
 county .to county, established numerous correspondents; and 
 our exertions have been carried on with a promptitude that 
 has ensured success. 
 
 "Gentlemen, I do not wish to boast, but on these nights of 
 periodical meetings, when every quarter brings us to go halves 
 when we meet in private to discuss the affairs of the public 
 show our earnings, as it were, in privy council, and divide 
 them amicably, as it were, in the cabinet ("Hear! hear!" 
 from Mr. Tomlinson), it is customary for your captain for the 
 time being to remind you of his services, engage your pardon 
 for his deficiencies, and your good wishes for his future exer- 
 tions. Gentlemen ! has it ever been said of Paul Lovett that he 
 heard of a prize and forgot to tell you of his news? ("Never! 
 never!" loud cheering.) Has it ever been said of him that he 
 sent others to seize the booty, and stayed at home to think how it 
 should be spent? ("No! no!" repeated cheers.) Has it ever 
 been said of him that he took less share than his due of your 
 danger, and more of your guineas? (Cries in the negative, 
 accompanied with vehement applause.) Gentlemen, I thank 
 you for these flattering and audible testimonials in my favor; 
 but the points on which I have dwelt, however necessary to 
 my honor, would prove but little for my merits ; they might be 
 worthy notice in your comrade, you demand more subtle duties 
 in your chief. Gentlemen! has it ever been said of Paul Lovett 
 that he sent out brave men on forlorn hopes? that he hazarded 
 your own heads by rash attempts in acquiring pictures of King 
 George's? that zeal, in short, was greater in him than caution? 
 or that his love of a quid* ever made him neglectful of your 
 just aversion to a quod ? f (Unanimous cheering. ) 
 
 "Gentlemen! since I have had the honor to preside over 
 your welfare, Fortune, which favors the bold, has not been un- 
 merciful to you! But three of our companions have been 
 missed from our peaceful festivities. One, gentlemen, I myself 
 expelled from our corps for ungentlemanlike practices: he 
 picked pockets oifogles\ it was a vulgar employment. Some 
 
 * Quid a guinea. t Quod a prison. t Handkerchiefs
 
 178 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of you. gentlemen, have done the same for amusement Jack 
 Littlefork did it for occupation. I expostulated with him in 
 public and in private ; Mr. Pepper cut his society ; Mr. Tom- 
 linson read him an essay on Real Greatness of Soul: all was in 
 vain. He was pumped by the mob for the theft of a bird's 
 eye wipe. The fault I had borne with the detection was un- 
 pardonable; I expelled him. Who's here so base as would be 
 a fogle-hunter ? If any, speak; for him have I offended! 
 Who's here so rude as would not be a gentleman? If any, 
 speak; for him have I offended! I pause for a reply! What, 
 none! then none have I offended. (Loud cheers.) Gentle- 
 men, I may truly add, that I have done no more to Jack Lit- 
 tlefork than you should do to Paul Lovett ! The next vacancy 
 in our ranks was occasioned by the loss of Patrick Blunderbull. 
 You know, gentlemen, the vehement exertions that I made to 
 save that misguided creature, whom I had made exertions no 
 less earnest to instruct. But he chose to swindle under the 
 name of the 'Honorable Captain Smico' ; the Peerage gave 
 him the lie at once ; his case was one of aggravation, and he 
 was so remarkably ugly, that he 'created no interest.' He left 
 us for a foreign exile ; and if, as a man, I lament him, I con- 
 fess to you, gentlemen, as a 'tax-collector,' I am easily con- 
 soled. 
 
 "Our third loss must be fresh in your memory. Peter Pop- 
 well, as bold a fellow as ever breathed, is no more ! (A move- 
 ment in the assembly.) Peace be with with him! He died on 
 the field of battle ; shot dead by a Scotch colonel, whom poor 
 Popwell thought to rob of nothing with an empty pistol. His 
 memory, gentlemen in solemn silence! 
 
 "These make the catalogue of our losses" (resumed the 
 youthful chief, so soon as the "red cup had crowned the mem- 
 ory" of Peter Popwell), "I am proud, even in sorrow, to 
 think that the blame of those losses rests not with me. And 
 now, friends and followers! Gentlemen of the Road, the 
 Street, the Theatre, and the Shop! Prigs, Toby-men, and 
 Squires of the Cross! According to the laws of our Society, I 
 resign into your hands that power which for two quarter terms 
 you have confided to mine, ready to sink into your ranks as a 
 comrade, nor unwilling to renounce the painful honor I have 
 borne, borne with much infirmity, it is true; but at least 
 with a sincere desire to serve that cause with which you have 
 intrusted me." 
 
 So saying, the Captain descended from his chair amidst the 
 most uproarious applause ; and as soon as the first burst had
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. l?<) 
 
 partially subsided, Augustus Tomlinson rising, with one hand 
 in his breeches' pocket and the other stretched out, said: 
 
 "Gentlemen, I move that Paul Lovett be again chosen as our 
 Captain for the ensuing term of three months. (Deafening 
 cheers.) Much might I say about his surpassing merits; but 
 why dwell upon that which is obvious? Life is short ! Why 
 should speeches be long? Our lives, perhaps, are shorter than 
 the lives of other men: why should not our harangues be of a 
 suitable brevity? Gentlemen, I shall say but one word in favor 
 of my excellent friend; of mine, say I? ay, of mine, of yours. 
 He is a friend to all of us! A prime minister is not more use- 
 ful to his followers, and more burthensome to the public than 
 I am proud to say is Paul Lovett! (Loud plaudits.) What 
 I shall urge in his favor is simply this: the man whom opposite 
 parties unite in praising must have supereminent merit. Of 
 all your companions, gentlemen, Paul Lovett is the only man 
 who to that merit can advance a claim. (Applause.) You all 
 know, gentlemen, that our body has long been divided into 
 two fractions; each jealous of the other each desirous of as- 
 cendency and each emulous which shall put the greatest 
 number of fingers into the public pie. In the language of the 
 vulgar, the one faction would be called 'swindlers,' and the 
 other 'highwaymen.' I, gentlemen, who am fond of finding 
 new names for things, and for persons, and am a bit of a politi- 
 cian, call the one Whigs, and the other Tories. (Clamorous 
 cheering.) Of the former body. I am esteemed no uninfluen- 
 tial member ; of the latter faction, Mr. Bags is justly consid- 
 ered the most shining ornament. Mr. Attie and Mr. Edward 
 Pepper can scarcely be said to belong entirely to either: they 
 unite the good qualities of both: 'British compounds' some 
 term them: I term them Liberal Aristocrats! (Cheers.) I 
 now! call upon you all, Whig or Swindler; Tory or Highway- 
 man; 'British Compounds' or Liberal Aristocrats; I call upon 
 you all, to name me one man whom you will all agree to elect?" 
 
 All "Lovett for ever!" 
 
 "Gentlemen!" continued the sagacious Augustus, "that 
 shout is sufficient ; without another word, I propose, as your 
 Captain, Mr. Paul Lovett." 
 
 "And I seconds the motion!" said old Mr. Bags. 
 
 Our hero, being now, by the unanimous applause of his 
 confederates, restored to the chair of office, returned thanks in 
 a neat speech ; and Scarlet Jem declared, with great solemnity, 
 that it did equal honor to his head and heart. 
 
 The thunders of eloquence being hushed, flashes of
 
 >8d PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ning, or, as the vulgar say, "glasses of gin," gleamed about. 
 Good old Mr. Bags stuck, however, to his blue ruin, and Attie 
 to the bottle of bingo; some, among whom were Clifford and 
 the wise Augustus, called for wine; and Clifford, who exerted 
 himself to the utmost in supporting the gay duties of his sta- 
 tion, took care that the song should vary the pleasures of the 
 bowl. Of the songs we have only been enabled to preserve two. 
 The first is by Long Ned ; and, though we confess we can see 
 but little in it, yet (perhaps from some familiar allusion or an- 
 other, with which we are necessarily unacquainted), it pro- 
 duced a prodigious sensation, it ran thus: 
 
 THE ROGUE'S RECIPE. 
 
 " Your honest fool a rogue to make. 
 
 As great as can be seen, sir, 
 Two hackney'd rogues you first must take, 
 Then place your fool between, sir. 
 
 Virtue's a dunghill cock, ashamed 
 Of self when paired with game ones ; 
 
 And wildest elephants are tamed 
 If stuck betwixt two tame ones." 
 
 The other effusion with which we have the honor to favor 
 our readers is a very amusing duet which took place between 
 Fighting Attie and a tall, thin robber, who was a dangerous 
 fellow in a mob, and was therefore called Mobbing Francis ; 
 it was commenced by the latter: 
 
 MOBBING FRANCIS. 
 
 " The best of all robbers as ever I know'd, 
 
 Is the bold Fighting Attie, the pride of the road ! 
 Fighting Attie, my hero, I saw you to-day 
 
 A purse full of yellow-boys seize ; 
 And as, just at present, I'm low in the lay, 
 
 I'll borrow a quid, if you please. 
 Oh ! bold Fighting Attie the knowing the natty 
 
 By us all it must sure be confest, 
 Though your shoppers and snobbers are pretty good robbers, 
 
 A soldier is always the best." 
 
 FIGHTING ATTIE. 
 
 " Stubble your -winds* 
 
 You wants to trick I. 
 Lend you my quids ? 
 Not one, by Dickey." 
 
 * Hold your tongue.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. l8l 
 
 MOBBING FRANCIS. 
 
 " Oh, what a beast is a niggardly ruffler, 
 
 Nabbing grabbing all for himself ; 
 Hang it, old fellow, I'll hit you a muffler, 
 
 Since you won't give me a pinch of the pelf. 
 You has not a heart for the general distress, 
 
 You cares not a mag if our party should fall, 
 And if Scarlet Jem were riot good at a press, 
 
 By Goles, it would soon be all up with us all ! 
 Oh, Scarlet Jem, he is trusty and trim, 
 Like his wig to his poll, sticks his conscience to him ; 
 But I vows I despises the fellow who prizes 
 
 More his own ends than the popular stock, sir ; 
 And the soldier as bones for himself and his crones, 
 
 Should be boned like a traitor himself at the block, sir." 
 
 This severe response of Mobbing Francis's did not in the 
 least ruffle the constitutional calmness of Fighting Attie; but 
 the wary Clifford, seeing that Francis had lost his temper, and 
 watchful over the least sign of disturbance among the com- 
 pany, instantly called for another song, and Mobbing Francis 
 sullenly knocked down Old Bags. 
 
 The night was far gone, and so were the wits of the honest 
 tax-gatherers; when the president commanded silence, and 
 the convivialists knew that their chief was about to issue forth 
 the orders for the ensuing term. Nothing could be better 
 timed than such directions, during merriment, and before 
 oblivion. 
 
 "Gentlemen !" said the captain, "I will now, with your leave, 
 impart to you all the plans I have formed for each. You, At- 
 tie, shall repair to London: be. the Windsor road and the pur- 
 lieus of Pimlico your especial care. Look you, my hero, to 
 these letters; they will apprise you of much work: I need not 
 caution you to silence. Like the oyster, you never open your 
 mouth but for something. Honest Old Bags, a rich grazier 
 will be in Smithfield on Thursday; his name is Hodges, and 
 he will have somewhat like a thousand pounds in his pouch. 
 He is green, fresh, and avaricious; offer to assist him in de- 
 frauding his neighbors in a bargain, and cease not till thou 
 hast done that with him which he wished to do to others. Be 
 excellent old man like the frog-fish which fishes for other 
 fishes with two horns that resemble baits : the prey dart at the 
 horns and are down the throat in an instant! For thee dear- 
 est Jem, these letters announce a prize : fat is Parson Pliant ! 
 full is his purse; and he rides from Henley to Oxford on Fri- 
 day I need say no more ! As for the rest of you, gentlemen, 
 on this paper you will see your destinations fixed. I warrant
 
 I&2 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 you, ye will find enough work till we meet again this day three 
 months. Myself, Augustus Tomlinson, and Ned Pepper, remain 
 at Bath ; we have business in hand, gentlemen, of paramount 
 importance ; should you by accident meet us, never acknow- 
 ledge us we are incog. ; striking at high game, and putting 
 on falcons' plumes to do it in character you understand ; but 
 this accident can scarcely occur, for none of you will remain 
 at Bath; by to-morrow night, may the road receive you. And 
 now, gentlemen, speed the glass, and I'll give you a sentiment 
 by way of a spur to it : 
 
 ' Much sweeter than honey 
 Is other men's money ! ' " 
 
 Our hero's maxim was received with all the enthusiasm which 
 agreeable truisms usually create. And old Mr. Bags rose to ad- 
 dress the chair; unhappily for the edification of the audience, 
 the veteran's foot slipped before he had proceeded farther than 
 "Mr. President," he fell to the earth with a sort of reel: 
 
 " Like shooting stars, he fell to rise no more ! " 
 
 His body became a capital footstool for the luxurious Pepper. 
 Now Augustus Tomlinson and Clifford, exchanging looks, took 
 every possible pains to promote the hilarity of the evening; 
 and, before the third hour of morning had sounded, they had 
 the satisfaction of witnessing the effects of their benevolent 
 labors in the prostrate forms of all their companions. Long 
 Ned, naturally more capacious than the rest, succumbed the 
 last. 
 
 "As leaves of trees," said the chairman, waving his hand 
 
 " As leaves of trees the race of man is found, 
 
 Now fresh -with dew, now withering on the ground." 
 
 "Well said, my Hector of Highways!" cried Tomlinson; and 
 then helping himself to the wine, while he employed his legs in 
 removing the supine forms of Scarlet Jem and Long Ned, he 
 continued the Homeric quotation, with a pompous and self- 
 gratulatory tone, 
 
 " So flourish these when those have passed away ! " 
 
 "We managed to get rid of our friends," began Clifford 
 
 "Like Whigs in place," interrupted the politician. 
 
 "Right, Tomlinson, thanks to the milder properties of our 
 drink, and perchance to the stronger qualities of our heads ; 
 and now tell me, my friend, what think you of our chance of 
 success? Shall we catch an heiress or not?" 
 
 "Why really, "said Tomlinson, "women are like those calcu-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 183 
 
 lations in arithmetic, which one can never bring to an exact 
 account ; for my part, I shall stuit my calves, and look out for 
 a widow. You, my good fellow, seem to stand a fair chance 
 with Miss " 
 
 "Oh, name her not!" cried Clifford, coloring, even through 
 the flush which wine had spread over his countenance. "Ours 
 are not the lips by which her name should be breathed ; and 
 faith, when I think of her, I do it anonymously." 
 
 "What, have you ever thought of her before this evening?" 
 
 "Yes, for months," answered Clifford. "You remember 
 some time ago, when we formed the plan for robbing Lord 
 Mauleverer, how, rather for frolic than profit, you robbed Dr. 
 Slopperton of Warlock, while I compassionately walked home 
 with the old gentleman. Well, at the parson's house, I met 
 Miss Brandon; mind, if I speak of her by name, you must 
 not; and, by Heaven! but I won't swear, I accompanied 
 her home. You know," before morning we robbed Lord Maul- 
 everer ; the affair made a noise, and I feared to endanger you 
 all if I appeared in the vicinity of the robbery. Since then, 
 business diverted my thoughts ; we formed the plan of trying a 
 matrimonial speculation at Bath. I came hither guess my 
 surprise at seeing her " 
 
 "And your delight," added Tomlinson, "at hearing she is 
 as rich as she is pretty." 
 
 "No!" answered Clifford, quickly ; "that thought gives me 
 no pleasure you stare. I will try and explain. You know, 
 dear Tomlinson, I'm not much of a canter, and yet my heart 
 shrinks when I look on that innocent face, and hear that soft 
 happy voice, and think that my love to her can be only ruin 
 and disgrace ; nay, that my very address is contamination, and 
 my very glance towards her an insult." 
 
 "Hey-day!" quoth Tomlinson ; "have you been under my 
 instructions, and learned the true value of words? and can you 
 have any scruples left on so easy a point of conscience? True, 
 you may call your representing yourself to her as an unpro- 
 fessional gentleman, and so winning her affections, deceit ; but 
 why call it deceit when a 'genius for intrigue' is so much neater 
 a phrase : in like manner, by marrying the young lady, if you 
 say you have ruined her, you justly deserve to be annihilated; 
 but why not say you have 'saved yourself,' and then, my dear 
 fellow, you will have done the most justifiable thing in the 
 world." 
 
 "Pish, man!" said Clifford, peevishly; "none of thy soph- 
 isms and sneers!"
 
 184 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "By the soul of Sir Edward Coke, I am serious! -But look 
 you, my friend, this is not a matter where it is convenient to 
 have a tender-footed conscience. You see these fellows on 
 the ground ! all d d clever, and so forth ; but you and I are 
 of a different order. I have had a classical education, seen 
 the world, and mixed in decent society; you, too, had not 
 'been long a member of our club, before you distinguished your- 
 self above us all. Fortune smiled on your youthful audacity. 
 You grew particular in horses and dress, frequented public 
 haunts, and being a deuced good-looking fellow, with an in- 
 born air of gentility, and some sort of education, you became 
 sufficiently well received to acquire, in a short time, the man- 
 ner and tone of a what shall I say, a gentleman, and the 
 taste to like suitable associates. This is my case too ! De- 
 spite our labors for the public weal, the ungrateful dogs see 
 that we are above them; a single envious breast is sufficient to 
 give us to the hangman; we have agreed that we are in danger, 
 we have agreed to make an honorable retreat ! we cannot do so 
 without money ; you know the vulgar distich among our set. 
 Nothing can be truer 
 
 " ' Hanging is 'nation 
 
 More nice than starvation ! ' 
 
 You will not carry off some of the common stock, though I 
 think you justly might, considering how much you have put 
 into it. What, then, shall we do? Work we cannot! Beg we 
 will not ! And between you and me, we are cursedly extrava- 
 gant! What remains but marriage?" 
 
 "It is true!" said Clifford, with a half sigh. 
 
 "You may well sigh, my good fellow; marriage is a lacka- 
 daisical proceeding at best ; but there is no resource : and now 
 when you have got a liking to a young lady who is as rich as a 
 she-Crcesus, and so gilded the pill as bright as a lord mayor's 
 coach, what the devil have you to do with scruples?" 
 
 Clifford made no answer, and there was a long pause ; per- 
 haps he would not have spoken so frankly as he had done if 
 the wine had not opened his heart. 
 
 "How proud," renewed Tomlinson, "the good old matron 
 at Thames Court will be if you marry a lady ! You have not 
 seen her lately?" 
 
 "Not for years," answered our hero. "Poor old soul! I 
 believe that she is well in health, and I take care that she 
 should not be poor in pocket." 
 
 "But why not visit her? Perhaps, like all great men, espe-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 185 
 
 cially of a liberal turn of mind, you are ashamed of old 
 friends, eh?" 
 
 "My good fellow, is that like me? Why, you know the 
 beaux of our set look askant on me for not keeping up my dig- 
 nity, robbing only in company with well-dressed gentlemen, 
 and swindling under the name of a lord's nephew; no, my 
 reasons are these: first, you must know, that the old dame 
 had set her heart on my turning out an honest man." 
 
 ''And so you have!" interrupted Augustus; "honest to 
 your party: what more would you have from either prig or 
 politician?" 
 
 "I believe," continued Clifford, not heeding the interrup- 
 tion, "that my poor mother, before she died, desired that I 
 might be reared honestly, and, strange as it may seem to you, 
 Dame Lobkins is a conscientious woman in her way it is not 
 her fault if I have turned out as I have done. Now I know 
 well that it would grieve her to the quick to see me what 
 I am. Secondly, my friend, under my new names, various as 
 they are, Jackson and Howard, Russell and Pigwiggen, Vil- 
 liers and Gotobed, Cavendish and Solomons, you may well 
 suppose that the good persons in the neighborhood of Thames 
 Court have no suspicion that the adventurous and accom- 
 plished ruffler, at present captain of this district, under the 
 new appellation of Lovett, is in reality no other than the obscure 
 and surnameless Paul of the Mug. Now you and I, Augus- 
 tus, have read human nature, though in the black letter, and I 
 know well that were I to make my appearance in Thames 
 Court, and were the old lady (as she certainly would, not 
 from unkindness, but insobriety, not that she loves me less, 
 but heavy wet more) to divulge the secret of that ap- 
 pearance " 
 
 "You know well," interrupted the vivacious Tomlinson, 
 "that the identity of your former meanness with your present 
 greatness would be easily traced; the envy and jealousy of 
 your early friends aroused ; a hint of your whereabout and your 
 aliases given to the police, and yourself grabbed, with a slight 
 possibility of a hempen consummation." 
 
 "You conceive me exactly! "answered Clifford; "the fact is, 
 that I have observed in nine cases out of ten our bravest fel- 
 lows have been taken off by the treachery of some early 
 sweetheart or the envy of some boyish friend. My destiny is 
 not yet fixed; I am worthy of better things than a ride in 
 the cart with a nosegay in my hand, and though I care not 
 much about death in itself, I am resolved, if possible, not to
 
 186 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 die a highwayman: hence my caution, and that prudential 
 care for secrecy and safe asylums, which men, less wise than 
 you, have so often thought an unnatural contrast to my con- 
 duct on the road." 
 
 "Fools!" said the philosophical Tomlinson, "what has the 
 bravery of a warrior to do with his insuring his house from 
 fire?" 
 
 "However," said Clifford, "I send my good nurse a fine gift 
 every now and then to assure her of my safety and thus, not- 
 withstanding my absence, I show my affection by my pres- 
 ents excuse a pun." 
 
 "And have you never been detected by any of your quon- 
 dam associates?" 
 
 "Never! remember in what a much more elevated sphere of 
 life I have been thrown ; and who could recognize the scamp 
 Paul with a fustian jacket in gentleman Paul with a laced waist- 
 coat? Besides, I have diligently avoided every place where I 
 was likely to encounter those who saw me in childhood. You 
 know how little I frequent flash houses, and how scrupulous 
 I am in admitting new confederates into our band; you and 
 Pepper are the only two of my associates (save my prottge, 
 as you express it, who never deserts the cave) that possess a 
 knowledge of my identity with the lost Paul ; and as ye have both 
 taken that dread oath to silence, which to disobey, until, in- 
 deed, I be in the gaol or on the gibbet, is almost to be assas- 
 sinated, I consider my secret is little likely to be broken, save 
 with my own consent." 
 
 "True," said Augustus, nodding, "one more glass, and to bed, 
 Mr. Chairman." 
 
 "I pledge you, my friend; our last glass shall be philan- 
 thropically quaffed ; 'All fools, and may their money soon be 
 parted ! ' ' 
 
 "All fools!" cried Tomlinson, filling a bumper; "but I 
 quarrel with the wisdom of your toast; may fools be rich, 
 and rogues will never be poor ! I would make a better liveli- 
 hood of a rich fool than a landed estate." 
 
 So saying, the contemplative and ever-sagacious Tomlinson 
 tossed off his bumper ; and the pair, having kindly rolled by 
 pedal applications the body of Long Ned into a safe and quiet 
 corner of the room, mounted the stairs, arm-in-arm, in search of 
 somnambular accommodations.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 187 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " That contrast of the hardened and mature, 
 
 The calm brow brooding o'er the project dark, 
 With the clear loving heart, and spirit pure 
 Of youth I love yet, hating, love to mark ! " 
 
 H. FLETCHER. 
 
 ON the forenoon of the day after the ball, the carriage of 
 William Brandon, packed and prepared, was at the door of his 
 abode at Bath ; meanwhile, the lawyer was closeted with his 
 brother. "My dear Joseph," said the barrister, "I do not 
 leave you without being fully sensible of your kindness evinced 
 to me, both in coming hither, contrary to your habits, and ac- 
 companying me everywhere, despite of your tastes." 
 
 "Mention it not, my dear William," said the kind-hearted 
 squire, "for your delightful society is to me the most agree- 
 able (and that's what I can say of very few people like you ; 
 for, for my own part, I generally find the cleverest men the 
 most unpleasant} in the world ! And I think lawyers in par- 
 ticular (very different, indeed, from your tribe you are/) 
 perfectly intolerable!" 
 
 "I have now," said Brandon, who with his usual nervous 
 quickness of action was walking with rapid strides to and fro 
 the apartment, and scarcely noted his brother's compliment 
 "I have now another favor to request of you. Consider this 
 house and these servants yours, for the next month or two at 
 least. Don't interrupt me it is no compliment I speak for 
 our family benefit." And then seating himself next to his 
 brother's arm-chair, for a fit of the gout made the squire a close 
 prisoner, Brandon unfolded to his brother his cherished scheme 
 of marrying Lucy to Lord Mauleverer. Notwithstanding the 
 constancy of the earl's attentions to the heiress, the honest 
 squire had never dreamt of their palpable object; and he was 
 overpowered with surprise when he heard the lawyer's expec- 
 tations. 
 
 "But, my dear brother," he began, "so great a match for 
 my Lucy, the Lord- Lieutenant of the Coun " 
 
 "And what of that?" cried Brandon proudly, and interrupt- 
 ing his brother; "is not the race of Brandon, which has 
 matched its scions with royalty, far nobler than that of the 
 upstart stock of Mauleverer? What is there presumptuous in 
 the hope that the descendants of the Earls of Suffolk should 
 regild a faded name with some of the precious dust of the 
 quondam silversmiths of London! Besides." he continued,
 
 l88 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 after a pause, "Lucy will be rich very rich and before two 
 years my rank may possibly be of the same order as Maul- 
 everer's!" 
 
 The squire stared; and Brandon, not giving him time to 
 answer, resumed. It is needless to detail the conversation ; 
 suffice it to say, that the artful barrister did not leave his 
 brother till he had gained his point till Joseph Brandon had 
 promised to remain at Bath in possession of the house and es- 
 tablishment of his brother; to throw no impediment on the suit 
 of Mauleverer; to cultivate society as before; and, above all, 
 not to alarm Lucy, who evidently did not yet favor Mauleverer 
 exclusively, by hinting to her the hopes and expectations of 
 her uncle and father. Brandon, now taking leave of his 
 brother, mounted to the drawing-room in search of Lucy. 
 He found her leaning over the gilt cage of one of her feath- 
 ered favorites, and speaking to the little inmate in that pretty 
 and playful language in which all thoughts, innocent, yet fond, 
 should be clothed. So beautiful did Lucy seem, as she was 
 thus engaged in her girlish and caressing employment, and so 
 utterly unlike one meet to be the instrument of ambitious designs, 
 and the sacrifice of worldly calculations, that Brandon paused, 
 suddenly smitten at heart, as he beheld her: he was not, how- 
 ever, slow in recovering himself; he approached. "Happy 
 he," said the man of the world, "for whom caresses and words 
 like these are reserved!" 
 
 Lucy turned. "It is ill!" she said, pointing to the bird, 
 which sat with its feathers stiff and erect, mute and heedless 
 even of that voice which was as musical as its own. 
 
 "Poor prisoner!" said Brandon ; "even gilt cages and sweet 
 tones cannot compensate to thee for the loss of the air and the 
 wild woods!" 
 
 "But," said Lucy anxiously, "it is not confinement which 
 makes it ill! If you think so, I will release it instantly." 
 
 "How long have you had it?" asked Brandon. 
 
 "For three years!" said Lucy. 
 
 '"And is it your chief favorite?" 
 
 "Yes; it does not sing so prettily as the other but it is far 
 more sensible, and so affectionate." 
 
 "Can you release it then?" asked Brandon, smiling, "would 
 it not be better to see it die in your custody, than to let it live 
 and to see it no more?" 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" said Lucy, eagerly; "when I love any one 
 any thing I wish that to be happy, not me!" 
 
 As she said this, she took the bird from the cage ; and bear-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 189 
 
 ing it to the open window, kissed it and held it on her hand in 
 the air. The poor bird turned a languid and sickly eye around 
 it, as if the sight of the crowded houses and busy streets pre- 
 sented nothing familiar or inviting; and it was not till Lucy, 
 with a tender courage, shook it gently from her, that it availed 
 itself of the proffered liberty. It flew first to an opposite bal- 
 cony ; and then recovering from a short, and, as it were, sur- 
 prised pause, took a brief circuit above the houses ; and after 
 disappearing for a few minutes, flew back, circled the window, 
 and re-entering, settled once more on the fair form of its mis- 
 tress, and nestled into her bosom. 
 
 Lucy covered it with kisses. "You see it will not leave 
 me!" said she. 
 
 "Who can?" said the uncle warmly, charmed for the mo- 
 ment from every thought but that of kindness for the young 
 and soft creature before him "Who can," he repeated with a 
 sigh, "but an old and withered ascetic like myself? I must 
 leave you indeed ; see, my carriage is at the door ! Will my 
 beautiful niece, among the gayeties that surround her, conde- 
 scend now and then to remember the crabbed lawyer, and as- 
 sure him by a line of her happiness and health? Though 
 I rarely write any notes but those upon cases, you, at least, 
 may be sure of an answer. And tell me, Lucy, if there be in 
 all this city one so foolish as to think that these idle gems, use- 
 ful only as a vent for my pride in you, can add a single charm 
 to a beauty above all ornament?" 
 
 So saying, Brandon produced a leathern case ; and touching 
 a spring, the imperial flash of diamonds, which would have 
 made glad many a patrician heart, broke dazzlingly on Lucy's 
 eyes. 
 
 "No thanks, Lucy," said Brandon, in answer to his niece's 
 disclaiming and shrinking gratitude; "I do honor to myself, 
 not you; and now bless you, my dear girl. Farewell! Should 
 any occasion present itself in which you require an immediate 
 adviser, at once kind and wise, I beseech you, my dearest Lucy, 
 as a parting request, to have no scruples in consulting Lord 
 Mauleverer. Besides his friendship for me, he is much in- 
 terested in you, and you may consult him with the more safety 
 and assurance, because (and the lawyer smiled) he is perhaps 
 the only man in the world whom my Lucy could not make in 
 love with her. His gallantry may appear adulation, but it is 
 never akin to love. Promise me, that you will not hesitate in 
 this?" 
 
 Lucy gave the promise readily, and Brandon continued in
 
 IQO PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 a careless tone "I hear that you danced last night with a 
 young gentleman whom no one knew, and whose companions 
 bore a very strange appearance. In a place like Bath, society 
 is too mixed not to render the greatest caution in forming 
 acquaintances absolutely necessary. You must pardon me. my 
 dearest niece, if I remark that a young lady owes it not only to 
 herself, but to her relations, to observe the most rigid circum- 
 spection of conduct. This is a wicked world, and the peach- 
 like bloom of character is easily rubbed away. In these points 
 Mauleverer can be of great use to you. His knowledge of 
 character his penetration into men and his tact in manners 
 are unerring. Pray, be guided by him: whomsoever he warns 
 you against, you may be sure is unworthy of your acquain- 
 tance. God bless you! you will write to me often and frankly, 
 dear Lucy ; tell me all that happens to you all that interests, 
 nay, all that displeases." 
 
 Brandon then, who had seemingly disregarded the blushes 
 with which, during his speech, Lucy's cheeks had been spread, 
 folded his niece in his arms, and hurried, as if to hide his feel- 
 ings, into his carriage. When the horses had turned the street, 
 he directed the postilions to stop at Lord Mauleverer 's. 
 "Now," said he to himself, "if I can get this clever coxcomb 
 to second my schemes, and play according to my game, and 
 not according to his own vanity, I shall have a knight of the 
 garter for my nephew-in-law!" 
 
 Meanwhile Lucy, all in tears, for she loved her uncle greatly, 
 ran down to the squire to show him Brandon's magnificent 
 present. 
 
 "Ah!" said the squire, with a sigh, "few men were born with 
 more good, generous, and great qualities (pity only that his 
 chief desire was to get on in the world ; for my part, I think 
 no motive makes greater and more cold-blooded rogues) than my 
 brother William!" 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 " Why did she love him ? Curious fool, be still ! 
 Is human love the growth of human will ? 
 To her he might be gentleness ! " LORD BYRON. 
 
 IN three weeks from the time of his arrival, Captain Clifford 
 was the most admired man in Bath. It is true, the gentlemen, 
 who have a quicker tact as to the respectability of their own 
 sex than women, might have looked a little shy upon him, had 
 he not himself especially shunned appearing intrusive, and in-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. IQI 
 
 deed rather avoided the society of men than courted it ; so that 
 after he had fought a duel with a baronet (the son of a shoe- 
 maker), who called him one Clifford ; and had exhibited a flea- 
 bitten horse, allowed to be the finest in Bath, he rose insensibly 
 into a certain degree of respect with the one sex as well as 
 popularity with the other. But what always attracted and kept 
 alive suspicion, was his intimacy with so peculiar and dashing 
 a gentleman as Mr. Edward Pepper. People could get over a 
 certain frankness in Clifford's address, but the most lenient 
 were astounded by the swagger of Long Ned. Clifford, how- 
 ever, not insensible to the ridicule attached to his acquaintance, 
 soon managed to pursue his occupations alone ; nay, he took 
 a lodging to himself, and left Long Ned and Augustus Tomlin- 
 son (the latter to operate as a check on the former) to the quiet 
 enjoyment of the hair-dresser's apartments. He himself at- 
 tended all public gayeties ; and his mien, and the appearance 
 of wealth which he maintained, procured him access into sev- 
 eral private circles, which pretended to be exclusive : as if 
 people who had daughters ever could be exclusive ! Many were 
 the kind looks, nor few the inviting letters, which he received ; 
 and if his sole object had been to marry an heiress, he would 
 have found no difficulty in attaining it. But he devoted him- 
 self entirely to Lucy Brandon ; and to win one glance from her 
 he would have renounced all the heiresses in the kingdom. 
 Most fortunately for him, Mauleverer, whose health was easily 
 deranged, had fallen ill the very day William Brandon left 
 Bath ; and his lordship was thus rendered unable to watch the 
 movements of Lucy, and undermine, or totally prevent, the 
 success of her lover. Miss Brandon, indeed, had at first, 
 melted by the kindness of her uncle, and struck with the sense 
 of his admonition (for she was no self-willed young lady, who 
 was determined to be in love), received Captain Clifford's 
 advances with a coldness which, from her manner the first 
 evening they had met at Bath, occasioned him no less surprise 
 than mortification. He retreated, and recoiled on the squire, 
 who, patient and bold, as usual, was sequestered in his favor- 
 ite corner. By accident, Clifford trod on the squire's gouty 
 digital ; and in apologizing for the offence, was so struck by 
 the old gentleman's good-natured peculiarity of expressing him- 
 self, that without knowing who he was, he entered into con- 
 versation with him. There was an off-hand sort of liveliness 
 and candor, not to say wit, about Clifford, which always had a 
 charm for the elderly, who generally like frankness above all 
 the cardinal virtues ; the squire was exceedingly pleased with
 
 192 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 him. The acquaintance, once begun, was naturally continued 
 without difficulty when Clifford ascertained who was his new 
 frienci; and next morning, meeting in the pump-room, the 
 squire asked Clifford to dinner. The entree to the house thus 
 gained, the rest was easy. Long before Mauleverer recovered 
 his health, the mischief effected by his rival was almost beyond 
 redress ; and the heart of the pure, the simple, the affectionate 
 Lucy Brandon was more than half lost to the lawless and vagrant 
 cavalier who officiates as the hero of this tale. 
 
 One morning, Clifford and Augustus strolled out together. 
 "Let us," said the latter, who was in a melancholy mood, 
 "leave the busy streets, and indulge in a philosophical conver- 
 sation on the nature of man, while we are enjoying a little 
 fresh air in the country." Clifford assented to the proposal, 
 and the pair slowly sauntered up one of the hills that surround 
 the city of Bladud. 
 
 "There are certain moments," said Tomlinson, looking pen- 
 sively down at his kerseymere gaiters, "when we are like the 
 fox in the nursery rhyme, 'The fox had a wound, he could not 
 tell where' we feel extremely unhappy, and we cannot tell 
 why! a dark and sad melancholy grows over us we shun the 
 face of man we wrap ourselves in our thoughts like silk- 
 worms we mutter fag-ends of dismal songs tears come into 
 our eyes we recall all the misfortunes that have ever hap- 
 pened to us we stoop in our gait, and bury our hands in our 
 breeches-pockets we say, 'what is life? a stone to be shied 
 into a horsepond!' We pine for some congenial heart and 
 have an itching desire to talk prodigiously about ourselves: all 
 other subjects seem weary, stale, and unprofitable we feel as 
 if a fly could knock us down, and are in a humor to fall in 
 love and make a very sad piece of business of it. Yet with all 
 this weakness we have at these moments, a finer opinion of 
 ourselves than we ever had before. We call our megrims the 
 melancholy of a sublime soul the yearnings of an indigestion 
 we denominate yearnings after immortality nay, sometimes 'a 
 proof of the nature of the soul!' May I find some biographer 
 who understands such sensations well, and may he style those 
 melting emotions the offspring of the poetical character,* which 
 in reality, are the offspring of a mutton-chop!" 
 
 * Vide Moore's Lift of Byron. In which it is satisfactorily shown that, if a man fast 
 forty-eight hours, then eat three lobsters, and drink Heaven knows how many bottles of 
 claret if, when he wakes the next morning, he sees himself abused as a demon, by half'the 
 periodicals of the country if, in a word, he be broken in his health, irregular in his habits, 
 unfortunate in his affairs, unhappy in his home and if then he should be so extremely ec- 
 centric as to be low-spirited and misanthropical, the low spirits and the misanthropy are by 
 no means to be attributed to the above agreeable circumstances, but God wot to the 
 " poetical character " !
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 193 
 
 "You jest pleasantly enough on your low spirits," said Clif- 
 ford; "but I have a cause for mine." 
 
 "What then?" cried Tomlinson. "So much the easier is it 
 to cure them. The mind can cure the evils that spring from 
 the mind ; it is only a fool, and a quack, and a driveller, when 
 it professes to heal the evils that spring from the body: my 
 blue devils spring from the body consequently, my mind, 
 which, as you know, is a particularly wise mind, wrestles not 
 against them. Tell me frankly," renewed Augustus, after a 
 pause, "do you ever repent? Do you ever think, if you had 
 been a shop-boy with a white apron about your middle, that 
 you would have been a happier and better member of society 
 than you now are?" 
 
 "Repent!" said Clifford fiercely; and his answer opened 
 more of his secret heart, its motives, its reasonings, and its 
 peculiarities, than were often discernible. "Repent that is 
 the idlest word in our language. No, the moment I repent, 
 that moment I reform ! Never can it seem to me an atone- 
 ment for crime merely to regret it my mind would lead me 
 not to regret, but to repair! Repent! no, not yet. The older 
 I grow, the more I see of men and of the callings of social life 
 the more I, an open knave, sicken at the glossed and covert 
 dishonesties around. I acknowledge no allegiance to society. 
 From my birth to this hour, I have received no single favor 
 from its customs or its laws; openly I war against it, and 
 patiently will I meet its revenge. This may be crime; but it 
 looks light in my eyes when I gaze around, and survey on all 
 sides the masked traitors who acknowledge large debts to 
 society, who profess to obey its laws adore its institutions 
 and, above all oh, how righteously! attack all those who 
 attack it, and who yet lie, and cheat, and defraud, and pecu- 
 late publicly reaping all the comforts, privately filching all 
 the profits. Repent! of what? I come into the world friend- 
 less and poor I find a body of laws hostile to the friendless 
 and the poor! To those laws hostile to me, then, I acknowl- 
 edge hostility in my turn. Between us are the conditions of 
 war. Let them expose a weakness I insist on my right to 
 >eize the advantage; let them defeat me, and I allow their 
 right to destroy."* 
 
 "Passion," said Augustus coolly, "is the usual enemy of 
 reason in your case it is the friend!" 
 
 The pair had now gained the summit of a hill which com- 
 
 * The author need not, he hopes, observe, that these sentiments are Mr. Paul Clifford's 
 not his.
 
 194 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 manded a view of the city below. Here Augustus, who was a 
 little short-winded, paused to recover breath. As soon as he 
 had done so, he pointed with his forefinger to the scene beneath, 
 and said enthusiastically ' 'What a subject for contemplation ! ' ' 
 
 Clifford was about to reply, when suddenly the sound of 
 laughter and voices was heard behind "Let us fly!" cried 
 Augustus; "on this day of spleen man delights me not nor 
 woman either." 
 
 "Stay!" said Clifford, in a trembling accent; for among 
 those voices he recognized one which had already acquired 
 over him an irresistible and bewitching power. Augustus 
 sighed, and reluctantly remained motionless. Presently a 
 winding in the road brought into view a party of pleasure, 
 some on foot, some on horseback, others in the little vehicles 
 which even at that day haunted watering-places, and called 
 themselves "Flies" or "Swallows." 
 
 But among the gay procession Clifford had only eyes for 
 one ! Walking with that elastic step which so rarely survives 
 the first epoch of youth, by the side of the heavy chair in which 
 her father was drawn, the fair beauty of Lucy Brandon threw, 
 at least in the eyes of her lover, a magic and a lustre over the 
 whole group. He stood for a moment, stilling the heart that 
 leaped at her bright looks and the gladness of her innocent 
 laugh ; and then recovering himself, he walked slowly, and 
 with a certain consciousness of the effect of his own singularly 
 handsome person, towards the party. The good squire re- 
 ceived him with his usual kindness, and informed him, accord- 
 ing to that lucidus ordo which he so especially favored, of the 
 whole particulars of their excursion. There was something 
 worthy of an artist's sketch in the scene of that moment the 
 old squire in his chair, with his benevolent face turned towards 
 Clifford, and his hands resting on his cane Clifford himself 
 bowing down his stately head to hear the details of the father 
 the beautiful daughter on the other side of the chair, her laugh 
 suddenly stilled, her gait insensibly more composed, and blush 
 chasing blush over the smooth and peach-like loveliness of her 
 cheek, the party, of all sizes, ages, and attire, affording 
 ample scope for the caricaturist; and the pensive figure of 
 Augustus Tomlinson (who, by the by, was exceedingly like 
 Liston) standing apart from the rest, on the brow of the hill 
 where Clifford had left him, and moralizing on the motley pro- 
 cession, with one hand hid in his waistcoat, and the other 
 caressing his chin, which slowly and pendulously with the rest 
 of his head moved up and down.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 195 
 
 As the party approached the brow of the hill, the view of the 
 city below was so striking, that there was a general pause for 
 the purpose of survey. One young lady, in particular, drew 
 forth her pencil, and began sketching, while her mamma looked 
 complacently on, and abstractedly devoured a sandwich. It 
 was at this time, in the general pause, that Clifford and Lucy 
 found themselves Heaven knows how! next to each other, 
 and at a sufficient distance from the squire and the rest of the 
 party to feel, in some measure, alone. There was a silence in 
 both which neither dared to break ; when Lucy, after looking 
 at and toying with a flower that she had brought from the place 
 which the party had been to see, accidentally dropped it ; and 
 Clifford and herself stooping at the same moment to recover it, 
 their hands met. Involuntarily, Clifford detained the soft fin- 
 gers in his own; his eyes, that encountered hers, so spell- 
 bound and arrested them that for once they did not sink be- 
 neath his gaze; his lips moved, but many and vehement emo- 
 tions so suffocated his voice that no sound escaped them. But 
 all the heart was in the eyes of each ; that moment fixed their 
 destinies. Henceforth there was an era from which they dated 
 a new existence; a nucleus around which their thoughts, their 
 remembrances, and their passions clung. The great gulf was 
 passed; they stood on the same shore ; and felt that, though 
 still apart and disunited, on that shore was no living creature 
 but themselves! Meanwhile, Augustus Tomlinson, on finding 
 himself surrounded by persons eager to gaze and to listen, 
 broke from his moodiness and reserve. Looking full at his 
 next neighbor, and flourishing his right hand in the air, till he 
 suffered it to rest in the direction of the houses and chimneys 
 below, he repeated that moral exclamation which had been 
 wasted on Clifford, with a more solemn and a less passionate 
 gravity than before : 
 
 "What a subject, ma'am, for contemplation!" 
 
 "Very sensibly said, indeed, sir," said the lady addressed, 
 who was rather of a serious turn. 
 
 "I never," resumed Augustus in a louder key, and looking 
 round for auditors, "I never see a great town from the tops 
 of a hill, without thinking of an apothecary's shop!" 
 
 "Lord, sir!" said the lady. Tomlinson's end was gained 
 struck with the quaintness of the notion, a little crowd gathered 
 instantly around him, to hear it farther developed. 
 
 "Of an apothecary's shop, ma'am!" repeated Tomlinson. 
 "There lie your simples, and your purges, and your cordials, 
 and your poisons; all things to heal, and to strengthen, and to
 
 196 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 destroy. There are drugs enough in that collection to save 
 you, to cure you all ; but none of you know how to use them, 
 nor what medicines to ask for, nor what portions to take; so 
 that the greater part of you swallow a wrong dose, and die of 
 the remedy ! ' ' 
 
 "But if the town be the apothecary's shop, what, in the plan 
 of your idea, stands for the apothecary?" asked an old gentle- 
 man, who perceived at what Tomlinson was driving. 
 
 "The apothecary, sir," answered Augustus, stealing his 
 notion from Clifford, and sinking his voice, lest the true pro- 
 prietor should overhear him Clifford was otherwise em- 
 ployed "The apothecary, sir, is the LAW! It is the law 
 that stands behind the counter, and dispenses to each man the 
 dose he should take. To the poor, it gives bad drugs gratui- 
 tously; to the rich, pills to stimulate the appetite; to the lat- 
 ter, premiums for luxury ; to the former, only speedy refuges 
 from life. Alas! either your apothecary is but an ignorant 
 quack, or his science itself is but in its cradle. He blunders 
 as much as you would do if left to your own selection. Those 
 who have recourse to him seldom speak gratefully of his 
 skill. He relieves you, it is true but of your money, not 
 your malady; and the only branch of his profession in which he 
 is an adept, is that which enables him to bleed you ! O Man- 
 kind!" continued Augustus, "what noble creatures you ought 
 to be ! You have keys to all sciences, all arts, all mysteries, 
 but one ! You have not a notion how you ought to be gov- 
 erned! you cannot frame a tolerable law for the life and sou! 
 of you ! You make yourselves as uncomfortable as you can by 
 all sorts of galling and vexatious institutions, and you throw 
 the blame upon 'Fate.' You lay down rules it is impossible to 
 comprehend, much less to obey; and you call each other 
 monsters, because you cannot conquer the impossibility ! You 
 invent all sorts of vices, under pretence of making laws for 
 preserving virtue ; and the anomalous artificialities of conduct 
 yourselves produce, you may say you are born with; you 
 make a machine by the perversest art you can think of, and you 
 call it, with a sigh, 'Human Nature.' With a host of good 
 dispositions struggling at your breasts, you insist upon libelling 
 the Almighty, and declaring that He meant you to be wicked. 
 Nay, you even call the man mischievous and seditious who 
 begs and implores you to be one jot better than you are. O 
 Mankind! you are like a nosegay bought at Covent Garden. 
 The flowers are lovely, the scent delicious, mark that glorious 
 hue! contemplate that bursting petal! hpw beautiful, how
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 197 
 
 redolent of health, of nature, of the dew and breath and bless- 
 ing of Heaven, are you all! But as for the dirty piece of 
 string that ties you together, one would think you had picked 
 it out of the kennel!" 
 
 So saying, Tomlinson turned on his heel, broke away from 
 the crowd, and solemnly descended the hill. The party of pleas- 
 ure slowly followed ; and Clifford, receiving an invitation from 
 the squire to partake of his family dinner, walked by the side of 
 Lucy, and felt as if his spirit were drunk with the airs of Eden. 
 
 A brother squire, who, among the gayeties of Bath, was almost 
 as forlorn as Joseph Brandon himself, partook of the Lord of 
 Warlock's hospitality. When the three gentlemen adjourned 
 to the drawing-room, the two elder sat down to a game at 
 backgammon, and Clifford was left to the undisturbed enjoy- 
 ment of Lucy's conversation. She was sitting by the window 
 when Clifford joined her. On the table by her side were scat- 
 tered books, the charm of which (they were chiefly poetry) she 
 had only of late learned to discover; there also were strewn 
 various little masterpieces of female ingenuity, in which the 
 fairy fingers of Lucy Brandon were especially formed to excel 
 The shades of evening were rapidly darkening over the empty 
 streets ; and in the sky, which was cloudless and transparently 
 clear, the stars came gradually out one by one until 
 
 " As water does a sponge, so their soft light 
 Filled the void, hollow, universal air." 
 
 Beautiful Evening! (if we, as well as Augustus Tomlinson, 
 may indulge in an apostrophe) Beautiful Evening! For thee 
 all poets have had a song, and surrounded thee with rills, and 
 waterfalls, and dews, and flowers, and sheep, and bats, and 
 melancholy, and owls; yet we must confess that to us, who in 
 this very sentimental age are a bustling, worldly, hard-minded 
 person, jostling our neighbors, and thinking of the main 
 chance, to us, thou art never so charming, as when we meet 
 thee walking in thy gray hood, through the emptying streets, 
 and among the dying sounds of a city. We love to feel the 
 stillness, where all, two hours back, was clamor. We love to 
 see the dingy abodes, of Trade and Luxury, those restless 
 patients of earth's constant fever, contrasted and canopied by 
 a heaven full of purity, and quietness, and peace. We love to 
 fill our thought with speculations on man, even though the 
 man be the muffin-man, rather than with inanimate ob- 
 jects hills and streams things to dream about, not to medi- 
 tate on. Man is the subject of far nobler contemplation, .of fat
 
 ^98 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ttiore glowing hope, of a far purer and loftier vein of sentiment, 
 than all the "floods and fells" in the universe; and that, 
 sweet Evening! is one reason why we like that the earnest and 
 lender thoughts thou excitest within us should be rather sur- 
 rounded by the labors and tokens of our species, than by 
 sheep, and bats, and melancholy, and owls. But whether, 
 most blessed Evening ! thou delightest us in the country or in 
 the town, thou equally disposest us to make and to feel love! 
 thou art the cause of more marriages, and more divorces, than 
 any other time in the twenty-four hours. Eyes, that were com- 
 mon to us before, touched by thy enchanting and magic shad- 
 ows, become inspired, and preach to us of heaven. A softness 
 settles on features that were harsh to us while the sun shone; 
 a mellow "light of love" reposes on the complexion, which by 
 day we would have steeped "full fathom five" in a sea of Mrs. 
 Gowland's lotion. What, then, thou modest hypocrite! to 
 those who already and deeply love what, then, of danger and 
 of paradise dost thou bring? 
 
 Silent, and stilling the breath which heaved in both, quick 
 and fitfully, Lucy and Clifford sat together. The streets were 
 utterly deserted, and the loneliness, as they looked below, 
 made them feel the more intensely not only the emotions which 
 swelled within them, but the undefined and electric sympathy 
 which, in uniting them, divided them from the world. The 
 quiet around was broken by a distant strain of rude music ; and 
 as it came nearer, two forms of no poetical order grew visible : 
 the one was a poor blind man, who was drawing from his flute 
 tones in which the melancholy beauty of the air compensated 
 for any deficiency (the deficiency was but slight) in the execu- 
 tion. A woman much younger than the musician, and with 
 something of beauty in her countenance, accompanied him, 
 holding a tattered hat, and looking wistfully up at the windows 
 of the silent street. We said two forms we did the injustice 
 of forgetfulness to another a rugged and simple friend, it is 
 true, but one that both minstrel and wife had many and mov- 
 ing reasons to love. This was a little wiry terrier, with dark 
 piercing eyes, that glanced quickly and sagaciously in all quar- 
 ters from beneath the shaggy covert that surrounded them; 
 slowly the animal moved onward, pulling gently against the 
 string by which he was held, and by which he guided his mas- 
 ter. Once his fidelity was tempted: another dog invited him 
 to play; the poor terrier looked anxiously and doubtingly 
 round, and then, uttering a low growl of denial, pursued 
 " The noiseless tenor of his way."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 199 
 
 The little procession stopped beneath the window where 
 Lucy and Clifford sat ; for the quick eye of the woman had 
 perceived them, and she laid her hand on the blind man's arm 
 and whispered him. He took the hint, and changed his air 
 into one of love. Clifford glanced at Lucy her cheek was 
 dyed in blushes. The air was over,^another succeeded it was 
 of the same kind; a third the burthen was still unaltered; 
 and then Clifford threw into the street a piece of money, and 
 the dog wagged his abridged and dwarfed tail, and darting for- 
 ward, picked it up in his mouth ; and the woman (she had a 
 kind face ! ) patted the officious friend, ev.en before she thanked 
 the donor, and then she dropped the money with a cheering 
 word or two into the blind man's pocket, and the three wan- 
 derers moved slowly on. Presently they came to a place where 
 the street had been mended, and the stones lay scattered about. 
 Here the woman no longer trusted to the dog's guidance, but 
 anxiously hastened to the musician, and led him with evident 
 tenderness and minute watchfulness over the rugged way. 
 When they had passed the danger, the man stopped; and 
 before he released the hand which had guided him, he pressed 
 it gratefully, and then both the husband and wife stooped down 
 and caressed the dog. This little scene one of those rough 
 copies of the loveliness of human affections, of which so many 
 are scattered about the highways of the world both the lovers 
 had involuntarily watched; and now as they withdrew their 
 eyes those eyes settled on each other Lucy's swam in tears. 
 
 "To be loved and tended by the one I love," said Clifford, 
 in a low voice, "I would walk blind and barefoot over the 
 whole earth!" 
 
 Lucy sighed very gently ; and placing her pretty hands (the 
 one clasped over the other) upon her knee, looked down wist- 
 fully on them, but made no answer. Clifford drew his chair 
 nearer, and gazed on her as she sat ; the long, dark eyelash 
 drooping over her eyes, and contrasting the ivory lids; her deli- 
 cate profile half turned from him, and borrowing a more touch- 
 ing beauty from the soft light that dwelt upon it ; and her full 
 yet still scarcely developed bosom heaving at thoughts which she 
 did not analyze, but was content to feel at once vague and de- 
 licious : he gazed and his lips trembled he longed to speak 
 he longed to say but those words which convey what volumes 
 have endeavored to express, and have only weakened by de- 
 tail "/ love." How he resisted the yearnings of his heart, 
 we know not but he did resist; and Lucy, after a confused 
 and embarassed pause, took up one of the poems on the table,
 
 200 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and asked him some questions about a particular passage in an 
 old ballad which he had once pointed to her notice. The pas- 
 sage related to a border chief, one of the Armstrongs of old, 
 who, having been seized by the English and condemned to 
 death, vented his last feelings in a passionate address to his 
 own home his rude tower and his newly wedded bride. 
 "Do you believe, said Lucy, as their conversation began to 
 flow, "that one so lawless and eager for bloodshed and strife, 
 as this robber is described to be, could be so capable of soft 
 affections?" 
 
 "I do," said Clifford; "because he was not sensible that 
 he was as criminal as you esteem him. If a man cherish the 
 idea that his actions are not evil, he will retain at his heart all 
 its better and gentler sensations as much as if he had never 
 sinned. The savage murders his enemy, and when he returns 
 home is not the less devoted to his friend, or the less anxious 
 for his children. To harden and embrute the kindly disposi- 
 tions, we must not only indulge in guilt, but feel that we are 
 guilty. Oh ! many that the world load with their opprobrium 
 are capable of acts nay, have committed acts, which in others 
 the world would reverence and adore. Would you know 
 whether a man's heart be shut to the power of love ; ask what 
 he is not to his foes, but to his friends ! Crime, too," contin- 
 ued Clifford, speaking fast and vehemently, while his eyes 
 flashed and the dark blood rushed to his cheek "Crime what 
 is crime? Men embody their worst prejudices, their most evil 
 passions, in a heterogeneous and contradictory code, and 
 whatever breaks this code they term a crime. When they make 
 no distinction in the penalty that is to say, in the estima- 
 tion awarded both to murder and to a petty theft imposed on 
 the weak will by famine, we ask nothing else to convince us 
 that they are ignorant of the very nature of guilt, and that they 
 make up in ferocity for the want of wisdom." 
 
 Lucy looked in alarm at the animated and fiery countenance 
 of the speaker. Clifford recovered himself after a moment's 
 pause, and rose from his seat, with the gay and frank laugh 
 which made one of his peculiar characteristics. "There is a 
 singularity in politics, Miss Brandon," said he, "which I dare 
 say you have often observed, viz., that those who are least 
 important, are always most noisy; and that the chief people 
 who lose their temper, are those who have nothing to gain in 
 return." 
 
 As Clifford spoke, the doors were thrown open, and some 
 visitors to Miss Brandon were announced. The good squire
 
 fcAUL CLIFFORD. 2OI 
 
 was still immersed in the vicissitudes of his game, and the sole 
 task of receiving and entertaining "the company," as the 
 chambermaids have it, fell, as usual, upon Lucy. Fortunately 
 for her, Clifford was one of those rare persons who possess 
 eminently the talents of society. There was much in his gay 
 and gallant temperament, accompanied as it was with senti- 
 ment and ardor, that resembled our beau ideal of those cheva- 
 liers, ordinarily peculiar to the Continent heroes equally in 
 the drawing-room and the field. Observant, courteous, witty, 
 and versed in the various accomplishments that combine (that 
 most unfrequent of all unions!) vivacity with grace, he was 
 especially formed for that brilliant world from which his cir- 
 cumstances tended to exclude him. Under different auspices, 
 he might have been Pooh! We are running into a most 
 pointless commonplace ; what might any man be under auspi- 
 ces different from those by which his life has been guided! 
 Music soon succeeded to conversation, and Clifford's voice 
 was of necessity put into requisition. Miss Brandon had just 
 risen from the harpsichord, as he sat down to perform his part ; 
 and she stood by him with the rest of the group while he sung. 
 Only twice his eye stole to that spot which her breath and form 
 made sacred to him ; once when he began, and once when he con- 
 cluded his song. Perhaps the recollection of their conversa- 
 tion inspired him ; certainly it dwelt upon his mind at the mo- 
 ment 'threw a richer flush over his brow, and infused a more 
 meaning and heartfelt softness into his tone. 
 
 STANZAS. 
 
 " When I leave thee, oh ! ask not the world what that heart 
 
 Which adores thee to others may be ? 
 I know that I sin when from thee I depart, 
 But my guilt shall not light upon thee ! 
 
 My life is a river which glasses a ray 
 
 That hath deign'd to descend from above ; 
 Whatever the banks that o'ershadow its way, 
 
 It mirrors the light of thy love. 
 
 Though the waves may run high when the night wind awakes, 
 
 And hurries the stream to its fall ; 
 Though broken and wild be the billows it makes, 
 
 Thine image still trembles on all ! " 
 
 While this ominous love between Clifford and Lucy was thus 
 finding fresh food in every interview and every opportunity, 
 the unfortunate Mauleverer, firmly persuaded that his com- 
 plaint was a relapse of what he termed the "Warlock dyspep- 
 sia," was waging dire war with the remains of the beef and
 
 202 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 pudding, which he tearfully assured his physicians "were lurk- 
 ing in his constitution." As Mauleverer, though complaisant 
 like most men of unmistakable rank to all his acquain- 
 tances, whatever might be their grade, possessed but very few 
 friends intimate enough to enter his sick chamber, and none 
 of that few were at Bath, it will readily be perceived that he 
 was in blissful ignorance of the growing fortunes of his rival ; 
 and to say the exact truth, illness, which makes a man's 
 thoughts turn very much upon himself, banished many of the 
 most tender ideas usually floating in his mind around the 
 image of Lucy Brandon. His pill superseded his passion ; and 
 he felt that there are draughts in the world more powerful in 
 their effects than those in the phials of Alcidonis.* He very 
 often thought, it is true, how pleasant it would be for Lucy to 
 smooth his pillow, and Lucy to prepare that mixture ; but then 
 Mauleverer had an excellent valet, who hoped to play the part 
 enacted by Gil Bias towards the honest Licentiate; and to 
 nurse a legacy while he was nursing his master. And the Earl, 
 who was tolerably good-tempered, was forced to confess that 
 it would be scarcely possible for any one "to know his ways 
 better than Smoothson." Thus, during his illness, the fair 
 form of his intended bride little troubled the peace of the noble 
 adorer. And it was not till he found himself able to eat three 
 good dinners consecutively, with a tolerable appetite, that 
 Mauleverer recollected that he was violently in love. As soon 
 as this idea was fully reinstated in his memory, and he had 
 been permitted by his doctor to allow himself "a little cheerful 
 society," Mauleverer resolved to go to the rooms for an hour 
 or two. 
 
 It may be observed that most great personages have some 
 favorite place, some cherished Baiae, at which they love to 
 throw off their state, and to play the amiable instead of the 
 splendid ; and Bath at that time, from its gayety, its ease, the 
 variety of character to be found in its haunts, and the obliging 
 manner in which such characters exposed themselves to ridi- 
 cule, was exactly the place calculated to please a man like 
 Mauleverer, who loved at once to be admired and to satirize. 
 He was therefore an idolized person at the city of Bladud ; 
 and as he entered the rooms he was surrounded by a whole 
 band of imitators and sycophants, delighted to find his lord- 
 ihip looking so much better and declaring himself so convales- 
 cent. As soon as the Earl had bowed and smiled, and shaken 
 rtands sufficiently to sustain his reputation, he sauntered to- 
 
 * See Marmontel's pretty tale of Les Quatres Flafons.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 203 
 
 wards the dancers in search of Lucy. He found her ntjt only 
 exactly in the same spot in which he had last beheld Tier, but 
 dancing with exactly the same partner who had before pro- 
 voked all the gallant nobleman's jealousy and wrath. Maul- 
 everer, though not by any means addicted to preparing his 
 compliments beforehand, had just been conning a delicate 
 speech for Lucy ; but no sooner did the person of her partner 
 flash on him than the whole flattery vanished at once from his 
 recollection. He felt himself grow pale; and when Lucy 
 turned, and, seeing him near, addressed him in the anxious and 
 soft tone which she thought due to her uncle's friend on his 
 recovery, Mauleverer bowed, confused and silent; and that 
 green-eyed passion, which would have convulsed the mind of a 
 true lover, altering a little the course of its fury, effectually 
 disturbed the manner of the courtier. 
 
 Retreating to an obscure part of the room, where he could 
 see all without being conspicuous, Mauleverer now employed 
 himself in watching the motions and looks of the young pair. 
 He was naturally a penetrating and quick observer, and in this- 
 instance jealousy sharpened his talents ; he saw enough to con- 
 vince him that Lucy was already attached to Clifford ; and 
 being, by that conviction, fully persuaded that Lucy was nec- 
 essary to his own happiness, he resolved to lose not a moment 
 in banishing Captain Clifford from her presence, or at least in 
 instituting such inquiries into that gentleman's relatives, rank, 
 and respectability as would, he hoped, render such banish- 
 ment a necessary consequence of the research. 
 
 Fraught with this determination, Mauleverer repaired at once 
 to the retreat of the squire, and engaging him in conversation, 
 bluntly asked him, "Who the deuce Miss Brandon was danc- 
 ing with? ' 
 
 The squire, a little piqued at this brusquerie, replied by a 
 long eulogium on Paul; and Mauleverer, after hearing it 
 throughout with the blandest smile imaginable, told the squire, 
 very politely, that he was sure Mr. Brandon's good nature had 
 misled him. "Clifford!" said he, repeating the name, "Clif- 
 ford ! It is one of those names which are particularly selected 
 by persons nobody knows ; first, because the name is good, 
 and, secondly, because it is common. My long and dear 
 friendship with your brother makes me feel peculiarly anxious 
 on any point relative to his niece ; and, indeed, my dear Will- 
 iam, overrating, perhaps, my knowledge of the world and my 
 influence in society, but not my affection for him, besought 
 me to assume the liberty of esteeming myself a friend, nay,
 
 204 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 even a relation of yours and Miss Brandon's ; so that I trust 
 you do not consider my caution impertinent." 
 
 The flattered squire assured him that he was particularly 
 honored, so far from deeming his lordship (which never 
 could be the case with people so distinguished as his lordship 
 was, especially /) impertinent. 
 
 Lord Mauleverer, encouraged by this speech, artfully re- 
 newed, and succeeded, if not in convincing the squire that the 
 handsome captain was a suspicious character, at least in per- 
 suading him that common prudence required that he should 
 find out exactly who the handsome captain was, especially as 
 he was in the habit of dining with the squire thrice a week, and 
 dancing with Lucy every night. 
 
 "See," said Mauleverer, "he approaches you now; I will 
 retreat to the chair by the fireplace, and you shall cross-exam- 
 ine him I have no doubt you will do it with the utmost 
 delicacy." 
 
 So saying, Mauleverer took possession of a seat where he 
 was not absolutely beyond hearing (slightly deaf as he was) of 
 the ensuing colloquy, though the position of his seat screened 
 him from sight. Mauleverer was esteemed a man of the most 
 punctilious honor in private life, and he would not have been 
 seen in the act of listening to other people's conversation for 
 the world. 
 
 Hemming with an air and resettling himself as Clifford ap- 
 proached, the squire thus skillfully commenced the attack: 
 "Ah, ha! my good Captain Clifford, and how do you do? I 
 saw you (and I am very glad, my friend, as every one else is, 
 to see you} at a distance. And where have you left my 
 daughter?" 
 
 "Miss Brandon is dancing with Mr. Muskwell, sir," an- 
 swered Clifford. 
 
 "Oh! she is! Mr. Muskwell humph! Good family the 
 Muskwells came from Primrose Hall. Pray, Captain, not 
 that I want to know for my own sake, for I am a strange, odd 
 person. I believe, and I am thoroughly convinced (some 
 people are censorious, and others, thank God, are not!) of 
 your respectability, Avhat family do you come from? You 
 won't think my my caution impertinent?" added the shrewd 
 old gentleman, borrowing that phrase which he thought so 
 friendly in the mouth of Lord Mauleverer. 
 
 Clifford colored for a moment, but replied with a quiet arch- 
 ness of look, "Family! oh, my dear sir, I come from an old 
 family, a very old family indeed."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 205 
 
 "So I always thought; and in what part of the world?" 
 
 "Scotland, sir all our family come from Scotland; viz. all 
 who live long do the rest die young." 
 
 "Ay, particular air d^es not agree with particular constitu- 
 tions. I, for instance, could not live in all countries; not 
 you take me in the North!" 
 
 "Few honest men can live there," said Clifford drily. 
 
 "And," resumed the squire, a little embarrassed by the 
 nature of his task, and the cool assurance of his young friend : 
 
 "And pray, Captain Clifford, what regiment do you be- 
 long to?" 
 
 "Regiment? oh, the Rifles !" answered Clifford. ("Deuce 
 is in me," muttered he "if I can resist a jest, though I break 
 my neck over it.") 
 
 "A very gallant body of men!" said the squire. 
 
 "No doubt of that, sir!" rejoined Clifford. 
 
 "And do you think, Captain Clifford," renewed the squire, 
 "that it is a good corps for getting on." 
 
 "It is rather a bad one for getting off," muttered the Cap- 
 tain, and then aloud, "Why, we have not much interest at 
 court, sir." 
 
 "Oh! but then there is a wider scope, as my brother the 
 lawyer says and no man knows better for merit. I dare say 
 you have seen many a man elevated from the ranks?" 
 
 "Nothing more common, sir, than such elevation; and so 
 great is the virtue of our corps, that I have also known not a 
 few willing to transfer the honor to their comrades." 
 
 "You don't say so!" exclaimed the squire, opening his 
 eyes at such disinterested magnanimity. 
 
 "But," said Clifford, who began to believe he might carry 
 the equivoque too far, and who thought, despite of his jesting, 
 that it was possible to strike out a more agreeable vein of con- 
 versation "but, sir, if you remember, you have not yet fin- 
 ished that youthful hunting adventure of yours, when the 
 hounds lost at Burnham Copse." 
 
 "Oh, very true," cried the squire, quite forgetting his late 
 suspicions; and forthwith he began a story that promised to be 
 as long as the chase it recorded. So charmed was he, when he 
 had finished it, with the character of the gentleman who had 
 listened to it so delightedly, that on rejoining Mauleverer he 
 told the Earl, with an important air, that he had strictly exam- 
 ined the young captain, and that he had fully convinced him- 
 self of the excellence of his family, as well as the rectitude of 
 his morals. Mauleverer listened with a countenance of polite
 
 206 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 incredulity; he had heard but little of the conversation that 
 had taken place between the pair; but on questioning the 
 squire upon sundry particulars of Clifford's birth, parentage, 
 and property, he found him exactly as ignorant as before. 
 The courtier, however, seeing further expostulation was in 
 vain, contented himself with patting the squire's shoulder, and 
 saying, with a mysterious urbanity, "Ah, sir, you are too 
 good!" 
 
 With these words he turned on his heel, and, not yet despair- 
 ing, sought the daughter. He found Miss Brandon just re- 
 leased from dancing, and, with a kind of paternal gallantry, he 
 offered his arm to parade the apartments. After some prelim- 
 inary flourish, and reference, for the thousandth time, to his 
 friendship for William Brandon, the Earl spoke to her about 
 that "fine-looking young man who called himself Captain 
 Clifford." 
 
 Unfortunately for Mauleverer, he grew a little too unguarded, 
 as his resentment against the interference of Clifford warmed 
 with his language, and he dropped in his anger one or two 
 words of caution, which especially offended the delicacy of 
 Miss Brandon. 
 
 "Take care how I encourage, my lord!" said Lucy, with 
 glowing cheeks, repeating the words which had so affronted 
 her, "I really must beg you " 
 
 "You mean, dear Miss Brandon," interrupted Mauleverer, 
 squeezing her hand with respectful tenderness, "that you must 
 beg me to apologize for my inadvertent expression. I do most 
 sincerely. If I had felt less interest in your happiness, believe 
 me, I should have been more guarded in my language." 
 
 Miss Brandon bowed stiffly, and the courtier saw, with secret 
 rage, that the country beauty was not easily appeased, even by 
 an apology from Lord Mauleverer. "I have seen the time," 
 thought he, "when young unmarried ladies would have deemed 
 an affront from me an honor! They would have gone into 
 hysterics at an apology!" Before he had time to make his 
 peace, the squire joined them; and Lucy, taking her father's 
 arm, expressed her wish to return home. The squire was de- 
 lighted at the proposition. It would have been but civil in 
 Mauleverer to offer his assistance in those little attentions pre- 
 paratory to female departure from balls. He hesitated for a 
 moment "It keeps one so long in those cursed thorough 
 draughts," thought he, shivering. "Besides, it is just possible 
 that I may not marry her, and it is no good risking a cold 
 (above all, at the beginning of winter) for nothing!" Fraught
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 267 
 
 with this prudential policy, Mauleverer then resigned Lucy to 
 her father, and murmuring in her ear that "her displeasure 
 made him the most wretched of men," concluded his adieu by 
 a bow penitentially graceful. 
 
 About five minutes afterwards, he himself withdrew. As he 
 was wrapping his corporeal treasure in his roquelaire of sables, 
 previous to immersing himself in his chair, he had the mortifi- 
 cation of seeing Lucy, who with her father, from some cause 
 or other, had been delayed in the hall, handed to the carriage 
 by Captain Clifford. Had the Earl watched more narrowly 
 than in the anxious cares due to himself he was enabled to do, 
 he would, to his consolation, have noted that Lucy gave her 
 hand with an averted and cool air, and that Clifford s expres- 
 sive features bore rather the aspect of mortification than 
 triumph. 
 
 He did not, however, see more than the action ; and as he 
 was borne homeward with his flambeaux and footmen preced- 
 ing him, and the watchful Smoothson by the side of the little 
 vehicle, he muttered his determination of writing by the very 
 next post to Brandon, all his anger for Lucy, and all his jeal- 
 ousy of her evident lover. 
 
 While this doughty resolve was animating the great soul of 
 Mauleverer, Lucy reached her own room, bolted the door, and 
 throwing herself on her bed, burst into a long and bitter par- 
 oxysm of tears. So unusual were such visitors to her happy 
 and buoyant temper, that there was something almost alarming 
 in the earnestness and obstinacy with which she now wept. 
 
 "What!" said she bitterly, "have I placed my affections 
 upon a man of uncertain character! and is my infatuation so 
 clear, that an acquaintance dare hint at its imprudence? And 
 yet his manner his tone! No, no, there can be no reason for 
 shame in loving him!" And as she said this, her heart smote 
 her for the coldness of her manner towards Clifford, on his 
 taking leave of her for the evening. "Am I," she thought, 
 weeping yet more vehemently than before "am I so worldly, 
 so base, as to feel altered towards him the moment I hear a 
 syllable breathed against his name. Should I not, on the con- 
 trary, have clung to his image with a greater love, if he were 
 attacked by others. But my father, my dear father, and my 
 kind, prudent uncle, something is due to them ; and they 
 would break their hearts if I loved one whom they deemed un- 
 worthy. Why should I not summon courage, and tell him of 
 the suspicions respecting him? One candid word would dispel 
 them. Surely it would be but kind in me towards him, to give
 
 iicS PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 him an opportunity of disproving all false and dishonoring 
 conjectures. And why this reserve when so often, by look and 
 hint, if not by open avowal, he has declared that he loves me, 
 and knows he must know that he is not indifferent to me? 
 Why does he never speak of his parents, his relations, his 
 home?" 
 
 And Lucy, as she asked this question, drew from a bosom 
 whose hue and shape might have rivalled hers who won Cymon 
 to be wise,* a drawing which she herself had secretly made of 
 her lover, and which, though inartificially and even rudely 
 done, yet had caught the inspiration of memory, and breathed 
 the very features and air that were stamped already ineffaceably 
 upon a heart too holy for so sullied an idol. She gazed upon 
 the portrait as if it could answer her question of the original ; 
 and, as she looked and looked, her tears slowly ceased, and her 
 innocent countenance relapsed gradually into its usual and elo- 
 quent serenity. Never, perhaps, could Lucy's own portrait 
 have been taken at a more favorable moment. The unconscious 
 grace of her attitude; her dress loosened; the modest and 
 youthful voluptuousness of her beauty, the tender cheek to 
 which the virgin bloom, banished for awhile, was now all glow- 
 ingly returning; the little white soft hand on which that cheek 
 leaned, while the other contained the picture upon which her 
 eyes fed; the half-smile just conjured to her full, red, dewy 
 lips, and gone the moment after, yet again restored all made 
 a picture of such enchanting loveliness, that we question 
 whether Shakespeare himself could have fancied an earthly 
 shape more meet to embody the vision of a Miranda or a 
 Viola. The quiet and maiden neatness of the apartment gave 
 effect to the charm ; and there was a poetry even in the snowy 
 furniture of the bed, the shutters partly unclosed and admit- 
 ting a glimpse of the silver moon, and the solitary lamp just 
 contending with the purer ray of the skies, and so throwing a 
 mixed and softened light around the chamber. 
 
 She was yet gazing on the drawing, when a faint stream of 
 music stole through the air beneath her window, and it gradually 
 rose till the sound of a guitar became distinct and clear, suiting 
 with, not disturbing, the moonlit stillness of the night. The 
 gallantry and romance of a former day, though at the time of 
 our story subsiding, were not quite dispelled ; and nightly 
 serenades under the casements of a distinguished beauty were 
 by no means of unfrequent occurrence. But Lucy, as the mu- 
 sic floated upon her ear, blushed deeper and deeper, as if it 
 
 * See Dryden's poem of Cymon and Iphigenia.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 269 
 
 had a dearer source to her heart than ordinary gallantry; and 
 raising herself on one arm from her incumbent position, she 
 leaned forward to catch the sound with a greater and more 
 unerring certainty. 
 
 After a prelude of some moments, a clear and sweet voice 
 accompanied the instrument, and the words of the song were 
 as follows : 
 
 CLIFFORD'S SERENADE. 
 
 " There is a world where every night 
 
 My spirit meets and walks with thine ; 
 And hopes I dare not tell thee light 
 Like stars of Love that world of mine 1 
 
 Sleep ! to the waking world my heart 
 
 Hath now, methinks, a stranger grown : 
 Ah, sleep ! that I may feel thou art 
 
 Within one world that is my own." 
 
 As the music died away, Lucy sank back once more, and 
 the drawing which she held was pressed (with cheeks glowing, 
 though unseen, at the act) to her lips. And though the char- 
 acter of her lover was uncleared, though she herself had come 
 to no distinct resolution even to inform him of the rumors 
 against his name, yet so easily restored was her trust in him, 
 and so soothing the very thought of his vigilance and his love, 
 that before an hour had passed, her eyes were closed in sleep ; 
 the drawing was laid, as a spell against grief, under her pillow; 
 and in her dreams she murmured his name, and unconscious 
 of reality and the future, smiled tenderly as she did so ! 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 " Come, the plot thickens ! and another fold 
 Of the warm cloak of mystery wraps us around 
 * **'* * 
 
 And for their loves ? 
 
 Behold the seal is ou them ! " Tanner of Tyburn. 
 
 WE must not suppose that Clifford's manner and tone were 
 towards Lucy Brandon such as they seemed to. others. Love 
 refines every roughness; and that truth which nurtures tender- 
 ness is never barren of grace. Whatever the habits and com- 
 rades of Clifford's life, he had at heart many good and gener- 
 ous qualities. They were not often perceptible, it is true first, 
 because he was of a gay and reckless turn ; secondly, because
 
 2IO PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 he was not easily affected by any external circumstances ; and 
 thirdly, because he had the policy to affect among his com- 
 rades only such qualities as were likely to give him influence 
 with them. Still, however, his better genius broke out when- 
 ever an opportunity presented itself. Though no " Corsair, ' ' ro- 
 mantic and unreal, an Ossianic shadow becoming vast in pro- 
 portion as it recedes from substance; though no grandly 
 imagined lie to the fair proportions of human nature, but an 
 erring man in a very prosaic and homely world, Clifford still 
 mingled a certain generosity and chivalric spirit of enterprise 
 even with the practices of his profession. Although the name 
 of Lovett, by which he was chiefly known, was one peculiarly 
 distinguished in the annals of the adventurous, it had never 
 been coupled with rumors of cruelty or outrage ; and it was 
 often associated with anecdotes of courage, courtesy, good 
 humor, or forbearance. He was one whom a real love was 
 peculiarly calculated to soften and to redeem. The boldness, the 
 candor, the unselfishness of his temper were components of 
 nature upon which affection invariably takes a strong and deep 
 hold. Besides, Clifford was of an eager and aspiring turn ; 
 and the same temper and abilities which had in a very few 
 years raised him in influence and popularity far above all the 
 chivalric band with whom he was connected, when once in- 
 flamed and elevated by a higher passion were likely to arouse 
 his ambition from the level of his present pursuits, and reform 
 him, ere too late, into a useful, nay, even an honorable, mem- 
 ber of society. We trust that the reader has already perceived 
 that, despite his early circumstances, his manner and address 
 were not such as to unfit him for a lady's love. The compara- 
 tive refinement of his exterior is easy of explanation, for he 
 possessed a natural and inborn gentility, a quick turn for ob- 
 servation, a ready sense both of the ridiculous and the graceful; 
 and these are materials which are soon and lightly wrought 
 from coarseness into polish. He had been thrown, too, among 
 the leaders and heroes of his band ; many not absolutely low in 
 birth, nor debased in habit. He had associated with the Bar- 
 ringtons of the day: gentlemen who were admired at Rane- 
 lagh, and made speeches worthy of Cicero when they Were 
 summoned to trial. He had played his part in public places ; 
 and, as Tomlinson was wont to say after his classic fashion, 
 " the triumphs accomplished in the field had been planned in 
 the ball-room." In short, he was one of those accomplished 
 and elegant highwaymen of whom we yet read wonders, and 
 by whom it would have been delightful to have been robbed;
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 21 1 
 
 an tne aptness of intellect which grew into wit with his friends, 
 softened into sentiment with his mistress. There is some- 
 thing, too, in beauty (and Clifford's person, as we have before 
 said, was possessed of even uncommon attractions), which lifts 
 a beggar into nobility ; and there was a distinction in his gait 
 and look which supplied the air of rank, and the tone of courts. 
 Men, indeed, skilled like Mauleverer in the subtleties of man- 
 ner, might perhaps have easily detected in him the want of 
 that indescribable essence possessed only by persons reared in 
 good society, but that want being shared by so many persons of 
 indisputable birth and fortune, conveyed no particular reproach. 
 To Lucy, indeed, brought up in seclusion, and seeing at War- 
 lock none calculated to refine her taste in the fashion of an air 
 or phrase to a very fastidious standard of perfection, this want 
 was perfectly imperceptible : she remarked in her lover only a 
 figure everywhere unequalled an eye always eloquent with 
 admiration a step from which grace could never be divorced 
 a voice that spoke in a silver key, and uttered flatteries delicate 
 in thought and poetical in word : even a certain originality of 
 mind, remark, and character, occasionally approaching to the 
 bizarre, yet sometimes also to the elevated, possessed a charm 
 for the imagination of a young and not unenthusiastic female, 
 and contrasted favorably, rather than the reverse, with the dull 
 insipidity of those she ordinarily saw. Nor are we sure that the 
 mystery thrown about him, irksome as it was to her, and dis- 
 creditable as it appeared to others, was altogether ineffectual 
 in increasing her love for the adventurer; and thus Fate, which 
 transmutes in her magic crucible all opposing metals into that 
 one which she is desirous to produce, swelled the wealth of an 
 ill-placed and ominous passion by the very circumstances which 
 should have counteracted and destroyed it. 
 
 We are willing, by what we have said, not to defend Clif- 
 ford, but to redeem Lucy in the opinion of our readers for 
 loving so unwisely, and when they remember her youth, her 
 education, her privation of a mother, of all female friendship, 
 even of the vigilant and unrelaxing care of some protector of 
 the opposite sex, we do not think that what was so natural 
 will be considered by any inexcusable. 
 
 Mauleverer woke the morning after the ball in better health 
 than usual, and, consequently, more in love than ever. 
 According to his resolution the night before, he sat down to 
 write a long letter to William Brandon : but the wily noble- 
 man succeeded, under the cover of wit, in conveying to Bran- 
 don's mind a serious apprehension lest his cherished matri- 1
 
 212 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 inonial project should altogether fail. The account of Lucy 
 and of Captain Clifford contained in the epistle, instilled, in- 
 deed, a double portion of sourness into the professionally acrid 
 mind of the lawyer; and as it so happened that he read the let- 
 ter jusi before attending the court upon a case in which he was 
 counsel to the crown, the witnesses on the opposite side of the 
 question felt the full effects of the barrister's ill-humor. 
 
 The case was one in which the defendant had been engaged 
 in swindling transactions to a very large amount; and, amongst 
 his agents and assistants, was a person of the very lowest or- 
 ders but who seemingly enjoying large connections, and pos- 
 sessing natural acuteness and address, appeared to have been 
 of great use in receiving and disposing of such goods as were 
 fraudulently obtained. As a witness against the latter person 
 appeared a pawnbroker, who produced certain articles that had 
 been pledged to him at different times by this humble agent. 
 Now, Brandon, in examining the guilty go-between, became 
 the more terribly severe, in proportion as the man evinced that 
 semblance of unconscious stolidity which the lower orders can 
 so ingeniously assume, and which is so peculiarly adapted to en- 
 rage and to baffle the gentlemen of the bar. At length, Bran- 
 don entirely subduing and quelling the stubborn hypocrisy of 
 the culprit, the man turned towards him a look between wrath 
 and beseechingness, muttering: 
 
 "Aha ! if so be, Counsellor Brandon, you knew vat I knows, 
 you vould not go for to bully /so!" 
 
 "And pray, my good fellow, what is it that you know that 
 should make me treat you as if I thought you an honest man?" 
 
 The witness had now relapsed into sullenness, and only an- 
 swered by a sort of grunt. Brandon, who knew well how to 
 sting a witness into communicativeness, continued his question- 
 ing, till the witness, rearoused into anger, and, it may be, into 
 indiscretion, said, in a low voice : 
 
 "Hax Mr. Swoppem (the pawnbroker) what I sold 'im on 
 the i5th hof February, exactly twenty-three yearn ago." 
 
 Brandon started back ; his lips grew white, he clenched his 
 hands with a convulsive spasm, and while all his features seemed 
 distorted with an earnest, yet fearful intensity of expectation, he 
 poured forth a volley of questions, so incoherent and so irrele- 
 vant, that he was immediately called to order by his learned 
 brother on the opposite side. Nothing farther could be ex- 
 tracted from the witness. The pawnbroker was resummoned : 
 he appeared somewhat disconcerted by an appeal to his memory 
 50 far back as twenty-three years ; but after taking some time
 
 PAtJL CLIFFORD. 21$ 
 
 to consider, during which the agitation of the usually cold and 
 possessed Brandon was remarkable to all the court, he declared 
 that he recollected no transaction whatsoever with the wit- 
 ness at that time. In vain were all Brandon's efforts to pro- 
 cure a more elucidatory answer. The pawnbroker was impene- 
 trable, and the lawyer was compelled reluctantly to dismiss 
 him. The moment the witness left the box, Brandon sunk into 
 a gloomy abstraction he seemed quite to forget the business 
 and the duties of the court; and so negligently did he continue 
 to conclude the case, so purposeless was the rest of his ex- 
 amination and cross-examination, that the cause was entirely 
 marred, and a verdict "Not guilty" returned by the jury. 
 
 The moment he left the court, Brandon repaired to the pawn- 
 broker's; and after a conversation with Mr. Swoppem, in 
 which he satisfied that honest tradesman that his object was 
 rather to reward than intimidate, Swoppem confessed that, 
 twenty-three years ago, the witness had met him at a public- 
 house in Devereux Court, in company with two other men, and 
 sold him several articles in plate, ornaments, etc. The great 
 bulk of these articles had, of course, long left the pawnbroker's 
 abode ; but he still thought a stray trinket or two not of suffi- 
 cient worth to be reset or remodelled, nor of sufficient fashion 
 to find a ready sale lingered in his drawers. Eagerly, and 
 with trembling hands, did Brandon toss over the motley con- 
 tents of the mahogany reservoirs which the pawnbroker now 
 submitted to his scrutiny. Nothing on earth is so melancholy 
 a prospect as a pawnbroker's drawer! Those little, quaint, 
 valueless ornaments, those true-lovers' knots, those oval lock- 
 ets, those battered rings, girdled by initials, or some brief in- 
 scription of regard or of grief, what tales of past affections, 
 hopes, and sorrows, do they not tell! But no sentiment of so 
 general a sort ever saddened the hard mind of William Bran- 
 don, and now less than at any time could such reflections have 
 occurred to him. Impatiently he threw on the table, one after 
 another, the baubles once hoarded, perchance, with the ten- 
 derest respect, till, at length, his eyes sparkled, and with a ner- 
 vous gripe he seized upon an old ring, which was inscribed 
 with letters, and circled a heart containing hair. The inscrip- 
 tion was simply, "W. B. to Julia." Strange and dark was the 
 expression that settled on Brandon's face as he regarded this 
 seemingly worthless trinket. After a moment's gaze, he uttered 
 an inarticulate exclamation, and, thrusting it into his pocket, 
 renewed his search. He found one or two other trifles of a 
 similar nature ; one was an ill-done miniature set in silver, and
 
 214 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 bearing at the back sundry half-effaced letters, which Brandon 
 constructed at once (though no other eye could) into "Sir John 
 Brandon, 1635, aetat. 28"; the other was a seal stamped with 
 the noble crest of the house of Brandon, "A bull's head, 
 ducally crowned and armed, or." As soon as Brandon had 
 possessed himself of these treasures, and arrived at the con- 
 viction that the place held no more, he assured the conscien- 
 tious Swoppem of his regard for that person's safety, rewarded 
 him munificently, and went his way to Bow Street for a war- 
 rant against the witness who had commended him to the pawn- 
 broker. On his road thither, a new resolution occurred to 
 him: "Why make all public," he muttered to himself, "if it 
 fan be avoided? and it may be avoided !" He paused a mo- 
 ment, then retraced his way to the pawnbroker's, and, after 
 a brief mandate to Mr. Swoppem returned home. In the 
 course of the same evening, the witness we refer to was brought 
 to the lawyer's house by Mr. Swoppem, and there held a long 
 and private conversation with Brandon; the result of this 
 seemed a compact to their mutual satisfaction, for the man 
 went away safe, with a heavy purse and a light heart, although 
 sundry shades and misgivings did certainly ever and anon 
 cross the latter; while Brandon flung himself back in his seat, 
 with the triumphant air of one who has accomplished some 
 great measure, and his dark face betrayed in every feature a 
 joyousness and hope which were unfrequent guests, it must 
 be owned, either to his countenance or his heart. 
 
 So good a man of business, however, was William Brandon, 
 that he allowed not the event of that day to defer beyond the 
 night his attention to his designs for the aggrandizement of his 
 niece and house. By daybreak the next morning, he had 
 written to Lord Mauleverer, to his brother, and to Lucy. To 
 the last, his letter, couched in all the anxiety of fondness and 
 the caution of affectionate experience, was well calculated to 
 occasion that mingled shame and soreness which the wary law- 
 yer rightly judged would be the most effectual enemy to an 
 incipient passion. "I have accidently heard, " he wrote, "from 
 a friend of mine, just arrived from Bath, of the glaring atten- 
 tions paid to you by a Captain Clifford ; I will not, my dearest 
 niece, wound you by repeating what also I heard of your man- 
 ner in receiving them. I know the ill-nature and the envy of 
 the world ; and I do not for a moment imagine that my Lucy, 
 of whom I am so justly proud would countenance, from a petty 
 coquetry, the advances of one whom she could never marry, or 
 evince to any suitor partiality unknown to her relations, an4
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 215 
 
 certainly placed in a quarter which could never receive their 
 approbation. I do not credit the reports of the idle, my dear 
 niece ; but if I discredit, you must not slight them. I call upon 
 your prudence, your delicacy, your discretion, your sense of 
 right, at once, and effectually, to put a stop to all impertinent 
 rumors : dance with this young man no more ; do not let him 
 be of your party in any place of amusement, public or private ; 
 avoid even seeing him if you are able, and throw in your man- 
 ner towards him that decided coldness which the world cannot 
 mistake." Much more did the skillful uncle write, but all to 
 the same purpose, and for the furtherance of the same design. 
 His letter to his brother was no less artful. He told him at 
 once that Lucy's preference of the suit of a handsome fortune- 
 hunter was the public talk, and besought him to lose not a mo- 
 ment in quelling the rumor. ' 'You may do so easily," he wrote, 
 "by avoiding the young man; and should he be very importu- 
 nate, return at once to Warlock; your daughter's welfare must 
 be dearer to you than any thing." 
 
 To Mauleverer, Brandon replied by a letter which turned 
 first on public matters, and then slid carelessly into the subject 
 of the earl's information. 
 
 Among the admonitions which he ventured to give Maul- 
 everer, he dwelt, not without reason, on the want of tact dis- 
 played by the Earl in not manifesting that pomp and show 
 which his station in life enabled him to do. " Remember," 
 he urged, "you are not among your equals, by whom unneces- 
 sary parade begins to be considered an ostentatious vulgarity. 
 The surest method of dazzling our inferiors is by splendor 
 not taste. All young persons all women in particular, are 
 caught by show, and enamoured of magnificence. Assume a 
 greater state, and you will be more talked of; and notoriety 
 wins a woman's heart more than beauty or youth. You have, 
 forgive me, played the boy too long ; a certain dignity becomes 
 your manhood : women will not respect you if you suffer your- 
 self to become 'stale and cheap to vulgar company.' You are 
 like a man who has fifty advantages, and uses only one of them 
 to gain his point, when you rely on your conversation and your 
 manner, and throw away the resources of your wealth and your 
 station. Any private gentleman may be amiable and witty ; 
 but any private gentleman cannot call to his aid the Aladdin's 
 lamp possessed in England by a wealthy peer. Look to this, 
 my dear lord; Lucy at heart is vain, or she is not a woman. 
 Dazzle her, then, dazzle! Love may be blind, but it must 
 te made so by excess of light. You have a country-house
 
 2l6 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 within a few miles of Bath. Why not take up your abode there 
 instead of in a paltry lodging in the town ? Give sumptuous en- 
 tertainments, make it necessary for all the world to attend 
 them, exclude, of course, this Captain Clifford ; you will then 
 meet Lucy without a rival. At present, excepting only your 
 title, you fight on a level ground with this adventurer, instead 
 of an eminence from which you could in an instant sweep him 
 away. Nay, he is stronger than you ; he has the opportunities 
 afforded by a partnership in balls where you cannot appear to 
 advantage; he is, you say, in the first bloom of youth, he 
 is handsome. Reflect! your destiny, so far as Lucy is con- 
 cerned, is in your hands. I turn to other subjects," etc. 
 
 As Brandon reread, ere he signed this last letter, a bitter 
 smile sat on his harsh, yet handsome features. "If," said he 
 mentally, "I can effect this object; if Mauleverer does marry 
 this girl, why so much the better that she has another, a fairer, 
 and a more welcome lover. By the great principle of scorn 
 within me, which has enabled me to sneer at what weaker 
 minds adore and make a footstool of that worldly honor which 
 fc>ols set up as a throne, it would be to me more sweet than 
 fame ay, or even than power to see this fine-spun lord a 
 gibe in the mouths of men, a cuckold a cuckold!" and as he 
 said the last word Brandon laughed outright. "And he thinks, 
 too," added he, "that he is sure of my fortune; otherwise, 
 perhaps, he the goldsmith's descendant, would not dignify our 
 house with his proposals ; but he may err there he may err 
 there"; and finishing his soliloquy, Brandon finished also his 
 letter by "Adieu, my dear lord, your most affectionate 
 friend!" 
 
 It is not difficult to conjecture the effect produced upon 
 Lucy by Brandon's letter: it made her wretched ; she refused 
 for days to go out; she shut herself up in her apartment, and 
 consumed the time in tears and struggles with her own heart. 
 Sometimes, what she conceived to be her duty conquered, and 
 she resolved to forswear her lover; but the night, undid the 
 labor of the day: for at night, every night the sound of her 
 lover's voice, accompanied by music, melted away her resolu- 
 tion, and made her once more all tenderness and trust. The 
 words, too, sung under her window, were especially suited to 
 affect her; they breathed a melancholy which touched her the 
 more from its harmony with her own thoughts. One while they 
 complained of absence, at another they hinted at neglect ; but 
 there was always in them a tone of humiliation, not reproach : 
 they bespoke a sense of unworthiness in the lover, and confessed
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 217 
 
 that even the love was a crime: and in proportion as they owned 
 the want of desert, did Lucy more firmly cling to the belief 
 that her lover was deserving. 
 
 The old squire was greatly disconcerted by his brother's 
 letter. Though impressed with the idea of self-consequence, 
 and the love of tolerably pure blood, common to most country 
 squires, he was by no means ambitious for his daughter. On 
 the contrary, the same feeling which at Warlock had made him 
 choose his companions among the inferior gentry, made him 
 averse to the thought of a son-in-law from the peerage. In 
 spite of Mauleverer's good nature, the very ease of the Earl 
 annoyed him, and he never felt at home in his society. To 
 Clifford he had a great liking; and having convinced himself 
 that there was nothing to suspect in the young gentleman, he 
 saw no earthly reason why so agreeable a companion should 
 not be an agreeable son-in-law. "If he be poor," thought the 
 squire, "though he does not seem so, Lucy is rich!" And this 
 truism appeared to him to answer every objection. Neverthe- 
 less, William Brandon possessed a remarkable influence over 
 the weaker mind of his brother; and the squire, though with 
 great reluctance, resolved to adopt his advice. He shut his 
 doors against Clifford, and when he met him in the streets, 
 instead of greeting him with his wonted cordiality, he passed 
 him with a hasty "Good day, captain!" which, after the first 
 day or two, merged into a distant bow. Whenever very good- 
 hearted people are rude, and unjustly so, the rudeness is in the 
 extreme. The squire felt it so irksome to be less familiar than 
 heretofore with Clifford, that his only remaining desire was 
 now to drop him altogether; and to this consummation of ac- 
 quaintance the gradually cooling salute appeared rapidly ap- 
 proaching. Meanwhile, Clifford, unable to see Lucy, shunned 
 by her father, and obtaining in answer to all inquiry rude looks 
 from the footman, whom nothing but the most resolute com- 
 mand over his muscles prevented him from knocking down, 
 began to feel, perhaps, for the first time in his life, that an 
 equivocal character is at least no equivocal misfortune. To 
 add to his distress, "the earnings of his previous industry" 
 we use the expression cherished by the wise Tomlinson 
 waxed gradually less and less, beneath the expenses of Bath, 
 and the murmuring voices of his two comrades began already 
 to reproach their chief for his inglorious idleness, and to hint 
 at the necessity of a speedy exertion.
 
 2l8 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Whackum. Look you there now ! Well, all Europe can not show a knot 
 of finer wits and braver gentlemen. 
 Dingboy. Faith, they are pretty smart men. SHADWELL'S Scourers. 
 
 THE world of Bath was of a sudden delighted by the intelli- 
 gence that Lord Mauleverer had gone to Beauvale (the beauti- 
 ful seat possessed by that nobleman in the neighborhood of 
 Bath), with the intention of there holding a series of sumptu- 
 ous entertainments. 
 
 The first persons to whom the gay Earl announced his "hos- 
 pitable purpose" were Mr. and Miss Brandon; he called at 
 their house, and declared his resolution of not leaving it till 
 Lucy (who was in her own room) consented to gratify him with 
 an interview, and a promise to be the queen of his purposed festi- 
 val. Lucy, teased by her father, descended to the drawing- 
 room spiritless and pale; and the Earl, struck by the alteration 
 of her appearance, took her hand, and made his inquiries with 
 so interested and feeling a semblance of kindness, as prepos- 
 sessed the father, for the first time, in his favor, and touched 
 even the daughter. So earnest, too, was his request that she 
 would honor his festivities with her presence, and with so skill' 
 ful a flattery was it conveyed, that the squire undertook to 
 promise the favor in her name ; and when the Earl, declaring 
 he was not contented with that promise from another, appealed 
 to Lucy herself, her denial was soon melted into a positive, 
 though a reluctant assent. 
 
 Delighted with his success, and more struck with Lucy'? 
 loveliness, refined as it was by her paleness, than he had ever been 
 before, Mauleverer left the house, and calculated, with greater 
 accuracy than he had hitherto done-, the probable fortune Lucy 
 would derive from her uncle. 
 
 No sooner were the cards issued for Lord Mauleverer's fete, 
 than nothing else was talked of among the circles which, at 
 Bath, people were pleased to term "the World." 
 
 But, in the interim, caps are making, and talk flowing, at 
 Bath ; and when it was found that Lord Mauleverer the good- 
 natured Lord Mauleverer! the obliging Lord Mauleverer! 
 was really going to be exclusive, and out of a thousand ac- 
 quaintances to select only eight hundred, it is amazing how his 
 popularity deepened into respect. Now, then, came anxiety 
 and triumph ; she who was asked turned her back upon her 
 who was not, old friendships dissolved, Independence wrote
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 219 
 
 letters for a ticket, and, as England is the freest country in 
 the world, all the Mistresses Hodges and Snodges begged to 
 take the liberty of bringing their youngest daughters. 
 
 Leaving the enviable Mauleverer the godlike occasion of so 
 much happiness and woe, triumph and dejection, ascend with 
 us, O reader, into those elegant apartments over the hair- 
 dresser's shop, tenanted by Mr. Edward Pepper and Mr. 
 Augustus Tomlinson : the time was that of evening; Captain 
 Clifford had been dining with his two friends: the cloth was 
 removed, and conversation was flowing over a table graced by 
 two bottles of port, a bowl of punch for Mr. Pepper's especial 
 discussion, two dishes of filberts, another of devilled biscuits, 
 and a fourth of three Pomarian crudities, which nobody 
 touched. 
 
 The hearth was swept clean, the fire burned high and clear, 
 the curtains were let down, and the light excluded. Our three 
 adventurers and their room seemed the picture of comfort. 
 So thought Mr. Pepper ; for, glancing round the chamber, and 
 putting his feet upon the fender, he said : 
 
 "Were my portrait to be taken, gentlemen, it is just as I am 
 now that I would be drawn!" 
 
 "And," said Tomlinson, cracking his filberts Tomlinson 
 was fond of filberts "were I to choose a home, it is in such a 
 home as this that I would be always quartered." 
 
 "Ah! gentlemen," said Clifford, who had been for some time 
 silent, "it is more than probable that both your wishes may be 
 heard, and that ye may be drawn, quartered, and something 
 else, too, in the very place of your desert ! " 
 
 "Well!" said Tomlinson, smiling gently, "I am happy to 
 hear you jest again, captain, though it be at our expense." 
 
 "Expense!" echoed Ned; "Ay! there's the rub ! Who the 
 deuce is to pay the expense of our dinner?" 
 
 "And our dinners for last week?" added Tomlinson; this 
 empty nut looks rather ominous; it certainly has one grand 
 feature, strikingly resembling my pockets." 
 
 "Heigho!" sighed Long Ned turning his waistcoat com- 
 modities inside-out with a significant gesture, while the accom- 
 plished Tomlinson, who was fond of plaintive poetry, pointed 
 to the disconsolate vacua, and exclaimed: 
 
 " E'en while Fashion's brightest arts decoy, 
 The heart desponding asks if this be joy ! " 
 
 "In truth, gentlemen," added he solemnly, depositing hia 
 nut-crackers on the table, and laying, as was his wont, when
 
 220 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 about to be luminous, his right finger on his sinister palm "in 
 truth, gentlemen, affairs are growing serious with us, and it 
 becomes necessary forthwith to devise some safe means of pro- 
 curing a decent competence." 
 
 "I am dunned confoundedly," cried Ned. 
 
 "And," continued Tomlinson, "no person of delicacy likes 
 to be subjected to the importunity of vulgar creditors; we 
 must, therefore, raise money for the liquidation of our debts. 
 Captain Lovett, or Clifford, whichever you be styled, we call 
 upon you to assist us in so praiseworthy a purpose." 
 
 Clifford turned his eyes first on one, then on the other, but 
 made no answer. 
 
 "Imprimis" said Tomlinson, "let us each produce our stock 
 in hand : for my part, I am free to confess for what shame is 
 there in that poverty which our exertions are about to relieve? 
 that I have only two guineas, four shillings, and threepence 
 half-penny!" 
 
 "And I," said Long Ned, taking a china ornament from the 
 chimney-piece, and emptying its contents in his hand, "am in 
 a still more pitiful condition. See, I have only three shillings 
 and a bad guinea. I gave the guinea to the waiter at the 
 White Hart, yesterday; the dog brought it back to me to-day, 
 and I was forced to change it with my last shiner. Plague 
 take the thing; I bought it of a Jew for four shillings, and 
 have lost one pound five by the bargain!" 
 
 "Fortune frustrates our wisest schemes!" rejoined the mor- 
 alizing Augustus. "Captain, will you produce the scanty 
 wrecks of your wealth?" 
 
 Clifford, still silent, threw a purse on the table ; Augustus 
 carefully emptied it, and counted out five guineas ; an expres- 
 sion of grave surprise settled on Tomlinson's contemplative 
 brow, and extending the coins towards Clifford, he said in a 
 melancholy tone: 
 
 " All your pretty ones ? 
 
 Did you say all ? " 
 
 A look from Clifford answered the interesting interrogatory 
 "These, then," said Tomlinson, collecting in his hand the 
 common wealth "these, then, are all our remaining treas- 
 ures!" As he spoke, he jingled the coins mournfully in his 
 palm, and gazing upon them with a parental air, exclaimed : 
 " Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play ! " 
 
 "Oh, d n it!" said Ned, "no sentiment! Let us come 
 to business at once. To tell you the truth, I, for one, am tired
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 221 
 
 of this heiress-hunting, and a man may spend a fortune in the 
 chase before he can win one." 
 
 "You despair then, positively, of the widow you have 
 courted so long?" asked Tomlinson. 
 
 "Utterly!" rejoined Ned, whose addresses had been limited 
 solely to the dames of the middling class, and who had imag- 
 ined himself at one time, as he punningly expressed it, sure of a 
 dear rib from Cheapside. "Utterly; she was very civil to me 
 at first, but when I proposed, asked me, with a blush, for my 
 'references.' 'References" said I ; 'why, I want the place of 
 your husband, my charmer, not your footman!' The dame 
 was inexorable, said she could not take me without a character, 
 but hinted that I might be the lover instead of the bridegroom ; 
 and when I scorned the suggestion, and pressed for the parson, 
 she told me point blank, with her unlucky city pronunciation, 
 'that she would never accompany me to the Walter'!" 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha!" cried Tomlinson, laughing. "One can 
 scarcely blame the* good lady for that. Love rarely brooks 
 such permament ties. But have you no other lady in your 
 eye ? ' ' 
 
 "Not for matrimony: all roads but those to the church!" 
 
 While this dissolute pair were thus conversing, Clifford, lean- 
 ing against the wainscot, listened to them with a sick and bitter 
 feeling of degradation, which, till of late days, had been a 
 stranger to his breast. He was at length aroused from his 
 silence by Ned, who bending forward, and placing his hand upon 
 Clifford's knee, said abruptly : 
 
 "In short, captain, you must lead us once more to glory. 
 We have still our horses, and I keep my mask in my pocket- 
 book, together with my comb. Let us take the road to-morrow 
 night, dash across the country towards Salisbury, and after a 
 short visit in that neighborhood to a band of old friends of 
 mine bold fellows, who would have stopped the devil himself 
 when he was at work upon Stonehenge, make a tour by Read- 
 ing and Henley, and end by a plunge into London." 
 
 "You have spoken well, Ned!" said Tomlinson approv- 
 ingly. "Now, noble captain, your opinion?" 
 
 "Messieurs," answered Clifford, "I highly approve of your 
 intended excursion, and I only regret that I cannot be your 
 companion." 
 
 "Not! and why?" cried Mr. Pepper, amazed. 
 
 "Because I have business here that renders it impossible; 
 perhaps before long, I may join you in London." 
 
 "Nay," said Tomlinson, "there is no necessity for our going
 
 222 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 to London, if you wish to remain here; nor need we at present 
 recur to so desperate an expedient as the road a little quiet 
 business at Bath will answer our purpose ; and for my part, as 
 you well know, I love exerting my wits in some scheme more 
 worthy of them than the highway ; a profession meeter for a 
 bully than a man of genius. Let us then, captain, plan a pro- 
 ject of enrichment on the property of some credulous trades- 
 man ! why have recourse to rough measures, so long as we can 
 find easy fools?" 
 
 Clifford shook his head. "I will own to you fairly," said 
 he, "that I cannot at present take a share in your exploits; 
 nay, as your chief, I must lay my positive commands on you to 
 refrain from all exercise of your talents at Bath. Rob, if you 
 please; the world is before you; but this city is sacred." 
 
 "Body o* me!" cried Ned, coloring, "but this is too good. 
 I will not be dictated to in this manner." 
 
 "But, sir," answered Clifford, who had .learned in his oli- 
 garchical profession the way to command, "but, sir, you shall; 
 or if you mutiny, you leave our body, and then will the hang- 
 man have no petty chance of your own. Come! come! ingrate 
 as you are, what would you be without me? How many times 
 have I already saved that long carcass of ?hine from the rope, 
 and now would you have the baseness to rebel? Out on you ! " 
 
 Though Mr. Pepper was still wroth, he bit his lip in moody 
 silence, and suffered not his passion to have its way: while 
 Clifford rising, after a short pause, continued: "Look you, 
 Mr. Pepper, you know my commands, consider them peremp- 
 tory. I wish you success, and plenty! Farewell, gen- 
 tlemen!" 
 
 "Do you leave us already?" cried Tomlinson. "You are 
 offended." 
 
 "Surely not!" answered Clifford, retreating to the door. 
 "But an engagement elsewhere, you know!" 
 
 "Ay, I take you!" said Tomlinson, following Clifford out 
 of the room, and shutting the door after him. 
 
 "Ay, I take you!" added he, in a whisper, as he arrested 
 Clifford at the head of the stairs. "But tell me, how do you 
 get on with the heiress?" 
 
 Smothering that sensation at his heart which made Clifford, 
 reckless as he was, enraged and ashamed, whenever, through 
 the lips of his comrades, there issued any allusion to Lucy 
 Brandon, the chief replied, "I fear, Tomlinson, that I am 
 already suspected by the old squire! All of a sudden, he 
 avoids me, shuts his door against me ; Miss Brandon goes no-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 223 
 
 where : and even if she did, what could I expect from her 
 after this sudden change in her father?" 
 
 Tomlinson looked blank and disconcerted. "But," said he, 
 after a moment's silence, "why not put a good face on the 
 matter? walk up to the squire and ask him the reason of his 
 unkindness?" 
 
 "Why, look you, my friend; I am bold enough with all 
 others, but this girl has made me as bashful as a maid in all that 
 relates to herself. Nay, there are moments when I think I can 
 conquer all selfish feeling, and rejoice for her sake that she has 
 escaped. me. Could I but see her once more I could yes! 
 I feel I feel I could resign her forever!" 
 
 "Humph!" said Tomlinson; "and what is to become of us? 
 Really, my captain, your sense of duty should lead you to exert 
 yourself; your friends starve before your eyes, while you are 
 shilly-shallying about your mistress. Have you no bowels for 
 friendship?" 
 
 "A truce with this nonsense!" said Clifford angrily. 
 
 "It is sense, sober sense, and sadness too," rejoined 
 Tomlinson. "Ned is discontented, our debts are imperious. 
 Suppose now, just suppose, that we take a moonlight flit- 
 ting from Bath, will that tell well for you whom we leave be- 
 hind? Yet this we must do, if you do not devise some method 
 of refilling our purses. Either, then, consent to join us in a 
 scheme meet for our wants, or pay our debts in this city, or fly 
 with us to London, and dismiss all thoughts of that love which 
 is so seldom friendly to the projects of ambition." 
 
 Notwithstanding the manner in which Tomlinson made this 
 threefold proposition, Clifford could not but acknowledge the 
 sense and justice contained in it; and a glance at the matter 
 sufficed to show how ruinous to his character, and, therefore, 
 to his hopes, would be the flight of his comrades and the 
 clamor of their creditors. 
 
 "You speak well, Tomlinson," said he, hesitating; "and 
 yet for the life of me I cannot aid you in any scheme which 
 may disgrace us by detection. Nothing can reconcile me to 
 the apprehension of Miss Brandon's discovering who and what 
 was her suitor." 
 
 "I feel for you," said Tomlinson, "but give me and Pepper 
 at least permission to shift for ourselves; trust to my known 
 prudence for finding some method to raise the wind without 
 creating a dust ; in other words (this cursed Pepper makes 
 one so vulgar!) of preying on the public without being dis- 
 covered."
 
 224 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "I see no alternative," answered Clifford reluctantly, "but, 
 if possible, be quiet for the present ; bear with me for a few 
 days longer, give me only sufficient time once more to see Miss 
 Brandon, and I will engage to extricate you from your diffi- 
 culties!" 
 
 "Spoken like yourself, frankly and nobly!" replied Tom- 
 linson: "no one has a greater confidence in your genius, once 
 exerted, than I have!" 
 
 So saying, the pair shook hands and parted. Tomlinson 
 rejoined Mr. Pepper. 
 
 "Well, have you settled anything?" quoth the latter. 
 
 "Not exactly ; and though Lovett has promised to exert him- 
 self in a few days, yet as the poor man is in love, and his 
 genius under a cloud, I have little faith in his promises." 
 
 "And I have none!" said Pepper; "besides, time presses! 
 A few days! a few devils! We are certainly scented here, 
 and I walk about like a barrel of beer at Christmas, under 
 hourly apprehension of being tapped ! " 
 
 "It is very strange," said the philosophic Augustus; "but I 
 think there is an instinct in tradesmen by which they can tell 
 a rogue at first sight ; and I can get (dress I ever so well) no 
 more credit with my laundress than my friends the Whigs can 
 with the people." 
 
 "In short, then," said Ned, "we must recur at once to the 
 road ; and on the day after to-morrow there will be an excel- 
 lent opportunity: the old Earl with the hard name gives a 
 breakfast, or feast, or some such mummery. I understand peo- 
 ple will stay till after nightfall; let us watch our opportunity; 
 we are famously mounted, and some carriage later than the 
 general string may furnish us with all our hearts can 
 desire!" 
 
 "Bravo!" cried Tomlinson, shaking Mr. Pepper heartily by 
 the hand; "I give you joy of your ingenuity, and you may 
 trust to me to make our peace afterwards with Lovett. Any 
 enterprise that seems to him gallant he is always willing enough 
 to forgive; and as he never practices any other branch of the 
 profession than that of the road (for which I confess that I 
 think him foolish), he will be more ready to look over our 
 exploits in that line than in any other more subtle but less 
 heroic." 
 
 "Well, I leave it to you to propitiate the cove or not, as you 
 please ; and now that we have settled the main point, let us 
 finish the lush!" 
 
 "And," added Augustus, taking a pack of cards from the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 22$ 
 
 .himney-piece, "we can in the mean while have a quiet game at 
 cribbage for shillings." 
 
 "Done!" cried Ned, clearing away the dessert. 
 
 If the redoubted hearts of Mr. Edward Pepper, and that 
 Ulysses of robbers, Augustus Tomlinson, beat high as the hours 
 brought on Lord Mauleverer's /<?/<?, their leader was not with- 
 out anxiety and expectation for the same event. He was unin- 
 vited, it is true, to the gay scene ; but he had heard in public 
 that Miss Brandon, recovered from her late illness, was cer- 
 tainly to be there ; and Clifford, torn with suspense, and eager 
 once more, even if for the last time, to see the only person who 
 had ever pierced his soul with a keen sense of his errors, or 
 crimes, resolved to risk all obstacles, and meet her at Maul- 
 everer's. 
 
 "My life," said he, as he sat alone in his apartment, eyeing 
 the falling embers of his still and lethargic fire, "may soon ap- 
 proach its termination; it is, indeed, out of the chances of 
 things that I can long escape the doom of my condition ; and 
 when, as a last hope to raise myself from my desperate state 
 into respectability and reform, I came hither, and meditated 
 purchasing independence by marriage, I was blind to the 
 cursed rascality of the action ! Happy, after all, that my in- 
 tentions were directed against one whom I so soon and so 
 adoringly learned to love! Had I wooed one whom I loved 
 less, I might not have scrupled to deceive her into marriage. 
 As it is! well! it is idle in me to think thus of my resolu- 
 tion, when I have not even the option to choose; when her 
 father, perhaps, has already lifted the veil from my assumed 
 dignities, and the daughter already shrinks in horror from my 
 name. Yet I will see her! I will look once more upon that 
 angel face I will hear from her own lips the confession of her 
 scorn I will see that bright eye flash hatred upon me, and I 
 can then turn once more to my fatal career, and forget that I 
 have ever repented that it was begun. Yet, what else could 
 have been my alternative? Friendless, homeless, nameless 
 an orphan, worse than an orphan the son of a harlot, my 
 father even unknown! yet cursed with early aspirings and rest- 
 lessness, and a half glimmering of knowledge, and an entire 
 lust of whatever seemed enterprise what wonder that I chose 
 anything rather than daily labor and perpetual contumely? 
 After all, the fault is in fortune, and the world, not me! Oh, 
 Lucy ! had I but been born in your sphere, had I but pos- 
 sessed the claim to merit you, what would I not have done, 
 and dared, and conquered, for your sake 1 "
 
 526 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Such, or similar to these, were the thoughts of Clifford dur- 
 ing the interval between his resolution of seeing Lucy and the 
 time of effecting it. The thoughts were of no pleasing, 
 though of an exciting nature; nor were they greatly soothed by 
 the ingenious occupation of cheating himself into the belief 
 that, if he was a highwayman, it was altogether the fault of the 
 highways. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Dream. Let me but see her, dear Leontius. 
 
 Humorous Lieutenant. 
 
 Hempskirke. It was the fellow, sure. 
 
 Wolf art. What are you, sirrah ? Beggar s Bush. 
 
 O THOU divine spirit, that burnest in every breast, inciting 
 each with the sublime desire to be fine ! that stirrest up the 
 great to become little in order to seern greater, and that makest 
 a duchess woo insult for a voucher! Thou that delightest in 
 so many shapes, multifarious, yet the same; spirit that makest 
 the high despicable, and the lord meaner than his valet ! 
 equally great whether thou cheatest a friend, or cuttest a 
 father! lackering all thou touchest with a bright vulgarity, that 
 thy votaries imagine to be gold! thou that sendest the few to 
 fashionable balls and the many to fashionable novels; that 
 smitest even Genius as well as Folly, making the favorites of 
 the Gods boast an acquaintance they have not with the graces 
 of a mushroom peerage, rather than the knowledge they 
 have of the Muses of an eternal Helicon! thou that leav- 
 est in the great ocean of our manners no dry spot for the foot 
 of independence ; that pallest on the jaded eye with a moving 
 and girdling panorama of daubed vilenesses, and fritterest 
 away the souls of free-born Britons into a powder smaller than 
 the angels which dance in myriads on a pin's point. Whether, 
 O spirit! thou callest thyself Fashion, or Ton, or Ambition, or 
 Vanity, or Cringing, or Cant, or any title equally lofty and 
 sublime would that from thy wings we could gain but a single 
 plume! Fain would we, in fitting strain, describe the festivi- 
 ties of that memorable day, when the benevolent Lord 
 Mauleverer received and blessed the admiring universe of 
 Bath. 
 
 But to be less poetical, as certain writers say, when they 
 have been writing nonsense but to be less poetical, and more 
 exact, the morning, though in the depth of winter, was bright
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 227 
 
 and clear, and Lord Mauleverer found himself in particularly 
 good health. Nothing could be better planned than the whole 
 of his arrangements : unlike those which are ordinarily chosen for 
 the express reason of being as foreign as possible to the nature of 
 our climate, all at Lord Mauleverer's were made suitable to 
 a Greenland atmosphere. The temples and summer-houses, 
 interspersed through the grounds, were fitted up, some as 
 Esquimaux huts, others as Russian pavilions ; fires were care- 
 fully kept up ; the musicians Mauleverer took care should have 
 as much wine as they pleased; they were set skillfully in places 
 where they were unseen, but where they could be heard. One 
 or two temporary buildings were erected for those who loved 
 dancing ; and as Mauleverer, miscalculating on the principles 
 of human nature, thought gentlemen might be averse from 
 ostentatious exhibition, he had hired persons to skate minuets 
 and figures of eight upon his lakes, for the amusement of those 
 who were fond of skating. All people who would be kind 
 enough to dress in strange costumes, and make odd noises, 
 which they called singing, the Earl had carefully engaged, and 
 planted in the best places for making them look still stranger 
 than they were. 
 
 There was also plenty to eat, and more than plenty to drink. 
 Mauleverer knew well that our countrymen and country- 
 women, whatever be their rank, like to have their spirits exalted. 
 In short, the whole dtjeAner was so admirably contrived, that 
 it was probable the guests would not look much more melan- 
 choly during the amusements, than they would have done had 
 they been otherwise engaged at a funeral. 
 
 Lucy and the squire were among the first arrivals. 
 
 Mauleverer, approaching the father and daughter with his 
 most courtly manner, insisted on taking the latter under his 
 own esc-ort, and being her cicerone through the round of prep- 
 arations. 
 
 As the crowd thickened, and it was observed how gallant 
 were the attentions testified towards Lucy by the host, many 
 and envious were the whispers of the guests ! Those good 
 people, naturally angry at the thought that two individuals 
 should be married, divided themselves into two parties : one 
 abused Lucy, and the other Lord Mauleverer; the former 
 vituperated her art, the latter his folly. "I thought she would 
 play her cards well deceitful creature!" said the one. "Jan- 
 uary and May," muttered the other; "the man's sixty!" It 
 was noticeable that the party against Lucy was chiefly composed 
 of ladies, that against Mauleverer of men ; that conduct must
 
 228 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 indeed be heinous which draws down the indignation of one's 
 own sex! 
 
 Unconscious of her crimes, Lucy moved along, leaning on 
 the arm of the gallant Earl, and languidly smiling, with her 
 heart far away, at his endeavors to amuse her. There was 
 something interesting in the mere contrast of the pair; so 
 touching seemed the beauty of the young girl, with her delicate 
 cheek, maiden form, drooping eyelid, and quiet simplicity of 
 air, in comparison to the worldly countenance and artificial 
 grace of her companion. 
 
 After some time, when they were in a sequestered part of the 
 grounds, Mauleverer, observing that none were near, entered a 
 rude hut ; and so fascinated was he at that moment by the 
 beauty of his guest, and so meet to him seemed the opportu- 
 nity of his confession, that he with difficulty suppressed the 
 avowal rising to his lips, and took the more prudent plan of 
 first sounding and preparing, as it were, the way. 
 
 "I cannot tell you, my dear Miss Brandon," said he, slight- 
 ly pressing the beautiful hand leaning on his arm, "how happy 
 I am to see you the guest the queen, rather of my house! 
 Ah! could the bloom of youth return with its feelings! Time 
 is never so cruel as when, while stealing from us the power to 
 please, he leaves us in full vigor the unhappy privilege to be 
 charmed!" 
 
 Mauleverer expected at least a blushing contradiction to the 
 implied application of a sentiment so affectingly expressed : he 
 was disappointed. Lucy, less alive than usual to the senti- 
 mental, or its reverse, scarcely perceived his meaning, and an- 
 swered simply, "That it was very true." "This comes of 
 being, like my friend Burke, too refined for one's audience," 
 thought Mauleverer, wincing a little from the unexpected reply. 
 "And yet!" he resumed, "I would not forego my power to ad- 
 mire, futile nay, painful as it is. Even now while I gaze on 
 you, my heart tells me that the pleasure I enjoy, it is at your 
 command, at once, and for ever, to blight into misery ; but while 
 it tells me, I gaze on!" 
 
 Lucy raised her eyes, and something of her natural archness 
 played in their expression. 
 
 "I believe, my lord," said she, moving from the hut, "that 
 it would be better to join your guests : walls have ears ; and 
 what would be the gay Lord Mauleverer's- self-reproach, if he 
 heard again of his fine compliments to ?" 
 
 "The most charming person in Europe!" cried Mauleverer 
 vehemently, and the hand which he before touched he now
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 229 
 
 clasped : at that instant Lucy saw opposite to her, half hid by 
 a copse of evergreens, the figure of Clifford. His face, which 
 seemed pale and wan, was not directed towards the place where 
 she stood ; and he evidently did not perceive Mauleverer or 
 herself, yet so great was the effect that this glimpse of him 
 produced on Lucy, that she trembled violently, and, uncon- 
 sciously uttering a faint cry, snatched her hand from Mauleverer. 
 
 The Earl started, and, catching the expression of her eyes, 
 turned instantly towards the spot to which her gaze seemed 
 riveted. He had not heard the rustling of the boughs, but he 
 saw, with his habitual quickness of remark, that they still 
 trembled, as if lately displaced ; and he caught through their 
 interstices the glimpse of a receding figure. He sprang forward 
 with an agility very uncommon to his usual movements ; but 
 before he gained the copse, every vestige of the intruder had 
 vanished. 
 
 What slaves we are to the moment! As Mauleverer turned 
 back to rejoin Lucy, who, agitated almost to fainting, leaned 
 against the rude wall of the hut, he would as soon have thought 
 of flying as of making that generous offer of self, etc., which 
 the instant before he had been burning to render Lucy. The 
 vain are always sensitively jealous, and Mauleverer, remember- 
 ing Clifford, and Lucy's blushes in dancing with him, instantly 
 accounted for her agitation and its cause. With a very grave 
 air he approached the object of his late adoration, and re- 
 quested to know if it were not some abrupt intruder that had 
 occasioned her alarm. Lucy, scarcely knowing what she said, 
 answered in a low voice, "That it was, indeed!" and begged 
 instantly to rejoin her father. Mauleverer off ered his arm with 
 great, dignity and the pair passed into the frequented part of the 
 grounds, where Mauleverer once more brightened into smiles 
 and courtesy to all around him. 
 
 "He is certainly accepted!" said Mr. Shrewd to Lady Sim- 
 per. 
 
 "What an immense match for the girl! "was Lady Simper's 
 reply. 
 
 Amidst the music, the dancing, the throng, the noise, Lucy 
 found it easy to recover herself; and disengaging her arm 
 from Lord Mauleverer, as she perceived her father, she re- 
 joined the squire, and remained a patient listener to his remarks 
 till, late in the noon, it became an understood matter that 
 people were expected to go into a long room in order to eat 
 and drink. Mauleverer, now alive to the duties of his situa- 
 tion, and feeling exceedingly angry with Lucy, was more rec-
 
 230 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 onciled than he otherwise might have been to the etiquette 
 which obliged him to select for the object of his hospitable 
 cares an old dowager duchess instead of the beauty of the fete ; 
 but he took care to point out to the squire the places appointed 
 for himself and daughter, which were, though at some distance 
 from the Earl, under the providence of his vigilant survey. 
 
 While Mauleverer was deifying the dowager duchess, and 
 refreshing his spirits with a chicken and a medicinal glass of 
 Madeira, the conversation near Lucy turned, to her infinite 
 dismay, upon Clifford. Some one had seen him in the grounds, 
 booted, and in a riding undress (in that day people seldom 
 rode and danced in the same conformation of coat), and as 
 Mauleverer was a precise person about those little matters of 
 etiquette, this negligence of Clifford's made quite a subject of 
 discussion. By degrees the conversation changed into the old 
 inquiry as to who this Captain Clifford was ; and just as it had 
 reached that point, it reached also the gently deafened ears of 
 Lord Mauleverer. 
 
 "Pray, my lord," said the old duchess, "since he is one of 
 your guests, you, who know who and what every one is, can 
 possibly inform us of the real family of this beautiful Mr. Clif- 
 ford?" 
 
 "One of my guests, did you say?" answered Mauleverer, ir- 
 ritated greatly beyond his usual quietness of manner: "really, 
 your grace does me wrong. He may be a guest of my valet, 
 but he assuredly is riot mine ; and should I encounter him, I 
 shall leave it to my valet to give him his conge' as well as his 
 invitation!" 
 
 Mauleverer, heightening his voice as he observed athwart 
 the table an alternate paleness and flush upon Lucy's face, 
 which stung all the angrier passions, generally torpid in him, 
 into venom, looked round, on concluding, with a haughty and 
 sarcastic air: so loud had been his tone, so pointed the insult, 
 and so dead the silence at the table while he spoke, that every 
 one felt the affront must be carried at once to Clifford's hear- 
 ing, should he be in the room. And after Mauleverer had 
 ceased, there was an universal nervous and indistinct expecta- 
 tion of an answer and a scene ; all was still, and it soon be- 
 came certain that Clifford was not in the apartment. When 
 Mr. Shrewd had fully convinced himself of this fact (for there 
 was a daring spirit about Clifford which few wished to draw 
 upon themselves), that personage broke the pause by observing 
 that no man, who pretended to be a gentleman, would intrude 
 himself, unasked and unwelcome, into any society ; and Maul-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 2^1 
 
 everer, catching up the observation said (drinking wine at the 
 same time with Mr. Shrewd), that undoubtedly such conduct 
 fully justified the rumors respecting Mr. Clifford and utterly 
 excluded him from that rank to which it was before more than 
 suspected he had no claim. 
 
 So luminous and satisfactory an opinion from such an au- 
 thority, once broached, was immediately and universally echoed ; 
 and long before the repast was over it seemed to be tacitly 
 agreed that Captain Clifford should be sent to Coventry, and if 
 he murmured at the exile, he would have no right to insist upon 
 being sent thence to the devil. 
 
 The good old squire mindful of his former friendship for 
 Clifford and not apt to veer, was about to begin a speech on 
 the occasion, when Lucy, touching his arm, implored him to be 
 silent; and so ghastly was the paleness of her cheek while she 
 spoke, that the squire's eyes, obtuse as he generally was, 
 opened at once to the real secret of her heart. As soon as 
 the truth flashed upon him, he wondered, recalling Clifford's 
 great personal beauty and marked attentions, that it had not 
 flashed upon him sooner ; and leaning back on his chair, he 
 sunk into one of the most unpleasant reveries he had ever con- 
 ceived. 
 
 At a given signal the music for the dancers recommenced, 
 and, at a hint to that effect from the host, persons rose with- 
 out ceremony to repair to other amusements, and suffer such 
 guests as had hitherto been excluded from eating to occupy 
 the place of the relinquishers. Lucy, glad to escape, was one 
 of the first to resign her situation, and with the squire she re- 
 turned to the grounds. During the banquet, evening had closed 
 in, and the scene now really became fairylike and picturesque; 
 lamps hung from many a tree, reflecting the light through the 
 richest and softest hues, the music itself sounded more musical- 
 ly than during the day, gypsy-tents were pitched at wild cor- 
 ners and copses, and the bright wood-fires burning in them 
 blazed merrily upon the cold yet cheerful air of the increasing 
 night. The view was really novel and inviting; and as it had 
 been an understood matter that ladies were to bring furs, cloaks, 
 and boots, all those who thought they looked well in such array 
 made little groups, and scattered themselves about the grounds 
 and in the tents. They, on the contrary, in whom "the purple 
 light of love" was apt by the frost to be propelled from the 
 cheeks to the central ornament of the face, or who thought a 
 fire in a room quite as agreeable as a fire in a tent, remained 
 within, and contemplated the scene through the open windows.
 
 232 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Lucy longed to return home, nor was the squire reluctant; 
 but, unhappily, it wanted an hour to the time at which the 
 carriage had been ordered, and she mechanically joined a 
 group of guests, who had persuaded the good-natured squire to 
 forget his gout, and venture forth to look at the illuminations. 
 Her party was soon joined by others, and the group gradually 
 thickened into a crowd; the throng was stationary for a few 
 minutes before a little temple, in which fireworks had just com- 
 menced an additional attraction to the scene. Opposite to this 
 temple, as well as in its rear, the walks and trees had been pur- 
 posely left in comparative darkness, in order to heighten the 
 effect of the fireworks. 
 
 "I declare," said Lady Simper, glancing down one of the 
 alleys which seemed to stretch away into blackness, "I de- 
 clare it seems quite a lovers' walk ! how kind in Lord Maul- 
 everer! such a delicate attention " 
 
 "To your ladyship!" added Mr. Shrewd, with a bow. 
 
 While, one of this crowd, Lucy was vacantly eyeing the long 
 trains of light which ever and anon shot against the sky, she 
 felt her hand suddenly seized, and at the same time a voice 
 whispered, "For God's sake, read this now .and grant my re- 
 quest!" 
 
 The voice, which seemed to rise from the very heart of the 
 speaker, Lucy knew at once; she trembled violently, and re- 
 mained for some minutes with eyes which did not dare to look 
 from the ground. A note she felt had been left in her hand, 
 and the agonized and earnest tone of that voice, which was 
 dearer to her ear than the fullness of all music, made her im- 
 patient yet afraid to read it. As she recovered courage she 
 looked around, and seeing that the attention of all was bent 
 upon the fireworks, and that her father, in particular, leaning 
 on his cane, seemed to enjoy the spectacle with a child's en- 
 grossed delight, she glided softly away, and entering unper- 
 ceived one of the alleys, she read, by a solitary lamp that 
 burned at its entrance, the following lines written in pencil and 
 in a hurried hand, apparently upon a leaf torn from a pocket- 
 book : 
 
 "I implore I entreat you, Miss Brandon, to see me, if but 
 for a moment. I purpose to tear myself away from the place 
 in which you reside to go abroad to leave even the spot hal- 
 lowed by your footstep. After this night, my presence, my 
 presumption, will degrade you no more. But this night, for 
 mercy's sake, see me or I shall go mad! I will but speak to 
 y<ju one instant: this is all I ask. If you grant me this prayer,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 2$$ 
 
 the walk to the left where you stand, at the entrance to which 
 there is one purple lamp, will afford an opportunity to your 
 mercy. A few yards down that walk I will meet you none 
 can see or hear us. Will you grant this? I know not I dare 
 not think : but under any case, your name shall be the last 
 upon my lips. p ~ ,,- 
 
 As Lucy read this hurried scrawl, she glanced towards the 
 lamp above her, and saw that she had accidentally entered the 
 very walk indicated in the note. She paused she hesitated ; 
 the impropriety the singularity of the request, darted upon 
 her at once ; on the other hand, the anxious voice still ringing 
 in her ear, the incoherent vehemence of the note, the risk, the 
 opprobrium Clifford had incurred, solely her heart whispered 
 to see her, all aided her simple temper, her kind feelings, and 
 her love for the petitioner, in inducing her to consent. She 
 cast one glance behind, all seemed occupied with far other 
 thoughts than that of notice towards her; she looked anxiously 
 before, all looked gloomy and indistinct; but suddenly, at 
 some little distance, she descried a dark figure in motion. 
 She felt her knees shake under her, her heart beat violently ; 
 she moved onward a few paces, again paused, and looked back ; 
 the figure before her moved as in approach, she resumed cour- 
 age, and advanced the figure was by her side. 
 
 "How generous, how condescending, is this goodness in Miss 
 Brandon!" said the voice, which so struggled with secret and 
 strong emotion, that Lucy scarcely recognized it as Clifford's. 
 "I did not dare to expect it; and now now that I meet 
 you " Clifford paused, as if seeking words; and Lucy, 
 even through the dark, perceived that her strange companion 
 was powerfully excited ; she waited for him to continue, but 
 observing that he walked on in silence, she said, though with a 
 trembling voice, "Indeed, Mr. Clifford, I fear that it is very, 
 very improper in me to meet you thus; nothing but the strong 
 expressions in your letter and and in short my fear that 
 you meditated some desperate design, at which I could not 
 guess, caused me to yield to your wish for an interview." She 
 paused, and Clifford still preserving silence, she added, with 
 some little coldness in her tone, "If you have really aught to 
 say to me, you must allow me to request that you speak it 
 quickly. This interview, you must be sensible, ought to end 
 almost as soon as it begins." 
 
 "Hear me then!" said Clifford, masteringhis embarassment, 
 and speaking in a firm and clear voice "is that true, which I
 
 234 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 have but just heard. is it true that I have been spoken of in 
 your presence in terms of insult and affront?" 
 
 It was now for Lucy to feel embarrassed ; fearful to give 
 pain, and yet anxious that Clifford should know, in order that 
 he might disprove, the slight and the suspicion which the 
 mystery around him drew upon his name, she faltered between 
 the two feelings, and, without satisfying the latter, succeeded in 
 realizing the fear of the former. 
 
 "Enough!" said Clifford in a tone of deep mortification, as 
 his quick ear caught and interpreted, yet more humiliatingly 
 than the truth, the meaning of her stammered and confused 
 reply. "Enough! I see that it is true, and that the only hu- 
 man being in the world to whose good opinion I am not in- 
 different has been a witness of the insulting manner in which 
 others have dared to speak of me!" 
 
 "But." said Lucy, eagerly, "why give the envious or the idle 
 any excuse? Why not suffer your parentage and family to be 
 publicly known? Why are you here" (and her voice sunk 
 into a lower key) "this very day, unasked, and therefore 
 subject to the cavils of all who think the poor distinction of an 
 invitation an honor? Forgive me, Mr. Clifford, perhaps I of- 
 fend, I hurt you by speaking thus frankly ; but your good 
 name rests with yourself, and your friends cannot but feel 
 angry that you should trifle with it.'" 
 
 "Madam!" said Clifford, and Lucy's eyes, now growing 
 accustomed to the darkness, perceived a bitter smile upon his 
 lips, "my name, good or ill, is an object of little care to me. 
 I have read of philosophers who pride themselves in placing no 
 value in the opinions of the world. Rank me among that sect 
 but I am, I own I am, anxious that you alone, of all the world, 
 should not despise me ; and now that I feel you do that you 
 must everything worth living or hoping for is past!" 
 
 "Despise you!" said Lucy, and her eyes filled with tears ; "in- 
 deed you Ayrong me and yourself. But listen to me, Mr. Clif- 
 ford: I have seen, it is true, but little of the world, yet I have 
 seen enough to make me wish I could have lived in retirement 
 for ever; the rarest quality among either sex, though it is the 
 simplest, seems to me good-nature ; and the only occupation 
 of what are termed fashionable people appears to be speaking 
 ill of one another : nothing gives such a scope to scandal as mys- 
 ery; nothing disarms it like openness. I know your friends 
 know, Mr. Clifford, that your character can bear inspection, 
 and I believe, for my own part, the same of your family. Why 
 not, then, declare who and what you are?"
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 235 
 
 "That candor would indeed be my best defender," said Clif- 
 ford, in a tone which ran displeasingly through Lucy's ear; 
 "but in truth, madam, I repeat, I care not one drop of this 
 worthless blood what men say of me ; that time has passed, and 
 forever: perhaps it never keenly existed for me no matter. 
 I came hither, Miss Brandon, not wasting a thought on these 
 sickening fooleries, or on the hoary idler by whom they are 
 given! I came hither, only once more to see you to hear you 
 speak to watch you move to tell you (and the speaker's 
 voice trembled, so as to be scarcely audible) to tell you, if any 
 reason for the disclosure offered itself, that I have had the bold- 
 ness the crime to love to love O God ! to adore you ! and 
 then to leave you for ever!" 
 
 Pale, trembling, scarcely preserved from falling by the tree 
 against which she leaned, Lucy listened to this abrupt avowal. 
 
 "Dare I touch this hand," continued Clifford, as he knelt 
 and took it, timidly and reverently: "you know not, you can- 
 not dream, how unworthy is he who thus presumes yet, not 
 all unworthy, while he is sensible of so deep, so holy a feeling as 
 that which he bears to you. God bless you, Miss Brandon! 
 Lucy, God bless you! and if, hereafter, you hear me sub- 
 jected to still blacker suspicion, or severer scrutiny, than that 
 which I now sustain if even your charity and goodness can 
 find no defence for me, if the suspicion become certainty, and 
 the scrutiny end in condemnation, believe, at least, that cir- 
 cumstances have carried me beyond my nature ; and that under 
 fairer auspices I might have been other than I am!" Lucy's 
 tear dropped upon Clifford's hand, as he spoke; and while his 
 heart melted within him as he felt it, and knew his own des- 
 perate and unredeemed condition, he added: 
 
 "Every one courts you the proud, the rich, the young, the 
 high-born, all are at your feet! You will select one of that 
 number for your husband: may he watch over you as I would 
 have done! love you as I do he cannot! Yes, I repeat it!" 
 continued Clifford vehemently, "he cannot! None amidst the 
 gay, happy, silken crowd of your equals and followers can feel 
 for you that single and overruling passion, which makes you to 
 me what all combined country, power, wealth, reputation, 
 an honest name, peace, common safety, the quiet of the 
 common air, alike the least blessing and the greatest are to all 
 others ! Once more, may God in heaven watch over you and 
 preserve you ! I tear myself, on leaving you, from all that 
 cheers, or blesses, or raises, or might have saved me! Fare- 
 well!"
 
 236 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 The hand which Lucy had relinquished to her strange suitor 
 was pressed ardently to his lips, dropped in the same instant, 
 and she knew that she was once more alone. 
 
 But Clifford, hurrying rapidly through the trees, made his 
 way towards the nearest gate which led from Lord Mauleverer's 
 domain ; when he reached it, a crowd of the more elderly 
 guests occupied the entrance, and one of these was a lady of such 
 distinctin, that Mauleverer, in spite of his aversion to any 
 superfluous exposure to the night air. had obliged himself to 
 conduct her to her carriage. He was in a very ill humor with 
 this constrained politeness, especially as the carriage was very 
 slow in relieving him of his charge, when he saw, by the lamp- 
 light, Clifford passing near him, and winning his way to the 
 gate. Quite forgetting his worldly prudence, which should have 
 made him averse to scenes with any one, especially with a fly- 
 ing enemy, and a man with whom, if he believed aright, little 
 glory was to be gained in conquest, much less in contest ; and 
 only remembering Clifford's rivalship, and his own hatred to- 
 wards him for the presumption, Mauleverer uttering a hurried 
 apology to the lady on his arm, stepped forward, and opposing 
 Clifford's progress, said, with a bow of tranquil insult, "Par- 
 don me, sir, but is it at my invitation, or that of one of my 
 servants, that you have honored me with your company this 
 day?" 
 
 Clifford's thoughts at the time of this interruption were of 
 that nature before which all petty misfortunes shrink into 
 nothing; if, therefore, he started for a moment at the earl's 
 address, he betrayed no embarassment in reply, but bowing 
 with an air of respect, and taking no notice of the affront im- 
 plied in Mauleverer's speech, he answered: 
 
 "Your lordship has only to deign a glance at my dress, to 
 see that I have not intruded myself on your grounds with the 
 intention of claiming your hospitality. The fact is, and I trust 
 to your lordship's courtesy to admit the excuse, that I leave 
 this neighborhood to-morrow, and for some length of time. A 
 person whom I was very anxious to see before I left was one 
 of your lordship's guests ; I heard this and knew that I should 
 have no other opportunity of meeting the person in question be- 
 fore my departure; and I must now throw myself on the well- 
 known politeness of Lord Mauleverer, to pardon a freedom 
 originating in a business very much approaching to a neces- 
 sity!" 
 
 Lord Mauleverer's address to Clifford had congregated an 
 immediate crowd of eager and expectant listeners, but so
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 237 
 
 quietly respectful and really gentlemanlike were Clifford's ait 
 and tone in excusing himself, that the whole throng were smit- 
 ten with a sudden disappointment. 
 
 Lord Mauleverer himself, surprised by the temper and de- 
 portment of the unbidden guest, was at a loss for one moment ; 
 and Clifford was about to take advantage of that moment and 
 glide away, when Mauleverer, with a second bow, more civil 
 than the former one, said : 
 
 "I cannot but be happy, sir, that my poor place has afforded 
 you any convenience; but, if I am not very impertinent, will 
 you allow me to inquire the name of my guest with whom you 
 required a meeting?" 
 
 "My lord," said Clifford, drawing himself up, and speaking 
 gravely and sternly, though still with a certain deference "I 
 need not surely point out to your lordship's good sense and 
 good feeling, that your very question implies a doubt, and, con- 
 sequently, an affront, and that the tone of it is not such as to 
 justify that concession on my part which the farther explana- 
 tion you require would imply!" 
 
 Few spoken sarcasms could be so bitter as that silent one 
 which Mauleverer could command by a smile, and, with this 
 complimentary expression on his thin lips and raised brow, the 
 Earl answered : ' ' Sir, I honor the skill testified by your reply ; 
 it must be the result of a profound experience in these affairs. 
 I wish you, sir, a very good night ; and the next time you favor 
 me with a visit, I am quite sure that your motives for so 
 indulging me will be no less creditable to you than at 
 present." 
 
 With these words, Mauleverer turned to rejoin his fair 
 charge. But Clifford was a man who had seen in a short time 
 a great deal of the world, and knew tolerably well the theories of 
 society, if not the practice of its minutiae ; moreover, he was 
 of an acute and resolute temper, and these properties of mind, 
 natural and acquired, told him that he was now in a situation 
 in which it had become more necessary too defy than to con- 
 ciliate. Instead therefore of retiring he walked deliberately up 
 to Mauleverer, and said : 
 
 "My lord, I shall leave it to the judgment of your guests to 
 decide whether you have acted the part of a nobleman and a 
 gentleman in thus, in your domains, insulting one who has given 
 you such explanation of his trespass as would fully excuse him 
 in the eyes of all considerate or courteous persons. I shall also 
 leave it to them to decide whether the tone of your inquiry 
 allowed me to give you any farther apology. But I shall take
 
 338 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 it upon myself, my lord, to demand from you an immediate 
 explanation of your last speech." 
 
 "Insolent!" cried Mauleverer, coloring with indignation, and 
 almost for the first time in his life losing absolute command 
 over his temper; "do you bandy words with me? 'Begone, 
 or I shall order my servants to thrust you forth!" 
 
 "Begone, sir! begone!" cried several voices in echo to 
 Mauleverer, from those persons who deemed it now high time 
 to take part with the powerful. 
 
 Clifford stood his ground, gazing around with a look of 
 angry and defying contempt, which, joined to his athletic frame, 
 his dark and fierce eye, and a heavy riding-whip, which, as if 
 mechanically, he half raised, effectually kept the murmurers 
 from proceeding to violence. 
 
 "Poor pretender .to breeding and to sense!" said he, dis- 
 dainfully turning to Mauleverer; "with one touch of this whip 
 I could shame you forever, or compel you to descend from the 
 level of your rank to that of mine, and the action would be but 
 a mild return to your language. But I love rather to teach you 
 than to correct. According to my creed, my lord, he con- 
 quers most in good breeding who forbears the most scorn en- 
 bles me to forbear! Adieu!" 
 
 With this, Clifford turned on his heel and strode away. A 
 murmur, approaching to a groan, from the younger or sillier 
 part of the parasites (the mature and the sensible have no extra 
 emotion to throw away), followed him as he disappeared. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Outlaw. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you ! 
 Val. Ruffians, forego that rude, uncivil touch ! 
 
 7 'wo Gentlemen of Verona. 
 
 ON leaving the scene in which he had been so unwelcome a 
 guest, Clifford hastened to the little inn where he had left his 
 horse. He mounted and returned to Bath. His thoughts we.re 
 absent, and he unconsciously suffered the horse to direct its 
 course whither it pleased. This was naturally towards the 
 nearest halting-place which the animal remembered; and this 
 halting-place was at that illustrious tavern, in the suburbs of 
 the *own, in which we have before commemorated Clifford's re- 
 election to the dignity of chief. It was a house of long-estab- 
 lished reputation ; and here news of any of the absent confeder-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 2^0 
 
 ates was always to be obtained. This circumstance, added to 
 the excellence of its drink, its ease, and the electric chain of early 
 habits, rendered it a favorite haunt, even despite their present 
 gay and modish pursuits, with Tomlinson and Pepper; and 
 here, when Clifford sought the pair at unseasonable hours, was 
 he for the most part sure to find them. As his meditations 
 were interrupted by the sudden stopping of his horse beneath 
 the well-known sign, Clifford, muttering an angry malediction 
 on the animal, spurred it onward in the direction of his own 
 home. He had already reached the end of the street, when 
 his resolution seemed to change, and muttering to himself, "Ay, 
 I might as well arrange this very night for our departure!" he 
 turned his horse's head backward, and was once more at the 
 tavern door. He threw the bridle over an iron railing, and 
 knocking with a peculiar sound at the door, was soon admitted. 
 
 "Are and here?" asked he of the old woman, asne 
 
 entered, mentioning the cant words by which, among friends, 
 Tomlinson and Pepper were usually known. "They are both 
 gone on the sharps to-night," replied the old lady, lifting her 
 unsnuffed candle to the face of the speaker, with an intelligent 
 look. "Oliver* is sleepy, and the lads will take advantage of 
 his nap." 
 
 "Do you mean," answered Clifford, replying in the same 
 key, which we take the liberty to paraphrase, "that they are 
 out on any actual expedition?" 
 
 "To be sure," rejoined the dame. "They who lag late on 
 the road may want money for supper!" 
 
 "Ha! which road?" 
 
 "You are a pretty fellow for captain!" rejoined the dame, 
 with a good-natured sarcasm in her tone. "Why, Captain 
 Gloak, poor fellow! knew every turn of his men to a hair, and 
 never needed to ask what they were about. Ah, he was a fel- 
 low ! none of your girl-faced mudgers, who make love to ladies, 
 forsooth a pretty woman need not look far for a kiss when he 
 was in the room, I warrant, however coarse her duds might be; 
 and lauk ! but the captain was a sensible man, and liked a cow 
 as well as a calf." 
 
 "So, so! on the road are they?" cried Clifford musingly, 
 and without heeding the insinuated attack on his decorum. 
 "But answer me, what is the plan? Be quick." 
 
 "Why," replied the dame, "there's some swell cove of a lord 
 gives a blow-out to-day, and the lads, dear souls! think to 
 play the queer on some straggler." 
 
 * The moan.
 
 240 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Without uttering a word, Clifford darted from the house, and 
 was remounted before the old lady had time to recover her 
 surprise. 
 
 "If you want to see them," cried she, as he put spurs to his 
 horse, "they ordered me to have supper ready at " The 
 horse's hoofs drowned the last words of the dame, and care- 
 fully rebolting the door, and muttering an invidious compar- 
 ison between Captain Clifford and Captain Gloak, the good 
 landlady returned to those culinary operations destined to 
 rejoice the hearts of Tomlinson and Pepper. 
 
 , Return we ourselves to Lucy. It so happened that the 
 squire's carriage was the last to arrive ; for the coachman, long 
 uninitiated among the shades of Warlock into the dissipation 
 of fashionable life, entered on his debut at Bath, with all the 
 vigorous heat of matured passions for the first time released, 
 into the festivities of the ale-house, and having a milder mas- 
 ter than most of his comrades, the fear of displeasure was less 
 strong in his aurigal bosom than the love of companionship; so 
 that during the time this gentleman was amusing himself, Lucy 
 had ample leisure for enjoying all the thousand-and-one reports 
 of the scene between Mauleverer and Clifford, which regaled 
 her ears. Nevertheless, whatever might have been her feelings 
 at these pleasing recitals, a certain vague joy predominated 
 over all. A man feels but slight comparative happiness in 
 being loved, if he know that rt is vain. But to a woman that 
 simple knowledge is sufficient to destroy the memory of a thou- 
 sand distresses, and it is not till she has told her heart again 
 and again that she is loved, that she will even begin to ask if 
 it be in vain. 
 
 It was a partially starlit, yet a dim and obscure night, for 
 the moon had for the last hour or two been surrounded by mist 
 and cloud, when at length the carriage arrived ; and Maul- 
 everer, for the second time that evening playing the escort, con- 
 ducted Lucy to the vehicle. Anxious to learn if she had seen 
 or been addressed by Clifford, the subtle Earl, as he led her to 
 the gate, dwelt particularly on the intrusion of that person, and 
 by the trembling of the hand which rested on his arm, he drew 
 no delicious omen for his own hopes. "However," thought 
 he, "the man goes to-morrow, and then the field will be clear; 
 the girl's a child yet, and I forgive her folly." And with an 
 air of chivalric veneration, Mauleverer, bowed the object of 
 his pardon into her carriage. 
 
 As soon as Lucy felt herself alone with her father, the emo- 
 tions so long pent within her forced themselves into vent, and
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. HI 
 
 leaning back against the carriage she wept, though in silence, 
 tears, burning tears, of sorrow, comfort, agitation, anxiety. 
 
 The good old squire was slow in perceiving his daughter's 
 emotion ; it would have escaped him altogether, if, actuated by 
 a kindly warming of the heart towards her, originating in his 
 new suspicion of her love for Clifford, he had not put his arm 
 round her neck; and this unexpected caress so entirely un- 
 strung her nerves, that Lucy at once threw herself upon her 
 father's breast, and her weeping, hitherto so quiet, became 
 distinct and audible. 
 
 "Be comforted, my dear, dear child!" said the squire, 
 almost affected to tears himself; and his emotion, arousing 
 him from his usual mental confusion, rendered his words less 
 involved and equivocal than they were wont to be. "And now 
 I do hope that you won't vex yourself ; the young man is indeed 
 and, I do assure you, I always thought so a very charming 
 gentleman, there's no denying it. But what can we do? You 
 see what they all say of him, and it really was we must allow 
 that very improper in him to come without being asked. 
 Moreover, my dearest child, it is very wrong, very wrong, 
 indeed, to love any one, and not know who he is; and and 
 but don't cry, my dear love, don't cry so; all will be very well, 
 I am sure quite sure!" 
 
 As he said this, the kind old man drew his daughter nearer 
 him, and feeling his hand hurt by something she wore 
 unseen which pressed against it, he inquired with some 
 suspicion that the love might have proceeded to love-gifts, 
 what it was. 
 
 "It is my mother's picture," said Lucy, simply, and putting 
 it aside. 
 
 The old squire had loved his wife tenderly, and when Lucy 
 made this reply, all the fond and warm recollections of his 
 youth rushed upon him; he thought, too, how earnestly on her 
 death-bed that wife had recommended to his vigilant care their 
 only child now weeping on his bosom ; he remembered how, 
 dwelling on that which to all women seems the grand epoch of 
 life, she had said, "Never let her affections be trifled with, 
 never be persuaded by your ambitious brother to make her 
 marry where she loves not, or to oppose her, without strong 
 reason, where she does: though she be but a child now, I know 
 enough of her to feel convinced that if ever she love, she will 
 love too well for her own happiness, even with all things in her 
 favor." These words, these recollections, joined to the re- 
 membrance of the cold-hearted scheme of William Brandon,
 
 42 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 which he had allowed. himself to favor, and of his own supine- 
 ness towards Lucy's growing love for Clifford, till resistance 
 became at once necessary and too late, all smote him with a 
 remorseful sorrow, and fairly sobbing himself, he said, "Thy 
 mother, child! ah, would that she were living, she would never 
 have neglected thee as I have done!" 
 
 The squire's self-reproach made Lucy's tears cease on the 
 instant, and, as she covered her father's hand with kisses, she 
 replied only by vehement accusations against herself, and 
 praises of his too great fatherly fondness and affection. This 
 little burst, on both sides, of honest and simple-hearted love, 
 ended in a silence full of tender and mingled thoughts; and as 
 Lucy still clung to the breast of the old man, uncouth as he 
 was in temper, below even mediocrity in intellect, and alto- 
 gether the last person in age, or mind, or habit, that seemed 
 fit for a confidant in the love of a young and enthusiastic girl, 
 she felt the old homely truth, that under all disadvantages there 
 are, in this hollow world, few in whom trust can be so safely 
 reposed, few who so delicately and subtilely respect the confi- 
 dence, as those from whom we spring. 
 
 The father and daughter had been silent for some minutes, 
 and the former was about to speak, when the carriage suddenly 
 stopped. The squire heard a rough voice at the horse's heads ; 
 he looked forth from the window to see, through the mist of 
 the night, what could possibly be the matter, and he encoun- 
 tered in this action, just one inch from his forehead, the pro- 
 truded and shining barrel of a horse-pistol. We may believe, 
 without a reflection on his courage, that Mr. Brandon threw 
 himself back into his carriage with all possible despatch; and 
 at the same moment the door was opened, and a voice said, 
 not in a threatening, but a smooth accent, "Ladies and gentle- 
 men, I am sorry to disturb you, but want is imperious : oblige 
 me with your money, your watches, your rings, and any other 
 little commodities of a similar nature!" 
 
 So delicate a request the squire had not the heart to resist, 
 the more especially as he knew himself without any weapon of 
 defence; accordingly he drew out a purse, not very full it must 
 be owned, together with an immense silver hunting- watch, 
 with a piece of black riband attached to it: "There, sir," 
 said he, with a groan, "don't frighten the young lady." 
 
 The gentle applicant, who indeed was no other than the 
 specious Augustus Tomlinson, slid the purse into his waistcoat 
 pocket, after feeling its contents with a rapid and scientific 
 finger. "Your watch, sir," quoth he, and as he spoke he
 
 PAtlL CLIFFORD. 243 
 
 thrust it carelessly into his coat-pocket, as a school-boy would 
 thrust a peg-top, "is heavy; but trusting to experience, since 
 an accurate survey is denied me, I fear it is more valuable 
 from its weight than its workmanship; however, I will not 
 wound your vanity by affecting to be fastidious. But surely 
 the young lady, as you call her (for I pay you the compli- 
 ment of believing your word as to her age, inasmuch as the 
 night is too dark to allow me the happiness of a personal in- 
 spection), the young lady has surely some little trinket she 
 can dispense with: 'Beauty when unadorned,' you know, etc." 
 
 Lucy, who, though greatly frightened, lost neither her senses 
 nor her presence of mind, only answered by drawing forth a 
 little silk purse, that contained still less than the leathern con- 
 venience of the squire ; to this she added a gold chain ; and 
 Tomlinson, taking them with an affectionate squeeze of the 
 hand, and a polite apology, was about to withdraw, when his 
 sagacious eyes were suddenly stricken by the gleam of jewels. 
 The fact was, that in altering the position of her mother's pic- 
 ture, which had been set in the few hereditary diamonds pos- 
 sessed by the Lord of Warlock, Lucy had allowed it to hang on 
 the outside of her dress, and bending forward to give the rob- 
 ber her other possessions, the diamonds at once came in full 
 sight, and gleamed the more invitingly from the darkness of 
 the night. 
 
 "Ah, madam!" said Tomlinson, stretching forth his hand, 
 "you would play me false, would you? Treachery should never 
 go unpunished. Favor me instantly with the little ornament 
 round your neck!" 
 
 "I cannot I cannot!" said Lucy, grasping her treasure with 
 both her hands, "it is my mother's picture and my mother is 
 dead!" 
 
 "The wants of others, madam," returned Tomlinson, who 
 could not for the life of him rob immorally, "are ever more 
 worthy your attention than family prejudices. Seriously, give 
 it, and that instantly; we are in a hurry, and your horses are 
 plunging like devils: they will break your carriage in an 
 instant despatch ! ' ' 
 
 The squire was a brave man on the whole, though no hero, 
 and the nerves of an old foxhunter soon recover from a little 
 alarm. The picture of his buried wife was yet more inestima- 
 ble to him than it was to Lucy, and at this new demand his 
 spirit was roused within him. 
 
 He clenched his fists, and advancing himself, as it were, on 
 his seat, he cried in a loud voice :
 
 244 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "Begone, fellow! I have given you for my own part I 
 think so too much already; and by G d, you shall not have 
 the picture!" 
 
 "Don't force me to use violence!" said Augustus, and put- 
 ting one foot on the carriage-step, he brought his pistol within 
 a few inches of Lucy's breast, rightly judging, perhaps, that the 
 show of danger to her would be the best method to intimidate the 
 squire. At that instant the valorous moralist found himself 
 suddenly seized with a powerful gripe on the shoulder, and a 
 low voice, trembling with passion, hissed in his ear. Whatever 
 might be the words that startled his organs, they operated as 
 an instantaneous charm ; and to their astonishment, the squire 
 and Lucy beheld their assailant abruptly withdraw. The door 
 of the carriage was clapped to, and scarcely two minutes had 
 elapsed before, the robber having remounted, his comrade 
 (hitherto stationed at the horses' heads) set spurs to his own 
 steed, and the welcome sound of receding hoofs smote upon 
 the bewildered ears of the father and daughter. 
 
 The door of the carriage was again opened, and a voice, 
 which made Lucy paler than the preceding terror, said : 
 
 "I fear, Mr. Brandon, the robbers have frightened your 
 daughter. There is now, however, nothing to fear the 
 ruffians are gone." 
 
 "God bless me!" said the squire: "why, is that Captain 
 Clifford?" 
 
 "It is! and he conceives himself too fortunate to have been 
 of the smallest service to Mr. and Miss Brandon." 
 
 On having convinced himself that it was indeed to Mr. 
 Clifford that he owed his safety, as well as that of his daughter, 
 whom he believed to have been in a far more imminent peril 
 than she really was (for to tell thee the truth, reader, the 
 pistol of Tomlinson was rather calculated for show than use, 
 having a peculiarly long bright barrel with nothing in it) the 
 squire was utterly at a loss how to express his gratitude; and 
 when he turned to Lucy to beg she would herself thank their 
 gallant deliverer, he found that, overpowered with various 
 emotions, she had, for the first time in her life, fainted away. 
 
 "Good Heavens!" cried the alarmed father, "she is dead, 
 my Lucy my Lucy they have killed her!" 
 
 To open the door nearest to Lucy, to bear her from the car- 
 riage in his arms, was to Clifford the work of an instant ; utterly 
 unconscious of the presence of any one else unconscious even 
 of what he did, he poured forth a thousand wild, passionate, yet 
 half audible expressions; and as he bore her to a bank by the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 245 
 
 roadside, and, seating himself, supported her against his bosom, 
 it would be difficult, perhaps, to say, whether something of 
 delight of burning and thrilling delight was not mingled 
 with his anxiety and terror. He chafed her small hands in his 
 own his breath, all trembling and warm, glowed upon her 
 cheek, and once, and but once, his lips drew nearer, and 
 breathing aside the dishevelled richness of her tresses, clung in 
 a long and silent kiss to her own. 
 
 Meanwhile, by the help ; of his footman, who had somewhat 
 recovered his astonished senses, the squire descended from his 
 carriage, and approached with faltering steps the place where 
 his daughter reclined. At the instant that he took her hand, Lucy 
 began to revive, and the first action, in the bewildered uncon- 
 sciousness of awaking, was to throw her arm around the neck 
 of her supporter. 
 
 Could all the hours and realities of hope, joy, pleasure, in 
 Clifford's previous life have been melted down and concentrated 
 into a single emotion, that emotion would have been but tame 
 to the rapture of Lucy's momentary and innocent caress ! And 
 at a later, yet no distant, period, when in the felon's cell the 
 grim visage of Death scowled upon him, it may be questioned 
 whether his thoughts dwelt not far more often on the remem- 
 brance of that delightful moment than on the bitterness and 
 ignominy of an approaching doom! 
 
 "She breathes she moves she wakes!" cried the father; 
 and Lucy, attempting to rise, and recognizing the squire's 
 voice, said faintly, "Thank God, my dear father, you are not 
 hurt! And are they really gone? and where where are we ? " 
 
 The squire, relieving Clifford of his charge, folded his child 
 in his arms, while in his own elucidatory manner he informed 
 her where she was, and with whom. The lovers stood face to 
 face to each other, but what delicious blushes did the night, 
 which concealed all but the outline of their forms, hide from 
 the eyes of Clifford! 
 
 The honest and kind heart of Mr. Brandon was glad of a 
 release to the indulgent sentiments it had always cherished 
 towards the suspected and maligned Clifford, and turning now 
 from Lucy, it fairly poured itself forth upon her deliverer. He 
 grasped him warmly by the hand, and insisted upon his accom- 
 panying them to Bath in the carriage, and allowing the foot- 
 man to ride his horse. This offer was still pending, when the 
 footman, who had been to see after the health and comfort of 
 his fellow-servant, came to inform the party in a dolorous accent 
 of something which, in the confusion and darkness of the
 
 $46 PAtfL CLIFFORD. 
 
 night, they had not yet learned, namely, that the horses and 
 the coachman were gone! 
 
 "Gone!" said the squire "gone! why the villains can't 
 (for my part, I never believe, though I have heard such won- 
 ders of, these sleights of hand) have bagged them!" 
 
 Here a low groan was audible, and the footman, sympathet- 
 ically guided to the spot whence it emanated, found the huge 
 body of the coachman safely deposited, with its face downward, 
 in the middle of the kennel. After this worthy had been lifted to 
 his legs, and had shaken himself into intelligence, it was found 
 that when the robbers had detained the horses, the coachman, 
 who required very little to conquer his more bellicose faculties, 
 had (he himself said, by a violent blow from the ruffian, 
 though, perhaps, the cause lay nearer home) quitted the 
 coach-box for the kennel, the horses grew frightened, and after 
 plunging and rearing till he cared no longer to occupy himself 
 with their arrest, the highwayman had very quietly cut the 
 traces, and by the time present it was not impossible that the 
 horses were almost at the door of their stables at Bath. 
 
 The footman who had apprised the squire of this misfortune 
 was, unlike most news-tellers, the first to offer consolation. 
 
 "There be an excellent public," quoth he, "about a half a 
 mile on, where your honor could get horses ; or, mayhap, if 
 Miss Lucy, poor heart, be faint, you may like to stop for the 
 night." 
 
 Though a walk of half a mile in a dark night, and under 
 other circumstances, would not have seemed a grateful propo- 
 sition, yet, at present, when the squire's imagination had only 
 pictured to him the alternatives of passing the night in the 
 carriage, or of crawling on foot to Bath, it seemed but a very 
 insignificant hardship. And tucking his daughter's arm under 
 his own, while in a kind voice he told Clifford "to support her 
 on the other side," the squire ordered the footman to lead the 
 way with Clifford's horse, and the coachman to follow or be 
 d d, whichever he pleased. 
 
 In silence Clifford offered his arm to Lucy, and silently she 
 accepted the courtesy. The squire was the only talker, and 
 the theme he chose was not ungrateful to Lucy, for it was the 
 praise of her lover. But Clifford scarcely listened, for a thou- 
 sand thoughts and feelings contested within him ; and the light 
 touch of Lucy's hand upon his arm would alone have been 
 sufficient to distract and confuse hisattention. The darkness 
 of the night, the late excitement, the stolen kiss that still 
 glowed upon his lips, the remembrance of Lucy's flattering agi-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 247 
 
 tation in the scene with her at Lord Mauleverer's, the yet 
 warmer one of that unconscious embrace, which still tingled 
 through every nerve of his frame, all conspired with the deli- 
 cious emotion which he now experienced at her presence and her 
 contact to intoxicate and inflame him. Oh, those burning mo- 
 ments in love, when romance has just mellowed into passion, 
 and without losing anything of its luxurious vagueness, mingles 
 the enthusiasm of its dreams with the ardent desires of reality 
 and earth ! That is the exact time, when love has reached its 
 highest point, when all feelings, all thoughts, the whole soul, 
 and the whole mind, are seized and engrossed, when every 
 difficulty weighed in the opposite scale seems lighter than 
 dust, when to renounce the object beloved is the most deadly 
 and lasting sacrifice, and when in so many breasts, where 
 honor, conscience, virtue are far stronger than we can believe 
 them ever to have been in a criminal like Clifford, honor, con- 
 science, virtue have perished at once and suddenly into ashes 
 before that mighty and irresistible fire. 
 
 The servant, who had had previous opportunities of ascer- 
 taining the topography of the "public" of which he spake, and 
 who was perhaps tolerably reconciled to his late terror in the 
 anticipation of renewing his intimacy with "the spirits of the 
 past," now directed the attention of our travellers to a small 
 inn just before them. Mine host had not yet retired to repose, 
 and it was not necessary to knock twice before the door was 
 opened. 
 
 A bright fire, an officious landlady, a commiserate landlord, 
 a warm potation, and the promise of excellent beds, all ap- 
 peared to our squire to make ample amends for the intelligence 
 that the inn was not licensed to let post-horses ; and mine host 
 having promised forthwith to send two stout fellows, a rope, 
 and a cart-horse, to bring the carriage under shelter (for the 
 squire valued the vehicle because it was twenty years old), and, 
 moreover, to have the harness repaired, and the horses ready 
 by an early hour the next day, the good humor of Mr. Brandon 
 rose into positive hilarity. Lucy retired under the auspices of 
 the landlady to bed, and the squire having drunk a bowl of 
 bishop, and discovered a thousand new virtues in Clifford, 
 especially that of never interrupting a good story, clapped the 
 captain on the shoulder, and making him promise not to leave 
 the inn till he had seen him again, withdrew also to the repose 
 of his pillow. Clifford remained below, gazing abstractedly on 
 the fire for some time afterwards ; nor was it till the drowsy 
 chambermaid had thrice informed him of the prepared comforts
 
 248 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of his bed, that he adjourned to his chamber. Even then it 
 seems that sleep did not visit his eyelids, for a wealthy grazier, 
 who lay in the room below, complained bitterly the next morn- 
 ing of some person walking overhead "in all manner of strides, 
 just for all the world like a happarition in boots." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Viola. And dost thou love me ? 
 
 Lysander. . . . Love thee, Viola? 
 Do I not fly tV>ee when my being drinks 
 Light from thine eyes? that flight is all my answer ! 
 
 The Bride, Act ii., Scene I. 
 
 THE curtain meditations of the squire had not been without 
 the produce of a resolve. His warm heart at once reopened to 
 the liking he had formerly conceived for Clifford ; he longed 
 for an opportunity to atone for his past unkindness, and to tes- 
 tify his present gratitude ; moreover, he felt at once indignant 
 at, and ashamed of, his late conduct in joining the popular 
 and, as he now fully believed, the causeless prepossession 
 against his young friend, and before a more present and a 
 stronger sentiment his habitual deference for his brother's coun- 
 sels faded easily away. Coupled with these favorable feelings 
 towards Clifford were his sagacious suspicious, or rather cer- 
 tainty, of Lucy's attachment to her handsome deliverer; and 
 he had at least sufficient penetration to perceive that she was 
 not likely to love him the less for the night's adventure. To 
 all this was added the tender recollection of his wife's parting 
 words ; and the tears and tell-tale agitation of Lucy in the car- 
 riage were sufficient to his simple mind, which knew not how 
 lightly maidens' tears are shed and dried, to confirm the pre- 
 diction of the dear deceased. Nor were the squire's more gen- 
 erous and kindly feelings utterly unmixed with selfish consid- 
 erations. Proud, but not the least ambitious, he was always 
 more ready to confer an honor than receive one, and at heart 
 he was secretly glad at the notion of exchanging, as a son-in- 
 law, the polished and unfamiliar Mauleverer for the agreeable 
 and social Clifford. Such, in "admired disorder," were the 
 thoughts which rolled through the teeming brain of Joseph 
 Brandon, and before he had turned on his left side, which he 
 always did preparatory to surrendering himself to slumber, the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 squire had fully come to a determination most fatal to the 
 schemes of the lawyer and the hopes of the Earl. 
 The next morning, as Lucy was knitting 
 
 " The loose train of her amber-drooping hair" 
 
 before the little mirror of her chamber, which even through 
 its dimmed and darkened glass gave back a face which might 
 have shamed a Grecian vision of Aurora, a gentle tap at her 
 door announced her father. There was in his rosy and comely 
 countenance that expression generally characteristic of a man 
 pleased with himself, and persuaded that he is about to give 
 pleasure. 
 
 "My dear child," said the squire, fondly stroking down the 
 luxuriance of his Lucy's hair, and kissing her darnask cheek, 
 "I am come to have some little conversation with you: sit 
 down now, and (for my part, I love to talk at my ease; and, 
 by the by, shut the window, my love, it is an easterly wind) 
 I wish that we may come to a clear and distinct understanding. 
 Hem ! give me your hand, my child, I think on these mat- 
 ters one can scarcely speak too precisely and to the purpose; 
 although I am well aware (for, for my own part, I always wish 
 to act to every one, to you especially, my dearest child, with 
 the greatest consideration) that we must go to work with as 
 much delicacy as conciseness. You know this Captain Clif- 
 ford, 'tis a brave youth, is it not? well nay, never blush so 
 deeply, there is nothing (for in these matters one can't have 
 all one's wishes, one can't have everything) to be ashamed 
 of! Tell me now, child, dost think he is in love with thee?" 
 
 If Lucy did not immediately answer by words, her pretty 
 lips moved as if she could readily reply ; and, finally, they set- 
 tled into so sweet and so assured a smile, that the squire, fond 
 as he was of "precise" information, was in want of no fuller 
 answer to his question. 
 
 "Ay, ay, young lady," said he, looking at her with all a 
 father's affection, "I see how it is. And, come now, what do 
 you turn away for? Dost think if, as I believe though there 
 are envious persons in the world, as there always are when a 
 man's handsome, or clever, or brave; though, by the way, 
 which is a very droll thing in my eyes, they don't envy, at least 
 not ill-naturedly, a man for being a lord, or rich ; but quite, 
 on the contrary, rank and money seem to make them think one 
 has all the cardinal virtues. Humph! If, I say, this Mr. 
 Clifford should turn out to be a gentleman of family, for you 
 know that is essential, since the Brandons have, as my brother
 
 250 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 has probably told you, been a great race many centuries ago, 
 dost think, my child, that thou couldst give up (the cat is out 
 of the bag) this old lord, and marry a simple gentleman?" 
 
 The hand which the squire had held was now with an arch 
 tenderness applied to his mouth, and when he again seized it 
 Lucy hid her glowing face in his bosom ; and it was only by a 
 whisper, as if the very air was garrulous, that he could draw 
 forth (for now he insisted on a verbal reply) her happy answer. 
 
 We are not afraid that our reader will blame us for not de- 
 tailing the rest of the interview between the father and daugh- 
 ter: it did not last above an hour longer; for the squire de- 
 clared that, for his own part, he hated more words than were 
 necessary. Mr. Brandon was the first to descend to the breakfast, 
 muttering as he descended the stairs, "Well, now, hang me if 
 I am not glad that's off (for I do not like to think much of so 
 silly a matter) my mind. And as for my brother, I shant tell him 
 till it's all over and settled. And if he is angry, he and the old 
 lord may, though I don't mean to be unbrotherly, go to the 
 devil together!" 
 
 When the three were assembled at the breakfast-table, there 
 could not, perhaps, have been found anywhere a stronger con- 
 trast than that which the radiant face of Lucy bore to the hag- 
 gard and worn expression that disfigured the handsome fea- 
 tures of her lover. So marked was the change that one night 
 seemed to have wrought upon Clifford, that even the squire was 
 startled and alarmed at it. But Lucy, whose innocent vanity 
 pleased itself with accounting for the alteration, consoled her- 
 self with the hope of soon witnessing a very different expression 
 on the countenance of her lover ; and though she was silent, 
 and her happiness lay quiet and deep within her, yet in her 
 eyes and lip there was that which seemed to Clifford an insult 
 to his own misery, and stung him to the heart. However, he 
 exerted himself to meet the conversation of the squire, and to 
 mask as well as he was able the evidence of the conflict which 
 still raged within him. 
 
 The morning was wet and gloomy ; it was that drizzling and 
 misty rain which is so especially nutritious to the growth of 
 blue devils, and the jolly squire failed not to rally his young 
 friend upon his feminine susceptibility to the influences of the 
 weather. Clifford replied jestingly, and the jest, if bad, was 
 good enough to content the railer. In this facetious manner 
 passed the time, till Lucy, at the request of her father, left the 
 room to prepare for their return home. 
 
 Drawing his chair near to Clifford's, the squire then com-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 251 
 
 menced in real and affectionate earnest his operations these 
 he had already planned in the following order: they were, 
 first to inquire into, and to learn, Clifford's rank, family, and 
 -prospects ; secondly, having ascertained the proprieties of the 
 outer man, they were to examine the state of the inner one ; 
 and, thirdly, should our skilful inquirer find his guesses at 
 Clifford's affection for Lucy confirmed, they were to expel the 
 modest fear of a repulse, which the squire allowed was natural 
 enough, and to lead the object of the inquiry to a knowledge 
 of the happiness that, Lucy consenting, might be in store for 
 him. While, with his wonted ingenuity, the squire was pursu- 
 ing his benevolent designs, Lucy remained in her own room, in 
 such meditation and such dreams as were natural to a heart so 
 sanguine and enthusiastic. 
 
 She had been more than half an hour alone, when the cham- 
 bermaid of the hostelry knocked at her door, and delivered a 
 message from the sqoire, begging her to come down to him in 
 the parlor. With a heart that beat so violently it almost seemed 
 to wear away its very life, Lucy slowly, and with tremulous 
 steps, descended to the parlor. On opening the door she saw 
 Clifford standing in the recess of the window: his face was 
 partly turned from her, and his eyes downcast. The good old 
 squire sat in an elbow-chair, and a sort of puzzled and half- 
 satisfied complacency gave expression to his features. 
 
 "Come hither, child," said he, clearing his throat; "Captain 
 Clifford ahem! has done you the honor to and I dare 
 say you will be very much surprised not that, for my own 
 part, I think there is much to wonder at in it, but such may be 
 my partial opinion (and /'/ is certainly very natural in me) to 
 make you a declaration of love. He declares, moreover, that 
 he is the most miserable of men, and that he would die sooner 
 than have the presumption to hope. Therefore you see, my 
 love, I have sent for you, to give him permission to destroy 
 himself in any way he pleases ; and I leave him to show cause 
 why (it is a fate that sooner or later happens to all his fellow- 
 men) sentence of death should not be passed against him." 
 Having delivered this speech with more propriety of word 
 than usually fell to his share, the squire rose hastily and hob- 
 bled out of the room. 
 
 Lucy sank into the chair her father had quitted, and Clifford, 
 approaching towards her, said, in a hoarse and low voice : 
 
 "Your father, Miss Brandon, says rightly, that I would 
 die rather than lift my eyes in hope to you. I thought yester- 
 day that I had seen you for the last time ; chance, not my own
 
 23 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 folly or presumption, has brought me again before you; and 
 even the few hours I have passed under the same roof with you 
 have made me feel as if my love my madness had never 
 reached its height till now. Oh, Lucy!" continued Clifford, 
 in a more impassioned tone, and, as if by a sudden and irresis- 
 tible impulse, throwing himself at her feet; "if I could hope 
 to merit you if I could hope to raise myself if I could but 
 no no no! I am cut off from all hope, and forever!" 
 
 There was so deep, so bitter, so heartfelt an anguish and 
 remorse in the voice with which these last words were spoken, 
 that Lucy, hurried off her guard, and forgetting everything in 
 wondering sympathy and compassion, answered, extending her 
 hand towards Clifford, who, still kneeling, seized and covered 
 it with kisses of fire : 
 
 "Do not speak thus, Mr. Clifford; do not accuse yourself of 
 what I am sure, quite sure, you cannot deserve. Perhaps, 
 forgive me, your birth, your fortune, are beneath your merits ; 
 and you have penetrated into my father's weakness on the 
 former point ; or perhaps, you yourself have not avoided all 
 the errors into which men are hurried ; perhaps you have been 
 imprudent or thoughtless ; perhaps you have (fashion is conta- 
 gious) played beyond your means, or incurred debts; these 
 are faults, it is true, to be regretted, yet not surely irre- 
 parable. ' ' 
 
 For that instant can it be wondered that all Clifford's resolu- 
 tion and self-denial deserted him, and lifting his eyes, radiant 
 with joy and gratitude, to the face which bent in benevolent 
 innocence towards him, he exclaimed, "No, Miss Brandon! 
 no, Lucy dear, angel Lucy! my faults are less venial than 
 these, but perhaps they are no less the consequence of circum- 
 stances and contagion ; perhaps it may not be too late to 
 repair them. Would you you indeed, deign to be my guar- 
 dian, I might not despair of being saved!" 
 
 "If," said Lucy, blushing deeply, and looking down, while 
 she spoke quick and eagerly, as if to avoid humbling him by 
 her offer, "if, Mr. Clifford, the want of wealth has in any way 
 occasioned you uneasiness, or or error, do believe me I 
 mean us so much your friends as not for an instant to scru- 
 ple in relieving us of some little portion of our last night's debt 
 to you." 
 
 "Dear, noble girl!" said Clifford, while there writhed upon 
 his lips one of those smiles of powerful sarcasm that sometimes 
 distorted his features, and thrillingly impressed upon Lucy a 
 resemblance to one very different in reputation and character
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 2$3 
 
 to her lover, "Do not attribute my misfortunes to so petty a 
 source ; it is not money that I shall want while I live, though 
 I shall to my last breath remember this delicacy in you, and 
 compare it with certain base remembrances in my own mind. 
 Yes! all past thoughts and recollections will make me hereafter 
 worship you even more than I do now; while in your heart 
 they will unless Heaven grant me one prayer make you 
 scorn and detest me!" 
 
 "For mercy's sake do not speak thus!" said Lucy, gazing 
 in indistinct alarm upon the dark and working features of her 
 lover. "Scorn, detest you! impossible! How could I, after 
 the remembrance of last night?" 
 
 "Ay! of last night," said Clifford, speaking through his 
 ground teeth; "there is much in that remembrance to live long 
 in both of us: but you you fair angel (and all harshness 
 and irony vanishing at once from his voice and countenance, 
 yielded to a tender and deep sadness, mingled with a respect 
 that bordered on reverence), "you never could have dreamed 
 of more than pity for one like me, you never could have 
 stooped from your high and dazzling purity to know for me 
 one such thought as that which burns at my heart for you, 
 you yes, withdraw your hand, I am not worthy to touch it!" 
 And clasping his own hands before his face, he became abruptly 
 silent ; but his emotions were ill concealed, and Lucy saw the 
 muscular frame before her heaved and convulsed by passions 
 which were more intense and rending because it was only for a 
 few moments that they conquered his self-will and struggled 
 into vent. 
 
 If afterwards, \>\\\.long afterwards, Lucy, recalling the mys- 
 tery of his words, confessed to herself that they betrayed guilt, 
 she was then too much affected to think of anything but her 
 love and his emotion. She .bent down, and with a girlish and 
 fond self-abandonment, which none, could have resisted, placed 
 both her hands on his : Clifford started, looked up, and in the 
 next moment he had clasped her to his heart ; and while the 
 only tears he had shed since his career of crime fell fast and 
 hot upon her countenance, he kissed her forehead, her cheek, 
 her lips, in a passionate and wild transport. His voice died 
 within him, he could not trust himself to speak; only one 
 thought, even in that seeming forgetfulness of her and of him- 
 self, stirred and spoke at his breast flight. The more he felt 
 he loved, the more tender and the more confiding the object 
 of his love, the more urgent became the necessity to leave 
 her. All other duties had been neglected, but he loved with a
 
 254 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 real love ; and love, which taught him one duty, bore him tri- 
 umphantly through its bitter ordeal. 
 
 "You will hear from me to-night," he muttered; "believe 
 that I am mad, accursed, criminal, but not utterly a monster! 
 I ask no more merciful opinion!" He drew himself from his 
 perilous position, and abruptly departed. 
 
 When Clifford reached his home, he found his worthy coad- 
 jutors waiting for him with alarm and terror on their counte- 
 nances. An old feat, in which they had signalized themselves, 
 had long attracted the rigid attention of the police, and certain 
 officers had now been seen at Bath, and certain inquiries had 
 been set on foot, which portended no good to the safety of the 
 sagacious Tomlinson and the valorous Pepper. They came, 
 humbly and penitentially demanding pardon for their uncon- 
 scious aggression of the squire's carriage, and entreating their 
 captain's instant advice. If Clifford had before wavered in his 
 disinterested determination, if visions of Lucy, of happiness, 
 and reform, had floated in his solitary ride too frequently and 
 too glowingly before his eyes, the sight of these men, their 
 conversation, their danger, all sufficed to restore his resolution. 
 "Merciful God!" thought he "and is it to the comrade of such 
 lawless villains, to a man, like them, exposed hourly to the most 
 ignominious of deaths, that I have for one section of a moment 
 dreamed of consigning the innocent and generous girl, whose 
 trust or love is the only crime that could deprive her of the 
 most brilliant destiny?" 
 
 Short were Clifford's instructions to his followers, and so 
 much do we do mechanically, that they were delivered with his 
 usual forethought and precision. "You will leave the town 
 instantly; go not, for your lives, to London, or to rejoin any 
 of your comrades. Ride for the Red Cave; provisions are 
 stored there, and, since our late alteration of the interior, it 
 will afford ample room to conceal your horses. On the night 
 of the second day from this I will join you. But be sure that 
 you enter the cave at night, and quit it upon no account till I 
 come!" 
 
 "Yes!" said he, when he was alone, "I will join you again, 
 but only to quit you. One more offence against the law, or at 
 least one sum wrested from the swollen hands of the rich, suffi- 
 cient to equip me for a foreign army, and I quit the country of 
 my birth and my crimes. If I cannot deserve Lucy Brandon, 
 I will be somewhat less unworthy. Perhaps (why not?) I am 
 young, my nerves are not weak, my brain is not dull ; perhaps 
 I may in some field of honorable adventure win a name, that
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 255 
 
 before my death-bed I may not blush to acknowledge to 
 her!" 
 
 While this resolve beat high within Clifford's breast, Lucy 
 sadly and in silence was continuing with the squire her short 
 journey to Bath. The latter was very inquisitive to know why 
 Clifford had gone, and what he had avowed ; and Lucy, scarcely 
 able to answer, threw everything on the promised letter of the 
 night. 
 
 "I am glad," muttered the squire to her, "that he is going to 
 write; for, somehow or other, though I questioned him very 
 tightly, he slipped through my cross-examination, and bursting 
 out at once as to his love for you, left me as wise about himself 
 as I was before ; no doubt (for my own part I don't see what 
 should prevent his being a great man incog.} this letter will 
 explain all!" 
 
 Late that night the letter came ; Lucy, fortunately for her, 
 was alone in her own room ; she opened it, and read as follows: 
 
 CLIFFORD'S LETTER. 
 
 "I have promised to write to you, and I sit down to perform 
 that promise. At this moment the recollection of your good- 
 nesses, your generous consideration, is warm within me ; and 
 while I must choose calm and common words to express what I 
 ought to say, my heart is alternately melted and torn by 
 thoughts which would ask words, oh how different! Your 
 father has questioned me often of my parentage and birth, 
 I have hitherto eluded his interrogatories. Learn now who I 
 am. In a wretched abode, surrounded by the inhabitants of 
 poverty and vice, I recall my earliest recollections. My father 
 is unknown to me as to every one ; my mother, to you I dare 
 not mention who or wkat she was, she died in my infancy. 
 Without a name, but not without an inheritance (my inheritance 
 was large it was infamy!) I was thrown upon the world: I 
 had received by accident some education, and imbibed some 
 ideas, not natural to my situation ; since then I have played 
 many parts in life ; books and men I have not so neglected, 
 but that I have gleaned at intervals some little knowledge from 
 both. Hence, if I have seemed to you better than I am, you 
 will perceive the cause ; circumstances made me soon my own 
 master ; they made me also on? whom honest men do not love 
 to look upon ; my deeds have been, and my character is, of a 
 part with my birth and my fortunes. I came, in the noble 
 hope to raise and redeem myself by gilding my fate with a 
 wealthy marriage, to this city ; I saw you, whom I had once
 
 2$6 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 before met. I heard you were rich. Hate me, Miss Brandon, 
 hate me! I resolved to make your ruin the cause of my re- 
 demption. Happily for you, I scarcely knew you before I 
 loved you ; that love deepened, it caught something pure and 
 elevated from yourself. My resolution forsook me ; even now 
 I could throw myself on my knees and thank God that you 
 you, dearest and noblest of human beings are not my wife. 
 Now, is my conduct clear to you ? If not, imagine me all that 
 is villainous, save in one point, where you are concerned, and 
 not a shadow of mystery will remain. Your kind father, over- 
 rating the paltry service I rendered you, would have consented 
 to submit my fate to your decision. I blush indignantly for 
 him for you that any living man should have dreamed of 
 such profanation for Miss Brandon. Yet I myself was carried 
 away and intoxicated by so sudden and so soft a hope even I 
 dared to lift my eyes to you, to press you to this guilty heart, 
 to forget myself, and to dream that you might be mine! Can 
 you forgive me for this madness? And hereafter, when in your 
 lofty and glittering sphere of wedded happiness, can you re- 
 member my presumption and check your scorn? Perhaps you 
 think that by so late a confession I have already deceived you. 
 Alas! you know not what it costs me now to confess! I had 
 only one hope in life, it was that you might still, long after 
 you had ceased to see me, fancy me not utterly beneath the 
 herd with whom you live. This burning yet selfish vanity I 
 tear from me, and now I go where no hope can pursue me. 
 No hope for myself, save one which can scarcely deserve the 
 name, for it is rather a rude and visionary wish than an expec- 
 tation: it is, that under another name, and under different 
 auspices, you may hear of me at some distant time ; and when 
 I apprise you that under that name you may recognize one who 
 loves you better than all created things, you may feel then at 
 least, no cause for shame at your lover. What willow/ be then? 
 A happy wife a mother the centre of a thousand joys :be- 
 loved, admired blest when the eye sees you and the ear 
 hears! And this is what I ought to hope; this is the consola- 
 tion that ought to cheer me ; perhaps a little time hence it 
 will. Not that I shall love you less ; but that I shall love you 
 less burningly, and therefore less selfishly. I have now written 
 to you all that it becomes you to receive from me. My horse 
 waits below to bear me from the city, and forever from your 
 vicinity. Forever! ay, you are the only blessing forever for- 
 bidden me. Wealth I may gain a fair name even glory I 
 may perhaps aspire to! to Heaven itself I may find a path;
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 257 
 
 but of you my very dreams cannot give me the shadow of a 
 hope. I do not say, if you could pierce my soul while I write 
 that you would pity me. You may think it strange, but I would 
 not have your pity for worlds ; I think I would even rather 
 have your hate, pity seems so much like contempt. But if 
 you knew what an effort has enabled me to tame down my lan- 
 guage, to curb my thoughts, to prevent me from embodying 
 that which now makes my brain whirl, and my hand feel as if 
 the living fire consumed it ; it you knew what has enabled me 
 to triumph over the madness at my heart, and spare you what 
 if writ or spoken, would seem like the ravings of insanity, you 
 would not, and you could not, despise me, though you might 
 abhor. 
 
 "And now, Heaven guard and bless you ! Nothing on earth 
 could injure you. And even the wicked who have looked upon 
 you learn to pray / have prayed for you ! ' ' 
 
 Thus (abrupt and signatureless) ended the expected letter. 
 Lucy came down the next morning at her usual hour, and, ex- 
 cept that she was very pale, nothing in her appearance seemed 
 to announce past grief or emotion. The squire asked her if 
 she had received the promised letter? She answered in a clear, 
 though faint voice, that she had that Mr. Clifford had con- 
 fessed himself of too low an origin to hope for marriage with 
 Mr. Brandon's family; that she trusted the squire would keep 
 his secret ; and that the subject might never again be alluded 
 to by either. If, in this speech, there was something alien to 
 Lucy's ingenuous character, and painful to her mind, she felt 
 it, as it were, a duty to her former lover not to betray the whole 
 of that confession so bitterly wrung from him. Perhaps, too, 
 there was in that letter a charm which seemed to her too sacred 
 to be revealed to any one. And mysteries were not excluded 
 even from a love so ill-placed, and seemingly so transitory, as 
 hers. 
 
 Lucy's answer touched the squire in his weak point. "A 
 man of decidedly low origin," he confessed, "was utterly out 
 of the question ; nevertheless the young man showed a great 
 deal of candor in his disclosure." He readily promised never 
 to broach a subject necessarily so unpleasant ; and though he 
 sighed as he finished his speech, yet the extreme quiet of 
 Lucy's manner reassured him ; and when he perceived that she 
 resumed, though languidly, her wonted avocations, he felt but 
 little doubt of her soon overcoming the remembrance of what, 
 he hoped, was but a girlish and fleeting fancy. He yielded,
 
 358 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 with avidity, to her proposal to return to Warlock ; and in the 
 same week as that in which Lucy had received her lover's mys- 
 terious letter, the father and daughter commenced their jour- 
 ney home. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Butler. What are these, sir ? 
 Yeoman. And of what nature to what use ? 
 Latroc. Imagine. The Tragedy of Rollo. 
 
 Quickly. He's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 
 
 Henry V. 
 
 THE stream of our narrative now conducts us back to Will- 
 iam Brandon. The law-promotions previously intended were 
 completed; and, to the surprise of the public, the envied 
 barrister, undergoing the degradation of knighthood, had, at 
 the time we return to him, just changed his toilsome occupa- 
 tions for the serene dignity of the bench. Whatever regret 
 this wily and aspiring schemer might otherwise have felt at an 
 elevation considerably less distinguished than he might reason- 
 ably have expected, was entirely removed by the hopes 
 afforded to him of a speedy transition to a more brilliant office: 
 it was whispered among those not unlikely to foresee such 
 events, that the interest of the government required his talents 
 in the house of peers. Just at this moment, too, the fell 
 disease, whose ravages Brandon endeavored, as jealously as 
 possible, to hide from the public, had appeared suddenly to 
 yield to the skill of a new physician ; and by the administra- 
 tion of medicines which a man less stern or resolute might 
 have trembled to adopt (so powerful, and for the most part, 
 deadly was their nature), he passed from a state of almost in- 
 sufferable torture to an elysium of tranquillity and ease; per- 
 haps, however, the medicines which altered also decayed his 
 constitution: and it was observable, that in two cases, where the 
 physician had attained a like success by the same means, the 
 patients had died suddenly, exactly at the time when the cure 
 seemed to be finally completed. However, Sir William Bran- 
 don appeared very little anticipative of danger. His manner 
 became more cheerful and even than it had ever been before ; 
 there was a certain lightness in his gait, a certain exhilaration 
 in his voice and eye, which seemed the tokens of one from 
 whom a heavy burden had been suddenly raised, and who was 
 no longer prevented from the eagerness of hope by the engross-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 259 
 
 ing claims of a bodily pain. He had always been bland in 
 society, but now his courtesy breathed less of artifice, it took a 
 more hearty tone. Another alteration was discerned in him, 
 and that was precisely the reverse of what might have been 
 expected. He became more thrifty more attentive to the ex- 
 penses of life than he had been. Though a despiser of show 
 and ostentation, and far too hard to be luxurious, he was too 
 scientific an architect of the weaknesses of others not to have 
 maintained during his public career an opulent appearance and 
 a hospitable table. The profession he had adopted requires, 
 perhaps, less of externals to aid it than any other ; still Brandon 
 had affected to preserve parliamentary as well as legal impor- 
 tance ; and, though his house was situated in a quarter entirely 
 professional, he had been accustomed to assemble round his 
 hospitable board all who were eminent, in his political party, 
 for rank or for talent. Now. however, when hospitality, and a 
 certain largeness of expenses, better became his station, he grew 
 closer and more exact in his economy. Brandon never could 
 have degenerated into a miser ; money, to one so habitually wise 
 as he was, could never have passed from means into an object; 
 but he had evidently, for some cause or another, framed the 
 resolution to save. Some said it was the result of returning 
 health, and the hope of a prolonged life, to which many ob- 
 jects for which wealth is desirable might occur. But when 
 it was accidentally ascertained that Brandon had been making 
 several inquiries respecting a large estate in the neighborhood 
 of Warlock, formerly in the possession of his family, the gossips 
 (for Brandon was a man to be gossiped about) were no longer 
 in want of a motive, false or real, for the judge's thrift. 
 
 It was shortly after his elevation to the bench, and ere these 
 signs of change had become noticeable, that the same strange 
 ragamuffin whom we have mentioned before, as introduced 
 by Mr. Swoppem to a private conference with Brandon, was 
 admitted to the judge's presence. 
 
 "Well r " said Brandon, impatiently, the moment the door 
 was closed, "your news?" 
 
 "Vy, your onor, " said the man bashfully, twirling a thing 
 that stood proxy for a hat, "I thinks as ow I shall be hable to 
 satisfy your vorship's onor." Then approaching the judge, 
 and assuming an important air, he whispered : 
 'Tis as ow I thought!" 
 
 "My God!" cried Brandon, with vehemence. "And he. is 
 alive? and where?" 
 
 "I believes," answered the seemly confidant of Sir William
 
 260 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Brandon, "that he he's alive; and if he he's alive, may I flash 
 my ivories in a glass case, if I does not ferret him out ; but as 
 to saying vhere he be at this nick o' the moment, smash me if 
 I can!" 
 
 "Is he in this country?" said Brandon; "or do you believe 
 that he has gone abroad?" 
 
 "Vy, much of one and not a little of the other!" said the 
 euphonious confidant. 
 
 "How! speak plain, man what do you mean?" 
 
 "Vy, I means, your onor, that I can't say vhere he is." 
 
 "And this," said Brandon, with a muttered oath, "this is 
 vour boasted news, is it? Dog! damned, damned dog! if you 
 trifle with me, or play me false, I will hang you, by the living 
 G , I will!" 
 
 The man shrunk back involuntarily from Brandon's vindic- 
 tive forehead and kindled eyes; but with the cunning peculiar 
 to low vice answered, though in an humbler tone : 
 
 "And vot good vill that do your onor? If so be as ow you 
 scrags I, vill that put your vorship in the vay of finding he? " 
 
 Never was there an obstacle in grammar through which a 
 sturdy truth could not break ; and Brandon, after a moody 
 pause, said in a milder voice, "I did not mean to frighten 
 you ! Never mind what I said ; but you can surely guess where- 
 abouts he is, or what means of life he pursues? perhaps" and 
 a momentary paleness crossed Brandon's swarthy visage, 
 "perhaps he may have been driven into dishonesty in order to 
 maintain himself!" 
 
 The informant replied with great naive t^ that "such a thing 
 was not umpossible!" And Brandon then entered into a series 
 of seemingly careless but artful cross-questionings, which either 
 the ignorance or the craft of the man enabled him to baffle. 
 After some time, Brandon, disappointed and dissatisfied, gave 
 up his professional task; and, bestowing on the man many sa- 
 gacious and minute instructions, as well as a very liberal dona- 
 tion, he was forced to dismiss his mysterious visitor, and to 
 content himself with an assured assertion, that if the object of 
 his inquiries should not already be gone to the devil, the strange 
 gentleman employed to discover him would certainly, sooner 
 or later, bring him to the judge. 
 
 This assertion, and the interview preceding it, certainly 
 inspired Sir William Brandon with a feeling like complacency, 
 although it was mingled with a considerable alloy. 
 
 "I do not," thought he. concluding his meditations when he 
 was left alone, "I do not see what else I can do! Since it
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 261 
 
 appears that the boy had not even a name when he set out 
 alone from his wretched abode, I fear that an advertisement 
 would have but little chance of even designating, much less 
 of finding him, after so long an absence. Besides, it might 
 make me the prey to impostors ; and, in all probability, he has 
 either left the country, or adopted some mode of living which 
 would prevent his daring to disclose himself!" This thought 
 plunged the soliloquist into a gloomy abstraction, which lasted 
 several minutes, and from which he started, muttering aloud: 
 
 "Yes, yes! I dare to believe, to hope it. Now for the min- 
 ister, and the peerage!" And from that time the root of Sir 
 William Brandon's ambition spread with a firmer and more 
 extended grasp over his mind. 
 
 We grieve very much that the course of our story should now 
 oblige us to record an event which we would willingly have 
 spared ourselves the pain of narrating. The good old Squire 
 of Warlock Manor-house had scarcely reached his home on his 
 return from Bath, before William Brandon received the follow- 
 ing letter from his brother's gray-headed butler: 
 
 "HONNURED SUR: 
 
 "I send this with all speede, thof with a hevy hart, to ax- 
 quainte you with the sudden (and it is feered by his loving 
 friends and well-wishers, which latter, to be sur, is all as knows 
 him) dangeros ilness of the Squire.* He was seezed, poor deer 
 gentleman (for God never made a better, no offence to your 
 Honnur), the moment he set footing in his Own Hall, and 
 what has hung rond me like a mill-ston ever sin, is that instead 
 of his saying 'How do you do, Sampson?' as was his wont, 
 whenever he returned from forren parts, sich as Bath, Lunnun. 
 and the like; he said; 'God bless you, Sampson!' which makes 
 me think sumhow that it will be his last wurds; for he has 
 never spoke sin, for all Miss Lucy be by his bedside continue/. 
 She, poor deer, don't take on at all, in regard of crying and 
 such woman's wurk, but looks nevertheless, for all the wurld, 
 just like a copse. I sends Tom the postilion with this hex- 
 press, nowing he is a good hand at a gallop, having, not six- 
 teen years ago, beat some o' the best on un at a raceng. 
 Hoping as yer honnur will lose no time in coming to this 
 'hous of mourning, ' I remane, with all respect, 
 
 "Your Honnur's humble sarvant 
 
 "to command, JOHN SAMPSON." 
 
 * The reader, who has doubtless noticed how invariably servants of long standing acquire 
 a certain tone from that of their master, may observe that honest John Sampson had caught 
 from the squire the habit of parenthetical composition.
 
 262 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Sir William Brandon did not give himself time to re-read 
 this letter, in order to make it more intelligible, before he wrote 
 to one of his professional compeers, requesting him to fill his 
 place during his unavoidable absence, on the melancholy occa- 
 sion of his brother's expected death ; and having so done, he 
 immediately set off for Warlock. Inexplicable even to himself 
 was that feeling, so nearly approaching to real sorrow, which 
 the worldly lawyer felt at the prospect of losing his guileless 
 and unspeculating brother. Whether it be that turbulent and 
 ambitious minds, in choosing for their wavering affections the 
 very opposites of themselves, feel (on losing the fellowship of 
 those calm, fair characters that have never crossed their rugged 
 path) as if they lost, in losing them, a kind of haven for their 
 own restless thoughts and tempest-worn designs! be this as it 
 may, certainly it is, that when William Brandon arrived at his 
 brother's door, and was informed by the old butler, who, for 
 the first time, was slow to greet him, that the squire had just 
 breathed his last, his austere nature forsook him at once, and 
 he felt the shock with a severity perhaps still keener than that 
 which a more genial and affectionate heart would have expe- 
 rienced. 
 
 As soon as he had recovered his self-possession, Sir William 
 made question of his niece; and finding that after an unrelax- 
 ing watch during the whole of the squire's brief illness, nature 
 had failed her at his death, and she had been borne senseless 
 from his chamber to her own, Brandon walked with a step far 
 different from his usual stately gait to the room where his 
 brother lay. It was one of the oldest apartments in the house, 
 and much of the ancient splendor that belonged to the man- 
 sion ere its size had been reduced, with the fortunes of its suc- 
 cessive owners, still distinguished the chamber. The huge 
 mantel-piece ascending to the carved ceiling in grotesque 
 pilasters, and scroll-work of the blackest oak, with the quar- 
 tered arms of Brandon and Saville escutcheoned in the cen- 
 tre, the panelled walls of the same dark wainscot, the armoire 
 of ebony, the high-backed chairs, with their tapestried seats, 
 the lofty bed, with its hearse-like plumes and draperies of a 
 crimson damask that seemed, so massy was the substance, and 
 so prominent the flowers, as if it were rather a carving than 
 a silk, all conspired with the size of the room to give it a 
 feudal solemnity, not perhaps suited to the rest of the house, 
 but well calculated to strike a gloomy awe into the breast of the 
 worldly and proud man who now entered the death-chamber 
 of his brother.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 263 
 
 Silently William Brandon motioned away the attendants, and 
 silently he seated himself by the bed, and looked long and wist- 
 fully upon the calm and placid features of the deceased. It 
 is difficult to guess at what passed within him during the space 
 of time in which he remained alone in that room. The apart- 
 ment itself he could not, at another period, have tenanted 
 without secret emotion. It was that in which, as a boy, he had 
 himself been accustomed to sleep ; and, even then a schemer 
 and an aspirant, the very sight of the room sufficed to call 
 back all the hopes and visions, the restless projects and the 
 feverish desires, which had now brought him to the envied 
 state of an acknowledged celebrity and a shattered frame. 
 There must have been something awful in the combination of 
 those active remembrances with the cause which had led him 
 to that apartment; and there was a homily in that serene coun- 
 tenance of the dead, which preached more effectually to the 
 heart to the living than William Brandon would ever have 
 cared to own. He had been more than an hour in the room, 
 and the evening had already begun to cast deep shadows 
 through the small panes of the half-closed window, when 
 Brandon was startled by a slight noise. He looked up, and 
 beheld Lucy opposite to him. She did not see him; but 
 throwing herself upon the bed, she took the cold hand of the 
 deceased, and, after a long silence, burst into a passion of tears. 
 
 "My father!" she sobbed, "my kind good father! who 
 will love me now?" 
 
 "I!" said Brandon, deeply affected; and, passing round 
 the bed, he took his niece in his arms: "I will be your father, 
 Lucy, and you the last of our race shall be to me as a 
 daughter!"
 
 264 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 " Falsehood in him was not the useless lie 
 Of boasting pride or laughing vanity : 
 It was the gainful the persuading art," etc. 
 
 CRABBE. 
 
 " On with the horses off to Canterbury, 
 Tramp tramp o'er pebble, and splash splash thro' puddle ! 
 Hurrah ! how swiftly speeds the post ?o merry ! 
 
 ******* 
 
 ' Here laws are all inviolate ; none lay 
 Traps for the traveller ; every highway's clear ; 
 Here , he was interrupted by a knife, 
 
 With ' D your eyes ! your money or your life ! ' " 
 
 Don Juan. 
 
 MISFORTUNES are like the creations of Cadmus they destroy 
 one another! Roused from the torpor of mind occasioned by 
 the loss of her lover at the sudden illness of the squire, Lucy 
 had no thought for herself no thought for any one for any- 
 thing but her father, till long after the earth had closed over 
 his remains. The very activity of the latter grief was less 
 dangerous than the quiet of the former ; and when the first 
 keenness of sorrow passed away, and her mind gradually and 
 mechanically returned to the remembrance of Clifford, it was 
 with an intensity less strong, and less fatal to her health and 
 happiness than before. She thought it unnatural and criminal 
 to allow anything else to grieve her, while she had so sacred a 
 grief as that of her loss ; and her mind, once aroused into re- 
 sistance to passion, betrayed a native strength little to have 
 been expected from her apparent character. Sir William Bran- 
 don lost no time in returning to town after the burial of his 
 brother. He insisted upon taking his niece with him ; and, 
 though with real reluctance, she yielded to his wishes, and ac- 
 companied him. By the squire's will, indeed, Sir William was 
 appointed guardian to Lucy, and she yet wanted more than a 
 year of her majority. 
 
 Brandon, with a delicacy very uncommon to him where 
 women (for he was a confirmed woman-hater) were concerned, 
 provided everything that he thought could in any way conduce 
 to her comfort. He ordered it to be understood in his estab- 
 lishment that she was its mistress. He arranged and fur- 
 nished, according to what he imagined to be her taste, a 
 suite of apartments for her sole accommodation ; a separate 
 carriage and servants were appropriated to her use ; and he 
 sought, by perpetual presents of books, or flowers, or music,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 265 
 
 to occupy her thoughts, and atone for the solitude to which his 
 professional duties obliged him so constantly to consign her. 
 These attentions, which showed this strange man in a new light, 
 seemed to bring out many little latent amiabilities, which were 
 usually imbedded in the callosities of his rocky nature ; and, 
 even despite her causes for grief and the deep melancholy 
 which consumed her, Lucy was touched with gratitude at kind- 
 ness doubly soothing in one who, however urbane and polished, 
 was by no means addicted to the little attentions that are con- 
 sidered so gratifying by women, and yet for which they so 
 often despise, while they like, him who affords them. There 
 was much in Brandon that wound itself insensibly around the 
 heart. To one more experienced than Lucy, this involuntary 
 attraction might not have been incompatible with suspicion, 
 and could scarcely have been associated with esteem ; and yet 
 for all who knew him intimately, even for the penetratng and 
 selfish Mauleverer, the attraction existed : unprincipled, crafty, 
 hypocritical, even base when it suited his purpose ; secretly 
 sneering at the dupes he made, and knowing no code save that 
 of interest and ambition ; viewing men only as machines, and 
 opinions only as ladders, there was yet a tone of powerful 
 feeling sometimes elicited from a heart that could at the same 
 moment have sacrificed a whole people to the pettiest personal 
 object : and sometimes with Lucy the eloquence or irony of 
 his conversation deepened into a melancholy a half-suppressed 
 gentleness of sentiment, that accorded with the state oi/ier own 
 mind and interested her kind feelings powerfully in his. It 
 was these peculiarities in his converse which made Lucy love to 
 hear him; and she gradually learned to anticipate with a 
 gloomy pleasure the hour in which, after the occupations of the 
 day, he was accustomed to join her. 
 
 "You look unwell, uncle, to-night," she said, when one 
 evening he entered the room with looks more fatigued than 
 usual; and, rising, she leaned tenderly over him, and kissed 
 his forehead. 
 
 "Ay!" said Brandon, utterly unwon by, and even unheed- 
 ing, the caress, "our way of life sooi\ passes into the sear and 
 yellow leaf; and when Macbeth grieved that he might not look 
 to have that which should accompany old age, he had grown 
 doting, and grieved for what was worthless." 
 
 "Nay, uncle, 'honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,' 
 these surely were worth the sighing for?" 
 
 "Pooh! not worth a single sigh! The foolish wishes we 
 form in youth have something noble, and something bodily in
 
 266 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 them ; but those of age . are utter shadows, and the shadows 
 of pigmies! Why, what is honor, after all? What is this good 
 name among men? Only a sort of heathenish idol, set up to 
 be adored by one set of fools, and scorned by another. Do 
 you not observe, Lucy, that the man you hear most praised by 
 the party you meet to-day, is most abused by that which you 
 meet to-morrow? Public men are only praised by their party; 
 and their party, sweet Lucy, are such base minions, that it 
 moves one's spleen to think one is so little as to be useful to 
 them. Thus a good name is only the good name of a sect, and 
 the members of that sect are only marvellous proper knaves." 
 
 "But posterity does justice to those who really deserve fame. " 
 
 "Posterity! Can you believe that a man who knows what 
 life is, cares for the penny whistles of grown children after his 
 death? Posterity, Lucy no! Posterity is but the same per- 
 petuity of fools and rascals; and even were justice desirable at 
 their hands, they could not deal it. Do men agree whether 
 Charles Stuart was a liar or a martyr? For how many ages 
 have we believed Nero a monster! A writer now asks, as if 
 demonstrating a problem, what real historian could doubt 
 that Nero was a paragon? The patriarchs of Scripture have 
 been declared by modern philosophy to be a series of astronom- 
 ical hieroglyphs; and, with greater show of truth, we are 
 assured that the patriot Tell never existed! Posterity! the 
 word has gulled men enough without my adding to the num- 
 ber. I, who loathe the living, can scarcely venerate the un- 
 born. Lucy, believe me, that no man can mix largely with 
 men in political life, and not despise every thing that in youth 
 he adored! Age leaves us only one feeling contempt!" 
 
 "Are you belied, then?" said Lucy pointing to a newspaper 
 the organ of the party opposed to Brandon; "Are you belied 
 when you are here called 'ambitious'? When they call you 
 'selfish' and 'grasping' I know they wrong you; but I confess 
 that I have thought you ambitious ; yet can he who despises 
 men desire their good opinion?" 
 
 ' ' Their good opinion ! ' ' repeated Brandon mockingly : "Do 
 we want the bray of the asses we ride? No!" he resumed, 
 after a pause. "It is power, not honor ; it is the hope of 
 elevating oneself in every respect, in the world without, as well 
 as in the world of one's own mind: it is this hope which makes 
 me labor where I might rest, and will continue the labor to my 
 grave. Lucy," continued Brandon, fixing his keen eyes on his 
 niece, "have you no ambition? have power, and pomp, and 
 place, no charm for your mind?"
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 267 
 
 "None!" said Lucy quietly and simply. 
 
 "Indeed! yet there are times when I have thought I recog- 
 nized my blood in your veins. You are sprung from a once 
 noble, but a fallen race. Are you ever susceptible to the 
 weakness of ancestral pride?" 
 
 "You say," answered Lucy, "that we should care not for those 
 who live after us ; much less, I imagine, should we care for 
 those who have lived ages before!" 
 
 "Prettily answered," said Brandon, smiling. "I will tell you 
 at one time or another what effect that weakness you despise 
 already, once had, long after your age, upon me. You are early 
 wise on some points profit by my experience, and be so on 
 all." 
 
 "That is to say, in despising all men and all things!" said 
 Lucy, also smiling. 
 
 "Well, nevermind my creed; you may be wise after your 
 own ; but trust one, dearest Lucy, who loves you purely and 
 disinterestedly, and who has weighed with scales balanced to a. 
 hair all the advantages to be gleaned from an earth, in which 
 I verily think the harvest was gathered before we were put into 
 it, trust me, Lucy, and never think love that maiden's 
 dream so valuable as rank and power ; pause well before you 
 yield to the former; accept the latter the moment they are 
 offered you. Love puts you at the feet of another, and that 
 other a tyrant ; rank puts others at your feet and all those thus 
 subjected are your slaves!" 
 
 Lucy moved her chair (so that the new position concealed 
 her face) and did not answer; and Brandon, in an altered 
 tone, continued: 
 
 "Would you think, Lucy, that I once was fool enough to 
 imagine that love was a blessing, and to be eagerly sought for? 
 I gave up my hopes, my chances of wealth, of distinction, all 
 that had burned from the years of boyhood into my very heart. 
 I chose poverty, obscurity, humiliation, but I chose also love. 
 What was my reward? Lucy Brandon, I was deceived 
 deceived ! " 
 
 Brandon paused, and Lucy took his hand affectionately, 
 but did not break the silence. Brandon resumed : 
 
 "Yes, I was deceived! But I in my turn had a revenge, 
 and a fitting revenge; for it was not the revenge of hatred, 
 but" (and the speaker laughed sardonically) "of contempt. 
 Enough of this, Lucy! What I wished to say to you is this 
 grown men and women know more of the truth of things than 
 ye young persons think for. Love is a mere bauble, and no
 
 268 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 human being ever exchanged for it one solid advantage with- 
 out repentance. Believe this; and if rank ever puts itself under 
 those pretty feet, be sure not to spurn the footstool." 
 
 So saying, with a slight laugh, Brandon lighted his chamber 
 candle, and left the room for the night. 
 
 As soon as the lawyer reached his own apartment, he indited 
 to Lord Mauleverer the following epistle: 
 
 "Why, dear Mauleverer, do you not come to town? I want 
 you, your party wants you ; perhaps the K g wants you ; 
 and certainly, if you are serious about my niece, the care of 
 your own love-suit should induce you yourself to want to come 
 hither. I have paved the way for you ; and I think, with a 
 little management, you may anticipate a speedy success ; but 
 Lucy is a strange girl; and perhaps, after all, though you 
 ought to be on the spot, you had better leave her as much as 
 possible in my hands. I know human nature, Mauleverer, and 
 that knowledge is the engine by which I will work your tri- 
 umph. As for the young lover, I am not quite sure whether it 
 be not better for our sake that Lucy should have experienced 
 a disappointment on that score ; for when a woman has once 
 loved, and the love is utterly hopeless, she puts all vague ideas 
 of other lovers altogether out of her head ; she becomes con- 
 tented with a husband whom she can esteem! Sweet canter! 
 But you, Mauleverer, want Lucy to love you! And so she 
 will after you have married her! She will love you partly 
 from the advantages she derives from you, partly from familiar- 
 ity (to say nothing of your good qualities). For my part, I 
 think domesticity goes so far, that I believe a woman always 
 inclined to be affectionate to a man whom she has once seen in 
 his nightcap. However, you should come to town ; my poor 
 brother's recent death allows us to see no one, the coast will 
 be clear from rivals ; grief has softened my niece's heart ; in 
 a word, you could not have a better opportunity. Come! 
 
 "By the way, you say one of the reasons which make you 
 think ill of this Captain Clifford was your impression that, in 
 the figure of one of his comrades, you recognized something 
 that appeared to you to resemble one of the fellows who 
 robbed you a few months ago. I understand that, at this mo- 
 ment the police are in active pursuit of three most accom- 
 plished robbers; nor should I be at all surprised if in this very 
 Clifford were to be found the leader of the gang, viz., the 
 notorious Lovett. I hear that the said leader is a clever and a 
 handsome fellow, of a gentlemanlike address, and that his gen- 
 eral associates are two men of the exact stamp of the worthies
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 269 
 
 you have so amusingly described to me. I heard this yester- 
 day from Nabbem, the police-officer, with whom I once scraped 
 acquaintance on a trial ; and in my grudge against your rival, 
 I hinted at my suspicion that he, Captain Clifford, might not 
 impossibly prove this Rinaldo Rinaldini of the roads. Nab- 
 bem caught at my hint at once ; so that, if it be founded on 
 a true guess, I may flatter my conscience, as well as my friend- 
 ship, by the hope that I had some hand in hanging this Adonis 
 of my niece's. Whether my guess be true or not, Nabbem 
 says he is sure of this Lovett ; for one of his gang has promised 
 to betray him. Hang these aspiring dogs! I thought treach- 
 ery was confined to politics ; and that thought makes me turn 
 to public matters, in which all people are turning with the 
 most edifying celerity.'' 
 
 Sir William Brandon's epistle found Mauleverer in a fitting 
 mood for Lucy and for London. Our worthy peer had been 
 not a little chagrined by Lucy's sudden departure from Bath; 
 and while in doubt whether or not to follow her, the papers 
 had informed him of the squire's death. Mauleverer, being 
 then fully aware of the impossibility of immediately urging his 
 suit, endeavored, like the true philosopher he was, to reconcile 
 himself to his hope deferred. Few people were more easily 
 susceptible of consolation than Lord Mauleverer. He found 
 an agreeable lady, of a face more unfaded than her reputation, 
 to whom he intrusted the care of relieving his leisure moments 
 from ennui ; and being a lively woman, the confidante dis- 
 charged the trust with great satisfaction to Lord Mauleverer, 
 for the space of a fortnight, so that he naturally began to feel 
 his love for Lucy gradually wearing away, by absence and other 
 ties ; but just as the triumph of time over passion was growing 
 decisive, the lady left Bath in company with a tall guardsman, 
 and Mauleverer received Brandon's letter. These two events 
 recalled our excellent lover to a sense of his allegiance ; and 
 there being now at Bath no particular attraction to counter- 
 balance the ardor of his affection, Lord Mauleverer ordered 
 the horses to his carriage, and, attended only by his valet, 
 set out for London. Nothing, perhaps, could convey a better 
 portrait of the world's spoiled darling than a sight of Lord 
 Mauleverer's thin, fastidious features, peering forth through 
 the closed window of his luxurious travelling chariot ; the rest 
 of the outer man being carefully enveloped in furs, half a 
 dozen novels strewing the seat of the carriage, and a lean
 
 270 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 French dog, exceedingly like its master, sniffing in vain for 
 the fresh air, which, to the imagination of Mauleverer, was 
 peopled with all sorts of asthmas and catarrhs ! Mauleverer 
 got out of his carriage at Salisbury, to stretch his limbs, and to 
 amuse himself with a cutlet. Our nobleman was well known 
 on the roads; and, as nobody could be more affable, he was 
 equally popular. The officious landlord bustled into the room, 
 to wait himself upon his lordship, and to tell all the news of the 
 place. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Cheerly," said Mauleverer, bestowing a penetra- 
 ting glance on his cutlet, "the bad times, I see, have not 
 ruined your cook." 
 
 "Indeed, my lord, your lordship is very good, and the times, 
 indeed, are very bad very bad indeed. Is there enough 
 gravy? Perhaps your lordship will try the pickled onions?" 
 
 "The what? Onions! oh! ah! nothing can be better; 
 but I never touch them. So, are the roads good?" 
 
 "Your lordship has, I hope, found them good to Salis- 
 bury." 
 
 "Ah! I believe so. Oh! to be sure, excellent to Salisbury. 
 But how are they to London? We have had wet weather 
 lately, I think!" 
 
 "No, my lord. Here, the weather has been as dry as 
 a bone." 
 
 "Or a cutlet!" muttered Mauleverer, and the host con- 
 tinued: 
 
 "As for the roads themselves, my lord so far as the roads 
 are concerned they are pretty good, my lord; but I can't say 
 as how there is not something about them that might be 
 mended." 
 
 "By no means improbable! You mean the. inns and the 
 turnpikes?" rejoined Mauleverer. 
 
 "Your lordship is pleased to be facetious; no! I meant some- 
 thing worse than them." 
 
 "What! the cooks?" 
 
 "No^ my lord, the highwaymen!" 
 
 "The highwaymen! indeed !" said Mauleverer anxiously; 
 for he had with him a case of diamonds, which at that time 
 were, on grand occasions, often the ornaments of a gentleman's 
 dress, in the shape of buttons, buckles, etc. ; he had also a tolera- 
 bly large sum of ready money about him, a blessing he had 
 lately begun to find very rare. 
 
 "By the way, the rascals robbed me before on this very 
 road. My pistols shall be loaded this time, Mr. Cheerly,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 2?i 
 
 you had better order the horses ; one may as well escape the 
 nightfall." 
 
 "Certainly, my lord certainly. Jem, the horses immediate- 
 ly! Your lordship will have another cutlet?" 
 
 "Not a morsel!" 
 
 "A tart?" 
 
 "A dev ! not for the world !" 
 
 "Bring the cheese, John!" 
 
 "Much obliged to you, Mr. Cheerly, but I have dined; and 
 if I have not done justice to your good cheer, thank yourself 
 and the highwaymen. Where do these highwaymen attack 
 one?" 
 
 "Why, my lord, the neighborhood of Reading is, I believe, 
 the worst part ; but they are very troublesome all the way to 
 Salthill." 
 
 "Damnation! the very neighborhood in which the knaves 
 robbed me before! You may well call them troublesome! 
 Why the deuce don't the police clear the county of such a 
 movable species of trouble?" 
 
 "Indeed, my lord, I don't know: but they say as how Cap- 
 tain Lovett, the famous robber, be one of the set ; and nobody 
 can catch him, I fear!" 
 
 "Because, I suppose, the dog has the sense to bribe as well 
 as bully. What is the general number of these ruffians?" 
 
 "Why, my lord, sometimes one, sometimes two, but seldom 
 more than three." 
 
 Mauleverer drew himself up. "My dear diamonds, and my 
 pretty purse!" thought he; "I may save you yet!" 
 
 "Have you been long plagued with the fellows?" he asked, 
 after a pause, as he was paying his bill. 
 
 "Why, my lord, we have and we have not. I fancy as how 
 they have a sort of haunt near Reading, for sometimes they are 
 intolerable just about there, and sometimes they are quiet for 
 months together! For instance, my lord, we thought them all 
 gone some time ago ; but lately they have regularly stopped 
 every one, though I hear as how they have cleared no great 
 booty as yet." 
 
 Here the waiter announced the horses, and Mauleverer 
 slowly re-entered his carriage, among the bows and smiles of the 
 charmed spirits of the hostelry. 
 
 During the daylight, Mauleverer, who was naturally of a gal- 
 lant and fearless temper, thought no more of the highway- 
 men, a species of danger so common at that time, that men 
 almost considered it disgraceful to suffer the dread of it to be
 
 J2?2 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 .1 cause of delay on the road. Travellers seldom deemed it 
 best to lose time in order to save money and they carried with 
 them a stout heart and a brace of pistols, instead of sleeping all 
 night on the road. Mauleverer, rather a prettx chevalier, was 
 precisely of this order of wayfarers ; and a night at an inn, when 
 it was possible to avoid it, was to him, as to most rich English- 
 men, a tedious torture zealously to be shunned. It never, 
 therefore, entered into the head of our excellent nobleman, de- 
 spite his experience, that his diamonds and his purse might be 
 saved from all danger, if he would consent to deposit them, 
 with his own person, at some place of hospitable reception ; 
 nor, indeed, was it till he was within a stage of Reading, and 
 the twilight had entirely closed in, that he troubled his head 
 much on the matter. But while the horses were putting to, he 
 summoned the postboys to him; and, after regarding their 
 countenances with the eye of a man accustomed to read physi- 
 ognomies, he thus eloquently addressed them : 
 
 "Gentlemen, I am informed that there is some danger of 
 being robbed between this town and Salthill. Now, I beg to 
 inform you, that I think it next to impossible for four horses, 
 properly directed, to be stopped by less than four men. To 
 that number I shall probably yield ; to a less number I shall 
 most assuredly give nothing but bullets. You understand 
 me." 
 
 The postboys grinned, touched their hats, and Mauleverer 
 slowly continued : 
 
 "If, therefore,- mark me! one, two, or three men stop 
 your horses, and I find that the use of your whips and spurs are 
 ineffectual in releasing the animals from the hold of the robbers, 
 I intend with these pistols you observe them! to shoot at 
 the gentlemen who detain you ; but as, though I am generally 
 a dead shot, my eyesight wavers a little in the dark, I think it 
 very possible that I may have the misfortune to shoot you, 
 gentlemen, instead of the robbers! You see the rascals will be 
 close by you, sufficiently so to put you in jeopardy, unless, in- 
 deed, you knock them down with the butt-end of your whips. 
 I merely mention this, that you may be prepared. Should 
 such a mistake occur, you need not be uneasy beforehand, for 
 I will take every possible care of your widows ; should it not, 
 and should we reach Salthill in safety, I intend to testify my 
 sense of the excellence of your driving by a present of ten 
 guineas apiece! Gentlemen, I have done with you. I give 
 you my honor, that I am serious in what I have said to you, 
 Do me the favor to mount."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 273 
 
 Mauleverer then Called his favorite servant, who sat in the 
 dickey in front (rumble tumbles not being then in use). 
 
 "Smoothson," said he, "the last time we were attacked on 
 this very road, you behaved damnably. See that you do better 
 this time, or it may be the worse for you. You have pistols 
 to-night about you, eh? Well! that's right! and you are sure 
 they're loaded? Very well! Now, then, if we are stopped 
 don't lose a moment. Jump down, and fire one of your pistols 
 at the first robber. Keep the other for a sure aim. One shot 
 is to intimidate, the second to slay. You comprehend? My 
 pistols are in excellent order, I suppose. Lend me the ramrod. 
 So, so 1 No trick this time!" 
 
 "They would kill a fly, my lord, provided your lordship fired 
 straight upon it." 
 
 "I do not doubt you," said Mauleverer; "light the lanterns 
 and tell the postboys to drive on." 
 
 It was a frosty and tolerable clear night. The dusk of the 
 twilight had melted away beneath the moon which had just 
 risen, and the hoary rime glittered from the bushes and the 
 sward, breaking into a thousand diamonds as it caught the rays 
 of the stars. On went the horses briskly, their breath steam- 
 ing against the fresh air, and their hoofs sounding cheerily 
 on the hard ground. The rapid motion of the carriage the 
 bracing coolness of the night and the excitement occasioned 
 by anxiety and the forethought of danger, all conspired to stir 
 the languid blood of Lord Mauleverer into a vigorous and ex- 
 hilarated sensation, natural in youth to his character, but utter- 
 ly contrary to the nature he had imbibed from the customs of 
 his manhood. 
 
 He felt his pistols, and his hands trembled a little as he did 
 so : not the least from fear, but from that restlessness and 
 eagerness peculiar to nervous persons placed in a new situa- 
 tion. 
 
 "In this country," said he to himself, "I have been only 
 once robbed in the course of my life. It was then a little my 
 fault ; for before I took to my pistols, I should have been 
 certain they were loaded. To-night, I shall be sure to avoid 
 a similar blunder ; and my pistols have an eloquence in their 
 barrels which is exceedingly moving. Humph, another mile- 
 stone ! These fellows drive well ; but we are entering a pretty- 
 looking spot for Messieurs the disciples of Robin Hood!" 
 
 It was, indeed, a picturesque spot by which the carriage was 
 now rapidly whirling. A few miles from Maidenhead, on the 
 Henley Road, our readers will probably remember a small tract
 
 274 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of forestlike land, lying on either side of the road. To the left, 
 the green waste bears away among trees and bushes ; and one 
 skilled in the country may pass from that spot, through a 
 landscape as little tenanted as green Sherwood was formerly, 
 into the chains of wild common and deep beech-woods which 
 border a certain portion of Oxfordshire, and contrast so beau- 
 tifully the general characteristics of that county. 
 
 At the time we speak of, the country was even far wilder 
 than it is now; and just on that point where the Henley and 
 the Reading roads unite was a spot (communicating then with 
 the waste land we have described), than which, perhaps, few 
 places could be more adapted to the purposes of such true men 
 as have recourse to the primary law of nature. Certain it was 
 that at this part of the road Mauleverer looked more anxiously 
 from his window than he had hitherto done, and appar- 
 ently the increased earnestness of his survey was not altogether 
 without meeting its reward. 
 
 About a hundred yards to the left, three dark objects were 
 just discernible in the shade; a moment more, and the objects 
 emerging grew into the forms of three men, well mounted, and 
 riding at a brisk trot. 
 
 "Only three!" thought Mauleverer, "that is well, "and lean- 
 ing from the front-window with a pistol in either hand, Maul- 
 everer cried out to the postboys in a stern tone, "Drive on, and 
 recollect what I told you! Remember!" he added to his ser- 
 vant, The postboys scarcely looked round ; but their spurs 
 were buried in their horses, and the animals flew on like light- 
 ning. 
 
 The three strangers made a halt, as if in conference : their 
 decision was prompt. Two wheeled round from their comrade, 
 and darted at full gallop by the carriage. Mauleverer "s pistol 
 was already protruded from the front-window, when to his as- 
 tonishment, and to the utter baffling of his ingenious admoni- 
 tion to his drivers, he beheld the two postboys knocked from 
 their horses one after the other with a celerity that scarcely al- 
 lowed him an exclamation ; and before he had recovered his 
 self-possession, the horses taking fright (and their fright being 
 skillfully taken advantage of by the highwaymen), the carriage 
 was fairly whirled into a ditch on the right side of the road, and 
 upset. Meanwhile, Smoothson had leaped from his station in 
 the front; and having fired, though without effect, at the third 
 robber, who approached menacingly towards him, he gained 
 the time to open the carriage door, and extricate his master. 
 
 The moment Mauleverer found himself on terra firtna, he
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 2?5 
 
 prepared his courage for offensive measures, and he and Smooth- 
 son standing side by side in front of the unfortunate vehicle, 
 presented no unformidable aspect to the enemy. The two 
 robbers who had so decisively rid themselves of the postboys 
 acted with no less determination towards the horses. One of 
 them dismounted, cut the traces, and suffered the plunging 
 quadrupeds to go whither they listed. This measure was not, 
 however, allowed to betaken with impunity; a ball from Maul- 
 everer's pistol passed through the hat of the highwayman with 
 an aim so slightly erring, that it whizzed among the locks of the 
 astounded hero with a sound that sent a terror to his heart, no 
 less from a love of his head than from anxiety for his hair. 
 The shock staggered him for a moment ; and a second shot 
 from the hands of Mauleverer would have probably finished his 
 earthly career, had not the third robber, who had hitherto re- 
 mained almost inactive, thrown himself from his horse, which, 
 tutored to such docility, remained perfectly still, and advancing 
 with a bold step and a levelled pistol toward Mauleverer and 
 his servant, said in a resolute voice, "Gentlemen, it is useless 
 to struggle ; we are well armed, and resolved on effecting our 
 purpose ; your persons shall be safe if you lay down your arms, 
 and also such part of your property as you may particularly 
 wish to retain. But if you resist, I cannot answer for your 
 lives!" 
 
 Mauleverer had listened patiently to this speech in order 
 that he might have more time for adjusting his aim: his reply 
 was a bullet, which grazed the side of the speaker and tore 
 away the skin, without inflicting any more dangerous wound. 
 Muttering a curse upon the error of his aim, and resolute to 
 the last when his blood was once up, Mauleverer backed one 
 pace, drew his sword, and threw himself into the attitude of a 
 champion well skilled in the use of the instrument he wore. 
 
 But that incomparable personage was in a fair way of ascer- 
 taining what happiness in the world to come is reserved for a 
 man who has spared no pains to make himself comfortable in 
 this. For the two first and most active robbers, having finished 
 the achievement of the horses, now approached Mauleverer, 
 and the taller of them, still indignant at the late peril to his hair, 
 cried out in a stentorian voice: 
 
 "By Jove! you old fool, if you don't throw down your 
 toasting-fork, I'll be the death of you!" 
 
 The speaker suited the action to the word, by cocking an im- 
 mense pistol. Mauleverer stood his ground; but Smoothson 
 retreated, and stumbling against the wheel of the carriage fell
 
 2?6 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 backward; the next instant, the second 'highwayman had pos- 
 sessed himself of the valet's pistols, and, quietly seated on the 
 fallen man's stomach, amused himself by inspecting the con- 
 tents of the domestic's pockets. Mauleverer was now alone, 
 and his stubbornness so enraged the tall bully that his hand was 
 already on his trigger, when the third robber, whose side Maul- 
 everer's bullet had grazed, thrust himself between the two. 
 "Hold, Ned!" said he, pushing back his comrade's pistol. 
 "And you, my lord, whose rashness ought to cost you your life, 
 learn that men can rob generously." So saying, with one dex- 
 terous stroke from the robber's riding- whip, Mauleverer' s sword 
 flew upwards, and alighted at the distance of ten yards from 
 its owner. 
 
 "Approach now," said the victor to his comrades. "Rifle 
 the carriage, and with all despatch ! ' ' 
 
 The tall highwayman hastened to execute this order ; and 
 the lesser one having satisfactorily finished the inquisition into 
 Mr. Smoothson's pockets, drew forth from his own pouch a 
 tolerably thick rope ; with this he tied the hands of the prostrate 
 valet, moralizing as he wound the rope round and round the 
 wrists of the fallen man, in the following edifying strain: 
 
 "Lie still, sir lie still, I beseech you! All wise men are 
 fatalists; and no proverb is more pithy than that which says, 
 'what can't be cured must be endured.' Lie still, I tell you! 
 Little, perhaps do you think that you are performing one of the 
 noblest functions of humanity: yes, sir, you are filling the 
 pockets of the destitute ; and by my present action I am secur- 
 ing you from any weakness of the flesh likely to impede so 
 praiseworthy an end, and so hazard the excellence of your 
 action. There, sir, your hands are tight, lie still and reflect." 
 
 As he said this, with three gentle applications of his feet, the 
 moralist rolled Mr. Smoothson into the ditch, and hastened to 
 join his lengthy comrade in his pleasing occupation. 
 
 In the interim, Mauleverer and the third robber (who, in the 
 true spirit of government, remained dignified and inactive while 
 his followers plundered what he certainly designed to share, if 
 not to monopolize) stood within a few feet of each other, face 
 to face. 
 
 Mauleverer had now convinced himself that all endeavor to 
 save his property was hopeless, and he had also the consolation 
 of thinking he had done his best to defend it. He, therefore, 
 bade all his thoughts return to the care of his person. He ad- 
 justed his fur collar around his neck with great sang froid, drew 
 pn his gloves, and, patting his terrified poodle, who sat shiver-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 277 
 
 ing on its haunches with one paw raised, and nervously trem- 
 bling, he said: 
 
 "You, sir, seem to be a civil person, and I really should 
 have felt quite sorry if I had had the misfortune to wound you. 
 You are not hurt, I trust. Pray, if I may inquire, how am I to 
 proceed? My carriage is in the ditch, and my horses by this 
 time are probably at the end of the world." 
 
 "As for that matter," said the robber, whose face, like those 
 of his comrades, was closely masked in the approved fashion of 
 highwaymen of that day, "I believe you will have to walk to 
 Maidenhead, it is not far, and the night is fine!" 
 
 "A very trifling hardship, indeed !" said Mauleverer ironi- 
 cally ; but his new acquaintance made no reply, nor did he ap- 
 pear at all desirous of entering into any further conversation 
 with Mauleverer. 
 
 The earl, therefore, after watching the operations of the other 
 robbers for some moments, turned on his heel, and remained 
 humming an opera tune with dignified indifference until the pair 
 had finished rifling the carriage, and, seizing Mauleverer, pro- 
 ceeded to rifle him. 
 
 With a curled lip and a raised brow, that supreme personage 
 suffered himself to be, as the taller robber expressed it, "cleaned 
 out." His watch, his rings, his purse, and his snuff-box all 
 went. It was long since the rascals had captured such a booty. 
 
 They had scarcely finished when the postboys, who had now 
 begun to look about them, uttered a simultaneous cry, and at 
 some distance a wagon was seen heavily approaching. Maul- 
 everer really wanted his money, to say nothing of his dia- 
 monds ; and so soon as he perceived assistance at hand, a new 
 hope darted within him. His sword still lay on the ground; 
 he sprang towards it seized it, uttered a shout for help, and 
 threw himself fiercely on the highwayman who had disarmed 
 him ; but the robber, warding off the blade with his whip, re- 
 treated to his saddle, which he managed, despite of Mauleverer's 
 lunges, to regain with impunity. 
 
 The other two had already mounted, and within a minute 
 afterwards not a vestige of the trio was visible. "This is what 
 may fairly be called single blessedness ! ' ' said Mauleverer as, 
 dropping his useless sword, he thrust his hands into his pockets. 
 
 Leaving our peerless peer to find his way to Maidenhead on 
 foot, accompanied (to say nothing of the poodle) by one wag- 
 oner, two postboys, and the released Mr. Smoothson, all four 
 charming him with their condolences, we follow with our story 
 the steps of the three alieni appeteiites.
 
 f>AtJL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " The rogues were very merry on their booty. They said a thousand 
 things that showed the wickedness of their morals. Gil Bias. 
 
 " They fixed on a spot where they made a cave, which was large enough 
 to receive them and their horses. This cave was inclosed within a sort of 
 thicket of bushes and brambles. From this station they used to issue," 
 etc. Memoirs of Richard Turpin. 
 
 IT was not for several minutes after their flight had com- 
 menced that any conversation passed between the robbers. 
 Their horses flew on like wind, and the country through which 
 they rode presented to their speed no other obstacle than an 
 occasional hedge, or a short cut through the thicknesses of 
 some leafless beechwood. The stars lent them a merry light, 
 and the spirits of two of them at least were fully in sympathy 
 with the exhilaration of the pace and the air. Perhaps, in the 
 third, a certain presentiment that the present adventure would 
 end less merrily than it had begun conspired, with other causes 
 of gloom, to check that exaltation of the blood which gener- 
 ally follows a successful exploit. 
 
 The path which the robbers took wound by the sides of long 
 woods, or across large tracts of uncultivated land. Nor did 
 they encounter anything living by the road, save now and then 
 a solitary owl, wheeling its gray body around the skirts of the 
 bare woods, or occasionally troops of conies, pursuing their 
 sports and enjoying their midnight food in the fields. 
 
 ''Heavens!" cried the tall robber whose incognito we need 
 no longer preserve, and who, as our readers are doubtless aware, 
 answered to the name or Pepper, "Heavens!" cried he, look- 
 ing upward at the starry skies in a sort of ecstacy, "what a 
 jolly life this is! Some fellows like hunting; d nit! what 
 hunting is like the road? If there be sport in hunting down a 
 nasty fox, how much more is there in hunting down a nice 
 clean nobleman's carriage! If there be joy in getting a brush, 
 how much more is there in getting a purse! If it be pleasant 
 to fly over a hedge in the broad daylight, hang me if it be not 
 ten times finer sport to skim it by night, here goes! Look 
 how the hedges run away from us! and the silly old moon dances 
 about, as if the sight of us put the good lady in spirits! Those 
 old maids are always glad to have an eye upon such fine dash- 
 ing young fellows." 
 
 "Ay," cried the more erudite and sententious Augustus 
 Tomlinson, roused by success from his usual philosophical 
 sobriety; "no work is so pleasant as night-work, and the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD: 279 
 
 witches our ancestors burnt were in the right to ride out on their 
 broomsticks, with the owls and the stars. We are th ir succes- 
 sors now, Ned. We are your true fly-by-nights!" 
 
 "Only," quoth Ned, "we are a cursed deal more clever than 
 they were; for they played their game without being a bit the 
 richer for it, and we I say, Tomlinson, where the devil did 
 you put that red morocco case?" 
 
 "Experience never enlightens the foolish!" said Tomlinson; 
 "or you would have known, without asking, that I had put it 
 in the very safest pocket in my coat. 'Gad, how heavy it is!" 
 
 "Well!" cried Pepper, "I can't say I wish it were lighter! 
 Only think of our robbing my lord twice, and on the same 
 road too!" 
 
 "I say, Lovett," exclaimed Tomlinson, "was it not odd that 
 we should have stumbled upon our Bath friend so unceremo- 
 niously? Lucky for us that we are so strict in robbing in 
 masks! He would not have thought the better of Bath com- 
 pany if he had seen our faces." 
 
 Lovett, or rather Clifford, had hitherto been silent. He 
 now turned slowly in his saddle, and said: "As it was, the 
 poor devil was very nearly despatched. Long Ned was 
 making short work with him if I had not interposed!" 
 
 "And why did you?" said Ned. 
 
 "Because I will have no killing: it is the curse of the noble 
 art of our profession to have passionate professors like thee." 
 
 "Passionate!" repeated Ned: "well, I am a little choleric, 
 I own it ; but that is not so great a fault on the road as it 
 would be in house-breaking. I don't know a thing that re- 
 quires so much coolness and self-possession as cleaning out a 
 house from top to bottom, quietly and civilly, mind you!" 
 
 "That is the reason, I suppose, then," said Augustus, "that 
 you altogether renounced that career. Your first adventure 
 was house-breaking, I think I have heard you say. I confess 
 it was a vulgar debut not worthy of you!" 
 
 "No! Harry Cook seduced me; but the specimen I saw 
 that night disgusted me of picking locks; it brings one in con- 
 tact with such low companions : only think, there was a mer- 
 chant a rag-merchant, one of the party!" 
 
 "Faugh!" said Tomlinson, in solemn disgust. 
 
 "Ay, you may well turn up your lip; I never broke into a 
 house again." 
 
 "Who were your other companions?" asked Augustus. 
 
 "Only Harry Cook,* and a very singular woman " 
 
 * A noted highwayman.
 
 280 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Here Ned's narrative was interrupted by a dark defile 
 through a wood, allowing room for only one horseman at a 
 time. They continued this gloomy path for several minutes, 
 until at length it brought them to the brink of a large dell, 
 overgrown with bushes, and spreading around somewhat in the 
 form of a rude semicircle. Here the robbers dismounted, and 
 led their reeking horses down the descent. Long Ned, who 
 went first, paused at a cluster of bushes, which seemed so thick 
 as to defy intrusion, but which yielding, on either side, to the 
 experienced hand of the robber, presented what appeared the 
 mouth of a cavern. A few steps along the passage of this gulf 
 brought them to a door, which, even seen by torch-light, would 
 have appeared so exactly similar in color and material to the 
 rude walls on either side, as to have deceived any unsuspecting 
 eye, and which, in the customary darkness brooding over it, 
 might have remained for centuries undiscovered. Touching a 
 secret latch, the door opened, and the robbers were in the 
 secure precincts of the "Red Cave-!" It may be remembered 
 that among the earlier studies of our exemplary hero, the me- 
 moirs of Richard Turpin had formed a conspicuous portion ; and 
 it may also be remembered that, in the miscellaneous adven- 
 tures of that gentleman, nothing had more delighted the juve- 
 nile imagination of the student than the description of the for- 
 est cave in which the gallant Turpin had been accustomed to 
 conceal himself, his friend, his horse, 
 
 " And that sweet saint who lay by Turpin's side "; 
 
 or, to speak more domestically, the respectable Mrs. Turpin. 
 So strong a hold, indeed, had that early reminiscence fixed 
 upon our hero's mind, that no sooner had he risen to emi- 
 nence among his friends, than he had put the project of his child- 
 hood into execution. He had selected for the scene of his 
 ingenuity an admirable spot. In a thinly peopled country, 
 surrounded by commons and woods, and yet (as Mr. Robins 
 would say, if he had to dispose of it by auction) "within an 
 easy ride" of populous and well-frequented roads, it possessed 
 all the advantages of secrecy for itself, and convenience for 
 depredation. Very few of the gang, and those only who had 
 been employed in its construction, were made acquainted with 
 the secret of this cavern ; and as our adventurers rarely visited 
 it, and only on occasions of urgent want or secure conceal- 
 ment, it had continued for more than two years undiscovered 
 and unsuspected. 
 
 The cavern, originally hollowed by nature, owed but little
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 281 
 
 to the decorations of art ; nevertheless, the roughness of the 
 walls was concealed by a rude but comfortable arras of mat- 
 ting. Four or five of such seats as the robbers themselves 
 could construct were drawn around a small but bright wood 
 fire, which, as there was no chimney, spread a thin volume of 
 smoke over the apartment. The height of the cave, added to 
 the universal reconciler custom prevented, however, this 
 evil from being seriously unpleasant; and, indeed, like the 
 tenants of an Irish cabin, perhaps the inmates attached a de- 
 gree of comfort to a circumstance which was coupled with their 
 dearest household associations. A table, formed of a board 
 coarsely planed, and supported by four legs of irregular size, 
 made equal by the introduction of blocks or wedges between 
 the legs and the floor, stood warming its uncouth self by the 
 fire. At one corner, a covered cart made a conspicuous article 
 of furniture, no doubt useful either in conveying plunder or 
 provisions ; beside the wheels were carelessly thrown two or 
 three coarse carpenter's tools, and the more warlike utilities of a 
 blunderbuss, a rifle, and two broadswords. In the other cor- 
 ner was an open cupboard, containing rows of pewter platters, 
 mugs, etc. Opposite the fire-place, which was to the left of 
 the entrance, an excavation had been turned into a dormitory ; 
 and fronting the entrance was a pair of broad, strong, wooden 
 steps, ascending to a large hollow about eight feet from the 
 ground. This was the entrance to the stables ; and as soon as 
 their owners released the reins of the horses, the docile animals 
 proceeded one by one leisurely up the steps, in the manner of 
 quadrupeds educated at the public seminary of Astley's, and 
 disappeared within the aperture. 
 
 These steps, when drawn up which, however, from their 
 extreme clumsiness, required the united strength of two ordi- 
 nary men, and was not that instantaneous work which it should 
 have been, made the place above a tolerably strong hold, for 
 the wall was perfectly perpendicular and level, and it was only 
 by placing his hands upon the ledge, and so lifting himself gym- 
 nastically upward, that an active assailant could have reached 
 the eminence ; a work which defenders equally active, it may 
 easily be supposed, would not be likely to allow. 
 
 This upper cave for our robbers paid more attention to 
 their horses than themselves, as the nobler animals of the two 
 species was evidently fitted up with some labor. The stalls 
 were rudely divided, the litter of dry fern was clean, troughs 
 were filled with oats, and a large tub had been supplied from a 
 pond at a little distance. A cart-harness, and some old wag-
 
 282 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 oner's frocks, were fixed on pegs to the wall. While at a far 
 end of these singular stables was a door strongly barred, and only 
 just large enough to admit the body of a man. The confeder- 
 ates had made it an express law never to enter their domain by 
 this door, or to use it, except for the purpose of escape, should 
 the cave ever be attacked ; in which case, while one or two 
 defended the entrance from the inner cave, another might 
 unbar the door, and as it opened upon the thickest part of the 
 wood, through which with great ingenuity a labyrinthine path 
 had been cut, not easily tracked by ignorant pursuers, these 
 precautions of the highwaymen had provided a fair hope of at 
 least a temporary escape from any invading enemies. 
 
 Such were the domestic arrangements of the Red Cave ; and 
 it will be conceded that at least some skill had been shown in 
 the choice of the spot, if there was a lack of taste in its adorn- 
 ments. 
 
 While the horses were performing their nightly ascent, our 
 three heroes, after securing the door, made at once to the fire. 
 
 And there, O reader! they were greeted in welcome by 
 one, an old and revered acquaintance of thine, whom in 
 such a scene it will equally astound and wound thee to re-behold. 
 
 Know, then, but first we will describe to thee the occupa- 
 tion and the garb of the august personage to whom we allude. 
 Bending over a large gridiron, daintily bespread with steaks of 
 the fattest rump, the INDIVIDUAL stood, with his right 
 arm bared above the elbow, and his right hand grasping that 
 mimic trident known unto gastronomers by the monosyllable 
 *'fork. " His wigless head was adorned with a cotton night-cap. 
 His upper vestment was discarded, and a whitish apron flowed 
 gracefully down his middle man. His stockings were ungar- 
 tered, and permitted between the knee and the calf interesting 
 glances of the rude carnal. One list shoe and one of leathern 
 manufacture cased his ample feet. Enterprise, or the noble 
 glow of his present culinary profession, spread a yet rosier 
 blush over a countenance early tinged by generous libations, and 
 from beneath the curtain of his pallid eyelashes his large and 
 rotund orbs gleamed dazzlingly on the new-comers. Such, O 
 reader! was the aspect and the occupation of the venerable 
 man whom we have long since taught thee to admire ; such 
 alas for the mutabilities of earth! was anew chapter only 
 can contain the name.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 283 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 Caliban. " Hast them not dropped from Heaven?" Tempest. 
 
 ER MAC CRAWLER 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 ? 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 j 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 | 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 j 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 | 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 ' 
 
 t 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 ! 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 " God bless our King and Parliament, 
 And send he may make such knaves repent ; " 
 
 Loyal Songs against the Rump Parliament. 
 " Ho, treachery ! my guards, my cimeter ! " BYRON. 
 
 WHEN the irreverent Mr. Pepper had warmed his hands 
 sufficiently to be able to transfer them from the fire, he lifted 
 his right palm, and, with an indecent jocularity of spirits, ac- 
 costed the ci-devant ornament of "The Asinseum" with a 
 sounding slap on his back or some such part of his con- 
 formation. 
 
 "Ah, old boy!" said he, "is this the way you keep house 
 for us? A fire not large enough to roast a nit, and a supper 
 too small to fatten him beforehand! But how the deuce should 
 you know how to provender for gentlemen? You thought you 
 were in Scotland, I'll be bound!" 
 
 "Perhaps he did, when he looked upon you, Ned!" said 
 Tomlinson gravely ; " 'tis but rarely out of Scotland that a man 
 can see so big a rogue in so little a compass!" 
 
 Mr. Mac Crawler, into whose eyes the palmistry of Long 
 Ned had brought tears of sincere feeling, and who had hitherto 
 been rubbing the afflicted part, now grumbled forth : 
 
 "You may say what you please, Mr. Pepper, but it is not 
 often in my country that men of genius are seen performing 
 the part of cook to robbers!"
 
 284 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "No!" quoth Tomlinson, "they are performing the more 
 profitable part of robbers to cooks, eh!" 
 
 "Dammee, you're out," cried Long Ned; "for in that coun- 
 try, there are either no robbers, because there is nothing to 
 rob ; or the inhabitants are all robbers, who have plundered 
 one another, and made away with the booty!" 
 
 "May the de'il catch thee!" said Mac Crawler, stung to 
 the quick, for, like all Scots, he was a patriot; much on the 
 same principle as a woman who has the worst children makes 
 the best mother. 
 
 "The de'il!" said Ned, mimicking the "silver sound," as 
 Sir W. Scott has been pleased facetiously to call the "mountain 
 tongue," the Scots in general seem to think it is silver, they 
 keep it so carefully. "The de'il Mac Det7, you mean, sure 
 the gentleman must have been a Scotchman!" 
 
 The sage grinned in spite ; but remembering the patience of 
 Epictetus when a slave, and mindful also of the strong arm of 
 Long Ned, he curbed his temper, and turned the beefsteaks 
 with his fork. 
 
 "Well, Ned," said Augustus, throwing himself into a chair 
 which he drew to the fire, while he gently patted the huge 
 limbs of Mr. Pepper, as if to admonish him that they were not 
 so transparent as glass "let us look at the fire; and, by the by, 
 it is your turn to see to the horses." 
 
 "Plague on it!" cried Ned, "it is always my turn, I think. 
 Holla, you Scot of the pot! can't you prove that I groomed 
 the beasts last? I'll give you a crown to do it." 
 
 The wise Mac Grawler pricked up his ears. 
 
 "A crown!" said he, "acrown! do you mean to insult me, 
 Mr. Pepper? But, to be sure, you did see to the horses last, 
 and this worthy gentleman, Mr. Tomlinson, must remember 
 it too." 
 
 "How, I!" cried Augustus; "you are mistaken, and I'll 
 give you half a guinea to prove it." 
 
 Mac Grawler opened his eyes larger and larger, even as you 
 may see a small circle in the water widen into enormity, if you 
 disturb the equanimity of the surface by the obtrusion of a 
 foreign substance. 
 
 "Half a guinea!" said he; "nay, nay, you joke: I'm not 
 mercenary, you think I am ! Pooh, pooh ! you are mistaken ; 
 I'm a man who means weel, a man of veracity, and will speak 
 the truth in spite of all the half guineas in the world. 
 But certainly, now I begin to think of it, Mr. Tomlinson 
 did see to the creatures last, and, Mr. Pepper, it is your turn. "
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 285 
 
 "A very Daniel!" said Tomlinson, chuckling in his usual 
 dry manner, "Ned, don't you hear the horses neigh?" 
 
 "Oh, hang the horses!" said the volatile Pepper, forgetting 
 everything else, as he thrust his hands in his pockets, and felt 
 the gains of the night; " let us first look to our winnings!" 
 
 So saying, he marched towards the table, and emptied his 
 pockets thereon: Tomlinson, nothing loath, followed the ex- 
 ample. Heavens! what exclamations of delight issued from 
 the scoundrels' lips, as, one by one, they inspected their new 
 acquisitions. 
 
 "Here's a magnificent creature!" cried Ned, handling that 
 superb watch studded with jewels which the poor Earl had 
 once before unavailingly redeemed: "a repeater, by Jove!" 
 
 "I hope not," said the phlegmatic Augustus; "repeaters will 
 not tell well for your conversation, Ned ! But, powers that be ! 
 look at this ring, a diamond of the first water!" 
 
 "Oh, the sparkler! it makes one's mouth water as much as 
 itself. 'Sdeath, here's a precious box for a sneezer ! a picture 
 inside, and rubies outside. The old fellow had excellent 
 taste ! it would charm him to see how pleased we are with his 
 choice of jewelry ! ' ' 
 
 "Talking of jewelry," said Tomlinson, "I had almost for- 
 gotten the morocco case ; between you and me, I imagine we 
 have a prize there: it looks like a jewel casket!" 
 
 So saying, the robber opened that case which on many a gala 
 day had lent lustre to the polished person of Mauleverer. O 
 reader, the burst of rapture that ensued! imagine it! we can- 
 not express it! Like the Grecian painter, we drop a veil over 
 emotions too deep for words. 
 
 "But here," said Pepper, when they had almost exhausted 
 their transports at sight of the diamonds, "here's a purse 
 fifty guineas! And what's this? notes, by Jupiter! We must 
 change them to-morrow before they are stopped. Curse those 
 fellows at the Bank! they are always imitating us; we stop 
 their money, and they don't lose a moment in stopping it too. 
 Three hundred pounds! Captain, what say you to our 
 luck?" 
 
 Clifford had sat gloomily looking on, during the operations 
 of the robbers ; he now, assuming a correspondent cheerful- 
 ness of manner, made a suitable reply, and after some general 
 conversation, the work of division took place. 
 
 "We are the best arithmeticians in the world!" said Augus- 
 tus, as he pouched his share: "addition, subtraction, division, 
 reduction, we have them all as pat as 'the Tutor's Assistant';
 
 286 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and, what is better, we make them all applicable to the Rule 
 of Three." 
 
 "You have left out multiplication!" said Clifford, smiling. 
 
 "Ah! because that works differently ; the other rules apply 
 to the species of the kingdom ; but as for multiplication, we 
 multiply, I fear, no species but our own!" 
 
 "Fie, gentlemen!" said Mac Crawler austerely, for there 
 is a wonderful decorum in your true Scotsman. Actions are 
 trifles; nothing can be cleaner than their words! 
 
 "Oh, you thrust in your wisdom, do you?" said Ned. "I 
 suppose you want your part of the booty!" 
 
 "Part!" said the subtilizing Tomlinson. "He has nine 
 times as many parts as we have already. Is he not a critic, 
 and has he not the parts of speech at his fingers' end?" 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Mac Crawler, instinctively holding up 
 his hands, with the fork dropping between the out-stretched 
 fingers of the right palm. 
 
 "Nonsense yourself," cried Ned; "you have a share in 
 what you never took! A pretty fellow, truly! Mind your 
 business, Mr. Scot, and fork nothing but the beefsteaks!" 
 
 With this Ned turned to the stables, and soon disappeared 
 among the horses ; but Clifford, eyeing the disappointed and 
 eager face of the culinary sage, took ten guineas from his own 
 share, and pushed them towards his quondam tutor. 
 
 "There!" said he emphatically. 
 
 "Nay, nay," grunted Mac Crawler; "I don't want the 
 money, it is my way to scorn such dross!" So saying, he 
 pocketed the coins, and turned, muttering to himself, to the 
 renewal of his festive preparations. 
 
 Meanwhile a whispered conversation took place between 
 Augustus and the captain, and continued till Ned returned. 
 
 " And the night's viands smoked along the board ! " 
 
 Souls of Don Raphael and Ambrose Lamela, what a charm- 
 ing thing it is to be a rogue for a little time ! How merry men 
 are when they have cheated their brethren ! Your innocent 
 milksops never made so jolly a supper as did our heroes of the 
 way. Clifford, perhaps, acted a part, but the hilarity of his 
 comrades was unfeigned. It was a delicious contrast, the 
 boisterous "ha, ha!" of Long Ned, and the secret, dry, calcu- 
 lating chuckle of Augustus Tomlinson. It was Rabelais 
 against Voltaire. They united only in the objects of their jests, 
 and foremost of those objects (wisdom is ever the butt of the 
 frivolous!) was the great Peter Mac Crawler.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 287 
 
 The graceless dogs were especially merry upon the subject 
 of the sage's former occupation. 
 
 "Come, Mac, you carve this ham," said Ned; "you have 
 had practice in cutting up." 
 
 The learned man whose name was thus disrespectfully abbre- 
 viated proceeded to perform what he was bid. He was about 
 to sit down for that purpose, when Tomlinson slyly subtracted 
 his chair, the sage fell. 
 
 "No jests at Mac Grawler, " said the malicious Augustus; 
 "whatever be his faults as a critic, you see that he is well 
 grounded, and he gets at once to the bottom of a subject. 
 Mac, suppose your next work be entitled a Tail of Woe ! ' ' 
 
 Men who have great minds are rarely flexible; they do not 
 take a jest readily ; so it was with Mac Grawler. He rose in a 
 violent rage; and had the robbers been more penetrating than 
 they condescended to be, they might have noticed something 
 dangerous in his eye. As it was, Clifford, who had often be- 
 fore been the protector of his tutor, interposed in his behalf, 
 drew the sage a seat near to himself, and filled his plate for 
 him. It was interesting to see this deference from Power to 
 Learning! It was Alexander doing homage to Aristotle! 
 
 "There is only one thing I regret, " cried Ned, with his 
 mouth full, "about the old lord, it was a thousand pities we 
 did not make him dance: I remember the day, captain, when 
 you would have insisted on it. What a merry fellow you were 
 once! Do you recollect, one bright moonlight night, just like 
 the present, for instance, when we were doing duty near 
 Staines, how you swore every person we stopped, above fifty 
 years old, should dance a minuet with you?" 
 
 "Ay!" added Augustus, "and the first was a bishop in a 
 white wig. Faith, how stiffly his lordship jigged it! And how 
 gravely Lovett bowed to him, with his hat off, when it was all 
 over, and returned him his watch and ten guineas, it was 
 worth the sacrifice!" 
 
 "And the next was an old maid of quality," said Ned, "as 
 lean as a lawyer. Don't you remember how she curvetted?" 
 
 "To be sure," said Tomlinson ; "and you very wittily called 
 her a fiap-po\e\" 
 
 "How delighted she was with the captain's suavity! When 
 he gave her back her earrings and aigrette, she bade him with 
 a tender sigh keep them for her sake, ha! ha!" 
 
 "And the third was a beau!" cried Augustus; "and Lovett 
 surrendered his right of partnership to me. Do you recollect 
 how I danced his beauship into the ditch? Ah! we were mad
 
 288 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 fellows then ; but we get sated blasts, as the French say as 
 we grow older!" 
 
 "We look only to the main chance now," said Ned. 
 "Avarice supersedes enterprise," added the sententious. 
 Augustus. 
 
 "And our captain takes to wine with an h after the w /" con- 
 tinued the metaphorical Ned. 
 
 "Come, we are melancholy," said Tomlinson, tossing off a 
 bumper. "Methinks we are really growing old. We shall 
 repent soon, and the next step will be hanging!" 
 
 '"Fore Gad!" said Ned, helping himself, "don't be so 
 croaking. There are two classes of maligned gentry, who 
 should always be particular to avoid certain colors in dressing : 
 I hate to see a true boy in black, or a devil in blue. But 
 here's my last glass to-night! I am confoundedly sleepy, and 
 we rise early to-morrow." 
 
 "Right, Ned," said Tomlinson; "give us a song before you 
 retire, and let it be that one which Lovett composed the last 
 time we were here." 
 
 Ned, always pleased with an opportunity of displaying him- 
 self, cleared his voice and complied. 
 
 A DITTY FROM SHERWOOD. 
 
 i. 
 " Laugh with us at the prince and the palace, 
 
 In the wild wood-life there is better cheer ; 
 Would you hoard your mirth from your neighbor's malice, 
 
 Gather it up in our garners here. 
 Some kings their wealth from their subjects wring, 
 
 While by their foes they the poorer wax ; 
 Free go the men of the wise wood-king, 
 
 And it is only our foes we tax. 
 Leave the cheats of trade to the shrewd gude-wife : 
 
 Let the old be knaves at ease ; 
 Away with the tide of that dashing life 
 Which is stirred by a constant breeze ! 
 
 n. 
 " Laugh with us when you hear deceiving 
 
 And solemn rogues tell you what knaves we be ; 
 Commerce and law have a method of thieving 
 
 Worse than a stand at the outlaw's tree. 
 Say, will the maiden we love despise 
 
 Gallants at least to each other true ? 
 I grant that we trample on legal ties, 
 
 But I have heard that Love scorns them too. 
 Courage, then, courage, ye jolly boys, 
 
 Whom the fool with the knavish rates : 
 Oh ! who that is loved by the world enjoys 
 Half as much as the man it hates ? "
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 289 
 
 "Bravissimo, Ned!" cried Tomlinson, rapping the table; 
 "bravissimo! your voice is superb to-night, and your song ad- 
 mirable. Really, Lovett, it does your poetical genius great 
 credit; quite philosophical, upon my honor." 
 
 "Bravissimo!" said Mac Grawler, nodding his head awfully. 
 "Mr. Pepper's voice is as sweet as a bagpipe! Ah! such a 
 song would have been invaluable to 'The Asinaeum,' when I 
 had the honor to " 
 
 "Be Vicar of Bray to that establishment," interrupted 
 Tomlinson. "Pray, Mac Grawler, why do they call Edin- 
 burgh the Modern Athens?" 
 
 "Because of the learned and great men it produces," re- 
 turned Mac Grawler, with conscious pride. 
 
 "Pooh! pooh! you are thinking of ancient Athens. Your 
 city is called the modern Athens, because you are all so like 
 the modern Athenians, the greatest scoundrels imaginable, 
 unless travellers belie them." . 
 
 "Nay," interrupted Ned, who was softened by the applause 
 of the critic, "Mac is a good fellow, spare him. Gentlemen, 
 your health. I am going to bed, and I suppose you will not 
 tarry long behind me." 
 
 "Trust us for that," answered Tomlinson ; "the captain and 
 I will consult on the business of the morrow, and join you in a 
 twinkling of a bedpost, as it has been shrewdly expressed." 
 
 Ned yawned his last "good-night," and disappeared within 
 the dormitory. Mac Grawler yawning also, but with a graver 
 yawn, as became his wisdom, betook himself to the duty of 
 removing the supper paraphernalia: after bustling soberly 
 about for some minutes, he let down a press-bed in the corner 
 of the cave (for he did not sleep in the robbers' apartment), 
 and undressing himself, soon appeared buried in the bosom of 
 Morpheus. But the chief and Tomlinson, drawing their seats 
 nearer to the dying embers, defied the slothful god, and en- 
 tered with low tones into a close and anxious commune. 
 
 "So then," said Augustus, "now that you have realized 
 sufficient funds for your purpose, you will really desert us, 
 have you well weighed the pros and cons? Remember, that 
 nothing is so dangerous to our state as reform ; the moment a 
 man grows honest, the gang forsake him ; the magistrate misses 
 his fee; the informer peaches ; and the recusant hangs. " 
 
 "I have well weighed all this," answered Clifford, "and 
 have decided on my course. I have only tarried till my means 
 could assist my will. With my share of our present and late 
 booty, I shall betake myself to the Continent. Prussia gives
 
 290 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 easy trust, and ready promotion, to all who will enlist in her 
 service. But this language, my dear friend, seems strange 
 from your h'ps. Surely you will join me in my separation from 
 the corps? What! you shake your head! Are you not the 
 same Tomlinson who at Bath agreed with me that we were in 
 danger from the envy of our comrades, and that retreat had 
 become necessary to our safety? Nay, was not this your main 
 argument for our matrimonial expedition?" 
 
 "Why, look you, dear Lovett, " said Augustus, "we are all 
 blocks of matter, formed from the atoms of custom ; in other 
 words, we are a mechanism, to which habit is the spring. 
 What could I do in an honest career? I am many years older 
 than you. I have lived as a rogue till I have no other nature 
 than roguery. I doubt if I should not be a coward were I to 
 turn soldier. I am sure I should be the most consummate of 
 rascals were I to affect to be honest. No : I mistook myself 
 when I talked of separation. I must e'en jog on with my old 
 comrades, and in my old ways, till I jog into the noose 
 hempen or, melancholy alternative, the noose matrimonial!" 
 
 "This is mere folly," said Clifford, from whose nervous and 
 masculine mind habits were easily shaken. "We have not for 
 so many years discarded all the servile laws of others, to be the 
 abject slaves of our own weaknesses. Come, my dear fellow, 
 rouse yourself. Heaven knows, were I to succumb to the 
 feebleness of my own heart, I should be lost indeed. And 
 perhaps wrestle I ever so stoutly, I do not wrestle away that 
 which clings within me, and will kill me, though by inches. 
 But let us not be cravens, and suffer fate to drown us rather 
 than swim. In a word, fly with me ere it be too late. A 
 smuggler's vessel waits me off the coast of Dorset: in three 
 Jays from this I sail. Be my companion. We can both rein a 
 fiery horse, and wield a good sword. As long as men make 
 Avar one against another, those accomplishments will prevent 
 their owner from starving, or ' 
 
 "If employed in the field, not the road," interrupted Tom- 
 linson, with a smile, "from hanging. But it cannot- be! I 
 wish you all joy all success in your career: you are young, 
 bold, and able; and you always had a loftier spirit than I 
 have! Knave I am, and knave I must be to the end of the 
 chapter!" 
 
 "As you will," said Clifford, who was not a man of many 
 words, but he spoke with reluctance: "if so, I must seek my 
 fortune alone." 
 
 "When do you leave us?" asked Tomlinson.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 2QI 
 
 "To-morrow, before noon. I shall visit London for a few 
 hours, and then start at once for the coast!" 
 
 "London!" exclaimed Tomlinson ; "what, the very den of 
 danger? Pooh! you do not know what you say: or, do you 
 think it filial to caress Mother Lobkins before you depart?" 
 
 "Not that," answered Clifford. "I have already ascer- 
 tained that she is above the reach of all want ; and her days, 
 poor soul! cannot, I fear, be many. In all probability, she 
 would scarcely recognize me ; for her habits cannot much have 
 improved her memory. Would I could say as much for her 
 neighbors ! Were I to be seen in the purlieus of low thievery, 
 you know, as well as I do, that some stealer of kerchiefs would 
 turn informer against the notorious Captain Lovett." 
 
 "What, then, takes you to town? Ah! you turn away 
 your face. I guess! Well, Love has ruined many a hero be- 
 fore ; may you not be the worse for his godship ! ' ' 
 
 Clifford did not answer, and the conversation made a sudden 
 and long pause ; Tomlinson broke it. 
 
 "Do you know, Lovett," said he, "though I have as little 
 heart as most men, yet I feel for you more than I could have 
 thought it possible. I would fain join you ; there is devilish 
 good tobacco in Germany, I believe ; and, after all, there is not 
 so much difference between the life of a thief and of a soldier ! " 
 
 "Do profit by so sensible a remark," said Clifford. "Re- 
 flect how certain of destruction is the path you now tread : the 
 gallows and the hulks are the only goals!" 
 
 "The prospects are not pleasing, I allow," said Tomlinson; 
 "nor is it desirable to be preserved for another century in the 
 immortality of a glass case in Surgeon's Hall, grinning from 
 ear to ear, as if one had made the merriest finale imaginable 
 Well ! I will sleep on it, and you shall have my answer to- 
 morrow; but poor Ned?" 
 
 "Would he not join us?" 
 
 "Certainly not: his neck is made for a rope, and his mind 
 for the Old Bailey. There is no hope for him ; yet he is an 
 excellent fellow. We must not even tell him of our meditated 
 desertion." 
 
 "By no means. I shall leave a letter to our London chief: 
 it will explain all. And now to bed ; I look to your com- 
 panionship as settled." 
 
 " Humph!" said Augustus Tomlinson. 
 
 So ended the conference of the robbers. About an hour 
 after it had ceased, and when no sound save the heavy breath 
 of Long Ned broke the stillness of the night, the'intelligerit
 
 292 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 countenance of Peter Mac Crawler slowly elevated itself from 
 the lonely pillow on which it had reclined. 
 
 By degrees the back of the sage stiffened into perpendic- 
 ularity, .and he sat for a few moments erect on his seat of honor, 
 apparently in listening deliberation. Satisfied with the deep 
 silence that, save the solitary interruption we have specified, 
 reigned around, the learned disciple of Vatel rose gently from 
 the bed, hurried on his clothes, stole on tiptoe to the door, 
 unbarred it with a noiseless hand, and vanished. Sweet 
 reader ! while thou art wondering at his absence, suppose we 
 account for his appearance. 
 
 One evening, Clifford and his companion Augustus had been 
 enjoying the rational amusement of Ranelagh, and were just 
 leaving that celebrated place when they were arrested by a 
 crowd at the entrance. That crowd were assembled round a 
 pickpocket; and that pickpocket O virtue! O wisdom! 
 O Asinaeum ! was Peter Mac Crawler! We have before said 
 that Clifford was possessed of a good mien and an imposing 
 manner, and these advantages were at that time especially 
 effectual in preserving our Orbilius from the pump. No 
 sooner did Clifford recognize the magisterial face of the sapi- 
 ent Scot, than he boldly thrust himself into the middle of the 
 crowd, and collaring the enterprising citizen who had collared 
 Mac Crawler, declared himself ready to vouch for the honesty 
 of the very respectable person whose identity had evidently 
 been so grossly mistaken. Augustus, probably foreseeing some 
 ingenious ruse of his companion's, instantly seconded the de- 
 fence. The mob, who never descry any difference between 
 impudence and truth, gave way ; a constable came up took 
 part with the friend of two gentlemen so unexceptionally 
 dressed our friends walked off the crowd repented of their 
 precipitation, and, by way of amends, ducked the gentleman 
 whose pockets had been picked. It was in vain for him to 
 defend himself, for he had an impediment in his speech ; and 
 Messieurs the mob, having ducked him once for his guilt, 
 ducked him a second time for his embarrassment. 
 
 In the interim, Clifford had withdrawn his quondam Men- 
 tor to the asylum of a coffee-house ; and while Mac Crawler's 
 soul expanded itself by wine, he narrated the causes of his 
 dilemma. It seems that that incomparable journal "The Asi- 
 nseum," despite a series of most popular articles upon the 
 writings of "Aulus Prudentius," to which were added an ex- 
 quisite string of dialogues, written in a tone of broad humor, 
 viz.. broad Scotch (with Scotchmen it is all the same thing),
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 293 
 
 despite these invaluable miscellanies, to say nothing of some 
 glorious political articles, in which it was clearly proved to the 
 satisfaction of the rich, that the less poor devils eat, the better 
 for their constitutions, despite, we say, these great acquisi- 
 tions to British literature, "The Asinaeum" tottered, fell, 
 buried its bookseller, and crushed its author: Mac Crawler 
 only escaping, like Theodore from the enormous helmet of 
 Otranto Mac Grawler only survived. "Love," says Sir 
 Philip Sidney, "makes a man see better than a pair of spec- 
 tacles." Love of life has a very different effect on the op- 
 tics, it makes a man wofully dim of inspection, and some- 
 times causes him to see his own property in another man's 
 purse! This deceplio visits, did it impose upon Peter Mac 
 Grawler? He went to Ranelagh. Reader, thou knowest the rest ! 
 
 Wine and the ingenuity of the robbers having extorted this 
 narrative from Mac Grawler, the barriers of superfluous deli- 
 cacy were easily done away with. 
 
 Our heroes offered to the sage an introduction to their club ; 
 the offer was accepted; and Mac Grawler, having been first 
 made drunk, was next made a robber. The gang engaged him 
 in various little matters, in which we grieve to relate that, 
 though his intentions were excellent, his success was so ill as 
 thoroughly to enrage his employers; nay, they wore about at 
 one time, when they wanted to propitiate justice, to hand him 
 over to the secular power, when Clifford interposed in his be- 
 half. From a robber the sage dwindled into a drudge ; menial 
 offices (the robbers, the lying rascals, declared that such offices 
 were best fitted to the genius of his country !) succeeded to 
 noble exploits, and the worst of robbers became the best of 
 cooks. How vain is all wisdom but that of long experience! 
 Though Clifford was a sensible and keen man, though he 
 knew our sage to be a knave, he never dreamed he could be 
 a traitor. He thought him too indolent to be malicious, and 
 short-sighted humanity! too silly to be dangerous. He 
 trusted the sage with the secret of the cavern ; and Augustus, 
 who was a bit of an epicure, submitted, though forebodingly, 
 to the choice, because of the Scotchman's skill in broiling. 
 
 But Mac Grawler, like Brutus, concealed a scheming heart 
 under a stolid guise; the apprehension of the noted Lovett had 
 become a matter of serious desire ; the police were no longer 
 to be bribed: nay, they were now eager to bribe; Mac Graw- 
 ler had watched his time sold his chief, and was now on the 
 road to Reading, to meet and to guide to the cavern Mr. Nab 
 bem of Bow Street and four of his attendants,.
 
 294 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Having tnus, as rapidly as we were able, traced the causes 
 which brought so startlingly "before your notice the most 
 incomparable of critics, we now, reader, return to our rob- 
 bers. 
 
 "Hist, Lovett!" said Tomlinson, half-asleep, "methought I 
 heard something in the outer cave." 
 
 "It is the Scot, I suppose," answered Clifford: "you saw, 
 of course, to the door?" 
 
 "To be sure!" muttered Tomlinson, and in two minutes 
 more he was asleep. 
 
 Not so Clifford: many and anxious thoughts kept him waking. 
 At one while, when he anticipated the opening to a new career, 
 somewhat of the stirring and high spirit which still moved 
 amidst the guilty and confused habits of his mind made his 
 pulse feverish, and his limbs restless: at another time, an ago- 
 nizing remembrance the remembrance of Lucy in all her 
 charms, her beauty, her love, her tender and innocent heart, 
 Lucy all perfect, and lost to him forever, banished every other 
 reflection, and only left him the sick sensation of despondency 
 and despair. "What avails my struggle for a better name?" 
 he thought. "Whatever my future lot, she can never share 
 it. My punishment is fixed, it is worse than a death of 
 shame ; it is a life without hope ! Every moment I feel, and 
 shall feel to the last, the pressure of a chain that may never be 
 broken or loosened! And yet, fool that I am! I cannot 
 leave this country without seeing; her again, without telling her, 
 that I have really looked my last. But have I not twice told 
 her that? Strange fatality! But twice have I spoken to her 
 of love, and each time it was to tear myself from her at the 
 moment of my confession. And even now something that I 
 have no power to resist compels me to the same idle and weak 
 indulgence. Does destiny urge me? Ay, perhaps to my de- 
 struction! Every hour a thousand deaths encompass me. I 
 have now obtained all for which I seemed to linger. I have 
 won, by a new crime, enough to bear me to another land, and 
 to provide me there a soldier's destiny. I should not lose an 
 hour in flight, yet I rush into the nest of my enemies, only for 
 one unavailing word with her; and this, .too, after I have al- 
 ready bade her farewell! Is this fate? If it be so, what mat- 
 ters it? I no longer care for a life which, after all, I should 
 reform in vain, if I could not reform for her: yet yet, selfish 
 and lost that I am! will it be nothing to think hereafter that 
 I have redeemed her from the disgrace of having loved an out- 
 cast and a felon? If I can obtain honor, will it not, in my own
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 295 
 
 heart at least, will it not reflect, however dimly and distantly, 
 upon her?" 
 
 Such, bewildered, unsatisfactory, yet still steeped in the col- 
 ors of that true love which raises even the lowest, were the 
 midnight meditations of Clifford: they terminated, towards the 
 morning, in an uneasy and fitful slumber. From this he was 
 awakened by a loud yawn from the throat of Long Ned, who 
 was always the earliest riser of his set. 
 
 "Holla!" said he, "it is almost daybreak; and if we want 
 to cash our notes, and to move the lord's jewels, we should 
 already be on the start." 
 
 "A plague on you!" said Tomlinson, from under cover of 
 his woolen nightcap ; "it was but this instant that I was dream- 
 ing you were going to be hanged, and now you wake me in the 
 pleasantest part of the dream!" 
 
 "You be shot!" said Ned, turning one leg out of bed; "by 
 the by, you took more than your share last night, for you owed 
 me three guineas for our last game at cribbage! You'll please 
 to pay me before we part to-day: short accounts make long 
 friends!" 
 
 "However true that maxim may be," returned Tomlinson, "I 
 know one much truer, namely long friends will make short 
 accounts! You must ask Jack Ketch this day month if I'm 
 wrong!" 
 
 "That's whatj'tfa call wit, I suppose!" retorted Ned, as he 
 now, struggling into his inexpressibles, felt his way into the 
 outer cave. 
 
 "What, ho! Mac!" cried he, as he went, "stir those bob- 
 bins of thine, which thou art pleased to call legs ; strike a 
 light, and be d d to you!" 
 
 "A light for yoU)" said Tomlinson profanely, as he reluc- 
 tantly left his couch, "will indeed be 'a light to lighten the 
 Gentiles'!" 
 
 "Why, Mac Mac!" shouted Ned, "why don't you an- 
 swer! faith, I think the Scot's dead!" 
 
 "Seize your men! yield, sirs!" cried a stern, sudden voice 
 from the gloom; and at that instant two dark lanterns were 
 turned, and their light streamed full upon the astounded forms 
 of Tomlinson and his gaunt comrade! In the dark shade of 
 the background four or five forms were also indistinctly visible ; 
 and the ray of the lanterns glimmered on the blades of cutlasses 
 and the barrels of weapons still less easily resisted. 
 
 Tomlinson was the first to recover his self-possession. The 
 light just gleamed upon the first step of the stairs leading to
 
 296 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the stables, leaving the rest in shadow. He made one stride 
 to the place beside, the cart, where, we have said, lay some of 
 the robbers' weapons: he had been anticipated the weapons 
 Avere gone. The next moment Tomlinson had sprung up the 
 steps. 
 
 ' ' Lovett ! Lovett ! Lovett ! ' ' shouted he. 
 
 The captain, who had followed his comrades into the cavern, 
 was already in the grasp of two men. From few ordinary mor- 
 tals, however, could any two be selected as fearful odds 
 against such a man as Clifford ; a man in whom a much larger 
 share of sinews and muscle than is usually the lot even of the 
 strong had been hardened, by perpetual exercise, into a con- 
 sistency and firmness which linked power and activity into a 
 union scarcely less remarkable than that immortalized in the 
 glorious beauty of the sculptured gladiator. His right hand is 
 upon the throat of one assailant, his left locks- as in a vice, the 
 wrist of the other ; you have scarcely time to breathe ; the 
 former is on the ground the pistol of the latter is wrenched 
 from his gripe Clifford is on the step a ball another 
 whizzes by him! he is by the side of the faithful Augustus! 
 
 "Open the secret door!" whispered Clifford to his friend; 
 "I will draw up the steps alone!" 
 
 Scarcely had he spoken, before the steps .were already, but 
 slowly, ascending beneath the desperate strength of the rob- 
 ber. Meanwhile, Ned was struggling, as best he might, with 
 two sturdy officers, who appeared loath to use their weapons 
 without an absolute necessity, and who endeavored, by main 
 strength, to capture and detain their antagonist. 
 
 "Look well to the door!" cried the voice of the principal 
 officer, "and hang out more light!" 
 
 Two or three additional lanterns were speedily brought for- 
 ward ; and over the whole interior of the cavern a dim but 
 sufficient light now rapidly circled, giving to the scene and to 
 the combatants a picturesque and wild appearance! 
 
 The quick eye of the head-officer descried in an instant the 
 rise of the steps, and the advantage the robbers were thereby 
 acquiring. He and two of his men threw themselves forward, 
 seized the ladder, if so it may be called, dragged it once more 
 to the ground, and ascended. But Clifford, grasping with both 
 hands the broken shaft of the cart that lay in reach, received 
 the foremost invader with a salute that sent him prostrate and 
 senseless back among his companions. The second shared the 
 same fate ; and the stout leader of the enemy, who, like a true 
 general, had kept himself in the rear, paused now in the middle
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 2$? 
 
 of the steps, dismayed alike by the reception of his friends and 
 the athletic form towering above, with raised weapon and men- 
 acing attitude. Perhaps that moment seemed to the judicious 
 Mr. Nabbem more favorable to parley than to conflict. He 
 cleared his throat, and thus addressed the foe: 
 
 "You, sir, Captain Lovett, alias Howard, alias Jackson, 
 alias Cavendish, alias Solomons, alias Devil, for I knows you 
 well, and could swear to you with half an eye, in your clothes 
 or without: you lay down your club there, and let me come 
 alongside of you, and you'll find me as gentle as a lamb; for 
 I've been used to gemmen all my life, and I knows how to 
 treat 'em when I has "em." 
 
 "But if I will not let you come alongside of me, what 
 then?" 
 
 "Why, I must send one of these here pops through your 
 skull, that's all!" 
 
 "Nay, Mr. Nabbem, that would be too cruel! You surely 
 would not harm one who has such an esteem for you? Don't 
 you remember the manner in which I brought you off from Jus- 
 tice Burnflat, when you were accused, you know whether 
 justly or " 
 
 "You're a liar, captain!" cried Nabbem, furiously, fearful 
 that something not meet for the ears of his companions should 
 transpire. "You knows you are! Come down, or let me 
 mount; otherwise I won't be "sponsible for the conse- 
 quences!" 
 
 Clifford cast a look over his shoulder. A gleam of the gray 
 daylight already glimmered through a chink in the secret door, 
 which Tomlinson had now unbarred, and was about to open. 
 
 "Listen to me, Mr. Nabbem," said he, "and perhaps I may 
 grant what you require ! What would you do with me if you 
 had me?" 
 
 "You speaks like a sinsible man, now," answered Nabbem; 
 "and that's after my own heart. Why, you sees, captain, your 
 time has come, and you can't shilly-shally any longer. You 
 have had vour full swing ; your years are up, and you must die 
 like a man ! But I gives you my honor, as a gemman, that if 
 you surrenders, I'll lake you to the justice folks as tenderly 
 as if you were made of cotton." 
 
 "Give way one moment," said Clifford, "that I may plant 
 the steps firmer for you." 
 
 Nabbem retreated to the ground, and Clifford, who had, 
 good-naturedly enough, been unwilling unnecessarily to dam- 
 age so valuable a functionary, lost not the opportunity now
 
 298 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 afforded him. Down thundered the steps, clattering heavily 
 among the other officers, and falling like an avalanche on the 
 shoulder of one of the arresters of Long Ned. 
 
 Meanwhile, Clifford sprang after Tomlinson through the 
 aperture, and found himself in the presence of four officers, 
 conducted by the shrewd Mac Crawler. A blow from a blud- 
 geon on the right cheek and temple of Augustus felled that 
 hero. But Clifford bounded over his comrade's body, dodged 
 from the stroke aimed at himself, caught the blow aimed by 
 another assailant in his open hand, wrested the bludgeon from 
 the officer, struck him to the ground with his own weapon, and 
 darting onward through the labyrinth of the wood commenced 
 his escape with a step too fleet to allow the hope of a success- 
 ful pursuit. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 " In short, Isabella, I offer you myself ! " 
 
 " Heavens ! " cried Isabella, " what do I hear? You, my lord ?" 
 
 Castle of Otranto. 
 
 A NOVEL is like a weatherglass, where the man appears out at 
 one time, the woman at another. Variable as the atmosphere, 
 the changes of our story now re-present Lucy to the reader. 
 
 That charming young person who, it may be remarked, is 
 (her father excepted) the only unsophisticated and unsullied 
 character in the pages of a story in some measure designed to 
 show, in the depravities of character, the depravities of that 
 social state wherein characters are formed was sitting alone 
 in her apartment at the period in which we return to her. As 
 time, and that innate and insensible fund of healing, which 
 Nature has placed in the bosoms of the young, in order that 
 her great law, the passing away of the old, may not leave too 
 lasting and keen a wound, had softened her first anguish at her 
 father's death, the remembrance of Clifford again resumed its 
 ancient sway in her heart. The loneliness of her life, the 
 absence of amusement, even the sensitiveness and languor 
 which succeeded to grief, conspired to invest the image of her 
 lover in a tenderer and more impressive guise. She recalled 
 his words, his actions, his letters, and employed herself whole 
 hours, whole days and nights, in endeavoring to decipher their 
 mystery. Who that has been loved will not acknowledge the 
 singular and mighty force with which a girl, innocent herself, 
 clings to the belief of innocence in her lover? In breasts
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 29$ 
 
 young and unacquainted with the world, there is so pure a 
 credulity in the existence of unmixed good, so firm a reluc- 
 tance to think that where we love there ,can be that which we 
 would not esteem, or where we admire there can be that which 
 we ought to blame, that one may almost deem it an argument 
 in favor of our natural power to attain a greater eminence in 
 virtue, than the habits and arts of the existing world will al- 
 low us to reach. Perhaps it is not paradoxical to say that we 
 could scarcely believe perfection in others were not the germ 
 of perfectability in our own minds! When a man has lived 
 some years among the actual contests of faction, without im- 
 bibing the prejudice as well as the experience, how wonder- 
 ingly he smiles at his worship of former idols! how different 
 a color does history wear to him! how cautious is he now to 
 praise! how slow to admire! how prone to cavil! Human 
 nature has become the human nature of art; and he estimates 
 it not from what it may be, but from what, in the corruptions 
 of a ^emi-civilization, it is! But in the same manner as the 
 young student clings to the belief that the sage or the minstrel, 
 who has enlightened his reason or chained his imagination, is 
 in character as in genius elevated above the ordinary herd, free 
 from the passions, the frivolities, the little meannesses, and 
 the darkening vices which ordinary flesh is heir to, does a 
 woman, who loves for the first time, cling to the imagined ex- 
 cellence of him she loves ! When Evelina is so shocked at the 
 idea of an occasional fit of intoxication in her "noble, her un- 
 rivalled" lover, who does not acknowledge how natural were 
 her feelings? Had Evelina been married six years, and the 
 same lover, then her husband, been really guilty of what she 
 suspected, who does not feel that it would have been very 
 unnatural to have been shocked in the least at the occurrence ! 
 She would not have loved him less, nor admired him less, nor 
 would he have been less "the noble and the unrivalled, " 
 he would have taken his glass too much, have joked the next 
 morning on the event, and the gentle Evelina would have made 
 him a cup of tea; but that which would have been a matter 
 of pleasantry in the husband would have been matter of dam- 
 nation in the lover. But to return to Lucy. 
 
 If it be so hard, so repellent to believe a lover guilty even of a 
 trivial error, we may readily suppose that Lucy never for a 
 moment admitted the supposition that Clifford had been really 
 guilty of gross error or wilful crime. True, that expressions 
 in his letter were more than suspicious ; but there is always a 
 charm in the candor of self-condemnation. As it is difficult to
 
 300 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 believe the excellence of those who praise themselves, so it is 
 difficult to fancy those criminal who condemn ! What, too, is 
 the process of a woman's reasoning? Alas! she is too credu- 
 lous a physiognomist. The turn of a throat, with her, is the 
 unerring token of nobleness of mind ; and no one can be guilty 
 of a sin who is blest with a beautiful forehead ! How fondly, 
 how fanatically Lucy loved! She had gathered together a 
 precious and secret hoard, a glove a pen a book a with- 
 ered rose-leaf, treasures rendered inestimable because he had 
 touched them: but more than all, had she the series of his let- 
 ters, from the first formal note written to her father, meant for 
 her, in which he answered an invitation, and requested Miss 
 Brandon's acceptance of the music she had wished to have, to 
 the last wild and, to her, inexplicable letter in which he had 
 resigned her forever. On those relics her eyes fed for hours; 
 and as she pored over them, and over thoughts too deep not 
 only for tears, but for all utterance or conveyance, you might 
 have almost literally watched the fading of her rich cheek, and 
 pining away of her rounded and elastic form. 
 
 It was just in such a mood that she was buried when her 
 uncle knocked at her door for admittance: she hurried away 
 her treasures, and hastened to admit and greet him. "I have 
 come," said he, smiling, "to beg the pleasure of your com- 
 pany for an old friend who dines with us to-day. But stay, 
 Lucy, your hair is ill-arranged. Do not let me disturb so im- 
 portant an occupation as your toilette: dress yourself, my 
 love, and join us." 
 
 Lucy turned, with a suppressed sigh, to the glass. The 
 uncle lingered for a few moments, surveying her with mingled 
 pride and doubt ; he then slowly left the chamber. 
 
 Lucy soon afterwards descended to the drawing-room, and 
 beheld, with a little surprise (for she had not had sufficient 
 curiosity to inquire the name of the guest), the slender form 
 and comely features of Lord Mauleverer. The Earl ap- 
 proached with the same grace which had, in his earlier youth, 
 rendered him almost irresistible, but which now, from the con- 
 trast of years with manner, contained a slight mixture of the 
 comic. He paid his compliments, and in paying them, de- 
 clared that he must leave it to his friend, Sir William, to ex- 
 plain all the danger he had dared, for the sake of satisfying 
 himself that Miss Brandon was no less lovely than when he 
 had last beheld her. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Brandon, with a scarcely perceptible 
 sneer, "Lord Mauleverer has literally endured the moving
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 301 
 
 accidents of flood and field for he was nearly exterminated 
 by a highwayman, and all but drowned in a ditch!" 
 
 "Commend me to a friend for setting one off to the best 
 advantage," said Mauleverer gayly. "Instead of attracting 
 your sympathy, you see, Brandon would expose me to your 
 ridicule: judge for yourself whether I deserve it " ; and Maul- 
 everer proceeded to give, with all the animation which be- 
 longed to his character, the particulars of that adventure with 
 which the reader is so well acquainted. He did not, we may 
 be sure, feel any scruple in representing himself and his 
 prowess in the most favorable colors. 
 
 The story was scarcely ended when dinner was announced. 
 During that meal, Mauleverer exerted himself to be amiable, 
 with infinite address. Suiting his conversation, more than he 
 had hitherto deigned to do, to the temper of Lucy, and more 
 anxious to soften than to dazzle, he certainly never before ap- 
 peared to her so attractive. We are bound to add, that the 
 point of attraction did not reach beyond the confession that he 
 was a very agreeable old man. 
 
 Perhaps, if there had not been a certain half-melancholy vein 
 in his conversation, possibly less uncongenial to -his lordship 
 from the remembrance of his lost diamonds, and the impres- 
 sion that Sir William Brandon's cook was considerably worse 
 than his own, he might not have been so successful in pleasing 
 Lucy. As for himself, all the previous impressions she had 
 made on him returned in colors yet more vivid; even the deli- 
 cate and subdued cast of beauty which had succeeded to her ear- 
 lier brilliancy, was far more charming to his fastidious and courtly 
 taste than her former glow of spirits and health. He felt him- 
 self very much in love during dinner ; and after it was over, 
 and Lucy had retired, he told Brandon with a passionate air, 
 "that he adored \\\s niece to distraction!" 
 
 The wilyjudge affected to receive the intimation with indif- 
 ference; but knowing that too long an absence is injurious to 
 a grande pa ssion, he did not keep Mauleverer very late over 
 his wine. 
 
 The Earl returned rapturously to the drawing-room, and 
 besought Lucy, in a voice in which affectation seemed swoon- 
 ing with delight, to indulge him with a song. More and more 
 enchanted by her assent, he drew a music-stool to the harpsi- 
 chord, placed a chair beside her, and presently appeared lost 
 in transport. Meanwhile Brandon, with his back to the pair, 
 covered his face with his handkerchief, and, to all appearance, 
 yielded to the voluptuousness of an after-dinner repose.
 
 302 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Lucy's song-book opened accidentally at a song which had 
 been praised by Clifford ; and as she sang, her voice took a 
 richer and more tender tone than in Mauleverer's presence it 
 had ever before assumed. 
 
 THE COMPLAINT OF THE VIOLETS WHICH LOSE THEIR 
 SCENT IN MAY. 
 
 In the shadow that falls from the silent hill 
 
 We slept, in our green retreats ; 
 And the April showers were wont to fill 
 Our hearts with sweets. 
 
 II. 
 
 And though we lay in a lowly bower. 
 
 Yet all things loved us well, 
 And the waking bee left her fairest flower 
 With us to dwell. 
 
 in. 
 
 But the warm May came in his pride to woo 
 . The wealth of our honeyed store ; 
 And our hearts just telt his breath, and knew 
 Their sweets no more. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And the summer reigns on the quiet spot 
 
 Where we dwell, and its suns and showers 
 Bring balm to our sisters' hearts, but not 
 Ah ! not to ours. 
 
 V. 
 
 We live, we bloom, but forever o'er 
 
 Is the charm of the earth and sky ; 
 To our life, ye heavens, that balm restore, 
 Or bid us die ! 
 
 As with eyes suffused with many recollections, and a voice 
 which melted away in an indescribable and thrilling pathos, 
 Lucy ceased her song, Mauleverer, charmed out of himself, 
 gently took her hand, and, holding the soft treasure in his 
 own, scarcely less soft, he murmured: 
 
 "Angel! sing on. Life would be like your own music, if I 
 could breathe it away at your feet!"' 
 
 There had been a time when Lucy would have laughed out- 
 right at this declaration ; and, even as it was, a suppressed and 
 half-arch smile played in the dimples of her beautiful mouth, 
 and bewitchingly contrasted the swimming softness of her eyes,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 30$ 
 
 Drawing rather an erroneous omen from the smile, Maul- 
 everer rapturously continued, still detaining the hand which 
 Lucy endeavored to extricate : 
 
 "Yes, enchanting Miss Brandon! I who have for so many 
 years boasted of my invulnerable heart, am subdued at last. I 
 have long, very long, struggled against my attachment to you. 
 Alas ! it is in vain ; and you behold me now utterly at your 
 mercy. Make me the most miserable of men, or the most 
 enviable. Enchantress, speak!" 
 
 "Really, my lord," said Lucy, hesitating, yet rising, and 
 freeing herself from his hand, "I feel it difficult to suppose 
 you serious ; and, perhaps, this is merely a gallantry to me, by 
 way of practice on others." 
 
 "Sweet Lucy, if I may so call you," answered Mauleverer, 
 with an ardent gaze, "do not, I implore you, even for a mo- 
 ment, affect to mistake me! do not for a moment jest at what, 
 to me, is the bane or bliss of life! Dare I hope that my hand 
 and heart, which I now offer you, are not deserving of your 
 derision?" 
 
 Lucy gazed on her adorer with a look of serious inquiry ; 
 Brandon still appeared to sleep. 
 
 "If you are in earnest, my lord," said Lucy, after a pause, 
 "I am truly and deeply sorry; for the friend of my uncle I 
 shall always have esteem: believe me that I am truly sensible 
 of the honor you render me, when I add rny regret, that I can 
 have no other sentiment than esteem." 
 
 A blank and puzzled bewilderment, for a .moment, clouded 
 the expressive features of Mauleverer, it passed away. 
 
 "How sweet is your rebuke!" said he. "Yes! I do not 
 yet deserve any other sentiment than esteem: you are not to be 
 won .precipitately ; .a long trial, a long course of attentions, 
 a long knowledge of my devoted and ardent love, alone will 
 entitle me to hope for a warmer feeling in your breast. Fix 
 then your own time of courtship, angelic Lucy! a week, nay, 
 a month! -till then, I will not even press you to appoint that 
 day, which to me will be the whitest of my life!" 
 
 "My lord!" said Lucy, smiling now no longer half archly, 
 "you must pardon me for believing your proposal can be noth- 
 ing but a jest; but here, I beseech you, let it rest forever; do 
 not mention this subject to me again." 
 
 "By heavens!" cried Mauleverer, "this is too cruel. Bran- 
 don, intercede for me with your niece." 
 
 Sir William started, naturally enough, from his slumber, and 
 Mauleverer continued: .
 
 304 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "Yes, intercede for me; you, my oldest friend, be my 
 greatest benefactor! I sue to your niece, she affects to dis- 
 believe, will you convince her of my truth, my devotion, my 
 worship?" 
 
 "Disbelieve you!" said the bland judge, with the same se- 
 cret sneer that usually lurked in the corners of his mouth. "I 
 do not wonder that she is slow to credit the honor you have 
 done her, and for which the noblest damsels in England have 
 sighed in vain. Lucy, will you be cruel to Lord Mauleverer? 
 Believe me, he has often confided to me his love for you ; and 
 if the experience of some years avails, there is not a question 
 of his honor and his truth: I leave his fate in your hands." 
 
 Brandon turned to the door. 
 
 "Stay, dear sir," said Lucy, "and, instead of interceding 
 for Lord Mauleverer, intercede for me." Her look now set- 
 tled into a calm and decided seriousness of expression. "I 
 feel highly flattered by his lordship's 1 proposal, which, as you 
 say, I might well doubt to be gravely meant. I wish him all 
 happiness with a lady of higher deserts ; but I speak from an 
 unalterable determination, when I say that I can never accept 
 the dignity, with which he would invest me." 
 
 So saying, Lucy walked quickly to the door, and vanished, 
 leaving the two friends to comment as they would upon her 
 conduct. , 
 
 "You have spoilt all with your precipitation," said the 
 uncle. 
 
 "Precipitation! d n it, what would you have? I have 
 been fifty years making up my mind to marry ; and now, when 
 I have not a day to lose, you talk of precipitation!" answered 
 the lover, throwing himself into an easy-chair. 
 
 "But you have not been fifty years making up your mind to 
 marry my niece," said Brandon dryly. 
 
 "To be refused postively refused, by a country girl!" con- 
 tinued Mauleverer, soliloquizing aloud; "and that tod at my 
 age, and with all my experience a country girl without rank, 
 ton, accomplishments! By Heavens! I don't care if all the 
 world heard it, for not a soul in the world would ever 
 believe it." 
 
 Brandon sat speechless, eyeing the mortified face of the cour- 
 tier with a malicious complacency, and there was a pause of 
 several minutes. Sir William then, mastering the strange feel- 
 ing which made him always rejoice in whatever threw ridicule 
 on his/VvVtt/, approached, laid his hand kindly on Mauleverer's 
 shoulder, and talked to him of comfort and of encouragement.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 The reader will believe that Mauleverer was not a man whom 
 it was impossible to encourage. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 " Before he came, everything loved me, and I had more things to love 
 than I could reckon by the hairs of my head. Now, I feel I can love but 
 one, and that one has deserted me. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " Well, be it so let her perish, let her be anything but mine." 
 
 Melmotk. 
 
 EARLY the next morning, Sir William Brandon was closeted 
 for a long time with his niece, previous to his departure to the 
 duties of his office. Anxious and alarmed for the success of 
 one of the darling projects of his ambition, he spared no art in 
 his conversation with Lucy, that his great ingenuity of elo- 
 quence and wonderful insight into human nature could suggest, 
 in order to gain at least a foundation for the raising of his 
 scheme. Among other resources of his worldly tact, he hinted 
 at Lucy's love for Clifford; and (though darkly and subtly, as 
 befitting the purity of the one he addressed) this abandoned and 
 wily person did not scruple to hint also at the possibility of 
 indulging that love after marriage; though he denounced, as 
 the last of indecorums, the crime of encouraging it before. 
 This hint, however, fell harmless upon the innocent ear of 
 Lucy. She did not, in the remotest degree, comprehend its 
 meaning; she only, with a glowing cheek 1 and a pouting lip, re- 
 sented the allusion to a love which she thought it insolent in 
 any one even to suspect. 
 
 When Brandon left the apartment, his brow was clouded, 
 and his eye absent and thoughtful : it was evident that there 
 had been little in the conference with his niece to please or 
 content him. Miss Brandon herself was greatly agitated: for 
 there was in her uncle's nature that silent and impressive se- 
 cret of influencing or commanding others, which almost so in- 
 variably, and yet so quietly, attains the wishes of its owner; 
 and Lucy, who loved and admired him sincerely not the less, 
 perhaps, for a certain modicum of fear was greatly grieved at 
 perceiving how rooted in him was the desire of that marriage 
 which she felt was a moral impossibility. But if Brandon pos- 
 sessed the secret of sway, Lucy was scarcely less singularly en- 
 dowed with the secret of resistance. It may be remembered,
 
 306 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 in describing her character, that we spoke of her as one who 
 seemed, to the superficial, as of too yielding and soft a temper. 
 But circumstances gave the lie to manner, and proved that she 
 eminently possessed a quiet firmness and latent resolution, which 
 gave to her mind a nobleness and trustworthy power, that 
 never would have been suspected by those who met her among 
 the ordinary paths of life. 
 
 Brandon had not been long gone, when Lucy's maid came 
 to inform her that a gentleman, who expressed himself very de- 
 sirous of seeing her, waited below. The blood rushed from 
 Lucy's cheek at this announcement, simple as it seemed. "What 
 gentleman could be desirous of seeing her. Was it was it 
 Clifford?" She remained for some moments motionless, and 
 literally unable to move ; at length she summoned courage, and 
 smiling with self-contempt at a notion which appeared to her 
 after thoughts utterly absurd, she descended to the drawing- 
 room. The first glance she directed towards the stranger, who 
 stood by the fireplace with folded arms, was sufficient, it was 
 impossible to mistake, though the face was averted, the un- 
 equalled form of her lover. She advanced eagerly with a 
 faint cry, checked herself, and sank upon the sofa. 
 
 Clifford turned towards her, and fixed his eyes upon her 
 countenance with an intense and melancholy gaze, but he did 
 not utter a syllable; and Lucy, after pausing in expectation 
 of his voice, looked up, and caught, in alarm, the strange and 
 peculiar aspect of his features. He approached her slowly, 
 and still silent ; but his gaze seemed to grow more earnest and 
 mournful as he advanced. 
 
 "Yes," said he at last, in a broken and indistinct voice, " I 
 see you once more, after all my promises to quit you for ever, 
 after my solemn farewell, after all tha,t I have cost you : for, 
 Lucy, you love me, you love me, and I shudder while I feel 
 it ; after all I myself have borne and resisted, I once more come 
 wilfully into your presence! How have I burnt and sickened 
 for this moment! How have I said, 'Let me behold her once 
 more only once more, and Fate may then do her worst ! ' 
 Lucy ! dear, dear Lucy ! forgive me for my weakness. It is 
 now in bitter and stern reality the very last lean be guilty of !" 
 
 As he spoke, Clifford sank beside her. He took both her 
 hands in his, and holding them, though without pressure, again 
 looked passionately upon her innocent yet eloquent face. It 
 seemed as if he were moved beyond all the ordinary feelings of 
 reunion and of love. He did not attempt to kiss the hands he 
 held ; and though the touch thrilled through every vein and
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. $O? 
 
 fibre of his frame, his clasp was as light as that in which the 
 first timidity of a boy's love ventures to stamp itself! 
 
 "You are pale, Lucy," said he mournfully, "and your cheek 
 is much thinner than it was when I first saw you when I first 
 saw you ! Ah ! would for your sake that that had never been ; 
 Your spirits were light then, Lucy. Your laugh came from, the 
 heart, your step spurned the earth. Joy broke from your 
 eyes, everything that breathed around you seemed full of hap- 
 piness and mirth ! and now, look upon me, Lucy ; lift those 
 soft eyes, and teach them to flash upon me indignation and 
 contempt! Oh, not thus, not thus! I could leave you happy, 
 yes, literally blest, if I could fancy you less forgiving, less 
 gentle, less angelic ! " 
 
 "What have I to forgive?" said Lucy tenderly. 
 
 "What! everything for which one human being can pardon 
 another. Have not deceit and injury been my crimes against 
 you? Your peace of mind, your serenity of heart, your buoy- 
 ancy of temper, have I marred these or not?" 
 
 "Oh, Clifford!" said Lucy, rising from herself and from 
 selfish thoughts, ' 'why, -why will you not trust me? You do not 
 know me, indeed you do not you are ignorant even of the 
 very nature of a woman, if you think me unworthy of your con- 
 fidence! Do you believe I could betray it? or do you think 
 that, if you had done that for which all the world forsook you, 
 /could forsake?" 
 
 Lucy's voice faltered at the last words ; but it sank as a stone 
 sinks into deep waters, to the very core of Clifford's heart. 
 Transported from all resolution and aU-forbearance, he wound his 
 arms around her in one long and impassioned caress ; and Lucy, 
 as her breath mingled with his, and her cheek drooped upon 
 his bosom, did indeed feel as if the past could contain no se- 
 cret powerful enough even to weaken the affection with which 
 her heart clung to his. She was the first to extricate herself 
 from their embrace. She drew back her face from his, and 
 smiling on him through her tears, with a brightness that the 
 smiles of her earliest youth had never surpassed, she said : 
 
 "Listen to me. Tell me your history or not, as you will. 
 But believe me, a woman's wit is often no despicable coun- 
 sellor. They who accuse themselves the most bitterly, are not 
 often those whom it is most difficult to forgive; and you must 
 pardon me, if I doubt the extent of the blame you would so 
 lavishly impute to yourself. I am now alone in the world 
 (here the smile withered from Lucy's lips). My poor father 
 is dead. I can injure no one by my conduct ; there is no one
 
 3o3 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 on earth to whom I am bound by duty. I am independent, 
 I am rich. You profess to love me. I am foolish and vain, 
 and I believe you. Perhaps, also, I have the fond hope which 
 so often makes dupes of women the hope, that, if you hav& 
 erred, I may reclaim you; if you have been unfortunate, 
 I may console you ! I know, Mr. Clifford, that I am saying 
 that for which many would despise me, and for which, per- 
 haps, I ought to despise myself; but there are times when we 
 speak only as if some power at our hearts constrained us, de- 
 spite ourselves, and it is thus that I have now spoken to you." 
 
 It was with an air very unwonted to herself that Lucy had 
 concluded her address, for her usual characteristic was rather 
 softness than dignity ; but, as if to correct the meaning of her 
 words, which might otherwise appear unmaidenly, there was 
 a chaste, a proud, yet not the less a tender and sweet propriety 
 and dignified frankness in her look and manner; so that it 
 would have been utterly impossible for one who heard her not 
 to have done justice to the nobleness of her motives, or not to 
 have felt both touched and penetrated, as much by respect as 
 by any warmer or more familiar feeling. 
 
 Clifford, who had risen while she was speaking, listened with 
 a countenance that varied at every word she uttered : now all 
 hope now all despondency. As she ceased, the expression 
 hardened into a settled and compulsive resolution. 
 
 "It is well!" said he mutteringly. "I am worthy of this 
 very very worthy! Generous, noble girl! had I been an 
 emperor, I would have bowed down to you in worship ; but to 
 debase, to degrade you-^-wo ! no ! " 
 
 "Is there debasement in love?" murmured Lucy. 
 
 Clifford gazed upon her with a sort of enthusiastic and self- 
 gratulatory pride ; perhaps he felt to be thus loved, and by such 
 a creature, was matter of pride even in the lowest circumstances 
 to which he could ever be exposed. He drew his breath hard, 
 set his teeth, and answered : 
 
 "You could love, then, an outcast, without birth, fortune, or 
 character? No! you believe this now, but you could not. 
 Could you desert your country, your friends, and your home 
 all that you are born and fitted for? Could you attend one 
 over whom the sword hangs, through a life subjected every 
 hour to discovery and disgrace? Could you be subjected your- 
 self to the moodiness of an evil memory, and the gloomy silence 
 of remorse? Could you be the victim of one who has no merit 
 but his love for you, and who, if that love destroy you, becomes 
 littefty redeemed? Yes, Lucy, I was wrong I will do you
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 3<5<) 
 
 justice : all this, nay more, you could bear, and your generous 
 nature would disdain the sacrifice ! But am / to be all selfish, 
 and you all devoted? Are you to yield everything to me, and / 
 to accept everything and yield none? Alas! I have but one 
 good, one blessing to yield, and that is yourself. Lucy, I de- 
 serve you ; I outdo you in generosity : all that you would desert 
 for me is nothing O God! nothing to the sacrifice I make 
 to you! And now, Lucy, I have seen you, and I must once 
 more bid you farewell : I am on the eve of quitting this country 
 forever. I shall enlist in a foreign service. Perhaps (and 
 Clifford's dark eyes flashed with fire) you will yet hear of 
 me, and not blush when you hear! But (and his voice fal- 
 tered, for Lucy, hiding her face with both hands, gave way to 
 her tears and agitation) but, in one respect, you have con- 
 quered. I had believed that you could never be mine that 
 my past life had forever deprived me of that hope! I now be- 
 gin, with a rapture that can bear me through all ordeals, to form a 
 more daring vision. A soil may be effaced an evil name may 
 be redeemed the past is not set and sealed, without the power 
 of revoking what has been written. If I can win the right of 
 meriting your mercy,! will throw myself on it without reserve; 
 till then, or till death, you will see me no more!" 
 
 He dropped on his knee, left his kiss and his tears upon 
 Lucy's cold hand; the next moment she heard his step on the 
 stairs, the door closed heavily and jarringly upon him, and 
 Lucy felt one bitter pang, and, for some time at least, she felt 
 no more! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 " Many things fall between the cup and the lip ! 
 
 Your man does please me 
 With his conceit. 
 
 ***** 
 Comes Chanon Hugh accoutred as you see, 
 Disguised ! 
 
 And thus am I to gull the constable ? 
 Now have among you for a man-at-arms. 
 
 ***** 
 High-constable was more, though 
 He laid Dick Tator by the heels. 
 
 BEN JQNSON : Tale of a Tub. 
 
 MEANWHILE, Clifford strode rapidly through the streets which 
 surrounded the judge's house and, turning to an obscurer quar- 
 tier of the town, entered a gloomy lane or alley. Here he was
 
 jtO PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 abruptly accosted by a man wrapped in a shaggy great-coat, 
 and of somewhat a suspicious appearance: 
 
 "Aha, captain!" said he, "you are beyond your time, but 
 all's well!" 
 
 Attempting, with indifferent success, the easy self-possession 
 which generally marked his address to his companions, Clif- 
 ord, repeating the stranger's words, replied: 
 
 "All's well!' what! are the prisoners released?" 
 
 "No, faith!" answered the man, with a rough laugh, "not 
 yet ; but all in good time ; it is a little too much to expect the 
 justices to do our work, though, by the Lord Harry, we 
 often do theirs!" 
 
 "What then?" asked Clifford impatiently. 
 
 "Why, the poor fellows had been carried to the town of , 
 
 and brought, before the queer cuffin* ere I arrived, though I 
 set off the moment you told me, and did the journey in four 
 hours. The examination lasted all yesterday, and they were 
 remanded till to-day : let's see, it is not yet noon ; we may be 
 there before it's over." 
 
 "And this is what you call well!" said Clifford angrily! 
 
 "No, captain, don't be glimflashey! you have not heard all 
 yet! it seems that the only thing buffed hard against them was 
 by a stout grazier, who was cried 'Stand!' to, some fifty miles 
 off the town ; so the queer cuffin thinks of sending the poor 
 fellows to the gaol of the county where they did the business!" 
 
 "Ah! that may leave some hopes for them! We must look 
 sharp to their journey; if they once get to prison, their only 
 chances are the file and the bribe. Unhappily, neither of them 
 is so lucky as myself at that trade!" 
 
 "No, indeed, there is not a stone wall in England that the 
 great Captain Lovett could not creep through, I'll swear!" said 
 the admiring satellite. 
 
 "Saddle the horses and load the pistols! I will join you in 
 ten minutes. Have my farmer's dress ready, the false hair, etc. 
 Choose your own trim. Make haste; the Three Feathers 
 is the house of meeting." 
 
 "And in ten minutes only, captain?" 
 
 "Punctually!" 
 
 "The stranger turned a corner, and was out of sight. Clif- 
 ord, muttering "Yes, /was the cause of their apprehension; 
 it was I who was sought ; it is but fair that I should strike a 
 blow for their escape, before I attempt my own," continued 
 his course till he came to the door of a public-house. The 
 
 * Magistrate.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 31 1 
 
 sign of a seaman swung aloft, portraying the jolly tar with a 
 fine pewter pot in his hand, considerably huger than his own 
 circumference. An immense pug sat at the door lolling its 
 tongue out, as if, having stuffed itself to the tongue, it was 
 forced to turn that useful member out of its proper place. 
 The shutters were half closed, but the sounds of coarse mer- 
 riment issued jovially forth. 
 
 Clifford disconcerted the pug; and, crossing the threshold, 
 cried, in a loud tone, "Janseen!" "Here!" answered a gruff 
 voice ; and Clifford, passing on, came to a small parlor adjoin- 
 ing the tap. There, seated by a round oak-table, he found 
 mine host, a red, fierce, weatherbeaten, but bloated-looking 
 personage, like Dirk Hatteraick in a dropsy. 
 
 "How now, captain!" cried he, in a guttural accent, and in- 
 terlarding his discourse with certain Dutch graces, which, with 
 our reader's leave, we will omit, as being unable to spell them: 
 "how now! not gone yet!" 
 
 "No! I start for the coast to-morrow ; business keeps me to- 
 day. I came to ask if Mellon may be fully depended on?" 
 
 "Ay honest to the back-bone." 
 
 "And you are sure that, in spite of my late delays, he will 
 not have left the village?" 
 
 "Sure! what else can I be? don't I know Jack Mellon these 
 twenty years ! He would lie like a log in a calm for ten months 
 together, without moving a hair's breadth, if he was under 
 orders." 
 
 "And his vessel is swift and well manned, in case of an 
 officer's chase?" 
 
 "The Black Molly swift? rAsk your grandmother. The 
 Black Molly would outstrip a shark." 
 
 "Then good-by, Janseen; there is something to keep your 
 pipe alight : we shall not meet within the three seas again, I 
 think. England is as much too hot for me as Holland for 
 you!" 
 
 "You are a capital fellow!" cried mine host, shaking 
 Clifford by the hand; "and when the lads come to know their 
 loss, they will know they have lost the bravest and truest gill 
 that ever took to the toby; so, good-by and bed d to you!" 
 
 With this valedictory benediction, mine host released Clifford ; 
 and the robber hastened to his appointment at the Three 
 Feathers. 
 
 He found all prepared. He hastily put on his disguise, and 
 his follower led out his horse, a noble animal of the grand Irish 
 breed, of remarkable strength and bone, and, save only that it
 
 312 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 was somewhat sharp in the quarters (a fault which they who 
 look for speed as well as grace will easily forgive), of almost 
 unequalled beauty in its symmetry and proportions. Well did 
 the courser know, and proudly did it render obeisance to its 
 master; snorting impatiently, and rearing from the hand of the 
 attendant robber, the sagacious animal freed itself of the rein, 
 and, as it tossed its long mane in the breeze of the fresh air, 
 came trotting to the place where Clifford stood. 
 
 "So ho, Robin! so ho! what, thou chafest that I have left 
 thy fellow behind at the Red Cave. Him we may never see 
 more. But, while I have life, I will not leave t/iee, Robin!" 
 
 With these words, the robber fondly stroked the shining neck 
 of his favorite steed ; and as the animal returned the caress, by 
 rubbing his head against the hands and the athletic breast of 
 its master, Clifford felt at his heart somewhat of that old racy 
 stir of the blood which had been once to him the chief charm 
 of his criminal profession, and which, in the late change of his 
 feelings, he had almost forgotten. 
 
 "Well, Robin, well," he renewed, as he kissed the face of 
 his steed, "well, we will have some days like our old ones 
 yet; thou shalt say, ha! ha! to the trumpet, and bear thy mas- 
 ter along on more glorious enterprises than he has yet thanked 
 thee for sharing. Thou wilt now be my only familiar, my 
 only fjiend, Robin ; we two shall be strangers in a foreign land. 
 But thou wilt make thyself welcome easier than thy lord, Rob- 
 in ; and thou wilt forget the old days, and thine old comrades, 
 and thine old loves, when ha!" and Clifford turned abruptly 
 to his attendant, who addressed him, "It is late, you say? true! 
 Look you, it will be unwise for us both to quit London together ; 
 you know the sixth milestone, join me there, and we can pro.- 
 ceed in company!" 
 
 Not unwilling to linger fora parting-cup, the comrade as- 
 sented to the prudence of the plan proposed ; and, after one 
 or two additional words of caution and advice, Clifford 
 mounted and rode from the yard of the inn. As he passed 
 through the tall wooden gates into the street, the imperfect 
 gleam of the wintry sun falling over himself and his steed, it 
 was scarcely possible, even in spite of his disguise and rude 
 garb, to conceive a more gallant and striking specimen of the 
 lawless and daring tribe to which he belonged ; the height, 
 strength, beauty, and exquisite grooming visible in the steed ; 
 the sparkling eye, the bold profile, the sinewy chest, the grace- 
 ful limbs, and the careless and practised horsemanship of the 
 rider.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 313 
 
 Looking after his chief with a long and admiring gaze, the 
 robber said to the ostler of the inn, an aged and withered man, 
 who had seen nine generations of highwaymen rise and vanish : 
 
 "There, Joe, when did you ever look on a hero like that? 
 The bravest heart, the frankest hand, the best judge of a horse, 
 and the handsomest man that ever did honor to Hounslow!" 
 
 "For all that," returned the ostler, shaking his palsied head, 
 and turning back to the tap-room, "For all that, master, 
 his time be up. Mark my whids, Captain Lovett will not be 
 over the year, no! nor mayhap the month!" 
 
 "Why, you old rascal, what makes you so wise? You will not 
 peach, I suppose!" 
 
 "I peach! devil a bit! But there never was the gemman of 
 the road, great or small, knowing or stupid, as outlived his 
 seventh year. And this will be the captain's seventh, come the 
 zist of next month; but he be a fine chap, and I'll go to his 
 hanging!" 
 
 "Pish!" said the robber peevishly, he himself was verging 
 towards the end of his sixth year, "pish!" 
 
 "Mind, I tells it you, master; and somehow or other I 
 thinks, and I has experience in these things, by the fey* of 
 his eye, and the drop of his lip, that the captain's time will be 
 up to-day !" 
 
 Here the robber lost all patience, and pushing the hoary 
 boder of evil against the wall, he turned on his heel, and sought 
 some more agreeable companion to share his stirrup-cup. 
 
 It was in the morning of the day following that in which the 
 above conversations occurred, that the sagacious Augustus Tom- 
 linson and the valorous Edward Pepper, handcuffed and fet- 
 tered, were jogging along the road in a postchaise with Mr. 
 Nabbem squeezed in by the side of the former, and two other 
 gentlemen in Mr. Nabbem's confidence mounted on the box of 
 the chaise, and interfering sadly, as Long Ned growlingly re- 
 marked, with "the beauty of the prospect." 
 
 "Ah, well!" quoth Nabbem, unavoidably thrusting his elbow 
 into Tomlinson's side, while he drew out his snuff-box, and 
 helped himself largely to the intoxicating dust. "You had best 
 prepare yourself, Mr. Pepper, for a change of prospects. I 
 believe as how there is little to please you in quod (prison)." 
 
 "Nothing makes men so facetious as misfortune to others!" 
 said Augustus, moralizing, and turning himself, as well as he 
 was able, in order to deliver his body from the pointed elbow 
 
 * A word difficult to translate ; but the closest interpretation of which is, perhaps, " the 
 ill onttn."
 
 314 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of Mr. Nabbem. "When a man is down in the world, all the 
 bystanders, very dull fellows before, suddenly become wits!" 
 
 "You reflects on I," said Mr. Nabbem: "well, it does not 
 sinnify a pin, for directly we does our duty, you chaps become 
 howdaciously ungrateful ! ' ' 
 
 "Ungrateful!" said Pepper: "what a plague have we got 
 to be grateful for? I suppose you think we ought to tell you, 
 you are the best friend we have, because you have scrouged us, 
 neck and crop, into this horrible hole, like turkeys fatted for 
 Christmas. 'Sdeath ! one's hair is flatted down like a pancake ; 
 and as for one's legs, you had better cut them off at once than 
 tuck them up in a place a foot square, to say nothing of these 
 blackguardly irons!" 
 
 "The only irons pardonable in your eyes, Ned," said Tom- 
 linson, "are the curling-irons, eh?" 
 
 "Now if this is not too much!" cried Nabbem crossly; 
 "you objects to go in a cart like the rest of your profession; 
 and when I puts myself out of the way to obleedge you with a 
 shay, you slangs I for it." 
 
 "Peace, good Nabbem!" said Augustus, with a sage's dig- 
 nity; "you must allow a little bad humor in men so unhappily 
 situated as we are." 
 
 The soft answer turneth away wrath. Tomlinson' s answer 
 softened Nabbem; and, by way of conciliation, he held his 
 snuff-box to the nose of his unfortunate prisoner. Shutting his 
 eyes Tomlinson long and earnestly sniffed up the luxury, and 
 as soon as, with his own kerchief of spotted yellow, the officer 
 had wiped from the proboscis some lingering grains, Tomlin- 
 son thus spoke: 
 
 "You see us now, Mr. Nabbem, in a state of broken-down 
 o,. position ; but our spirits are not broken too. In our time 
 we have had something to do with the administration; and our 
 comfort at present, is the comfort of fallen ministers!" 
 
 "Oho! you were in the Methodist line before you took to 
 the road?" said Nabbem. 
 
 "Not so!" answered Augustus gravely. "We were the 
 Methodists of politics, not of the church; viz., we lived upon 
 our flock without a legal authority to do so, and that which the 
 law withheld from us, our wits gave. But tell me, Mr. Nab- 
 bem, are you addicted to politics ? " 
 
 "Why, they says I be," said Mr. Nabbem, with a grin; 
 "and for rhy part, I thinks all who sarves the King should stand 
 up for him, and take care of their little families!" 
 
 "You sfeak what others think!" answered Tomlinson, smil-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 315 
 
 ing also. "And I will now, since you like politics, point out 
 to you what I dare say you have not observed before." 
 
 "What be that?" said Nabbem. 
 
 "A wonderful likeness between the life of the gentlemen 
 adorning his Majesty's senate and the life of the gentlemen 
 whom you are conducting to his Majesty's gaol." 
 
 THE LIBELLOUS PARALLEL OF AUGUSTUS TOML1NSON. 
 
 "We enter our career, Mr. Nabbem, as your embryo minis- 
 ters enter parliament, by bribery and corruption. There is 
 this difference, indeed, between the two cases: ive are en- 
 ticed to enter by the bribery and corruption of others, they 
 enter spontaneously by dint of their own. At first, deluded by 
 romantic visions, we like the glory of our career better than the 
 profit, and in our youthful generosity we profess to attack the 
 rich solely from consideration for the poor! By and by, as we 
 grow more hardened, we laugh at these boyish dreams, peas- 
 ant or prince fares equally at our impartial hands; we grasp at 
 the bucket, but we scorn not the thimble-full ; we use the word 
 glory only as a trap for proselytes and apprentices ; our fingers, 
 like an office door, are open for all that can possibly come into 
 them: we consider the wealthy as our salary, the poor as our 
 perquisites. What is this, but a picture of your member of par- 
 liament ripening into a minister, your patriot mellowing into 
 your placeman? And mark me, Mr. Nabbem! is not the very 
 language of both as similar as the deeds? What is the phrase 
 either of us loves to employ? 'To deliver.' What? 'The 
 Public." And do we not both invariably deliver it of the same 
 thing? viz., its purse ! Do we want an excuse for sharing the 
 gold of our neighbors, or abusing them, if they resist? Is not 
 our mutual our pithiest plea 'Distress!' True your patriot 
 calls it 'distress of the country' : but does he ever, a whit more 
 than we do, mean any distress but his own? When we are 
 brought low, and our coats are shabby, do we not both shake 
 our heads and talk of 'reform'? and when oh! when we are up 
 in the world, do we not both kick 'reform' to the devil! How 
 often your parliament man 'vacates his seat,' only for the pur- 
 pose of resuming it with a weightier purse! How often, dear 
 Ned, have our seats been vacated for the same end ! Some- 
 times, indeed, he really finishes his career by accepting the 
 hundreds, it is by 'accepting the hundreds' that ours may 
 be finished too! (Ned drew a long sigh.) Note us now, Mr. 
 Nabbem, in the zenith of our prosperity we have filled our 
 pockets, we have become great in the mouths of our party.
 
 310 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Our pals admire us, and our blowens adore! What do we in 
 this short-lived summer. Save and be thrifty? Ah, no! we 
 must give our dinners, and make light of our lush. We sport 
 horses on the race-course, and look big at the multitude we have 
 bubbled. Is not this your minister come into office? Does 
 not this remind you of his equipage, his palace, his plate? In 
 both cases, lightly won, lavishly wasted; and the public, whose 
 cash we have fingered, may at least have the pleasure of gap- 
 ing at the figure we make with it! This, then, is our har- 
 vest of happiness ; our foes, our friends, are ready to eat us 
 with envy yet what is so little enviable as our station? Have 
 we not both our common vexations and our mutual disquietudes? 
 Do we not both bribe (Nabbem shook his head and buttoned 
 his waistcoat) our enemies, cajole our partisans, bully our de- 
 pendants, and quarrel with our only friends, viz., ourselves? 
 Is not the secret question with each 'It is all confoundedly 
 fine; but how long will it last?' Now, Mr. Nabbem, note me, 
 reverse the portrait: we are fallen, our career is over the 
 road is shut to us, and new plunderers are robbing the carriages 
 that once we robbed. Is not this the lot of no, no ! I deceive 
 myself! Your ministers, your jobmen, for the most part milk 
 the popular cow while there's a drop in the udder. Your chan- 
 cellor declines on a pension, your minister attenuates on a 
 grant, the feet of your great rogues may be gone from the 
 treasury benches, but they have their little fingers in the treas- 
 ury. Their past services are remembered by his Majesty, 
 ours only noted by the Recorder: they save themselves, for 
 they hang by one another ; we go to the devil, for we hang by 
 ourselves: we have our little day of the public, and all is over; 
 but it is never over with them. We both hunt the same fox: 
 but we are your fair riders: they are your knowing ones we 
 take the leap and our necks are broken : they sneak through 
 the gates, and keep it up to the last!" 
 
 As he concluded, Tomlinson's head drooped on his bosom, 
 and it was easy to see that painful comparisons, mingled per- 
 haps with secret murmurs at the injustice of fortune, were rank- 
 ling in his breast. Long Ned sat in gloomy silence ; and even 
 the hard heart of the severe Mr. Nabbem was softened by the 
 affecting parallel to which he had listened. They had proceeded 
 without speaking for two or three miles, when Long Ned, fixing 
 his eyes on Tomlinson, exclaimed: 
 
 "Do you know, Tomlinson, I think it was a burning shame 
 in Lovett to suffer us to be carried off like muttons, without 
 attempting to rescue us by the way! It is- all his fault
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 317 
 
 that we are here! for it was he whom Nabbem wanted, not 
 us!" 
 
 "Very true, " said the cunning policeman; "and if I were 
 you, Mr. Pepper, hang me if I would not behave like a man 
 of spirit, and show as little consarn for him as he shows for you ! 
 Why, Lord now, I doesn't want to 'tice you ; but this I does 
 know, the justices are very anxious to catch Lovett; and one 
 who gives him up and says a word or two about his cracter, so as 
 to make conviction sartain, may himself be sartain of a free 
 pardon for all little sprees and so forth ! ' ' 
 
 "Ah!" said Long Ned, with a sigh, "that is all very well, 
 Mf. Nabbem, but I'll go to the crap like a gentleman and not 
 peach of my comrades ; and now I think of it, Lovett could 
 scarely have assisted us. One man alone, even Lovett, clever 
 as he is, could not have forced us out of the clutches of you and 
 your myrmidons, Mr. Nabbem ! And when we were once at 
 : , they took excellent care of us. But tell me now, my dear 
 Nabbem, "and Long Ned's voice wheedled itself into some- 
 thing like softness, "tell me, do you think the grazier will buff 
 it home?" 
 
 "No doubt of that," said the unmoved Nabbem. Long 
 Ned's face fell. "And what if he does?" said he; "they can 
 but transport us!" 
 
 "Don't desave yourself, Master Pepper!" said Nabbem: 
 "you're too old a hand for the herring-pond. They're re- 
 solved to make gallows apples of all such numprels (Nonpa- 
 reils] as you." 
 
 Ned cast a sullen look at the officer. 
 
 "A pretty comforter you are!" said he. "I have been in a 
 postchaise with a pleasanter fellow, I'll swear! You may call 
 me an apple if you will, but, I take it, I am not an apple 
 you'd like to SQQ peeled. " 
 
 With this pugilistic and menacing pun, the lengthy hero 
 relapsed into meditative silence. 
 
 Our travellers were now entering a road skirted on one side 
 by a common of some extent, and on the other by a thick 
 hedgerow, which through its breaks gave occasional glimpses of 
 woodland and fallow, interspersed with cross-roads and liny 
 brooklets. 
 
 "There goes a jolly fellow !" said Nabbem, pointing to an 
 athletic-looking man, riding before the carriage, dressed in a 
 farmer's garb, and mounted on a large and powerful horse of 
 the Irish breed. "I day say he is well acquainted with your 
 grazier, Mr. Tomlinson ; he looks mortal like one of the same
 
 3io . PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 kidney; and here comes another chap" (as the stranger was 
 joined by a short, stout, ruddy man in a carter's frock, riding 
 on a horse less showy than his comrade's, but of the lengthy, 
 reedy, lank, yet muscular race, which a knowing jockey would 
 like to bet on). "Now that's what I calls a comely lad !" con- 
 tinued Nabbem, pointing to the latter horseman ; "none of 
 your thin-faced, dark, strapping fellows like that Captain Lov- 
 ett, as the blowens raves about, but a nice, tight, little body, 
 with a face like a carrot! That's a beauty for my money! 
 honesty's stamped on his face, Mr. Tomlinson ! I dare says 
 (and the officer grinned, for he had been a lad of the cross in 
 his . own day) I dare says, poor innocent booby, he knows 
 none of the ways of Lunnun town ; and if he has not as merry 
 a life as some folks, mayhap he may have a longer. But a 
 merry one for ever, for such lads as us, Mr. Pepper ! I say, 
 has you heard as how Bill Fang went to Scratchland (Scotland) 
 and was stretched for smashing queer screens (i. e. hung for 
 uttering forged notes)? He died 'nation game; for when his 
 father, who was a gray-headed parson, came to see him after 
 the sentence, he says to the governor, says he, 'Give us a tip, 
 old 'un, to pay the expenses, and die dacently.' The parson 
 forks him out ten shiners, preaching all the while like winkey. 
 Bob drops one of the guineas between his fingers, and says, 
 'Holla, dad, you have only tipped us nine of the yellow boys; 
 just now you said as how it was ten ! ' On this the parish-bull, 
 who was as poor as if he'd been a mouse of the church instead 
 of the curate, lugs out another; and Bob, turning round to the 
 gaoler, cries, 'Flung the governor out of a guinea, by G d!'* 
 Now, that's what I calls keeping it up to the last!" 
 
 Mr. Nabbem had scarcely finished this anecdote, when the 
 farmer-like stranger, who had kept up by the side of the chaise, 
 suddenly rode to the window, and, touching his hat, said in a 
 Norfolk accent, "Were the gentlemen we met on the road be- 
 longing to your party? They were asking after a chaise and 
 pair." 
 
 "No!" said Nabbem, "there be no gentleman as belongs to 
 our party!" So saying, he tipped a knowing wink at the 
 farmer, and glanced over his shoulder at the prisoners. 
 
 "What! you are going all alone?" said the farmer. 
 
 "Ay, to be sure, " answered Nabbem; "not much danger, I 
 think, in the day-time, with the son out as big as a sixpence, 
 which is as big as ever I see'd him in this country!" 
 
 At that moment, the shorter stranger, whose appearance had 
 
 * Fact.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 319 
 
 attracted the praise of Mr. Nabbem (that personage was him- 
 self very short and ruddy), and who had hitherto been riding 
 close to the post-horses, and talking to the officers on the box, 
 suddenly threw himself from his steed, and in the same instant 
 that he arrested the horses of the chaise, strtick the postilion 
 to the ground with a short, heavy bludgeon which he drew from 
 his frock. A whistle was heard and answered, as if by a sig- 
 nal: three fellows, armed with bludgeons, leaped from the 
 hedge ; and in the interim the pretended farmer, dismounting, 
 flung open the door of the chaise, and seizing Mr. Nabbem by 
 the collar, swung him to the ground with a celerity that be- 
 came the circular rotundity of the policeman's figure, rather 
 than the deliberate gravity of his dignified office. 
 
 Rapid and instantaneous as had been his work, it was not 
 without a check. Although the policemen had not dreamed of 
 a rescue in the very face of the day, and on the high road, 
 their profession was not that which suffered them easily to be 
 surprised. The two guardians of the dickey leaped nimbly to 
 the ground ; but before they had time to use their fire-arms, 
 two of the new aggressors, who had appeared from the hedge, 
 closed upon them, and bore them to the ground: while this 
 scuffle took place, the farmer had disarmed the prostrate Nab- 
 bem, and giving him in charge to the remaining confederate, 
 extricated Tomlinson and his comrade from the chaise. 
 
 "Hist!" said he, in a whisper, "beware my name; my dis- 
 guise hides me at present lean on me only through the 
 hedge, a cart waits there, and you are safe!" 
 
 With these broken words he assisted the robbers, as well as 
 he could, in spite of their manacles, through the same part of 
 the hedge from which the three allies had sprung. They were 
 already through the barrier; only the long legs of Ned Pepper 
 lingered behind; when at the far end of the road, which was 
 perfectly straight, a gentleman's carriage became visible. A 
 strong hand from the interior of the hedge seizing Pepper, 
 dragged him through, and Clifford for the reader need not 
 be told who was the farmer perceiving the approaching re- 
 enforcement, shouted at once for flight. The robber who had 
 guarded Nabbem, and who indeed was no other than Old Bags, 
 slow as he habitually was, lost not an instant in providing for 
 himself; before you could say "Laudamus, " he was on the 
 other side of the hedge ; the two men engaged with the police- 
 officers were not capable of an equal celerity ; but Clifford, 
 throwing himself into the contest and engaging the policemen, 
 gave the robbers the opportunity of escape. They scrambled
 
 320 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 through the fence, the officers, tough fellows and keen, cling- 
 ing lustily to them, till one was felled by Clifford, and the 
 other catching against a stump, was forced to relinquish his hold ; 
 he then sprang back into the road and prepared for Clifford, 
 who now, however, occupied himself rather in fugitive than 
 warlike measures. Meanwhile, the moment the other rescuers 
 had passed the Rubicon of the hedge, their flight, and that of 
 the gentlemen who had passed before them, commenced. On 
 this mystic side of the hedge was a cross-road, striking at once 
 through an intricate and wooded part of the country, which al- 
 lowed speedy and ample opportunities of dispersion. Here a 
 light cart, drawn by two swift horses, in a tandem fashion, 
 awaited the fugitives. Long Ned and Augustus were stowed 
 down at the bottom of the vehicle ; three fellows filed away 
 at their irons, and a fourth, who had hitherto remained inglori- 
 ous with the cart, gave the lash and he gave it handsomely 
 to the coursers. Away rattled the equipage; and thus was 
 achieved a flight, still memorable in the annals of the elect, and 
 long quoted as one of the boldest and most daring exploits 
 that illicit enterprise ever accomplished. 
 
 Clifford and his equestrian comrade only remained in ttie 
 field, or rather the road; the former sprang at once on his 
 horse, the latter was not long in following the example. 
 But the policeman, who, it has been said, baffled in detaining 
 the fugitives of the hedge, had leaped back into the road, was 
 not idle in the meanwhile. When he saw Clifford about to 
 mount, instead of attempting to seize the enemy, he recurred to 
 his pistol, which in the late struggle hand to hand he had been 
 unable to use, and taking sure aim at Clifford, whom he judged 
 at once to be the leader of the rescue, he lodged a ball in the 
 right side of the robber, at the very moment he had set spurs 
 in his horse and turned to fly. Clifford's head drooped to the 
 saddle-bow. Fiercely the horse sprang on ; the robber endeav- 
 ored, despite his reeling senses, to retain his seat once he 
 raised his head once he nerved his slackened and listless 
 limbs and then, with a faint groan, he fell to the earth. The 
 horse bounded but one step more, and, true, to the tutorship 
 it had received, stopped abruptly. Clifford raised himself with 
 great difficulty on one arm ; with the other hand he drew forth 
 a pistol; he pointed it deliberately towards the officer that 
 wounded him ; the man stood motionless, cowering and spell- 
 bound, beneath the dilating eye of the robber. It was but for 
 a moment that the man had cause for dread ; for muttering be- 
 tween his ground teeth, "Why waste it on an enemy f" Clif-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. $21 
 
 ford turned the muzzle towards the head of the unconscious 
 steed, which seemed sorrowfully and wistfully to incline towards 
 him. "Thou," he said, "whom I have fed and loved shalt 
 never know hardship from another!" and with a merciful 
 cruelty he dragged himself one pace nearer to his beloved 
 steed, uttering a well-known word, which brought the docile 
 creature to his side, and placing the muzzle of the pistol close 
 to his ear he fired, and fell back senseless at the exertion. The 
 animal staggered, and dropped down dead. 
 
 Meanwhile Clifford's comrade, profiting by the surprise and 
 sudden panic of the officer, was already out of reach, and dart- 
 ing across the common, he and his ragged courser speedily 
 vanished. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 " Lose I not 
 
 With him what fortune could in life allot ? 
 Lose I not hope, life's cordial ? 
 
 ***** 
 
 In fact, the lessons he from prudence took 
 Were written in his mind as in a book. 
 There what to do he read, and what to shun, 
 And all commanded was witli promptness done : 
 He seemed without n passion to proceed, 
 
 ***** 
 Yet some believed those passions only slept ! " 
 
 CRABBE. 
 " Relics of love and life's enchanted spring ! " 
 
 A. WATTS, on burning a Packet of Letters. 
 " Many and sad and deep 
 
 Were the thoughts folded in thy silent breast ! 
 Thou, too, conldst watch and weep ! " 
 
 MRS. HEMANS. 
 
 WHILE Sir William Brandon was pursuing his ambitious 
 schemes, and notwithstanding Lucy's firm and steady refusal 
 of Lord Mauleverer, was still determined on that ill-assorted 
 marriage ; while Mauleverer himself, day after day, attended at 
 the judge's house, and, though he spoke not of love, looked it 
 with all his might ; it became obvious to every one but the 
 lover and the guardian, that Lucy herself was rapidly declining in 
 appearance and health. Ever since the day she had last seen 
 Clifford, her spirits, before greatly shattered, had refused to 
 regain even a likeness to their naturally cheerful and happy 
 tone. She became silent and abstracted ; even her gentleness
 
 322 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of temper altered at times into a moody and fretful humor. 
 Neither to books nor music, nor any art by which time is be- 
 guiled, she recurred for a momentary alleviation of 'the bitter 
 feelings at her heart, or for a transient forgetfulness of their 
 sting. The whole world of her mind had been shaken. Her 
 pride was wounded; her love galled; her faith in Clifford gave 
 way at length to gloomy and dark suspicion. Nothing, she 
 now felt, but a name as well as fortunes utterly abandoned, 
 could have justified him for the stubbornness of heart in which 
 he had fled and deserted her. Her own self-acquittal no longer 
 consoled her in affliction. She condemned herself for her 
 weakness, from the birth of her ill-starred affection to the crisis 
 it had now acquired. "Why did I not wrestle with it at first?" 
 she said bitterly. "Why did I allow myself so easily to love 
 one unknown to me, and equivocal in station, despite the cau- 
 tions of my uncle and the whispers of the world?" Alas! Lucy 
 did not remember, that at the time she was guilty of this weak- 
 ness she had not learned to reason as she since reasoned. Her 
 faculties were but imperfectly awakened ; her experience of the 
 world was utter ignorance. She scarcely knew that she loved, 
 and she knew not at all that the delicious and excited sentiment 
 which filled her being could ever become as productive of evil 
 and peril as it had done now ; and even had her reason been 
 more developed, and her resolutions more strong, does the 
 exertion of reason and resolution always avail against the mas- 
 ter passion? Love, it is true, is not unconquerable ; but how 
 few have ever, mind and soul, coveted the conquest! Disap- 
 pointment makes a vow, but the heart records it not. Or in 
 the noble image of one who has so tenderly and so truly por- 
 trayed the feelings of her own sex, 
 
 " We make 
 
 A ladder of our thoughts where angels step, 
 But sle.ep ourselves at the foot ! " 
 
 Before Clifford had last seen her, we have observed that 
 Lucy had (and it was a consolation) clung to the belief that, 
 despite of appearances and his own confession, his past life had 
 not been such as to place him without the pale of her just affec- 
 tions; and there were frequent moments when, remembering 
 that the death of her father had removed the only being who 
 could assert an unanswerable claim to the dictation of her ac- 
 tions, she thought that Clifford, hearing her hand was utterly 
 at her own disposal, might again appear, and again urge a suit 
 
 * " The History of the Lyre," by L. E. L.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 323 
 
 which she felt so few circumstances could induce her to deny. 
 All this half-acknowledged yet earnest train of reasoning and 
 hope vanished from the moment he had quitted her uncle's 
 house. His words bore no misinterpretation. He had not 
 yielded even to her own condescension, and her cheek burnt as 
 she recalled it. Yet he loved her. She saw, she knew it in 
 his every word and look! Bitter, then, and dark must be that 
 remorse which could have conquered every argument but that 
 which urged him to leave her, when he might have claimed her 
 forever. True, that when his letter formerly bade her fare- 
 well, the same self-accusing language was recurred to, the same 
 dark hints and allusions to infamy and guilt ; yet never till now 
 had she interpreted them rigidly, and never till now had she 
 dreamed how far their meaning could extend. Still, what 
 crimes could he have committed? The true ones never oc- 
 curred to Lucy. She shuddered to ask herself, and hushed 
 her doubts in a gloomy and torpid silence! But through all 
 her accusations against herself, and through all her awakened 
 suspicions against Clifford, she coutd not but acknowledge that 
 something noble and not unworthy of her mingled in his eon- 
 duct, and occasioned his resistance to her and to himself; and 
 this belief, perhaps, irritated even while it touched her, and 
 kept her. feelings in a perpetual struggle and conflict, which 
 her delicate frame and soft mind were little able to, endure. 
 When the nerves once break, how breaks the character with 
 tliem ! . How many ascetics, withered and soured, do we meet 
 in the world, who but for one shock to the heart and form 
 might have erred on the side of meekness! Whether . it come 
 from woe or disease, the stroke, which mars a single fibre plays 
 strange havoc with the mind. Slaves we are to our muscles, and 
 puppets to the spring of the capricious blood; and the great 
 soul, with all its capacities, its solemn attributes, and sounding 
 claims, is while on earth but a jest to this mountebank the 
 body from the dream which toys with it for an hour, to the 
 lunacy which shivers it into a driveller, laughing as it plays 
 with its own fragments, and reeling benighted and blinded to 
 the grave! 
 
 We have before said, that Lucy was fond both of her uncle 
 and his society ; and still, whenever the subject of Lord Maul- 
 everer and his suit was left untouched, there was that in the 
 conversation of Sir William Brandon which aroused an interest 
 in her mind, engrossed and self-consuming as it had become. 
 Sorrow, indeed, and sorrow's companion, reflection, made her 
 more and more capable of comprehending a very subtle and
 
 324 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 intricate character. There is no secret for discovering the 
 human heart like affliction especially the affliction which 
 springs from passion. Does a writer startle you with his in- 
 sight into your nature, be sure that he has mourned: such lore 
 is the alchemy of tears. Hence the insensible and almost uni- 
 versal confusion of idea, which confounds melancholy with 
 depth, and finds but hollow inanity in the symbol of a laugh. 
 Pitiable error ! Reflection first leads us to gloom, but its next 
 stage is to brightness. The Laughing Philosopher had reached 
 the goal of Wisdom: Heraclitus whimpered at the starting-post. 
 But enough for Lucy to gain even the vestibule of philosophy. 
 
 Notwithstanding the soreness we naturally experience 
 towards all who pertinaciously arouse an unpleasant subject, 
 and in spite therefore of Brandon's furtherance of Mauleverer's 
 courtship, Lucy felt herself incline strangely, and with some- 
 thing of a daughter's affection, towards this enigmatical 
 being ; in spite, too, of all the cold and measured vice of his 
 character, the hard and wintry grayness of heart with which 
 he regarded the welfare of others, or the substances of Truth, 
 Honor, and Virtue, the callousness of his fossilized affections, 
 which no human being softened but for a moment, and no warm 
 and healthful impulse struck, save into an evanescent and idle 
 flash, in spite of this consummate obduracy and worldliness 
 of temperament, it is not paradoxical to say that there was 
 something in the man which Lucy found at times analogous to 
 her own vivid and generous self. This was, however, only 
 noticeable when she led him to talk over earlier days, and when 
 by degrees the sarcastic lawyer forgot the present, and grew 
 eloquent, not over the actions but the feelings of the past. He 
 would speak to her for hours of his youthful dreams, his occu- 
 pations, or his projects, as a boy. Above all, he loved to con- 
 verse with her upon Warlock, its remains of ancient magnifi- 
 cence, the green banks of the placid river that enriched its do- 
 mains, and the summer pomp of wood and heath-land, amidst 
 which his noonday visions had been nursed. 
 
 When he spoke of these scenes and days his countenance soft- 
 ened, and something in its expression, recalling to Lucy the 
 image of one still dearer, made her yearn to him the more. 
 An ice seemed broken from his mind, and streams of released 
 and gentle feelings, mingled with kindly and generous senti- 
 ment, flowed forth. Suddenly, a thought, a word, brought 
 him back to the present his features withered abruptly into 
 their cold placidity or latent sneer: the seal closed suddenly on 
 the broken spell, and, like the victim of a fairy-tale, con-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 325 
 
 demned at a stated hour to assume another shape, the very 
 being you had listened to seemed vanished, and replaced by 
 one whom you startled to behold. But there was one epoch of 
 his life on which he was always silent, and that was, his first 
 onset into the actual world the period of his early struggles 
 into wealth and fame. All that space of time seemed as a dark 
 gulf, over which he had passed and become changed at once 
 as a traveller landing on a strange climate may adopt, the 
 moment he touches its shore, its costume and its language. 
 
 All men the most modest have a common failing, but it 
 is one which often assumes a domino and mask pride ! Bran- 
 don was, however, proud to a degree very rare in men who 
 have risen and flourished in the world. Out of the wrecks of all 
 other feelings, this imperial survivor made one great palace for 
 its residence, and called the fabric "Disdain." Scorn was the 
 real essence of Brandon's nature: even in the blandest dis- 
 guises, the smoothness of his voice, the insinuation of his 
 smile, the popular and supple graces of his manners, an oily 
 derision floated, rarely discernible, it is true, but proportioning 
 its strength and quantum to the calm it produced. 
 
 In the interim, while his character thus displayed and contra- 
 dicted itself in private life, his fame was rapidly rising in pub- 
 lic estimation. Unlike many of his brethren, the brilliant law- 
 yer had exceeded expectation, and shone even yet more con- 
 spicuously in the less adventitiously aided duties of the judge. 
 Envy itself, and Brandon's political virulence had, despite his 
 personal affability, made him many foes was driven into ac- 
 knowledging the profundity of his legal knowledge, and in 
 admiring the manner in which the peculiar functions of his 
 novel dignity were discharged. No juvenile lawyer browbeat, 
 no hackneyed casuist puzzled, him ; even his attention never 
 wandered from the dullest case subjected to his tribunal. A 
 painter, desirous of stamping on his canvas the portrait of an 
 upright judge, could scarcely have found a finer realization for 
 his beau ideal than the austere, collected, keen, yet majestic 
 countenance of Sir William Brandon, such as it seemed in the 
 trappings of office and from the seat of justice. 
 
 The newspapers were not slow in recording the singular cap- 
 ture of the notorious Lovett. The boldness with which he had 
 planned and executed the rescue of his comrades, joined to 
 the suspense in which his wound for some time kept the public 
 as to his escape from one death by the postern gate of another, 
 caused a very considerable ferment and excitation in the pop- 
 ular mind: and, to feed the impulse, the journalists were little
 
 326 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 slothful in retailing every anecdote, true or false, which they 
 could collect, touching the past adventures of the daring high- 
 wayman. Many a good story then came to light, which par- 
 took as much of the comic as the tragic ; for not a single one 
 of the robber's adventures was noted for cruelty or bloodshed; 
 many of them betokened rather an hilarious and jovial spirit 
 of mirthful enterprise. It seemed as if he had thought the 
 highway a capital arena for jokes, and only robbed for the sake 
 of venting a redundant affection for jesting. Persons felt it 
 rather a sin to be severe with a man of so merry a disposition ; 
 and it was especially observable that not one of the ladies who 
 had been despoiled by the robber could be prevailed on to prose- 
 cute. On the contrary, they always talked of the event as one 
 of the most agreeable remembrances in their lives, and seemed 
 to bear a provoking gratitude to the comely offender, rather than 
 resentment. All the gentlemen were not, however, of so plac- 
 able a temper; and two sturdy farmers, with a grazier to boot, 
 were ready to swear, "through thick and thin," to the identity 
 of the prisoner with a horseman who had civilly borne each of 
 them company for an hour in their several homeward rides 
 from certain fairs, and had carried the pleasure of his society, 
 they very gravely asserted, considerably beyond a joke; so 
 that the state of the prisoner's affairs took a very sombre as- 
 pect, and the counsel an old hand intrusted with his cause 
 declared confidently that there was not a chance. But a yet 
 more weighty accusation, because it came from a much nobler 
 quarter, awaited Clifford. In the robber's cavern were found 
 several articles answering exactly to the description of those 
 valuables feloniously abstracted from the person of Lord 
 Mauleverer. That nobleman attended to inspect the articles, 
 and to view the prisoner. The former he found himself able 
 to swear to, with a very tranqirillized-conscience; the latter he 
 beheld feverish, attenuated, and in a moment of delirium, on 
 the sick-bed to which his wound had brought him. He was at 
 no loss, however, to recognize in the imprisoned felon the gay 
 and conquering Clifford, whom he had once even honored with 
 his envy. Although his former dim and vague suspicions of 
 Clifford were thus confirmed, the good-natured peer felt some 
 slight compunction at appearing as his prosecutor: this com- 
 punction, however, vanished the moment he left the sick 
 man's apartment; and, after a little patriotic conversation 
 with the magistrates about the necessity of public duty a 
 theme which brought virtuous tears into the eyes of those 
 respectable functionaries he re-entered his carriage, returned
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 327 
 
 to town, and, after a lively dinner tete-&-tete with an old chere- 
 amie, who, of all her charms, had preserved only the attraction 
 of conversation and the capacity of relishing a salmi, Maul- 
 everer, the very evening of his return, betook himself to the 
 house of Sir William Brandon. 
 
 When he entered the hall, Barlow, the judge's favorite ser- 
 vant, met him, with rather a confused and mysterious air, and 
 arresting him as he was sauntering into Brandon's library, in- 
 formed him that Sir William was particularly engaged, but 
 would join his lordship in the drawing-room. While BarloAv 
 was yet speaking, and Mauleverer was bending his right ear 
 (with which he heard the best) towards him, the library-door 
 opened, and a man in a very coarse and ruffianly garb awk- 
 wardly bowed himself out. "So this is the particular engage- 
 ment," thought Mauleverer; "a strange Sir Pandarus: but 
 those old fellows have droll tastes." 
 
 "I may go in now, my good fellow, 1 suppose?" said his lord- 
 ship to Barlow; and, without waiting an answer, he entered 
 the library. He found Brandon alone, and bending earnestly 
 over some letters which strewed his table. Mauleverer care- 
 lessly approached, and threw himself into an opposite chair. Sir 
 William lifted his head, as he heard the movement, and Maul- 
 everer (reckless as was that personage) was chilled and almost 
 awed by the expression of his friend's countenance.' Bran- 
 don's face was one which, however pliant, nearly always wore 
 one pervading character calmness ; whether in the smooth- 
 ness of social courtesy, or the austerity of his official station, 
 or the bitter sarcasm which escaped him at no unfrequent in- 
 tervals; still a certain hard and inflexible dryness stamped 
 both his features and his air. But at this time a variety of 
 feelings, not ordinarily eloquent in the outward man, struggled 
 in his dark face, expressive of all the energy and passion of his 
 powerful and masculine nature; there seemed to speak from 
 his features and eyes something of shame, and anger, and tri- 
 umph, and regret, and scorn. All these various emotions, 
 which, it appears almost a paradox to assert, met in the same 
 expression, nevertheless were so individually and almost fear- 
 fully stamped, as to convey at once their signification to the 
 mind of Mauleverer. He glanced towards the letters, in which 
 the writing seemed faint and discolored by time or damp; 
 and then once more regarding the face of Brandon, said in 
 rather an anxious and subdued tone: 
 
 "Heavens, Brandon! are you ill? or has anything hap- 
 pened? you alarm me!"
 
 328 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "Do you recognize these locks?" said Brandon, in a hollow 
 voice ; and from under the letters he drew some ringlets of an 
 auburn hue, and pushed them with an averted face towards 
 Mauleverer. 
 
 The Earl took them up regarded them for a few moments 
 changed color, but shook his head with a negative gesture, as 
 he laid them once more on the table. 
 
 "This handwriting, then?" renewed the judge in a yet 
 more impressive and painful voice ; and he pointed to the 
 letters. 
 
 Mauleverer raised one of them, and held it between his face 
 and the lamp, so that whatever his features might have betrayed 
 was hidden from his companion. At length he dropped the 
 letter with an affected nonchalance, and said: 
 
 "Ah, I know the writing even at this distance of time; this 
 letter is directed to you!" 
 
 "It is, so are all these," said Brandon, with the same voice 
 of preternatural and strained composure. "They have come 
 back to me after an absence of nearly twenty-five years ; they 
 are the letters she wrote to me in the days of our courtship 
 (here Brandon laughed scornfully) she carried them away 
 with her, you know when ; and (a pretty clod of consistency is 
 woman!) she kept them, it seems, to her dying day!" 
 
 The subject in discussion, whatever it might be, appeared 
 a sore one to Mauleverer ; he turned uneasily on his chair, and 
 said at length: 
 
 "Well, poor creature! these are painful remembrances, since 
 it turned out so unhappily: but it was not our fault, dear Bran- 
 c'on ; we were men of the world, we knew the value of of 
 women, and treated them accordingly!" 
 
 "Right! right! right!" cried Brandon vehemently, laughing 
 in a wild and Joud disdain ; the intense force of which it would 
 be in vain to attempt expressing. 
 
 "Right! and faith, my lord, I repine not, nor repent." 
 
 "So, so, that's well!" said Mauleverer, still not at his ease, 
 and hastening to change the conversation. "But, my dear 
 Brandon, I have strange news for you ! You remember that 
 fellow Clifford, who had the insolence to address himself to 
 your adorable niece? I told you I suspected that long friend 
 of his of having made my acquaintance somewhat unpleasantly, 
 and I therefore doubted of Clifford himself. Well, my dear 
 friend, this Clifford is whom do you think? no other than 
 Mr. Lovett, of Newgate celebrity!" 
 
 "You do not say so! rejoined Brandon apathetically, **
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 329 
 
 he slowly gathered his papers together, and deposited them in 
 a drawer. 
 
 "Indeed it is true; and what is more, Brandon, this fellow 
 is one of the very identical highwaymen who robbed me on 
 my road from Bath. No doubt he did me the same kind 
 office on my road to Mauleverer Park." 
 
 "Possibly," said Brandon, who appeared absorbed in a revery. 
 
 "Ay!" answered Mauleverer, piqued at this indifference. 
 "But do you not see the consequences to your niece?" 
 
 "My niece!" repeated Brandon rousing himself. 
 
 "Certainly. I grieve to say it, my dear friend, but she was 
 young, very young, when at Bath. She suffered this fellow to 
 address her too openly. Nay, for I will be frank, she was 
 suspected of being in love with him!" 
 
 "She was in love with him," said Brandon dryly, and fixing 
 the malignant coldness of his eye upon the suitor. "And, for 
 aught I know," added he, "she is so at this moment." 
 
 "You are cruel!" said Mauleverer, disconcerted. "I trust 
 not, for the sake of my continued addresses." 
 
 "My dear lord," said Brandon urbanely, taking the court- 
 ier's hand, while the anguisin herbd of his sneer played around 
 his compressed lips, ' 'my dear lord, we are old friends, and 
 need not deceive each other. You wish to marry my niece, 
 because she is an heiress of great fortune, and you suppose 
 that my wealth will in all probability swell her own. More- 
 over, she is more beautiful than any other young lady of your 
 acquaintance ; and, polished by your example, may do honor 
 to your taste as well as your prudence. Under these circum- 
 stances you will, I am quite sure, look with lenity on her girl- 
 ish errors, and not love her the less because her foolish fancy 
 persuades her that she is in love with another." 
 
 "Ahem!" said Mauleverer, "you view the matter with more 
 sense than sentiment ; but look you, Brandon, we must try, for 
 both our sakes, if possible, to keep the identity of Lovett with 
 Clifford from being known. I do not see why it should be. 
 No doubt he was on his guard while playing the gallant, and 
 committed no atrocity at Bath. The name of Clifford is 
 hitherto perfectly unsullied. No fraud, no violence are at- 
 tached to the appellation ; and if the rogue will but keep his 
 own counsel, we may hang him out of the way without the se- 
 cret transpiring." 
 
 "But, if I remember right," said Brandon, "the newspapers 
 say that this Lovett will be tried some seventy or eighty miles 
 only from Bath, and that gives a chance of recognition."
 
 330 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 "Ay, but he will be devilishly altered, I imagine; for his 
 wound has already been but a bad beautifier to his face: more- 
 over, if the dog has any delicacy, he will naturally dislike to 
 be known as the gallant of that gay city, where he shone so 
 successfully, and will disguise himself as well as he is able. I 
 hear wonders of his powers of self-transformation." 
 
 "But he may commit himself on the point between this and 
 his trial," said Brandon. 
 
 "I think of ascertaining how far that is likely, by sending 
 my valet down to him (you know one treats these gentlemen 
 highwaymen with a certain consideration, and hangs them with 
 all due respect to their feelings), to hint that it will be doubt- 
 less very unpleasant to him,, under his 'present unfortunate cir- 
 cumstances' (is not that the phrase?), to be known as the gen- 
 tleman who enjoyed so deserved a popularity at Bath, and that 
 though 'the laws of my country compel me' to prosecute him, 
 yet, should he desire it, he may be certain that I will preserve 
 his secret. Come, Brandon, what say you to that manoeuvre? 
 it will answer my purpose, and make the gentleman for doubt- 
 less he is all sensibility shed tears at my generous forbearance!" 
 
 "It is no bad idea," said Brandon. "I commend you for it. 
 At all events, it is necessary that my niece should not know 
 the situation of her lover. She is a girl of a singular turn of 
 mind, and fortune has made her independent. Who knows 
 but what she might commit some folly or another, write peti- 
 tions to the King, and beg me to present them, or go for she 
 has a world of romance in her to prison, to console him; or, 
 at all events, she would beg my kind offices on his behalf 
 a request peculiarly awkward, as in all probability I shall have 
 the honor of trying him." 
 
 "Ay, by the by, so you will. And I fancy the poor rogue's 
 audacity will not cause you to be less severe than you usually 
 are. They say you promise to make more human pendulums 
 than any of your brethren." 
 
 "They do say that, do they?" said Brandon. "Well, Town 
 I have a bile against my species ; I loathe their folly and their 
 half vices. ' Ridet et odif * is my motto ; and I allow, that it 
 is not the philosophy that makes men merciful!" 
 
 "Well, Juvenal's wisdom be yours! mine be Horace's!" 
 rejoined Mauleverer, as he picked his teeth ; "but I am glad 
 you see the absolute necessity of keeping this secret from Lucy's 
 suspicion. She never reads the papers, I suppose? Girls 
 never do!" 
 
 * He laughs and hates.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 33! 
 
 "No! and I will take care not to have them thrown in heh 
 way; and as, in consequence of my poor brother's recent 
 death, she sees nobody but us, there is little chance, should 
 Lovett's right to the name of Clifford be discovered, that it 
 should reach her ears!" 
 
 "But those confounded servants?" 
 
 "True enough! but consider, that before they know it, the 
 newspapers will; so that, should it be needful, we shall have 
 our own time to caution them. I need only say to Lucy's 
 woman, 'A poor gentleman, a friend of the late squire's, whom 
 your mistress used to dance with, and you must have seen 
 Captain Clifford is to be tried for his life: it will shock her, 
 poor thing ! in her present state of health, to tell her of so sad 
 an event to her father's friend ; therefore be silent, as you value 
 your place and ten guineas,' and I may be tolerably sure of 
 caution!" 
 
 "You ought to be chairman to the 'ways and means' com- 
 mittee ! " cried Mauleverer. ' 'My mind is now easy ; and when 
 once poor Clifford is gone 'fallen from a high estate, ' we 
 may break the matter gently to her ; and, as I intend thereon 
 to be very respectful, very delicate, etc., she cannot but be sen- 
 sible of my kindness and real affection!" 
 
 "And if a live dog be better than a dead lion," added Bran- 
 don, "surely a lord in existence will be better than a highway- 
 man hanged!" 
 
 "According to ordinary logic," rejoined Mauleverer, "that 
 syllogism is clear enough ; and though I believe a girl may cling, 
 now and then, to the memory of a departed lover, I do not 
 think she will, when the memory is allied with shame. Love is 
 nothing more than vanity pleased; wound the vanity, and you 
 destroy the love! Lucy will be forced, after having made so 
 bad a choice of a lover, to make a good one in a husband, in 
 order to recover her self-esteem!" 
 
 "And therefore _jw/ are certain of her!" said Brandon iron- 
 ically. 
 
 "Thanks to my star my garter my ancestor, the first 
 baron, and myself, the first earl I hope I am," said Maul- 
 everer, and the conversation turned. Mauleverer did not stay 
 much longer with the judge ; and Brandon, left alone, recurred 
 once more to the perusal of his letters. 
 
 We scarcely know what sensations it would have occasioned 
 in one who had known Brandon only in his later years, could 
 he have read those letters, referring to so much earlier a date. 
 There was in the keen and arid character of the man so little
 
 332 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 that recalled any idea of courtship or youthful gallantry, that a 
 correspondence of that nature would have appeared almost as 
 unnatural as the loves of plants, or the amatory softenings of a 
 mineral. The correspondence now before Brandon was de- 
 scriptive of various feelings, but all appertaining to the same 
 class: most of them were apparent answers to letters from him. 
 One while they replied tenderly to expressions of tenderness, 
 but intimated a doubt whether the writer would be able to con- 
 stitute his future happiness, and atone for certain sacrifices of 
 birth and fortune, and ambitious prospects, to which she 
 alluded: at other times, a vein of latent coquetry seemed to 
 pervade the style an indescribable air of coolness and reserve 
 contrasted former passages in the correspondence, and was 
 calculated to convey to the reader an impression that the feel- 
 ings of the lover were not altogether adequately returned. Fre- 
 quently the writer, as if Brandon had expressed himself sensi- 
 ble of this conviction, reproached him for unjust jealousy and 
 unworthy suspicion. And the tone of the reproach varied in 
 each letter: sometimes it was gay and satirizing; at others, soft 
 and expostulatory ; at others, gravely reasoning ; and often, 
 haughtily indignant. Still, throughout the whole correspon- 
 dence, on the part of the mistress, there was sufficient stamp 
 of individuality to give a shrewd examiner some probable guess 
 at the writer's character. He would have judged her, perhaps, 
 capable of strong and ardent feeling, but ordinarily of a light 
 and capricious turn, and seemingly prone to imagine and to 
 resent offence. With these letters were mingled others in Bran- 
 don's writing of how different, of how impassioned a descrip- 
 tion ! All that a deep, proud, meditative, exacting character 
 could dream of love given, or require of love returned, was 
 poured burningly over the pages ; yet they were full of re- 
 proach, of jealousy, of a nice and torturing observation, as cal- 
 culated to wound as the ardor might be fitted to charm ; and 
 often the bitter tendency to disdain that distinguished his tem- 
 perament broke through the fondest enthusiasm of courtship, or 
 the softest outpourings of love. "You saw me not yesterday, " 
 he wrote in one letter, "but I saw you; all day I was by you; 
 you gave not a look which passed me unnoticed ; you made not 
 a movement which I did not chronicle in my memory. Julia, 
 do you tremble when 1 tell you this? Yes, if you have a heart, 
 I know these words would stab it to the core! You may affect 
 to answer me indignantly! Wise dissembler! it is very skil- 
 ful very, to assume anger when you have no reply. I repeat, 
 during the whole of that party of pleasure (pleasure! well,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 333 
 
 your tastes, it must be acknowledged, are exquisite!) which you 
 enjoyed yesterday, and which you so faintly asked me to share, 
 my eye was on you. You did not know that I was in the wood 
 when you took the arm of the incomparable Digby, with so 
 pretty a semblance of alarm at the moment the snake, which my 
 foot disturbed, glided across your path. You did not know I 
 was within hearing of the tent where you made so agreeable a 
 repast, and from which your laughter sent peals so merry and so 
 numerous. Laughter! O, Julia, can you tell me that you love 
 and yet be happy, even to mirth, when I am away? Love ! O 
 God, how different a sensation is mine! Mine makes my whole 
 principle of life ! Yours ! I tell you, that I think, at moments, 
 I would rather have your hate than the lukewarm sentiment 
 you bear to me, and honor by the name of 'affection.' Pretty 
 phrase! I have no affection for you! Give me not that sickly 
 word ; but try with me, Julia, to invent some expression that 
 has never filtered a paltry meaning through the lips of another! 
 Affection ! why that is a sister's word a girl's word to her pet 
 squirrel ! never was it made for that ruby and most ripe mouth ! 
 Shall I come to your house this evening? Your mother has 
 asked me, and you -you heard her, and said nothing. Oh! 
 but that was maiden reserve was it ? and maiden reserve caused 
 you to take up a book the moment I left you, as if my company 
 made but an ordinary amusement, instantly to be replaced by 
 another! When /have seen you, society, books, food, all are 
 hateful to me; but you, sweet Julia, you can read, can you? 
 Why, when / left you, I lingered by the parlor window for 
 hours, till dusk, and you never once lifted your eyes, nor saw 
 me pass and repass. At least, I thought you would have 
 watched my steps when I left the house ; but I err, charming 
 moralist ! According to you, that vigilance would have been 
 meanness." 
 
 In another part of the correspondence, a more grave, if not a 
 deeper, gush of feeling struggled for expression. 
 
 "You say, Julia, that were you to marry one who thinks so 
 much of what he surrenders for you, and who requires from 
 yourself so vast a return of love, you should tremble for the 
 future happiness of both of us. Julia, the triteness of that fear 
 proves that you love not at all. I do not tremble for our future 
 happiness ; on the contrary, the intensity of my passion for you 
 makes me know that we never can be happy ! never beyond 
 the first rapture of our union. Happiness is a quiet and tran- 
 quil feeling. No feeling that I can possibly bear to you will 
 ever receive those epithets, I know that I shall be wretched
 
 334 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and accursed when I am united to you. Start not ; I will pre- 
 sently tell you why. But I do not dream of happiness, neither 
 (could you fathom one drop of the dark and limitless ocean of 
 my emotions) would you name to me that word. It is not the 
 mercantile and callous calculation of chances for 'future felicity' 
 (what homily supplied you with so choice a term?) that enters 
 into the heart that cherishes an all-pervading love. Passion 
 looks only to one object, to nothing beyond, I thirst, I con- 
 sume, not for happiness, but you. Were your possession inev- 
 itably to lead me to a gulf of anguish and shame, think you, I 
 should covet it one jot the less? If you carry one thought, 
 one hope, one dim fancy, beyond the event that makes you 
 mine, you may be more worthy of the esteem of others; but 
 you are utterly undeserving of my love. 
 
 "I will tell you now why I know we cannot be happy. In 
 the first place, when you say that I am proud of birth, that I 
 am morbidly ambitious, that I am anxious to shine in the great 
 world, and that after the first intoxication of love has passed 
 away I shall feel bitterness against one who has so humbled 
 my pride and darkened my prospects, I am not sure that you 
 wholly err. But I am sure that the instant remedy is in your 
 power. Have you patience, Julia, to listen to a kind of his- 
 tory of myself, or rather of my feelings? if so, perhaps it may be 
 the best method of explaining all that I would convey. You 
 will see, then, that my family pride and my worldly ambition 
 are not founded altogether on those basements which move my 
 laughter in another: if my feelings thereon are really, however, 
 as you would insinuate, equal matter for derision, behold, my 
 Julia, I can laugh equally at them ! So pleasant a thing to me 
 is scorn, that I would rather despise myself than have no one 
 to despise; but to my narrative! You must know that there 
 are but two of us, sons of a country squire, of old family, which 
 once possessed large possessions and something of historical 
 renown. We lived in an old country place; my father was a 
 convivial dog, a fox-hunter, a drunkard, yet in his way a fine gen- 
 tleman, and a very disreputable member of society. The first 
 feelings towards him that I can remember were those of shame. 
 Not much matter of family pride here, you will say ! True, 
 and that is exactly the reason which made me cherish family 
 pride elsewhere. My father's house was filled with guests, 
 some high and some low, they all united in ridicule of the 
 host, I soon detected the laughter, and you may imagine that
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. J3^ 
 
 it did not please me. Meanwhile the old huntsman, whose 
 family was about as ancient as ours, and whose ancestors had 
 officiated in his capacity for the ancestors of his master time 
 out of mind, told me story after story about the Brandons of 
 yore. I turned from the stories to more legitimate history, and 
 found the legends were tolerably true. I learned to glow at 
 this discovery: the pride humbled when I remembered my 
 sire revived when I remembered my ancestors ; I became re- 
 solved to emulate them, to restore a sunken name, and vowed 
 a world of nonsense on the subject. The habit of brooding 
 over these ideas grew on me ; I never heard a jest broken on 
 my paternal guardian I never caught the maudlin look of his 
 reeling eyes, nor listened to some exquisite inanity from his 
 besotted lips, but what my thoughts flew instantly back to the Sir 
 Charleses and the Sir Roberts of my race, and I comforted my- 
 self with the hope that the present degeneracy should pass away. 
 Hence, Julia, my family pride; hence, too, another feeling 
 you dislike in me, disdain! I first learned to despise my 
 father, the host, and I then despised my acquaintances, his 
 guests ; for I saw, while they laughed at him, that they flattered, 
 and that their merriment was not the only thing suffered to feed 
 at his expense. Thus contempt grew up with me, and I had 
 nothing to check it; for when I looked around I saw not one 
 living thing that I could respect. This father of mine had the 
 sense to think I was no idiot. He was proud (poor man!) of 
 'my talents,' viz., of prizes won at school, and congratulatory 
 letters from my masters. He sent me to college: my mind 
 took a leap there: I will tell you, prettiest, what it was! Be- 
 fore I went thither I had some fine vague visions about virtue. 
 I thought to revive my ancestral honors by being good; in 
 short, I was an embryo King Pepin. I awoke from this dream 
 at the university. There, for the first time, I perceived the 
 real consequence of rank. 
 
 "At school, you know, Julia, boys care nothing for a lord. 
 A good cricketer, an excellent fellow, is worth all the earls in 
 the peerage. But at college all thai ceases: bats and balls sink 
 into the nothingness in which corals and bells had sunk before. 
 One grows manly, and worships coronets and carriages. I saw- 
 it was a fine thing to get a prize, but it was ten times a finer thing 
 to get drunk with a peer. So, when I had done the first, my 
 resolve to be worthy of my sires made me do the second not, 
 indeed, exactly; I never got drunk; my father disgusted me 
 with that vice betimes. To his gluttony I owe my vegetable 
 diet, and to his inebriety my addiction to water. No ; I did
 
 33^> PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 not get drunk with peers: but I was just as agreeable to them 
 as if I had been equally embruted. I knew intimately all the 
 'Hats'* in the university, and I was henceforth looked up to by 
 the 'Caps,' as if my head had gained the height of every hat 
 that I knew. But I did not do this immediately. I must tell 
 you two little anecdotes, that first initiated me into the secret 
 of real greatness. The first was this: I was sitting at dinner 
 >vith some fellows of a college, grave men and clever ; two of 
 them, not knowing me, \v ere conversing about me: they heard, 
 they said, that I should never be so good a fellow as my 
 father, have such a cellar, or keep such a house." 
 
 " 'I have met six earls there and a marquess,' quoth the 
 other senior. 
 
 ' 'And his son,' returned the first don, 'only keeps company 
 with sizars, I believe.' 
 
 ' 'So then,' said I to myself, 'to deserve the praise even of 
 clever men, one must have good wines, know plenty of earls, 
 and forswear sizars." 
 
 "Nothing could be truer than my conclusion. 
 
 "Anecdote the second is this: On the day I gained a high 
 university prize, I invited my friends to dine with me: four of 
 them refused, because they were engaged (they had been asked 
 since I asked them) to whom? the richest man at the univer- 
 sity. These occurrences happening at the same time, threw me 
 into a profound revery: I awoke, and became a man of the 
 world. I no longer resolved to be virtuous, and to hunt after 
 the glory of your Romans and your Athenians I resolved to 
 become rich, powerful, and of worldly repute. 
 
 "I abjured my honest sizars, and, as I said before, I courted 
 some rich 'Hats.' Behold my first grand step in the world! I 
 became the parasite and the flatterer. What! would my pride 
 suffer this? Verily yes, my pride delighted in it ; for it soothed 
 my spirit of contempt to put these fine fellows to my use! it 
 soothed me to see how easily I could cajole them, and to what 
 a variety of purposes I could apply even the wearisome disgust 
 of their acquaintance. Nothing is so foolish as to say the idle 
 great are of no use; they can be put to any use whatsoever that 
 a wise man is inclined to make of them! Well, Julia, lo! my char- 
 acter already formed ; family pride, disdain, and worldly ambi- 
 tion, there it is for you ; after-circumstances only strengthened 
 the impression already made. I desired, on leaving college, 
 to go abroad ; my father had no money to give me. What sig- 
 
 * At Cambridge the sons of noblemen, and the eldest sons of baronets, are allowed to 
 wear hats instead of the academical cap.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 337 
 
 nified that? I looked carelessly round for some wealthier con- 
 venience than the paternal hoard: I found it in a Lord Maul- 
 everer; he had been at college with me, and I endured him 
 easily as a companion, for he had accomplishments, wit, and 
 good-nature ; I made him wish to go abroad, and I made him 
 think he should die of ennui if I did not accompany him. To 
 his request to that effect, I reluctantly agreed, and saw every- 
 thing in Europe, which he neglected to see, at his expense. 
 What amused me the most was the perception that I, the para- 
 site, was respected by him ; and he, the patron, was ridiculed 
 by me! It would not have been so if I had depended on 'my 
 virtue.' Well, sweetest Julia, the world, as I have said, gave 
 to my college experience a sacred authority. I returned to 
 England, and my father died, leaving to me not a sixpence, 
 and to my brother an estate so mortgaged that he could not 
 enjoy it, and so restricted that he could not sell it. It was now 
 the time for me to profit by the experience I boasted of. I saw 
 that it was necessary I should take some profession. Profes- 
 sions are the masks to your pauper-rogue ; they give respecta- 
 bility to cheating, and a diploma to feed upon others. I ana- 
 lyzed my talents, and looked to the customs of my country: the 
 result was my resolution to take to the bar. I had an inex- 
 haustible power of application ; I was keen, shrewd, and auda- 
 cious. All these qualities 'tell' at the courts of justice. I kept 
 my legitimate number of terms, I was called, I went to the 
 circuit, I obtained not a brief not a brief, Julia ! My health, 
 never robust, gave way beneath study and irritation; I was 
 ordered to betake myself to the country ; I came to this village, 
 as one both salubrious and obscure. I lodged in the house of 
 your aunt, you came thither daily, I saw you, you know the 
 rest. But where, all this time, were my noble friends, you 
 will say? 'Sdeath, since we had left college, they had learned 
 a little of the wisdom I had then possessed ; they were not dis- 
 posed to give something for nothing ; they had younger brothers, 
 and cousins, and mistresses, and, for aught I know, children to 
 provide for. Besides, they had their own expenses: the richer 
 a man is, the less he has to give. One of them would have be- 
 stowed on me a living, if I had gone in the church: another, a 
 commission, if I had joined his regiment. But I knew the day 
 was past both for priest and spldier ; and it was not merely to 
 live, no, nor to live comfortably, but to enjoy power, that I 
 desired ; so I declined these offers. Others of my friends 
 would have been delighted to have kept me in their house, feast- 
 ed me, joked with me, rode with me, and nothing more! But
 
 338 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 I had already the sense to see, that if a man dances himself 
 into distinction, it is never by the steps of attendance. One 
 must receive favors and court patronage, but it must be with 
 the air of an independent man. My old friends thus rendered 
 useless, my legal studies forbade me to make new, nay, they 
 even estranged me from the old; for people may say what they 
 please about a similarity of opinions being necessary to friend- 
 ship, a similarity of habits is much more so. It is the man 
 you dine, breakfast, and lodge with, walk, ride, gamble, or 
 thieve with, that is your friend; not the man who likes Virgil 
 as well as you do, and agrees with you in an admiration of 
 Handel. 
 
 "Meanwhile, my chief prey, Lord Matileverer, was gone; 
 he had taken another man's dulcinea, and sought out a 
 bovver in Italy; from that time to this, I have never heard of 
 him nor seen him; I know not even his address. With the 
 exception of a few stray gleanings from my brother, who, good 
 easy man! I could plunder more, were I not resolved not to 
 ruin the family stock, I have been thrown on myself ; the result 
 is, that, though as clever as my fellows, I have narrowly 
 shunned starvation: had my wants been less simple, there would 
 have been no shunning in the case. But a man is not easily 
 starved who drinks water, and eats by the ounce. A more 
 effectual fate might have befallen me: disappointment, wrath, 
 baffled hope, mortified pride, all these, which gnawed at my 
 heart, might have consumed it long ago ; I might have fretted 
 away as a garment which the moth eateth, had it not been for 
 that fund of obstinate and iron hardness, which nature, I beg 
 pardon, there is no nature, circumstance bestowed upon me. 
 This has borne me up, and will bear me yet through time, and 
 shame, and bodily weakness, and mental fever, until my ambi- 
 tion has won a certain height, and my disdain of human petti- 
 ness rioted in the external sources of fortune, as well as an in- 
 ward fountain of bitter and self-fed consolation. Yet, oh, 
 Julia! I know not if even this would have supported me, if at 
 that epoch of life, when I was most wounded, most stricken in 
 body, most soured in mind, my heart had not met and fastened 
 itself to yours: I saw you, loved you, and life became to me a new 
 object. Even now, as I write to you, all my bitterness, my 
 pride, vanish ; everything I have longed for disappears ; my 
 very ambition is gone. I have no hope but for you, Julia; 
 beautiful, adored Julia! when I love you, I love even my kind. 
 Oh, you know not the power you possess over me! Do not 
 betray it: you can yet make ma all that my boyhood once
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 339 
 
 dreamed; or you can harden every thought, feeling, sensation, 
 into stone. 
 
 ******** 
 
 "I was to tell you why I look not for happiness in our union. 
 You have now seen my nature. You have traced the history 
 of my life, by tracing the history of my character. You see 
 what I surrender in gaining you. I do not deny the sacrifice. 
 I surrender the very essentials of my present mind and soul. 
 I cease to be worldly. I cannot raise myself, I cannot revive 
 my ancestral name: nay, I shall relinquish it forever. I 
 shall adopt a disguised appellation. I shall sink into another 
 grade of life. In some remote village, by means of some hum- 
 bler profession than that I now follow, we must earn our sub- 
 sistence, and smile at ambition. I tell you frankly, Julia, when 
 I close the eyes of my heart, when I shut you from my gaze, 
 this sacrifice appals me. But even then you force yourself be- 
 fore me, and I feel that one glance from your eye is more to 
 me than all. If you could bear with me, if you could soothe 
 me, if when a cloud is on me you could suffer it to pass away 
 unnoticed, and smile on me the moment it is gone, oh, Julia! 
 there would be then no extreme of poverty, no abasement of 
 fortune, no abandonment of early dreams which would not 
 seem to me rapture if coupled with the bliss of knowing that 
 you are mine. Never should my lip never should my eye tell 
 you that there is that thing on earth for which I repine, or 
 which I could desire. No, Julia, could I flatter my heart with 
 this hope you would not find me dream of unhappiness and you 
 united. But I tremble, Julia, when I think of your temper 
 and my own: you will conceive a gloomy look from one never 
 mirthful is an insult; and you will feel every vent of passion on 
 Fortune or on other's as a reproach to you. Then, too, you 
 cannot enter into my nature; you cannot descend into its cav- 
 erns ; you cannot behold, much less can you deign to lull, the ex* 
 acting and lynx-eyed jealousy that dwells there. Sweetest Julia ! 
 every breath of yours, every touch of yours, every look of yours 
 I yearn for beyond all a mother's longing for the child that has 
 been torn from her for years. Your head leaned upon an old 
 
 tree (do you remember it near ?), and I went every day, 
 
 after seeing you, to kiss it. Do you wonder that I am jealous? 
 How can I love you as I do and be otherwise? My whole 
 being is intoxicated with you! 
 
 ******** 
 "This, then, your pride and mine, your pleasure in the admi-
 
 34& PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ration of others, your lightness, Julia, make me foresee an eternal 
 and gushing source of torture to my mind. I care not, I 
 care for nothing so that you are mine, if but for one hour." 
 
 It seems that, despite the strange, sometimes the unlover-like 
 and fiercely selfish nature of these letters from Brandon, some- 
 thing of a genuine tone of passion, perhaps their originality, 
 aided no doubt, by some uttered eloquence of the writer, and some 
 treacherous inclination on the part of the mistress, ultimately 
 conquered ; and that a union so little likely to receive the smile 
 of a prosperous star was at length concluded. The letter which 
 terminated the correspondence was from Brandon: it was 
 written on the evening before the marriage, which, it appeared 
 by the same letter, was to be private and concealed. After a 
 rapturous burst of hope and joy, it continued thus: 
 
 "Yes, Julia, I recant my words: I have no belief that you 
 or I shall ever have cause hereafter for unhappiness. Those 
 eyes that dwelt so tenderly on mine; that hand whose pressure 
 lingers yet in every nerve of my frame; those lips turned so 
 coyly, yet, shall I say, reluctantly? from me ; all tell me that 
 you love me; and my fears are banished. Love, which con- 
 quered my nature, will conquer the only thing I would desire 
 to see altered in yours. Nothing could ever make me adore 
 you less, though you affect to dread it ; nothing but a knowl- 
 edge that you are unworthy of me, that you have a thought 
 for another, then I should not hate you. No: the privilege 
 of my past existence would revive ; I should revel in a luxury 
 of contempt, I should despise you, I should mock you, and I 
 should be once more what I was before I knew you. But why 
 do I talk thus? My bride, my blessing, forgive me!" 
 
 In concluding our extracts from this correspondence, we wish 
 the reader to note, first, that the love professed by Brandon 
 seems of that vehement and corporeal nature, which, while it 
 is often the least durable, is also the most susceptible of the 
 fiercest extremes of hatred, or even of disgust. Secondly, 
 that the character opened by this sarcastic candor evidently re- 
 quired in a mistress either an utter devotion or a skilful address. 
 And thirdly, that we have hinted at such qualities in the fair 
 correspondent as did not seem sanguinely to promise either of 
 those essentials. 
 
 While with a curled, yet often with a quivering, lip, the aus- 
 tere and sarcastic Brandon slowly compelled himself to the task 
 of proceeding through these monuments of former folly and
 
 CLIFFORD. 341 
 
 youthful emotion, the further elucidation of those events, now 
 rapidly urging on a fatal and dread catastrophe, spreads before 
 us a narrative occurring many years prior to the time at which 
 we are at present arrived. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Clem. Lift the dark veil of years ! behind what waits ? 
 A human heart. Vast city, where reside 
 All glories and all vilenesses ! while foul, 
 Yet silent, through the roar of passions rolls 
 The river of the Darling Sin and bears 
 A life and yet a poison on its tide. 
 ****** 
 
 Clem. Thy wife ? 
 
 Viet. Avaunt ! I've changed that word to " scorn ! * 
 
 Clem. Thy child? 
 
 Viet. Ay, that strikes home my child my child. 
 
 Love and Hatred, by . 
 
 To an obscure town in shire, there came to reside a 
 
 young couple, whose appearance and habits drew towards them 
 from the neighboring gossips a more than ordinary attention. 
 They bore the name of Welford. The man assumed the pro- 
 fession of a solicitor. He came without introduction or recom- 
 mendation ; his manner of life bespoke poverty ; his address was 
 reserved, and even sour; and despite the notice and scrutiny 
 with which he was regarded, he gained no clients, and made no 
 lawsuits. The want of all those decent charlatanisms which 
 men of every profession are almost necessitated to employ, and 
 the sudden and unushered nature of his coming were, perhaps, 
 the cause of this ill-success. "His house was too small," people 
 said, "for respectability." And little good could be got from 
 a solicitor, the very rails round whose door were so sadly in want 
 of repainting! Then, too, Mrs. Welford made a vast number 
 of enemies. She was, beyond all expression, beautiful; and 
 there was a certain coquetry in her manner which showed she was 
 
 aware of her attractions. All the ladies of hated her. 
 
 A few people called on the young couple. Welford received 
 them coldly ; their invitations were unaccepted, and, what was 
 worse, they were never returned. The devil himself could 
 not have supported an attorney under such circumstan- 
 ces. Reserved shabby poor rude introductionless a bad 
 house an unpainted railing and a beautiful wife ! Never- 
 theless, though Welford was not employed, he was, as we have
 
 34* PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 said, watched. On their first arrival, which was in summef, 
 the young pair were often seen walking together in the fields or 
 groves which surrounded their home. Sometimes they walked 
 affectionately together, and it was observed with what care 
 Welford adjusted his wife's cloak or shawl around her slender 
 shape, as the cool of the evening increased. But often his arm 
 was withdrawn, he lingered behind, and they continued their 
 walk or returned homeward in silence and apart. By degrees 
 whispers circulated throughout the town that the new-married 
 couple lived by no means happily. The men laid the fault on 
 the stern-looking husband ; the women, on the minx of a wife. 
 However, the solitary servant whom they kept declared, that 
 though Mr. Welford did sometimes frown, and Mrs. Welford did 
 sometimes weep, they were extremely attached to each other, and 
 only quarrelled through love. The maid had had four lovers 
 herself, and was possibly experienced in such matters. They 
 received no visitors, near or from a distance ; and the post-man 
 declared he had never seen a letter directed .to either. Thus a 
 kind of mystery hung over the pair, and made them still more 
 gazed on and still more disliked which is saying a great deal 
 than they would have otherwise been. Poor as Welford was, 
 his air .and walk eminently bespoke what common persons term 
 gentility. And in this he had greatly the advantage of his 
 beautiful wife, who, though there was certainly nothing vulgar 
 or plebeian in her aspect, altogether wanted the refinement of 
 manner, look, and phrase, which characterized Welford. For 
 about two years they lived in this manner, and so frugally and 
 tranquilly, that though Welford had not any visible means of 
 subsistence, no one could well wonder in what manner they did 
 subsist. About the end of that time, Welford suddenly em- 
 barked a small sum in a county speculation. In the course of 
 this adventure, to the great surprise of his neighbors, he 
 evinced an extraordinary turn for calculation, and his habits 
 plainly bespoke a man both of business and ability. This dis- 
 posal of capital brought a sufficient return to support the Wei- 
 fords, if they had been so disposed, in rather a better style 
 than heretofore. They remained, however, in much the same 
 state ; and the only difference that the event produced was the 
 retirement of Mr. Welford from the profession he had em- 
 braced. He was no longer a solicitor! It must be allowed 
 that he resigned no greast advantages in this retirement. About 
 
 this time some officers were quartered at ; and one of 
 
 them, a handsome lieutenant, was so struck with the charms of 
 Mrs. Welford, whom he saw at church, that he lost no oppor-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 343 
 
 tunity of testifying his admiration. It was maliciously, yet not 
 unfoundedly, remarked, that though no absolute impropriety 
 could be detected in the manner of Mrs. Welford, she certainly 
 seemed far from displeased with the evident homage of the 
 young lieutenant. Ablush tinged her cheek when she saw 
 him ; and the gallant coxcomb asserted that the blush was not 
 always without a smile. Emboldened by the interpretations 
 of his vanity, and contrasting, as every one else did, his own 
 animated face and glittering garb with the ascetic and gloomy 
 countenance, the unstudied dress, and austere gait, which 
 destroyed in Welford the effect of a really handsome person, 
 our lieutenant thought fit to express his passion by a letter, 
 which he conveyed to Mrs. Welford's pew. Mrs. Welford 
 went not to church that day ; the letter was found by a good- 
 natured neighbor, and enclosed anonymously to the husband. 
 
 Whatever, in the secrecy of domestic intercourse, took place 
 on this event was necessarily unknown ; but the next Sunday 
 the face of Mr. Welford, which had never before appeared at 
 church, was discerned by one vigilant neighbor ^probably the 
 anonymous friend, not in the same pew with his wife, but in 
 a remote corner of the sacred house. And once, when the lieu- 
 tenant was watching to read in Mrs. Welford's face some ans- 
 wer to his epistle, the same obliging inspector declared that 
 Welford's countenance assumed a sardonic and withering sneer 
 that made his very blood to creep. However this be, the lieu- 
 tenant left his quarters, and Mrs. Welford's reputation re- 
 mained satisfactorily untarnished. Shortly after this the county 
 speculation failed, and it was understood that the W T elfords 
 were about to leave the town, whither none knew, some said 
 to gaol ; but then, unhappily, no debts could be discovered. 
 Their bills had been "next to nothing" ; but, at least, they had 
 been regularly paid. However, before the rumored emigration 
 took place, a circumstance equally wonderful to the good peo- 
 ple of occurred. One bright spring morning, a party 
 
 of pleasure from a great house in the vicinity passed through 
 that town. Most conspicuous of these was a young horseman, 
 richly dressed, and of a remarkably showy and handsome ap- 
 pearance. Not a little sensible of the sensation he created, this 
 cavalier lingered behind his companions in order to eye more 
 deliberately certain damsels stationed in a window and who 
 were quite ready to return his glances with interest. At this 
 moment the horse, which was fretting itself fiercely against the 
 rein that restrained it from its fellows, took fright at a knife- 
 grinder, started violently to one side, and the graceful cavalier,
 
 344 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 who had been thinking, not of the attitude best adapted to pre- 
 serve his equilibrium, but to display his figure, was thrown 
 with some force upon a heap of bricks and rubbish which had 
 long, to the scandal of the neighborhood, stood before the 
 paintless railings around Mr. Welford's house. Welford him- 
 self came out at the time, and felt compelled, for he was by no 
 means one whose sympathetic emotions flowed easily, to give a 
 glance to the condition of a man who lay motionless before his 
 very door. The horseman quickly recovered his senses, but 
 found himself unable to rise; one of his legs was broken. 
 Supported in the arms of his groom he looked around, and his 
 eye met Welford's. An instant recognition gave life to the 
 face of the former, and threw a dark blush over the sullen 
 features of the latter. "Heavens!" said the cavalier, "is 
 that " 
 
 "Hist, my lord!" cried Welford quickly, interrupting him, 
 and glancing round. "But you are hurt, will you enter my 
 house?" 
 
 The horseman signified his assent, and, between the groom 
 and Welford, was borne within the shabby door of the ex- 
 solicitor. The groom was then despatched with an excuse to 
 the party, many of whom were already hastening around the 
 house; and though one or two did force themselves across the 
 inhospitable threshold, yet so soon as they had uttered a few 
 expletives, and felt their stare sink beneath the sullen and chill- 
 ing asperity of the host, they satisfied themselves that though 
 it was d d unlucky for their friend, yet they could do 
 nothing for him at present; and promising to send to inquire 
 after him the next day, they remounted and rode homeward, 
 with an eye more attentive than usual to the motion of their 
 steeds. They did not, however, depart till the surgeon of the 
 town had made his appearance, and declared that the patient 
 must not on any account be moved. A lord's leg was a wind- 
 fall that did not happen every day to the surgeon of . 
 
 All this while we may imagine the state of anxiety experienced 
 in the town, and the agonized endurance of those rural nerves 
 which are produced in scanty populations, and have so Talia- 
 cotian a sympathy with the affairs of other people. One day 
 two days three days a week a fortnight, nay, a month, 
 passed, and the lord was still the inmate of Mr. Welford's 
 abode. Leaving the gossips to feed on their curiosity, "can- 
 nibals of their own hearts," we must give a glance towards 
 the interior of the inhospitable mansion of the ex-solicitor. 
 
 It was towards evening, the sufferer was supported on a sofa,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 345 
 
 and the beautiful Mrs. Welford, who had officiated as his nurse, 
 was placing the pillow under the shattered limb. He himself 
 was attempting to seize her hand, which she coyly drew back, 
 and uttering things sweeter and more polished than she had 
 ever listened to before. At this moment Welford softly entered ; 
 he was unnoticed by either ; and he stood at the door con- 
 templating them with a smile of calm and self-hugging derision. 
 The face of Mephistopheles regarding Margaret and Faust 
 might suggest some idea of the picture we design to paint ; but 
 the countenance of Welford was more lofty, as well as comelier, 
 in character, though not less malignant in expression, than that 
 which the incomparable Retsch has given to the mocking fiend. 
 So utter, so congratulatory, so lordly was the contempt on Wei- 
 ford's dark and striking features., that though he was in that 
 situation in which ridicule usually attaches itself to the husband, 
 it was the gallant and the wife that would have appeared to the 
 beholder in a humiliating and unenviable light. 
 
 After a momentary pause, Welford approached with a heavy 
 step, the wife started, but, with a bland and smooth ex- 
 pression, which, since his sojourn in the town of , had 
 
 been rarely visible in his aspect, the host joined the pair, smiled 
 on the nurse, and congratulated the patient on his progress to- 
 wards recovery. The nobleman, well learned in the usages of 
 the world, replied easily and gayly; and the conversation 
 flowed on cheerful enough till the wife, who had sat abstracted 
 and apart, stealing ever and anon timid glances towards her hus- 
 band, and looks of a softer meaning towards the patient, retired 
 from the room. Welford then gave a turn to the conversation : 
 he reminded the nobleman of the pleasant days they had passed 
 in Italy, of the adventures they had shared, and the intrigues 
 they had enjoyed ; as the conversation warmed it assumed a 
 more free and licentious turn ; and not a little we ween, would 
 
 the good folks of have been amazed could they have 
 
 listened to the gay jests and the libertine maxims which flowed 
 from the thin lips of that cold and severe Welford, whose counte- 
 nance gave the lie to mirth. Of women in general they spoke 
 with that lively contempt which is the customary tone with men 
 of the world, only in Welford it assumed a bitterer, a deeper, 
 and a more philosophical cast, than it did in his more animated 
 yet less energetic guest. 
 
 The nobleman seemed charmed with his friend ; the con- 
 versation was just to his taste ; and when Welford had supported 
 him up to bed, he shook that person cordially by the hand, and 
 hoped he should soon see him in very different circumstances.
 
 346 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 When the peer's door was closed on Welford, he stood motion- 
 less for some moments ; he then with a soft step ascended to his 
 own chamber. His wife slept soundly; beside the bed was the 
 infant's cradle. As his eyes fell on the latter, the rigid irony 
 now habitual to his features relaxed ; he bent over the cradle 
 long, and in deep silence. The mother's face, blended with 
 the sire's, was stamped on the sleeping and cherub countenance 
 before him ; and as at length, rousing from his revery, he kissed 
 it gently, he murmured: 
 
 "When I look on you I will believe that she once loved me. 
 Pah!" he said abruptly, and rising, "this fatherly sentiment 
 
 for a 's offering is exquisite in me!" So saying, without 
 
 glancing towards his wife, who, disturbed by the loudness of 
 his last words, stirred uneasily, he left the room, and descended 
 into that where he had conversed with his guest. He shut the 
 door with caution, and striding to and fro the humble apart- 
 ment, gave vent to thoughts marshalled somewhat in the broken 
 array in which they now appear to the reader. 
 
 "Ay, ay, she has been my ruin! and if I were one of your 
 weak fools who make a gospel of the silliest and most mawkish 
 follies of this social state, she would now be my disgrace ; but, 
 instead of my disgrace, I will make her my footstool to honor 
 and wealth. And, then, to the devil with the footstool ! Yes ! 
 two years I have borne what was enough to turn my whole 
 blood, into gall: inactivity, hopelessness a wasted heart and 
 life in myself, contumely from the world, coldness, bickering, 
 ingratitude, from the one for whom oh, ass that I was ! I gave 
 up the most cherished part of my nature rather my nature it- 
 self ! Two years I have borne this, and now will I have my 
 revenge ; I will sell her sell her ! God ! I will sell her like 
 the commonest beast of a market ! And this paltry piece of 
 false coin shall buy me my world ! Other men's vengeance 
 comes from hatred a base, rash, unphilosophical sentiment! 
 mine comes from scorn the only wise state for the reason to 
 rest in. Other men's vengeance ruins themselves mine shall 
 save me! Hah! how my soul chuckles when I look at this 
 pitiful pair, who think I see them not, and know that every 
 movement they make is on a mesh of my web! Yet," and 
 Welford paused slowly, "yet I cannot but mock myself when 
 I think of the arch gull that this boy's madness, love, love in- 
 deed! 'the very word turns me sick with loathing, made of 
 me. Had that woman, silly, weak, automatal as she is, really 
 loved me, had she been sensible of the unspeakable sacrifice 
 I had made to her (Antony's was nothing to it he lost a real
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 347 
 
 world only; mine was the world of imagination), had she but 
 condescended to learn my nature, to subdue the woman's devil 
 at her own, I could have lived on in this babbling hermitage for 
 ever, and fancied myself happy and resigned, I could have 
 become a different being. I fancy I could have become what 
 your moralists (quacks!) call 'good.' But this fretting frivolity 
 of heart, this lust of fool's praise, this peevishness of tem- 
 per, this sullenness in answer to the moody thought, which 
 in me she neither fathomed nor forgave, this vulgar, daily, 
 hourly pining at the paltry pinches of the body's poverty, the 
 domestic whine, the household complaint, when I Ihave not 
 a thought for such pitiful trials of affection ; and all this while 
 my curses, my buried hope, and disguised spirit, and sunken 
 name not thought of ; the magnitude of my surrender to her 
 not even comprehended; nay, her 'inconveniences,' a dim 
 hearth, I suppose, or a daintiless table, compared, ay, ab- 
 solutely compared with all which I abandoned for her sake! 
 As if it were not enough, had I been a fool, an ambitionless, 
 soulless fool, the mere thought that I had linked my name to 
 that of a tradesman I beg pardon, a retired tradesman ! as if 
 that knowledge, a knowledge I would strangle my whole race, 
 every one who has ever met, seen me, rather than they should 
 penetrate, were not enough when she talks of 'comparing, ' to 
 make me gnaw the very flesh from my bones! No, no, no! 
 Never was there so bright a turn in my fate as when this titled 
 coxcomb, with his smooth voice and gaudy fripperies, came 
 hither! I will make her a tool to carve my escape from this 
 cavern wherein she has plunged me. I will foment 'my lord's" 
 passion, till 'my lord' thinks the 'passion' (a butterfly's passion !) 
 worth any price. I will then make my own terms, bind 'my 
 lord' to secrecy, and get rid of my wife, my shame, and the ob- 
 scurity of Mr. Welford, for ever. Bright, bright prospects! let 
 me shut my eyes to enjoy you ! But softly, my noble friend 
 calls himself a man of the world, skilled in human nature, and 
 aderider of its prejudices; true enough, in his own little way 
 thanks not to enlarged views but a vicious experience so he 
 is ! The book of the world is a vast miscellany ; he is perfect- 
 ly well acquainted, doubtless, with those pages that treat of the 
 fashions, profoundly versed, I warrant, in the Magasin des 
 Modes tacked to the end of the index. But shall I, even with- 
 all the mastership which my mind must exercise over his, shall I 
 be able utterly to free myself in this 'peer of the world's' mind 
 from a degrading remembrance? Cuckold! cuckold! 'tis an 
 ugly word; convenient, willing cuckold, humph ! there is no
 
 348 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 grandeur, no philosophical varnish in the praise. Let me see, 
 yes ! I have a remedy for all that. I was married privately, 
 well ! under disguised names, well ! it was a stolen marriage, fai 
 from her town, well! witnesses unknown to her, well! proofs 
 easily secured to my possession, excellent ! the fool shall be- 
 lieve it a forged marriage, an ingenious gallantry of mine ; I will 
 wash out the stain cuckold with the water of another word ; I 
 will make market of a mistress, not a wife. I will warn him 
 not to acquaint her with this secret ; let me consider for what 
 reason, oh! my son's legitimacy may be convenient to me here- 
 after. He will understand that reason, and I will have his 
 'honor' thereon. And by the way, I do care for that legiti- 
 macy, and will guard the proofs ; I love my child, ambitious 
 men do love their children ; I may become a lord myself, and 
 may wish for a lord to succeed ; and that son is mine ; thank 
 Heaven ! I am sure on that point, the only child, too, that ever 
 shall arise to me. Never, I swear, will I again put myself be- 
 yond my own power. All my nature, save one passion, I have 
 hitherto mastered ; that passion shall henceforth be my slave, 
 my only thought be ambition, my only mistress be the world!" 
 
 As thus terminated the revery of a man whom the social cir- 
 cumstances of the world were calculated, as if by system, to 
 render eminently and basely wicked, Welford slowly ascended 
 the stairs, and re-entered his chamber : his wife was still sleep- 
 ing; her beauty was of the fair, and girlish, and harmonized 
 order, which lovers and poem would express by the word "an- 
 gelic" ; and as Welford looked upon her face, hushed and al- 
 most hallowed by slumber, a certain weakness and irresolution 
 might have been discernible in the strong lines of his haughty 
 features. At that moment, as if forever to destroy the return 
 of hope or virtue to either, her lips moved, they uttered one 
 word, it was the name of Welford' s courtly guest. 
 
 About three weeks from that evening, Mrs. Welford eloped 
 with the young nobleman, and on the morning following that 
 event, the distracted husband with his child disappeared for- 
 ever from the town of . Fom that day no tidings what- 
 soever respecting him ever reached the titillated ears of his 
 anxious neighbors ; and doubt, curiosity, discussion, gradually 
 settled into the belief that his despair had hurried him into 
 suicide. 
 
 Although the unfortunate Mrs. Welford was in reality of a 
 light and frivolous turn, and, above all, susceptible to personal 
 vanity, she was not without ardent affections and keen sensibili- 
 ties. Her marriage had been one of love, that is to say, on her
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 349 
 
 part, the ordinary love of girls, who love not through actual and 
 natural feeling so much as forced predisposition. Her choice 
 had fallen on one superior to herself in birth, and far above all, 
 in person and address, whom she had habitually met. Thus 
 her vanity had assisted her affection, and something strange 
 and eccentric in the temper and mind of Welford had, though 
 at times it aroused her fear, greatly contributed to inflame her 
 imagination. Then, too, though an uncourtly, he had been a 
 passionate and a romantic lover. She was sensible that he gave 
 up for her much that he had previously conceived necessary 
 to his existence ; and she stopped not to inquire how far this 
 devotion was likely to last, or what conduct on her part might 
 best perpetuate the feelings from which it sprung. She had 
 eloped with him. She had consented to a private marriage. 
 She had passed one happy month, and then delusion van- 
 ished ! Mrs. Welford was not a woman who could give to re- 
 ality, or find in it, the charm equal to delusion. She was perfect- 
 ly unable to comprehend the intricate and dangerous character 
 of her husband. She had not the key to his virtues, nor the 
 spell for his vices. Neither was the state to which poverty 
 compelled them one well calculated for that tender meditation, 
 heightened by absence, and cherished in indolence, which so 
 often supplies one who loves with the secret to the nature of 
 the one beloved. Though not equal to her husband in birth or 
 early prospects, Mrs. Welford had been accustomed to certain 
 comforts, often more felt by those who belong to the inferior 
 classes than by those appertaining to the more elevated, who, 
 in losing one luxury, will often cheerfully surrender all. A fine 
 lady can submit to more hardships than her woman ; and every 
 gentleman who travels smiles at the privations which agonize his 
 valet. Poverty and its grim comrades made way for a whole 
 host of petty irritations and peevish complaints ; and as no 
 guest or visitor ever relieved the domestic discontent, or broke 
 on the domestic bickering, they generally ended in that moody 
 sullenness which so often finds love a grave in repentance. 
 Nothing makes people tire of each other like a familiarity that 
 admits of carelessness in quarrelling and coarseness in com- 
 plaining. The biting sneer of Welford gave acrimony to the 
 murmur of his wife ; and when once each conceived the other 
 the injurer, or him or herself the wronged, it was vain to hope 
 that one would be more wary, or the other more indulgent. 
 They both exacted too much, and the wife in especial con- 
 ceded too little. Mrs. Welford was altogether and emphati- 
 cally what a libertine calls "a woman," such as a Jriv
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 olaus education makes a woman, generous in great things, 
 petty in small ; vain, irritable, full of the littleness of herself 
 and her complaints, ready to plunge into an abyss with her 
 lover, but equally ready to fret away all love with reproaches 
 when the plunge had been made. Of all men, Welford could 
 bear this the least. A woman of a larger heart, a more settled 
 experience^ and an intellect capable of appreciating his char- 
 acter, and sounding all his qualities, might have made him per- 
 haps an useful and a great man ; and, at least, her lover for 
 life. Amidst a harvest of evil feelings, the mere strength of 
 his nature rendered him especially capable of intense feeling 
 and generous emotion. One who relied on him was safe, one 
 who rebelled against him trusted only to the caprice of his 
 scorn. Still, however, for two years, love, though weakening 
 with each hour, fought on in either breast, and could scarcely 
 be said to be entirely vanquished in the wife, even when she 
 eloped with her handsome seducer. A French writer has said, 
 pithily enough, "Compare for a moment the apathy of a hus- 
 band with the attention, the gallantry, the adoration of a lover, 
 and can you ask the result? " He was a French writer; but Mrs. 
 Welford had in her temper much of the Frenchwoman. A suf- 
 fering patient, young, handsome, well versed in the arts of in- 
 trigue, contrasted with a gloomy husband whom she had never 
 comprehended, long feared, and had lately doubted if she dis- 
 liked, ah! a much weaker contrast has made many a much 
 better woman food for the lawyers ! Mrs. Welford eloped ; but 
 she felt a revived tenderness for her husband on the very morn- 
 ing that she did so. She carried away with her his letters of 
 love as well as her own, which when they first married she had 
 in an hour of fondness collected together then an inestimable 
 hoard! and never did her new lover receive from her beautiful 
 lips half so passionate a kiss as she left on the cheek of her in- 
 fant. For some months she enjoyed with her paramour all for 
 which she had sighed in her home. The one for whom she had 
 forsaken her legitimate ties was a person so habitually cheerful, 
 courteous, and what is ordinarily termed good-natured (though 
 he had in him as much of the essence of selfishness as any noble- 
 man can decently have), that he continued gallant to her with- 
 out an effort long after he had begun to think it possible to tire 
 even of so lovely a face. Yet there were moments when the 
 fickle wife recalled her husband with regret; and, contrasting 
 him with her seducer, did not find all the colorings of the con- 
 trast flattering to the latter. There is something in a powerful 
 and marked character which women, and all weak natures, feel
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 351 
 
 themselves constrained to respect; and Welford's character 
 thus stood in bold, and therefore advantageous though gloomy, 
 relief when opposed to the levities and foibles of this guilty 
 woman's present adorer. However this be, the die was cast; 
 and it would have been policy for the lady to have made the 
 best of her present game. But she who had murmured as a 
 wife was not complaisant as a mistress. Reproaches made an 
 interlude to caresses, which the noble lover by no means ad- 
 mired. He was not a man to retort, he was too indolent; but 
 neither was he one to forbear. "My charming friend," said 
 he one'day, after a scene, "you weary of me, nothing more 
 natural! Why torment each other? You say I have ruined 
 you; my sweet friend, let me make you reparation become 
 independent; I will settle an annuity upon you; fly me seek 
 happiness elsewhere, and leave your unfortunate, your despair- 
 ing lover to his fate. ' ' 
 
 "Do you taunt me, my lord?" cried the angry fair; "or do 
 you believe that money can replace the rights of which you 
 have robbed me ? Can you make me again a wife a happy, a 
 respected wife? L)o this, my lord, and you atone to me?" 
 
 The nobleman smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. The lady 
 yet more angrily repeated her question. The lover answered 
 by an innuendo, which at once astonished and doubly enraged 
 her. She eagerly demanded explanation ; and his lordship, who 
 had gone farther than he intended, left the room. But his words 
 had sunk deep into the breast of this unhappy woman, and she 
 resolved ta procure an elucidation. Agreeably to the policy 
 which stripped the fabled traveller of his cloak, she laid aside 
 the storm, and preferred the sunshine; she watched a -moment 
 of tenderness, turned the opportunity to advantage, and, by 
 little and little, she possessed herself of a secret which sickened 
 her with shame, disgust, and dismay. Sold! bartered! the ob- 
 ject of a contemptuous huxtering to the purchaser and the 
 seller ; sold, too, with a lie that debased her at once into an 
 object for whom even pity was mixed with scorn. Robbed al- 
 ready of the name and honor of a wife, and transferred as a 
 harlot, from the wearied arms of one leman to the capricious 
 caresses of another. . Such was the image that rose before her ; 
 and, while it roused at one moment all her fiercer passions into 
 madness, humbled, with the next, her vanity into the dust. 
 She, who knew the ruling. passion of Welford, saw at a glance, the 
 object of scorn and derision which she had become to him. While 
 she imagined herself the betrayer, she had been the betrayed ; 
 she saw vividly before her (and shuddered as she saw) her hus-
 
 352 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 band's icy smile his serpent eye his features steeped in sar- 
 casm, and all his mocking soul stamped upon the countenance, 
 whose lightest derision was so galling. She turned from this pic- 
 ture, and saw the courtly face of the purchaser his subdued 
 smile at her reproaches his latent sneer at her claims to a station 
 which he had been taught, by the arch plotter, to believe she 
 had never possessed. She saw his early weariness of her attrac- 
 tions, expressed with respect indeed an insulting respect, 
 but felt without a scruple of remorse. She saw in either as 
 around only a reciprocation of contempt. She was in a web 
 of profound abasement. Even that haughty grief of conscience 
 for a crime committed to another, which if it stings, humbles 
 not, was swallowed up in a far more agonizing sensation, to 
 one so vain as the adulteress the burning sense of shame at 
 having herself, while sinning, been the duped and deceived. 
 Her very soul was appalled with her humiliation. The curse 
 of Welford's vengeance was on her and it was wreaked to the 
 last ! Whatever kindly sentiment she might have experienced 
 towards her protector was swallowed up at once by this dis- 
 covery. She could not endure the thought of meeting the eye 
 of one who had been the gainer by this ignominious barter ; the 
 foibles and weaknesses of the lover assumed a despicable as well 
 as hateful dye. And in feeling herself degraded, she loathed 
 him. The day after she had made the discovery we have re- 
 ferred to, Mrs. Welford left the house of her protector, none 
 knew whither. For two years from that date, all trace of her 
 history was lost. At the end of that time, what was Welford? 
 A man rapidly rising in the world, distinguished at the bar, 
 where his first brief had lifted him into notice, commencing a 
 flattering career in the senate, holding lucrative and honorable 
 offices, esteemed for the austere rectitude of his moral charac- 
 ter, gathering the golden opinions of all men as he strode on- 
 ward to public reputation. He had re-assumed his hereditary 
 name: his early history was unknown; and no one in the ob- 
 scure and distant town of had ever guessed that the 
 
 humble Welford was the William Brandon whose praise was 
 echoed in so many journals and whose rising genius was ac- 
 knowledged by all. That asperity, roughness, and gloom which 
 
 had noted him at and which, being natural to him, he 
 
 deigned not to disguise in a station ungenial to his talents and 
 below his hopes, were now glitteringly varnished over by an 
 hypocrisy well calculated to aid his ambition. So learnedly 
 could this singular man fit himself to others, that few among 
 the great met him as a companion, nor left him without the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD* 553 
 
 temper to become nis friend. Through his noble rival, that is 
 (to make our reader's "surety doubly sure") through Lord 
 Mauleverer, he had acquired his first lucrative office, a certain 
 patronage from government, and his seat in Parliament. If he 
 had persevered at the bar, rather, than given himself entirely to 
 state intrigues, it was only because his talents were eminently 
 more calculated to advance him in the former path to honor, 
 than in the latter. So devoted was he become to public life, 
 that he had only permitted himself to cherish one private source 
 of enjoyment his son. As no one, not even his brother, knew 
 he had been married (during the two years of his disguised 
 name, he had been supposed abroad), the appearance of this 
 son made the only piece of scandal whispered against the rigid 
 morality of his fair fame ; but he himself, waiting his own time 
 for avowing a legitimate heir, gave out that it was the orphan 
 child of a dear friend whom he had known abroad ; and the 
 puritan demureness not only of life, but manner, which he as- 
 sumed, gained a pretty large belief to the statement. This son 
 Brandon idolized. As we have represented himself to say, 
 ambitious men are commonly fond of their children beyond the 
 fondness of other sires. The perpetual reference which the 
 ambitious make to posterity, is perhaps the main reason. But 
 Brandon was also fond of children generally ; philoprogenitive- 
 ness was a marked trait in his character, and would seem to 
 belie the hardness and artifice belonging to that character, 
 were not the same love so frequently noticeable in the harsh 
 and the artificial. It seems as if a half-conscious but pleasing 
 feeling, that they too were once gentle and innocent, makes 
 them delight in reviving any sympathy with their early 
 state. 
 
 Often after the applause and labor of the day, Brandon 
 would repair to his son's chamber, and watch his slumber for 
 hours; often before his morning toil commenced, he would 
 nurse the infant in his arms with all a woman's natural tender- 
 ness and gushing joy. And often, as a graver and more char- 
 acteristic sentiment stole over him, he would mentally say, 
 "You shall build up our broken name on a better foundation 
 than your sire. I begin too late in life, and I labor up a pain- 
 ful and stony road ; but I shall make the journey to Fame 
 smooth and accessible for you. Never, too, while you aspire 
 to honor, shall you steel your heart to tranquillity. For you, 
 my child, shall be the joys of home and love, and a mind that 
 does not sicken at the past, and strain, through mere fretful- 
 ness, towards a solitary and barren distinction for the future.
 
 354 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Not only what your father gains you shall enjoy, but what has 
 cursed him, his vigilance shall lead you to shun!" 
 
 It was thus not only that his softer feelings, but all the better 
 and nobler ones, which, even in the worst and hardest bosom, 
 find some root, turned towards his child; and that the hollow 
 and vicious man promised to become the affectionate and per- 
 haps the wise parent. 
 
 One night, Brandon was returning home on foot, from a min- 
 isterial dinner. The night was frosty and clear, the hour was 
 late, and his way lay through the longest and best lighted streets 
 of the metropolis. He was, as usual, buried in thought, when 
 he was suddenly aroused from his revery by a light touch laid 
 on his arm. He turned, and saw one of the unhappy persons 
 who haunt the midnight streets of cities, standing right before 
 his path. The gaze of each fell upon the other ; and it was 
 thus, for the first time since they laid their heads on the same 
 pillow, that the husband met the wife. The skies were intense- 
 ly clear, and the lamplight was bright and calm upon the faces 
 of both. There was no doubt in the mind of either. Suddenly, 
 and with a startled and ghastly consciousness, they recognized 
 each other. The wife staggered, and clung to a post for sup- 
 port: Brandon's look was calm and unmoved. The hour that 
 his bitter and malignant spirit had yearned for was come: nis 
 nerves expanded in a voluptuous calmness, as if to give him a 
 deliberate enjoyment of his hope fulfilled. Whatever the words 
 that, in that unwitnessed and almost awful interview, passed 
 between them, we may be sure that Brandon spared not one 
 atom of his power. The lost and abandoned wife returned 
 home, and all her nature, embruted as it had become by guilt 
 and vile habits, hardened into revenge, that preternatural feel- 
 ing which may be termed the hope of despair. 
 
 Three nights from that meeting, Brandon's house was broken 
 into. Like the houses of many legal men, it lay in a dangerous 
 and thinly-populated outskirt of the town, and was easily ac- 
 cessible to robbery. He was awakened by a noise: he started, 
 and found himself in the grasp of two men. At the foot of the 
 bed stood a female, raising a light, and her face, haggard with 
 searing passions, and ghastly with the leprous whiteness of dis- 
 ease and approaching death, glared full upon him. 
 
 "It is now my turn," said the female with a grin of scorn 
 which Brandon himself might have envied; "you have cursed 
 rne, and I return the curse! You have told me that my child 
 shall never name me but to blush. Fool ! I triumph over you : 
 you he shall never know to his dying day ! You have told me,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 355 
 
 that to my child and my child's child (a long transmission of 
 execration), my name the name of the wife you basely sold to 
 ruin and to hell, should be left as a legacy of odium and shame! 
 Man, you shall teach that child no farther lesson whatever : you 
 shall know not whether he live or die, or have children to carry 
 on your boasted race; or whether, if he have, those children 
 be not outcasts of the earth the accursed of man and God 
 the fit offspring of the thing you have made me. Wretch ! I 
 hurl back on you the denunciation with which, when we met 
 three nights since, you would have crushed the victim of your 
 own perfidy. You shall tread the path of your ambition child- 
 less, and objectless, and hopeless. Disease shall set her stamp 
 upon your frame. The worm shall batten upon your heart 
 You shall have honors and enjoy them not; you shall gain your 
 ambition, and despair: you shall pine for your son, and find 
 him not; or, if you find him, you shall curse the hour in which 
 he was born. Mark me, man I am dying while I speak I 
 know that I am a prophet in my curse. From this hour I am 
 avenged, and you are my scorn!" 
 
 As the hardest natures sink appalled before the stony eye of 
 the maniac, so in the dead of the night, pinioned by ruffians, 
 the wild and solemn voice (sharpened by passion and partial 
 madness) of the ghastly figure before him curdling through his 
 veins, even the haughty and daring character of William Bran- 
 don quailed! He uttered not a word. He was found the next 
 morning, bound by strong cords to his bed. He spoke not 
 when he was released, but went in silence to his child's cham- 
 ber: the child was gone! Several articles of property were 
 also stolen: the desperate tools the mother had employed 
 worked not perhaps without their own reward*. 
 
 We need scarcely add, that Brandon set every engine and 
 channel of justice in motion for the discovery of his son. All 
 the .especial shrewdness and keenness of his own character, 
 aided by his professional experience, he employed for years in 
 the same pursuit. Every research was wholly in vain : not the 
 remotest vestige towards discovery could be traced, until were 
 found (we have recorded when) some of the articles that had 
 been stolen. Fate treasured in her gloomy womb, altogether 
 undescried by man, the hour and the scene in which the most 
 ardent wish of William Brandon was to be realized.
 
 356 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 " O Fortuna, viris invida fortibus 
 
 Quam non sequa bonis praemia dividis." 
 
 SENECA. 
 ****** 
 
 " And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue. 
 Pants to the place from whence at first he flew." 
 
 ****** 
 " Here, to the houseless child of want, 
 My door is open still." 
 
 GOLDSMITH. 
 
 SLOWLY for Lucy waned the weeks of a winter which, to 
 her, was the most dreary portion of life she had ever passed. 
 It became the time for the judge to attend one of those period- 
 ical visitations so fraught with dread and dismay to the miser- 
 able inmates of the dark abodes which the complex laws of this 
 country so bounteously supply those times of great hilarity 
 and eating to the legal gentry, 
 
 . " Who feed on crimes and fatten on distress, 
 
 And wring vile mirth from suffering's last excess." 
 
 Ah! excellent order of the world, which it is so wicked to 
 disturb ! How miraculously beautiful must be that system 
 which makes wine out of the scorching tears of guilt ; and from 
 the suffocating suspense, the agonized fear, the compelled and 
 self-mocking bravery, the awful sentence, the despairing death- 
 pang of one man, furnishes the smirking expectation of fees, 
 the jovial meeting, and the mercenary holiday to another! "Of 
 Law, nothing less can be said, than that her seat is the bosom 
 of God."* To be sure not; Richard Hooker, you are per- 
 fectly right. The divinity of a sessions, and the inspiration of 
 the Old Bailey, are undeniable. 
 
 The care of Sir William Brandon had effectually kept from. 
 Lucy's ear the knowledge of her lover's ignominious situation. 
 Indeed, in her delicate health, even the hard eye of Brandon, 
 and the thoughtless glance of Mauleverer, perceived the dan- 
 ger of such a discovery. The Earl now waiting the main attack 
 on Lucy, till the curtain had forever dropped on Clifford, pro- 
 ceeded with great caution and delicacy in his suit to his pur- 
 posed bride. He waited with the more patience, inasmuch as 
 he had drawn in advance on his friend Sir William for some 
 
 * Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 357 
 
 portion of the heiress's fortune; and he readily allowed that he 
 could not, in the mean while, have a better advocate than he 
 found in Brandon. So persuasive, indeed, and so subtle was 
 the eloquence of this able sophist, that often, in his artful con- 
 versations with his niece, he left even on the unitiated, and 
 strong though simple, mind of Lucy an uneasy and restless 
 impression, which time might have ripened into an inclination 
 towards the worldly advantages of the marriage at her com- 
 mand. Brandon was no bungling mediator or violent persecu- 
 tor. He seemed to acquiesce in her rejection of Mauleverer. 
 He scarcely recurred to the event. He rarely praised the Earl 
 himself, save for the obvious qualities of liveliness and good- 
 nature. But he spoke, with all the vivid colors he could in- 
 fuse at will into his words, of the pleasures and the duties ot 
 rank and wealth. Well could he appeal alike to all the preju- 
 dices and all the foibles of the human breast, and govern vir- 
 tue through its weaknesses. Lucy had been brought up, like 
 the daughters of most country gentlemen of ancient family, in 
 an undue and idle consciousness of superior birth ; and she 
 was far from inaccessible to the warmth and even feeling (for 
 here Brandon was sincere) with which her uncle spoke of the 
 duty of raising a gallant name sunk into disrepute, and sacri- 
 ficing our own inclination, for the redecorating the mouldered 
 splendor of those who have gone before us. If the confusion 
 of idea occasioned by a vague pomposity of phrase, or the 
 infant inculcation of a sentiment that is mistaken for a virtue, 
 so often makes fools of the wise on the subject of ancestry; if 
 it clouded even the sarcastic and keen sense of Brandon him- 
 self, we may forgive its influence over a girl so little versed in 
 the arts of sound reasonings as poor Lucy, who, it may be 
 said, had never learnt to think until she had learnt to love. 
 However, the impression made by Brandon in his happiest mo- 
 ments of persuasion was as yet only transient ; it vanished 
 before the first thought of Clifford, and never suggested to her 
 even a doubt as to the suit of Mauleverer. 
 
 When the day arrived for Sir William Brandon to set out on- 
 the circuit, he called Barlow, and enjoined that acute and intel- 
 ligent servant the strictest caution with respect to Lucy. He 
 bade him deny her to every one, of whatever rank, and care- 
 fully to look into every newspaper that was brought to her, as 
 well as to withhold every letter, save such as were addressed to 
 her in the judge's own handwriting. Lucy's maid Brandon 
 had already won over to silence ; and the uncle now pleased 
 himself with thinking that he had put an effectual guard to
 
 358 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 every chance of discovery. The identity of Lovett with Clif- 
 ford had not yet even been rumored, and Mauleverer had rightly 
 judged of Clifford, when he believed the prisoner would himself 
 take every precaution against the detection of that fact. Clif- 
 ford answered the Earl's note and promise, in a letter, couched 
 in so affecting yet so manly a tone of gratitude, that even 
 Brandon was touched when he read it. And since his confine- 
 ment and partial recovery of health, the prisoner had kept him- 
 self closely secluded, and refused all visitors. Encouraged by 
 this reflection, and the belief in the safety of his precautions, 
 Brandon took leave of Lucy. "Farewell!" said he, as he 
 embraced her affectionately. "Be sure that you write to me, 
 and forgive me if I do not answer you punctually. Take care 
 of yourself, my sweet niece, and let me see a fresher color on 
 that soft cheek when I return ! ' ' 
 
 "Take care of yourself rather, my dear, dear uncle," said 
 Lucy, clinging to him and weeping, as of late her weakened 
 nerves caused her to do at the least agitation. "Why may I 
 not go with you? You have seemed to me paler than usual 
 the last three or four days, and you complained yesterday. 
 Do let me go with you ; I will be no trouble, none at all ; but I 
 am sure you require a nurse." 
 
 "You want to frighten me, my pretty Lucy," said Brandon, 
 shaking his head with a smile. "I am well, very well: I felt 
 a strange rush of blood towards the head yesterday, it is true ; 
 but I feel to-day stronger and lighter than I have done for 
 years. Once more, God bless you, my child!" 
 
 And Brandon tore himself away, and commenced his 
 journey. 
 
 The wandering and dramatic course of our story now con- 
 ducts us to an obscure lane in the metropolis, leading to the 
 Thames, and makes us spectators of an affecting farewell 
 between two persons, whom the injustice of fate, and the per- 
 secutions of men, were about perhaps forever to divide. 
 
 "Adieu, my friend!" said Augustus Tomlinson, as he stood 
 looking full on that segment of the face of Edward Pepper, 
 which was left unconcealed by a huge hat and a red belcher 
 handkerchief. Tomlinson himself was attired in the full cos- 
 tume of a dignified clergyman. "Adieu, my friend, since you 
 will remain in England, adieu! I am, I exult to say, no less 
 sincere a patriot than you. Heaven be my witness, how long 
 I looked repugnantly on poor Lovett's proposal to quit my 
 beloved country. But all hope of life here is now over; and 
 really, during the last ten days, I have been so hunted from
 
 t>AUL CLIFFORD. 35$ 
 
 corner to corner, so plagued with polite invitations, similar to 
 those given by a farmer's wife to her ducks, 'Dilly, dilly, 
 dilly, come and be killed!' that my patriotism has been pro- 
 digiously cooled, and I no longer recoil from thoughts of self- 
 banishment. 'The earth,' my dear Ned, as a Greek sage has 
 very well observed, 'the earth is the same every where!' and 
 if I am asked for my home, I can point, like Anaxagoras, to 
 heaven!" 
 
 " Ton my soul, you affect me!" said Ned, speaking thick, 
 either from grief or the pressure of the belcher handkerchief 
 on his mouth; "it is quite beautiful to hear you talk!" 
 
 " Bear up, my dear friend, ' ' continued Tomlinson ; ' 'bear up 
 against your present afflictions. What, to a man who fortifies 
 himself by reason and by reflection on the shortness of life are the 
 little calamities of the body! What is imprisonment, or perse- 
 cution, or cold, or hunger? By the by, you did not forget to 
 put the sandwiches into my coat-pocket!" 
 
 "Hush!" whispered Ned, and he moved on involuntarily; 
 "I see a man at the other end of the street." 
 
 "Let us quicken our pace," said Tomlinson; and the pair 
 proceeded towards the river. 
 
 "And now," began Ned, who thought he might as well say 
 something about himself, for hitherto Augustus, in the ardor 
 of his friendship, had been only discussing his own plans, 
 "and now, that is to say, when I leave you, I shall hasten 
 to dive for shelter, until the storm blows over. I don't much 
 like living in a cellar and wearing a smock-frock, but those 
 concealments have something interesting in them, after all! 
 The safest and snuggest place I know of is the Pays Bas, about 
 Thames Court; so I think of hiring an apartment under ground, 
 and taking my meals at poor Lovett's old quarters, the Mug, 
 the police will never dream of looking in those vulgar haunts 
 for a man of my fashion." 
 
 "You cannot then tear yourself from England?" said 
 Tomlinson. 
 
 "No, hang it! the fellows are so cursed unmanly on the 
 other side of the water. I hate their wine and their parley woo, 
 Besides, there is no fun there." 
 
 Tomlinson. who was absorbed in his own thoughts, made no 
 comment on his friend's excellent reasons against travel, and 
 the pair now approached the brink of the river. A boat was 
 in waiting to receive and conduct to the vessel in which he 
 had taken his place for Calais, the illustrious emigrant. But 
 as Tomlinson's eye fell suddenly on the rude boatman and the
 
 366 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 little boat which were to bear him away from his native land ; 
 as he glanced too, across the blue waters, which a brisk wind 
 wildly agitated, and thought how much rougher it would be 
 at sea, where "his soul" invariably "sickened at the heaving 
 wave," a whole tide of deep and sorrowful emotions rushed 
 upon him. 
 
 He turned away: the spot on which he stood was a piece 
 of ground to be let (as a board proclaimed) upon a building 
 lease; below, descended the steps which were to conduct him 
 to the boat; around, the desolate space allowed him to see in 
 far and broad extent the spires and domes, and chimneys of 
 the great city whose inhabitants he might never plunder more. 
 As he looked and looked, the tears started in his eyes, and 
 with a gust of enthusiasm little consonant with his temperate 
 and philosophical character, he lifted his right hand from his 
 black breeches-pocket, and burst into the following farewell to 
 the metropolis of his native shores: 
 
 "Farewell, my beloved London, farewell! Where shall I 
 ever find a city like you? Never, till now, did I feel how in- 
 expressibly dear you were to me. You have been my father, 
 and my brother, and my mistress, and my tailor, and my shoe- 
 maker, and my hatter, and my cook, and my wine-merchant! 
 You and I never misunderstood each other. I did not grum- 
 ble when I saw what fine houses and good strong boxes you 
 gave to other men. No! I rejoiced at their prosperity. I 
 delighted to see a rich man my only disappointment was in 
 stumbling on a poor one. You gave riches to my neighbors ; 
 but, O generous London, you gave those neighbors to me! 
 Magnificent streets, all Christian virtues abide within you! 
 Charity is as common as smoke ! Where, in what corner of 
 the habitable world, shall I find human beings with so many 
 superfluities? Where shall I so easily decoy, from benevolent 
 credulity, those superfluities to myself? Heaven only knows, 
 my dear, dear, darling London, what I lose in you ! O public 
 charities! O public institutions ! O banks that belie mathe- 
 matical axioms and make lots out of nothing! O ancient con- 
 stitution always to be questioned ! O modern improvements 
 that never answer! O speculations! O companies ! O usury 
 laws which guard against usurers, by making as many as possi- 
 ble! O churches in which no one profits, save the parson, and 
 the old women that let pews of an evening! O superb theatres, 
 too small for parks, too enormous for houses, which exclude 
 comedy and comfort, and have a monopoly for performing 
 nonsense gigantically! O houses of plaster built in a day! O
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 361 
 
 palaces four yards high, with a dome in the middle, meant to 
 be invisible!* O shops worth thousands, and O shopkeepers 
 not worth a shilling! O system of credit by which beggars are 
 princes, and princes are beggars! O imprisonment for debt, 
 which lets the mare be stolen, ad then locks up the bridle! O 
 sharpers, bubblers, senators, beaux, taverns, brothels, clubs, 
 houses private and public! O LONDON, in a word, receive my 
 last adieu! Long may you flourish in peace and plenteous- 
 ness ! May your knaves be witty, and your fools be rich ! 
 May you alter only two things your damnable tricks of trans- 
 portation and hanging ! Those are your sole faults ; but for 
 those I would never desert you. Adieu!" 
 
 Here Tomlinson averted his head, and then hastily shaking the 
 hand of Long Ned with a tremulous and warm grasp, he hur- 
 ried down the stairs and entered the boat. Ned remained 
 motionless for some moments, following him with his eyes as he 
 sat at the end of the boat, waving a white pocket handkerchief. 
 At length, a line of barges snatched him from the sight of the 
 lingerer, and Ned slowly turning away, muttered "Yes, I 
 have always heard that Dame Lobkins's was the safest asylum 
 for misfortune like mine. I will go forthwith in search of a 
 lodging, and to-morrow I will make my breakfast at the Mug!" 
 
 Be it our pleasing task, dear reader, to forestall the good rob- 
 ber, and return, at the hour of sunrise on the day following 
 Tomlinson's departure, to the scene at which our story com- 
 menced. We are now once more at the house of Mrs. Margery 
 Lobkins. 
 
 The room which served so many purposes was still the same 
 as when Paul turned it into the arena of his mischievous 
 pranks. The dresser, with its shelves of mingled delf and 
 pewter, occupied its ancient and important station. Only it 
 might be noticed that the pewter was more dull than of yore, 
 and that sundry cracks made their erratic wanderings over the 
 yellow surface of the delf. The eye. of the mistress had be- 
 come less keen than heretofore, and the care of the handmaid 
 had, of necessity, relaxed. The tall clock still ticked in monoto- 
 nous warning, the blanket-screen, haply innocent of soap since 
 we last described it, many-storied, and poly-balladed, still 
 unfolded its ample leaves "rich with the spoils of time." The 
 spit and the musket yet hung from the wall in amicable prox- 
 
 * We must not suppose this apostrophe to be an anachronism ! Tomlinson, of course, 
 refers to some palace of his day ; one of the boxes Christinas boxes given to the king 
 by his economical nation of shopkeepers. We suppose it is either pulled down or blown 
 down long ago ; it is doubtless forgotten by this time, except by antiquaries. Nothing is 
 so ephemeral as great houses built by the people. Your kings play the deuce with their 
 playthings.
 
 362 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 imation. And the long smooth form, "with many a holy text 
 thereon bestrewn," still afforded rest to the weary traveller, 
 and an object to the vacant stare of Mrs. Margery Lobkins, 
 as she lolled in her opposite seat and forgot the world. But 
 poor Piggy Lobb! there was the alteration! The soul of the 
 woman was gone! The spirit had evaporated from the human 
 bottle! She sat with open mouth and glassy eye in her chair, 
 sidling herself to and fro, with the low, peevish sound of fret- 
 ful age and bodily pain ; sometimes this querulous murmur 
 sharpened into a shrill but unmeaning scold. "There now, 
 you gallows bird ! you has taken the swipes without chalking ; 
 you wants to cheat the poor widow: but I sees you, I does! 
 Providence protects the aged and .the innocent oh, oh ! these 
 twinges will be the death o' me. Where's Martha? You jade, 
 you! you wiperous hussy, bring the tape here: doesn't you see 
 how I suffers? Has you ho bowels, to let a poor Christian 
 cretur perish for want o' help ! That's the way with 'em, that's 
 the way ! No one cares for I now no one has respect for the 
 gray 'airs of the old!" And then the voice dwindled into the 
 whimpering "tenor of its way." Martha, a strapping wench 
 with red hair streaming over her "hills of snow," was not, 
 however, inattentive to the wants of her mistress. "Who 
 knows," said she to a man who sat by the hearth, drinking tea 
 out of a blue mug, and toasting with great care two or three 
 huge rounds of bread, for his own private and especial nutri- 
 ment "who knows," said she, "what we may come to our- 
 selves?" And, so saying, she placed a glowing tumbler by her 
 mistress's elbow. But in the sunken prostration of her intel- 
 lect, the old woman was insensible even to her consolation: 
 she sipped and drank, it is true ; but as if the stream warmed 
 not benumbed the region through which it passed, she con- 
 tinued muttering in a crazed and groaning key, "Is this your 
 gratitude, you sarpent ! why does you not bring the tape, I 
 tells you? Am I of a age to drink water like a oss, you nasty 
 thing! Oh, to think as ever I should live to be desarted!" 
 
 Inattentive to these murmurs, which she felt unreasonable, the 
 bouncing Martha now quitted the room, to repair to her "upper 
 household" avocations. The man at the hearth was the only 
 companion left to the widow. Gazing at her for a moment, as 
 she sat whining, with a rude compassion in his eye, and slowly 
 munching his toast which he had now buttered, and placed in a 
 delf plate on the hob, this person thus soothingly began: 
 
 "Ah, Dame Lobkins, if so be as ow little Paul vas a vith 
 you, it would be a gallows comfort to you in your latter hend!"
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 363 
 
 The name of Paul made the good woman incline her head 
 towards the speaker ; a ray of consciousness shot through her 
 bedulled brain. 
 
 "Little Paul, eh, sirs! where is Paul? Paul, I say, my ben- 
 cull. Alack! he's gone left his poor old nurse to die like a 
 cat in a cellar. Oh, Dummie, never live to be old, man ! 
 They leave us to oursels, and then takes away all the lush with 
 'em! I has not a drop o' comfort in the varsal world!" 
 
 Dummie, who at this moment had his own reasons for sooth- 
 ing the dame, and was anxious to make the niost of the oppor- 
 tunity of a conversation as unwitnessed as the present, replied 
 tenderly ; and with a cunning likely to promote his end re- 
 proached Paul bitterly for never having informed the dame of 
 his whereabout and his proceedings. "But come, dame," he 
 wound up, "come, I guess as how he is better nor all that, 
 and that you need not beat your hold brains to think where he 
 lies, or vot he's a doing. Blow me tight, mother Lobb, I ax 
 pardon, Mrs. Margery, I should say, if I vould not give five 
 bob, ay, and five to the tail o' that, to know what the poor lad 
 is about; I takes a mortal hinterest in that 'ere chap!" 
 
 "Oh! oh!" groaned the old woman, on whose palsied sense 
 the astute inquiries of Dummie Dunnaker fell harmless; "my 
 poor sinful carcass! what a way it be in!" 
 
 Artfully again did Dummie Dunnaker, nothing defeated, 
 renew his attack ; but fortune does not always favor the wise, 
 and it failed Dummie now, for a twofold reason : first, because 
 it was not possible for the dame to comprehend him ; secondly, 
 because even if it had been, she had nothing to reveal. Some 
 of Clifford's pecuniary gifts had been conveyed anonymously, 
 all without direction or date; and, for the most part they had 
 been appropriated by the sage Martha, into whose hands they 
 fell, to her own private uses. Nor did the dame require Clif- 
 ford's charity; for she was a woman tolerably well off in this 
 world, considering how near she was waxing to another. 
 Longer, however, might Dummie have tried his unavailing 
 way, had not the door of the inn creaked on its hinges, and 
 the bulky form of a tall man in a smock-frock, but with a 
 remarkably fine head of hair, darkened the threshold. He 
 honored the dame, who cast on him a lack-lustre eye, with a 
 sulky yet ambrosial nod, seized a bottle of spirits and a tumb- 
 ler, lighted a candle, drew a small German pipe and a tobacco- 
 box from his pouch, placed these several luxuries on a small 
 table, wheeled it to a far corner of the room, and throwing 
 himself into one chair, and his legs into another, he enjoyed
 
 364 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the result of his pains in a moody and supercilious silence. 
 Long and earnestly did the meek Dummie gaze on the face of 
 the gentleman before him. It had been some years since he 
 had last beheld it ; but it was one which did not easily escape 
 the memory ; and although its proprietor was a man who had 
 risen in the world, and gained the height of his profession (a 
 station far beyond the diurnal sphere of Dummie Dunnaker), 
 and the humble purloiner was, therefore, astonished to encoun- 
 ter him in these lower regions; yet Dummie's recollection car- 
 ried him back to a day when they had gone shares without 
 respect of persons, and been right jolly partners in the prac- 
 tical game of beggar my neighbor. While, however, Dummie 
 Dunnaker, who was a little inclined to be shy, deliberated as 
 to the propriety of claiming acquaintanceship, a dirty boy, 
 with a face which betokened the frost, as Dummie himself said, 
 like a plum dying of the scarlet fever, entered the room, with 
 a newspaper in his dexter paw. "Great news! great news!" 
 cried the urchin, imitating his vociferous originals in the street; 
 "all about the famous Captain Lovett, as large as life!" 
 
 "Old your blarney, you blatter-gowl, " said Dummie rebuk- 
 ingly, and seizing the journal. 
 
 "Master says as how he must have it to send toClapham, and 
 can't spare it for more than a'our!" said the boy, as he with- 
 drew. 
 
 "/ 'members the day," said Dummie, with the zeal of a 
 clansman, "when the Mug took a paper all to itsel' instead of 
 'iring it by the job like!" 
 
 Thereon he opened the paper with a fillip, and gave himself 
 up to the lecture. But the tall stranger, half rising with a 
 start, exclaimed, "Can't you have the manners to be commu- 
 nicative? do you think nobody cares about Captain Lovett 
 but yourself?" 
 
 On this, Dummie turned round on his chair, and, with a 
 "Blow me tight, you're velcome, I'm sure," began as fol- 
 lows (we copy the paper, not the diction of the reader): 
 
 "The trial of the notorious Lovett commences this day. 
 Great exertions have been made by people of all classes to 
 procure seats in the Town Hall, which will be full to a degree 
 never before known in this peaceful province. No less than 
 seven indictments are said to await the prisoner; it has been 
 agreed that the robbery of Lord Mauleverer should be the first 
 to come on. The principal witness in this case against the 
 prisoner is understood to be the King's evidence, Mac Craw- 
 ler. No news, as yet, have been circulated concerning the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 365 
 
 suspected accomplices, Augustus Tomlinson and Edward Pep- 
 per. It is believed that the former has left the country, and 
 that the latter is lurking among the low refuges of guilt with 
 which the heart of the metropolis abounds. Report speaks 
 highly of the person and manner of Lovett. He is also sup- 
 posed to be a man of some talent, and was fomerly engaged in 
 an obscure periodical, edited by Mac Grawler, and termed the 
 Altenaeum, or Asinaeum. Nevertheless, we apprehend that his 
 origin is remarkably low, and suitable to the nature of his pur- 
 suits. The prisoner will be most fortunate in a judge. Never 
 did any one holding the same high office as Sir William Bran- 
 don earn an equal reputation in so short a time. The Whigs 
 are accustomed to sneer at us, when we insist on the private 
 virtues of our public men. Let them look to Sir William 
 Brandon, and confess that the austerest morals may be linked 
 with the soundest knowledge and the most brilliant genius. 
 
 The opening address of the learned judge to the jury at 
 
 is perhaps the most impressive and solemn piece of eloquence 
 in the English language!" A cause for this eulogium might 
 haply be found in another part of the paper, in which it was 
 said, "Among the higher circles, we understand, the rumor has 
 gone forth, that Sir William Brandon is to be recalled to his 
 old parliamentary career in a more elevated scene. So highly 
 are this gentleman's talents respected by his Majesty and the 
 ministers, that they are, it is reported, anxious to secure his 
 assistance in the House of Lords!" 
 
 When Dummie had spelt his "toilsome march" through the 
 first of the above extract, he turned round to the tall stranger, 
 and eyeing him with a sort of winking significance, said : 
 
 "So Mac Grawler peaches! blows the gaff on his pals, eh ! Vel 
 now, I always suspected that 'ere son of a gun! Do you 
 know, he used to be at the Mug many's a day, a teaching our 
 little Paul, and says I to Piggy Lobb, says I, 'Blow me tight, 
 but that cove is a queer one ! and if he does not come to be 
 scragged,' says I, 'it vill only be because he'll turn a rusty, 
 and scrag one of his pals ! ' So you sees (here Dummie looked 
 round, and his voice sank into a whisper) so you sees, Mees- 
 ter Pepper, I vas no fool there ! ' ' 
 
 Long Ned dropped his pipe, and said sourly, and with a 
 suspicious frown, "What! you know me?" 
 
 "To be sure and sartain I does," answered little Dummie, 
 walking to the table where the robber sat. "Does not you 
 know I?" 
 
 Ned regarded the interrogator with a sullen glance, which
 
 366 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 gradually brightened into knowledge. "Ah!" said he, with 
 the air of a Brummel, "Mr. Bummie, or Dummie, I think, eh! 
 Shake a paw I'm glad to see you. Recollect the last time I 
 saw you, you rather affronted me. Never mind. I dare say 
 you did not mean it." Encouraged by this affable reception 
 from the highwayman, though a little embarrassed by Ned's 
 allusion to former conduct on his part, which he felt was just, 
 Dummie grinned, pushed a stool near Ned, sat himself down, 
 and carefully avoiding any immediate answer to Ned's com- 
 plaint, he rejoined : 
 
 "Do you know, Meester Pepper, you struck I all of a heap. 
 I could not have sposed as how you'd condescend nowadays 
 to come to the Mug, vhere I never seed you but once afore. 
 Lord love ye, they says as 'ow you go to all the fine places in 
 ruffles with a pair of silver pops in your vaistcoat pocket ! Vy, 
 the boys hereabouts say that you and Meester Tomlinson, and 
 this 'ere poor devil in quod, vere the finest gemmen in town ; 
 and, Lord, for to think of your ciwility to a pitiful rag- 
 merchant, like I!" 
 
 "Ah!" said Ned gravely, "there are sad principles afloat 
 now. They want to do away with all distinctions in ranks, 
 to make a duke no better than his valet, and a gentleman high- 
 wayman class with a filcher of fogies.* But, dammee, if I 
 don't think misfortune levels us all quite enough, and misfor- 
 tune brings me here, little Dummie!" 
 
 "Ah! you vants to keep out of the vay of the bulkies!" 
 
 "Right. Since poor Lovett was laid by the heels, which I 
 must say was the fault of his deuced gentlemanlike behavior 
 to me and Augustus (you've heard of Guz, you say), the knot 
 of us seems quite broken. One's own friends look inclined to 
 play one false ; and really, the queer cuffins hover so sharply 
 upon us, that I thought it safe to duck for a time. So I have 
 taken a lodging in a cellar, and I intend for the next three 
 months to board at the Mug. I have heard that I may be sure 
 of lying snug here ; Dummie, your health ! Give us the 
 baccy!" 
 
 "I say, Meester Pepper," said Dummie, clearing his throat, 
 when he had obeyed the request, "can you tell I, if so be you 
 as met in your travels our little Paul? Poor chap! You knows 
 as ow and vy he vas sent to quod by Justice Burnflat. Vel, 
 ven he got out, he vent to the devil, or summut like it, and ve 
 have not card a vord of him since. You 'members the lad a 
 'nation fine cull, tall and straight as a harrow!" 
 
 * Pickpocket,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 367 
 
 "Why, you fool," said Ned, "don't you know," then 
 checking himself suddenly, "ah! by the by, that rigmarole 
 oath! I was not to tell; though now it's past caring for, I 
 fear! It is no use looking after the seal when the letter's 
 burnt." 
 
 "Blow me," cried Dunnaker, with unaffected vehemence, "I 
 sees as how you know vot's come of he! Many's the good 
 turn I'll do you, if you vill but tell I." 
 
 "Why, does he owe you a dozen bobs;* or what, Dummie?" 
 said Ned. 
 
 "Not he not he," cried Dummie. 
 
 "What then, you want to do him a mischief of some sort?" 
 
 "Do little Paul a mischief !" ejaculated Dummie; "vyl've 
 known the cull ever since he was that high ! No, but I vants 
 to do him a great sarvice, Meester Pepper, and myself too, 
 and you to boot, for aught that I know, Meester Pepper." 
 
 "Humph! "said Ned; "humph! what do you mean? I do, 
 it is true, know where Paul is but you must tell me first why 
 you wish to know, otherwise you may ask your grandfather for 
 me." 
 
 A long, sharp, wistful survey did Mr. Dummie Dunnaker 
 cast around him before he rejoined. All seemed safe and con- 
 venient for confidential communication. The supine features of 
 Mrs. Lobkins were hushed in a drowsy stupor : even the gray 
 cat that lay by the fire was curled in the embrace of Morpheus. 
 Nevertheless, it was in a close whisper that Dummie spoke. 
 
 "I dares be bound, Meester Pepper, that you ' members vel 
 ven Harry Cook, the great highvayman, poor fellow! he's 
 gone vhere ve must all go, brought you, then quite a gos- 
 soonf for the first time, to the little back parlor at the Cock 
 and Hen, Devereux Court." 
 
 Ned nodded assent. 
 
 And you 'members as how I met Harry and you there, and I 
 vas all afeard at you cause vy? I had never seen you afore, 
 and ve vas a-going to crack a swell's crib.J And Harry spoke 
 up for you, and said as ow, though you had just gone on the 
 town, you was already prime up to gammon: you 'members, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Ay, I remember all," said Ned; "it was the first and only 
 
 * Shillings. 
 
 t The reader has probably observed the use made by Dummie and Mrs. Lobkins of Irish 
 phraseology or pronunciation. This is a remarkable trait in the dialect of the lowest orders 
 in London, owing, we suppose, to their constant association with emigrants from " the first 
 flower of the earth." Perhaps it is a modish affectation among the gentry of St. Giles, just 
 as w <sUe out our mother-tongue with French at Mayfair. 
 
 \ Break into a gentleman's house.
 
 368 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 house I ever had a hand in breaking into. Harry was a fellow 
 of low habits, so I dropped his acquaintance, and took solely 
 to the road, or a chance ingenuity now and then. I have no 
 idea of a gentleman turning cracksman." * 
 
 "Vel, so you vent with us, and we slipped you through a pane 
 in the kitchen vindow. You vas the least of us, big as you be 
 now, and you vent round, and opened the door for us, and ven 
 you had opened the door, you saw a voman had joined us, and 
 you were a funked then, and stayed vithout the crib, to keep 
 vatch vhile ve vent in." 
 
 "Well, well," cried Ned, "what the devil has all this rigmarole 
 got to do with Paul?" 
 
 "Now don't be glimflashey, but let me go on smack right 
 about. Veil, ven ve came out you minds as ow the voman had 
 a bundle in her arms, and you spake to her ; and she answered 
 you roughly, and left us all, and vent straight home ; and ve 
 vent and fenced the swag\ that wery night, and afterwards 
 nap fed the regulars.]. And sure you made us laugh 'artily, 
 Meester Pepper, when you said, says you, 'That 'ere vomin is 
 a rum blowen?' So she vas, Meester Pepper!" 
 
 "Oh spare me," said Ned affectedly, "and make haste; you 
 keep me all in the dark. By the way, I remember that you joked 
 me about the bundle ; and when I asked what the woman had 
 wrapped in it, you swore it was a child. Rather more likely 
 that the girl, whoever she' was, would have left a child behind 
 her than carried one off ! " The face of Dummie waxed big with 
 conscious importance. 
 
 "Veil now, you wouki not believe us; but it vas all true; 
 that ere bundle was the voman' s child, I spose an unnatural von 
 by the gemman : she let us into the ouse on condition we helped 
 her off with it. And, blow me tight, but ve paid ourselves vel 
 for our trouble. That ere voman was a strange cretur ; they 
 say she had been a lord's blowen; but howsomever, she was as 
 ot-eaded and hodd as if she had been. There vas hold Nick's 
 hown row made on the matter, and the revard for our (defec- 
 tion vas so great, that as you vas not much tried yet, Harry 
 thought it best for to take you vith im down to the country, and 
 told you as ow it vas all a flam about the child in the bundle!" 
 
 ' ' Faith, ' ' said Ned, ' ' I believed him readily enough ; and poor 
 Harry was twisted shortly after, and I went into Ireland for 
 safety, where I -stayed two years, and deuced good claret I 
 got there!" 
 
 "So, vhiles you vas there," continued Dummie, "poor Judy, 
 
 *" Purglar. t Sold the booty. J Took our share*.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 369 
 
 the voman, died, she died in this wery ouse, and left the hor- 
 phan to the (af)-fection of Piggy Lob, who was 'nation fond 
 of it sure/y. Oh ! but I 'members vot a night it vas ven poor 
 Judy died; the vind vistled like mad, the rain tumbled about 
 as if it had got a holyday ; and there the poor creature lay 
 raving just over-ed of this room we sits in! Laus-a-me, vot 
 a sight it vas!" 
 
 Here Dummie paused, and seemed to recall in imagination 
 the scene he had witnessed ; but over the mind of Long Ned a 
 ray of light broke slowly. 
 
 "Whew!" said he, lifting up his forefinger; "whew! I smell a 
 rat; this stolen child, then, was no other than Paul. But, 
 pray, to whom did the house belong? for that fact Harry never 
 communicated to me. I only heard the owner was a lawyer, 
 or parson, or some such thing." 
 
 "Vy now, I'll tell you, but don't be glimflashey. So, you 
 see, ven Judy died, and Harry was scragged, I vas the only von 
 living who vas up to the secret ; and vhen Mother Lob vas a 
 taking a drop to comfort her vhen Judy vent off, I hopens a great 
 box in which poor Judy kept her duds and rattletraps, and 
 sure/y I finds at the bottom of the box hever so many letters and 
 sich like, for I knew as ow they vas there; so I vhips these 
 off and carries 'em 'ome with me, and soon arter, Mother Lob 
 sold me the box o' duds for two quids 'cause vy? I vas a rag 
 marchant! So now, I 'solved, since the secret vas all in my 
 hown keeping, to keep it as tight as vinkey : for first, you sees 
 as ow I vas afeard I should be hanged if I vent for to tell, 
 'cause vy? I stole a vatch, and lots more, as veil as the hurchin; 
 and next I vas afeard as ow the mother might come back and 
 haunt me the same as Sail haunted Villy, for it vas a orrid night 
 vhen her soul took ving. And hover and above this, Meester 
 Pepper, I thought sammut might turn hup by and by, in vhich 
 it vould be best for I to keep my hown counsel and nab the 
 revard, if I hever durst make myself known." 
 
 Here Dummie proceeded to narrate how frightened he had 
 been lest Ned should discover all ; when (as it may be remem- 
 bered, Pepper informed Paul at the beginning of this history) he 
 encountered that worthy at Dame Lobkins's house, how this 
 fear had induced him to testify to Pepper that coldness and 
 rudeness which had so enraged the haughty highwayman, and 
 how great had been his relief and delight at finding that Ned re- 
 turned to the Mug no more. He next proceeded to inform his 
 new confidant of his meeting with the father (the sagacious 
 reader knows where and when), and of what took place at that
 
 370 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 event. He said how, in his first negotiation with the father, 
 prudently resolving to communicate drop by drop such informa- 
 tion as he possessed, he merely, besides confessing to a share in 
 the robbery, stated that he thought he knew the house, etc., to 
 which the infant had been consigned, and that, if so, it was 
 still alive; but that he would inquire. He then related how 
 the sanguine father, who saw that hanging Dummie for the rob- 
 bery of his house might not be half so likely a method to recover 
 his son as bribery and conciliation, not only forgave him his for- 
 mer outrage, but whetted his appetite to the search by rewarding 
 him for his disclosure. He then proceeded to state how, un- 
 able anywhere to find Paul, or any trace of him, he amused 
 the sire from time to time with forged excuses ; how, at first, 
 the sums he received made him by no means desirous to ex- 
 pedite a discovery that would terminate such satisfactory re- 
 ceipts ; how at length the magnitude of the proffered reward, 
 joined to the threats of the sire, had made him become seri- 
 ously anxious to learn the real fate and present "whereabout" 
 of Paul ; how, the last time he had seen the father, he had, 
 by way of propitiation and first fruit, taken to him all the 
 papers left by the unhappy mother, and secreted by himself; 
 and how he was now delighted to find that Ned was acquainted 
 with Paul's address. Since he despaired of finding Paul by 
 his own exertions alone, he became less tenacious of his se- 
 cret, and he now proffered Ned, on discovery of Paul, a third 
 of that reward, the whole of which he had once hoped to 
 engross. 
 
 Ned's eyes and mouth opened at this proposition. "But the 
 name, the name of the father? you have not told me that 
 yet!" cried he impatiently. 
 
 "Noa, noa!" said Dummie archly, " I doesn't tell you all, 
 till you tells I summut. Vhere's little Paul, I say, and vhere 
 be us to get at him?" 
 
 Ned heaved a sigh. 
 
 "As for the oath," said he musingly, "it would be a sin to 
 keep it, now that to break it can do him no harm, and may do 
 him good ; especially as, in case of imprisonment or death, the 
 oath is not held to be binding: yet I fear it is too late for the 
 reward. The father will scarcely thank you for finding his 
 son! Know, Dummie, that Paul is in gaol, and that he is 
 one and the same person as Captain Lovett!" 
 
 Astonishment never wrote in more legible characters than 
 she now displayed on the rough features of Dummie Dunnaker. 
 So strong are the sympathies of a profession compared with
 
 PAUL CLlFFOkD. $?t 
 
 ail others, that Dummie's first confused thought was that of 
 pride. "The great Captain Lovett!" he faltered. "Little Paul 
 at the top of the profession! Lord, Lord! I always said as 
 how he'd the hambition to rise!" 
 
 "Well, well, but the father's name?" 
 
 At this question, the expression of Dummie's face fell, a 
 sudden horror struggled to his eyes 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 " Why is it that, at moments, there creeps over us an awe, a terror, over- 
 powering but undefined ? Why is it that we shudder without a cause, and 
 feel the warm life-blood stand still in its courses ? Are the dead too near ?" 
 
 Falkland. 
 
 ****** 
 " Ha ! sayest thou ? Hideous thought, I feel it twine 
 O'er my iced heart, as curls around his prey 
 The sure and deadly serpent ! 
 
 ****** 
 What ! in the hush and in the solitude 
 Pass'd that dead soul away ? " Love and Hatred. 
 
 THE evening prior to that morning in which the above con- 
 versation occurred, Brandon passed alone in his lodging at 
 
 . He had felt himself too unwell to attend the customary 
 wassail, and he sat indolently musing in the solitude of the old- 
 fashioned chamber to which he was consigned. There, two 
 wax candles on the smooth, quaint table dimly struggled against 
 the gloom of heavy panels, which were relieved at frequent in- 
 tervals by portraits in oaken frames, dingy, harsh, and impor- 
 tant with the pomp of laced garments and flowing wigs. The 
 predilection of the landlady for modern tastes had, indeed, on 
 each side of the huge fireplace, suspended more novel master- 
 pieces of the fine arts. In emblematic gorgeousness hung the 
 pictures of the four Seasons, buxom wenches all, save Winter, 
 who was deformedly bodied forth in the likeness of an aged 
 carle. These were interspersed by an engraving of Lord Maul- 
 everer, the lieutenant of the neighboring county, looking ex- 
 tremely majestical in his peer's robes; and by three typifica- 
 tions of Faith, Hope, and Charity ladies with whom it may be 
 doubted if the gay earl ever before cultivated so close an in- 
 timacy. Curtains, of that antique chintz in which fasces of 
 stripes are alternated by rows of flowers, filled the interstices of
 
 37^ i>AUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 three windows ; a heavy sideboard occupied the greater portion 
 of one side of the room ; and on the opposite side, in the rear 
 of Brandon, a vast screen stretched its slow length along, and re- 
 lieved the unpopulated and, as it were, desolate comfort of the 
 apartment. 
 
 Pale and imperfectly streamed the light upon Brandon's 
 face, as he sat in his large chair, leaning his cheek on one 
 hand, and gazing with the unconscious earnestness of ab- 
 straction on the clear fire. At that moment a whole phalanx 
 of gloomy thought was sweeping in successive array across his 
 mind. His early ambition, his ill-omened marriage, the causes 
 of his after-rise in the wrong-judging world, the first dawn of 
 his reputation, his rapid and flattering successes, his present 
 elevation, his aspiring hope of far higher office, and more pa- 
 trician honors all these phantoms passed before him in check- 
 ered shadow and light: but ever with each stalked one dis- 
 quieting and dark remembrance the loss of his only son. 
 
 Weaving his ambition with the wish to revive the pride of his 
 hereditary name, every acquisition of fortune or of fame ren- 
 dered him yet more anxious to find the only one who could per- 
 petuate these hollow distinctions to his race. 
 
 ' ' I shall recover him yet ! " he broke out suddenly and aloud. 
 As he spoke, a quick darting spasmodic pain ran shivering 
 through his whole frame, and then fixed for one instant on his 
 heart with a gripe like the talons of a bird ; it passed away, 
 and was followed by a deadly sickness. Brandon rose, and 
 filling himself a large tumbler of water, drank with avidity. 
 The sickness passed off like the preceding pain; but the sen- 
 sation had of late been often felt by Brandon and disregarded, 
 for few persons were less afflicted with the self-torture of hypo- 
 chondria; but now, that night, whether it was more keen than 
 usual, or whether his thought had touched on the string that 
 jars naturally on the most startling of human anticipations, we 
 know not, but, as he resumed his seat, the idea of his approach- 
 ing dissolution shot like an ice-bolt through his breast. 
 
 So intent was this scheming man upon the living objects of 
 the world, and so little were his thoughts accustomed to turn 
 towards the ultimate goal of all things, that this idea, obtrud- 
 ing itself abruptly upon him, startled him with a ghastly awe. 
 He felt the color rush from his cheek, and a tingling and 
 involuntary pain ran wandering through the channels of his 
 blood, even from the roots of the hair to the soles of his feet. 
 But the stern soul of Brandon was not one which shadows could 
 Vang affright. He nerved himself to meet the grim thqught thus
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 3^ 
 
 forced upon nis mental eye, and he gazed on it with a steady 
 and enduring look. 
 
 "Well," thought he, "is my hour coming, or have I yet the 
 ordinary term of mortal nature to expect? It is true, I have 
 lately suffered these strange revulsions of the frame with some- 
 what of an alarming frequency : perhaps this medicine, which 
 healed the anguish of one infirmity, has produced another more 
 immediately deadly? Yet why should I think this? My sleep 
 is sound and calm, my habits temperate, my mind active and 
 clear as in its best days. In my youth, I never played the traitor 
 with my constitution ; why should it desert me at the very 
 threshold of my age? Nay, nay, these are but passing twitches, 
 chills of the blood that begins to wax thin. Shall I learn to 
 be less rigorous in my diet? Perhaps wine may reward my ab- 
 stinence, in avoiding it for my luxuries, by becoming a cordial 
 to my necessities ! Ay, I will consult I will consult, I must 
 not die yet. I have let me see, three four grades to gain 
 before the ladder is scaled. And, above all, I must regain my 
 child! Lucy married to Mauleverer, myself a peer, my son 
 wedded to whom? Pray God he be not married already! My 
 nephews and my children nobles! the house of Brandon restored; 
 my power high in the upward gaze of men ; my fame set on a. 
 more lasting basis than a skill in the quirks of law : these are 
 yet to come, these I will not die till I have enjoyed ! Men die 
 not till their destinies are fulfilled. The spirit that swells and 
 soars within me says that the destiny of William Brandon is 
 but half begun!" 
 
 With this conclusion, Brandon sought his pillow. What were 
 the reflections of the prisoner whom he was to judge? Need 
 we ask? Let us picture to ourselves his shattered health, the 
 languor of sickness heightening the gloom which makes the 
 very air of a gaol, his certainty of the doom to be passed 
 against him, his knowledge that the uncle of Lucy Brandon was 
 to be his judge, that Mauleverer was to be his accuser ; and that 
 in all human probability the only woman he had ever loved 
 must sooner or later learn the criminality of his life and the 
 ignominy of his death : let us but glance at the above blackness 
 of circumstances that surrounded him, and it would seem that 
 there is but little doubt as to the complexion of his thoughts ! 
 Perhaps, indeed, even in that terrible and desolate hour, one 
 sweet face shone on him, "and dashed the darkness all away." 
 Perhaps, too, whatever might be the stings of his conscience, 
 one thought, one remembrance of a temptation mastered, and a 
 sin escaped, brought to his eyes tears that were sweet and healing
 
 374 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 in their source. But the heart of a man, in Clifford's awful 
 situation, is dark and inscrutable; and often, when the wildest 
 and gloomiest external circumstances surround us, their reflec- 
 tion sleeps like a shadow, calm and still upon the mind. 
 
 The next morning, the whole town of (a town in which 
 
 we regret to say, an accident once detained ourself for three 
 wretched days, and which we can, speaking therefore from pro- 
 found experience, assert to be in ordinary times the most melan- 
 choly and peopleless-looking congregation of houses that a sober 
 imagination can conceive) exhibited a scene of such bustle, ani- 
 mation, and jovial anxiety, as the trial for life or death to a 
 fellow-creature can alone excite in the phlegmatic breasts of the 
 English. Around the court the crowd thickened with every 
 moment, until the whole market-place, in which the town-hall 
 was situated, became one living mass. The windows of the 
 houses were filled with women, some of whom had taken that 
 opportunity to make parties to breakfast; and little round 
 tables, with tea and toast on them, caught the eyes of the grin- 
 ning mobbists as they gaped impatiently upwards. 
 
 "Ben," said a stout yeoman, tossing up a halfpenny, and 
 catching the said coin in his right hand, which he immediately 
 covered with the left, "Ben, heads or tails that Lovett is 
 hanged; heads hanged, tails not, for a crown." 
 
 "Petticoats, to be sure," quoth Ben, eating an apple; and it 
 was heads! 
 
 ' ' Dammee, you've lost ! " cried the yeoman, rubbing his rough 
 hands with glee. 
 
 It would have been a fine sight for Asmodeus, could he 
 have perched on one of the house-tops of the market-place 
 
 of and looked on the murmuring and heaving sea of 
 
 mortality below. Oh ! the sight of a crowd round a court of 
 law, or a gibbet, ought to make the devil split himself with 
 laughter. 
 
 While the mob was fretting, and pushing, and swearing, and 
 grinning, and betting, and picking pockets, and trampling feet, 
 and tearing gowns, and scrambling nearer and nearer to the 
 doors and windows of the court, Brandon was slowly conclud- 
 ing his abstemious repast preparatory to attendance on his ju- 
 dicial duties. His footman entered with a letter. Sir William 
 glanced rapidly over the seal (one of those immense sacrifices 
 of wax used at that day), adorned with a huge coat of arms, 
 surmounted with an earl's coronet, and decorated on either 
 side with those supporters so dear to heraldic taste. He then 
 tore open the letter, and read as follows :
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 375 
 
 "Mv DEAR SIR WILLIAM: 
 
 "You know that, in the last conversation I had the honor to 
 hold with you, I alluded, though perhaps somewhat distantly, 
 to the esteem which His Majesty had personally expressed for 
 your principles and talents, and his wish to testify it at the 
 earliest opportunity. There will be, as you are doubtless 
 aware, an immediate creation of four peerages. Your name 
 stands second on the list. The choice of title His Majesty 
 graciously leaves to you ; but he has hinted, that the respect- 
 able antiquity of your family would make him best pleased 
 were you to select the name of your own family-seat, which, if 
 I mistake not, is Warlock. You will instruct me at your lei- 
 sure as to the manner in which the patent should be made out, 
 touching the successions, etc. Perhaps (excuse the license of 
 an old friend) this event may induce you to forsake your long 
 cherished celibacy. I need not add that this accession of rank 
 will be accompanied by professional elevation. You will see 
 
 by the papers that the death of leaves vacant the dignity 
 
 of Chief Baron ; and I am at length empowered to offer you a 
 station proportioned to your character and talents. 
 "With great consideration, 
 "Believe me, my dear Sir, 
 
 "Very truly yours, 
 < i 
 
 " (Private and Confidential.) " 
 
 Brandon's dark eyes glanced quickly from the signature of 
 the Premier, affixed to this communication, towards the mirror 
 opposite him. He strode to it, and examined his own counte- 
 nance with a long and wistful gaze. Never, we think, did 
 youthful gallant about to repair to the trysting spot, in which 
 fair looks make the greatest of earthly advantages, gaze more 
 anxiously on the impartial glass than now did the ascetic and 
 scornful judge; and never, we ween, did the eye of the said 
 gallant retire with a more satisfied and triumphant expression. 
 
 "Yes, yes!" muttered the judge, "no sign of infirmity is 
 yet written here ; the blood flows clear and warm enough, the 
 cheek looks firm too, and passing full, for one who was always 
 of the lean kind. Aha ! this letter is a cordial, an elixir viia. 
 I feel as if a new lease were granted to the reluctant tenant. 
 Lord Warlock, the first Baron of Warlock, Lord Chief 
 Baron. What next?" 
 
 As he spoke, he strode unconsciously away ; folding his arms 
 with that sort of joyous and complacent gesture which implies
 
 376 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the idea of a man hugging himself in a silent delight. Assur- 
 edly, had the most skillful physician then looked upon the 
 ardent and all-lighted face, the firm step, the elastic and mus- 
 cular frame, the vigorous air of Brandon, as he mentally con- 
 tinued his soliloquy, he would have predicted for him as fair a 
 grasp on longevity as the chances of mortal life will allow. 
 He was interrupted by the servant entering. 
 
 "It is twenty-five minutes after nine, sir," said he respect- 
 fully. 
 
 "Sir, sir!" repeated Brandon. "Ah, well! so late!" 
 "Yes, sir, and the sheriff's carriage is almost at the door." 
 "Humph, Minister, Peer, Warlock, succession/ My 
 son, my son! would to God that I could find thee!" 
 
 Such were Brandon's last thoughts as he left the room. It 
 was with great difficulty, so dense was the crowd, that the 
 judge drove up to the court. As the carriage slowly passed, 
 the spectators pressed to the windows of the vehicle, and stood 
 on tiptoe to catch a view of the celebrated lawyer. Brandon's 
 face, never long indicative of his feelings, had now settled into 
 its usual gravity, and the severe loftiness of his look chilled, 
 while it satisfied, the curiosity of the vulgar. It had been 
 ordered that no person should be admitted until the judge had 
 taken his seat on the bench ; and this order occasioned so 
 much delay, owing to the accumulated pressure of the vast and 
 miscellaneous group, that it was more than half an hour before 
 the court was able to obtain that decent order suiting the 
 solemnity of the occasion. At five minutes before ten, an uni- 
 versal and indescribable movement announced that the prisoner 
 was put to the bar. We read in one of the journals of that 
 day, that "on being put to the bar. the prisoner looked round 
 with a long and anxious gaze, which at length settled on the 
 judge, and then dropped, while the prisoner was observed to 
 change countenance slightly. Lovett was dressed in a plain 
 dark suit ; he seemed to be about six feet high ; and though 
 thin and worn, probably from the effect of his wound and im- 
 prisonment, he is remarkably well made, and exhibits the out- 
 ward appearance of that great personal strength which he is 
 said to possess, and which is not unfrequently the chacteristic 
 of daring criminals. His face is handsome and prepossessing, 
 his eyes and hair dark, and his complexion pale, possibly 
 from the effects of his confinement ; there was a certain stern- 
 ness in his countenance during the greater part of the trial. 
 His behavior was remarkably collected and composed. The 
 prisoner listened with the greatest attention to the indictment,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 377 
 
 which the reader will find in another part of our paper, charg- 
 ing him with the highway robbery of Lord Mauleverer, on the 
 
 night of the of last. He occasionally inclined his 
 
 body forward, and turned his ear towards the court ; and he 
 was observed, as the jury were sworn, to look steadily in the 
 face of each. He breathed thick and hard when the various 
 aliases he had assumed, Howard, Cavendish, Jackson, etc., 
 were read; but smiled, with an unaccountable expression, 
 when the list was completed, as if exulting at the varieties of 
 his ingenuity. At twenty-five minutes past ten, Mr. Dyebright, 
 the counsel for the crown, stated the case to the jury." 
 
 Mr. Dyebright was a lawyer of great eminence; he had been 
 a Whig all his life but had latterly become remarkable for his 
 insincerity, and subservience to the wishes of the higher powers. 
 His talents were peculiar and effective. If he had little elo- 
 qence he had much power ; and his legal knowledge was sound 
 and extensive. Many of his brethren excelled him in display ; 
 but no one, like him, possessed the secret of addressing a jury. 
 Winningly familiar; seemingly candid to a degree that scarcely 
 did justice to his cause, as if he were in an agony lest he should 
 persuade you to lean a hair-breadth more on his side of the 
 case than justice would allow ; apparently all made up of good, 
 homely, virtuous feeling, a disinterested regard for truth, a 
 blunt yet tender honesty, seasoned, with a few amiable fire- 
 side prejudices, which always come home to the hearts of your 
 fathers of families and thoroughbred Britons ; versed in all the 
 niceties of language, and the magic of names ; if he were de- 
 fending crime, carefully calling it misfortune ; if attacking mis- 
 fortune, constantly calling it crime ; Mr. Dyebright was ex- 
 actly the man born to pervert justice, to tickle jurors, to cozen 
 truth with a friendly smile, and to obtain a vast reputation as 
 an excellent advocate. He began by a long preliminary flour- 
 ish on the importance of the case. He said that he should, 
 with the most scrupulous delicacy, avoid every remark calcu- 
 lated to raise unnecessary prejudice against the prisoner. He 
 should not allude to his unhappy notoriety, his associations 
 with the lowest dregs. (Here up jumped the counsel for the 
 prisoner, and Mr. Dyebright was called to order.) "God 
 knows," resumed the learned gentleman, looking wistfully at 
 the jury, "that my learned friend might have spared himself 
 this warning. God knows that I would rather fifty of the 
 wretched inmates of this county gaol were to escape unharmed, 
 than that a hair of the prisoner you behold at the bar should 
 be unjustly touched. The life of a human being is at stake ; we
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 should be guilty ourselves of a crime, which on our death-beds 
 we should tremble to recall, were we to suffer any consideration, 
 whether of interest or of prejudice, or of undue fear for our 
 own properties and lives, to bias us even to the turning of 
 a straw against the unfortunate prisoner. Gentlemen, if you 
 find me travelling a single inch from my case if you find me 
 saying a single word calculated to harm the prisoner in your 
 eyes, and unsupported by the evidence I shall call, then I im- 
 plore you not to depend upon the vigilance of my learned 
 friend, but to treasure these my errors in your recollection, and 
 to consider them as so many arguments in favor of the prisoner. 
 If, gentlemen, I could, by any possibility, imagine that your 
 verdict would be favorable to the prisoner, I can, unaffectedly 
 and from the bottom of my heart, declare to you that I should 
 rejoice ; a case might be lost, but a fellow-creature would be 
 saved! Callous as we of the legal profession are believed, we 
 have feelings like you ; and I ask any one of you, gentlemen 
 of the jury, any one who has ever felt the pleasures of social 
 intercourse, the joy of charity, the heart's reward of benevo- 
 lence, I ask any one of you, whether, if he were placed in the 
 arduous situation I now hold, all the persuasions of vanity 
 would not vanish at once from his mind, and whether his de- 
 feat as an advocate would not be rendered dear to him, by the 
 common and fleshly sympathies of a man ! But, gentlemen 
 (Mr. Dyebright's voice at once deepened and faltered), there 
 is a duty, a painful duty, we owe to our country ; and never, 
 in the long course of my professional experience, do I' remem- 
 ber an instance in which it was more called forth than the 
 present. Mercy, gentlemen, is dear, very dear to us all ; but 
 it is the deadliest injury we can inflict on mankind, when it is 
 bought at the expense of justice." 
 
 The learned gentleman then, after a few farther prefatory ob- 
 servations, proceeded to state how,on the night of ^ last, Lord 
 Mauleverer was stopped and robbed by three men, masked, of 
 a sum of money amounting to above three hundred and fifty 
 pounds, a diamond snuff-box, rings, watch, and a case of most 
 valuable jewels, how Lord Mauleverer, in endeavoring to 
 defend himself, had passed a bullet through the clothes of one 
 of the robbers how, it would be proved, that the garments of 
 the prisoner, found in a cave in Oxfordshire, and positively 
 sworn to by a witness he should produce, exhibited a rent sim- 
 ilar to such a one as a bullet would produce, how, moreover, 
 it would be positively sworn to by the same witness, that the 
 prisoner Lovett had come to the cavern with two accomplices,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 379 
 
 not yet taken up, since their rescue by the prisoner, and 
 boasted of the robbery he had just committed ; that in the 
 clothes and sleeping apartment of the robber the articles stolen 
 from Lord Mauleverer were found, and that the purse contain- 
 ing the notes for three hundred pounds, the only thing the 
 prisoner could probably have obtained time to carry off with 
 him, on the morning in which the cave was entered by the 
 policemen, was found on his person on the day on which he 
 had attempted the rescue of his comrades, and had been appre- 
 hended in that attempt. He stated, moreover, that the dress 
 found in the cavern, and sworn toby one witness he could 
 produce, as belonging to the prisoner, answered exactly to 
 the description of the clothes worn by the principal robber, 
 and sworn to by Lord Mauleverer, his servant, and the postil- 
 ions. In like manner, the color of one of the horses found in 
 the cavern corresponded with that rode by the highwayman. 
 On these circumstantial proofs, aided by the immediate testi- 
 mony of the king's evidence (that witness whom he should pro- 
 duce), he rested a case which could, he averred, leave no doubt 
 on the minds of any impartial jury. Such, briefly and plainly 
 alleged, made the substance of the details entered into by the 
 learned counsel, who then proceeded to call his witnesses. 
 The evidence of Lord Mauleverer (who was staying at Maulev- 
 erer Park, which was within a few miles of ) was short 
 and clear (it was noticed as a singular circumstance, that at 
 the end of the evidence the prisoner bowed respectfully to his 
 lordship). The witness of the postilions and of the valet was 
 no less concise; nor could all the ingenuity of Clifford's coun- 
 sel shake any part of their evidence in his cross-examination. 
 The main witness depended on by the crown was now sum- 
 moned, and the solemn countenance of Peter Mac Crawler 
 rose on the eyes of the jury. One look of cold and blighting 
 contempt fell on him from tne eye of the prisoner, who did not 
 again deign to regard him during the whole of his examination. 
 
 The witness of Mac Crawler was delivered with a pomposity 
 worthy of the ex-editor of "the Asinseum." Nevertheless, by 
 the skill of Mr. Dyebright, it was rendered sufficiently clear a 
 story to leave an impression on the jury damnatory to the in- 
 terests of the prisoner. The counsel on the opposite side was 
 not slow in perceiving the ground acquired by the adverse 
 party ; so, clearing his throat, he rose with a sneering air to 
 the cross-examination. 
 
 "So, so!" began Mr. Botheram, putting on a pair of re- 
 markably large spectacles, wherewith he truculently regarded
 
 380 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the witness, "so, so, Mr. Mac Grawler, is that your name? 
 eh? Ah, it is, is it? A very, very respectable name it is too, I 
 warrant. Well, sir, look at me. Now, on your oath, remem- 
 ber, were you ever the editor of a certain thing published every 
 Wednesday, and called 'the Attenseum,' or 'the Asinaeum', or 
 some such name?" 
 
 Commencing with this insidious and self-damnatory question, 
 the learned counsel then proceeded, as artfully as he was able, 
 through a series of interrogatories, calculated to injure the 
 character, the respectable character, of Mac Grawler, and 
 weaken his testimony in the eyes of the jury. He succeeded 
 in exciting in the audience that feeling of merriment wherewith 
 the vulgar are always so delighted to intersperse the dull seri- 
 ousness of hanging a human being. But though the jury them- 
 selves grinned, they were not convinced. The Scotsman re- 
 tired from the witness-box, "scotched," perhaps, in reputation, 
 but not "killed" as to testimony. It was just before this wit- 
 ness concluded, that Lord Mauleverer caused to be handed to 
 the judge a small slip of paper, containing merely these words 
 in pencil : 
 
 ' ' DEAR BRANDON : A dinner waits you at Mauleverer Park, 
 
 only three miles hence. Lord and the Bishop of 
 
 meet you. Plenty of news from London, and a letter about 
 you, which I will show to no one till we meet. Make haste 
 and hang this poor fellow, that I may see you the sooner ; and 
 it is bad for both of us to wait long for a regular meal like 
 dinner. I can't stay longer, it is so hot, and my nerves were 
 always susceptible. 
 
 "Yours, 
 
 'MAULEVERER. 
 
 "If you will come, give me a nod. You know my hour it 
 is always the same." 
 
 The judge glancing over the note, inclined his head gravely 
 to the Earl, who withdrew; and one minute afterwards, a 
 heavy and breathless silence fell over the whole court. The 
 prisoner was called upon for his defence ; it was singular what 
 a different sensation to that existing in their breasts the mo- 
 ment before, crept thrillingly through the audience. Hushed 
 was every whisper vanished was every smile that the late 
 cross-examination had excited ; a sudden and chilling sense of 
 the dread importance of the tribunal made itself abruptly felt 
 in the minds of every one present.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 381 
 
 Perhaps, as in the gloomy satire of Hogarth (the moral 
 Mephistopheles of painters), the close neighborhood of pain to 
 mirth made the former come with the homelier shock to the 
 heart; be that as it may, a freezing anxiety numbing the 
 pulse, and stirring through the air, made every man in that 
 various crowd feel a sympathy of awe with his neighbor, ex- 
 cepting only the hardened judge and the hackneyed lawyers, 
 and one spectator, an idiot who had thrust himself in with the 
 general press, and stood, within a few paces of the prisoner, 
 grinning unconsciously, and every now and then winking with 
 a glassy eye at some one at a distance, whose vigilance he had 
 probably eluded. 
 
 The face and aspect, even the attitude of the prisoner, were 
 well fitted to heighten .the effect which would naturally have 
 been created by any man under the same fearful doom. He 
 stood at the very front of the bar, and his tall and noble figure 
 was drawn up to its full height; a glow of excitement spread 
 itself gradually over features at all times striking, and lighted 
 an eye naturally eloquent, and to which various emotions at 
 that time gave a more than commonly deep and impressive 
 expression. He began thus: 
 
 "My lord, I have little to say, and I may at once relieve the 
 anxiety of my counsel, who now looks wistfully upon me, and 
 add, that that little will scarcely embrace the object of de- 
 fence. Why should I defend myself? Why should I endeavor 
 to protract a life that a few days, more or less, will terminate, 
 according to the ordinary calculations of chance? Such as it 
 is, and has been, my life is vowed to the law, and the law will 
 have the offering. Could I escape from this indictmeht, I 
 know that seven others await me, and that by one or the other 
 of these my conviction and my sentence must come. Life 
 may be sweet to all of us, my lord ; and were it possible that 
 mine could be spared yet a while, that continued life might 
 make a better atonement for past actions, than a death which, 
 abrupt and premature, calls for repentance while it forbids 
 redress. 
 
 "But, when the dark side of things is our only choice, it is 
 useless to regard the bright ; idle to fix our eyes upon life, 
 when death is at hand ; useless to speak of contrition, when we 
 are denied its proof. It is the usual policy of prisoners in my 
 situation to address the feelings and flatter the prejudices of 
 the jury; to descant on the excellence of our laws, while they 
 endeavor to disarm them ; to praise justice, yet demand mercy ; 
 to talk of expecting acquittal, yet boast of submitting without a
 
 382 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 murmur to condemnation. For me, to whom all earthly inter- 
 ests are dead, this policy is idle and superfluous. I hesitate not 
 to tell you, my lord judge to proclaim to you, gentlemen of 
 the jury, that the laws which I have broken through my life I 
 despise in death ! Your laws are but of two classes ; the one 
 makes criminals, the other punishes them. I have suffered by 
 the one I am about to perish by the other. 
 
 "My lord, it was the turn of a straw which made me what I 
 am. Seven years ago I was sent to the house of correction 
 for an offence which I did not commit; I went thither, a boy 
 who had never infringed a single law I came forth, in a few 
 weeks, a man who was prepared to break all laws! Whence 
 was this change? was it my fault, or that of my condemners? 
 You had first wronged me by a punishment which I did not de- 
 serve you wronged me yet more deeply, when (even had I 
 been guilty of the first offence) I was sentenced to herd with 
 hardened offenders, and graduates in vice and vice's methods 
 of support. The laws themselves caused me to break the laws : 
 first, by implanting within me the goading sense of injustice; 
 secondly, by submitting me to the corruption of example. 
 Thus, I repeat and I trust my words will sink solemnly into 
 the hearts of all present your legislation made me what I am ! 
 and it now destroys me, as it has destroyed thousands for being 
 what it made me! But for this the first aggression on me, I 
 might have been what the world terms honest, I might have 
 advanced to old age, and a peaceful grave, through the harm- 
 less cheateries of trade, or the honored falsehoods of a profes- 
 sion. Nay, I might have supported the laws which I have now 
 braved ; like the counsel opposed to me, I might have grown 
 sleek on the vices of others, and advanced to honor by my in- 
 genuity in hanging my fellow-creatures! The canting and 
 pre-judging part of the press has affected to set before you the 
 merits of 'honest ability,' or 'laborious trade,' in opposition to 
 my offences. What, I beseech you, are the props of your 
 'honest' exertion the profits of 'trade'? Are there no bribes 
 to menials? Is there no adulteration of goods? Are the rich 
 never duped in the price they pay? are the poor never 
 wronged in the quality they receive? Is there honesty in the 
 bread you eat, in a single necessity which clothes, or feeds, or 
 warms you? Let those whom the law protects consider it a 
 protector: when did it ever protect me? When did it ever 
 protect the poor man? The government of a state, the insti- 
 tutions of law, profess to provide for all those who 'obey.' 
 Mark! a man hungers do you feed him? He is naked do
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 383 
 
 you clothe him? If not, you break your covenant, you drive 
 him back to the first law of nature, and you hang him, not be- 
 cause he is guilty, but because you have left him naked and 
 starving! (A murmur among the mob below, with great diffi- 
 culty silenced.) One thing only I will add, and that not to 
 move your mercy. No, nor to invest my fate with an idle and 
 momentary interest ; but because there are some persons in 
 this world who have not known me as the criminal who stands 
 before you, and whom the tidings of my fate may hereafter 
 reach ; and I would not have those persons view me in blacker 
 colors than I deserve. Among all the rumors, gentlemen, that 
 have reached you, through all the tales and fables kindled from 
 my unhappy notoriety and my approaching doom, I put it to 
 you, if you have heard that I have committed one sanguinary 
 action, or one ruinous and deliberate fraud? You have heard 
 that I have lived by the plunder of the rich I do not deny the 
 charge. From the grinding of the poor, the habitual over- 
 reaching, or the systematic pilfering of my neighbors, my con- 
 science is as free as it is from the charge of cruelty and blood- 
 shed. Those errors I leave to honest mediocrity or virtuous 
 exertion! You may perhaps find, too, that my life has not 
 passed through a career of outrage without scattering some few 
 benefits on the road. In destroying me, it is true that you will 
 have the consolation to think, that among the benefits you de- 
 rive from my sentence will be the salutary encouragement you 
 give to other offenders to offend to the last degree, and to 
 divest outrage of no single aggravation ! But if this does not 
 seem to you any very powerful inducement, you may pause 
 before you cut off from all amendment a man who seems 
 neither wholly hardened nor utterly beyond atonement. My 
 lord, my counsel would have wished to summon witnesses, 
 some to bear testimony to redeeming points in my own charac- 
 ter, others to invalidate the oath of the witness against me a 
 man whom I saved from destruction in order that he might 
 destroy me. I do not think either necessary. The public 
 press has already said of me what little good does not shock 
 the truth ; and had I not possessed something of those quali- 
 ties which society does not dis-esteem, you would not have 
 beheld me here at this hour! If I had saved myself as well as 
 my companions, I should have left this country, perhaps for- 
 ever, and commenced a very different career abroad. I com- 
 mitted offences ; I eluded you ; I committed what, in my case, 
 was an act of duty: I am seized, and I perish. But the weak- 
 ness of my body destroys me, not the strength of your malice.
 
 384 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Had I (and as the prisoner spake, the haughty and rapid mo- 
 tion, the enlarging of the form, produced by the passion of the 
 moment, made impressively conspicuous to all the remarkable 
 power of his frame), had I but my wonted health, my wonted 
 command over these limbs and these veins, I would have 
 asked no friend, no ally, to favor my escape. I tell you, en- 
 gines and guardians of the law, that I would have mocked your 
 chains, and defied your walls, as ye know that I have mocked 
 and defied them before. But my blood creeps now only in 
 drops through its courses ; and the heart that I had of old stirs 
 feebly and heavily within me." The prisoner paused a mo- 
 ment, and resumed in an altered tone: "Leaving, then, my 
 own character to the ordeal of report, I cannot perhaps do 
 better than leave to the same criterion that of the witness 
 against me. I will candidly own that, under other circum- 
 stances, it might have been otherwise. I will candidly avow 
 that I might have then used such means as your law awards 
 me to procure an acquittal and to prolong my existence, 
 though in a new scene; as it is, what matters the cause in 
 which I receive my sentence? Nay, it is even better to suffer 
 by the first than to linger to the last. It is some consolation 
 not again to stand where I now stand; to go through the 
 humbling solemnities which I have this day endured ; to see the 
 smile of some, and retort the frown of others ; to wrestle with 
 the anxiety of the heart, and to depend on the caprice of the 
 excited nerves. It is something to feel one part of the drama 
 of disgrace is over, and that I may wait unmolested in my den 
 until, for one time only, I am again the butt of the unthinking 
 and the monster of the crowd. My lord, I have now done! 
 To you, whom the law deems the prisoner's counsel, to you, 
 gentlemen of the jury, to whom it has delegated his fate, I 
 leave the chances of my life." 
 
 The prisoner ceased; but the same heavy silence which, 
 save when broken by one solitary murmur, had lain over the 
 court during his speech, still continued even for several moments 
 after that deep and firm voice had died on the ear. So differ- 
 ent had been the defence of the prisoner from that which had 
 been expected ; so assuredly did the more hackneyed part of 
 the audience, even as he had proceeded, imagine that, by some 
 artful turn, he would at length wind into the usual courses of 
 defence, that when his unfaltering and almost stern accents 
 paused, men were not prepared to feel that his speech was fin- 
 ished, and the pause involuntarily jarred on them, as untime- 
 ous and abrupt. At length, when each of the audience slowly
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 385 
 
 awoke to the conviction that the prisoner had indeed concluded 
 his harangue, a movement, eloquent of feelings released from 
 a suspense which had been perhaps the more earnest and the 
 more blended with awe, from the boldness and novelty of the 
 words on which it hung, circled round the court. The jurors 
 looked confusedly at each other, but not one of them spoke 
 even by a whisper ; their feelings, which had been aroused by 
 the speech of the prisoner, had not, from its shortness, its sin- 
 gularity, and the haughty impolicy of its tone, been so far 
 guided by its course, as to settle into any state of mind clearly 
 favorable to him, or the reverse ; so that each man waited for 
 his neighbor to speak first, in order that he might find, as it 
 were, in another, a kind of clew to the indistinct and excited 
 feelings which wanted utterance in himself. 
 
 The judge, who had been from the first attracted by the air 
 and aspect of the prisoner, had perhaps, notwithstanding the 
 hardness of his mind, more approvingly than any one present, 
 listened to the defence ; for in the scorn of the hollow institu- 
 tions and the mock honesty of social life, so defyingly mani- 
 fested by the prisoner, Brandon recognized elements of mind 
 remarkably congenial to his own ; and this sympathy was 
 heightened by the hardihood of physical nerve and moral in- 
 trepidity displayed by the prisoner; qualities which, among 
 men of a similar mould, often form the strongest motive of es- 
 teem, and sometimes (as we read in the Imperial Corsican and 
 his chiefs) the only point of attraction ! Brandon was, how- 
 ever, soon recalled to his cold self by a murmur of vague ap- 
 plause circling throughout the common crowd, among whom 
 the general impulse always manifests itself first, and to whom 
 the opinions of the prisoner, though but imperfectly under- 
 stood, came more immediately home than they did to the better 
 and richer classes of the audience. Ever alive to the decor- 
 ums of form, Brandon instantly ordered silence in the court ; 
 and when it was again restored, and it was fully understood 
 that the prisoner's defence had closed, the judge proceeded to 
 sum up. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that many of the qualities of mind 
 which seem most unamiable in priva e life often conduce with 
 a singular felicity to the ends of public ; and thus the stony 
 firmness characteristic of Brandon was a main cause which 
 made him admirable as a judge. For men in office err no less 
 from their feelings than their interest. 
 
 Glancing over his notes, the judge inclined himself to the 
 jury, and began with that silver ringing voice which partic-
 
 386 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ularly distinguished Brandon's eloquence, and carries with it 
 in high stations so majestic and candid a tone of persuasion. 
 He pointed out, with a clear brevity, the various points of the 
 evidence ; he dwelt for a moment on the attempt to cast disre- 
 pute upon the testimony of Mac Grawler but called a proper 
 attention to the fact, that the attempt had been unsupported by 
 witnesses or proof. As he proceeded, the impression made by 
 the prisoner on the minds of the jury slowly melted away; and 
 perhaps, so much do men soften when they behold clearly the 
 face of a fellow-man dependent on them for life, it acted dis- 
 advantageously on the interests of Clifford, that, during the 
 summing up, he leant back in the dock, and prevented his 
 countenance from being seen. When the evidence had been 
 gone through, the judge concluded thus: 
 
 "The prisoner, who, in his defence (on the principles and 
 opinions of which I now forbear to comment), certainly exhib- 
 ited the signs of a superior education, and a high though per- 
 verted ability, has alluded to the reports circulated by the pub- 
 lic press, and leant some little stress on the various anecdotes 
 tending to his advantage, which he supposes have reached your 
 ears. I am by no means willing that the prisoner should be 
 deprived of whatever benefit may be derivable from such a 
 source; but it is not in this place, nor at this moment, that it 
 can avail him. All you have to consider is the evidence before 
 you. All on which you have to decide is, whether the prisoner 
 be or be not guilty of the robbery of which he is charged. 
 You must not waste a thought on what redeems or heightens a 
 supposed crime you must only decide on the crime itself. 
 Put away from your minds, I beseech you, all that interferes 
 with the main case. Put away also from your motives of de- 
 cision all forethought of other possible indictments to which 
 the prisoner has alluded, but with which you are necessarily 
 unacquainted. If you doubt the evidence, whether of one 
 witness or of all, the prisoner must receive from you the bene- 
 fit of that doubt. If not, you are sworn to a solemn oath, 
 which ordains you to forego all minor considerations which 
 compels you to watch narrowly that you be not influenced by 
 the infirmities natural to us all, but criminal in you, to lean 
 towards the side of a mercy that would be rendered by your 
 oath a perjury to God, and by your duty as impartial citizens, a 
 treason to your country. I dismiss you to the grave consider- 
 ation of the important case you have heard; and I trust that 
 He to whom all hearts are open and all secrets are known, will 
 grant you the temper and the judgment to form a right decision ! "
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 387 
 
 There was in the majestic aspect and thrilling voice of Bran- 
 don something which made the commonest form of words 
 solemn and impressive ; and the hypocrite, aware of this felic- 
 ity of manner, generally, as now, added weight to his conclud- 
 ing words by a religious allusion or a Scriptural phraseology. 
 He ceased ; and the jury, recovering the effect of his adjura- 
 tion, consulted for a moment among themselves; the foreman 
 then, addressing the court on behalf of his fellow-jurors, re- 
 quested leave to retire for deliberation. An attendant bailiff 
 being sworn in, we read in the journals of the day, which noted 
 the divisions of time with that customary scrupulosity rendered 
 terrible by the reflection how soon all time and seasons may 
 perish for the hero of the scene, that "it was at twenty-five 
 minutes to two that the jury withdrew. ' ' 
 
 Perhaps in the whole course of a criminal trial there is no 
 period more awful than that occupied by the deliberation of 
 the jury. In the present case, the prisoner, as if acutely sen- 
 sible of his situation, remained in the rear of the dock, and 
 buried his face in his hands. They who stood near him observed, 
 however, that his breast did not seem to swell with the convul- 
 sive motion customary to persons in his state, and that not even 
 a sigh or agitated movement escaped him. The jury had been 
 absent about twenty minutes, when a confused noise was heard 
 in the court. The face of the judge turned in commanding 
 severity towards the quarter, whence it proceeded. He per- 
 ceived a man of a coarse garb and mean appearance endeavor- 
 ing, rudely and violently, to push his way through the crowd 
 towards the bench, and at the same instant he saw one of the 
 officers of the court approaching the disturber of its tranquillity, 
 with no friendly intent. The man, aware of the purpose of the 
 constable, exclaimed with great vehemence, "I vill give this to 
 my lord the judge, blow me if I von't!" and as he spoke, he 
 raised high above his head a soiled scrap of paper folded awk- 
 wardly in the shape of a letter. The instant Brandon's eye 
 caught the rugged features of the intrusive stranger, he mo- 
 tioned with rather less than his usual slowness of gesture to one 
 of his official satellites. "Bring me that paper instantly!" he 
 whispered. 
 
 The officer bowed and obeyed. The man, who seemed a 
 little intoxicated, gave it with a look of ludicrous triumph and 
 self-importance. 
 
 "Stand avay, man!" he added to the constable, who now 
 laid hand on his collar "you'll see vot the judge says to that 
 'ere bit of paper; and so vill the prisoner, poor fellow!"
 
 388 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 This scene, so unworthy the dignity of the court, attracted 
 the notice and (immediately around the intruder) the merri- 
 ment of the crowd, and many an eye was directed towards 
 Brandon, as with calm gravity he opened the note and glanced 
 over the contents. In a large school-boy' hand it was the 
 hand of Long Ned were written these few words : 
 
 "Mv LORD JUDGE: 
 
 "I make bold to beg you will do all you can for the prisoner 
 at the barre; as he is no other than the 'Paul' I spoke to your 
 Worship about. You know what I mean. 
 
 "DUMMIE DUNNAKER." 
 
 As he read this note, the judge's head was observed to droop 
 suddenly, as if by a sickness or a spasm; but he recovered 
 himself instantly, and whispering the officer who brought him 
 the note, said, "See that that madman be immediately removed 
 from the court, and lock him up alone. He is so deranged as 
 to be dangerous!" 
 
 The officer lost not a moment in seeing the order executed. 
 Three stout constables dragged the astounded Dummie from 
 the court in an instant, yet the more ruthlessly for his ejac- 
 ulating: 
 
 "Eh, sirs, what's this? I tells you I have saved the judge's 
 hown flesh and blood. Vy now, gently there ; you'll smart for 
 this, my fine fellow! Never you mind, Paul, my 'arty: I'se 
 done you a pure good " 
 
 "Silence!" proclaimed the voice of the judge, and that 
 voice came forth with so commanding a tone of power that it 
 awed Dummie, despite his intoxication. In a moment more, 
 and, ere he had time to recover, he was without the court. 
 During this strange hubbub, which nevertheless scarcely lasted 
 above two or three minutes, the prisoner had not once lifted 
 his head, nor appeared aroused in any manner from his revery. 
 And scarcely had the intruder been withdrawn before the jury 
 returned. 
 
 The verdict was as all had foreseen, "Guilty" ; but it was 
 coupled with a strong recommendation to mercy. 
 
 The prisoner was then asked, in the usual form, whether he 
 had to say anything why sentence of death should not be passed 
 against him? 
 
 As these dread words struck upon his ear, slowly the prison- 
 er rose. He directed first towards the jury a brief and keen 
 glance, and his eyes then rested full, and with a stern signifi- 
 cance, on the face of his judge.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 389 
 
 " My lord, " he began, "I have but one reason to advance 
 against the sentence of the law. If you have interest to prevent 
 or mitigate it, that reason will, I think, suffice to enlist you on 
 my behalf. I said that the first cause of those offences against 
 the law which bring me to this bar, was the committing me to 
 prison on a charge of which I was wholly innocent ! My lord 
 judge, you were the man who accused me of that charge, and 
 subjected me to that imprisonment! Look at me well, my 
 lord, and you may trace in the countenance of the hardened 
 felon you are about to adjudge to death the features of a boy 
 whom, some seven years ago, you accused before a London 
 magistrate of the theft of your-watch. On the oath of a man 
 who has one step on the threshold of death, the accusation was 
 unjust. And, fit minister of the laws you represent! you, who 
 will now pass my doom, YOU were the cause of my crimes! 
 My lord, I have done. I am ready to add another to the long 
 and dark list of victims who are first polluted, and then sacri- 
 ficed, by the blindness and the injustice of human codes!" 
 
 While Clifford spoke, every eye turned from him to the 
 judge, and every one was appalled by the ghastly and fearful 
 change which had fallen over Brandon's face. Men said after- 
 wards, that they saw written there, in terrible distinctness, the 
 characters of death ; and there certainly seemed something 
 awful and preternatural in the bloodless and haggard calmness 
 of his proud features. Yet his eye did not quail, nor the 
 muscles of his lip quiver; and with even more than his wonted 
 loftiness he met the regard of the prisoner. But, as alone 
 conspicuous throughout the motionless and breathless crowd, 
 the judge and criminal gazed upon each other, and as the eyes 
 of the spectators wandered on each, a thrilling and electric 
 impression of a powerful likeness between the doomed and the 
 doomer, for the first time in the trial, struck upon the audience, 
 and increased though they scarcely knew why, the sensation of 
 pain and dread which the prisoner's last words excited. Per- 
 haps it might have chiefly arisen from a common expression of 
 fierce emotion conquered by an iron and stern character of 
 mind, or perhaps, now that the ashy paleness of exhaustion 
 had succeeded the excited flush on the prisoner's face, the 
 similarity of complexion thus obtained made the likeness more 
 obvious than before ; or perhaps, the spectators had not hitherto 
 fixed so searching, or, if we may so speak, so alternating a gaze 
 upon the two. However that be, the resemblance between the 
 men, placed as they were in such widely different circum- 
 stances that resemblance which, as we have hinted, had at
 
 39 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 certain moments occurred startlingly to Lucy was plain and 
 unavoidably striking: the same the dark hue of their complexions; 
 the same the haughty and Roman outline of their faces ; the 
 same the height of the forehead ; the same even a displeasing and 
 sarcastic rigidity of mouth, which made the most conspicuous 
 feature in Brandon, and which was the only point that deteri- 
 orated from the singular beauty of Clifford. But, above all, the 
 same inflexible, defying, stubborn spirit, though in Brandon it 
 assumed the stately cast of majesty, and in Clifford it seemed 
 the desperate sternness of the bravo, stamped itself in both. 
 Though Clifford ceased, he did not resume his seat, but stood in 
 the same attitude as that in which he had reversed the order of 
 things and merged the petitioner in the accuser. And Bran- 
 don himself, without speaking or moving, continued still to sur- 
 vey him. So, with erect fronts, and marble countenances, in 
 which what was defying and resolute did not altogether quell 
 the mortal leaven of pain and dread, they looked as might have 
 looked the two men in the Eastern story, who had the power of 
 gazing each other unto death. 
 
 What, at that moment, was raging in Brandon's heart, it is 
 in vain to guess. He doubted not for a moment, that he be- 
 held before him his long-lost, his anxiously demanded son ! 
 Every fibre, every corner of his complex and gloomy soul, that 
 certainty reached, and blasted with a hideous and irresistible 
 glare. The earliest, perhaps the strongest, though often the 
 least acknowledged principle of his mind, was the desire to re- 
 build the fallen honors of his house; its last scion he now be- 
 held before him, covered with the darkest ignominies of the 
 law ! He had coveted worldly honors ; he beheld their legiti- 
 mate successor in a convicted felon ! He had garnered the few 
 affections he had spared from the objects of pride and ambi- 
 tion, in his son. That son he was about to adjudge to the gib- 
 bet and the hangman ! Of late, he had increased the hopes of 
 regaining his lost treasure, even to an exultant certainty. Lo ! 
 the hopes were accomplished ! How? With these thoughts 
 warring, in that manner we dare not even by an epithet ex- 
 press, within him, we may cast one hasty glance on the horror 
 of aggravation they endured, when he heard the prisoner accuse 
 HIM, as the cause of his present doom, and felt himself at once 
 the murderer and the judge of his son ! 
 
 Minutes had elapsed since the voice of the prisoner ceased ; 
 and Brandon now drew forth the black cap. As he placed it 
 slowly over his brows, the increasing and corpse-like whiteness 
 of his face became more glaringly visible, by the contrast which
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 391 
 
 this dread head-gear presented. Twice as he essayed to sp< ak 
 his voice failed him, and an indistinct murmur came forth fiom 
 his hueless lips, and died away like a fitful and feeble wind. 
 But with the third effort, the resolution and long self-tyranny 
 of the man conquered, and his voice went clear and unfaltering 
 through the crowd, although the severe sweetness of its wonted 
 tones was gone, and it sounded strange and hollow on the ears 
 that drank it. 
 
 "Prisoner at the bar! It has become my duty to announce 
 to you the close of your mortal career. You have been accused 
 of a daring robbery, and after an impartial trial, a jury of your 
 countrymen and the laws of your country have decided against 
 you. The recommendation to mercy" (here, only, through- 
 out his speech, Brandon gasped convulsively for breath) "so 
 humanely added by the jury, shall be forwarded to the supreme 
 power, but I cannot flatter you with much hope of its suc- 
 cess" (the lawyers looked with some surprise at each other: 
 they had expected a far more unqualified mandate, to abjure 
 all hope from the jury's recommendation) "Prisoner! for the 
 opinions you have expressed, you are now only answerable to 
 your God ; I forbear to arraign them. For the charge you have 
 made against me, whether true or false, and for the anguish it 
 has given me, may you find a pardon at another tribunal ! It 
 remains for me only under a reserve too slight, as I have said, 
 to afford you a fair promise of hope only to to (all eyes 
 were on Brandon : he felt it, exerted himself for a last effort, 
 and proceeded) to pronounce on you the sharp sentence of 
 the law! It is, that you be taken back to the prison whence 
 you came, and thence (when the supreme authority shall appoint) 
 to the place of execution, to be there hanged by the neck till 
 you are dead ; and the Lord God Almighty have mercy on your 
 soul!" 
 
 With this address concluded that eventful trial ; and while 
 the crowd, in rushing and noisy tumult, bore towards the door, 
 Brandon, concealing to the last, with a Spartan bravery, the 
 anguish which was gnawing at his entrails, retired from the 
 awful pageant. For the next half-hour he was locked up with 
 the strange intruder on the proceedings of the court. At the 
 end of that time the stranger was dismissed ; and in about 
 double the same period Brandon's servant readmitted him, ac- 
 companied by another man, with a slouched hat, and in a car- 
 man's frock. The reader need not be told that the new-comer 
 was the friendly Ned, whose testimony was indeed a valuable 
 corroborative to Dummie's, and whose regard for Clifford,
 
 302 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 aided by an appetite for rewards, had induced him to venture 
 
 to the town of , although he tarried concealed in a safe 
 
 suburb until reassured by a written promise from Brandon of 
 safety to his person, and a sum for which we might almost 
 doubt whether he would not have consented (so long had he 
 been mistaking means for an end) to be hanged himself. Bran- 
 don listened to the details of these confederates, and when they 
 had finished, he addressed them thus: 
 
 "I have heard you, and am convinced you are liars and im- 
 postors: there is the money I promised you" (throwing down 
 a pocket-book) "take it; and, hark you, if ever you dare 
 whisper ay, but a breath of the atrocious lie you have now 
 forged, be sure I will have you dragged from the recess or nook 
 of infamy in which you may hide your heads, and hanged for 
 the crimes you have already committed. I am not the man to 
 break my word begone! quit this town instantly: if, in two 
 hours hence, you are found here, your blood be on your own 
 heads! Begone, I say!" 
 
 These words, aided by a countenance well adapted at all 
 times to expressions of a menacing and ruthless character, at 
 once astounded and appalled the accomplices. They left the 
 room in hasty confusion; and Brandon, now alone, walked 
 with uneven steps (the alarming weakness and vacillation of 
 which he did not himself feel) to and fro the apartment. The 
 hell of his breast was stamped upon his features, but he uttered 
 only one thought aloud! 
 
 "I may, yes, yes, I may yet conceal this disgrace to my 
 name!" 
 
 His servant tapped at the door to say that the carriage was 
 ready, and that Lord Mauleverer had bid him remind his master 
 that they dined punctually at the hour appointed. 
 
 "I am coming!" said Brandon, with a slow and startling em- 
 phasis on each word. But he first sat down and wrote a letter 
 to the official quarter, strongly aiding the recommendation of the 
 jury ; and we may conceive how pride clung to him to the last, 
 when he urged the substitution for death of transportion/0r life! 
 As soon as he had sealed this letter, he summoned an express, 
 gave his orders coolly and distinctly, and attempted, with his 
 usual stateliness of step, to walk through a long passage which 
 led to the outer door. He found himself fail. "Come hither," 
 he said to his servant "give me your arm!" 
 
 All Brandon's domestics, save the one left with Lucy, stood 
 in awe of him, and it was with some hesitation that his servant 
 ventured to inquire "if his master felt well."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 393 
 
 Brandon looked at him, but made no reply: he entered 
 his carriage with slight difficulty, and, telling the coachman to 
 drive as fast as possible, pulled down (a general custom with 
 him) all the blinds of the windows. 
 
 Meanwhile, Lord Mauleverer, with six friends, was impa- 
 tiently awaiting the arrival of the seventh guest. 
 
 "Our august friend tarries!" quoth the Bishop of , 
 
 with his hands folded across his capacious stomach. "I fear 
 the turbot your lordship spoke of may not be the better for the 
 length of the trial." 
 
 "Poor fellow!" said the Earl of , slightly yawning. 
 
 "Whom do you mean?" asked Mauleverer, with a smile. 
 "The bishop, the judge, or the turbot?" 
 
 "Not one of the three, Mauleverer, I spoke of the prisoner." 
 
 "Ah, the fine dog! I forgot him," said Mauleverer. "Really, 
 now you mention him, I must confess that he inspires me with 
 great compassion ; but, indeed, it is very wrong in him to keep 
 the judge so long!" 
 
 "Those hardened wretches have such a great deal to say," 
 mumbled the bishop sourly. 
 
 "True!" said Mauleverer; "a religious rogue would have 
 had some bowels for the state of the church esurient." 
 
 "Is it really true, Mauleverer," asked the Earl of , 
 
 "that Brandon is to succeed ?" 
 
 "So I hear, " said Mauleverer. "Heavens! how hungry I am!" 
 
 A groan from the bishop echoed the complaint. 
 
 "I suppose it would be against all decorum to sit down to 
 dinner without him?" said Lord --. 
 
 "Why, really, I fear so," returned Mauleverer. "But our 
 health our health is at stake : we will only wait five minutes 
 more. By Jove, there's the carriage! I beg your pardon for 
 my heathen oath, my lord bishop." 
 
 "I forgive you!" said the good bishop, smiling. 
 
 The party thus engaged in colloquy were stationed at a win- 
 dow opening on the gravel road, along which the judge's car- 
 riage was now seen rapidly approaching ; this window was but 
 a few yards from the porch, and had been partially opened for 
 the better reconnoitring the approach of the expected guest. 
 
 "He keeps the blinds down still ! Absence of mind, or shame 
 at unpunctuality which is the cause, Mauleverer?" said one 
 of the party. 
 
 "Not shame, I fear!" answered Mauleverer. "Even the in- 
 decent immorality of delaying our dinner could scarcely bring a 
 blush to the parchment skin of my learned friend."
 
 394 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Here the carriage stopped at the porch ; the carriage-door 
 was opened. 
 
 "There seems a strange delay," said Mauleverer peevishly. 
 "Why does not he get out?" 
 
 As he spoke, a murmur among the attendants, who appeared 
 somewhat strangely to crowd around the carriage, smote the 
 ears of the party. 
 
 "What do they say? What?" said Mauleverer, putting his 
 hand to his ear. 
 
 The bishop answered hastily; and Mauleverer, as he heard 
 the reply, forgot for once his susceptibility to cold, and hurried 
 out to the carriage-door. His guests followed. 
 
 They found Brandon leaning against the farther corner of 
 the carriage a corpse. One hand held the check-string, as 
 if he had endeavored involuntarily, but ineffectually, to pull it. 
 The right side of his face was partially distorted, as by con- 
 vulsions or paralysis; but not sufficiently so to destroy that re- 
 markable expression of loftiness and severity which had char- 
 acterized the features in life. At the same time the distortion, 
 which had drawn up on one side the muscles of the mouth, had 
 deepened into a startling broadness the half-sneer of derision 
 that usually lurked around _the lower part of his face. Thus 
 unwitnessed and abrupt had been the disunion of the clay and 
 spirit of a man, who, if he passed through life a bold, scheming, 
 stubborn, unwavering hypocrite, was not without something 
 high even amidst his baseness, his selfishness, and his vices: 
 who seemed less to have loved sin than, by some strange per- 
 version of reason, to have disdained virtue, and who, by a sol- 
 emn and awful suddenness of fate (for who shall venture to in- 
 dicate the judgment of the arch and unseen Providence, even 
 when it appears to mortal eye the least obscured?), won the 
 dreams, the objects, the triumphs of hope, to be blasted by 
 them at the moment of acquisition! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 AND LAST. 
 
 " Subtle, Surly, Mammon, Dol, 
 Hot Ananias, Dapper, Drugger, all 
 With whom I traded." The Alchemist. 
 
 As when some rural citizen retired for a fleeting holyday, 
 far from the cares of the world, " ' strepitumque Romce, "* to 
 
 * And the roar of Rome.
 
 t>AUL CLIFFORD. 395 
 
 the sweet shades of Pentonville, or the remoter plains of Clap- 
 ham conducts some delighted visitor over the intricacies of 
 that Daedalian masterpiece which he is pleased to call his laby- 
 rinth or maze, now smiling furtively at his guest's perplex- 
 ity, now listening with calm superiority to his futile and erring 
 conjectures, now maliciously accompanying him through a 
 flattering path, in which the baffled adventurer is suddenly 
 checked by the blank features of a thoroughfareless hedge, 
 now trembling as he sees the guest stumbling unawares into the 
 right track, and now relieved as he beholds him, after a pause 
 of deliberation, wind into the wrong, even so, O pleasant 
 reader! doth the sage novelist conduct thee through the laby- 
 rinth of his tale, amusing himself with thy self-deceits, and 
 spinning forth, in prolix pleasure, the quiet yarn of his enter- 
 tainment from the involutions which occasion thy fretting eager- 
 ness and perplexity. But as when thanks to the host's good- 
 nature or fatigue! the mystery is once unravelled, and the 
 guest permitted to penetrate even unto the concealed end of 
 the leafy maze ; the honest cit, satisfied with the pleasant pains 
 he has already bestowed upon his visitor, puts him not to the 
 labor of retracing the steps he hath so erratically trod, but leads 
 him in three strides, and through a simpler path, at once to the 
 mouth of the maze, and dismisseth him elsewhere for entertain- 
 ment ; even so will the prudent narrator, when the intricacies 
 of his plot are once unfolded, occasion no stale and profitless 
 delays to his wearied reader, but conduct him, with as much 
 brevity as convenient, without the labyrinth which has ceased 
 to retain the interest of a secret. 
 
 We shall, therefore, in pursuance of the cit's policy, relate, 
 as rapidly as possible, that part of our narrative which yet re- 
 mains untold. On Brandon's person was found the paper 
 which had contained so fatal an intelligence of his son; and 
 when brought to Lord Mauleverer, the words struck that per- 
 son (who knew Brandon had been in search of his lost son, 
 whom we have seen that he had been taught however to suppose 
 illegitimate, though it is probable that many doubts, whether 
 he had not been deceived, must have occurred to his natural 
 sagacity) as sufficiently important to be worth an inquiry after 
 the writer. Dummie was easily found, for he had not yet turned 
 his back on the town when the news of the judge's sudden 
 death was brought back to it; and, taking advantage of that 
 circumstance, the friendly Dunnaker remained altogether in the 
 town (albeit his long companion deserted it as hastily as might 
 be), and whiled the time by presenting himself at the gaol,
 
 396 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and, after some ineffectual efforts, winning his way to Clifford: 
 easily tracked by the name he had given to the governor of the 
 gaol, he was conducted the same day to Lord Mauleverer, and 
 his narrative, confused as it was, and proceeding even from so 
 suspicious a quarter, thrilled those digestive organs which 
 in Mauleverer stood proxy for a heart, with feelings as much 
 resembling awe and horror as our good peer was capable of ex- 
 periencing. Already shocked from his worldly philosophy of 
 indifference by the death of Brandon, he was more susceptible 
 to a remorseful and salutary impression at this moment than he 
 might have been at any other : and he could not, without some 
 twinges of conscience, think of the ruin he had brought on the 
 mother of the being he had but just prosecuted to the death. He 
 dismissed Dummie, and, after a little consideration, he ordered 
 his carriage, and, leaving the funeral preparations for his friend 
 to the care of his man of business, he set off for London, and 
 the house, in particular, of the Secretary of the Home Depart- 
 ment. We would not willingly wrong the noble penitent ; but 
 we venture a suspicion that he might not have preferred a per- 
 sonal application for mercy to the prisoner to a written one, 
 had he not felt certain unpleasant qualms in remaining in a 
 country house overshadowed by ceremonies so gloomy as those 
 of death. The letter of Brandon, and the application of Maul- 
 everer, obtained for Clifford a relaxation of his sentence. He 
 was left for perpetual transportation. A ship was already about 
 to sail, and Mauleverer, content with having saved his life, was 
 by no means anxious that his departure from the country should 
 be saddled with any superfluous delay. 
 
 Meanwhile, the first rumor that reached London respecting 
 Brandon's fate was, that he had been found in a fit, and was 
 lying dangerously ill at Mauleverer's; and before the second 
 and more fatally sure report arrived, Lucy had gathered from 
 the visible dismay of Barlow, whom she anxiously cross-ques- 
 tioned, and who, really loving his master, was easily affected 
 into communication, the first and more flattering intelligence. 
 To Barlow's secret delight, she insisted instantly on setting 
 off to the supposed sick man ; and, accompanied by Barlow and 
 her woman, the affectionate girl hastened to Mauleverer's 
 house on the evening after the day the earl left it. Lucy had 
 not proceeded far before Barlow learned, from the gossip of 
 the road, the real state of the case. Indeed, it was at the 
 first stage that with a mournful countenance, he approached 
 the door of the carriage, and announcing the inutility of pro- 
 ceeding farther, begged of Lucy to turn back. So soon as Miss
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 397 
 
 Brandon had overcome the first shock which this intelligence 
 gave her she said, with calmness, "Well, Barlow, if it be so, we 
 have still a duty to perform. Teli the post-boys to drive on!" 
 
 "Indeed, madam, I cannot see what use it can be fretting 
 yourself, and you so poorly. If you will let me go, I will see 
 every attention paid to the remains of my poor master." 
 
 "When my father lay dead," said Lucy, with a grave and 
 sad sternness in her manner, "he who is now no more sent no 
 proxy to perform the last duties of a brother; neither will I 
 send one to discharge those of a niece, and prove that I have 
 forgotten the gratitude of a daughter. Drive on!" 
 
 We have said that there were times when a spirit was stricken 
 from Lucy little common to her in general, and now the com- 
 mand of her uncle sat upon her brow. On sped the horses, and 
 for several minutes Lucy remained silent. Her woman did not 
 dare to speak. At length Miss Brandon turned, and, covering 
 her face with her hands, burst into tears so violent that they 
 alarmed her attendant even more than her previous stillness. 
 "My poor, poor uncle!" she sobbed, and those were all her 
 words. 
 
 We must pass over Lucy's arrival at Lord Mauleverer's 
 house, we must pass over the weary days which elapsed till that 
 unconscious body was consigned to dust with which, could it 
 have yet retained one spark of its haughty spirit, it would have 
 refused to blend its atoms. She had loved the deceased incom- 
 parably beyond his merits, and, resisting all remonstrance to 
 the contrary, and all the forms of ordinary custom, she wit- 
 nessed herself the dreary ceremony which bequeathed the hu- 
 man remains of William Brandon to repose and to the worm. 
 On .that same day Clifford received the mitigation of his sen- 
 tence, and on that day another trial awaited Lucy. We think 
 briefly to convey to the reader what that scene was; we need 
 only observe, that Dummie Dunnaker, decoyed by his great 
 love for little Paul, whom he delightedly said he found not the 
 least "stuck up by his great fame and helewation," still lin- 
 gered in the town, and was not only aware of the relationship 
 of the cousins, but had gleaned from Long Ned, as they jour- 
 neyed down to , the affection entertained by Clifford for 
 
 Lucy. Of the manner in which the communication reached 
 Lucy, we need not speak; suffice it to say, that on the day in 
 which she had performed the last duty to her uncle, she learned 
 for the first time her lover's situation. 
 
 On that evening, in the convict's cell, the cousins met. 
 Their conference was low, for the gaoler stood within hearing ;
 
 398 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and it was broken by Lucy's convulsive sobs. But the voice 
 of one, whose iron nerves were not unworthy of the offspring 
 of William Brandon, was clear and audible to her ear, even 
 though uttered in a whisper that scarcely stirred his lips. It 
 seemed as if Lucy, smitten to the inmost heart by the generos- 
 ity with which her lover had torn himself from her, at the time 
 that her wealth might have raised him, in any other country, far 
 above the perils and the crimes of his career in this, perceiv- 
 ing now, for the first time, and in all their force, the causes of 
 his mysterious conduct ; melted by their relationship, and for- 
 getting herself utterly in the desolate and dark situation in 
 which she beheld one who, whatever his crimes, had not been 
 criminal towards her, it seemed as if, carried away by these 
 emotions, she had yielded altogether to the fondness and devo- 
 tion of her nature, that she had wished to leave home, and 
 friends, and fortune, and share with him his punishment and 
 his shame. 
 
 "Why!" she faltered; "why why not? we are all that is left 
 to each other in the world! Your father and mine were broth- 
 ers, let me be to you as a sister. What is there left for me here? 
 Not one being whom I love, or who cares for me not one!" 
 
 It was then that Clifford summoned all his courage, as he 
 answered: perhaps, now that he felt (though here his knowl- 
 edge was necessarily confused and imperfect) his birth was 
 not unequal to hers now that he read, or believed he read, in 
 her wan cheek and attenuated frame, that desertion to her was 
 death, and that generosity and self-sacrifice had become too 
 late, perhaps, these thoughts concurring with a love in him- 
 self beyond all words, and a love in her which it was abov<? hu- 
 manity to resist, altogether conquered and subdued him. Yet, 
 as we have said, his voice breathed calmly in her ear, and his 
 eye only, which brightened with a steady and resolute hope, 
 betrayed his mind. "Live, then!" said he, as he concluded. 
 "My sister, my mistress, my bride, live! In one year from 
 this day ... I repeat ... I promise it thee!" 
 
 The interview was over, and Lucy returned home with a firm 
 step. She was on foot ; the rain fell in torrents; yet, even in 
 her precarious state, her health suffered not; and when within 
 a week from that time she read that Clifford had departed to 
 the bourn of his punishment, she read the news with a steady 
 eye and a lip that, if it grew paler, did not quiver. 
 
 Shortly after that time, Miss Brandon departed to an obscure 
 town by the sea-side ; and there, refusing all society, she contin- 
 ued to reside. As the birth of Clifford was known but to few,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 399 
 
 and his legitimacy was unsuspected by all, except, perhaps, by 
 Mauleverer, Lucy succeeded to the great wealth of her uncle, and 
 this circumstance made her more than ever an object of attrac- 
 tion in the eyes of her noble adorer. Finding himself unable to 
 see her, he wrote to her more than one moving epistle; but as 
 Lucy continued inflexible, he at length, disgusted by her want 
 of taste, ceased his pursuit, and resigned himself to the con- 
 tinued sterility of unwedded life. As the months waned. Miss 
 Brandon seemed to grow weary of her retreat ; and immediately 
 on attaining her majority, which she did about eight months 
 after Brandon's death, she transferred the bulk of her wealth 
 to France, where it was understood (for it was impossible that 
 rumor should sleep upon an heiress and a beauty) that she in- 
 tended in future to reside. Even Warlock (that spell to the 
 proud heart of her uncle) she ceased to retain. It was offered 
 to the nearest relation of the family at a sum which he did not 
 hesitate to close with. And, by the common vicissitudes of 
 Fortune, the estate of the ancient Brandons has now, we per- 
 ceive by a weekly journal, just passed into the hands of a 
 wealthy alderman. 
 
 It was nearly a year since Brandon's death, when a letter, 
 bearing a foreign post-mark, came to Lucy. From that time, 
 her spirits which before, though subject to fits of abstraction, 
 had been even, and subdued, not sad rose into all the cheer- 
 fulness and vivacity of her earliest youth; she busied herself 
 actively in preparations for her departure from this country ; 
 and, at length, the day was fixed, and the vessel was engaged. 
 Every day till that one, did Lucy walk to the sea-side, and 
 ascending the highest cliff, spend hours, till the evening closed, 
 in watching, with seemingly idle gaze, the vessels that inter- 
 spersed the sea; and with every day her health seemed to 
 strengthen, and the soft and lucid color she had once worn, to 
 re-bloom upon her cheek. 
 
 Previous to her departure, Miss Brandon dismissed her ser- 
 vants, and only engaged one female, a foreigner, to accompany 
 her: a certain tone of quiet command, formerly unknown to 
 her, characterized these measures, so daringly independent foi 
 one of her sex and age. The day arrived it was the anniver- 
 sary of her last interview with Clifford. On entering the ves- 
 sel, it was observed that she trembled violently, rnd that her 
 face was as pale as death. A stranger, who had stood aloof 
 wrapped in his cloak, darted forward to assist her; that was 
 the last which her discarded and weeping servants beheld of 
 her from the pier where they stood to gaze.
 
 4OO PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Nothing more, in this country, was ever known of the fate of 
 Lucy Brandon; and as her circle of acquaintances was narrow, 
 and interest in her fate existed vividly in none, save a few 
 humble breasts, conjecture was never keenly awakened, and 
 soon cooled into forgetfulness. If it favored, alter the lapse of 
 years, any one notion more than another, it was that she had 
 perished among the victims of the French Revolution. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us glance over the destinies of our more sub- 
 ordinate acquaintances. 
 
 Augustus Tomlinson, on parting from Long Ned, had suc- 
 ceeded in reaching Calais ; and, after a rapid tour through the 
 Continent, he ultimately betook himself to a certain literary city 
 in Germany, where he became distinguished for his metaphysi- 
 cal acumen, and opened a school of morals on the Grecian 
 model taught in the French tongue. He managed, by the pat- 
 ronage he received, and the pupils he enlightened, to obtain a 
 very decent income ; and as he wrote a folio against Locke, 
 proved that men had innate feelings, and affirmed that we 
 should refer everything not to reason, but to the sentiments of 
 the soul, he became greatly respected for his extraordinary vir- 
 tue. Some little discoveries were made after his death, which, 
 perhaps, would have somewhat diminished the general odor of 
 his sanctity, had not the admirers of his school carefully hushed 
 up the matter, probably out of respect for "the sentiments of 
 the soul!" 
 
 Pepper, whom the police did not so anxiously desire to 
 destroy as they did his two companions, might have managed, 
 perhaps, many years longer, to graze upon the public commons, 
 had not a letter, written somewhat imprudently, fallen into 
 wrong hands. This, though after creating a certain stir it ap- 
 parently died away, lived in the memory of the police, and 
 finally conspired, with various peccadilloes, to produce his 
 downfall. He was seized, tried, and sentenced to seven years' 
 transportation. He so advantageously employed his time at 
 Botany Bay, and arranged things there so comfortably to him- 
 self, that at the expiration of his sentence he refused to return 
 home. He made an excellent match, built himself an excel- 
 lent house, and remained in "the land of the blest" to the end 
 of his days, noted to the last for the redundance of his hair, 
 and a certain ferocious coxcombry of aspect. 
 
 As for righting Attie and Gentleman George, for Scarlet 
 Jem and for Old Bags, we confess ourselves destitute of any 
 certain information of their latter ends. We can only add, 
 with regard to fighting Attie, "Gopd luck be with him whre-
 
 !>AtJL CLIFFORD. 4OI 
 
 ever he goes!" And for mine host of the "Jolly Angler," 
 that, though we have not the physical constitution to quaff "a 
 bumper of blue ruin," we shall be very happy, over any toler- 
 able wine, and in company with any agreeable convivialists, to 
 bear our part in the polished chorus of: 
 
 " Here's to Gentleman George, God bless him !" 
 
 Mrs. Lobkins departed this life like a lamb : and Dummie 
 Dunnaker obtained a license to carry on the business at 
 Thames Court. He boasted, to the last, of his acquaintance 
 with the great Captain Lovett, and of the affability with which 
 that distinguished personage treated him. Stories he had, 
 too, about Judge Brandon, but no one believed a syllable of 
 them ; and Dummie, indignant at the disbelief, increased out 
 of vehemence, the marvel of the stories: so that, at length, 
 what was added almost swallowed up what was original, and 
 Dummie himself might have been puzzled to satisfy his own 
 conscience as to what was false and what was true. 
 
 The erudite Peter Mac Crawler, returning to Scotland, dis- 
 appeared by the road; a person, singularly resembling the 
 sage was afterwards seen at Carlisle, where he discharged the 
 useful and praiseworthy duties of Jack Ketch. But whether 
 or not this respectable functionary was our identical Simon 
 Pure, our ex-editor of "The Asinseum," we will not take it 
 upon ourselves to assert. 
 
 Lord Mauleverer, finally resolving on a single life, passed 
 the remainder of his years in indolent tranquillity. When he 
 died, the newspapers asserted that his Majesty was deeply 
 affected by the loss of so old and valued a friend. His fur- 
 niture and wines sold remarkably high ; and a Great Man, his 
 particular intimate, who purchased his books, startled to find, 
 by pencil marks, that the noble deceased had read some of 
 them, exclaimed, not altogether without truth, "Ah! Maul- 
 everer might have been a deuced clever fellow, if he had 
 liked it!" 
 
 The Earl was accustomed to show, as a curiosity, a ring of 
 great value, which he had received, in rather a singular man- 
 ner. One morning, a packet was brought him which he found 
 to contain a sum of money, the ring mentioned, and a letter 
 from the notorious Lovett, in which that person, in begging to 
 return his lordship the sums of which he had twice assisted to 
 rob him, thanked him, with earnest warmth, for the considera- 
 tion testified towards him in not revealing his identity with
 
 402 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Captain Clifford ; and ventured, as a slight testimony of re- 
 spect, to enclose the aforesaid ring with the sum returned. 
 
 About the time Mauleverer received this curious packet, 
 several anecdotes of a similar nature appeared in the public 
 journals; and it seemed that Lovett had acted upon a general 
 principle of restitution, not always, it must be allowed, the 
 offspring of a robber's repentance. While the idle were mar- 
 veling at these anecdotes, came the tardy news that Lovett, 
 after a single month's sojourn at his place of condemnation, 
 had, in the most daring and singular manner, effected his 
 escape. Whether, in his progress up the country, he had been 
 starved, or slain by the natives, or whether, more fortunate, 
 he had ultimately found the means of crossing the seas, was as 
 yet unknown. There ended the adventures of the gallant 
 robber ; and thus, by a strange coincidence, the same mystery 
 which wrapped the fate of Lucy involved also that of her lover. 
 And here, kind reader, might we drop the curtain on our clos- 
 ing scene, did we not think it might please thee to hold it up 
 yet one moment, and give thee another view of the world 
 .behind. 
 
 In a certain town of that Great Country, where shoes are 
 imperfectly polished,* and opinions are not prosecuted, there 
 resided, twenty years after the date of Lucy Brandon's depar- 
 ture from England, a man held in high and universal respect, 
 not only for the rectitude of his conduct, but for the energies 
 of his mind, and the purposes to which they were directed. If 
 you asked who cultivated that waste? the answer was "Clif- 
 ford!" Who procured the establishment of that hospital? 
 "Clifford!" Who obtained the redress of such a public griev- 
 ance? "Clifford!" Who struggled for and won such a popu- 
 lar benefit? "Clifford!" In the gentler part of his projects 
 and his undertakings, in that part, above all, which con- 
 cerned the sick or the necessitous, this useful citizen was sec- 
 onded, or rather excelled, by a being over whose surpassing 
 loveliness Time seemed to have flown with a gentle and charm- 
 ing wing. There was something remarkable and touching in 
 the love which this couple (for the woman we refer to was 
 Clifford's v/ife) bore to each other; like the plant on the plains 
 of Hebron, the time which brought to that love an additional 
 strength, brought to it also a softer and a fresher verdure. 
 Although their present neighbors were unacquainted with the 
 
 events of their earlier life, previous to their settlement at , 
 
 it was known that they had been wealthy at the time they first 
 
 * See Captain Hall's late work on America.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 came to reside there, and that, by a series of fatalities, they 
 had lost all : but Clifford had borne up manfully against for- 
 tune ; and in a new country, where men who prefer labor to 
 dependence cannot easily starve, he had been enabled to toil 
 upward through the severe stages of poverty and hardship, with 
 an honesty and vigor of character which won him, perhaps, a 
 more hearty esteem for every successive effort, than the dis- 
 play of his lost riches might ever have acquired him. His la- 
 bors and his abilities obtained gradual but sure success ; and 
 he now enjoyed the blessings of a competence earned with 
 the most scrupulous integrity, and spent with the most kindly 
 benevolence. A trace of the trials they had passed through 
 was discernible in each ; those trials had stolen the rose from 
 the wife's cheek, and had sown untimely wrinkles in the broad 
 brow of Clifford. There were moments too, but they were 
 only moments, when the latter sank from his wonted elastic 
 and healthful cheerfulness of mind, into a gloomy and ab- 
 stracted revery ; but these moments the wife watched with a 
 jealous and fond anxiety, and one sound of her sweet voice 
 had the power to dispel their influence: and when Clifford 
 raised his eyes, and glanced from her tender smile around his 
 happy home and his growing children, or beheld through the 
 very windows of his room the public benefits he had created, 
 something of pride and gladness glowed on his countenance, 
 and he said, though with glistening eyes and subdued voice, as 
 his looks returned once more to his wife, "I owe these to 
 thee!" 
 
 One trait of mind especially characterized Clifford, indul- 
 gence to the faults of others! "Circumstances make guilt," 
 he was wont to say; "let us endeavor to correct the circum- 
 stances before we rail against the guilt!" His children prom- 
 ised to tread in the same useful and honorable path that he 
 trod himself. Happy was considered that family which had 
 the hope to ally itself with his. 
 
 Such was the after-life of Clifford and Lucy. Who will con- 
 demn us for preferring the moral of that fate to the moral 
 which is extorted from the gibbet and the hulks? which makes 
 scarecrows, not beacons; terrifies our weakness, not warns our 
 reason. Who does not allow that it is better to repair than to 
 perish, better, too, to atone as the citizen than to repent as 
 the hermit? O John Wilkes ! Alderman of London, and Draw- 
 cansir of Liberty, your life was not an iota too perfect, 
 your patriotism might have been infinitely purer, your morals 
 would have admitted indefinite amendment : you are no great
 
 464 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 favorite with us or with the rest of the world ; but you said one 
 excellent thing, for which we look on you with benevolence, 
 nay, almost with respect. We scarcely know whether to smile 
 at its wit, or to sigh at its wisdom. Mark this truth, all ye 
 gentlemen of England, who would make laws as the Romans 
 made fasces a bundle of rods with an axe in the middle ; 
 mark it, and remember! long may it live, allied with hope in 
 ourselves, but with gratitude in our children, long after the 
 book which it now "adorns" and "points" has gone to its 
 dusty slumber, long, long after the feverish hand which now 
 writes it down can defend or enforce it no more: "THE VERY 
 WORST USE TO WHICH YOU CAN PUT A MAN IS TO HANG 
 HIM!"
 
 NOTE. 405 
 
 NOTE. (Page 401.) 
 
 IN the second edition of this novel there were here inserted two " characters " of " Fight- 
 ing Attie " and " Gentleman George," omitted in the subsequent edition published by Mr. 
 Bentley in the Standard Novels. At the request of some admirers of those eminent per- 
 sonages, who considered the biographical sketches referred to impartial in themselves, and 
 contributing to the completeness of the design for which men so illustrious were introduced, 
 they are here retained, though in the more honorable form of a separate and supple- 
 mentary notice. 
 
 FIGHTING ATTIE. 
 
 When he dies, the road will have lost a great man, whose foot was rarely out of his stir- 
 rup, and whose clear head guided a bold hand. He carried common sense to its perfec- 
 tion and he made the straight path the sublimest. His words were few, his actions were 
 many. He was the Spartan of Tobymen, and laconism was the short soul of his profes- 
 sional legislation ! 
 
 Whatever way you view him, you see these properties of mind which command fortune ; 
 few thoughts not confusing each other simple elements and bold. His character in action 
 may be summed in two phrases. " a fact seized and a stroke made." Had his intellect been 
 more luxurious, his resolution might have been less hardy and his hardiness made his 
 greatness. He was one of those who shine but in action chimneys (to adapt the simile 
 of Sir Thomas More) that seem useless till you light your fire. So in calm moments you 
 dreamed not of his utility, and only on the road you were struck dumb with the outbreak- 
 ing of his genius. Whatever situation he was called to, you found in him what you looked 
 for in vain in others ; for his strong sense gave to Attie what long experience ought, but 
 often fails, to give to its possessors ; his energy triumphed over the sense of novel circum- 
 stance, and he broke in a moment through the cobwebs which entangled lesser natures for 
 years. His eye saw a final result, and disregarded the detail. He robbed his men without 
 chicanery ; and took his purse by applying for it, rather than scheming. If his enemies 
 wish to detract from his merit, a merit great, dazzling, and yet solid, they may, perhaps, 
 say that his genius fitted him better to continue exploits than to devise them : and thus 
 that, besides the renown which he may justly claim, he often wholly engrossed that fame 
 which should have been shared by others ; he took up the enterprise where it ceased at 
 Labor, and carried it onwards, where it was rewarded with Glory. Even this charge proves 
 a new merit of address, and lessens not the merit less complicated we have allowed him 
 before. The fame he has acquired may excite our emulation ; the envy he has not ap- 
 peased may console us for obscurity. 
 
 'Avapiduarot Kpe/iavrat. 
 TOVTO f apA^avov evpclv, 
 'Ori vvv, KOI sv -retevrq. QepraTov avipl rv^etv. 
 FIND. Olymp. vii. I. 43, 48.* 
 
 GENTLEMAN GEORGE. 
 
 For thee, Gentleman George, for thee, what conclusive valediction remains ? Alas ! since 
 we began the strange and mumming scene wherein first thou wert introduced, the grim 
 foe hath knocked thrice at thy gates ; and now, as we write, t thou art departed thcnct 
 
 Thug, not too vigorously, translated by Mr. West: 
 " But wrapt in error is the human mind, 
 
 And human blins is ever insecure ; 
 Know ye what fortune shall remain behind t 
 Know ye how long the present shall endur* I 
 
 tin 1MO.
 
 405 NOTE. 
 
 thou art no more ! a new lord presides in thine easy chair, a new voice rings from thy merry 
 board thou art forgotten ! thou art already like these pages, a tale that is told to a mem- 
 ory that retaineth not ! Where are thy quips and cranks ? where thy stately coxcombries 
 and thy regal gauds ? Thine house and thy pagoda, thy Gothic chimney, and thy Chi- 
 nese sign-post ; these yet ask the concluding hand : thy hand is cold ; their completion, and 
 the enjoyment the completion yields, are for another ! Thou sowest, and thy follower 
 reaps ; thou buildest, thy successor holds : thou plantest, and thine heir sits beneath the 
 shadow of thy trees; 
 
 " Neque harum, quas colis, arborum 
 Te, prater invisas cupressos, 
 
 Ulla brevem dominum sequetur !" * 
 
 At this moment, thy life for thou wert a Great Man to thine order, and they have added 
 thy biography to that of Abcrshawand Sheppard thy life is before us ! What a homily in 
 its events ! Gayly didst thou laugh into thy youth, and run through the courses of thy man- 
 hood; Wit sat at thy tables, and Genius was thy comrade; Beauty was thy handmaid; 
 and Frivolity played around thee, a buffoon that thou didst ridicule, and ridiculing enjoy ! 
 Who among us can look back to thy brilliant era, and not sigh to think that the wonderful 
 men who surrounded thee, and amidst whom thou wert a centre, and a nucleus, are for him 
 but the things of history, and the phantoms of a bodiless tradition ? Those brilliant sup- 
 pers, glittering with beauty, the memory of which makes one spot (yet inherited by Bach- 
 elor Bill) a haunted and a fairy ground ; all who gathered to that Armida's circle, the 
 Grammonts, and the Beauvilliers, and the Rochefoucaults of England and the Road, who 
 does not feel that to have seen these, though but as Gil Bias saw the festivities of his 
 actors, from the sideboard and behind the chair, would have beer .riumph for the earth- 
 lier feelings of his old age to recall ? What, then, must it have been to have seen them as 
 thou didst see (thou. the deceased and the forgotten ! ) seen them from the height of thy 
 youth, and power, and rank (for early wert thou keeper to a public), and reckless spirits, 
 and lusty capacities of joy ? What pleasures where sense lavished its uncounted varie- 
 ties ? What reveilings where wine was the least excitement? 
 
 Let the scene shift. How stirring is the change ! Triumph, and glitter, and conquest ! 
 
 most wonderful events which the world, thy world, ever knew^of these was it not indeed, 
 and dazzlingly thine, 
 
 " To share the triumph and partake the gale ? " 
 
 Let the scene shift Manhood is touched by Age ; but Lust is " heeled " by Luxury, and 
 Pomp is the heir of Pleasure ; gewgaws and gaud, instead of glory, surround, rejoice, and 
 flatter thee to the last. There rise thy buildings there lie secret but gorgeous, the taber- 
 nacles of thine ease ; and the earnings of thy friends, and the riches of the people whom 
 they plunder, are waters to thine imperial whirlpool. Thou art lapped in ease as is a silk- 
 worm, and profusion flows from thy high and unseen asylum as the rain poureth from a 
 cloud. Much didst thou do to beautify chimney-tops- much to adorn the snuggeries where 
 thou didst dwell ; thieving with thee took a substantial shape, and the robberies of the pub- 
 lic passed into a metempsychosis of mortar, and became public-houses. So there and thus, 
 building and planning, didst thou spin out thy latter yarn, till Death came upon thee ; and 
 when we look around, lo ! thy brother was on thy hearth. And thy parasites, and thy com- 
 rades, and thine ancient pals, and thy portly blowens, they made a murmur, and they 
 packed up their goods but they turned ere they departed, and they would have worshipped 
 thy brother as they worshipped thee ; but he would not ! And thy sign-post is gone and 
 mouldered already; and to the " Jolly Angler" has succeeded the Jolly Tar ! And 
 thy picture is disappearing fast from the print-shops, and thy name from the mouths of 
 men ! And thy brother, whom no one praised while thou didst live, is on a steeple of pan- 
 egyric built above the churchyard that contains thy grave. Oh ! shifting and volatile 
 hearts of men ! Who would be keeper of a Public? Who dispense the wines and the 
 juices that gladden when, the moment the pulse of the hand ceases, the wine and the juices 
 are forgotten ? 
 
 To History for thy name will be preserved in that record, which, whether it be the Cal- 
 endar of Newgate or of Nations,, telleth us alike how men suffer, and sin, and perish to 
 History we leave the sum and balance of thy merits and thy faults. The sins that were 
 thine were those of the man to whom pleasure is all in all : thou wert, from root to branch, 
 sap and in heart, what moralists term the libertine ; hence the light wooing, the quick de- 
 sertion, the broken faith, the organized perfidy, that manifested thy bearings to those 
 
 Nor will any of these trees thou didst cultivate follow thee, the short-lived lord, save the 
 cypress. 
 
 t Chiefs for the victory fight for chiefs the soldiers.
 
 NOTE. 407 
 
 gentler creatures who called thee" Gentleman George." Never, to one solitary woman, 
 until the last dull flame of thy dotage, didst thou so behave as to give no foundation to 
 complaint, and no voice to wrong. But who shall say be honest to one, but laugh at per- 
 fidy to another? Who shall wholly confine treachery to one sex, if to that sex he hold 
 treachery no offence ? So in thee, as in all thy tribe, there was a laxness of principle, an 
 insincerity of faith, even unto men : thy friends, when occasion suited, thou couldst for- 
 sake ; and thy luxuries were dearer to thee than justice to those who supplied them. Men 
 who love and live for pleasure as thou are usually good-natured ; for their devotion to 
 pleasure arises from the strength of their constitution, and the strength of their constitution 
 preserves them from the irritations of weaker nerves ; so wert thou good-natured, and often 
 generous ; and often with thy generosity didst thou unite a delicacy that showed thou liadst 
 an original and a tender sympathy with men. But as those who pursue pleasure are above 
 all others impatient of interruption, so to such as interfered with thy main pursuit, thou 
 didst testify a deep, a lasting, and a revengeful anger. Yet lei not such vices of temper- 
 ament be too severely judged ! For to thee were given man's two rnont persuasive tempters, 
 physical and moral Health and Power ! Thy talents, such as they were and they were 
 the talents of a man of the world misled rather than guided thee, for they gave thy mind 
 that demi-philosophy, that indifference to exalted motives which is generally found in a 
 clever rake. Thy education was wretched ; thou hadst a smattering of Horace, but thou 
 couldst not write English, and thy letters betray that thou wert wofully ignorant of logic. 
 The fineness of thy taste has been exaggerated ; thou wert unacquainted with the noble- 
 ness of simplicity ; thy idea of a whole was grotesque and over-loaded, and thy fancy in 
 details was gaudy and meretricious. But thou hadst thy hand constantly in the public 
 purse, and thou hadst plans and advisers for ever before thee ; mort than all, thou didst find 
 the houses in that neighborhood wherein thou didst build, so preternaturally hideous that thou 
 didst require but little science to be less frightful in thy creations. If thou didst not im- 
 prove thy native village and thy various homes with a solid, a lofty, and a noble taste, 
 thou didst nevertheless very singularly improve. And thy posterity, in avoiding the faults 
 of thy masonry, will be grateful for the effects of thy ambition. The same demi-philoso- 
 phy, which influenced thee in private life, exercised a far benigner and happier power over 
 dice in public. Thou wert not idly vexatious in vestries, nor ordinarily tyrannic in thy 
 parish ; if thou wert ever arbitrary, it was only when thy pleasure was checked, or thy 
 vanity wounded. At other times, thou didst leave events to their legitimate course, so that 
 in thy latter years thou wert justly popular in thy parish ; and in thy grave, thy great good 
 fortune will outshine thy few bad qualities, and men will say of thee with a kindly, nor an 
 erring judgment, " In private life he was not worse than the Rufflers who came to this 
 bar ; in public life he was better than those who kept a public before him." Hark ! those 
 huzzas ! what is the burthen of that chorus ? Oh, grateful and never time-serving Britons, 
 have ye modified already for another the song ye made so solely in honor of Gentleman 
 George ; and must we, lest we lose the custom of the public, and the good things of the 
 taproom, must we roar with throats yet hoarse with our fervor for the old words, our 
 ardor for the new ? 
 
 " Here's to Mariner Bill, God bless him ! 
 God bless him ! 
 God bless him ! 
 Here's to Mariner Bill, God bless him'
 
 ;TO M L I N S O N I A N A; 
 
 OF THE CELEBRATED 
 
 AUGUSTUS TOMLINSON, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 ADDRESSED TO HIS PUPILS 
 
 AND COMPRISING 
 
 I. 
 
 MAXIMS ON THE POPULAR ART OF CHEATING, ILLUSTRATED BY TBN CHARACTERS, BEINd 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO THAT NOBLE SCIENCE, BY WHICH EVERY 
 
 MAN MAY BECOME HIS OWN ROGUE. 
 
 II. 
 BRACHYLOGIA ; OR ESSAYS, CRITICAL, SENTIMENTAL, MORAL, AND ORIGINAL.

 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 HAVING lately been travelling in Germany, I spent some time at .that Uni- 
 versity in which Augustus Tomlinson presided as Professor of Moral Phil- 
 osophy. I found that that great man died, after a lingering illness, in the 
 beginning of the year 1822, perfectly resigned to his fate, and conversing, 
 even on his death-bed, on the divine mysteries of Ethical Philosophy. Not- 
 withstanding the little peccadilloes, to which I have alluded in the latter 
 pages of Paul Clifford, and which his pupils deemed it advisable to hide from 
 " The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day," 
 
 his memory was slill held in a tender veneration. Perhaps, as in the case of 
 the illustrious Burns, the faults of a great man endear to you his genius. In 
 his latter clays the PROFESSOR was accustomed to wear a light-green silk 
 dressing-gown, and,,as he was perfectly bald, a little black velvet cap ; his 
 small-clothes were pepper and salt. These interesting facts I learned from 
 one of his pupils. His old age was consumed in- lectures, in conversation, 
 and i the composition of the little morceauxoi wisdom we present to the 
 public. In these essays and maxims, short as they are, he seems to have 
 concentrated the wisdom of his industrious and honorable life. With great 
 difficulty I procured from his executors the MSS. which were then preparing 
 for the German press. A valuable consideration induced those gentlemen to 
 become philanthropic, and to consider the inestimable blessings they would 
 confer upon this country by suffering me to give the following essays to the 
 light, in their native and English dress, on the same day whereon they appear 
 in Germany in the graces of foreign disguise. 
 
 At an age when, while Hypocrisy stalks, simpers, sidles, struts, and hobbles 
 through the country. Truth, also begins to watch her adversary in every move- 
 ment, I cannot but think these lessons of Augustus Tomlinson peculiarly 
 well-timed. I add them as a fitting Appendix to a Novel that may not inap- 
 propriately be termed a Treatise on Social Frauds, ad if they contain within 
 them that evidence of diligent attention and that principle of good, in which 
 the satire of Vice is only the germ of its detection, they may not, perchance, 
 pass wholly unnoticed ; nor be even condemned to that hasty reading in 
 which the Indifference of to-day is but the prelude to the Forgetfulness of 
 to-morrow.
 
 41* 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 MAXIMS ON THE POPULAR ART OF CHEATING, illustrated by Ten 
 Characters ; being an Introduction to that Noble Science, by which 
 every Man may become his own Rogue . . . . .413 
 
 BRACHYLOGIA : 
 
 On the Morality taught by the Rich to the Poor . . . 420 
 
 Emulation . . 420 
 
 Caution against the Scoffers of "Humbug" .... 421 
 
 Popular Wrath at Individual Imprudence 421 
 
 Dum defluat A tun is ... ... 421 
 
 Sclf-Glorifiers 421 
 
 Thought on Fortune 422 
 
 Wit and Truth . . 422 
 
 Auto-theology . . . . . . . . . 422 
 
 Glorious Constitution ......... 422 
 
 Answer to the Popular Cant that Goodness in a Statesman is better 
 
 than Ability 422 
 
 Common Sense ...... . . 422 
 
 Love, and Writers on Love 423 
 
 The Great Entailed 423 
 
 The Regeneration of a Knave . . . . , . . 424 
 
 Style 424
 
 413 
 
 MAXIMS ON THE POPULAR ART OF CHEATING, 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY TEN CHARACTERS ; 
 
 BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO THAT NOBLE SCIENCE, BY WHICH EVERY MAM MAY BECOME 
 HIS OWN ROGUE. 
 
 " Set a thief to catch a thief." Proverb. 
 I. 
 
 WHENEVER you are about to utter something astonishingly false, always 
 begin with, " It is an acknowledged fact," etc. Sir Robert Filmer was a 
 master of this method of writing. Thus with what a solemn face that great 
 man attempted to cheat ! " It is a truth undeniable that there cannot be any 
 multitude of men whatsoever, either great or small, etc , but that in the 
 same multitude there is one man amongst them that in nature hath a right 
 to be King of all the rest as being the next heir to Adam ! " 
 
 II. 
 
 When you want something from the public, throw the blame of the asking 
 on the most sacred principle you can find. A common beggar can read you 
 exquisite lessons on this the most important maxim in the art of popular 
 cheating. " For the love of God, sir, a penny ! " 
 
 HI. 
 
 Whenever on any matter, moral, sentimental, or political, you find your- 
 self utterly ignorant, talk immediately of " The Laws of Nature." As those 
 laws are written nowhere, * they are known by nobody. Should any ask you 
 how you happen to know such or such a doctrine as the dictate of Nature, 
 clap your hand to your heart and say, " Here ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 Yield to a man's tastes, and he will yield to your interests. 
 
 v. 
 
 When you talk to the half-wise, twaddle ; when you talk to the ignorant, 
 brag ; when you talk to the sagacious, look very humble and ask their 
 opinion. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Always bear in mind, my beloved pupils, that the means of livelihood de- 
 pend not on the virtues, but the vices of others. The lawyer, the statesman, 
 the hangman, the physician, are paid by our sins ; nay, even the commoner 
 professions, the tailor, ihe coachmaker, the upholsterer, the wine merchant, 
 draw their fortunes, if not their existence, from those smaller vices our 
 foibles. Vanity is the figure prefixed to the ciphers of Necessity. Where- 
 fore, O my beloved pupils ! never mind what a man's virtues are ; waste no 
 time in learning them. Fasten at once on his infirmities. Do to the One 
 as, were you an honest man, you would do to the Many. This is the way to 
 be a rogue individually, as a lawyer is a rogue professionally. Knaves are 
 like critics \ " flies that feed on the sore part, and would have nothing to 
 live on were the body in health." \ 
 
 * Locke. t Nullum simile est quod idem. Editor. $ Taller.
 
 414 TOMLINSONIANA. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Every man finds it desirable to have tears in his eyes at times one ha a 
 sympathy with humid lids. Providence hath beneficently provided for this 
 want, and given to every man, in Its divine forethought, misfortunes painful 
 to recall. Hence, probably, those human calamities which the atheist rails 
 against ! Wherefore, when you are uttering some affecting sentiment to your 
 intended dupe, think of the greatest misfortune you ever had in your life ; 
 habit will soon make the association of tears and that melancholy remem- 
 brance constantly felicitous. I knew, my dear p.ipils, a most intelligent 
 Frenchman who obtained a charming legacy from an old poet, by repeating 
 the bard's verses with streaming eyes. " How were you able to weep at 
 will ? " asked I (I was y ung then, my puoils). " Je pensois" answered he, 
 " h, man pauvre fere qui estmort." * The union of sentiment with the ability 
 of swindling made that Frenchman a most fascinating creature ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Never commit the error of the overshrewd, and deem human nature worse 
 than it is. Human Nature is so damnably good, that if it were not for hu- 
 man Art we knaves could not live. The primary elements of a man's mind 
 do not sustain us it is what he owes to " the pains taken with his educa- 
 tion," and " the blessings of civilized society " ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Whenever you doubt, my pupils, whether your man be a quack or not, 
 decide the point by seeing if your man be a positive asserter. Nothing in- 
 dicates imposture like confidence, Volney f saith well, " that the most cele- 
 brated of charlatans \ and the boldest of tyrants begins his extraordinary tis- 
 sue of lies by these words, ' There is no doubt in this book ' ! " 
 
 x. 
 
 There is one way of cheating people peculiar to the British Isles, and 
 which, my pupils, 1 earnestly recommend you to import hither cheating by 
 subscription. People like to be plundered in company ; dupery then grows 
 into the spirit of party. Thus one quack very gravely requested persons to 
 fit up a ship for him and send him rouwl the world as its captain to make 
 discoveries, and another patriotically suggested that ,10,000 should be sub- 
 scribed for what ? to place him in Parliament ! Neither of th'-se fellows 
 could have screwed an individual out of a shilling had he asked him for it in 
 a corner ; but a printed list, with " His Royal Highness" at the top, plays 
 the devil with English guineas. A subscription for individuals may be con- 
 sidered a society for the ostentatious encouragement of idleness, impudence, 
 beggary, imposture, and other public virtues ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 Whenever you read the life of a great man, I mean a man eminently suc- 
 cessful, you will perceive all the qualities given to him are the qualities 
 necessary even to a mediocre rogue. " He possessed," saith the bio- 
 grapher, "the greatest address [viz. the faculty of wheedling] ; the most 
 admirable courage [viz. the faculty of bullying] ; the most noble fortitude 
 [viz. the faculty of beating to be bullied] ; the must singular versatility [viz. 
 the faculty of saying one thing to one man, and its reverse to another] ; and 
 the most wonderful command over the mind of his contemporaries [viz. the 
 faculty of victimizing their purses or seducing their actions]." Wherefore, 
 if luck cast you in humble life, assiduously study the biographies of the 
 
 * I used to think of my poor father who is dead, 
 t Lectures on History. + Mahomet,
 
 TOMLINSONIANA. 415 
 
 great, in order to accomplish you as a rogue ; if in the more elevated range 
 of society, be thoroughly versed in the lives of the roguish, so shall you fit 
 yourself to be eminent ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 The hypocrisy of virtue, my beloved pupils, is a little out of fashion now- 
 adays ; it is sometimes better to affect the hypocrisy of vice. Appear gener- 
 ously profligate, and swear wiih a hearty face, that you do not pretend to be 
 better than the generality of your neighbors. Sincerity is not less a cover- 
 ing than lying ; a frieze great-coat wraps you as well as a Spanish cloak. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 When you are about to execute some great plan, and to defraud a number 
 of persons, let the first one or two of the alloted number be the cleverest, 
 shrewdest fellows you can find. You have then -a reference that will alone 
 dupe ihe rest of the world. " That Mr. Lynx is satisfied," will amply suffice 
 to satisfy Mr. Mole of the honesty of your intentions ! Nor are shrewd 
 men the hardest to take in ; they rely on their strength ; invulnerable heroes 
 are necessarily the bravest. Talk to them in a business-like manner, and 
 refer your design at once to their lawyer. My friend, John Shamberry, was 
 a model in this grand stroke of art. He swindled twelve people to the tune 
 of some thousands, with no other trouble than it first cost him to swindle 
 whom do you think ? the Secretary to the Society for the Suppression of 
 Swindling ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Divide your arts into two classes : those which cost you little labor 
 those which cost much. The first, flattery, attention, answering letters 
 by return of post, walking across a street to oblige the man you intend to 
 ruin ; all these you must never neglect. The least man is worth gaining at 
 a small cost. And besides, while you are serving yourself, you are also 
 obtaining the character of civility, diligence, and good nature. But the arts 
 which cost you much labor a long subservience to one testy individual ; 
 aping the semblance of a virtue, a quality, or a branch of learning which you 
 do not possess, to a person difficult to blind all these, never begin except 
 for great ends, worth not only the loss of time, but the chance of detection. 
 Great pains for small gains is the maxim of the miser. The rogue should 
 have more gratideur d 'dine !* 
 
 XV. 
 
 Always forgive. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 If a man owe you a sum of money (pupils though you be of mine, you 
 may once in your lives be so silly as to lend) and you find it difficult to 
 get it back, appeal, not to his justice, but to his charity. The components 
 of justice flatter few men ! Who likes to submit to an inconvenience 
 because he ought to do it ? without praise, without even self-gratulation ? 
 But charity, my dear friends, tickles up human ostentation deliciously. 
 Charity implies superiority ; and the feeling of superiority is most grateful 
 to social nature. Hence the commonness of charity, in proportion to other 
 virtues, all over the world ; and hence you will especially note, that in 
 pioportion a people are haughty and arrogant will they laud alms-giving and 
 encourage charitable institutions. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Your genteel rogues do not fufficiently observe the shrewdness of the 
 * Greatness of soul.
 
 416 TOMLINSONIANA. 
 
 vulgar ones. The actual beggar takes advantage of every sore ; but the 
 moral swindler is unpardonably dull as to the happiness of a physical infirm- 
 ity. To obtain a favor neglect no method that may allure compassion. I 
 knew a worthy curate, who obtained two livings by the felicity of a hectic 
 cough ; and a younger brother who subsisted for ten years on his family by 
 virtue of a slow consumption. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 When you want to possess yourself of a small sum, recollect that the 
 small sum be put into juxtaposition with a great. I do not express 
 myself clearly take an example. In London there are sharpers who adver- 
 tise .70,000 to be advanced at four per cent., principals only conferred with. 
 The gentleman wishing for such a sum on mortgage, goes to see the adver- 
 tiser ; the advertiser says he must run down and look at the properly on 
 which the money is to be advanced ; his journey and expenses will cost him 
 a mere trifle say twenty guineas, Let him speak confidently let the 
 gentleman very much want the money at the interest stated, and three to 
 one but our sharper gets the twenty guineas, so paltry a sum in comparison 
 to ; 70.000, though so serious a sum had the matter related to half-pence ! 
 
 xix. 
 
 Lord Coke has said, " To trace an error to its fountain-head is to refute 
 it." Now, my young pupils, I take it for granted that you are interested 
 in the preservation of error ; you do not wish it, therefore, to be traced to 
 its fountain-head. Whenever, then, you see a sharp fellow tracking it up 
 you have two ways of settling the matter. You may say with a smile, 
 " Nay, now, sir, you grow speculative I admire your ingenuity"; or else 
 look grave, color up, and say " I fancy, s>r, there is no warrant for this 
 assertion in the most sacred of all authorises ! " The Devil can quote 
 Scripture, you know, and a very sensible devil it is too i 
 
 xx. 
 
 Rochefoucauld has said," The hate of favorites is nothing else but the love 
 of favor. " The idea is a little cramped ; the hate we bear to any man is only 
 the result of our love for some good which we imagine he possesses, or which, 
 being in our possession, we imagine he has attacked. Thus envy, the most 
 ordinary species of hate, arises from our value for the glory, or the plate, 
 or the content we behold ; and revenge is born from our regard for our fame 
 that has been wounded, or our acres molested, or our rights invaded. But 
 the mi-st noisy of all hatreds is hatred for the rich, from love for the riches. 
 Look well on the poor devil who is always railing at coaches and four ! 
 Book him as a man to be bribed ! 
 
 XXI. 
 
 My beloved pupils, few have yet sufficiently studied the art by which the 
 practice of jokes becomes subservient to the science of swindlers. The 
 heart of an inferior is always fascinated by a jest. Men know this in the 
 knavery of elections. Know it now, my pupils, in the knavery of life ! 
 When you slap your cobbler so affectionately on the back it is your own 
 fault if you do not slap your purpose into him at the same time. Note 
 how Shak.'peare (whom study night and day no man hath better ex- 
 pounded the mysteries of roguery !) causes his grandest and most accom- 
 plished villain, Richard III., to address his good friends, the murderers, with 
 a jocular panegyric on that hardness of heart on which, doubtless, those poor 
 fellows most piqued themselves 
 
 " Your eyes drop millstones, where /cols' eyes drop tears 
 I like you, lads I "
 
 TOMLINSONIANA. 417 
 
 Can't you fancy the kr. owing grin with which the dogs received this compli- 
 ment, and the little sly punch in the stomach with which Richard dropped 
 those loving words, " I like you, lads !" 
 
 XXII. 
 
 As good-nature is the characteristic of the dupe, so should good temper be 
 that of the knave ; the two fit into each other like joints. Happily, good- 
 nature is a Narcissus, and falls in love with its own likeness. And good- 
 temper is to good-nature what the Florimel of snow was to the Florimel of 
 flesh an exact likeness made of the coldest materials. 
 
 XXIII. 
 BEING THE PRAISE OF KNAVERY. 
 
 A knave is a philosopher, though a philosopher is not necessarily a knave. 
 What hath a knave to do with passions. Every irregular desire he must sup- 
 press ; every foible he must weed out ; his whole life is spent in the acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge : for what is knowledge ? the discovery of human errors ! 
 He is the only man always consistent, yet ever examining ; he knows but one 
 end, yet explores every means ; danger, ill-repute, all that terrify other men, 
 daunt not him ; he braves all, but is saved Irom all : for I hold that a knave 
 ceaseth to be the knave he hath parsed into the fool the moment mischief 
 befalls him. He professes the art of cheating ; but the art of cheating is to 
 cheat without peril. He is feres et rotundus, strokes fly from the lubricity of 
 his polish, and the shiftings of his circular formation. He who is insensible 
 of the glory of his profession, who is open only to the profit, is no disciple of 
 mine. I hold of knavery, as Plato hath said of virtue " Could it be seen in- 
 carnate, it would beget a personal adoration ! " None but those who are in- 
 spired by a generous enthusiasm will benefit by the above maxims ; nor (and 
 here I warn you so'emnly from the sacred ground, till your head be uncov- 
 ered, and your feet be bared in the awe of veneration), enter with profit upon 
 the following descriptions of character that Temple of the Ten Statues 
 wherein I have stored and consecrated the most treasured relics of my 
 travelled thoughts and my collected experience. 
 
 TEN CHARACTERS. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE mild, irresolute, good-natured, and indolent man. These qualities 
 are accompanied with good feelings, but no principles. The want of firmness 
 evinces also the want of any peculiar or deeply-rooted system of thought. A 
 man conning a single and favorite subject of meditation, grows wedded to 
 one or the other of the opinions on which he revolves. A man universally 
 irresolute, has generally led a desultory life, and never given his attention 
 long together to one thing ; this is a man most easy to cheat, my beloved 
 friends ; you cheat him even with his eyes open : indolence is dearer to him 
 than all things, and if you get him alone and put a question to him point 
 blank he cannot answer, No. 
 
 n. 
 
 The timid, suspicious, selfish, and cold man. Generally, a character of 
 this description is an excellent man of business, and would, at first sight, 
 seem to baffle the most ingenious swindler. But you have one hope I have 
 rarely found it deceive me this man is usually ostentatious. A cold, a fear- 
 ful, yet a worldly person, has ever an eye upon others ; he notes the effect 
 certain things produce on them ; he is anxious to learn their opinions, that he 
 may not transgress ; he likes to know what the world say of him ; nay, his
 
 418 TOMLINSONIANA. 
 
 timidity makes him anxious to repose his selfishness on their good report. 
 Hence he grows ostentatious, likes that effect which is favorably talked of, 
 and that show which wins consideration. At him on this point, my pupils ! 
 
 in. 
 
 The melancholy, retired, sensitive, intellectual character. A very good 
 subject this for your knaveries, my young friends ; though it requires great 
 discrimination and delicacy. This character has a considerable portion of 
 morbid suspicion and irritability belonging to it against these you must 
 guard at the same time, its prevalent feature is a powerful, but unacknowl- 
 edged vanity. It is generally a good opinion of himself, and a feeling that 
 he is not appreciated by others, that makes a man reserved : he deems himself 
 unfit for the world because of the delicacy of his temperament, and the want 
 of a correspondent sensibility in those he sees ! This is your handle to work 
 on. He is peculiarly flattered, too, on the score of devotion and affection ; 
 he exacts in love, as from the world too much. He is a Lara, whose 
 females must be Medoras : and even his male friends should be extremely like 
 Kaleds ! Poor man ! you see how easily he can be duped. Mem. Among 
 persons of this character are usually found those oddities, humors, and peculi- 
 arities, which are each a handle. No man lives out of the world with impunity 
 to the solidity of his own character. Every new outlet to the humor is a new 
 inlet to the heart. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The bold, generous, frank, and affectionate man, usually a person of 
 robust health. His constitution keeps him in spirits, and bis spirits in cour- 
 age and in benevolence. He is obviously not a hard character, my good 
 young friends, for you to deceive ; for he wants suspicion, and all his good 
 qualities lay him open to you. But beware his anger when he finds you out ! 
 he is a terrible Othello when his nature is once stung. Mem. A good sort 
 of character to seduce into illegal practices : makes a tolerable traitor, or a 
 capital smuggler : you yourselves must never commit any illegal offence : 
 ar'n't there cat's-paws for the chestnuts? As all laws are oppressions (only 
 necessary and often sacred oppressions, which you need not explain to him), 
 and his character is especially hostile to oppression, you easily seduce the per- 
 son we describe into braving the laws of his country. Yes ! the bold, gener- 
 ous, frank, arid affectionate man, has only to be born in humble life to be 
 sure of a halter ! 
 
 V. 
 
 The bold, selfish, close, giasping man will, in all probability, cheat you, 
 my dear friends. For such a character makes the master-rogue, the stuff 
 from which Nature forms a Richard the Third. You had better leave such 
 a man quite alone. He is bad even to serve. He breaks up his tools when 
 he has done with them. No, you can do nothing with him, my good 
 young man ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 The eating, drinking, unthoughtful, sensual, mechanical man the ordi- 
 nary animal. Such a creature has cunning, and is either cowardly or fero- 
 cious ; seldom in these qualities he preserves a medium. He is not by anv 
 means easy to dupe. Nature defends her mental brutes by the thickness of 
 their hide. Win his mistress if possible ; she is the best person to manage 
 him. Such creatures are the natural prey of artful women ; their very sto- 
 lidity covers all but sensuality. To the Samson the Delilah.
 
 TOMLINSONIANA. 419 
 
 VII. 
 
 The gay, deceitful, shrewd, polished, able man ; the courtier, the man of 
 the world. In public and stirring life, this is the fit antagonist often the 
 successful and conquering rival of Character V. You perceive a man like 
 this varies so greatly in intellect, from the mere butterfly talent to the rarest 
 genius ; from the person you see at cards to the person you see in cabinets 
 
 from the to the Chesterfield from the Chesterfield to the Pericles that it 
 
 is difficult to give you an exact notion of the weak points of a character so 
 various. But while he dupes his equals and his superiors, I consider him, 
 my attentive pupils, by no means a veiy difficult character for an inferior to 
 dupe. And in this manner you must go about it. Do not aitempt hypoc- 
 risy ; he will see through it in an instant. Let him think you at once, and 
 at first sight, a rogue. Be candid on that matter yourself : but let him think 
 you an useful rogue. Serve him well and zealously : but own that you do so, 
 because you consider your interest involved in this. This reasoning satisfies 
 him ; and as men of this character are usually generous, he will acknowledge 
 its justice by throwing you plenty of sops, and stimulating you with bounti- 
 ful cordials. Should he not content you herein, appear contented ; and 
 profit in betraying him (that is the best way to cheat him), not by his failings, 
 but by opportunity. Watch not his character, but your time. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The vain, arrogant, brave, amorous, flashy character. This sort of charac- 
 ter we formerly attributed to the French, and it is still more common to the 
 Continent than that beloved island which 1 shall see no more ! A creature 
 of this description is made up of many false virtues ; above others, it is al- 
 ways profuse where its selfishness is appealed to, not otherwise. You must 
 find, then, what pleases it, and pander to its tastes. So will ye cheat it 
 or ye will cheat it also by affecting the false virtues which it admires itself 
 rouge your sentiments highly, and let them strut with a buskined air ; thirdly, 
 my good young men, ye will cheat it by profuse flattery, and by calling it in 
 especial, " the mirror of chivalry." 
 
 IX. 
 
 The plain, sensible, honest man. A favorable, but not elevated specimen 
 of our race. This character, my beloved pupils, you may take in once, but 
 never twice. Nor can you take in such a man as a stranger ; he must be 
 your friend, or relation, or have known intimately some part of your family. 
 A man of this character is always open, though in a moderate and calm de- 
 gree, to the duties and ties of life. He will always do something to serve 
 his friend, his brother, or the man whose father pulled his father out of the 
 Serpentine. Affect with him no varnish ; exert no artifice in attempting to 
 obtain his assistance. Candidly state your wish for such or such a service 
 sensibly state your pretensions modestly hint at your gratitude. So may 
 you deceive him once, then leave him alone for ever ! 
 
 x. 
 
 The fond, silly, credulous man ; all impulse, and no reflection ! How my 
 heart swells when I contemplate this excellent character ! What a Canaan for 
 you does it present ! I envy you launching into the world with the sanguine 
 hope of finding all men such ! Delightful enthusiasm of youth would that 
 the hope could be realized ! Here is the veiy incarnation of gullibility. 
 You have only to make him love you, and no hedgehog ever sucked egg as 
 you can suck him. Never be afraid of his indignation ; go to him ^igain 
 and aijain ; only throw yourself on his neck and weep. To gull him once,
 
 420 TOMLINSONIANA. 
 
 is to gull him always ; get his first shilling, and then calculate what you will 
 do with the rest of his fortune. Never desert so good a man for new friends, 
 that would be ungrateful in you ! And take with you, by the way, my good 
 young gentlemen, this concluding maxim. Men are like lands ; you will get 
 more by lavishing all your labor again and again upon the easy, than by 
 ploughing up new ground in the sterile ! 
 
 Legislators wise good pious men, the Tom Thumbs of moral science, 
 who make giants first, and then kill them ; * you think the above lessons vil- 
 lainous : I honor your penetration ! they are not proofs of my villainy, but 
 of your folly ! Look over them again, and you will see that they are de- 
 signed to show that while ye are imprisoning, transporting, and hanging 
 thousands every day, a man with a decent modicum of cunning might prac- 
 tise every one of those lessons which seem to you so heinous, and not one of 
 your laws could touch him ! 
 
 BRACHYLOGIA ; OR, ESSAYS, 
 CRITICAL, SENTIMENTAL, MORAL, AND ORIGINAL, 
 
 ADDRESSED TO HIS PUPILS, 
 
 BY AUGUSTUS TOMLINSON. 
 
 The irony in the preceding essays is often lost sight of in the present. The illness of 
 this great man, which happened while composing these little gems, made him perhaps more 
 in earnest than when in robust health. Editor's Note, 
 
 ON THE MORALITY TAUGHT BY THE RICH TO THE POOR. 
 As soon as the urchin pauper can totter out of doors, it is taught to pull 
 off its hat, and pull its hair to the quality. " A good little boy," says the 
 squire ; '''there's a ha'penny for you." The good little boy glows with pride. 
 That ha'penny instils deep the lesson of humility. Now goes our urchin to 
 school. Then comes the Sunday teaching before church which enjoins 
 the poor to be lowly, and to honor every man better off than themselves. A 
 pound of honor to the squire, and an ounce to the beadle. Then the boy 
 grows up ; and the Lord of the Manor instructs him thus : " Be a good 
 boy, Tom, and I'll befriend you ; tread in ihe steps of your father ; he was 
 an excellent man, and a great loss to the parish ; he was a very civil, hard- 
 working, well-behaved creature ; knew his station ; mind, and do like 
 him ! "' So perpetual hard labor, and plenty of cringing, make the ances- 
 tral virtues to be perpetuated to peasants till the day of judgment ! Another 
 insidious distillation of morality is conveyed through a general praise of the 
 poor. You hear false friends of the people, who call themselves Liberals, 
 and Tories, who have an idea of morals, half-chivalric, half-past oral, agree 
 in lauding the unfortunate creatures whom they keep at work for them. But 
 mark the virtues the poor are always to be praised for, Industry, Honesty, 
 and Content. The first virtue is extolled to the skies, because Industry 
 gives the rich everything they have ; the second, because Honesty prevents 
 an iota of the said everything being taken away again ; and the third, be- 
 cause Content is to hinder these poor devils from ever objecting to a lot so 
 comfortable to the persons who profit by it. This, my pupils, is the morality 
 taught by the Rich to the Poor ! 
 
 EMULATION. 
 
 The great error of emulation is this, we emulate effects without inquiring 
 into causes ; when we read of the great actions of a man, we are on fire to 
 *He made the giants first, and then he killed them. The Tragedy of Tom Thumb,
 
 TOMLINSONIANA. 421 
 
 perform the same exploits, without endeavoring to ascertain the precise quali- 
 ties which enabled the man we imitate to commit the actions we admire- 
 Could we discover these, how often might we discover that their origin was a 
 ceitain temper of body, a certain peculiarity of constitution, and that, wish 
 \ve for the same success, we should be examining the nature of our bodies, 
 rather than sharpening the faculties of our minds ; should use dumb-bells, 
 perhaps, instead of books; nay, on the other hand, contract some grievous 
 complaint, rather than perfect our moral salubrity. Who should say whether 
 Alexander would have been a hero, had his neck been straight ? or Boileau a 
 satirist, had he never been pecked by a turkey ? It would be pleasant to see 
 you, my beloved pupils, after reading " Quintus Curtius," twisting each 
 other's throat ; or, fresh from Boileau, hurrying to the poultry-yard, in the 
 hope of being mutilated into the performance of a second Lutrin. 
 CAUTION AGAINST THE SCOFFERS OF " HUMBUG." 
 
 My beloved pupils, there is a set of persons in the world daily increasing, 
 against whom you must be greatly on your guard ; there is a fascination about 
 them. They are people who declare themselves vehemently opposed to 
 humbug; fine, liberal fellows, clear-sighted, yet frank. When these senti- 
 ments arise from reflection, well and good, they are the best sentiments in 
 the world ; but many take them up second-hand ; they are very inviting to 
 the indolence of the mob of gentlemen, who see the romance of a noble 
 principle, not its utility. When a man looks at everything through this 
 dwarfing philosophy, everything has a great modicum of humbug. You 
 laugh with him when he derides the humbug in religion, the humbug in poli- 
 tics, the humbug in love, the humbug in the plausibilities of the worid ; but 
 you may cry, my dear pupils, when he derides what is often the safest of all 
 practically to deride, the humbug in common honesty! Men are honest 
 from religion, wisdom, prejudice, habit, fear, and stupidity ; but the few only 
 are wise ; and the persons we speak of deride religion, are beyond prejudice, 
 unawed by habit, too indifferent for fear, and too experienced for stupidity. 
 POPULAR WRATH AT INDIVIDUAL IMPRUDENCE. 
 
 You must know, my dear young friends, that while the appearance of mag- 
 nanimity is very becoming to you, and so forth, it will get you a great deal 
 of ill-will, if you attempt to practise it to your own detriment. Your neigh- 
 bors are so invariably, though perhaps insensibly, actuated by self-interest * 
 self-interest is so entirely, though every twaddler denies it, the axis of the 
 moral worid, that they fly into a rage with him who seems to disregard it. 
 When a man ruins himself, just hear the abuse he receives ; his neighbors 
 take it as a personal affront ! 
 
 DUM DEFLUAT AMNIS. 
 
 One main reason why men who have been great are disappointed, when 
 they retire to private life, is this : memory makes a chief source of enjoyment 
 to those who cease eagerly to hope ; but the memory of the great recalls only 
 that public life which has disgusted them. Their private life hath slipped 
 insensibly away, leaving faint traces of the sorrow or the joy which found 
 them too busy to heed the simple and quiet impressions of mere domestic 
 vicissitude. 
 
 SELF-GLORIFIERS. 
 
 Providence seems to have done to a certain set of persons, who always 
 view their own things through a magnifying medium ; deem their house the 
 
 * Mr. Tomlinson is wrong here, But his ethics were to<j much narrowed to Utilitarian 
 principles. EDIT.
 
 422 TOMLINSONIANA. 
 
 best in the world, their gun the truest, their very pointer a miracle, as 
 Colonel Hanger suggested to economists to ck>, viz., pioviue their servants 
 each with a pair of large spectacles, so that a lark might appear as big as 
 a fowl, and a two-penny loaf as large as quartern. 
 THOUGHT ON FORTUNE. 
 
 It is often the easiest move that completes the game. Fortune is like the 
 lady whom a lover earned off from all his rivals by putting an additional 
 lace upon his liveries. 
 
 WIT AND TRUTH. 
 
 People may talk about fiction being the source of fancy, and wit being at 
 variance with truth ; now some of the wittiest things in the world are witty 
 solely from iheir truth. Truth is the soul of a good saying. " You assert," 
 observes the Sociates of modern times, '' that we have a virtual representa- 
 tion ; very well, let us have a virtual taxation too ! " Here the wit is in 
 the fidelity of the scquitur. When Columbus broke the egg, where was the 
 wit ? In the completeness of conviction in the broken egg. 
 
 AUTO-THEOLOGY. 
 
 Not only every feet but every individual modifies the general attributes 
 of the Deity towards assimilation with his own character : the just man 
 dwells on the justice, the stern upon the wrath ; the attributes that do 
 not please the worshipper he insensibly foigets. Wherefore, O my pupils, 
 you will not smile when you read in Barnes that the pigmies declared Jove 
 himself was a pigmy. The pious vanity of man makes him adore his own 
 qualities under the pretence of worshipping those of his God. 
 GLORIOUS CONSTITUTION. 
 
 A sentence is sometimes as good as a volume. If a man ask you to giv; 
 him some idea of the laws of England, the answer is short and easy : in the 
 laws of England there are somewhere about one hundred and fifty laws by 
 which a poor man may be hanged, but not one by which he can obtain jus- 
 tice for nothing ! 
 
 ANSWER TO THE POPULAR CANT THAT GOODNESS IN A STATESMAN IS 
 BETTER THAN ABILITY. 
 
 As in the world we must look to actions, not motives, so a knave is the 
 man who injures you ; and you do not inquire whether the injury be the 
 fruit of malice or necessity. Place then a fool in power, and he becomes 
 unconsciously the knave. Mr. Addington stumbled on the two very worst 
 and most villanous taxes human malice could have invented, one on medi- 
 cines, the other on justice. What tyrant's fearful ingenuity could afflict us 
 more than by imp^ing at once redress for our wrongs and cure for our 
 diseases ? Mr. Addington was the fool in se, and therefore the knave in 
 office ; but, bless you ! he never meant it ! 
 
 COMMON SENSE. 
 
 Common sense common sense. Of all phrases, all catch-words, this is 
 often the most deceitful and the most dangerous. Look, in especial, suspi- 
 ciously upon common sense whenever it is opposed to discovery. Common 
 sense is the experience of every day. Discovery is something against the 
 experience of every day. No wonder, then, that when Galileo proclaimed 
 a great truth, the universal cry was, " Psha ! common sense will tell you 
 the reverse." Talk to a sensible man, for the first time, on the theory of 
 vision, and hear what his common sense will say to it. In a letter in the time 
 of Bacon, the writer, of no mean intellect himself, says, " It is a pity the
 
 TOMLINSON1ANA. 423 
 
 chancellor should set his opinion against the experience of so many centuries 
 and the dictates of common sense." Common sense, then, so useful in 
 household matters, is Uss useful in the legislative and in the scientific world 
 than it has been generally diemed. Naturally the advocate for what has 
 been tried, and averse to what is speculative, it opposes the new philosophy 
 that appeals to reason, and clings to the old which is propped by sanction. 
 LOVE, AND WRITERS ON LOVE. 
 
 My warm, hot-headed, ardent young friends, ye are in the flower of your 
 life, and wiiting verges about 1 ve, let us saya word on the su ject. There 
 are two specus f love common to all men ana lomost animals ; * one springs 
 from the -enses, the other grows out of custom. Now neither 01 the>e, my dear 
 young friends, is the love that you pretend to fed the love of lovers. Your 
 passion having oniy its foundation (and that unacknowledged) >n the senses, 
 owes everything else to the imagination. Now the imagination of the 
 majority is different in complexion and degree, in every country and in 
 every age ; so al>o, and consequently, is the love of the imagination : as a 
 proof, observe that you sympathize with the romantic love of other times or 
 nations only in proportion as you sympathize with their poetry and imagi- 
 native literature. The love which st.lks through the Arcadia, or Amadis ot 
 Gaul, is to the great bulk of readers coldly insipid, or solemnly ridiculous. 
 Alas when those works excited enthus asm, so did the love which they de- 
 scribe. The long speeches, the icy compliments, expressed the feeling of 
 the day. The live nudrigals of the time of Shenstone, or the brocade gal- 
 lantries of the French poets in the last century, any woman now would con- 
 sider hol'ow or childish, imbecile or artihc al. Once the songs were 
 natural and the love seductive. And now, my young friends, in the year 
 1822, in which I write, and shall probably die, the love which glitters 
 through Moore, and walks so ambitiously ambiguous through the verse of 
 Byron ; the L>ve which you consider now so deep and so true ; the love 
 which tingles through the hearts of your young ladies, and seis you young 
 gentlemen gazing on the evening star ; all that love too will become unfa- 
 miliar or ridiculous to an after-age ; and the young aspirings, and the moon- 
 light dreams, and the vague fiddle-de-dees, which >enow think so touching 
 and so sublime, will go, my dear boys, where Cowley's mistress and Waller's 
 Sacharissa have gone b.-fore ; go with the Sapphos and the Chloes, the 
 elegant " charming fairs," and the chivalric " most beauteous princesses " ! 
 The only 1 >ve-p>>etry that stands through all time and appeals to all hearts, 
 is that which is founded on eitht r or both the species of love natural to all 
 men ; the lve of the senses, and the love of custom. In th - latter is 
 included what middle-aged men call rational attachment, the charm of con- 
 g^nial minds, as well as the homely and wanner accumulation of little 
 memories of simple kindness, or the mere bruie habitude of seeing a face as 
 one would see a chair. These, sometimes singly, sometimes skilfully blended, 
 make the theme of those who have perhaps loved the most honestly and the 
 most humanly ; these yet render Tibullus pathetic, and Ovid a master over 
 tender affections ; and these, above all, make that irresistible and all touching 
 inspiration which subdues the romantic, the calculating, the old, the young, 
 the court ie% the peasant, the poet, the man of business, in the glorious 
 love-poetry of Robert Burns. 
 
 THE GREAT ENTAILED. 
 
 The great inheritance of man is a commonwealth of blunders ; one race 
 spend their lives in botching the errors transmitted to them by another ; and 
 * Most animals ; for some appear insensible to the love of custom.
 
 424 TOMLINSONIANA. 
 
 the main cause of all political, i.e., all the worst and most general, blunders 
 is this, the same rule we apply to individual cases we will not apply to pub- 
 lic. All men consent that swindling for a horse is swindling, they punish 
 the culprit and condemn the fault. But in a state there is no such unan- 
 imity. Swindling, Lord help you ! is called by some fine name, and cheat- 
 ing grows grandiloquent, and styles itself " Policy.'" In consequence of this, 
 there is always a battle between those who call things by their right names, 
 and those who pertinaciously give them the wrong ones. Hence all sorts of 
 confusion ; this confusion extends very soon to the laws made for individual 
 cases ; and thus in old states, though the world is still agieed that private 
 swindling is private swindling, there is the devil's own difficulty in punish- 
 ing the swindling of the public. The art of swindling now is a different 
 thing to the art of swindling an hundred years ago ; but the laws remain the 
 same. Adaptation in private cases is innovation in public ; so, without re- 
 pealing old laws they make new, sometimes these are effectual, but more 
 often not. Now, my beloved pupils, a law is a gun, which if it misses a 
 pigeon always kills a crow, if it does not strike the guilty it hits some one 
 else. As every crime creates a law, so in turn every law creates a crime ; 
 and hence we go on multiplying sins and evils, and faults and blunders, till 
 society becomes the organized disorder for picking pockets. 
 
 THE REGENERATION OF A KNAVE. 
 
 A man who begins the world by being a fool, often ends it by becoming a 
 knave ; but he who begins as a knave, if he be a rich man (and so not 
 hanged), may end, my beloved pupils, in being a pious creature. And this 
 is the wherefore : "a knave early " soon gets knowledge of the world. One 
 vice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors. But wisdom causes us to love 
 quiet, and in quiet we do not sin. He who is wise and sins not can scarcely 
 fail of doing good ; for let him but utter a new truth, and even his imagina- 
 tion cannot conceive the limit of the good he may have done to man ! 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 Do you well understand what a wonderful thing style is? I think not ; 
 for in the exercises you sent me, your styles betrayed that no very earnest 
 consideration had been lavished upon them. Know, then, that you must 
 pause well before you take up any model of style. On your style often de- 
 pends your own character, almost always the character given you by the 
 world. If you adopt the lofty style, if you string together noble phrases 
 and swelling sonora, you have expressed, avowed, a frame of mind which 
 you will insensibly desire to act up to : the desire gradually begets the 
 capacity. The life of Dr. Parr is Dr. Parr's style put in action. And Lord 
 Byron makes himself through existence unhappy for having accidentally 
 slipped into a melancholy current of words. But suppose you escape thi 
 calamity by a peculiar hardihood of temperament, you escape not the stamp 
 of popular opinion. Addison must ever be held by the vulgar the most 
 amiable of men, because of the social amenity of his diction ; and the ad- 
 mirers of language will always consider Burke a nobler spirit than Fox, be- 
 cause of the grandeur of his sentences. How many wise sayings have been 
 called jests because they were wittily uttered ! How many nothings swelled 
 their author into a sage ; ay, a saint, because they were strung together by 
 the old hypocrite nun Gravity ! 
 
 THE END.
 
 EUGENE ARAM
 
 TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. 
 
 SIR: 
 
 IT has long been my ambition to add some humble tribute to the offerings 
 laid upon the shrine of your genius. At each succeeding book that I have 
 given to the world I have paused to consider if it were worthy to be inscribed 
 with your great name, and at each I. have played the procrastinator, and 
 hoped for that morrow of better desert which never came. But defluat 
 amnis, the time runs on, and I am tired of waiting for the ford which the 
 tides refuse. I seize, then, the present opportunity, not as the best, but as 
 the only one I can be sure of commanding, to express that affectionate 
 admiration with which you have inspired me in common with all your con- 
 temporaries, and which a French writer has not ungracefully termed " the 
 happiest prerogative of genius." As a Poet, and as a Novelist, your fame 
 has attained to thai height in which praise has become superfluous ; but in 
 the character of the writer there seems to me a yet higher claim to veneration 
 than in that of the writings. The example your genius sets us, who can 
 emulate ? The example your moderation bequeaths to us, who shall forget ? 
 That nature must indeed be gentle which has conciliated the envy that pur- 
 sues intellectual greatness, and left without an enemy a man who has no 
 living equal in renown. 
 
 You have gone for a while from the scenes you have immortalized, to 
 regain, we trust, the health which has been impaired by your noble labors, 
 or by the manly struggles with adverse fortunes, which have not found the 
 frame as indomitable as the mind. Take with you the prayers of all whom 
 your genius, with playful art, has soothed in sickness or has strengthened, 
 with generous precepts, against the calamities of life.* 
 
 " Navis quz tibi creditum 
 Debes Virgilium 
 Reddas incolumem ! " t 
 
 You, I feel assured, will not deem it presumptuous in one, who, to that 
 bright and undying flame which now streams from the gray hills of Scotland 
 the last halo with which you have crowned her literary glories has turned 
 from his first childhood with a deep and unrelaxing devotion ; you, I feel 
 assured, will not deem it presumptuous in him to inscribe an idle work with 
 your illustrious name a work which, however worthless in itself, assumes 
 something of value in his eyes when thus rendered a tribute of respect to you. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF " EUGENE ARAM." 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 December 22, 1831. 
 
 Written at the time of Sir W. Scott's visit to Italy, after the great blow to his health 
 and fortunes. 
 
 t O ship, thou owest to us Virgil restore in safety him whom we entrusted to thee. 
 
 Ui
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1831. 
 
 SINCE, dear Reader, I last addressed thee, in PAUL CLIFFORD, nearly two 
 years have elapsed, and somewhat more than four years since, in PELHAM, 
 our familiarity first began. The Tale which I now submit to thee differs 
 equally from the last as from the first of those works ; for, of the two evils, 
 perhaps it is even better to disappoint thee in a new style, than to weary 
 thee with an old. With the facts on which the tale of EUGENE ARAM is 
 founded, I have exercised the common and fair license of writers of fiction : 
 it is chiefly the more homely parts of the real story that have been altered ; 
 and for what I have added, and what omitted, I have the sanction of all 
 established authorities, who have taken greater liberties with characters yet 
 more recent, and far more protected by historical recollections. The b ok 
 was, for the most part, written in the early part of the year, when the mer- 
 est which the task created in the Author was undivided by other subjects of 
 excitement, and he had leisure enough not only to be nescio quid meditans 
 nugarum, but also to be to tits in illis ! * 
 
 I originally intended to adapt the story of Eugene Aram to the Stage. 
 That design was abandoned when more than half completed ; but I wished 
 to impart to this Romance something of the nature of Tragedy, something 
 of the more transferable of its qualities. Enough of this : it is not the 
 Author's wishes, but the Author's books, that the world will judge him by. 
 Perhaps, then (with this 1 conclude), in the dull monotony of public affairs, 
 and in these long winter evenings, when we gather round the fire, prepared 
 for the gossip's tale, willing to indulge the fear, and to believe the legend, 
 perhaps, dear Reader, thou mayest turn, not reluctantly, even to these 
 pnges, for at least a newer excitement than the Cholera, or for a momentary 
 relief from the everlasting discussions on 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 December 22, 1831. 
 
 * Not only to be meditating I know not what of trifles, but also to be wholly engaged on 
 them. 
 
 t The yar of the Reform Bill.
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840. 
 
 THE strange history of Eugene Aram had excited my interest and wonder 
 long before the present work was composed or conceived. It so happened, 
 that during Aram's residence at Lynn, his reputation for learning had at- 
 tracted the notice of my grandfather a country gentleman living in the same 
 county, and of more intelligence and accomplishments than, at that day, usu- 
 ally characterized his class. Aram frequently visited at Heydon (my grand- 
 father's house), and gave lessons, probably in no very elevated branches of 
 erudition, to the younger members of the family. This I chanced to hear 
 when I was on a visit in Norfolk, some two years before this novel was pub- 
 lished, and it tended to increase the interest with which I had previously 
 speculated on the phenomena of a trial which, take it altogether, is perhaps 
 the most remarkable in the register of English crime. I endeavored to col- 
 lect such anecdotes of Aram's life and manners as tradition and hearsay still 
 kept afloat. These anecdotes were so far uniform that they all concurred in 
 representing him as a person who, till the detection of the crime for which he 
 was sentenced, had appeared of the mildest character and the most unexcep- 
 tionable morals. An invariable gentleness and patience in his mode of tui- 
 tion qualities then very uncommon at schools had made him so beloved by 
 his pupils at Lynn, that, in after-life, there was scarcely one of them who did 
 not persist in the belief of his innocence. His personal and moral peculiari- 
 ties, as described in these pages, are such as were related to me by persons 
 who had heard him described by his contemporaries : the calm, benign coun- 
 tenance ; the delicate health ; the thoughtful stoop ; the noiseless stp ; the 
 custom, not uncommon with scholars and absent men, of muttering to him- 
 self ; a singular eloquence in conversation, when once roused from silence ; 
 an active tenderness and charily to the poor, with whom he was always ready 
 to share his own scanty means ; an apparent disregard to money, except when 
 employed in the purchase of books ; an utter indifference to the ambition 
 usually accompanying self-taught talent, whether to better the condition or 
 to increase the repute these, and other traits of the character portrayed in 
 the novel, are, as far as I can rely on my information, faithful to the features 
 of the original. 
 
 That a man thus described so benevolent that he would rob his own ne- 
 cessities to administer to those of another, so humane that he would turn 
 aside from the worm in his path should have been guilty of the foulest of 
 human crimes, viz. , murder for the sake of gain ; that a crime thus com- 
 mitted should have been so episodical and apart from the rest of his career ; 
 that, however it might rankle in his conscience, it should never have hard- 
 ened his nature ; that, through a life of some duration, none of the errors, 
 none of the vices, which would seem essentially to belong to a character capa- 
 ble of a deed so black from motives apparently so sordid,* should have been 
 discovered or suspected all this presents an anomaly in human conduct so 
 
 * For I put wholly out of question the excuse of jealousy, as unsupported by any evi- 
 dence never hinted at by Aram himself (at least on any sufficient authority) and at va- 
 riance with the only fact which the trial establishes, viz., that the robbery was the crime 
 planned, and the cause, whether accidental or otherwise, of the murder.
 
 VI PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840. 
 
 rate and surprising, that it would be difficult to find any subject more adapted 
 for that metaphysical speculation and analysis, in order to indulge which, 
 Fiction, whether in the drama or the higher class of romance, seeks its ma- 
 terials and grounds its lessons in the chronicles of passion and crime. 
 
 The guilt of Eugene Aram is not that of a vulgar ruffian ; it leads to views 
 and considerations vitally and wholly distinct from those with which profli- 
 gate knavery and brutal cruelty revolt and displease us in the literature of 
 Newgate and the Hulks. His crime does, in fact, belong to those startling 
 paradoxes which the poetry of all countries, and especially of our own, has 
 always delighted to contemplate and examine. Whenever crime appears the 
 aberration and monstrous product of a great intellect, or of a nature ordi- 
 narily virtuous it becomes not only the subject for genius, which deals with 
 passions, to describe ; but a problem for philosophy, which deals with ac- 
 tions to investigate and solve ; hence, the Macbeths and Richards, the lagos 
 and Othellos. My regret, therefore, is not that I chose a subject unworthy 
 of elevated fiction, but that such a subject did not occur to some one capa- 
 ble of treating it as it deserves : and I never felt this more strongly than 
 when the late Mr. Godwin (in conversing with me after the publication of 
 this romance) observed that " he had always thought the story of Eugene 
 Aram peculiarly adapted for fiction, and that he had more than once enter- 
 tained the notion of making it the foundation of a novel." I can well con- 
 ceive w hat depth and power that gloomy record would have taken from the 
 dark and inquiring genius of the author of Caleb Williams. In fact, the 
 crime and trial of Eugene Aram arrested the attention and engaged the con- 
 jectures of many of the most eminent men of his own time. His guilt or 
 innocence was the matter of strong contest ; and so keen and so enduring 
 was the sensation created by an event thus completely distinct from the ordi- 
 nary annals of human crime, that even History turned aside from the so- 
 norous narrative of the struggles of parties, and the feuds of kings, to com- 
 memorate the learning and the guilt of the humble schoolmaster of Lynn. 
 Did I w^nt any other answer to the animadversions of commonplace criticism, 
 it mkht be sufficient to say that what the historian relates, the novelist has 
 little right to disdain. 
 
 Before entering on this romance, I examined with some care the proba- 
 bilities of Aram's guilt ; for I need scarcely perhaps observe, that the legal 
 evidence against him is extremely deficient furnished almost entirely by one 
 (Houseman) confessedly an accomplice of the crime, and a partner in the 
 booty ; and that, in the present day, a man tried upon evidence so scanty 
 and suspicious would unquestionably escape conviction. Nevertheless, I 
 must frankly own that the moral evidence appeared to me more convincing 
 than the legal ; and, though not without some doubt, which, in common with 
 many, I s'ill entertain of the real facts of the murder,* I adopted that view 
 which, at all events, was the best suited to the higher purposes of fiction. 
 On the whole, I still think that if the crime were committed by Aram, the 
 motive was not very far removed from one which led recently to a remarkable 
 murder in Spain. A priest in that country, wholly absorbed in learned pur- 
 suits, and apparently of spotless life, confessed that, being debarred by ex- 
 treme poverty from prosecuting a study which had become the sole passion of 
 his existence, he had reasoned himself into the belief that it would be ad- 
 missible to rob a very dissolute, worthless man, if he applied the money so 
 obtained to the acquisition of a knowledge which he could not otherwise ac- 
 quire, and which he held to be profitable to mankind. Unfortunately, the 
 
 * See Preface to the Present Edition, p. viii.
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840. VU 
 
 dissolute rich man was not willing to be robbed for so excellent a purpose : 
 he was armed and he resisted a struggle ensued, and the crime of homicide 
 was added to that of robbery. The robbery was premeditated : the murder: 
 was accidental. But he who would accept some similar interpretation of 
 Aram's crime must, to comprehend fully the lessons which belong to so ter- 
 rible ^ picture of frenzy and guilt, consider also the physical circumstances 
 and condition of the criminal at the time : severe illness ; intense labor of 
 the brain ; poverty bordering upon famine ; the mind preternaturally at 
 work, devising schemes and excuses to arrive at the means for ends ardently 
 desired. And all this duly considered, the reader may see the crime bodying 
 itself out from the shades and chimeras of a horrible hallucination the awful 
 dream of a brief but delirious and convulsed disease. It is thus only that we 
 can account for the contradiction of one deed at war with a whole life blast- 
 ing, indeed, for ever the happiness ; but making little revolution in the pur- 
 suits and disposition of the character. No one who has examined with care 
 and thoughtfulness the aspects of Life and Nature, but muse allow that, in 
 the contemplation of such a spectacle, great and most moral truths must force 
 themselves on the notice and sink deep into ihe heart. The entanglements 
 of human reasoning ; the influence of circumstance up >n deeds ; the perver- 
 sion that may be made, by one self palter with the Fiend, of elements the 
 most glorious : the secret effect of conscience in frustrating all for which the 
 crime was done leaving genius without hope, knowledge without fruit- 
 deadening benevolence into mechanism tainting love itself with terror and 
 suspicion such reflections, leading, with subtler minds, to many more vast 
 and complicated theorems in the consideration of our nature, social and indi- 
 vidual, arise out of the tragic moral which the story of Eugene Arain (were 
 it but adequately treated) could not fail to convey. 
 
 BRUSSELS, 
 
 August, 1840.
 
 PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 
 
 IF none of my prose works have been so attacked as EUGENE ARAM, none 
 have so completely triumphed over attack. It is true that, whether from real 
 or affected ignorance of the true morality of fiction, a few critics may still 
 reiterate the old commonplace charges of " selecting heroes from Newgate," 
 or " investing murderers with interest "; but the firm hold which the v*ork 
 has established in the opinion of the general public, and the favor it has re- 
 ceived in every country where English literature is known, suffice to prove 
 that, whatever its faults, it belongs to that legitimate class of fiction which 
 illustrates life and truth, and only deals with crime as the recognized agency 
 of pity and terror, in the conduct of tmgic nairative. All that I would say 
 farther on this score has been said in the general defence of my writings 
 which I put forth two years ago ; and I ask the indulgence of the reader if 
 I repeat myself : 
 
 " Here, unlike the milder guilt of Paul Clifford, the author was not to im- 
 ply reform to society, nor open in this world atonement and pardon to the 
 criminal. As it would have been wholly in vain to disguise, by mean tam- 
 pering 1 ? with art and truth, the ordinary habits of life and attributes of char- 
 acter, which all record and remembrance ascribed to Eugene Aram, as it 
 would have defeated every end of the moral inculcated by his guilt, to por- 
 tray in the caricature of the murderer of melodrame, a man immersed in 
 study, of whom it was noted that he turned aside from the worm in his path, 
 so I have allowed to him whatever contrasts with his inexpiable crime have 
 been recorded on sufficient authority. But I have invariably taken care that 
 the crime itself should stand stripped of every sophistry, and hideous to the 
 perpetrator as well as to the world. Allowing all by which attention to his 
 biography may explain the tremendous paradox of fearful guilt in a man as- 
 piring after knowledge, and not generally inhumane; allowing that the crime 
 came upon him in the partial insanity, produced by the combining circum- 
 stances of a brain overwrought by in'ense study, disturbed by an excited 
 imagination, and the fumes of a momentary disease of the reasoning faculty, 
 consumed by the desire of knowledge, unwholesome and morbid, because 
 coveted as an end, not a means, added to the other physical causes of mental 
 aberration to be found in loneliness, and want verging upon famine all 
 these, which a biographer may suppose to have conspired to his crime, have 
 never been used by the novelist as excuses for its enormity, nor indeed, lest 
 they should seem as excuses, have they ever been clearly presented to the 
 view. The moral consisted in showing more than the mere legal punish- 
 ment at the close. It was to show how the consciousness of the deed was to 
 exclude whatever humanity of character preceded and belied it from all active 
 exercise all social confidence ; how the knowledge of the bar between the 
 minds of others and his own deprived the criminal of all motive to ambition, 
 and blighted knowledge of all fruit: Miserable in his affections, barren in 
 his intellect ; clinging to solitude, yet accursed in it ; dreading as a danger 
 the fame he had once coveted ; obscure in spite of learning, hopeless in spite 
 of love, fruitless and joyless in his life, calamitous and shameful in his end
 
 PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. IX 
 
 Surely such is no palliative of crime, no dalliance and toying with the grim- 
 ness of evil! And surely, to any oidinary comprehension, any candid mind, 
 such is the moral conveyed by the fiction of EUGENE ARAM."* 
 
 In point of composition EUGENE ARAM is, I think, entitled to rank 
 amongst the best of my fictions. It somewhat humiliates me to acknowledge 
 that neither practice nor study has enabled me to surpass a work written at 
 a very early age, in the skilful construction and patient development of plot ; 
 and though I have since sought to call forth higher and more subtle pas- 
 sions, I doubt if I have ever excited the two elementary passions of tragedy, 
 viz., pity and terror, to the same degree. In mere style, too, EUGENE 
 ARAM, in spite of certain verbal oversights, and defects in youthful taste 
 (some of which I have endeavored to remove from the present edition), 
 appears to me unexcelled by any of my later writings, at least in what I have 
 always studied as the main essential of style in narrative, viz., its harmony 
 with the subject selected, and the passions to be moved ; while it exceeds 
 them all in the minuteness and fidelity of its descriptions of external nature. 
 This indeed it ought to do, since the study of external nature is made a 
 peculiar attribute of the principal character whose fate colors the narrative. 
 I do not know whether it has been observed that the time occupied by the 
 events of the story is conveyed 'hrough the medium of such descriptions. 
 Each description is introduced, not for its own sake, but to serve as a calen- 
 dar marking the gradual changes of the seasons as they bear on to his doom 
 the guilty worshipper of Nature. And in this conception, and in the care 
 with which it has been followed out, I recognize one of my earliest but most 
 successful attempts at the subtler principles of narrative art. 
 
 In this edition I have made one alteration, somewhat more important than 
 mere verbal correction. On going, with maturer judgment, over all the 
 evidences on which Aram was condemned, I have convinced myself, that 
 though an accomplice in the robbery of Clarke, he was free both from the 
 premeditated design and the actual deed of murder. The crime, indeed, 
 would still rest on his conscience, and insure his punishment, as nec- 
 essarily incidental to the robbery in which he was an accomplice, with House- 
 man; but finding my convictions, that in the murder itself he had no share, 
 borne out by the opinion of many eminent laxvyers, by whom I have heard 
 the subject discussed, I have accordingly so shaped his confession to 
 Walter. 
 
 Perhaps it will not be without interest to the reader if I append to this 
 preface an authentic specimen of Eugene Aram's composition, for which I 
 am indebted to the courtesy of a gentleman by whose grandfather it was re- 
 ceived, with other papers (especially a remarkable " Outline cf a New Lexi- 
 con "), during Aram's confinement in York Prison. The essay I select is, 
 indeed, not without value in itself as a very curious and learned illustration 
 of Popular Antiquities, and it serves also to show not only the comprehen- 
 sive nature of Aram's studies, and the inquisitive eagerness of his mind, but 
 also the fact that he was completely self-taught ; for in contrast to much 
 philological erudition, and to passages that evince considerable mastery in 
 the higher resources of language, we may occasionally notice those lesser 
 inaccuracies from which the writings of men solely self-educated are rarely 
 free ; indeed, Aram himself, in sending to a gentleman an elegy on Sir John 
 Armilage, which shows much but undisciplined power of versification, says, 
 " I send this elegy, which, indeed, if you had not had the curiosity to desire, 
 I could not have had the assurance to offer, scarce believing I, who was 
 hardly taught to read, have any abilities to write. 1 ' 
 * A Word to the Public, 1847.
 
 ESSAY BY EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 THE MELSUPPER AND SHOUTING THE CHURN. 
 
 THESE rural entertainments and usages were formerly more general all 
 over England than they are at present ; being become by time, necessity, or 
 avarice, complex, confined, and altered. They are commonly insisted upon 
 by the reapers as customary things, and a part of their due for the toils of 
 the harvest, and complied with by their masters peihaps more thiough regards 
 of interest, than inclination. For should they refuse ti.em the pleasures of 
 this much expected time, this festal night, the youth especially, of bolhsexe-, 
 would decline serving them for the future, and employ their labor for others, 
 who would promise them the rustic joys of the harvest supper, minh and 
 music, dance and song. These feasts appear to be the relics of Pagan cere- 
 monies, or of Judaism, it is hard to say which, and carry in them more 
 meaning and are of far higher antiquity than is generally apprehended. It 
 is true the subject is more curious than important, ai'.d I believe altogether 
 untouched ; and as it seems to be little understood, has been as little adverted 
 to. I do not remember it to have been so much as the subject of a conver- 
 sation. Let us make then a little excursion into this field, for the same 
 reason men sometimes take a walk. Its traces are discoverable at a very 
 great distance of time from ours, nay, seem as old as a sense of joy for the 
 benefit of plentiful harvests and human gratitude to the eternal Creator for 
 his munificence to men. We hear it under various names in different counties, 
 and often in the same county ; as, mehupper, churn supper, harvest supper, 
 harvest home, feast of in-gathering, etc. And perhaps this feast had been 
 long observed, and by different tubes of people, before it became perceptive 
 with the Jews. However, let that be as it will, the custom very lucidly 
 appears from the following passages of S. S., Exod. xxiii. 16, "And the 
 feast of harvest, the first fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in the 
 field." And its institution as a sacred right is commanded in Levit. xxiii. 39 : 
 " When ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast to the 
 Lord. " 
 
 The Jews then, as is evident from hence, celebrated the feast of harvest, 
 and that by precept ; and though no vestiges of any such feast either are or 
 can be produced before these, yet the oblation of the Primitiae, of which this 
 feast was a consequence, is met with prior to this, for we find that, " Cain 
 brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord." Gen. iv. 3. 
 
 Yet this offering of the first fruits, it may well be supposed, was not pe- 
 culiar to the Jews, either at the time of, or after, its establishment by their 
 legislate r ; neither the feast in consequence of it. Many other nations, 
 either in imitation of the Jews, or rather by tradition from their several patri- 
 archs, observed the right of offering their Primitive, and of solemnizing a fes- 
 tival af.er it, in religious acknowledgment for the blessing of harvest, though 
 that acknowledgment was ignorantly misapplied in being directed to a second- 
 ary, not the primary, fountain of this benefit namely to Apollo or the Sun. 
 
 For Callimachus affirms that these Primitive were sent by the people of 
 every nation to the temple of Apollo in Delos, the most distant that enjoyed 
 the happiness of corn and harvest, even by the Hyperboreans in particular, 
 Hymn to Apollo, Ot ftevroi na^afij/v re KOI iepa 6payfia irpurot atrrawwv, 
 " Iking the sacred sheafa, and the mystic offerings." 
 
 Herodotus also mentions this annual custom of the Hyperboreans, re- 
 marking that those of Delos talk of 'Iepa evdede/ieva ev na^afiy irvpuv e 
 "Holy things tied up in sheaf of wheat conveyed from the
 
 THE MELSUPPER AND SHOUTING THE CHURN. XI 
 
 Hyperboreans." And the Jews, by (he command of their law, offered also a 
 sheaf: " And shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of 
 the first fruits of the harvest unto the priest." 
 
 This is not introduced in proof of any feast observed by the people who 
 had harvests, but to show the universality of the custom of offering the 
 Primitiae, which preceded this feast. But yet it may be looked upon as 
 equivalent to a proof ; for as the offering and the feast appear to have been 
 always and intimately connected in countries affording records, so it is more 
 than probable they were connected too in countries which had none, or none 
 that ever survived to our times. An entertainment and gayety were still the 
 concomitants of these rites, which with the vulgar, one may pretty truly sup- 
 pose, were esteemed the most acceptable and material part of them, and a 
 great reason of their having subsisted through such a length of ages, when 
 both the populace, and many of the learned too, have lost sight of the object 
 to which they had been originally directed. This, among many other ceremo- 
 nies of the heathen worship, became disused in some places and retained in 
 others, but still continued declining after the promulgation of the Gospel. la 
 short, there seems great reason to conclude that this feast, which was once 
 sacred to Apollo, was constantly maintained, when a far less valuable cir- 
 cumstance, i.e., shouting the churn, is observed to this day by the reapers, 
 and from so old an era ; for we read of this acclamation, Isa. xvi. 9. " For 
 the shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy harvest is fallen "; and again, 
 ver. 10 ; "And in the vineyards there shall be no singing, their shouting 
 shall be no shouting." Hence then, or from some of the Phoenician colo- 
 nies, is our traditionary " shouting the churn." But it seems these Orientals 
 shouted both for joy of their harvest of grapes, and of corn. We have no 
 quantity of the first to occasion so much joy as does our plenty of the last ; 
 and I do not remember to have heard whether their vintages abroad are 
 attended with this custom. Bread or cakes compose part of the Hebrew- 
 offering (Levit. xxiii. 13), and a cake thrown upon the head of the victim 
 was also part of the Greek offering to Apollo (see Horn. II. a), whose worship 
 was formerly celebrated in Britain, where the May-pole yet continues one 
 remain of it. This they adorned with garlands on May-day, to welcome the 
 approach of Apollo, or the sun, towards the north, and to signify that those 
 flowers were the product of his presence and influence. But, upon the 
 progress of Christianity, as was observed above, Apollo lost his divinity 
 again, and the adoration of his deity subsided by degrees. Yet so perma- 
 nent is custom, that this right of the harvest supper, together with that of 
 the May-pole (of which last see Voss. de Orig. and Prag. Idolatr. \, 2), have 
 been preserved in Britain ; and what had been anciently offered to the god, 
 the reapers as prudently eat up themselves. 
 
 At last the use of the meal of the new corn was neglected, and the supper, 
 so far as meal was concerned, was made indifferently of old or new corn, as 
 was most agreeable to the founder. And here the usage itself accounts for 
 the name of Melsupper where mel signifies meal, or else the instrument called 
 with us a Mell, wherewith antiquity reduced their corn to meal in a mortar 
 (which still amounts to the same thing) for provisions of meal, or of corn in 
 furmity, etc.. composed by far the greatest part in these elder and country 
 entertainments, perfectly conformable to the simplici'y of those times, places, 
 and persons, however meanly they may now be looked upon. And as the 
 harvest was last concluded with several preparations of meal, or brought to be 
 ready for the mell, this term became, in a translated signification, to mean the 
 last of other things : as, when a horse comes last in the race, they often say 
 in the north, " He has got the mell"
 
 Xll ESSAY BY EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 All the other names of this country festivity sufficiently explain themselves, 
 except Churn-supper, and this is entirely different from Melsupper ; but they 
 generally happen so near together, that they are frequently confounded. The 
 Churn-supper was always provided when all was shorn, but the Melsupper 
 after all was got in. And it was called the Churn-supper, because, Irom 
 immemorial times, it was customary to produce in a churn a great quantity 
 of cream, and to circulate it by dishfuls to each of the rustic company, to be 
 eaten with bread. And here sometimes very extraordinary execution has been 
 done upon cream. And though this custom has been disused in many places, 
 and agreeably commuted for by ale, yet it survives still, and that about 
 Whitby and Scarborough in the east, and round about Gisburn, etc. , in 
 Craven, in the west. But, perhaps, a century or two more will put an end to 
 it, and both the thing and name shall die. Vicarious ale is now more ap- 
 proved, and the tankard almost everywhere politely preferred to the Churn. 
 
 This Churn (in our provincial pronunciation Kern) is the Hebrew Kern, np 
 or Keren, from its being circular like most horns : and it is the Latin corona, 
 named so either from radii, resembling horns, as on some very ancient coins, 
 or from its encircling the head ; so a ring of people is called corona. Also 
 the Celtic Koren, Keren, or corn, which continues according to its old pro- 
 nunciation in Cornwall, etc., and our modern word horn is no more than 
 this ; the ancient hard sound of k in corn being softened into the aspirate //, 
 as has been done in numberless instances. 
 
 The Irish Celtae also call a round stone, clogh crene, where the variation is 
 merely dialectic. Hence, too, our crane-berries, i.e. round berries, from this 
 Celtic adjective, cretie, round. 
 
 N. B. The quotations from Scripture in Aram's original MS. were both 
 in the Hebrew character, and their value in English sounds.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1831, iv 
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840 v 
 
 PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION, yiii 
 
 ESSAY BV EUGENE ARAM, x 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The Village. Its Inhabitants. An Old Manor-house, and an English 
 
 Family: Their History, involving a Mysterious Event, .... 17 
 
 II. A Publican, a Sinner, and a Stranger, 25 
 
 III, A Dialogue and an A4arm. A Student's' House, 34 
 
 IV. The Soliloquy, and the Character, of a Recluse. The Interruption, . . 44 
 V. A Dinner at the Squire's Hall. A Conversation between two Retired Men 
 
 with Different Objects in Retirement. Disturbance first introduced into a 
 
 Peaceful Family, .48 
 
 VI. The Behavior of the Student. A Summer Scene. Aram's Conversation 
 
 with Walter, and Subsequent Colloquy with Himself, . 55 
 
 VII. The Power of Love over the Resolution of the Student. Aram becomes a 
 frequent Guest at the Manor-House. : A Walk. Conversation with Dame 
 
 Darkmans. Her History. Poverty and its Effects, 61 
 
 VIII. The Privilege of Genius. Lester's Satisfaction at the Aspect of Events. 
 
 His Conversation with Walter. A Discovery, 72 
 
 IX. The State of Walter's Mind. An Angler and a Man of the World. A 
 
 Companion found for Walter, 77 
 
 X. The Lovers. The Encounter and Quarrel of the Rivals, .... 82 
 
 XI. The Family Supper. The Two Sisters in their Chamber. A Misunder- 
 standing followed by a Confession. Walter's Approaching Departure, and 
 the Corporal's Behavior thereon. The Corporal s Favorite introduced to 
 the Reader. The Corporal proves himself a Subtle Diplomatist, . . 90 
 XII. A Strangle Habit. Walter's Interview with Madeline. Her Generous and 
 Confiding Disposition. Walter's Anger. The Parting Meal. Conversa- 
 tion between the Uncle and Nephew. Walter Alone. Sleep the Blessing 
 of the Young, 103 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 I. The Marriage Settled. Lester's Hopes and Schemes. Gayety of Temper 
 
 a-Good Speculation. The Truth and Fervor of Aram's Love, . . . 112 
 II. A Favorable Specimen of a Nobleman and a Courtier. A Man of Some 
 
 Faults and Many Accomplishments, 114 
 
 III. Wherein the Earl and the Student Converse on Grave but Delightful Mat- 
 
 ters. The Student's Notion of the only Earthly Happiness, . . . 118 
 
 IV. A Deeper Examination into the Student's Heart. The Visit to the 
 
 Castle. Philosophy put to the Trial, rei 
 
 V. In which the Story returns to Walter and the Corporal. The Rencontre 
 with a Stranger, and how the Stranger proves to be not altogether a 
 
 Stranger, 131 
 
 VI. Sir Peter Displayed. One Man of the World Suffers from Another. The 
 
 . Incident of the Bridle begets the Incident of the Saddle ; The Incident 
 
 of the Saddle begets the Incident of the Whip ; The Incident of the 
 
 Whip beg-ets what the Reader must Read to See, 139 
 
 VII. Walter visits Another of his Uncle's Friends. Mr. Courtland's Strange 
 Complaint. Walter learns News of his Father, which Surprises Him. 
 The Change in his Destination, ......... 143 
 
 VIII. Walter's Meditations. The Corporal's Grief and Anger. The Corporal 
 Personally Described. An Explanation with his Master. The Corporal 
 opens himself to the Young Traveller. His Opinions on Love ; on the 
 World ; on the Pleasure and Respectability of Cheating ; on Ladies and 
 a Particular Class of Ladies ; on Authors ; on the Value of Words ; on. 
 Fighting ; 'with sundry other Matters of equal Delectation and Improve- 
 ment. An Unexpected Event, 150 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 I, Fraud and Violence enter even Grassdale. Peter's News. The Lovers' 
 
 Walk. The Reappearance, . . . - . . . x6j 
 
 xiii
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PACK 
 
 II. The Interview between Aram and the Stranger, 169 
 
 III. Fresh Alarm in the Village. Lester's Visit to Aram. A Trait of Delicate 
 
 Kindness in the Student. Madeline. Her Proneness to Confide. The 
 Conversation between Lester and Aram. The Persons by whom it is In- 
 terrupted, 175 
 
 IV. Military Preparations. The Commander and his Men. Aram is Persuaded 
 
 to pass the Night at the Manor-House, 184 
 
 V. The Sisters Alone. The Gossip of Love. An Alarm, and an Event, . . 187 
 
 VI. Aram alone among the Mountains. His Soliloquy and Project. Scene 
 
 between Himself and Madeline, 194 
 
 VII. Aram's Secret Expedition. A Scene worthy the Actors. Aram's Address 
 and Powers of Persuasion or Hypocrisy. Their Result. A Fearful 
 Night. Aram's Solitary Ride Homeward. Whom he Meets by the Way, 
 and what he Sees, ............ 200 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 I. In which we return to Walter. His Debt of Gratitude to Mr. Pertinax 
 
 Fillgrave. The Corporal's Advice, and the Corporal's Victory, . . 216 
 II. New Traces of the Fate of Geoffrey Lester. Walter and the Corporal pro- 
 ceed on a Fresh Expedition. The Corporal is especially Sagacious on the 
 old topic of the World. His Opinions on the Men who claim Knowledge 
 thereof ; On the Advantages Enjoyed by a Valet ; On the Science of Suc- 
 cessful Love ; on Virtue and the Constitution ; on Qualities to be desired 
 in a Mistress, etc. A Landscape, 223 
 
 III. A Scholar, but of a Different Mould from the Student of Grassdale. New 
 
 Particulars concerning Geoffrey Lester. The Journey Recommenced, . 230 
 
 IV. Aram's Departure. Madeline. Exaggeration of Sentiment natural in 
 
 Love. Madeline's Letter. Walter's. The Walk. Two very Different 
 Persons, yet both Inmates of the Same Country Village. The Humors of 
 Life, and its Dark Passions, are found in Juxtaposition everywhere, . . 238 
 V. A Reflection New and Strange. The Streets of London. A Great Man's 
 Library. A Conversation between the Student and an Acquaintance of 
 the Reader's. Its Result, 251 
 
 VI. The Thames at Night. A Thought. The Student reseeks the Ruffian. 
 
 A Human Feeling even in the Worst Soil, 254 
 
 VII. Madeline, her Hopes. A Mild Autumn Characterized. A Landscape. A 
 
 Return, 260 
 
 VIII. Affection : Its Godlike Nature. The Conversation between Aram and 
 
 Madeline. The Fatalist forgets Fate, , . . . . . _ . 264 
 
 IX. Walter and the Corporal on the Road. The Evening sets in. The Gipsy 
 Tents. Adventure with the Horseman. The Corporal Discomfited, and 
 
 the Arrival at Knaresbro', 266 
 
 X. Walter's Reflections. Mine Host. A Gentle Character and a Green Old 
 Age. The Garden, and that which it Teacheth. A Dialogue wherein 
 new Hints towards the wished-for Discovery are Suggested. The Curate. 
 A Visit to a Spot of deep Interest to the Adventurer, 274 
 
 XI. Grief in a Ruffian. The Chamber of Early Death. A Homely yet Momen- 
 tous Confession. The Earth's Secrets. The Cavern. The Accusation, 289' 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 I. Grassdale. The Morning of the Marriage. The Crones' Gossip. The 
 
 Bride at her Toilet. The Arrival, 298 
 
 II. The Student alone in his Chamber. The Interruption. Faithful Love, . 304 
 III. The Justice. The Departure. The Equanimity of the Corporal in Bear- 
 ing the Misfortunes of Other People. The Examination ; Its Result. 
 Aram's Conduct in Prison. The Elasticity of our Human Nature. A 
 Visit from the Earl. Walter's Determination. Madeline. . . . 314 
 
 IV. The Evening before the Trial. The Cousins. The Change in Madeline. 
 
 The Family of Grassdale meet once more Beneath one Roof, . . . 328 
 V. The Trial 335 
 
 VI. The Death. The Prison. An Interview. Its Result, ... .347 
 
 VII. The Confession ; and the Fate . . 353 
 
 VIII. The Traveler's Return. The Country Village once more Visited. Its In- 
 habitants. The Remembered Brook. The Deserted Manor-house. The 
 Churchyard. The Traveller Resumes his Journey. The Country 
 Town. A Meeting of two Lovers after Long Absence and much Sor- 
 row. Conclusion, 368 
 
 ARAM, a Tragedy, ............ 37^
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Ttt. fov, <t>ei-' <j>poviv uf deivbv ev6a fit) rficq 
 
 7(.ilt lf>pOVOVVTl. 
 
 ***** 
 0. Ti 6' lariv ; we dttyuoc laeMjl.v6a. 
 T. *A0ff fj.' f O'IKOVS paara yap TO a6v re 
 av Acdyti 6ioiau Tovpbv, TJV kfioi niBrj. 
 
 OED. TYR., 316-321. 
 
 TEI. Alas ! alas ! how sad it is to be wise, when it is not advantageous 
 to him who is so. 
 
 ******* 
 
 OL. But what is the cause that you come hither sad ? 
 TEI. Dismiss me to my house. For both you will bear your fate easier, 
 and I mine, if you take my advice. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE VILLAGE. ITS INHABITANTS. AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE, AND 
 
 AN ENGLISH FAMILY J THEIR HISTORY, INVOLVING A MYSTERI- 
 OUS EVENT. 
 
 " Protected by the divinity they adored, supported by the earth which 
 they cultivated, and at peace with themselves, they enjoyed the sweets of 
 life without dreading or desiring dissolution." NUMA POMPILIUS. 
 
 IN the county of there is a sequestered hamlet, which I 
 
 have often sought occasion to pass, and which I have never 
 left without a certain reluctance and regret. The place, in- 
 deed, is associated with the memory of events that still retain 
 a singular and fearful interest, but the scene needs not the 
 charm of legend to arrest the attention of the traveller. In 
 
 17
 
 l8 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 no part of the world which it has been my lot to visit, have I 
 seen a landscape of more pastoral beauty. The hamlet, to 
 which I shall here give the name of Grassdale, is situated in 
 a valley, which, for about the length of a mile, winds among 
 gardens and orchards laden with fruit, between two chains of 
 gentle and fertile hills. 
 
 Here, singly or in pairs, are scattered cottages, which be- 
 speak a comfort and a rural luxury less often than our poets 
 have described the characteristics of the English peasantry. 
 It has been observed, that wherever you see a flower in a cot- 
 tage garden, or a bird-cage at the cottage casement, you may 
 feel sure that the inmates are better and wiser than their neigh- 
 bors ; and such humble tokens of attention to something be- 
 yond the sterile labor of life were (we must now revert to the 
 past) to be remarked in almost every one of the lowly abodes at 
 Grassdale. The jasmine here, there the rose or honeysuckle, 
 clustered over the lattice and threshold, not so wildly as to 
 testify negligence, but rather to sweeten the air than exclude 
 the light. Each of the cottages possessed at its rear its plot of 
 ground apportioned to the more useful and nutritious products 
 of nature ; while the greater part of them fenced also from the 
 unfrequented road a little spot for the lupin, the sweet pea, the 
 wallflower, or the stock. And it is not unworthy of remark, 
 that the bees came in greater clusters to Grassdale than to any 
 other part of that rich and cultivated district. A small piece 
 of waste land, which was intersected by a brook, fringed with 
 ozier and dwarf and fantastic pollards, afforded pasture for a 
 few cows and the only carrier's solitary horse. The stream it- 
 self was of no ignoble repute among the gentle craft of the 
 Angle, the brotherhood whom our associations defend in the 
 spite of our mercy ; and this repute drew welcome and period- 
 ical itinerants to the village, who furnished it with its scanty 
 news of the great world without, and maintained in a decor- 
 ous custom the little and single hostelry of the place. Not 
 that Peter Dealtry, the proprietor of The Spotted Dog, was 
 altogether contented to subsist upon the gains of his hospita- 
 ble profession ; he joined thereto the light cares of a small 
 farm, held under a wealthy and an easy landlord ; and being 
 moreover honored with the dignity of clerk to the parish, he 
 was deemed by his neighbors a person of no small accomplish- 
 ment, and no insignificant distinction. He was a little, dry, 
 thin man, of a turn rather sentimental than jocose. A memory 
 well stored with fag-ends of psalms, and hymns (which, being 
 less familiar than the psalms to the ears of the villagers, were
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 19 
 
 more than suspected to be his own composition), often gave 
 a poetic and semi- religious coloring to his conversation, which 
 accorded rather with his dignity in the church than his post 
 at The Spotted Dog. Yet he disliked not his joke, though 
 it was subtle and delicate of nature ; nor did he disdain to 
 bear companionship over his own liquor with guests less gifted 
 and refined. 
 
 In the centre of the village you chanced upon a cottage 
 which had been lately whitewashed, where a certain precise- 
 ness in the owner might be detected in the clipped hedge, and 
 the exact and newly mended style by which you approached 
 the habitation. Herein dwelt the beau and bachelor of the 
 village, somewhat antiquated, it is true, but still an object of 
 great attention and some hope to the elder damsels in the vi- 
 cinity, and of a respectful popularity (that did not, however, 
 prohibit a joke) among the younger. Jacob Bunting so was 
 this gentleman called had been for many years in the king's 
 service, in which he had risen to the rank of corporal, and had 
 saved and pinched together a certain small independence, 
 upon which he now rented his cottage and enjoyed his leisure. 
 He had seen a good deal of the world, and profited in shrewd- 
 ness by his experience ; he had rubbed off, however, all super- 
 fluous devotion as he rubbed off his prejudices ; and though 
 he drank more often than any one else with the landlord of 
 The Spotted Dog, there was not a wit in the place who showed 
 so little indulgence to the publican's segments of psalmody. 
 Jacob was a tall, comely, and perpendicular personage ; his 
 threadbare coat was scrupulously brushed, and his hair punc- 
 tiliously plastered at the sides into two stiff obstinate-looking 
 curls, and at the top into what he was pleased to call a feather, 
 though it was much more like a tile. His conversation had 
 in it something peculiar : generally it assumed a quick, short, 
 abrupt turn, that, retrenching all superfluities of pronoun and 
 conjunction, and marching at once upon the meaning of the 
 sentence, had in it a military and Spartan significance, which 
 betrayed how difficult it often is for a man to forget that he 
 has been a corporal. Occasionally, indeed, for where but in 
 farces is the phraseology of the humorist always the same ? 
 he escaped into a more enlarged and Christianlike method of 
 dealing with the king's English ; but that was chiefly noticeable 
 when from conversation he launched himself into lecture, a 
 luxury the worthy soldier loved greatly to indulge, for much had 
 he seen and somewhat had he reflected ; and valuing himself, 
 which was odd in a corporal, more on his knowledge of the
 
 20 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 world than his knowledge even in war, he rarely missed any 
 occasion of edifying a patient listener with the result of his ob- 
 servations. 
 
 After you had sauntered by the veteran's door, beside which 
 you generally, if the evening were fine, or he was not drinking 
 with neighbor Dealtry, or taking his tea with gossip this or 
 master that, or teaching some emulous urchins the broadsword 
 exercise, or snaring trout in the stream, or, in short, otherwise 
 engaged beside which, I say, you not unfrequently beheld 
 him sitting on a rude bench, and enjoying with half-shut eyes, 
 crossed legs, but still unindulgently erect posture, the luxury 
 of his pipe ; you ventured over a little wooden bridge, beneath 
 which, clear and shallow, ran the rivulet we have before hon- 
 orably mentioned, and a walk of a few minutes brought you to 
 a moderately sized and old-fashioned mansion the manor- 
 house of the parish. It stood at the very foot of the hill ; be- 
 hind, a rich, ancient, and hanging wood, brought into relief 
 the exceeding freshness and verdure of the patch of green 
 meadow immediately in front. On one side the garden was 
 bounded by the village churchyard, with its simple mounds, 
 and its few scattered and humble tombs. The church was of 
 great antiquity ; and it was only in one point of view that you 
 caught more than a glimpse of its gray tower and graceful 
 spire, so thickly and so darkly grouped the yew-tree and the 
 pine around the edifice. Opposite the gate by which you 
 gained the house, the view was not extended, but rich with 
 wood and pasture, backed by a hill, which, less verdant than 
 its fellows, was covered with sheep ; while you saw, hard by, 
 the rivulet darkening and stealing away till your sight, though 
 not your ear, lost it among the woodland. 
 
 Trained up the embrowned paling, on either side of the gate, 
 were bushes of rustic fruit ; and fruit and flowers (through 
 plots of which green and winding alleys had been cut with no 
 untasteful hand) testified, by their thriving and healthful looks, 
 the care bestowed upon them. The main boasts of the garden 
 were, on the one side a huge horse-chestnut tree the largest in 
 the village ; and on the other, an arbor covered without with 
 honeysuckles, and tapestried within by moss. The house, a gray 
 and quaint building of the time of James I., with stone copings and 
 gable roof, could scarcely in those days have been deemed a fitting 
 residence for the lord of the manor. Nearly the whole of the 
 centre was occupied by the hall, in which the meals of the family 
 were commonly held only two other sitting-rooms of very 
 moderate dimensions had been reserved by the architect for
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 21 
 
 the convenience or ostentation of the proprietor. An ample 
 porch jutted from the main building, and this was covered with 
 ivy as the sides of the windows were with jasmine and honey- 
 suckle ; while seats were ranged inside the porch carved with 
 many a rude initial and long-past date. 
 
 The owner of this mansion bore the name of Rowland Lester. 
 His forefathers, without pretending to high antiquity of family, 
 had held the dignity of squires of Grassdale for some two cen- 
 turies ; and Rowland Lester was perhaps the first of the race 
 who had stiired above fifty miles from the house in which each 
 successive lord had received his birth, or the green churchyard 
 in which was yet chronicled his death. The present proprietor 
 was a man of cultivated tastes ; and abilities, naturally not 
 much above mediocrity, had been improved by travel as well 
 as study. Himself and one younger brother had been early 
 left masters of their fate and their several portions. The 
 younger, Geoffrey, testified a roving and dissipated turn. 
 Bold, licentious, extravagant, unprincipled, his career soon 
 outstripped the slender fortunes of a cadet in the family of a 
 country squire. He was early thrown into difficulties, but by 
 some means or other they never seemed to overwhelm him : an 
 unexpected turn a lucky adventure presented itself at the 
 very moment when Fortune appeared the most utterly to have 
 deserted him. 
 
 Among these more propitious fluctuations in the tide of 
 affairs, was, at about the age of forty, a sudden marriage with 
 a young lady of what might be termed (for Geoffrey Lester's 
 rank of life, and the rational expenses of that day) a very com- 
 petent and respectable fortune. Unhappily, however, the lady 
 was neither handsome in feature nor gentle in temper ; and 
 after a few years of quarrel and contest, the faithless husband, 
 one bright morning, having collected in his proper person 
 whatever remained of their fortune, absconded from the con- 
 jugal hearth without either warning or farewell. He left noth- 
 ing to his wife but his house, his debts, and his only child, a 
 son. From that time to the present little had been known, 
 though much had been conjectured, concerning the deserter. 
 For the first few years they traced, however, so far of his fate 
 as to learn that he had been seen once in India ; and that pre- 
 viously he had been met in England by a relation, under the 
 disguise of assumed names : a proof that, whatever his occupa- 
 tions, they could scarcely be very respectable. But, of late, 
 nothing whatsoever relating to the wanderer had transpired. 
 By some he was imagined dead ; by most he was forgotten.
 
 22 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Those more immediately connected with him his brother in 
 especial cherished a secret belief, that wherever Geoffrey 
 Lester should chance to alight, the manner of alighting would 
 (to use the significant and homely metaphor) be always on his 
 legs : and coupling the wonted luck of the scapegrace with the 
 fact of his having been seen in India, Rowland in his heart not 
 only hoped, but fully expected, that the lost one would, some 
 day or other, return home laden with the spoils of the East, 
 and eager to shower upon his relatives, in recompense of long 
 desertion, 
 
 " With richest hand .... barbaric pearl and gold." 
 
 But we must return to the forsaken spouse. Left in this 
 abrupt destitution and distress, Mrs. Lester had only the re- 
 source of applying to her brother-in-law, whom indeed the fugi- 
 tive had before seized many opportunities of not leaving wholly 
 unprepared for such an application. Rowland promptly and 
 generously obeyed the summons : he took the child and the 
 wife to his own home ; he freed the latter from the persecu- 
 tions of all legal claimants ; and, after selling such effects as 
 remained, he devoted the whole proceeds to the forsaken 
 family, without regarding his own expenses on their behalf, ill 
 as he was able to afford the luxury of that self-neglect. The 
 wife did not long need the asylum of his hearth ; she, poor 
 lady, died of a slow fever produced by irritation and disap- 
 pointment, a few months after Geoffrey's desertion. She had 
 no need to recommend her child to his kind-hearted uncle's 
 care. And now we must glance over the elder brother's 
 domestic fortunes. 
 
 In Rowland the wild dispositions of his brother were so far 
 tamed, that they assumed only the character of a buoyant 
 temper and a gay spirit. Ke had strong principles as well as 
 warm feelings, and a fine and resolute sense of honor utterly 
 impervious to attack. It was impossible to be in his company 
 an hour and not see that he was a man to be respected. It was 
 equally impossible to live with him a week and not see that he 
 was a man to be beloved. He also had married, and about a 
 year after that era in the life of his brother, but not for the 
 same advantage of fortune. He had formed an attachment to 
 the portionless daughter of a man in his own neighborhood 
 and of his own rank. He wooed and won her, and for a few 
 years he enjoyed the greatest happiness which the world is 
 capable of bestowing, the society and the love of one in whom 
 we could wish for no change, and beyond whom we have no
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 23 
 
 desire. But what Evil cannot corrupt, Fate seldom spares. A 
 few months after the birth of a second daughter, the young 
 wife of Rowland Lester died. It was to a widowed heart 
 that the wife and child of his brother came for shelter. Row- 
 land was a man of an affectionate and warm heart ; if the blow 
 did not crush, at least it changed him. Naturally of a cheer- 
 ful and ardent disposition, his mood now became more sober 
 and sedate. He shrunk from the rural gayeties and compan- 
 ionship he had before courted and enlivened, and, for the first 
 time in his life, the mourner felt the holiness of solitude. As 
 his nephew and his motherless daughters grew up, they gave 
 an object to his seclusion and a relief to his reflections. He 
 found a pure and unfailing delight in watching the growth of 
 their young minds, and guiding their differing dispositions; 
 and as time at length enabled them to return his affection, and 
 appreciate his cares, he became once more sensible that he had 
 a HOME. 
 
 The elder of his daughters, Madeline, at the time our story 
 opens, had attained the age of eighteen. She was the beauty 
 and the boast of the whole country. Above the ordinary height, 
 her figure was richly and exquisitely formed. So translucently 
 pure and soft was her complexion, that it might have seemed 
 the token of delicate health, but for the dewy redness of her 
 lips, and the freshness of teeth whiter than pearls. Her eyes, 
 of a deep blue, wore a thoughtful and serene expression ; and 
 her forehead, higher and broader than it usually is in women, 
 gave promise of a certain nobleness of intellect, and added dig- 
 nity, but a feminine dignity, to the more tender characteristics 
 of her beauty. And, indeed, the peculiar tone of Madeline's 
 mind fulfilled the indication of her features, and was eminently 
 thoughtful and high-wrought. She had early testified a remark- 
 able love for study, and not only a desire for knowledge, but a 
 veneration for those who possessed it. The remote corner of 
 the country in which they lived, and the rarely broken seclusion 
 which Lester habitually preserved from the intercourse of their 
 few and scattered neighbors, had naturally cast each member 
 of the little circle upon his or her own resources. An accident, 
 some five years ago, had confined Madeline for several weeks, 
 or rather months, to the house ; and as the old Hall possessed 
 a very respectable share of books, she had then matured and 
 confirmed that love for reading and reflection which she had 
 at a yet earlier period prematurely evinced. The woman's 
 tendency to romance naturally tinctured her meditations, and 
 thus, while they dignified, they also softened her mind. Her
 
 44 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 sister Ellinor, younger by two years, was of a character equally 
 gentle, but less elevated. She looked up to her sister as a 
 superior being. She felt pride, without a shadow of envy, for 
 Madeline's superior and surpassing beauty ; and was uncon- 
 sciously guided in her pursuits and predilections by a mind 
 which she cheerfully acknowledged to be loftier than her own. 
 And yet Ellinor had also her pretensions to personal loveliness, 
 and pretensions perhaps that would be less reluctantly acknowl- 
 edged by her own sex than those of her sister. The sunlight 
 of a happy and innocent heart sparkled on her face, and gave a 
 beam it gladdened you to behold to her quick hazel eye, and a 
 smile that broke out from a thousand dimples. She did not 
 possess the height of Madeline, and though not so slender as to 
 be curtailed of the roundness and feminine luxuriance of beauty, 
 her shape was slighter, feebler, and less rich in its symmetry 
 than her sister's. And this the tendency of the physical frame 
 to require elsewhere support, nor to feel secure of strength, 
 perhaps influenced her mind, and made love, and the depend- 
 ence of love, more necessary to her than to the thoughtful and 
 lofty Madeline. The latter might pass through life, and never 
 see the one to whom her heart could give itself away. But 
 every village might possess a hero whom the imagination of 
 Ellinor could clothe with unreal graces, and towards whom the 
 lovingness of her disposition might bias her affections. Both, 
 however, eminently possessed that earnestness and purity of 
 heart which would have made them, perhaps in an equal degree, 
 constant and devoted to the object of an attachment once 
 formed, in defiance of change, and to the brink of death. 
 
 Their Cousin Walter, Geoffrey Lester's son, was now in his 
 twenty-first year ; tall and strong of person, and with a face, if 
 not regularly handsome, striking enough to be generally deemed 
 so. High-spirited, bold, fiery, impatient ; jealous of the affec- 
 tions of those he loved ; cheerful to outward seeming, but rest- 
 less, fond of change, and subject to the melancholy and pining 
 mood common to young and ardent minds: such was the char- 
 acter of Walter Lester. The estates of Lester were settled in 
 the male line, and devolved therefore upon him. Yet there 
 were moments when he keenly felt his orphan and deserted sit- 
 uation ; and sighed to think that, while his father perhaps yet 
 lived, he was a dependent for affection, if not for maintenance, 
 on the kindness of others. This reflection sometimes gave an 
 air of sullenness or petulance to his character, that did not 
 really belong to it. For what in the world makes a man of just 
 pride appear so unamiable as the sense of dependence !
 
 EUGENE 'ARAM. 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A PUBLICAN, A SINNER, AND A STRANGER. 
 
 . " Ah, Don Alphonso, is it you ? Agreeable accident ! Chance presents 
 you to my eyes where you were least expected." Gil Bias. 
 
 IT was an evening in the beginning of summer, and Peter 
 Dealtry and the ci-devant corporal sat beneath the sign of The 
 Spotted Dog (as it hung motionless from the bough of a 
 friendly elm), quaffing a cup of boon companionship. The 
 reader will imagine the two men very different from each other 
 in form and aspect ; the one short, dry, fragile, and betraying 
 a love of ease in his unbuttoned vest, and a certain lolling, see- 
 sawing method of balancing his body upon his chair ; the other, 
 erect and solemn, and as steady on his seat as if he were nailed 
 to it. It was a fine, tranquil, balmy evening ; the sun had just 
 set, and the clouds still retained the rosy tints which they had 
 caught from its parting ray. Here and there, at scattered in- 
 tervals, you might see the cottages peeping from the trees 
 around them ; or mark the smoke that rose from their roofs 
 roofs green with mosses and house-leek in graceful and spiral 
 curls against the clear soft air. It was an English scene, and 
 the two men, the dog at their feet (for Peter Dealtry favored a 
 wiry stone-colored cur, which he called a terrier), and just at 
 the door of the little inn, two old gossips, loitering on the 
 threshold, in familiar chat with the landlady in cap and ker- 
 chief, all together made a group equally English, and some- 
 what picturesque, though homely enough, in effect. 
 
 " Well, now," said Peter Dealtry, as he pushed the brown jug 
 towards the corporal, " this is what I call pleasant ; it puts me 
 in mind " 
 
 "Of what ? " quoth the corporal. 
 
 " Of those nice lines in the hymn, Master Bunting : 
 
 ' How fair ye are, ye little hills : 
 Ye little fields also : 
 
 Ye murmuring' streams that sweetly run ; 
 Ye willows in a row ! ' 
 
 There is something very comfortable in sacred verses, Master 
 Bunting : but you're a scoffer." 
 
 " Psha, man ! " said the corporal, throwing out his right leg 
 and leaning back with his eyes half shut, and his chin pro- 
 truded, as he took an unusually long inhalation from his pipe.
 
 26 EUGENE* ARAM. 
 
 " Psha, man ! send verses to the right-about fit for girls 
 going to school of a Sunday ; full-grown men more up to snuff. 
 I've seen the world, Master Dealtry ; the world, and be d d 
 to you ! Augh ! " 
 
 " Fie, neighbor, fie ! What's the good of profaneness, evil 
 speaking, and slandering ? 
 
 ' Oaths are the debts your spendthrift soul must pay ; 
 All scores are chalk'd against the reckoning day.' 
 
 Just wait a bit, neighbor ; wait till I light my pipe." 
 
 " Tell you what," said the corporal, after he had communi- 
 cated from his own pipe the friendly flame to his comrade's ; 
 " tell you what talk nonsense ; the commander-in'chief's no 
 martinet if we're all right in action, he'll wink at a slip word 
 or two. Come, no humbug hold jaw. D'ye think God would 
 sooner have a snivelling fellow like you in his regiment, than a 
 man like me, clean-limbed, straight as a dart, six fett one 
 without his shoes ? Baugh ! " 
 
 This notion of the corporal's, by which he would have lik- 
 ened the dominion of Heaven to the King of Prussia's body- 
 guard, and only admitted the elect on account of their inches, 
 so tickled mine host's fancy, that he leaned back in his chair 
 and indulged in a long, dry, obstreperous cachinnation. This 
 irreverence mightily displeased the corporal. He looked at 
 the little man very sourly, and said in his least smooth accen- 
 tuation : 
 
 " What devil cackling at ? Always grin, grin, grin giggle, 
 giggle, giggle psha ! " 
 
 " Why really, neighbor," said Peter, composing himself, "you 
 must let a man laugh now and then." 
 
 " Man ! "said the corporal ; " mans a noble animal ! Man's 
 a musket, primed, loaded, ready to save a friend or kill a foe 
 charge not to be wasted on every torn-tit. But you ! not a 
 musket, but a cracker! noisy, harmless, can't touch you, but 
 off you go, whizz, pop, bang in one's face ! Baugh ! " 
 
 " Well ! " said the good-humored landlord, " I should think 
 Master Aram, the great scholar who lives down the vale yon- 
 der, a man quite after your own heart. He is grave enough to 
 suit you. He does not laugh very easily, I fancy." 
 
 " After my heart ? Stoops like a bow ! " 
 
 " Indeed he does look on the ground when he walks ; when 
 I think, I do the same. But what a marvellous man it is ! I 
 hear that he reads the Psalms in Hebrew. He's very affable 
 and meek-like for such ascholard."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 2J 
 
 " Tell you what. Seen the world, Master Dealtry, and know 
 a thing or two. Your shy dog is always a deep one. Give me 
 a man who looks me in the face as he would a cannon ! " 
 
 " Or a lass," said Peter knowingly. 
 
 The grim corporal smiled. 
 
 " Talking of lasses," said the soldier, re-filling his pipe, 
 "what creature Miss Lester is ! Such eyes ! such nose! Fit 
 for a colonel, by Gad ! ay, or a major-general ! " 
 
 " For my part, I think Miss Ellinor almost as handsome ; not 
 so grand-like, but more lovesome." 
 
 " Nice little thing ! " said Lie corporal condescendingly. " But 
 zooks ! whom have we here ?" 
 
 This last question was applied to a man who was slowly turning 
 from the road towards the inn. The stranger, for such he was, 
 was stout, thick-set, and of middle height. His dress was not 
 without pretension to a rank higher than the lowest ; but it was 
 threadbare and worn, and soiled with dust and travel. His ap- 
 pearance was by no means prepossessing ; small sunken eyes 
 of a light hazel, and a restless and rather fierce expression ; a 
 thick flat nose, high cheek-bones, a large bony jaw from which 
 the flesh receded, and a bull throat indicative of great 
 strength, constituted his claims to personal attraction. The 
 stately corporal, without moving, kept a vigilant and suspicious 
 eye upon the new comer, muttering to Peter : " Customer for 
 you ; rum customer too, by Gad ! " 
 
 The stranger now reached the little table, and halting short 
 took up the brown jug, without ceremony or preface, and 
 emptied it at a draught. 
 
 The corporal stared the corporal frowned ; but before 
 for he was somewhat slow of speech he had time to vent his 
 displeasure, the stranger, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, 
 said, in rather a civil and apologetic tone : 
 
 " I beg pardon, gentlemen. I have had a long march of it, 
 and very tired I am." 
 
 " Humph ! march ! " said the corporal, a little appeased : 
 '' not in his Majesty's service eh ? " 
 
 " Not now," answered the traveller ; then, turning round to 
 Dealtry, he said : " Are you landlord here ?" 
 
 " At your service," said Peter, with the indifference of a man 
 well-to-do, and not ambitious of halfpence. 
 
 " Come, then, quick budge," said the traveller, tapping him 
 on the back : '' bring more glasses another jug of the Octo- 
 ber ; and anything or everything your larder is able to pro- 
 duce ; d'ye hear ? "
 
 28 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Peter, by no means pleased with the briskness of this address, 
 eyed the dusty and wayworn pedestrian from head to foot ; 
 then, looking over his shoulder towards the door, he said, as he 
 ensconced himself yet more firmly on his seat : 
 
 " There's my wife by the door, friend ; go, tell her what you 
 want." 
 
 "Do you know," said the traveller, in a slow and measured 
 accent : " Do you know, Master Shrivel-face, that I have more 
 than half a mind to break your head for impertinence ? You 
 a landlord ! You keep an inn, indeed ! Come, sir, make off, 
 or" 
 
 "Corporal ! corporal ! " cried Peter, retreating hastily from 
 his seat as the brawny traveller approached menacingly to- 
 wards him : "You won't see the peace broken. Have a care, 
 friend, have a care. I'm clerk to the parish clerk to the par- 
 ish, sir and I'll indict you for sacrilege." 
 
 The wooden features of Bunting relaxed into a sort of grin 
 at the alarm of his friend. He puffed away without making 
 any reply ; meanwhile the traveller, taking advantage of Peter's 
 hasty abandonment of his cathedrarian accommodation, seized 
 the vacant chair, and drawing it yet closer to the table, flung 
 himself upon it, and placing his hat on the table, wiped his 
 brows with the air of a man about to make himself thoroughly 
 at home. 
 
 Peter Dealtry was assuredly a personage of peaceable dispo- 
 sition ; but then he had the proper pride of a host and a clerk. 
 His feelings were exceedingly wounded at this cavalier treat- 
 ment : before the very eyes of his wife, too ! What an exam- 
 ple ! He thrust his hands deep into his breeches' pockets, and 
 strutting with a ferocious swagger towards the traveller, he said : 
 
 " Harkye, sirrah ! This is not the way folks are treated in 
 this country : and I'd have you to know, that I'm a man what 
 has a brother a constable." 
 
 " Well, sir ! " 
 
 " Well, sir, indeed ! Well ! Sir, it's not well, by no manner 
 of means ; and if you don't pay for the ale you drank, and go 
 quietly about your business, I'll have you put in the stocks for 
 a vagrant." 
 
 This, the most menacing speech Peter Dealtry was ever 
 known to deliver, was uttered with so much spirit, that the 
 corporal, who had hitherto preserved silence for he was too 
 strict a disciplinarian to thrust himself unnecessarily into 
 brawls, turned approvingly round, and nodding as well 
 as his stock would suffer him at the indignant Peter, he said,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 29 
 
 'Well done ! fegs you've a soul, man ! a soul fit for the 
 Forty-second ! Augh ! A soul above the inches of five feet 
 two! " 
 
 There was something bitter and sneering in the traveller's 
 aspect as he now, regarding Dealtry, repeated : 
 
 " Vagrant ! humph ! And pray, what is a vagrant ? " 
 
 " What is a vagrant ? " echoed Peter, a little puzzled. 
 
 "Yes ! answer me that." 
 
 " Why, a vagrant is a man what wanders, and what has no 
 money." 
 
 "Truly," said the stranger smiling, but the smile by no 
 means improved his physiognomy, "an excellent definition ; 
 but one which, I will convince you, does not apply to me." So 
 saying, he drew from his pocket a handful of silver coins, and 
 throwing them on the table, added: "Come, let's have no 
 more of this. You see I can pay for what I order ; and now, 
 do recollect that I am a weary and hungry man." 
 
 No sooner did Peter behold the money, than a sudden pla- 
 cidity stole over his ruffled spirit ; nay, a certain benevolent 
 commiseration for the fatigue and wants of the traveller re- 
 placed at once, and as by a spell, the angry feelings that had 
 previously roused him. 
 
 "Weary and hungry," said he ; "Why did not you say that 
 before ? That would have been quite enough for Peter Deal- 
 try. Thank heaven ! I am a man what can feel for my neigh- 
 bors. I have bowels yes, I have bowels. Weary and hungry ! 
 You shall be served in an instant. I may be a little hasty or so, 
 but I'm a good Christian at bottom ask the corporal. 
 And what says the the Psalmist, Psalm 147 ? 
 
 ' By Him, the beasts that loosely range 
 
 With timely food are fed : 
 He speaks the word and what he wills 
 Is done as soon as said.' " 
 
 Animating his kindly emotions by this apt quotation, Peter 
 turned to the house. The corporal now broke silence : the 
 sight of the money had not been without an effect upon him as 
 well as the landlord. 
 
 " Warm day, sir your health. Oh ! forgot you emptied 
 jug baugh ! You said you were not now in his Majesty's ser- 
 vice : beg pardon, were you ever ? " 
 
 " Why, once I was many years ago." 
 
 "Ah ! And what regiment ? I was in the Forty-second. 
 Heard of the Forty-second? Colonel's name Dysart ; captain's 
 Trotter ; corporal's, Bunting, at your service."
 
 30 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " I am much obliged by your confidence," said the traveller 
 drily. " I dare say you have seen much service." 
 
 " Service ! Ah ! may well say that twenty-three years' 
 hard work ; and not the better for it ! A man that loves his 
 country is 'titled to a pension ; that's my mind ! But the 
 world don't smile upon corporals augh .' " 
 
 Here Peter reappeared with a fresh supply of the October, 
 and an assurance that the cold meat would speedily follow. 
 
 " I hope yourself and this gentleman will bear me company," 
 said the traveller, passing the jug to the corporal ; and in a 
 few moments, so well pleased grew the trio with each other, 
 that the sound of their laughter came loud and frequent to the 
 ears of the good housewife within. 
 
 The traveller now seemed to the corporal and mine host a 
 right jolly, good-humored fellow. Not, however, that he bore 
 a fair share in the conversation ; he rather promoted the hilar- 
 ity of his new acquaintances than led it. He laughed heartily 
 at Peter's jests, and the corporal's repartees ; and the latter by 
 degrees assuming the usual sway he bore in the circles of the 
 village, contrived, before the viands were on the table, to mo- 
 nopolize the whole conversation. 
 
 The traveller found in the repast a new excuse for silence. 
 He ate with a most prodigious and most contagious appetite ; 
 and in a few seconds the knife and fork of the corporal were 
 as busily engaged as if he had only three minutes to spare be- 
 tween a march and a dinner. 
 
 " This is a pretty retired spot," quoth the traveller, as at length 
 he finished his repast, and threw himself back on his chair "a 
 very pretty spot. Whose neat old-fashioned house was that I 
 passed on the green, with the gable-ends and the flower-pots 
 in front ? " 
 
 "Oh, the squire's," answered Peter. "Squire Lester's, an 
 excellent gentleman." 
 
 " A rich man, I should think, for these parts ; the best house 
 I have seen for some miles," said the stranger carelessly. 
 
 " Rich ! Yes, he is well-to-do ; he does not live so as not to 
 have money to lay by." 
 
 " Any family?" 
 
 " Two daughters and a nephew." 
 
 "And the nephew does not ruin him? Happy uncle ! Mine 
 was not so lucky ! " said the traveller. 
 
 " Sad fellows we soldiers in our young days ! " observed the 
 corporal with a wink. " No, Squire Walter's a good young 
 man, a pride to his uncle ! "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 31 
 
 "So," said the pedestrian, "they are not forced to keep up 
 a large establishment and ruin themselves by a retinue of 
 servants ? Corporal, the jug." 
 
 " Nay ! " said Peter, " Squire Lester's gate is always open to 
 the poor ; but as for show, he leaves that to my lord at the 
 castle." 
 
 " The castle ! where's that ? " 
 
 "About six miles off ; you've heard of my Lord , I'll 
 
 swear." 
 
 "Ay, to be sure a courtier. But who else lives about here? 
 I mean, who are the principal persons, barring the corporal 
 and yourself Mr. Eelpry, I think our friend here calls you." 
 
 " Dealtry, Peter Dealtry, sir, is my name. Why, the most 
 noticeable man, you must know, is a great scholard, a wonder- 
 fully learned man ; there yonder, you may just catch a glimpse 
 of the tall what-d'ye-call-it he has built out on the top of his 
 house, that he may get nearer to the stars. He has got glasses 
 by which I've heard that you may see the people in the moon 
 walking on their heads ; but I can't say as I believe all I hear." 
 
 " You are too sensible for that, I'm sure. But this scholar, 
 I suppose, is not very rich ; learning does not clothe men 
 nowadays eh, corporal ? " 
 
 " And why should it ? Zounds, can it teach a man how to 
 defend his country ? Old England wants soldiers, and be d d 
 to them ! But the man's well enough, I must own,civil,modest " 
 
 "And not by no means a beggar," added Peter ; "he gave 
 as much to the poor last winter as the squire himself." 
 
 "Indeed," said the stranger ; "this scholar is rich, then? " 
 
 "So, so ; neither one nor t'other. But if he were as rich as 
 my lord, he could not be more respected ; the greatest folks 
 in the country come in their carriages and four to see him. 
 Lord bless you ! there is not a name more talked on in the 
 whole county than Eugene Aram." 
 
 " What ! " cried the traveller, his countenance changing as 
 he sprang from his seat ; " What ! Aram ! Did you say 
 Aram ? Great God ! how strange ! " 
 
 Peter, not a little startled by the abruptness and vehemence 
 of his guest, stared at him with open mouth, and even the 
 corporal involuntarily took his pipe from his lips. 
 
 " What ! " said the former, " you know him, do you ? You've 
 heard of him, eh ?" 
 
 The stranger did not reply ; he seemed lost in a revery ; he 
 muttered inaudible words between his teeth ; now he strode 
 two steps forward, clenching his hands ; r.o\v smiled grimly ;
 
 32 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and then returning to his seat, threw himself on it, still in 
 silence. The soldier and the clerk exchanged looks, and now 
 outspake the corporal : 
 
 " Rum tantrums ! What the devil ! did the man eat your 
 grandmother ? " 
 
 Roused perhaps by so pertinent and sensible a question, the 
 stranger lifted his head from his breast, and said with a forced 
 smile : " You have done me, without knowing it, a great 
 kindness, my friend. Eugene Aram was an early and intimate 
 acquaintance of mine ; we have not met for many years. I 
 never guessed that he lived in these parts ; indeed I did not 
 know where he resided. I am truly glad to think I have 
 lighted upon him thus unexpectedly."- 
 
 " What ! you did not know where he lived ? Well, I thought 
 all the world knew that ! Why, men from the univarsities 
 have come all the way merely to look at the spot." 
 
 " Very likely," returned the stranger ; " but I am not a learned 
 man myself, and what is celebrity in one set is obscurity in 
 another. Besides, I have never been in this part of the world 
 before ! " 
 
 Peter was about to reply, when he heard the shrill voice of 
 his wife behind. 
 
 " Why don't you rise, Mr. Lazyboots ? Where are your 
 eyes ? Don't you see the young ladies? " 
 
 Dealtry's hat was off in an instant, the stiff corporal rose 
 like a musket; the stranger would have kept his seat, .but 
 Dealtry gave him an admonitory tug by the collar ; accordingly 
 he rose, muttered a hasty oath, which certainly died on his lips 
 when he saw the cause which had thus constrained him into 
 courtesy. 
 
 Through a little gate close by Peter's house Madeline and 
 her sister had just passed on their evening walk, and with the 
 kind familiarity for which they were both noted, they had 
 stopped to salute the landlady of The Spotted Dog, as she now, 
 her labors done, sat by the threshold, within hearing of the 
 convivial group, and plaiting straw. The whole family of 
 Lester were so beloved that we question whether my lord him- 
 self, as the great nobleman of the place was always called (as 
 if there were only one lord in the peerage), would have ob- 
 tained the same degree of respect that was always lavished 
 upon them. 
 
 " Don't let us disturb you, good people," said Ellinor, as 
 they now moved towards the boon companions ; when her eye 
 suddenly falling on the stranger, she stopped short. There
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 33 
 
 was something in his appearance, and especially in the ex- 
 pression of his countenance at that moment, which no one 
 could have marked for the first time without apprehension and 
 distrust ; and it was so seldom that, in that retired spot, the 
 young ladies encountered even one unfamiliar face, that the 
 effect the stranger's appearance might have produced on any 
 one might well be increased for them to a startling and pain- 
 ful degree. The traveller saw at once the sensation he had 
 created ; his brow lowered, and the same unpleasant smile, or 
 rnther sneer, that we had noted before, distorted his lip, as 
 with affected humility he made his obeisance. 
 
 " How ! A stranger ! " said Madeline, sharing, though in a 
 less degree, the feelings of her sister ; and then, after a pause, 
 she said, as she glanced over his garb, " not in distress, I 
 hope?" 
 
 " No, madam ! " said the stranger ; "if by distress is meant 
 beggary, I am in all respects, perhaps, better than I seem." 
 
 There was a general titter from the corporal, my host, and 
 his wife, at the traveller's semi-jest at his own unprepossessing 
 appearance ; but Madeline, a little disconcerted, bowed hastily, 
 and drew her sister away. 
 
 " A proud quean ! " said the stranger, as he reseated himself 
 and watched the sisters gliding across the green. 
 
 All mouths were opened against him immediately. He found 
 it no easy matter to make his peace, and before he had quite 
 done it, he called for his bill, and rose to depart. 
 
 " Well ! " said he, as he tendered his hand to the corporal, 
 " we may meet again, and enjoy together some more of your 
 good stories. Meanwhile, which is my way to this this fa- 
 mous scholar's ? Ehem ! " 
 
 "Why," quoth Peter, "you saw the direction in which the 
 young ladies went ; you must take the same. Cross the stile 
 you will find at the right ; wind along the foot of the hill for 
 about three parts of a mile, and you will then see in the mid- 
 dle of a broad plain a lonely gray house, with a thingumbob at 
 the top ; a servatory they call it. That's Master Aram's." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 "And a very pretty walk it is, too," said the dame, "the 
 prettiest hereabouts to my liking, till you get to the house at 
 least ; and so the young ladies think, for it's their usual walk 
 every evening ! " 
 
 " Humph, then I may meet them." 
 
 "Well, and if you do, make yourself look as Christian-like as 
 you can," retorted the hostess.
 
 34 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 There was a second grin at the ill-favored traveller's ex- 
 pense, amidst which he went his way. 
 
 " An odd chap ! " said Peter, looking after the sturdy form 
 of the traveller. " I wonder what he is ; he seems well edi- 
 cated makes use of good words." 
 
 " What sinnifies," said the corporal, who felt a sort of fellow- 
 feeling for his new acquaintance's bluffness of manner ; "what 
 sinnifies what he is ? Served his country, that's enough ; 
 never told me, by the by, his regiment ; set me a talking, and 
 let out nothing himself ; old soldier, every inch of him ! " 
 
 " He can take care of number one," said Peter. " How he 
 emptied the jug ! and, my stars ! what an appetite ! " 
 
 " Tush," said the corporal, "hold jaw. Man of the world 
 man of the world that's clear." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A DIALOGUE AND AN ALARM. A STUDENT'S HOUSE. 
 
 " A fellow by the hand of Nature marked, 
 Quoted, and signed, to do a deed of shame." 
 
 SHAKSPEARE : King John. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " He is a scholar, if a man may trust 
 The liberal voice of Fame, in her report. 
 
 * * * * 
 Myself was once a student, and indeed 
 Fed with the self-same humor he is now." 
 
 BEN JONSON : Every Man in his Humor. 
 
 THE two sisters pursued their walk along a scene which 
 might well be favored by their selection. No sooner had they 
 crossed the stile than the village seemed vanished into earth ; 
 so quiet, so lonely, so far from the evidence of life was the 
 landscape through which they passed. On their right sloped 
 a green and silent hill, shutting out all view beyond itself, save 
 the deepening and twilight sky ; to the left, and immediately 
 along their road, lay fragments of stone, covered with moss, or 
 shadowed by wild shrubs, that here and there gathered into 
 copses, or breaking abruptly away from the rich sod, left fre- 
 quent spaces through which you caught long vistas of forest- 
 land, or the brooklet gliding in a noisy and rocky course, and 
 breaking into a thousand tiny waterfalls or mimic eddies. So 
 secluded was the scene, and so unwitnessing of cultivation
 
 EUGENE *RAM. 35 
 
 that you would not have believed that a human habitation 
 could be at hand, and this air of perfect solitude and quiet 
 gave an additional charm to the spot. 
 
 "But I assure you," said Ellinor, earnestly continuing a con- 
 versation they had begun. " I assure you I was not mistaken : 
 I saw it as plainly as I see you." 
 
 "What, in the breast-pocket?" 
 
 " Yes, as he drew out his handkerchief, I saw the barrel of 
 the pistol quite distinctly." 
 
 " Indeed ! I think we had better tell my father as soon as 
 we get home ; it may be as well to be on our guard, though rob- 
 bery, I believe, has not been heard of in Grassdale for these 
 twenty years." 
 
 *' Yet for what purpose, save that of evil, could he, in these 
 peaceable times and this peaceable country, carry firearms 
 about him ? And what a countenance ! Did you note the 
 shy and yet ferocious eye, like that of some animal that longs, 
 yet fears, to spring upon you?" 
 
 " Upon my word, Ellinor," said Madeline, smiling, " you 
 are not very merciful to strangers. After all, the man might 
 have provided himself with the pistol which you saw as a nat- 
 ural precaution ; reflect that, as a stranger, he may well not 
 know how safe this district usually is, and he may have come 
 from London, in the neighborhood of which they say robber- 
 ies have been frequent of late. As to his looks, they are, I 
 own, unpardonable ; for so much ugliness there can be no ex- 
 cuse. Had the man been as handsome as our cousin Walter, 
 you would not, perhaps, have been so uncharitable in your 
 fears at the pistol." 
 
 "Nonsense, Madeline," said Ellinor, blushing and turning 
 away her face ; there was a moment's pause, which the younger 
 sister broke. 
 
 "We do not seem," said she, " to make much progress in the 
 friendship of our singular neighbor. I never knew my father 
 court any one so much as he has courted Mr. Aram, and yet 
 you see how seldom he calls upon us ; nay, I often think that 
 he seeks to shun us ; no great compliment to our attractions, 
 Madeline ! " 
 
 " I regret his want of sociability, for his own sake," said 
 Madeline ; " for he seems melancholy as well as thoughtful ; 
 and he leads so secluded a life that I cannot but think my 
 father's conversation and society, if he would but encourage it, 
 might afford some relief to his solitude." 
 
 " And he always seems," observed Ellinor, " to take pleas-
 
 36 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 ure in my father's conversation, as who would not ? How 
 his countenance lights up when he converses ? it is a pleasure 
 to watch it. I think him positively handsome when he speaks." 
 
 " Oh, more than handsome ! " said Madeline, with enthusi- 
 asm ; " with that high, pale brow, and those deep, unfathomable 
 eyes." 
 
 Ellinor smiled, and it was now Madeline's turn to blush. 
 
 " Well," said the former, " there is something about him 
 that fills one with an indescribable interest ; and his manner, if 
 cold at times, is yet always so gentle." 
 
 " And to hear him converse," said Madeline, " it is like 
 music. His thoughts, his very words, seem so different from 
 the language and ideas of others. What a pity that he should 
 ever be silent !" 
 
 "There is one peculiarity about his gloom, it never inspires 
 one with distrust," said Ellinor ; "if I had observed him in 
 the same circumstances as that ill-omened traveller, I should 
 have no apprehension." 
 
 "Ah ! that traveller still runs in your head. If we were to 
 meet him on this spot ! " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " cried Ellinor, turning hastily round in 
 alarm, and, lo ! as if her sister had been a prophet, she saw 
 the very person in question, at some little distance behind 
 them, and walking on with rapid strides. 
 
 She uttered a faint shriek of surprise and terror, and Made- 
 line, looking back at the sound, immediately participated in 
 her alarm. The spot looked so desolate and lonely, and the 
 imagination of both had been already so worked upon by 
 Ellinor's fears, and their conjectures respecting the ill-boding 
 weapon she had witnessed, that a thousand apprehensions of 
 outrage and murder crowded at once upon the minds of the 
 two sisters. Without, however, giving vent in words to their 
 alarm, they quickened their pace involuntarily, every moment 
 stealing a glance behind, to watch the progress of the sus- 
 pected robber. They thought that he also seemed to acceler- 
 ate his movements ; and this observation increased their 
 terror, and would appear, indeed, to give it some more rational 
 ground. At length, as by a sudden turn of the road they lost 
 sight of the dreaded stranger, their alarm suggested to them 
 but one resolution, and they fairly fled on as fast as the fear 
 which actuated would allow them. The nearest, and indeed the 
 only, house in that direction, was Aram's ; but they both im- 
 agined if they could come within sight of that, they should be 
 safe. They looked back at every interval ; now they did not
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 37 
 
 see their fancied pursuer; now he emerged again into view ; 
 now yes he also was running. "Faster, faster, Madeline, 
 for God's sake ! he is gaining upon us ! " cried Ellinor. The 
 path grew more wild, and the trees more thick and frequent ; 
 at every cluster that marked their progress they saw the 
 stranger closer and closer ; at length a sudden break a sud- 
 den turn in the landscape a broad plain burst upon them, and 
 in the midst of it the student's solitary abode ! 
 
 ''Thank Heaven, we are safe!" cried Madeline. She 
 turned once more to look for the stranger ; in so doing her 
 foot struck against a fragment of stone, and she fell with great 
 violence to the ground. She endeavored to rise, but found 
 herself, at first, unable to stir from the spot. In this state, 
 however, she looked back, and saw the traveller at some little 
 distance. But he also halted, and after a moment's seeming 
 deliberation, turned aside, and was lost among the bushes. 
 
 With great difficulty Ellinor now assisted Madeline to rise ; 
 her ankle was violently sprained, and she could not put her 
 foot to the ground : but though she had evinced so much 
 dread at the apparition of the stranger, she now testified an al- 
 most equal degree of fortitude in bearing pain. " I am not 
 much hurt, Ellinor," she said, faintly smiling to encourage her 
 sister, who supported her in speechless alarm : " but what is to 
 be done ? I cannot use this foot. How shall we get home ? " 
 
 " But are you sure you are not much hurt ? " said poor 
 Ellinor, almost crying ; " lean on me heavier pray ! V^nly 
 try and reach the house, and we can then stay there till Mr. 
 Aram sends home for the carriage." 
 
 "But what will he think? How strange it will seem ! " said 
 Madeline, the color once more visiting her cheek, which a mo- 
 ment since had been blanched as pale as death. 
 
 " Is this a time for scruples and ceremony ? " said Ellinor. 
 " Come ! I entreat you, come ; if you linger thus, the man may 
 take courage and attack us yet. There ! that's right ! is the 
 pain very great t " 
 
 "I do not mind the pain," murmured Madeline ; "but if he 
 should think we intrude ? His habits are so reserved so 
 secluded ; indeed I fear " 
 
 " Intrude ! " interrupted Ellinor. " Do you think so ill of 
 him ? Do you suppose that, hermit that he is, he has not com- 
 mon humanity? But lean more on me, dearest ; you do not 
 know how strong I am ! " 
 
 Thus alternately chiding, caressing, and encouraging her 
 sister, Ellinor led on the sufferer, till they had crossed the.
 
 38 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 plain, though with slowness and labor, and stood before the 
 porch of the recluse's house. They had looked back' from 
 time to time, but the cause of so much alarm appeared no more. 
 This they deemed a sufficient evidence of the justice of their 
 apprehensions. 
 
 Madeline even now would fain have detained her sister's hand 
 from the bell that hung without the porch half imbedded in ivy ; 
 but Ellinor, out of patience as well she might be with her 
 sister's unseasonable prudery, refused any longer delay. So 
 singularly still and solitary was the plain around the house, 
 that the sound of the bell breaking the silence had in it some- 
 thing startling, and appeared, in its sudden and shrill voice, a 
 profanation of the deep tranquillity of the spot. They did not 
 wait long ; a step was heard within ; the door was slowly un- 
 barred, and the student himself stood before them. 
 
 He was a man who might, perhaps, have numbered some 
 five and thirty years ; but, at a hasty glance, he would have 
 seemed considerably younger. He was above the ordinary 
 stature ; though a gentle, and not ungraceful bend in his neck, 
 rather than the shoulders, somewhat curtailed his proper 
 advantages of height. His frame was thin and slender, but 
 well knit and fair proportioned. Nature had originally cast 
 his form in an athletic mould ; but sedentary habits, and the 
 wear of mind, seemed somewhat to have impaired her gifts. 
 His cheek was pale and delicate ; yet was rather the delicacy 
 of thought than weak health. His hair, which was long, and 
 of a rich and deep brown, was thrown back from his face and 
 temples, and left a broad, high, majestic forehead utterly unre- 
 lieved and bare ; and on the brow there was not a single 
 wrinkle ; it was as smooth as it might have been fifteen years 
 ago. There was a singular calmness, and, so to speak, pro- 
 fundity of thought, eloquent upon its clear expanse, which 
 suggested the idea of one who had passed his life rather in con- 
 templation than emotion. It was a face that a physiognomist 
 would have loved to look upon, so much did it speak both of 
 the refinement and the dignity of intellect. 
 
 Such was the person if pictures convey a faithful resem- 
 blance of a man, certainly among the most eminent in his 
 day for various and profound learning, and especially for a 
 genius wholly self-taught, yet never contented to repose upon 
 the wonderful stores it had laboriously accumulated. 
 
 He now stood before the two girls, silent, and evidently 
 surprised ; and it would have been no unworthy subject for a 
 picture that ivied porch that still spot Madeline's reclining
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 39 
 
 and subdued form and downcast eyes the eager face of Elli- 
 nor, about to narrate the nature and cause of their intrusion 
 and the pale student himself, thus suddenly aroused from his 
 solitary meditations, and converted into the protector of 
 beauty. 
 
 No sooner did Aram learn from Ellinor the outline of their 
 story, and Madeline's accident, than his countenance and 
 manner testified the liveliest and most eager interest. Made- 
 line was inexpressibly touched and surprised at the kindly and 
 respectful earnestness with which this recluse scholar, usually 
 so cold and abstracted in mood, assisted and led her into the 
 house : the sympathy he expressed for her pain ; the sincerity 
 of his tone ; the compassion of his eyes ; and as those dark, 
 and, to use her own thought, unfathomable orbs, bent admi- 
 ringly and yet so gently upon her, Madeline, even in spite of 
 her pain, felt an indescribable, a delicious thrill at her heart, 
 which in the presence of no one else had she ever experienced 
 before. 
 
 Aram now summoned the only domestic his house possessed, 
 who appeared in the form of an old woman, whom he seemed 
 to have selected from the whole neighborhood as the person 
 most in keeping with the rigid seclusion he preserved. She 
 was exceedingly deaf, and was a proverb in the village for her 
 extreme taciturnity. Poor old Margaret ! she was a widow, 
 and had lost ten children by early deaths. There was a time 
 when her gaiety had been as noticeable as her reserve was 
 now. In spite of her infirmity, she was not slow in compre- 
 hending the accident Madeline had met with ; and she busied 
 herself with a promptness which showed that her misfortunes 
 had not deadened her natural kindness of disposition, in pre- 
 paring fomentations and bandages for the wounded foot. 
 
 Meanwhile Aram undertook to seek the manor-house, and 
 bring back the old family coach, which had dozed inactively 
 in its shelter for the last six months, to convey the sufferer 
 home. 
 
 "No, Mr. Aram," said Madeline, coloring ; "pray do not go 
 yourself : consider, the man may still be loitering on the road. 
 He is armed : good heavens ! if he should meet you ! " 
 
 "Fear not, madam," said Aram, with a faint smile, "/also 
 keep arms, even in this obscure and safe retreat ; and to satisfy 
 you, I will not neglect to carry them with me." 
 
 As he spoke, he took from the wainscot, where they hung, a 
 brace of large horse-pistols, slung them round him by a leather 
 belt, and flinging over his person, to conceal weapons so alarm-
 
 40 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 ing to any less dangerous passenger he might encounter, the 
 long cloak then usually worn in inclement seasons, as an outer 
 garment, he turned to depart. 
 
 "But are they loaded ?" asked Ellinor. 
 
 Aram answered briefly in the affirmative. It was somewhat 
 singular, but the sisters did not then remark it, that a man so 
 peaceable in his pursuits, and seemingly possessed of no valu- 
 ables that could tempt cupidity, should in that spot, where 
 crime was never heard of, use such habitual precaution. 
 
 When the door closed upon him, and while the old woman 
 relieved the anguish of the sprain with a light hand and sooth- 
 ing lotions, which she had shown some skill in preparing, 
 Madeline cast glances of interest and curiosity around the 
 apartment into which she had had the rare good fortune to 
 obtain admittance. 
 
 The house had belonged to a family of some note, whose 
 heirs had outstripped their fortunes. It had been long deserted 
 and uninhabited ; and when Aram settled in those parts, the 
 proprietor was too glad to get rid of the incumbrance of an 
 empty house, at a nominal rent. The solitude of the place 
 had been the main attraction to Aram ; and as he possessed 
 what would be considered a very extensive assortment of 
 books, even for a library of these days, he required a larger 
 apartment than he would have been able to obtain in an abode 
 more compact and more suitable to his fortunes and mode 
 of living. 
 
 The room in which the sisters now found themselves was 
 the most spacious in the house, and was indeed of consider- 
 able dimensions. It contained in front one large window, 
 jutting from the wall. Opposite was an antique and high 
 mantelpiece of black oak. The rest of the room was walled 
 from the floor to the roof with books ; volumes of all lan- 
 guages, and it might even be said, without much exaggeration, 
 upon all sciences, were strewed around, on the chairs, the 
 tables, or the floor. By the window stood the student's desk, 
 and a large, old-fashioned oak chair. A few papers, filled with 
 astronomical calculations, lay on the desk, and these were all 
 the witnesses of the result of study. Indeed Aram does not 
 appear to have been a man much inclined to reproduce the 
 learning he acquired ; what he wrote was in a very small pro- 
 portion to what he had read. 
 
 So high and grave was the scholar's reputation, that the 
 retreat and sanctum of so many learned hours would have 
 been interesting, even to one who could not appreciate learn-
 
 ARAM. 41 
 
 ing ; but to Madeline, with her peculiar disposition and traits 
 of mind, we may readily conceive that the room presented a 
 powerful and pleasing charm. As the elder sister looked 
 round in silence, Ellinor attempted to draw the old woman 
 into conversation. She would fain have elicited some particu- 
 lars of the habits and daily life of the recluse ; but the deaf- 
 ness of their attendant was so obstinate and hopeless, that she 
 was forced to give up the attempt in despair. "I fear," she 
 said at last, her good nature so far overcome by impatience as 
 not to forbid a slight yawn ; "I fear we shall have a dull time 
 of it till my father arrives. Just consider, the fat black mares, 
 never too fast, can only creep along that broken path, for 
 road there is none : it will be quite night before the coach 
 arrives." 
 
 " I am sorry, dear Ellinor, my awkwardness should occasion 
 you so stupid an evening," answered Madeline. 
 
 " Oh," cried Ellinor, throwing her arms around her sister's 
 neck, " it is not for myself I spoke ; and, indeed, I am de- 
 lighted to think we have got into this wizard's den, and seen 
 the instruments of his art. But I do so trust Mr. Aram will 
 not meet that terrible man." 
 
 " Nay," said the prouder Madeline, " he is armed, and it is 
 but one man. I feel too high a respect for him to allow my- 
 self much fear." 
 
 " But these bookmen are not often heroes," remarked Ellinor, 
 laughing. 
 
 " For shame," said Madeline, the color mounting to her 
 forehead. " Do you not remember how, last summer, Eugene 
 Aram rescued Dame Grenfeld's child from the bull, though at 
 the literal peril of his own life ? And who but Eugene Aram, 
 when the floods in the year before swept along the low lands 
 by Fairleigh, went day after day to rescue the persons, or even 
 to save the goods, of those poor people ; at a time, too, when 
 the boldest villagers would not hazard themselves across the 
 waters ? But bless me, Ellinor, what is the matter ? you turn 
 pale you tremble." 
 
 " Hush ! " said Ellinor under her breath, and, putting her 
 finger to her mouth, she rose and stole lightly to the window ; 
 she had observed the figure of a man pass by, and now, as she 
 gained the window, she saw him halt by the porch, and recog- 
 nized the formidable stranger. Presently the bell sounded, 
 and the old woman, familiar with its shrill sound, rose from 
 her kneeling position beside the sufferer to attend to the sum- 
 mons. Ellinor sprang forward and detained her ; the poor o!4
 
 42 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 woman stared at her in amazement, wholly unable to compre- 
 hend her abrupt gestures and her rapid language. It was with 
 considerable difficulty, and after repeated efforts, that she at 
 length impressed the dull sense of the crone with the nature 
 of their alarm, and the expediency of refusing admittance to 
 the stranger. Meanwhile, the bell had rung again, again, and 
 the third time, with a prolonged violence which testified the 
 impatience of the applicant. As soon as the good dame had 
 satisfied herself as to Ellinor's meaning, she could no longer be 
 accused of unreasonable taciturnity ; she wrung her hands, 
 and poured forth a volley of lamentations and fears, which 
 effectually relieved Ellinor from the dread of her unheeding 
 the admonition. Satisfied at having done thus much, Ellinor 
 now herself hastened to the door, and secured the ingress with 
 an additional bolt, and then, as the thought flashed upon 
 her, returned to the old woman, and made her, with an easier 
 effort than before, now that her senses were sharpened by fear, 
 comprehend the necessity of securing the back entrance also : 
 both hastened away to effect this precaution, and Madeline, 
 who herself desired Ellinor to accompany the old woman, was 
 left alone. She kept her eyes fixed on the window with a 
 strange sentiment of dread at being thus left in so helpless a 
 situation ; and though a door of no ordinary dimensions and 
 doubly locked interposed between herself and the intruder, 
 she expected, in breathless terror, every instant, to see the 
 form of the ruffian burst into the apartment. As she thus sat 
 and looked, she shudderingly saw the man, tired perhaps of 
 repeating a summons so ineffectual, come to the window and 
 look pryingly within : their eyes met ; Madeline had not the 
 power to shriek. Would he break through the window ? That 
 was her only idea, and it deprived her of words, almost of 
 sense. He gazed upon her evident terror for a moment with 
 a grim smile of contempt : he then knocked at the window, 
 and his voice broke harshly on a silence yet more dreadful 
 than the interruption. 
 
 " Ho, ho ! so there is some life stirring ! I beg pardon, 
 madam, is Mr. Aram Eugene Aram, within?" 
 
 " No," said Madeline faintly ; and then, sensible that her 
 voice did not reach him, she reiterated the answer in a louder 
 tone. The man, as if satisfied, made a rude inclination of his 
 head, and withdrew from the window. Ellinor now returned, 
 and with difficulty Madeline found words to explain to her 
 what had passed. It will be conceived that the two young 
 ladies waited for the arrival of their father with no lukewarm
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 43 
 
 expectation ; the stranger, however, appeared no more ; and in 
 about an hour, to their inexpressible joy, they heard the rum- 
 bling sound of the old coach, as it rolled towards the house. 
 This time there was no delay in unbarring the door. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SOLILOQUY, AND THE CHARACTER, OF A RECLUSE. THE 
 INTERRUPTION. 
 
 ' Or let my lamp at midnight hour 
 Be seen in some high lonely tower, 
 Where I may oft outwatch the Bear, 
 Or thrice great Hermes, and unsphere 
 The spirii of Plato." MILTON: II Penseroso. 
 
 As Aram assisted the beautiful Madeline into the carriage ; 
 as he listened to her sweet voice ; as he marked the grateful 
 expression of her soft eyes ; as he felt the slight yet warm 
 pressure of her fairy hand, that vague sensation of delight 
 which preludes love, for the first time in his sterile and solitary 
 life, agitated his breast. Lester held out his hand to him with 
 a frank cordiality which the scholar could not resist. 
 
 "Do not let us be strangers, Mr. Aram," said he warmly. 
 " It is not often that I press for companionship out of my own 
 circle ; but in your company I should find pleasure as well as 
 instruction. Let us break the ice boldly, and at once. Come 
 and dine with me to-morrow, and Ellinor shall sing to us in 
 the evening." 
 
 The excuse died upon Aram's lips. Another glance at 
 Madeline conquered the remains of his reserve : he accepted 
 the invitation, and he could not but mark, with an unfamiliar 
 emotion of the heart, that the eyes of Madeline sparkled as 
 he did so. 
 
 With an abstracted air, and arms folded across his breast, 
 he gazed after the carriage till the winding of the valley 
 snatched it from his view. He then, waking from his revery 
 with a start, turned into the house, and carefully closing and 
 barring the door, mounted with slow steps to the lofty cham- 
 ber with which, the better to indulge his astronomical re- 
 searches, he had crested his lonely abode. 
 
 It was now night. The heavens broadened round him in all 
 the loving yet august tranquillity of the season and the hour;
 
 44 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the stars bathed the living atmosphere with a solemn light ; and 
 above, about, around 
 
 " The holy time was quiet as a nun 
 Breathless with adoration." 
 
 He looked forth upon the deep and ineffable stillness of the 
 night, and indulged the reflections that it suggested. 
 
 "Ye mystic lights," said he, soliloquizing : "worlds upon 
 worlds infinite incalculable. Bright defiers of rest and 
 change, rolling forever above our petty sea of mortality, as, 
 wave after wave, we fret forth our little life, and sink into the 
 black abyss ; can we look upon you, note your appointed 
 order, and your unvarying courses, and not feel that we are, 
 indeed, the poorest puppets of an all-pervading and resistless 
 destiny ? Shall we see throughout creation each marvel ful- 
 filling its pre-ordered fate no wandering from its orbit, no 
 variation in its seasons and yet imagine that the Arch-ordainer 
 will hold back the tides He has sent from their unseen source, 
 at our miserable bidding ? Shall we think that our prayers 
 can avert a doom woven with the skein of events ? To change 
 a particle of our fate, might change the destiny of millions ! 
 Shall the link forsake the chain, and yet the chain be 
 unbroken ? Away, then, with our vague repinings, and our 
 blind demands. All must walk onward to their goal ; be he 
 the wisest who looks not one step behind. The colors of our 
 existence were doomed before our birth our sorrows and our 
 crimes ; millions of ages back, when this hoary earth was peo- 
 pled by other kinds, yea, ere its atoms had formed one layer 
 of its present soil, the eternal and all-seeing Ruler of the 
 universe, Destiny or God, had here fixed the moment of our 
 birth and the limits of our career. What, then, is crime ? 
 Fate ! What life ? Submission ! " 
 
 Such were the strange and dark thoughts which, too familiar 
 to his musings, now obtruded their mournful dogmas on his 
 mind. He sought a fairer subject for meditation, and Made- 
 line Lester rose before him. 
 
 Eugene Aram was a man whose whole life seemed to have 
 been one sacrifice to knowledge. What is termed pleasure had 
 no attraction for him. From the mature manhood at which he 
 had arrived, he looked back along his youth, and recognized 
 no youthful folly. Love he had hitherto regarded with a cold 
 though not an incurious eye : intemperance had never lured 
 him to a momentary self-abandonment. Even the innocent 
 relaxations with which the austerest minds relieve their accus-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 45 
 
 tomed toils, had had no power to draw him from his beloved 
 researches. The delight monstrari digito ; the gratification of 
 triumphant wisdom ; the whispers of an elevated vanity ; 
 existed not for his self-dependent and solitary heart. He was 
 one of those earnest and high-wrought enthusiasts who now 
 are almost extinct upon earth, and whom Romance has not 
 hitherto attempted to portray ; men not uncommon in the 
 last century, who were devoted to knowledge, yet disdainful of 
 its fame ; who lived for nothing else than to learn. From store 
 to store, from treasure to treasure, they proceeded in exulting 
 labor, and, having accumulated all, they bestowed nought ; 
 they were the arch-misers of the wealth of letters. Wrapped 
 in obscurity, in some sheltered nook, remote from the great 
 stir of men, they passed a life at once unprofitable and glori- 
 ous ; the least part of what they ransacked would appal the 
 industry of a modern student, yet the most superficial of 
 modern students might effect more for mankind. They lived 
 among oracles, but they gave none forth. And yet, even in 
 this very barrenness, there seems nothing high ; it was a rare 
 and great spectacle ; men, living aloof from the roar and strife 
 of the passions that raged below, devoting themselves to the 
 knowledge which is our purification and our immortality on 
 earth, and yet deaf and blind to the allurements of the vanity 
 which generally accompanies research ; refusing the ignorant 
 homage of their kind, making their sublime motive their only 
 meed, adoring Wisdom for her sole sake, and set apart in the 
 populous universe, like those remoter stars which interchange 
 no light with earth gild not our darkness, and color not our air. 
 From his youth to the present period, Aram had dwelt little 
 in cities, though he had visited many, yet he could scarcely be 
 called ignorant of mankind ; there seems something intuitive 
 in the science which teaches us the knowledge of our race. 
 Some men emerge from their seclusion, and find, all at once, a 
 power to dart into the minds and drag forth the motives of 
 those they see ; it is a sort of second sight, born with them, no; 
 acquired. And Aram, it may be, rendered yet more acute by 
 his profound and habitual investigations of our metaphysical 
 frame, never quitted his solitude to mix with others, without 
 penetrating into the broad traits or prevalent infirmities their 
 characters possessed. In this, indeed, he differed from the 
 scholar tribe, and even in abstraction was mechanically vigilant 
 and observant. Much in his nature, had early circumstances 
 given it a different bias, would have fitted him for worldly 
 superiority and command. A resistless energy, an unbrokei
 
 46 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 perseverance, a profound, and scheming, and subtle thought, a 
 genius fertile in resources, a tongue clothed with eloquence 
 all, had his ambition so chosen, might have given him the 
 same empire over the physical, that he had now attained over 
 the intellectual world. It could not be said that Aram wanted 
 benevolence, but it was dashed and mixed with a certain 
 scorn : the benevolence was the offspring of his nature ; the 
 scorn seemed the result of his pursuits. He would feed the 
 birds from his window ; he would tread aside to avoid the 
 worm on his path ; were one of his own tribe in danger, he 
 would save him at the hazard of his life yet in his heart he 
 despised men, and believed them beyond amelioration. Unlike 
 the present race of schoolmen, who incline to the consoling 
 hope of human perfectibility, he saw in the gloomy past but a 
 dark prophecy of the future. As Napoleon wept over one 
 wounded soldier in the field of battle, yet ordered, without 
 emotion, thousands to a certain death ; so Aram would have 
 sacrificed himself for an individual, but would not have sacri- 
 ficed a momentary gratification for his race. And this senti- 
 ment towards men, at once of high disdain and profound de- 
 spondency, was perhaps the cause why he rioted in indolence 
 upon his extraordinary mental wealth, and could not be per- 
 suaded either to dazzle the world or to serve it. But by little 
 and little his fame had broke forth from the limits with which 
 he would have walled it : a man who had taught himself, under 
 singular difficulties, nearly all the languages of the civilized 
 earth ; the profound mathematician, the elaborate antiquarian, 
 the abstruse philologist, uniting with his graver lore the more 
 florid accomplishments of science, from the scholastic trifling 
 of heraldry to the gentle learning of herbs and flowers, could 
 scarcely hope for utter obscurity in that day when all intel- 
 lectual acquirement was held in high honor, and its possessors 
 were drawn together into a sort of brotherhood by the fellow- 
 ship of their pursuits. And though Aram gave little or noth- 
 ing to the world himself, he was ever willing to communicate 
 to others any benefit or honor derivable from his researches. 
 On the altar of science he kindled no light, but the fragrant oil 
 in the lamps of his more pious brethren was largely borrowed 
 from his stores. From almost every college in Europe came 
 to his obscure abode letters of acknowledgment or inquiry ; 
 and few foreign cultivators of learning visited this country 
 without seeking an interview with Aram. He received them 
 with all the modesty and the courtesy that characterized his 
 demeanor ; but it was noticeable that he never allowed these
 
 ttJGfcNE ARAM. 47 
 
 interruptions to be more than temporary. He proffered no 
 hospitality, and shrunk back from all offers of friendship ; the 
 interview lasted its hour, and was seldom renewed. Patronage 
 was not less distasteful to him than sociality. Some occasional 
 visits and condescensions of the great he had received with a 
 stern haughtiness, rather than his habitual subdued urbanity. 
 The precise amount of his fortune was not known ; his wants 
 were so few that what would have been poverty to others 
 might easily have been competence to him ; and the only 
 evidence he manifested of the command of money was in his 
 extended and various library. 
 
 He had been now about two years settled in his present 
 retreat. Unsocial as he was, every one in the neighborhood 
 loved him ; even the reserve of a man so eminent, arising as it 
 was supposed to do from a painful modesty, had in it some- 
 thing winning ; and he had been known to evince, on great 
 occasions, a charity and a courage in the service of others 
 which removed from the seclusion of his habits the semblance 
 of misanthropy and of avarice. The peasant threw kindly pity 
 into his respectful greeting, as in his homeward walk he 
 encountered the pale and thoughtful student, with the folded 
 arms and downcast eyes which characterized the abstraction of 
 his mood ; and the village maiden, as she curtseyed by him, 
 stole a glance at his handsome but melancholy countenance, 
 and told her sweetheart she was certain the poor scholar had 
 been crossed in love ! 
 
 And thus passed the student's life ; perhaps its monotony 
 and dulness required less compassion than they received : no 
 man can judge of the happiness of another. As the moon plays 
 upon the waves, and seems to our eyes to favor with a peculiar 
 beam one long track amidst the waters, leaving the rest in com- 
 parative obscurity ; yet all the while, she is no niggard in her 
 lustre for though the rays that meet not our eyes seem to us 
 as though they were not, yet she, with an equal and unfavoring 
 loveliness, mirrors herself on every wave even so, perhaps, 
 happiness falls with the same brightness and power over the 
 whole expanse of life, though to our limited eyes it seems only 
 to rest on those billows from which the ray is reflected on our 
 sight. 
 
 From his contemplations, of whatsoever nature, Aram was 
 now aroused by a loud summons at the door the clock had 
 gone eleven. Who, at that late hour, when the whole village 
 was buried in sleep, could demand admittance ? He recol- 
 lected that Madeline had said the stranger who had so alarmed
 
 48 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 them had inquired for him ; at that recollection his cheek sud- 
 denly blanched, but again, that stranger was surely only some 
 poor traveller who had heard of his wonted charity, and had 
 called to solicit relief ; for he had not met the stranger on the 
 road to Lester's house, and he had naturally set down the 
 apprehensions of his fair visitants to mere female timidity. 
 Who could this be ? No humble wayfarer would at that hour 
 crave assistance ; some disaster, perhaps, in the village ? From 
 his lofty chamber he looked forth and saw the stars watch 
 quietly over the scattered cottages and the dark foliage that 
 slept breathlessly around. All was still as death, but it seemed 
 the stillness of innocence and security : again ! the bell again ! 
 He thought he heard his name shouted without ; he strode 
 once or twice irresolutely to and fro the chamber ; and then 
 his step grew firm, and his native courage returned. His pistols 
 were still girded round him ; he looked to the priming, and 
 muttered some incoherent words ; he then descended the stairs 
 and slowly unbarred the door. Without the porch, the moon- 
 light full upon his harsh features and sturdy frame, stood the 
 .ill omened traveller. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A DINNER AT THE SQUIRE'S HALL. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN 
 TWO RETIRED MEN WITH DIFFERENT OBJECTS IN RETIRE- 
 MENT. DISTURBANCE FIRST INTRODUCED INTO A PEACEFUL 
 FAMILY. 
 
 " Can he not be sociable ? " Troihis and Cressida. 
 
 " Subit quippe etiam ipsius inertise dulcedo ; et invisa primo desidia pos- 
 tremd amatur." * TACITUS. 
 
 " How use doth breed a habit in a man ! 
 This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, 
 I better brook than flourishing peopled towns." Winter's Tale. 
 
 THE next day, faithful to his appointment, Aram arrived at 
 Lester's. The good squire received him with a warm cordial- 
 ity, and Madeline with a blush and a smile that ought to have 
 been more grateful to him than acknowledgments. She was 
 still a prisoner to the sofa, but, in compliment to Aram, the 
 sofa was wheeled into the hall where they dined, so that she 
 
 * Forasmuch as the very sweetness of idleness stealthily introduces itself into the mind, 
 suid the sloth, which was at first hateful, becomes at length beloved.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 49 
 
 was not absent from the repast. It was a pleasant room, that 
 old hall ! Though it \vas summer, more for cheerfulness than 
 warmth the log burnt on the spacious hearth : but at the same, 
 time the latticed windows were thrown open, and the fresh yet 
 sunny air stole in, rich from the embrace of the woodbine and 
 clematis, which hung around the casement. 
 
 A few old pictures were panelled in the oaken wainscot ; 
 and here and there the horns of a mighty stag adorned the 
 walls, and united with the cheeriness of comfort associations of 
 that of enterprise. The good old board was crowded with the 
 luxuries meet for a country squire. The speckled trout, fresh 
 from the stream, and the four-year-old mutton modestly dis- 
 claiming its own excellent merits, by affecting the shape and 
 assuming the adjuncts of venison. Then for the confection- 
 ery, it was worthy of Ellinor, to whom that department 
 generally fell ; and we should scarcely be surprised to find, 
 though we venture not to affirm, that its delicate fabrication 
 owed more to her than superintendence. Then the ale, and 
 the cider with rosemary in the bowl, were incomparable pota- 
 tions ; and to the gooseberry wine, which would have filled 
 Mrs. Primrose with envy, was added the more generous warmth 
 of port which, in the squire's younger days, had been the talk 
 of the country, and which had now lost none of its attributes, 
 save." the original brightness " of its color. 
 
 But (the wine excepted) these various dainties met with 
 slight honor from their abstemious guest, and, for though 
 habitually reserved he was rarely gloomy, they remarked that 
 he seemed unusually fitful and sombre in his mood. Some- 
 thing appeared to rest upon his mind, from which, by the 
 excitement of wine and occasional bursts of eloquence more 
 animated than ordinary, he seemed striving to escape ; and at 
 length he apparently succeeded. Naturally enough the con- 
 versation turned upon the curiosities and scenery of the country 
 round ; and here Aram shone with a peculiar grace. Vividly 
 alive to the influences of nature, and minutely acquainted with 
 its varieties, he invested every hill and glade to which remark 
 recurred with the poetry of his descriptions ; and from his 
 research he gave even scenes the most familiar a charm and 
 interest which had been strange to them till then. To this stream 
 some romantic legend had once attached itself, long forgotten 
 and now revived ; that moor, so barren to an ordinary eye, 
 was yet productive of some rare and curious herb, whose 
 properties afforded scope for lively description ; that old 
 mound was yet rife in attraction to one versed in antiquities,
 
 50 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and able to explain its origin, and from such explanation 
 deduce a thousand classic or Celtic episodes. 
 
 No subject was so homely or so trite but the knowledge that 
 had neglected nothing was able to render it luminous and new. 
 And as he spoke the scholar's countenance brightened, and 
 his voice, at first hesitating and low, compelled the attention to 
 its earnest and winning music. Lester himself, a man who, in 
 his long retirement, had not forgotten the attractions of intel- 
 lectual society, nor even neglected a certain cultivation of intel- 
 lectual pursuits, enjoyed a pleasure that he had not experienced 
 for years. The gay Ellinor was fascinated into admiration ; 
 and Madeline, the most silent of the group, drank in every 
 word, unconscious of the sweet poison she imbibed. Walter 
 alone seemed not carried away by the eloquence of their guest. 
 He preserved an unadmiring and sullen demeanor, and every 
 now and than regarded Aram with looks of suspicion and dis- 
 like. This was more remarkable when the men were left 
 alone ; and Lester, in surprise and anger, darted significant 
 and admonitory glances towards his nephew, which at length 
 seemed to rouse him into a more hospitable bearing. As the 
 cool of the evening now came on, Lester proposed to Aram to 
 enjoy it without, previous to returning to the parlor, to which 
 the ladies had retired. Walter excused himself from joining 
 them. The host and the guest accordingly strolled forth 
 alone. 
 
 " Your solitude," said Lester, smiling, " is far deeper and 
 less broken than mine ; do you never find it irksome ? " 
 
 "Can humanity be at all times contented? " said Aram. 
 " No stream, howsoever secret or subterranean, glides on in 
 eternal tranquillity." 
 
 " You allow, then, that you feel some occasional desire for a 
 more active and animated life ?" 
 
 "Nay," answered Aram ; " that is scarcely a fair corollary 
 from my remark. I may, at times, feel the weariness of exist- 
 ence the tedium vitcs : but I know well that the cause is not 
 to be remedied by a change from tranquillity to agitation. 
 The objects of the great world are to be pursued only by the 
 excitement of the passions. The passions are at once our masters 
 and our deceivers ; they urge us onward, yet present no limit 
 to our progress. The farther we proceed, the more dim and 
 shadowy grows the goal. It is impossible for a man who leads 
 the life of the world, the life of the passions, ever to experience 
 content. For the life of the passions is that of a perpetual de- 
 sire ; but a state of content is the absence of all desire. Thus
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 51 
 
 philosophy has become another name for mental quietude ; and 
 all wisdom points to a life of intellectual indifference as the 
 happiest which earth can bestow." 
 
 "This may be true enough," said Lester reluctantly ; 
 but " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " A something at our hearts a secret voice, an involuntary 
 impulse rebels against it, and points to action action, as the 
 true sphere of man." 
 
 A slight smile curved the lip of the student : he avoided, 
 however, the argument, and remarked : 
 
 " Yet, if you think so, the world lies before you : why not 
 return to it ? " 
 
 "Because constant habit is stronger than occasional impulse ; 
 and my seclusion, after all, has its sphere of action has its 
 object." 
 
 " All seclusion has." 
 
 "All? Scarcely so ; for me, I have my object of interest 
 in my children." 
 
 " And mine is in my books." 
 
 " And engaged in your object, does not the whisper of Fame 
 ever animate you with the desire to go forth into the world 
 and receive the homage that would await you ?" 
 
 " Listen to me," replied Aram. " When I was a boy, I went 
 once to a theatre. The tragedy of Hamlet was performed ; a 
 play full of the noblest thoughts, the subtlest morality. The 
 audience listened with attention, with admiration, with ap- 
 plause. I said to myself, when the curtain fell, ' It must be a 
 glorious thing to obtain this empire over men's intellects and 
 emotions.' But now an Italian mountebank appeared on the 
 stage a man of extraordinary personal strength and sleight of 
 hand. He performed a variety of juggling tricks, and distorted 
 his body into a thousand surprising and unnatural postures. 
 The audience were transported beyond themselves ; if they 
 had felt delight in Hamlet, they glowed with rapture at the 
 mountebank ; they had listened with attention to the lofty 
 thought, but they were snatched from themselves by the marvel 
 of the strange posture. 'Enough,' said I; 'I correct my 
 former notion. Where is the glory of ruling men's minds, and 
 commanding their admiration, when a greater enthusiasm is 
 excited by mere bodily agility than was kindled by the most 
 wonderful emanations of a genius little less than divine ? ' I 
 have never forgotten the impression of that evening." 
 
 Lester attempted to combat the truth of the illustration, and
 
 52 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 thus conversing, they passed on through the village green, when 
 the gaunt form of Corporal Bunting arrested their progress. 
 
 " Beg pardon, squire," said he, with a military salute ; " beg 
 pardon, your honor," bowing to Aram ; '' but I wanted to speak 
 to you, squire, 'bout the rent of the bit cot yonder : times very 
 hard pay scarce and " 
 
 " You desire a little delay, Bunting, eh ? Well, well, we'll 
 see about it ; look up at the hall to-morrow. Mr. Walter, I 
 know, wants to consult you about letting the water from the 
 great pond, and you must give us your opinion of the new 
 brewing." 
 
 " Thank your honor, thank you ; much obliged, I'm sure. I 
 hope your honor liked the trout I sent up. Beg pardon, 
 Master Aram, mayhap you would condescend to accept a few 
 fish, now and then ; they're very fine in these streams, as you 
 probably know ; if you please to let me, I'll send some up by 
 the old 'oman to-morrow ; that is, if the day's cloudy a bit." 
 
 The scholar thanked the good Bunting, and would have pro- 
 ceeded onward, but the corporal was in a familiar mood. 
 
 "Beg pardon, beg pardon, but strange-looking dog here last 
 evening asked after you said you were old friend of his 
 trotted off in your direction hope all was right, master ? 
 augh !" 
 
 "All right !" repeated Aram, fixing his eyes on the corporal, 
 who had concluded his speech with a significant wink, and 
 pausing a full moment before he continued ; then, as if satisfied 
 with his survey, he added : 
 
 " Ay, ay, I know whom you mean : he had become acquainted 
 with me some years ago. So you saw him ! What said he to 
 you of me?" 
 
 " Augh ! little enough, Master Aram : he seemed to think 
 only of satisfying his own appetite : said he'd been a soldier." 
 
 "A soldier! true!" 
 
 " Never told me the regiment, though : shy ! Did he ever 
 desert, pray, your honor ? " 
 
 " I don't know," answered Aram, turning away " I know 
 little, very little about him ! " He was going away, but stopped 
 to add : " The man called on me last night for assistance ; the 
 lateness of the hour a little alarmed me. I gave him what I 
 could afford, and he has now proceeded on his journey." 
 
 " Oh, then he won't take up his quarters hereabouts, your 
 honor?" said the corporal inquiringly. 
 
 "No, no; good-evening." 
 
 " What ! this singular stranger, who so frightened my pool
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 53 
 
 girls, is really known to you ! " said Lester in surprise : " pray, 
 is he as formidable as he seemed to them ? " 
 
 "Scarcely," said Aram, with great composure ; "he has been 
 a wild, roving fellow all his life, but but there is little real 
 harm in him. He is certainly ill-favored en.ough to " here, 
 interrupting himself, and breaking into a new sentence, Aram 
 added : " but at all events, he will frighten your daughters no 
 more ; he has proceeded on his journey northward. And now, 
 yonder lies my way home. Good-evening." The abruptness 
 of this farewell did indeed take Lester by surprise. 
 
 " Why, you will not leave me yet ? The young ladies expect 
 your return to them for an hour or so ! What will they think 
 of such desertion ? No, no, come back, my good friend, and 
 suffer me by and by to walk some part of the way home with 
 you." 
 
 " Pardon me," said Aram, " I must leave you now. As to 
 the ladies," he added, with a faint smile, half in melancholy, 
 half in scorn, " I am not one whom they could miss ; forgive 
 me if I seem unceremonious. Adieu." 
 
 Lester at first felt a little offended, but when he recalled the 
 peculiar habits of the scholar, he saw that the only way to hope 
 for a continuance of that society which had so pleased him was 
 to indulge Aram at first in his unsocial inclinations, rather than 
 annoy him by a troublesome hospitality ; he therefore, without 
 further discourse, shook hands with him, and they parted. 
 
 When Lester regained the little parlor he found his nephew 
 sitting, silent and discontented, by the window. Madeline had 
 taken up a book, and Ellinor, in an opposite corner, was plying 
 her needle with an air of earnestness and quiet, very unlike her 
 usual playful and cheerful vivacity. There was evidently a 
 cloud over the group ; the good Lester regarded them with a 
 searching, yet kindly eye. 
 
 " And what has happened ? " said he : " something of mighty 
 import, I am sure, or I should have heard my pretty Ellinor's 
 merry laugh long before I crossed the threshold." 
 
 Ellinor colored and sighed, and worked faster than ever. 
 Walter threw open the window, and whistled a favorite air quite 
 out of tune. Lester smiled, and seated himself by his nephew. 
 
 " Well, Walter," said he, " I feel, for the first time these ten 
 years, that I have a right to scold you. What on earth could 
 make you so inhospitable to your uncle's guest ? You eyed 
 the poor student as if you wished him among the books of 
 Alexandria ! " 
 
 " I would he were burnt with them ! " answered Walter
 
 54 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 sharply. " He seems to have added the black art to his other 
 accomplishments, and bewitched my fair cousins here into a 
 forgetfulness of all but himself." 
 
 " Not me ! " said Ellinor eagerly, and looking up. 
 
 " No, not you, that's true enough ; you are too just, too 
 kind ; it is a pity that Madeline is not more like you." 
 
 "My dear Walter," said Madeline, "what is the matter? 
 You accuse me of what ? being attentive to a man whom it is 
 impossible to hear without attention ! " 
 
 " There ! " cried Walter passionately ; " you confess it. And 
 so for a stranger, a cold, vain, pedantic egotist, you can shut 
 your ears and heart to those who have known and loved you 
 all your life ; and and " 
 
 " Vain ! " interrupted Madeline, unheeding the latter part 
 of Walter's address. 
 
 " Pedantic ! " repeated her father. 
 
 " Yes ! I say vain and pedantic ! " cried Walter, working 
 himself into a passion. " What on earth but the love of dis- 
 play could make him monopolize the whole conversation ? 
 What but pedantry could make him bring out those anecdotes, 
 and allusions, and descriptions, or whatever you call them, 
 respecting every old wall or stupid plant in the country?" 
 
 " I never thought you guilty of meanness before," said Les- 
 ter gravely. 
 
 "Meanness?" 
 
 " Yes ! for is it not mean to be jealous of superior acquire- 
 ments, instead of admiring them ?" 
 
 "What has been the use of those acquirements? Has he 
 benefited mankind by them ? Show me the poet the histo- 
 rian the orator, and I will yield to none of you ; no, not to 
 Madeline herself, in homage of their genius : but the mere 
 creature of books the dry and sterile collector of other men's 
 learning no, no. What should I admire in such a machine of 
 literature, except a waste of perseverance ? And Madeline 
 calls him handsome, too ! " 
 
 At this sudden turn from declamation to reproach, Lester 
 laughed outright ; and his nephew, in high anger, rose and left 
 the room. 
 
 " Who could have thought Walter so foolish ? " said Madeline. 
 
 " Nay," observed Ellinor gently, " it is the folly of a kind 
 heart, after all. He feels sore at our seeming to prefer an- 
 other I mean another's conversation to his ! " 
 
 Lester turned round in his chair, and regarded with a serious 
 look the faces of both sisters.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "My dear Ellinor," said he, when lie had finished his survey, 
 " You are a kind girl ; come and kiss me ! " 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BEHAVIOR OF THE STUDENT. A SUMMER SCENE. ARAM*S 
 
 CONVERSATION WITH WALTER, AND SUBSEQUENT COLLOQUY 
 WITH HIMSELF. 
 
 " The soft season, the firmament serene, 
 The loun illuminate air, and firth amene 
 The silver scalit fishes on the grete 
 O'er-thwart clear streams sprinkillond for the heat." 
 
 GAWIN DOUGLAS. 
 
 "Ilia subter 
 
 Csecum vulnus habes ; sed lato balteus auro 
 Praetegit." * PERSIUS. 
 
 SEVERAL days elapsed before the family of the manor-house 
 encountered Aram again. The old woman came once or twice 
 to present the inquiries of her master as to Miss Lester's acci- 
 dent ; but Aram himself did not appear. This want of inter- 
 est certainly offended Madeline, although she still drew upon 
 herself Walter's displeasure by disputing and resenting the un- 
 favorable strictures on the scholar in which that young gentle- 
 man delighted to indulge. By degrees, however, as the days 
 passed without maturing the acquaintance which Walter had dis- 
 approved, the youth relaxed in his attacks, and seemed to yield 
 to the remonstrances of his uncle. Lester had, indeed, con- 
 ceived an especial inclination towards the recluse. Any man 
 of reflection who has lived for some time alone, and who sud- 
 denly meets with one who calls forth in him, and without labor 
 or contradiction, the thoughts which have sprung up in his sol- 
 itude, scarcely felt in their growth, will comprehend the new 
 zest, the awakening, as it were, of the mind, which Lester 
 found in the conversation of Eugene Aram. His solitary walk 
 (for his nephew had the separate pursuits of youth) appeared 
 to him more dull than before ; and he longed to renew an in- 
 tercourse which had given to the monotony of his life both va- 
 riety and relief. He called twice upon Aram, but the student 
 was, or affected to be, from home ; and an invitation that Les- 
 
 * You have a wound deep hidden in your heart, but the broad belt of gold conceals it.
 
 56 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 ter sent him, though couched in friendly terms, was, but with 
 great semblance of kindness, refused. 
 
 " See, Walter," said Lester, disconcerted as he finished read- 
 ing the refusal " see what your rudeness has effected. I am 
 quite convinced that Aram (evidently a man of susceptible as 
 well as retired mind) observed the coldness of your manner 
 towards him, and that thus you have deprived me of the only 
 society which, in this wilderness of bores and savages, gave me 
 any gratification." 
 
 Walter replied apologetically, but his uncle turned away with 
 a greater appearance of anger than his placid features were 
 wont to exhibit ; and Walter, cursing the innocent cause of his 
 uncle's displeasure towards him, took up his fishing-rod and 
 went out alone, in no happy or exhilarated mood. 
 
 It was waxing towards eve an hour especially lovely in the 
 month of June, and not without reason favored by the angler, 
 Walter sauntered across the rich and fragrant fields, and came 
 soon into a sheltered valley, through which the brooklet wound 
 its shadowy way. Along the margin the grass sprung up long 
 and matted, and profuse with a. thousand weeds and flowers 
 the children of the teeming June. Here the ivy-leafed bell- 
 flower, and not far from it the common enchanter's nightshade, 
 the silver weed, and the water-aven ; and by the hedges that 
 now and then neared the water the guelder-rose, and the white 
 briony, overrunning the thicket with its emerald leaves and 
 luxuriant flowers. And here and there, silvering the bushes, 
 the elder offered its snowy tribute to the summer. All the in- 
 sect youth were abroad, with their bright wings and glancing 
 motion ; and from the lower depths of the bushes the black- 
 bird darted across, or higher and unseen the first cuckoo of 
 the eve began its continuous and mellow note. All this cheer- 
 iness and gloss of life, which enamour us with a few bright 
 days of the English summer, make the poetry in an angler's life, 
 and convert every idler at heart into a moralist, and not a 
 gloomy one, for the time. 
 
 Softened by the quiet beauty and voluptuousness around 
 him, Walter's thoughts assumed a more gentle dye, and he 
 broke out into the old lines : 
 
 " "Sweet day, so soft, so calm, so bright; 
 The bridal of the earth and sky," 
 
 as he dipped his line into the current, and drew it across the 
 shadowy hollows beneath the bank. The river-gods were not, 
 however, in a favorable mood, and after waiting in vain for
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 57 
 
 some time in a spot in which he was usually successful, he 
 proceeded slowly along the margin of the brooklet, crush- 
 ing the reeds at every step into that fresh and delicious odor, 
 which furnished Bacon with one of his most beautiful com- 
 parisons. 
 
 He thought, as he proceeded, that beneath a tree that over- 
 hung the waters in the narrowest part of their channel he 
 heard a voice, and as he approached he recognized it as 
 Aram's. A curve in the stream brought him close by the spot, 
 and he saw the student half-reclined beneath the tree, and 
 muttering, but at broken intervals, to himself. 
 
 The words were so scattered that Walter did not trace their 
 clue ; but involuntarily he stopped short within a few feet of 
 the soliloquist : and Aram, suddenly turning round, beheld 
 him. A fierce and abrupt change broke over the scholar's 
 countenance ; his cheek grew now pale, now flushed ; and his 
 brows knit over his flashing and dark eyes with an intent 
 anger, that was the more withering from its contrast to the usual 
 calmness of his features. Walter drew back, but Aram, stalk- 
 ing directly up to him, gazed into his face, as if he would read 
 his very soul. 
 
 "What! eavesdropping?" said he, with a ghastly smile. 
 " You overheard me, did you ? Well, well, what said I ? 
 what said I ? " Then pausing, and noting that Walter did not 
 reply, he stamped his foot violently, and grinding his teeth, re- 
 peated in a smothered tone : " Boy ! what said I ? " 
 
 " Mr. Aram," said Walter, " you forget yourself. I am not 
 one to play the listener, more especially to the learned ravings 
 of a man who can conceal nothing I care to know. Accident 
 brought me hither." 
 
 " What ! Surely surely I spoke aloud, did I not ? Did I 
 not ? " 
 
 " You did, but so incoherently and indistinctly that I did not 
 profit by your indiscretion. I cannot plagiarize, I assure you, 
 fi-om any scholastic/iesigns you might have been giving vent to." 
 
 Aram looked on him for a moment, and then, breathing 
 heavily, turned away. 
 
 " Pardon me," he said ; " I am a poor, half-crazed man ; 
 much study has unnerved me ; I should never live but with 
 my own thoughts ; forgive me, sir, I pray you/' 
 
 Touched by the sudden contrition of Aram's manner, Walter 
 forgot, not only his present displeasure, but his general dislike ; 
 he stretched forth his hand to the student, and hastened to 
 Assure him of his ready forgiveness. Aram sighed deeply as
 
 58 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 he pressed the young man's hand, and Walter saw, with sur- 
 prise and emotion, that his eyes were rilled with tears. 
 
 "Ah!" said Aram, gently shaking his head, " it is a hard 
 life we book-men lead ! Not for us is the bright face of noon- 
 day or the smile of woman, the gay unbending of the heart, 
 the neighing steed, and the shrill trump ; the pride, pomp, and 
 circumstance of life. Our enjoyments are few and calm ; our 
 labor constant ; but that is not the evil, sir ! the body avenges 
 its own neglect. We grow old before our time ; we wither up ; 
 the sap of youth shrinks from our veins ; there is no bound in 
 our steps. We look about us with dimmed eyes, and our breath 
 grows short and thick, and pains, and coughs, and shooting 
 aches, come upon us at night : it is a bitter life a bitter life 
 a joyless life. I would I had never commenced it. And yet 
 the harsh world scowls upon us ; our nerves are broken, and 
 they wonder why we are querulous ; our blood curdles, and 
 they ask why we are not gay ; our brain grows dizzy and indis- 
 tinct (as with me just now), and shrugging their shoulders, they 
 whisper their neighbors that we are mad. I wish I had worked 
 at the plough, and known sleep, and loved mirth and and 
 not been what I am." 
 
 As the student uttered the last sentence, he bowed his head, 
 and a few tears stole silently down his cheek. Walter was 
 greatly affected ; it took him by surprise : nothing in Aram's 
 ordinary demeanor betrayed any facility to emotion ; and he 
 conveyed to all the idea of a man, if not proud, at least cold. 
 
 " You do not suffer bodily pain, I trust ? " asked Walter 
 soothingly. 
 
 " Pain does not conquer me," said Aram, slowly recovering 
 himself. " I am not melted by that which I would fain despise. 
 Young man, I wronged you you have forgiven me. Well, 
 well, we will say no more on that head ; it is past and pardoned. 
 Your uncle has been kind to me, and I have not returned his 
 advances ; you shall tell him why. I have lived thirteen years 
 by myself, and I have contracted strange ways and many 
 humors not common to the world you have seen an example 
 of this. Judge for yourself if I be fit for the smoothness, and 
 confidence, and ease of social intercourse ; I am not fit, I feel 
 it ! I am doomed to be alone ; tell your uncle this ; tell him 
 to surfer me to live so ! I am grateful for his goodness ; I 
 know his motives ; but. I have a certain pride of mind ; I can- 
 not bear sufferance I loathe indulgence. Nay, interrupt me 
 not, I beseech you. Look round on Nature behold the only 
 company that humbles me not except the dead whose souls
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 59 
 
 speak to U3 from the immortality of books. These herbs at 
 your feet I know their secrets, I watch the mechanism of 
 their life ; the winds they have taught me their language ; the 
 stars I have unravelled their mysteries ; and these, the creatures 
 and ministers of God these I offend not by my mood ; to 
 them I utter my thoughts, and break forth into my dreams, 
 without reserve and without fear. But men disturb me ; I 
 have nothing to learn from them ; I have no wish to confide in 
 them ; they cripple the wild liberty which has become to me a 
 second nature. What its shell is to the tortoise, solitude has 
 become to me my protection ; nay, my life ! " 
 
 "But," said Walter, ''with us, at least, you would not have 
 to dread restraint ; you might come when you would ; be silent 
 or converse, according to your will." 
 
 Aram smiled faintly, but made no immediate reply. 
 
 " So, you have been angling ! " he said, after a short pause, 
 and as if willing to change the thread of conversation. " Fie ! 
 it is a treacherous pursuit ; it encourages man's worst propen- 
 sities cruelty and deceit." 
 
 " I should have thought a lover of Nature would have been 
 more indulgent to a pastime which introduces us to her most 
 quiet retreats." 
 
 " And cannot Nature alone tempt you without need of such 
 allurements ? What ! that crisped and winding stream, with 
 flowers on its very tide ; the water-violet and the water-lily ; 
 these silent brakes ; the cool of the gathering evening ; the still 
 and luxuriance of the universal life around you are not these 
 enough of themselves to tempt you forth ? If not, go to ! your 
 excuse is hypocrisy." 
 
 " I am used to these scenes," replied Walter ; " I am weary 
 of the thoughts they produce in me, and long for any diversion 
 or excitement." 
 
 " Ay, ay, young man! The mind is restless at your age : 
 have a care. Perhaps you long to visit the world ; to quit 
 these obscure haunts which you are fatigued in admiring ? " 
 
 " It may be so," said Walter, with a slight sigh. " I should 
 at least like to visit our great capital, and note the contrast ; I 
 should come back, I imagine, with a greater zest to these 
 scenes." 
 
 Aram laughed. " My friend," said he, " when men have 
 once plunged into the great sea of human toil and passion, they 
 soon wash away all love and zest for innocent enjoyments. 
 What once was a soft retirement, will become the most intoler- 
 able monotony ; the gaming of social existence the feverish
 
 60 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and desperate chances of honor and wealth, upon which the 
 men of cities set their hearts, render all pursuits less exciting, 
 utterly insipid and dull. The brook and the angle ha ! ha ! 
 these are not occupations for men who have once battled with 
 the world." 
 
 "I can forego them, then, without regret," said Walter, with 
 the sanguineness of his years. Aram looked upon him wist- 
 fully ; the bright eye, the healthy cheek, and vigorous frame 
 of the youth, suited with his desire to seek the conflict of his 
 kind, and gave a natural grace to his ambition which was not 
 without interest, even to the recluse. 
 
 " Poor boy !" said he mournfully, "how gallantly the ship 
 leaves the port ; how worn and battered it will return ! " 
 
 When they parted Walter returned slowly homewards, filled 
 with pity for the singular man whom he had seen so strangely 
 overpowered ; and wondering how suddenly his mind had lost 
 its former rancor to the student. Yet there mingled even with 
 these kindly feelings a little displeasure at the superior tone 
 which Aram had unconsciously adopted towards him ; and to 
 which, from any one, the high spirit of the young man was not 
 readily willing to submit. 
 
 Meanwhile, the student continued his path along the water 
 side, and as, with his gliding step and musing air, he roamed 
 onward, it was impossible to imagine a form more suited to the 
 deep tranquillity of the scene. Even the wild birds seemed to 
 feel by a sort of instinct, that in him there was no cause for 
 fear ; and did not stir from the turf that neighbored or the 
 spray that overhung his path. " So," said he, soliloquizing, but 
 not without casting frequent and jealous glances round him, and 
 in a murmur so indistinct as would have, been inaudible even 
 to a listener " so, I was not overheard ; well, I must cure my- 
 self of this habit ; our thoughts, like nuns, ought not to go 
 abroad without a veil. Ay, this tone will not betray me; I 
 will preserve its tenor, for I can scarcely altogether renounce 
 my sole confidant SELF ; and thought seems more clear when 
 uttered even thus. 'Tis a fine youth ! full of the impulse and 
 daring of his years ; / was never so young at heart. I was 
 nay, what matters it ? Who is answerable for his nature ? 
 Who can say, ' I controlled all the circumstances which made 
 me what I am?' Madeline, heavens ! did I bring on myself 
 this temptation ? Have I not fenced it from me throughout 
 all my youth, when my brain did at moments forsake me, and 
 the veins did bound ? And now, when the yellow hastens on 
 the green of life ; now, for the first time, this emotion this
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 6 1 
 
 weakness and for whom ? One I have lived with known 
 beneath whose eyes I have passed through all the fine grada- 
 tions, from liking to love, from love to passion ? No ; one, 
 whom I have seen but little ; who, it is true, arrested my eye at 
 the first glance it caught of her two years since, but to whom, 
 till within the last few weeks, I have scarcely spoken ! Her 
 voice rings in my ear, her look dwells on my heart ; when I 
 sleep she is with me; when I wake lam haunted by her image. 
 Strange, strange ! Is love, then, after all, the sudden passion 
 which in every age poetry has termed it, though till now my 
 reason has disbelieved the notion ! . . . . 
 
 " And now, what is the question ? To resist, or to yield. 
 Her father invites me, courts me ; and I stand aloof. Will 
 this strength, this forbearance, last ? Shall I encourage my 
 mind to this decision ? " Here Aram paused abruptly, and 
 then renewed : " It is true ! I ought to weave my lot with 
 none. Memory sets me apart and alone in the world ; it seems 
 unnatural to me a thought of dread to bring another being 
 to my solitude, to set an everlasting watch on my uprisings and 
 my downsittings ; to invite eyes to my face when I sleep at nights, 
 and ears to every word that may start unbidden from my lips. 
 But if the watch be the watch of love away ! does love endure 
 forever ? He who trusts to woman, trusts to the type of change. 
 Affection may turn to hatred, fondness to loathing, anxiety to 
 dread ; and, at the best, woman is weak ; she is the minion to 
 her impulses. Enough ; I will steel my soul ; shut up the 
 avenues of sense ; brand with the scathing-iron these yet green 
 and soft emotions of lingering youth ; and freeze, and chain, 
 and curdle up feeling, and heart, and manhood, into ice and 
 age ! " 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE POWER OF LOVE OVER THE RESOLUTION OF THE STUDENT. 
 ARAM BECOMES A FREQUENT GUEST AT THE MANOR- 
 HOUSE. A WALK. CONVERSATION WITH DAME DARKMANS. 
 
 HER HISTORY. POVERTY AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 
 "Mad. Then, as time won thee frequent to our hearth, 
 Dklst thou not breathe, like dreams, into my soul. 
 Nature's more gentle secrets, the sweet lore 
 Of the green herb and the bee-worshipped flower ? 
 And when deep Night did o'er the nether Earth
 
 62 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Diffuse meek quiet, and the Heart of Heaven 
 
 With love grew breathless didst thou not unroll 
 
 The volume of the weird Chaldean stars, 
 
 And of the winds, the clouds, the invisible air, 
 
 Make eloquent discotuse, until, methought, 
 
 No human lip, but some diviner spirit 
 
 Alone, could prtach such truths of things divine? 
 
 And so and so 
 
 Aram. From Heaven we turn'd to Earth 
 
 And Wisdom fathered Passion. 
 
 ****** 
 Aram. Wise men have praised the Peasant's thoughtless lot, 
 
 And learned Pride hath envied humble Toil : 
 
 If they were right, why let us burn our books, 
 
 And sit us down, and play the fool with Time, 
 
 Mocking the prophet Wisdom's high decrees, 
 
 And walling this trite Present with dark clouds 
 
 Till Night becomes our Nature ; and the ray 
 
 Ev'n of the stars, but meteors that withdraw 
 
 The wandering spirit from the sluggish rest 
 
 Which makes its proper bliss. I will accost 
 
 This denizen of toil." From Eugene Aram, a MS. Tragedy, 
 
 " A wicked hag, and envy's self excelling 
 In mischiefe, for herself she only vext, 
 But this same, both herself and others eke perplext. 
 
 ****** 
 Who then can strive with strong necessity, 
 That holds the world in his still changing state? etc., etc. 
 Then do no further go, no further stray, 
 But here lie down, and to thy rest betake." SPENSER. 
 
 FEW men, perhaps, could boast of so masculine and firm a 
 mind as, despite his eccentricities, Aram assuredly possessed. 
 His habits of solitude had strengthened its natural hardihood; 
 for, accustomed to make all the sources of happiness flow solely 
 from himself, his thoughts the only companions, his genius the 
 only vivifier, of his retreat ; the tone and faculty of his spirit 
 could not but assume that austere and vigorous en- 
 ergy which the habit of self-dependence almost invari- 
 ably produces ; and yet the reader, if he be young, 
 will scarcely feel surprised that the resolution of the 
 student, to battle against incipient love, from whatever 
 reasons it might be formed, gradually and reluctantly melted 
 away. It may be noted that the enthusiasts of learning and 
 revery have, at one time or another in their lives, been, of all 
 the tribes of men, the most keenly susceptible to love ; their 
 solitude feeds their passion ; and deprived, as they usually are, 
 of the more hurried and vehement occupations of life, when
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 63 
 
 love is once admitted to their hearts there is no counter-check 
 to its emotions, and no escape from its excitement. Aram, too, 
 had just arrived at that age when a man usually feels a sort of 
 revulsion in the current of his desires. At that age, those who 
 have hitherto pursued love begin to grow alive to ambition ; 
 those who have been slaves to the pleasures of life awaken from 
 the dream, and direct their desire to its interests. And in the 
 same proportion, they who till then have wasted the prodigal 
 fervors of youth upon a sterile soil, who have served Ambition, 
 or, like Aram, devoted their hearts to Wisdom relax from 
 their ardor, look back on the departed years with regret, and 
 commence, in their manhood, the fiery pleasures and delirious 
 follies which are only pardonable in youth. In short, as in 
 every human pursuit there is a certain vanity, and as every ac- 
 quisition contains within itself the seed of disappointment, so 
 there is a period of life when we pause from the pursuit, and 
 are discontented with the acquisition. We then look around 
 us for something new again follow, and are again deceived. 
 Few men throughout life are the servants to one desire. When 
 we gain the middle of the bridge of our mortality, different ob- 
 jects from those which attracted us upward almost invariably 
 lure us down the descent. Happy they who exhaust in the 
 former part of the journey all the foibles of existence ! But 
 how different is the crude and evanescent love of that age when 
 thought has not given intensity and power to the passions, from 
 the love which is felt,/^/- the first time, in maturer but still 
 youthful years ! As the flame burns the brighter in proportion 
 to the resistance which it conquers, this later love is the more 
 glowing in proportion to the length of time in which it has 
 overcome temptation ; all the solid and concentred faculties, 
 ripened to their full height, are no longer capable of the infinite 
 distractions, the numberless caprices of youth ; the rays of the 
 heart, not rendered weak by diversion, collect into one burning 
 focus ;* the same earnestness and unity of purpose which ren- 
 der what we undertake in manhood so far more successful than 
 what we would effect in youth, are equally visible and equally 
 triumphant, whether directed to interest or to love. But then, 
 as in Aram, the feelings must be fresh as well as matured ; 
 they must not have been frittered away by previous indulgence ; 
 the love must be the first produce of the soil, not the languid 
 after-growth. 
 
 The reader will remark that the first time in which our nar- 
 
 * " Love is of the nature ol a burning-glass, whith, kept still in one place, firgtb \ 
 changed often, it doth nothing ! "-Letters by Sir John Suckling.
 
 64 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 rative has brought Madeline and Aram together, was not the 
 first time they had met : Aram hud long noted with admiration 
 a beauty which he had never seen paralleled, and certain vague 
 and unsettled feelings had preluded the deep emotion that her 
 image now excited within him. But the main cause of his 
 present and growing attachment had been in the evident senti- 
 ment of kindness which he could not but feel Madeline bore 
 towards him. So retiring a nature as his might never have har- 
 bored love, if the love bore the character of presumption ; but 
 that one so beautiful beyond his dreams as Madeline Lester 
 should deign to cherish for him a tenderness that might suffer 
 him to hope, was a thought that, when he caught her eye un- 
 consciously fixed' upon him, and noted that her voice grew 
 softer and more tremulous when she addressed him, forced it- 
 self upon his heart, and woke there a strange and irresistible 
 emotion which solitude and the brooding reflection that soli- 
 tude produces a reflection so much more intense in propor- 
 tion to the paucity of living images it dwells upon soon ripened 
 into love. Perhaps, even, he would not have resisted the im- 
 pulse as he now did, had not, at this time, certain thoughts con- 
 nected with past events been more forcibly than of late years 
 obtruded upon him, and thus in some measure divided his 
 heart. By degrees, however, those thoughts receded from their 
 vividness, into the habitual deep, but not oblivious, shade, be- 
 neath which his commanding mind had formerly driven them 
 to repose ; and as they thus receded, Madeline's image grew 
 more undisturbedly present, and his resolution to avoid its power 
 more fluctuating and feeble. Fate seemed bent upon bringing 
 together these two persons, already so attracted towards each 
 other. After the conversation recorded in our last chapter 
 between Walter and the student, the former, touched and soft- 
 ened as we have seen in spite of himself, had cheerfully for- 
 borne (what before he had done reluctantly) the expressions of 
 dislike which he had once lavished so profusely upon Aram ; 
 and Lester, who, forward as he had seemed, had nevertheless 
 been hitherto a little checked in his advances to his neighbor 
 by the hostility of his nephew, felt no scruple to deter him from 
 urging them with a pertinacity that almost forbade refusal. It 
 was Aram's constant habit, in all seasons, to wander abroad at 
 certain times of the day, especially towards the evening ; and 
 if Lester failed to win entrance to his house, he was thus enabled 
 to meet the student in his frequent rambles, and with a seeming 
 freedom from design. Actuated by his great benevolence of 
 character, Lester earnestly desired to win his solitary and un-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 65 
 
 friended neighbor from a mood and habit which he naturally 
 imagined must engender a growing melancholy of mind : and 
 since Walter had detailed to him the particulars of his meeting 
 with Aram, this desire had been considerably increased. There 
 is not, perhaps, a stronger feeling in the world than pity, when 
 united with admiration. When one man is resolved to know 
 another, it is almost impossible to prevent it : we see daily the 
 most remarkable instances of perseverance on one side con- 
 quering distaste on the other. By degrees, then, Aram relaxed 
 from his insociability ; he seemed to surrender himself to a 
 kindness, the sincerity of which he was compelled to acknowl- 
 edge ; if he for a long time refused to accept the hospitality of 
 his neighbor, he did not reject his society when they met, and 
 this intercourse increased by little and little ; until, ultimately, 
 the recluse yielded to solicitation, and became the guest as well 
 as companion. This, at first accident, grew, though not with- 
 out many interruptions, into habit ; and, at length, few even- 
 ings were passed by the inmates of the manor-house without 
 the society of the student. 
 
 As his reserve wore off, his conversation mingled with its at- 
 tractions a tender and affectionate tone. He seemed grateful 
 for the p:iins which had been taken to allure him to a scene in 
 which, at last, he acknowledged he found a happiness that he 
 had never experienced before : and those who had hitherto ad- 
 mired him for his genius, admired him now yet more for his 
 susceptibility to the affections. 
 
 There was not in Aram anything that savored of the harsh- 
 ness of pedantry, or the petty vanities of dogmatism : his voice 
 was soft and low, and his manner always remarkable for its 
 singular gentleness, and a certain dignified humility. His lan- 
 guage did, indeed, at times, assume a tone of calm and patri- 
 archal command ; but it was only the command arising from 
 an intimate persuasion of the truth of what he uttered. Mor- 
 alizing upon our nature, or mourning over the delusions of the 
 world, a grave and solemn strain breathed throughout his lofty 
 words and the profound melancholy of his wisdom : but it 
 touched, not offended elevated, not humbled the lesser in- 
 tellect of his listeners ; and even this air of unconscious superi- 
 ority vanished when he was invited to teach or explain. 
 
 That task which so few do gracefully, that an accurate and 
 shrewd thinker has said, " It is always safe to learn, even from 
 our enemies ; seldom safe to instruct even our friends," ' 
 Aram performed with a meekness and simplicity that charmed 
 
 * Lacon.
 
 66 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the vanity, even while it corrected the ignorance, of the appli- 
 cant ; and so various and so minute was the information of 
 this accomplished man, that there scarcely existed any branch 
 even of that knowledge usually called practical, to which he 
 could not impart from his stores something valuable and new. 
 The agriculturist was astonished at the success of his sugges- 
 tions ; and the mechanic was indebted to him for the device 
 which abridged his labor in improving its result. 
 
 It happened that the study of botany was not, at that day, 
 so favorite and common a diversion with young ladies as it is 
 now ; and Ellinor, captivated by the notion of a science that 
 gave a life and a history to the loveliest of earth's offspring, be- 
 sought Aram to teach her its principles. 
 
 As Madeline, though she did not second the request, could 
 scarcely absent herself from sharing the lesson, this pursuit 
 brought the pair already lovers closer and closer together. 
 It associated them not only at home, but in their rambles 
 throughout that enchanting country ; and there is a mysterious 
 influence in Nature which renders us, in her loveliest scenes, 
 the most susceptible to love ! Then, too, how often in their 
 occupation their hands and eyes met : how often, by the shady 
 wood or the soft water-side, they found themselves alone. In 
 all times, how dangerous the connection, when of different sexes, 
 between the scholar and the teacher ! Under how many pre- 
 tences, in that connection, the heart finds the opportunity to 
 speak out. 
 
 Yet it was not with ease and complacency that Aram de- 
 livered himself to the intoxication of his deepening attachment. 
 Sometimes he was studiously cold, or evidently wrestling with 
 the powerful passion that mastered his reason. It was not with- 
 out many throes and desperate resistance, that love at length 
 overwhelmed and subdued him ; and these alternations of his 
 mood, if they sometimes offended Madeline and sometimes 
 wounded, still rather increased than lessened the spell which 
 bound her to him. The doubt and the fear, the caprice and 
 the change, which agitate the surface, swell also the tides, of 
 passion. Woman, too, whose love is so much the creature of 
 her imagination, always asks something of mystery and conjec- 
 ture in the object of her affection. It is a luxury to her to per- 
 plex herself with a thousand apprehensions ; and the more 
 restlessly her lover occupies her mind, the more deeply he 
 enthrals it. 
 
 Mingling with her pure and tender attachment to Aram a 
 high and unswerving veneration, she saw in his fitfulness, and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 67 
 
 occasional abstraction and contradiction of manner, a con- 
 firmation of the modest sentiment that most weighed upon her 
 fears ; and imagined that, at those times, he thought her, as 
 she deemed herself, unworthy of his love. And this was the 
 only struggle which she conceived to pass between the affection 
 he evidently bore her, and the feelings which had as yet re- 
 strained him from its open avowal. 
 
 One evening Lester and the two sisters were walking with 
 the student along the valley that led to the house of the latter, 
 when they saw an old woman engaged in collecting firewood 
 among the bushes, and a little girl holding out her apron to 
 receive the sticks with which the crone's skinny arms unspar-- 
 ingly filled it. The child trembled, and seemed half crying ; 
 while the old woman, in a harsh, grating croak, was muttering 
 forth mingled objurgation and complaint. 
 
 There was something in the appearance of the latter at once 
 impressive and displeasing ; a dark, withered, furrowed skin 
 was drawn like parchment over harsh and aquiline features ; 
 the eyes, through the rheum of age, glittered forth black and 
 malignant ; and even her stooping posture did not conceal a 
 height greatly above the common stature, though gaunt and 
 shrivelled with years and poverty. It was a form and face that 
 might have recalled at once the celebrated description of Ot- 
 way, on a part of which we have already unconsciously en- 
 croached, and the remaining part of which we shall wholly 
 borrow : 
 
 " On her crooked shoulders had she wrapp'd 
 The tatter'd remnants of an old stript hanging, 
 That served to keep her carcass from the cold. 
 So there was nothing of a piece about her. 
 Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patch'd 
 With different-colored rags, black, red, white, yellow, 
 And seem'd to speak variety of wretchedness." 
 
 " See," said Lester, " one of the eyesores of our village (I 
 might say), the only discontented person." 
 
 " What ! Dame Darkmans ! " said Ellinor quickly. "Ah ! 
 let us turn back. I hate to encounter that old woman ; there 
 is something so evil and savage in her manner of talk ; and 
 look, how she rates that poor girl, whom she has dragged or 
 decoyed to assist her ! " 
 
 Aram looked curiously on the old hag. "Poverty," said he, 
 "makes some humble, but more malignant ; is it not want that 
 grafts the devil on this poor woman's nature ? Come, let us 
 accost her ; I like conferring with distress."
 
 68 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " It is hard labor this ? " said the student gently. 
 
 The old woman looked up askant ; the music of the voice 
 that addressed her sounded harsh on her ear. 
 
 " Ay, ay ! " she answered. " You fine gentlefolks can know 
 what the poor suffer ; ye talk and ye talk, but ye never 
 assist." 
 
 "Say not so, dame," said Lester ; " did I not send you but 
 yesterday bread and money ? And when did you ever look up 
 at the hall without obtaining relief ? " 
 
 " But the bread was as dry as a stick," growled the hag : and 
 the money, what was it? will it last a week? Oh, yes ! Ye 
 fhink as much of your doils and mites as if ye stripped your- 
 selves of a comfort to give it to us. Did ye have a dish less 
 a 'tato less, the day ye sent me your charity I 'spose ye calls 
 it? Och ! fie ! But the Bible's the poor cretur's comfort." 
 
 " J am glad to hear you say that, dame," said the good- 
 natured Lester ; " and I forgive everything else you have said, 
 on account of that one sentence." 
 
 The old woman dropped the sticks she had just gathered, 
 and glowered at the speaker's benevolent countenance with a 
 malicious meaning in her dark eyes. 
 
 " An' ye do ? Well, I'm glad I please ye there. Och ! yes ! 
 the Bible's a mighty comfort ; for it says as much that the rich 
 man shall not Ynter the kingdom of Heaven ! There's a truth 
 for you, that makes the/<w folks' heart chirp like a cricket 
 ho ! ho ! / sits by the mibers of a night, and I thinks and 
 thinks as how I shall see you all burning ; and ye'll ask me for 
 a drop o' water, and I shall laugh thm from my pleasant seat 
 with the angels. Och ! it's a book for the poor that ! " 
 
 The sisters shuddered. "And you think, then, that with 
 envy, malice, and all uncharitableness at your heart, you are 
 certain of Heaven ? For shame ! Pluck the mote from your 
 own eye ! " 
 
 " What sinnifies praching ? Did not the Blessed Saviour 
 come for the poor ? Them as has rags and dry bread here 
 will be ixalted in the nixt world ; an' if we poor folk have mal- 
 ice, as ye calls it, whose's fault's that ? What do ye tache us? 
 Eh ? Answer me that. Ye keeps all the laming an' all the 
 other fine things to yourseF, and then ye scould, and thritten, 
 and hang us, 'cause we are not as wise as you. Och ! there's 
 no jistice in the Lamb, if Heaven is not made for us ; and the 
 iverlasting Hell, with its brimstone and fire, and its gnawing 
 an' gnashing of teeth, an' its theirst, an' its torture, an* its 
 worm that niver dies, for the like o' you."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 69 
 
 "Come! come away," said Ellinor, pulling her father's 
 arm. 
 
 "And if," said Aram, pausing, "if I were to say to you 
 name your want and it shall be fulfilled, would you have no 
 charity for me also ? " 
 
 " Umph ! " returned the hag, " ye are the great scolard ; 
 and they say ye knows what no one else do. T/I1 me now," 
 and she approached, and familiarly laid her bony finger on the 
 student's arm ; " t/11 me have ye iver, among other fine things, 
 known poverty ? " 
 
 " I have, woman ! " said Aram sternly. 
 
 " Och, ye have thm ! And did ye not sit, and gloom, and 
 eat up your oun heart, an' curse the sun that looked so gay, 
 an' the winged things that played so blithe-like, an' scowl at 
 the rich folk that niver wasted a thought on ye ? TV 11 me now, 
 your honor, t/11 me ! " 
 
 And the crone curtseyed with a mock air of beseeching 
 humility. 
 
 " I never forgot, even in want, the love due to my fellow- 
 sufferers ; for, woman, we all suffer, the rich and the poor ; 
 there are worse pangs than those of want ! " 
 
 " Ye think there be, do ye ? That's a comfort umph ! 
 Well, I'll t/11 ye now, I feel a rispict for you that I don't for 
 the rest on 'em ; for your face does not insult me with being 
 cheary like theirs yonder; an' I have noted ye walk in the 
 dusk with your eyes down and your arms crossed ; an' I have 
 said, that man I do not hate, somehow, for he has something 
 dark at his heart like me ! " 
 
 " The lot of earth is woe," answered Aram calmly, yet 
 shrinking back from the crone's touch ; " judge we charitably, 
 and act we kindly to each other. There this money is not 
 much, but it will light your hearth and heap your table with- 
 out toil, for some days at least ! " 
 
 " Thank your honor ;. an' what think you I'll do with the 
 money ? " 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " Drink, drink, drink!" cried the hag fiercely. "There's 
 nothing like drink for the poor, for th/n we fancy ourselves 
 what we wish ; and," sinking her voice into a whisper, " I 
 thinks th/n that 1 have my foot on the billies of the rich folks, 
 and my hands twisted about their intrails, and I hear them 
 shriek, and th/n I'm happy." 
 
 " Go home ! " said Aram, turning away, " and open the Book 
 of Life with other thoughts."
 
 70 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 The little party proceeded, and, looking back, Lester saw the 
 old woman gaze after them, till a turn in the winding valley 
 hid her from his sight. 
 
 " That is a strange person, Aram ; scarcely a favorable spec- 
 imen of the happy English peasant," said Lester, smiling. 
 
 " Yet they say," added Madeline, "that she was not always 
 the same perverse and hateful creature she is now." 
 
 " Ay," said Aram ; " and what, then, is her history ? " 
 
 " Why," replied Madeline, slightly blushing to find herself 
 made the narrator of a story, "some forty years ago this woman, 
 so gaunt and hideous now, was the beauty of the village. She 
 married an Irish soldier, whose regiment passed through Grass- 
 dale, and was heard of no more till about ten years back, when 
 she returned to her native place, the discontented, envious, 
 altered being you now see her." 
 
 " She is not reserved in regard to her past life," said Lester. 
 " She is too happy to seize the attention of any one to whom 
 she can pour forth her dark and angry confidence. She saw 
 her husband, who was afterwards dismissed the service a 
 strong, powerful man, a giant of his tribe, pine and waste, 
 inch by inch, from mere physical want, and at last, literally die 
 from hunger. It happened that they had settled in the county 
 in which her husband was born, and in that county those fre- 
 quent famines which are the scourge of Ireland were for two 
 years especially severe. You may note that the old woman has 
 a strong vein of coarse eloquence at her command, perhaps ac- 
 quired in (for it partakes of the natural character of) the coun- 
 try in which she lived so long ; and it would literally thrill you 
 with horror to hear her descriptions of the misery and destitu- 
 tion that she witnessed, and amidst which her husband breathed 
 his last. Out of four children, not one survives. One, an in- 
 fant, died within a week of the father ; two sons .were exe- 
 cuted, one at the age of sixteen, one a year older, for robbery 
 committed under aggravated circumstances ; and a fourth, a 
 daughter, died in the hospitals of London. The old woman 
 became a wanderer and a vagrant, and was at length passed to 
 her native parish, where she has since dwelt. These are the 
 misfortunes which have turned her blood to gall ; and these 
 are the causes which fill her with so bitter a hatred against 
 those whom wealth has preserved from sharing or witnessing a 
 fate similar to hers." 
 
 "Oh !" said Aram, in a low, but deep tone, "when when 
 will these hideous disparities be banished from the world? 
 How many noble natures how many glorious hopes how
 
 EUGENE ARAM. Jl 
 
 much of the seraph's intellect, have been crushed into the mire, 
 or blasted into guilt, by the mere force of physical want ! 
 What are the temptations of the rich to those of the poor ? 
 Yet, see how lenient we are to the crimes of the one, how re- 
 lentless to those of the other ! It is a bad world ; it makes a 
 man's heart sick to look around him. The consciousness of 
 how little individual genius can do to relieve the mass, grinds 
 out, as with a stone, all that is generous in ambition, and to 
 aspire from the level of life is but to be more graspingly selfish." 
 
 " Can legislators, or the moralists that instruct legislators, 
 do so little, then, towards universal good ? " said Lester 
 doubtingly. 
 
 " Why, what can they do but forward civilization. And 
 what is civilization, but an increase of human disparities ? The 
 more the luxury of the few, the more startling the wants, and 
 the more galling the sense, of poverty. Even the dreams of 
 the philanthropist only tend towards equality ; and where is 
 equality to be found, but in the state of the savage ? No ; I 
 thought otherwise once : but I now regard the vast lazar-house 
 around us without hope of relief ; death is the sole physician ! " 
 
 "Ah, no," said the high-sotiled Madeline eagerly; "do 
 not take away from us the best feeling and the highest desire 
 we can cherish. How poor, even in this beautiful world, with 
 the warm sun and fresh air about us, would be life, if we could 
 not make the happiness of others ! " 
 
 Aram looked at the beautiful speaker with a soft and half- 
 mournful smile. There is one very peculiar pleasure that we 
 feel as we grow older it is to see embodied, in another and 
 a more lovely shape, the thoughts and sentiments we once 
 nursed ourselves ; it is as if we viewed before us the incarnation 
 of our own youth ; and it is no wonder that we are warmed to- 
 wards the object, that thus seems the living apparition of all 
 that was brightest in ourselves ! It was with this sentiment 
 that Aram now gazed on Madeline. She felt the gaze, and her 
 heart beat delightfully ; but she sunk at once into a silence, 
 which she did not break during the rest of their walk. 
 
 " I do not say," said Aram, after a pause, " that we are not able 
 to make the happiness of those immediately around us. I speak 
 only of what we can effect for the mass. And it is a deadening 
 thought to mental ambition, that the circle of happiness we can 
 create is formed more by our moral than our mental qualities. 
 A warm heart, though accompanied but by a mediocre under- 
 standing, is even more likely to promote the happiness of those 
 around, than are the absorbed and abstract, though kindly,
 
 72 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 powers of a more elevated genius ; but (observing Lester about 
 to interrupt him) let us turn from this topic ; let us turn from 
 man's weakness to the glories of the Mother-Nature, from 
 which he sprung." 
 
 And kindling, as he ever did, the moment he approached a 
 subject so dear to his studies, Aram now spoke of the stars, 
 which began to sparkle forth ; of the vast, illimitable career 
 which recent science had opened to the imagination ; and of 
 the old, bewildering, yet eloquent theories, which from age to 
 age had at once misled and elevated the conjecture of past 
 sages. All this was a theme to which his listeners loved to 
 listen, and Madeline not the least. Youth, beauty, pomp, what 
 are these in point of attraction, to a woman's heart, when com- 
 pared to eloquence ? The magic of the tongue is the most 
 dangerous of all spells ! 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PRIVILEGE OF GENIUS. LESTER'S SATISFACTION AT THE 
 ASPECT OF EVENTS. HIS CONVERSATION WITH WALTER. A 
 DISCOVERY. 
 
 "Ale. I am for Lidian : 
 
 This accident, no doubt, will draw him from his hermit's life !" 
 ******** 
 
 " Lis. Spare my grief, and apprehend 
 What I should speak." BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER : The Lover's Progress. 
 
 IN the course of the various conversations our family of 
 Grassrlale enjoyed with their singular neighbor, it appeared that 
 his knowledge had not been confined to the closet ; at times he 
 dropped remarks which showed that he had been much among 
 cities, and travelled with the design, or at least with the vigilance, 
 of the observer ; but he did not love to be drawn into any de- 
 tailed accounts of what he had seen, or whither he had been : 
 an habitual, though a gentle, reserve, kept watch over the past 
 not, indeed, that character of reserve which excites the doubt, 
 but which inspires the interest. His most gloomy moods were 
 rather abrupt and fitful than morose, and his usual bearing was 
 calm, soft, and even tender. 
 
 There is a certain charm about great superiority of intellect 
 that winds into deep affections, which a much more constant
 
 EttGENE ARAM. 73 
 
 and even amiability of manners in lesser men often fails to 
 reach. Genius makes many enemies, but it makes sure friends 
 friends who forgive much, who endure long, who exact little : 
 they partake of the character of disciples as well as friends. 
 There lingers about the human heart a strong inclination to 
 look upward to revere ; in this inclination lies the source of 
 religion, of loyalty, and also of the worship and immortality 
 which are rendered so cheerfully to the great of old. And, in 
 truth, it is a divine pleasure ! admiration seems in some meas- 
 ure to appropriate to ourselves the qualities it honors in others. 
 We wed we root ourselves to the natures we so love to con- 
 template, and their life grows a part of our own. Thus when 
 a great man, who has engrossed our thoughts, our conjectures, 
 our homage, dies, a gap seems suddenly left in the world ; a 
 wheel in the mechanism of our own being appears abruptly 
 stilled ; a portion of ourselves, and not our worst portion for 
 how many pure, high, generous sentiments it contains dies 
 with him ! Yes ! it is this love, so rare, so exalted, and so de- 
 nied to all ordinary men, which is the especial privilege of 
 greatness, whether that greatness be shown in wisdom, in en- 
 terprise, in virtue, or even, till the world learns better, in the 
 more daring and lofty order of crime. A Socrates may claim 
 it to-day a Napoleon to-morrow ; nay, a brigand chief, illus- 
 trious in the circle in which he lives, may call it forth no less 
 powerfully than the generous failings of a Byron, or the sub- 
 lime eloquence of the greater Milton. 
 
 Lester saw with evident complacency the passion growing 
 up between his friend and his daughter ; he looked upon it as 
 a tie that would permanently reconcile Aram to the hearth of 
 social and domestic life ; a tie that would constitute the hap- 
 piness of his daughter, and secure to himself a relation in the 
 man he felt most inclined, of all he knew, to honor and esteem. 
 He remarked in the gentleness and calm temper of Aram much 
 that was calculated to ensure domestic peace ; and, knowing 
 the peculiar disposition of Madeline, he felt that she was exactly 
 the person, not only to bear with the peculiarities of the stu- 
 dent, but to venerate their source. In short, the more he con- 
 templated the idea of this alliance, the more he was charmed 
 with its probability. 
 
 Musing on this subject, the good squire was one day walking 
 in his garden, when he perceived his nephew at some distance, 
 and remarked that Walter, on seeing him, instead of coming 
 forward to meet him, was about to turn down an alley in an 
 opposite direction.
 
 74 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 A little pained at this, and remembering that Walter uad of 
 late seemed estranged from himself, and greatly altered from the 
 high and cheerful spirits natural to his temper, Lester called 
 to his nephew ; and Walter, reluctantly and slowly changing 
 his purpose of avoidance, advanced and met him. 
 
 " Why> Walter !" said the uncle, taking his arm, " this is 
 somewhat unkind to shun me ; are you engaged in any pur- 
 suit that requires secrecy or haste ?" 
 
 " No, indeed, sir ! " said Walter, with some embarrassment ; 
 " but I thought you seemed wrapped in reflection, and would 
 naturally dislike being disturbed." 
 
 " Hem ! As to that, I have no reflections I wish concealed 
 from you, Walter, or which might not be benefited by your 
 advice." The youth pressed his uncle's hand, but made no 
 reply ; and Lester, after a pause, continued : 
 
 " I am delighted to think, Walter, that you seem entirely to 
 have overcome the unfavorable prepossession which at first 
 you testified towards our excellent neighbor. And, for my 
 part, I think he appears to be especially attracted towards 
 yourself ; he seeks your company ; and to me he always speaks 
 of you in terms which, coming from such a quarter, give me 
 the most lively gratification." 
 
 Walter bowed his head, but not in the delighted vanity with 
 which a young man generally receives the assurance of 
 another's praise. 
 
 " I own," renewed Lester, " that I consider our friendship 
 with Aram one of the most fortunate occurrences in my life ; 
 at least," added he, with a sigh, " of late years. I doubt not 
 but you must have observed the partiality with which our dear 
 Madeline evidently regards him ; and yet more, the attach- 
 ment to her, which breaks forth from Aram, in spite of his ha- 
 bitual reserve and self-control. You have surely noticed this 
 Walter ? " 
 
 " I have," said Walter, in a low tone, and turning away his 
 head. 
 
 " And doubtless you share my satisfaction. It happens for- 
 tunately now, that Madeline early contracted that studious and 
 thoughtful turn, which, I must own, at one time gave me some 
 uneasiness and vexation. It has taught her to appreciate the 
 value of a mind like Aram's. Formerly, my dear boy, I hoped 
 that at one time or another she and yourself might form a 
 dearer connection than that of cousins. But I was disap- 
 pointed, and I am now consoled. And indeed I think there 
 is that in Ellinor which might be yet more calculated to render
 
 fcUGENE ARAM. 75 
 
 you happy ; that is, if the bias of your mind should ever lean 
 that way." 
 
 " You are very good," said Walter bitterly. " I own I am 
 not flattered by your selection ; nor do I see why the 
 plainer and less brilliant of the two sisters must necessarily be 
 the fitter for me." 
 
 " Nay," replied Lester, piqued, and justly angry ; " I do not 
 think, even if Madeline have the advantage of her sister, that 
 you can find any fault with the personal or mental attractions 
 of Ellinor. But, indeed, this is not a matter in which relations 
 should interfere. I am far from any wish to prevent you from 
 choosing throughout the world any one whom you may prefer. 
 All I hope is, that your future wife will be like Ellinor in kind- 
 ness of heart and sweetness of temper." 
 
 "From choosing throughout the world ! " repeated Walter : 
 " and how in this nook am I to see the world ? " 
 
 " Walter, your voice is reproachful. Do I deserve it ? " 
 
 Walter was silent. 
 
 " I have of late observed," continued Lester, " and with 
 wounded feelings, that you do not give me the same confidence, 
 or meet me with the same affection, that you once delighted 
 me by manifesting towards me. I know of no cause for this 
 change. Do not let us, my son, for I may so call you do not 
 let us, as we grow 'older, grow also more apart. Time divides 
 with a sufficient demarcation, the young from the old ; why 
 deepen the necessary line ? You know well, that I have never 
 from childhood insisted heavily upon a guardian's authority. 
 I have always loved to contribute to your enjoyments, and 
 shown you how devoted I am to your interests, by the very frank- 
 ness with which I have consulted you on my own. If there be 
 now on your mind any secret grievance, or any secret wish, 
 speak it, Walter, you are alone with the friend on earth 
 who loves you best ! " 
 
 Walter was wholly overcome by this address ; he pressed his 
 good uncle's hand to his lips, and it was some moments before 
 he mustered self-composure sufficient to reply. 
 
 " You have ever, ever been to me all that the kindest parent, 
 the tenderest friend could have been ; believe me, I am not 
 ungrateful. If of late I have been altered, the cause is not iu 
 you. Let me speak freely ; you encourage me to do so. I am 
 young, my temper is restless ; I have a love of enterprise and 
 adventure ; is it not natural that I should long to see the 
 world ? This is the cause of my late abstraction of mind. I 
 have now told you all ; it is for you to decide."
 
 y<3 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Lester looked wistfully on his nephew's countenance before 
 he replied : 
 
 " It is as I gathered," said he, "from various remarks which 
 you have lately let fall. I cannot blame your wish to leave us ; 
 it is certainly natural ; nor can I oppose it. Go, Walter, when 
 you will." 
 
 The young man turned round with a lighted eye and flushed 
 cheek. 
 
 " And why, Walter," said Lester, interrupting his thanks, 
 " why this surprise ? why this long doubt of my affection ? 
 Could you believe I should refuse a wish that, at your age, I 
 should have expressed myself ? You have wronged me ; you 
 might have saved a world of pain to us both by acquainting me 
 with your desire when it was first formed ; but, enough. I see 
 Madeline and Aram approach, let us join them now, and to-, 
 morrow we will arrange the time and method of your depar- 
 ture." 
 
 "Forgive me, sir," said Walter, stopping abruptly as the glow 
 faded from his cheek, " I have not yet recovered myself ; I am 
 not fit for other society than yours. Excuse my joining my 
 cousin, and ' 
 
 " Walter! " said Lester, also stopping short, and looking full 
 on his nephew ; " a painful thought flashes upon me ! Would 
 to Heaven I may be wrong ! Have you ever felt for Madeline 
 more tenderly than for her sister ? " 
 
 Walter literally trembled as he stood. The tears rushed into 
 Lester's eyes : he grasped his nephew's hand warmly, 
 
 " God comfort thee, my poor boy ! " said he, with great emo- 
 tion ; " I never dreamed of this." 
 
 Walter felt now that he was understood. He gratefully re- 
 turned the pressure of his uncle's hand, and then, withdrawing 
 his own, darted down one of the intersecting walks, and was 
 almost instantly out of sight.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE STATE OF WALTER'S MIND. AN ANGLER AND A MAN OF 
 THE WORLD. A COMPANION FOUND FOR WALTER. 
 
 " This great disease for love I dre, * 
 
 There is no tongue can tell the wo ; 
 I love the love that loves not me, 
 I may not mend, but mourning mo." 
 
 The Mourning Maiden. 
 
 " I in these flowery meads would be, 
 These crystal streams should solace me, 
 To whose harmonious bubbling voice 
 I with nay angle would rejoice." IzAAK WALTON. 
 
 WHEN Walter left his uncle, he hurried, scarcely conscious 
 of his steps, towards his favorite haunt by the water-side. 
 From a child, he had singled out that scene as the witness of 
 his early sorrows or boyish schemes ; and still, the solitude of 
 the place cherished the habits of his boyhood. 
 
 Long had he, unknown to himself, nourished an attachment 
 to his beautiful cousin ; nor did he awaken to the secret of his 
 heart, until, with an agonizing jealousy, he penetrated the 
 secret at her own. The reader has, doubtless, already per- 
 ceived that it was this jealousy which at the first occasioned 
 Walter's dislike to Aram : the consolation of that dislike was 
 forbid him now. The gentleness and forbearance of the 
 student's deportment had taken away all ground of offence; 
 and Walter had sufficient generosity to acknowledge his merits, 
 while tortured by their effect. Silently, till this day, he had 
 gnawed his heart, and found for its despair no confidant and 
 no comfort. The only wish that he cherished was a feverish 
 and gloomy desire to leave the scene which witnessed the tri- 
 umph of his rival. Everything around had become hateful to 
 his eyes, and a curse had lighted upon the face of home. He 
 thought now, with a bitter satisfaction, that his escape was at 
 hand ; in a few days he might be rid of the gall and the pang, 
 which every moment of his stay at Grassdale inflicted upon 
 him. The sweet voice of Madeline he should hear no more, 
 subduing its silver sound for his rival's ear : no more he should 
 watch apart, and himself unheeded, how timidly her glance 
 roved in search of another, or how vividly her cheek flushed 
 when the step of that happier one approached. Many miles 
 
 *Bear.
 
 78 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 would at least shut out this picture from his view ; and in ab- 
 sence, was it not possible that he might teach himself to forget ? 
 Thus meditating, he arrived at the banks of the little brooklet, 
 and was awakened from his revery by the sound of his own 
 name. He started, and saw the old corporal seated on the stump 
 of a tree, and busily employed in fixing to his line the mimic 
 likeness of what anglers, and, for aught we know, the rest o* 
 the world, call the "violet-fly." 
 
 " Ha ! master, at my day's work, you see ; fit for nothing 
 else no\v. When a musket's half worn out, schoolboys buy 
 it pop it at sparrows. I be like the musket ! but never mind 
 have not seen the world for nothing. We get reconciled to all 
 things : that's my way augh ! Now, sir, you shall watch me 
 catch the finest trout you have seen this summer: know where 
 he lies under the bush yonder. Whi sh ! sir, whi-sh !" 
 
 The corporal now gave his warrior soul up to the due guid- 
 ance of the violet-fly : now he whipped it lightly on the wave ; 
 now he slid it coquettishly along the surface ; now it floated, 
 lake an unconscious beauty, carelessly with the tide ; and now, 
 like an artful prude, it affected to loiter by the way, or to steal 
 into designing obscurity under the shade of some overhanging 
 bank. But none of these manoeuvres captivated the wary old 
 trout, on whose acquisition the corporal had set his heart ; and, 
 what was especially provoking, the angler could see distinctly 
 the dark outline of the intended victim, as it lay at the bot- 
 tom, like some well-regulated bachelor, who eyes from afar 
 the charms he has discreetly resolved to neglect. 
 
 The corporal waited till he could no longer blind himself to 
 the displeasing fact that the violet-fly was wholly ineffiacious ; 
 he then drew up his line, and replaced the contemned beauty 
 of the violet-fly with the novel attractions of the yellow-dun. 
 
 " Now, sir," whispered he, lifting up his finger, and nodding 
 sagaciously to Walter. Softly dropped the yellow-dun on the 
 water, and swiftly did it glide before the gaze of the latent 
 trout : and now the trout seemed aroused from his apathy, be- 
 hold he rnoved forward, balancing himself upon his fins ; now 
 he slowly ascended towards the surface : you might see all the 
 speckles of his coat : the corporal's heart stood still he is 
 now at a convenient distance from the yellow-dun ; lo, he sur- 
 veys it steadfastly ; he ponders, he see-saws himself to and fro. 
 The yellow-dun sails away in affected indifference; that indif- 
 ference whets the appetite of the hesitating gazer ; he darts 
 forward ; he is opposite the yellow-dun, he pushes his nose 
 against it with an eager rudeness, he no, he does 0/bite, he
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 79 
 
 recoils,, he gazes again with surprise and suspicion on the little 
 charmer ; he fades back slowly into the deeper water, and 
 then, suddenly turning his tail towards the disappointed bait, 
 he makes off as fast as he can, yonder, yonder, and disap- 
 pears ! No, that's he leaping yonder from the wave : Jupiter ! 
 what a noble fellow ! What leaps he at ? A real fly ! " D n 
 his eyes ! " growled the corporal. 
 
 " You might have caught him with a minnow," said Walter, 
 speaking for the first time. 
 
 "Minnow !" repeated the corporal gruffly ; "ask your hon- 
 or's pardon. Minnow ! I have fished with the yellow-dun 
 these twenty years, and never knew it fail before. Minnow! 
 baugh ! But ask pardon ; your honor is very welcome to fish 
 with a minnow, if you please it." 
 
 " Thank you, Bunting. And pray what sport have you had 
 to-day ? " 
 
 " Oh, good, good," quoth the corporal, snatching up his 
 basket and closing the cover, lest the young squire should pry 
 into it. No man is more tenacious of his secrets than your 
 true angler. " Sent the best home two hours ago ; one weighed 
 three pounds on the faith of a man ; indeed, I'm satisfied now ; 
 time to give up ": and the corporal began to disjoint the rod. 
 
 " Ah, sir ! " said he, with a half sigh, " a pretty river this ; 
 don't mean to say it is not ; but the river Lea for my money. 
 You know the Lea ? not a morning's walk from Lunnun. 
 Mary Gibson, my first sweetheart, lived by the bridge, caught 
 such a trout there by the by ; had beautiful eyes black, round 
 as a cherry five feet eight without shoes might have listed 
 in the Forty-second." 
 
 "Who, Bunting?" said Walter, smiling ; "the lady or the 
 trout ?" 
 
 " Augh ! baugh ! what? Oh, laughing at me, your honor; 
 you're welcome, sir. Love's a silly thing know the world 
 now have not fallen in love these ten years. I doubt no 
 offence, sir, no'offence I doubt whether your honor and Miss 
 Ellinor can say as much," 
 
 " I and Miss Ellinor ! You forget yourself strangely, Bunt- 
 ing," said Walter, coloring with anger. 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir, beg pardon rough soldier lived away 
 from the world so long, words slipped out of my mouth ab- 
 sent without leave." 
 
 " But why," said Walter, smothering or conquering his vexa- 
 tion, " why couple me with Miss Ellinor ? Did you imagine 
 that we we were in love with each other ? "
 
 EUGENE AfeAM. 
 
 44 Indeed, sir, and if I did, 'tis no more than my neighbors 
 imagine too." 
 
 " Humph ! Your neighbors are very silly, then, and very 
 wrong." 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir, again always getting askew. Indeed 
 some did say it was Miss Madeline, but I says, says I, ' No ! 
 I'm a man of the world see through a millstone ; Miss Made- 
 line's too easy like ; Miss Nelly blushes when he speaks ; scar- 
 let is Love's regimentals it was ours in the Forty-second, 
 edged with yellow pepper-and-salt pantaloons ! For my part 
 I think but I've no business to think, howsomever baugh ! " 
 
 " Pray, what do you think, Mr. Bunting ? Why do you 
 hesitate ?" 
 
 44 'Fraid of offence but I do think that Master Aram your 
 honor understands howsomever squire's daughter too great a 
 match for such as he ! " 
 
 Walter did not answer ; and the garrulous old soldier, who 
 had been the young man's playmate and companion since 
 Walter was a boy, and was therefore accustomed to the famili- 
 arity with which he now spoke, continued, mingling with his 
 abrupt prolixity an occasional shrewdness of observation, which 
 showed that he was no inattentive commentator on the little and 
 quiet world around him : 
 
 41 Free to confess, Squire Walter, that I don't quite like this 
 lamed man, as much as the rest of 'm something queer about 
 him can't see to the bottom of him don't think he's quite 
 so meek and lamblike as he seems : once saw a calm dead 
 pool in foren parts peered down into it by little and little, 
 my eye got used to it saw something dark at the bottom 
 stared and stared by Jupiter a great big alligator ! walked 
 off immediately never liked quiet pools since augh, no ! " 
 
 "An argument against quiet pools, perhaps, Bunting; but 
 scarcely against quiet people." 
 
 44 Don't know as to that, your honor much of a muchness. 
 I have seen Master Aram, demure as he looks, start, and bite 
 his lip, and change color, and frown he has an ugly frown, I 
 can tell ye, when he thought no one nigh. A man who gets 
 in a passion with himself may be soon out of temper with 
 others. Free to confess, I should not like to see him married 
 to that stately, beautiful, young lady but they do gossip about 
 it in the village. If it is not true, better put the squire on his 
 guard false rumors often beget truths beg pardon, your 
 honor no business of mine baugh ! But I'm a lone man 
 who have seen the world, and I thinks on the things around me,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 8l 
 
 and I turns over the quid now on this side, now on the 
 other 'tis my way, sir and but I offend your honor." 
 
 "Not at all ; I know you are an honest man, Bunting, and 
 well affected to our family : at the same time it is neither pru- 
 dent nor charitable to speak harshly of our neighbors without 
 sufficient cause. And really you seem to me to be a little hasty in 
 your judgment of a man so inoffensive in his habits, and so 
 justly and generally esteemed, as Mr. Aram." 
 
 " May be, sir may be, very right what you say. But I 
 thinks what I thinks all the same ; and, indeed, it is a thing 
 that puzzles me, how that strange-looking vagabond, as frighted 
 the ladies so, and who, Miss Nelly told me for she saw 
 them in his pocket carried pistols about him, as if he had been 
 among cannibals and Hottentots, instead of the peaceablest 
 country that man ever set foot in, should boast of his friend- 
 ship with this larned schollard, and pass I dare swear a whole 
 night in his house ! Birds of a feather flock together augh ! 
 sir ! " 
 
 " A man cannot surely be answerable for the respectability 
 of all his acquaintances, even though he feel obliged to offer 
 them the accommodation of a night's shelter." 
 
 " Baugh ! " grunted the corporal. "Seen the world ; seen 
 the world young gentleman are always so good-natured ; 'tis 
 a pity, that the more one sees the more suspicious one grows. 
 One does not have gumption till one has been properly cheat- 
 ed one must be made a fool very often in order not to be 
 fooled at last ! " 
 
 " Well, corporal, I shall now have opportunities enough of 
 profiting by experience. I am going to leave Grassdale in a 
 few days, and learn suspicion and wisdom in the great world." 
 
 "Augh ! baugh ! what ! " cried the corporal, starting from 
 the contemplative air which he had hitherto assumed. " The 
 great world? how? when? going away? who goes with 
 your honor ? 
 
 "My honor's self: I have no companion, unless you like to 
 attend me," said Walter jestingly : but the corporal affected, 
 with his natural shrewdness, to take the proposition in earnest. 
 
 " I ! your honor's too good ; and indeed, though I say it, 
 sir, you might do worse : not but what I should be sorry to 
 leave nice snug home here, and this stream, though the trout 
 have been shy lately, ah ! that was a mistake of yours, sir, 
 recommending the minnow ; and neighbor Dealtry, though his 
 ale's not so good as 'twas last year ; and and but, in short, 
 I always loved your honor dandled you on my knees ; you
 
 82 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 recollect the broadsword exercise ? one, two, three augh ! 
 baugh ! and if your honor really is going, why, rather than 
 you should want a proper person, who knows the world, to 
 brush your coat, polish your shoes, give you good advice on 
 the faith of a man, I'll go with you myself ! " 
 
 This alacrity on the part of the corporal was far from dis- 
 pleasing to Walter. The proposal he had at first made unthink- 
 ingly, he now seriously thought advisable ; and at length it 
 was settled that the corporal should call the next morning at 
 the manor-house, and receive instructions to conclude arrange- 
 ments for the journey. Not forgetting, as the sagacious Bunt- 
 ling delicately insinuated, " the wee settlements as to Avages, 
 and board-wages, more a matter of form, like, than anything 
 else augh ! " 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LOVERS. THE ENCOUNTER AND QUARREL OF THE RIVALS. 
 
 " Two sueh I saw, what time the labor 'd ox 
 In his loose traces from the furrow came." Cotnus. 
 
 " Pedro. Now do me noble right. 
 
 Rod. I'll satisfy you ; 
 But not by the sword." BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Pilgrim. 
 
 WHILE Walter and the corporal enjoyed the above conversa- 
 tion, Madeline and Aram, whom Lester left to themselves, were 
 pursuing their walk along the solitary fields. Their love had 
 passed from the eye to the lip, and now found expression in 
 words. 
 
 " Observe," said he, as the light touch of one, who he felt 
 loved him entirely, rested on his arm, "Observe, as the later 
 summer now begins to breathe a more various and mellow glory 
 into the landscape, how singularly pure and lucid the atmos- 
 phere becomes. When, two months ago, in the full flush of 
 June, I walked through these fields, a gray mist hid yon distant 
 hills and the far forest from my view. Now, with what a 
 transparent stillness the whole expanse of scenery spreads itself 
 before us. And such, Madeline, is the change that has come 
 over myself since that time. Then if I looked beyond the 
 limited present, all was dim and indistinct. Now, the mist has 
 faded away the broad future extends before me, calm and 
 bright with the hope which is borrowed from your love \
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 83 
 
 We will not tax the patience of the reader, who seldom enters 
 with keen interest into the mere dialogue of love, with the 
 blushing Madeline's reply, or with all the soft vows and tender 
 confessions which the rich poetry of Aram's mind made yet 
 more delicious to the ear of his dreaming and devoted mistress. 
 
 "There is one circumstance," said Aram, " which casts a 
 momentary shade on the happiness I enjoy my Madeline prob- 
 ably guesses its nature. I regret to see that the blessing of 
 your love must be purchased by the misery of another, and that 
 other, the nephew of my kind friend. You have doubtless ob- 
 served the melancholy of Walter Lester, and have long since 
 known its origin?" 
 
 " Indeed, Eugene," answered Madeline, "it has given me 
 great pain to note what you refer to, for it would be a false 
 delicacy in me to deny that I have observed it. But Walter is 
 young and high-spirited ; nor do I think he is of a nature to 
 love long where there is no return ! " 
 
 " And what," said Aram sorrowfully, " what deduction from 
 reason can ever apply to love ? Love is a very contradiction 
 of all the elements of our ordinary nature ; it makes the proud 
 man meek, the cheerful, sad, the high-spirited, tame ; our 
 strongest resolutions, our hardiest energy, fail before it. Be- 
 lieve me, you cannot prophesy of its future effect in. a man 
 from any knowledge of his past character. I grieve to think 
 that the blow falls upon one in early youth, ere the world's 
 disappointments have blunted the heart, or the world's numer- 
 ous interests have multiplied its resources. Men's minds have 
 been turned when they have not well sifted the cause them- 
 selves, and their fortunes marred, by one stroke on the affec- 
 tions of their youth. So at least have I read, Madeline, and 
 so marked in others. For myself, I knew nothing of love in 
 reality till I knew you. But who can know you, and not sym- 
 pathize with him who has lost you ?" 
 
 "Ah, Eugene ! you at least overrate the influence which love 
 produces on men. A little resentment and a little absence will 
 soon cure my cousin of an ill-placed and ill-requited attach- 
 ment. You do not think how easy it is to forget." 
 
 " Forget ! " said Aram, stopping abruptly ; " ay, forget it is 
 a strange truth ! we do forget ! The summer passes over the 
 furrow, and the corn springs up ; the sod forgets the flower of 
 the past year ; the battle-field forgets the blood that has been 
 spilt upon its turf ; the sky forgets the storm ; and the water 
 the noon-day sun that slept upon its bosom. All Nature 
 preaches forgetfulness. Its very order is the progress of ob-
 
 84 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 livion. And I I give me your hand, Madeline, I, ha ! ha! 
 I forget too ! " 
 
 As Aram spoke thus vvildly, his countenance worked ; but 
 his voice was slow, and scarcely audible : he Deemed rather 
 conferring with himself, than addressing Madeline. But when 
 his words ceased, and he felt the soft hand of his betrothed, 
 and, turning, saw her anxious and wistful eyes fixed in alarm, 
 yet in all unsuspecting confidence, on his face ; his features 
 relaxed into their usual serenity, and kissing the hand he 
 clasped, he continued, in a collected and steady tone : 
 
 " Forgive me, my sweetest Madeline. These fitful and strange 
 moods sometimes come upon me yet. I have been so long in 
 the habit of pursuing any train of thought, however wild, that 
 presents itself to my mind, that I cannot easily break it, even 
 in your presence. All studious men the twilight eremites of 
 books and closets, contract this ungraceful custom of soliloquy. 
 You know our abstraction is a common jest and proverb : you 
 must laugh me out of it. But stay, dearest ! there is a rare 
 herb at your feet, let me gather it. So, do you note its leaves 
 this bending and silver flower ? Let us rest on this bank, and 
 I will tell you of its qualities. Beautiful as it is, it has a 
 poison." 
 
 The place in which the lover rested is one which the villagers 
 to this day call "The Lady's Seat"; for Madeline, whose 
 history is fondly preserved in that district, was afterwards wont 
 constantly to repair to that bank (during a short absence of 
 her lover, hereafter to be noted), and subsequent events stamped 
 with interest every spot she was known to have favored with 
 resort. And when the flower had been duly conned, and the 
 study dismissed, Aram, to whom all the signs of the season 
 were familiar, pointed to her the thousand symptoms of the 
 month which are unheeded by less observant eyes ; not forget- 
 ting, as they thus reclined, their' hands clasped together, to 
 couple each remark with some allusion to his love, or some 
 deduction which heightened compliment into poetry. He bade 
 her mark the light gossamer as it floated on the air ; now soar- 
 ing high high into the translucent atmosphere ; now suddenly 
 stooping, and sailing away beneath the boughs, which ever and 
 anon it hung with a silken web, that by the next morn would 
 glitter with a thousand dew-drops. "And so," said he, fanci- 
 fully, "does love lead forth its numberless creations, making 
 the air its path and empire ; ascending aloof at its wild will, 
 hanging its meshes on every bough, and bidding the common 
 grass break into a fairy lustre at the beam of the daily sun ! "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 85 
 
 He pointed to her the spot, where, in the silent brake, the 
 harebells, now waxing rare and few, yet lingered or where the 
 mystic ring on the soft turf conjured up the associations of 
 Oberon and his train. That superstition gave license and 
 play to his full memory and glowing fancy ; and Shakspeare 
 Spenser Ariosto the magic of each mighty master of Fairy 
 Realm he evoked, and poured into her transported ear. It 
 was precisely such arts, which to a gayer and more worldly 
 nature than Madeline's might have seemed but wearisome, that 
 arrested and won her imaginative and high-wrought mind. 
 And thus he, who to another might have proved but the retired 
 and moody student, became to her the very being of whom her 
 " maiden meditation " had dreamed the master and magician 
 of her fate. 
 
 Aram did not return to the house with Madeline ; he accom- 
 panied her to the garden gate, and then, taking leave of her, 
 bent his way homeward. He had gained the entrance of the 
 little valley that led to his abode, when he saw Walter cross his 
 path at a short distance. His heart, naturally susceptible to 
 kindly emotion, smote him as he remarked the moody listless- 
 ness of the young man's step, and recalled the buoyant light- 
 ness it was once wont habitually to wear. He quickened his 
 pace, and joined Walter before the latter was aware of his 
 presence. 
 
 " Good-evening," said he mildly ; " if you are goingmy way, 
 give me the benefit of your company." 
 
 " My path lies yonder," replied Walter somewhat sullenly ; 
 " I regret that it is different from yours." 
 
 " In that case," said Aram, " I can delay my return home, 
 and will, with your leave, intrude my society upon you for some 
 few minutes." 
 
 Walter bowed his head in reluctant assent. They walked on 
 for some moments without speaking, the one unwilling, the 
 other seeking an occasion, to break the silence. 
 
 "This to my mind," said Aram, at length, " is the most 
 pleasing landscape in the whole country : observe the bashful 
 water stealing away among the woodlands. Methinks the wave 
 is endowed with an instinctive wisdom, that it thus shuns the 
 world." 
 
 " Rather," said Walter, " with the love for change which 
 exists everywhere in nature, it does not seek the shade until it 
 has passed by 'towered cities,' and the ' busy hum of men.' " 
 
 "1 admire the shrewdness of your reply," rejoined Aram ; 
 " but note how far more pure and lovely are its waters in these
 
 86 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 retreats, than when washing the walls of the reeking town, re- 
 ceiving into its breast the taint of a thousand pollutions, vexed 
 by the sound, and stench, and unholy perturbation of men's 
 dwelling-place. Now it glasses only what is high or beautiful 
 in nature the stars or the leafy banks. The wind that ruffles 
 it is clothed with perfumes ; the rivulet that swells it descends 
 from the everlasting mountains, or is formed by the rains of 
 Heaven. Believe me, it is the type of a life that glides into 
 solitude, from the weariness and fretful turmoil of the world. 
 
 ' No flattery, hate, or envy lodgeth there. 
 
 There no suspicion walled in proved steel, 
 Yet fearful of the arms herself doth wear ; 
 
 Pride i; not there ; no tyrant there we feel ! " * 
 
 " I will not cope with you in simile, or in poetry," said 
 Walter, as his lip curved ; " it is enough for me to think that 
 life should be spent in action. I hasten to prove if my judg- 
 ment be erroneous." 
 
 " Are you, then, about to leave us ? " inquired Aram. 
 
 " Yes, within a few days." 
 
 " Indeed ! I regret to hear it." 
 
 The answer sounded jarringly on the irritated nerves of the 
 disappointed rival. 
 
 " You do me more honor than I desire," said he, " in inter- 
 esting yourself, however lightly, in my schemes or fortune." 
 
 " Young man," replied Aram coldly, " I never see the im- 
 petuous and yearning spirit of youth without a certain, and, it 
 may be, a painful interest. How feeble is the chance that its 
 hopes will be fulfilled ! Enough if it lose not all its loftier as- 
 pirings, as well as its brighter expectations." 
 
 Nothing more aroused the proud and fiery temper of Walter 
 Lester than the tone of superior wisdom and superior age 
 which his rival sometimes assumed towards him. More and more 
 displeased with his present companion, he answered, in no 
 conciliatory tone, " I cannot but consider the warning and the 
 fears of one, neither my relation nor my friend, in the light of 
 a gratuitous affront." 
 
 Aram smiled as he answered : 
 
 "There is no occasion for resentment. Preserve this hot 
 spirit and this high self-confidence, till you return again to these 
 scenes, and I shall be at once satisfied and corrected." 
 
 "Sir," said Walter, coloring, and irritated more by the smile 
 than the words of his rival, " I am not aware by what right or 
 on what ground you assume towards me the superiority, not only 
 
 * Phineas Fletcher.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 87 
 
 of admonition, but reproof. My uncle's preference towards 
 you gives you no authority over me. That preference I do 
 not pretend to share. He paused for a moment, thinking 
 Aram might hasten to reply ; but as the student walked on 
 with his usual calmness of demeanor, he added, stung by the in- 
 difference which he attributed, not altogether without truth, to 
 disdain, " And since you have taken upon yourself to caution 
 me, and to forebode my inability to resist the contamination, 
 as you would term it, of the world,- 1 tell you, that it may be 
 happy for you to bear so clear a conscience, so untouched a 
 spirit, as that which I now boast, and with which I trust in God 
 and my own soul I shall return to my birthplace. It is not the 
 holy only that love solitude ; and men may shun the world 
 from another motive than that of philosophy." 
 
 It was now Aram's turn to feel resentment, and this was 
 indeed an insinuation not only unwarrantable in itself, but one 
 which a man of so peaceable and guileless a life, affecting even 
 an extreme and rigid austerity of morals, might well be tempted 
 to repel with scorn and indignation ; and Aram, however meek 
 and forbearing in general, testified in this instance that his 
 wonted gentleness arose from no lack of man's natural spirit. 
 He laid his hand commandingly on young Lester's shoulder, 
 and surveyed his countenance with a dark and menacing 
 frown. 
 
 "Boy!" said he, "were there meaning in your words, I 
 should (mark me !) avenge the insult; as it is, I despise it. 
 Go!" 
 
 So high and lofty was Aram's manner, so majestic was the 
 sternness of his rebuke, and the dignity of his bearing, as, wav- 
 ing his hand, he now turned away, that Walter lost his self- 
 possession and stood fixed to the spot, abashed, and humbled 
 from his late anger. It was not till Aram had moved with a 
 slow step several paces backward toward his home, that the 
 bold and haughty temper of the young man returned to his aid. 
 Ashamed of himself for the momentary weakness he had be- 
 trayed, and burning to redeem it, he hastened after the stately 
 form of his rival, and, planting himself full in his path, said, in 
 a voice half-choked with contending emotions : 
 
 " Hold ! You have given me the opportunity I have long 
 desired ; you yourself have now broken that peace which ex- 
 isted between us, and which to me was more bitter than worm- 
 wood. You have dared, yes, dared to use threatening 
 language towards me ! I call on you to fulfil your threat. I 
 tell you that I meant, I desired, I thirsted to affront you. Now
 
 88 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 resent my purposed, premeditated affront, as you will and 
 can ! ' 
 
 There was something remarkable in the contrasted figures of 
 the rivals, as they now stood fronting each other. The elastic 
 and vigorous form of Walter Lester, his sparkling eyes, his 
 sunburnt and glowing check, his clenched hands, and his 
 whole frame, alive and eloquent with the energy, the heat, the 
 hasty courage, and fiery spirit of youth : on the other hand, 
 the bending frame of the student, gradually rising into the 
 dignity of its full height his pale cheek, in which the wan 
 hues neither deepened nor waned, his large eye raised to meet 
 Walter's, bright, steady, and yet how calm! Nothing weak, 
 nothing irresolute could be traced in that form or that lofty 
 countenance ; yet all resentment had vanished from his aspect. 
 He seemed at once tranquil and prepared. 
 
 ''You designed to affront me ! " said he ; "it is well it is a 
 noble confession ; and wherefore ? What do you propose to 
 gain by it? A man whose whole life is peace, you would 
 provoke to outrage? Would there be triumph in this, or dis- 
 grace ? A man, whom your uncle honors and loves, you would 
 insult without cause you would waylay you would, after 
 watching and creating your opportunity, entrap into defending 
 himself. Is this worthy of that high spirit of which you 
 boasted ? Is this worthy a generous anger, or a noble hatred ? 
 Away ! you malign yourself. I shrink from no quarrel why 
 should I ? I have nothing to fear : my nerves are firm my 
 heart is faithful to my will ; my habits may have diminished 
 my strength, but it is yet equal to that of most men. As to 
 the weapons of the world they fall not to my use. I might 
 be excused by the most punctilious, for rejecting what becomes 
 neither my station nor my habits of life ; but I learned thus 
 much from books long since, ' Hold thyself prepared for all 
 things'; I am so prepared. And as I command the spirit,.! 
 lack not the skill, to defend myself, or return the hostility 
 of another." As Aram thus said, he drew a pistol from his 
 bosom ; and pointed it leisurely towards a tree, at the distance 
 of some paces. 
 
 "Look," said he : "You note that small discolored and white 
 stain in the bark you can but just observe it ; he who can 
 send a bullet through that spot need not fear to meet the 
 quarrel which he seeks to avoid." 
 
 Walter turned mechanically, and indignant, though silent, 
 towards the tree. Aram fired, and the ball penetrated the centre 
 of the stain. He then replaced the pistol in his bosom, and said :
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 89 
 
 "Early in life I had many enemies, and I taught myself these 
 arts. From habit, I still bear about me the weapons I trust and 
 pray I may never have occasion to use. But to return. I have 
 offended you I have incurred your hatred why ? What are 
 my sins?" 
 
 "Do you ask the cause?" said Walter, speaking between 
 his ground teeth. " Have you not traversed my views blighted 
 my hopes charmed away from me the affections which were 
 more to me than the world, and driven me to wander from my 
 home with a crushed spirit and a cheerless heart ? Are these 
 no causes for hate ?" 
 
 "Have I done this?" said Aram, recoiling, and evidently 
 and powerfully affected. " Have I so injured you ? It is 
 true ! I know it I perceive it I read your heart ; and 
 bear witness Heaven ! I feel for the wound that I, but with 
 no guilty hand, inflict upon you. Yet be just : ask yourself, 
 have I done aught that you, in my case, would have left un- 
 done ? Have I been insolent in triumph, or haughty in 
 success ? If so, hate me, nay, spurn me, now." 
 
 Walter turned his head irresolutely away. 
 
 "If it please you, that I accuse myself, in that I, a man 
 seared and lone at heart, presumed to come within the pale of 
 human affections; that I exposed myself to cross another's 
 better and brighter hopes, or dared to soften my fate with the 
 tender and endearing ties that are meet alone for a more 
 genial and youthful nature ; if it please you that I accuse and 
 curse myself for this that I yielded to it with pain and with 
 self-reproach that I shall think hereafter of what I uncon- 
 sciously cost you, with remorse then be consoled ! " 
 
 "It is enough," said Walter; "let us part. I leave you 
 with more soreness at my late haste than I will acknowledge ; 
 let that content you : for myself, I ask for no apology or 
 
 "But you shall have it amply," interrupted Aram, advancing 
 with a cordial openness of mien not usual to him. "I was all 
 to blame; I should have remembered you were an injured man, 
 and suffered you to have said all you would. Words at best are 
 but a poor vent for a wronged and burningheart. It shall be so 
 in future : speak your will, attack, upbraid, taunt me, I will bear 
 it all. And, indeed, even to myself there appears some witchcraft, 
 some glamoury, in what has chanced. What ! I favored where 
 you love? Is it possible? It might teach the vainest to for- 
 swear vanity. You, the young, the buoyant, the fresh, the beau- 
 tiful ? And I, who have passed the glory and zest of life between 
 dusty walls; I who well, well, Fate laughs at probabilities !"
 
 90 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Aram now seemed relapsing into one of his more abstracted 
 moods ; he ceased to speak aloud, but his lips moved, and his 
 eyes grew fixed in revery on the ground. Walter gazed at him 
 for some moments with mixed and contending sensations. 
 Once more, resentment and the bitter wrath of jealousy had 
 faded back into the remoter depths of his mind, and a certain 
 interest for his singular rival, despite of himself, crept into his 
 breast. But this mysterious and fitful nature, was it one in 
 which the devoted Madeline would certainly find happiness 
 and repose? would she never regret her choice? This ques- 
 tion obtruded itself upon him, and, while he sought to answer 
 it, Aram, regaining his composure, turned abruptly and offered 
 him his hand. Walter did not accept it ; he bowed, with a 
 cold aspect. "I cannot give my hand without my heart," 
 said he ; "we were foes just now ; we are not friends yet. I 
 am unreasonable in this, I know, but " 
 
 "Be it so," interrupted Aram; "I understand you. I press 
 my good will on you no more. When this pang is forgotten, 
 when this wound is healed, and when you will have learned 
 more of him who is now your rival, we may meet again, with 
 other feelings on your side." 
 
 Thus they parted, and the solitary lamp which for weeks 
 past had been quenched at the wholesome hour in the student's 
 home, streamed from the casement throughout the whole of 
 that night ; was it a witness of the calm and learned vigil, or 
 of the unresting heart?" 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE FAMILY SUPPER. THE TWO SISTERS IN THEIR CHAM- 
 BER. A MISUNDERSTANDING FOLLOWED BV A CONFES- 
 SION. WALTER'S APPROACHING DEPARTURE, AND THE COR- 
 PORAL'S BEHAVIOR THEREON. THE CORPORAL'S FAVORITE 
 
 INTRODUCED TO THE READER. THE CORPORAL PROVES 
 
 HIMSELF A SUBTLE DIPLOMATIST. 
 
 " So we grew together 
 Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, 
 But yet an union in partition." Midsummer Nighfs Dream. 
 
 "The corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of artil- 
 leryship." Tristram Shandy. 
 
 IT was late that evening when Walter returned home; the 
 little family were assembled at the last and lightest meal of the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 91 
 
 day ; Ellinor silently made room for her cousin beside herself, 
 and that little kindness touched Walter. " Why did I not love 
 her!" thought he ; and he spoke to her in a tone so affection- 
 ate that it made her heart thrill with delight. Lester was, on 
 the whole, the most pensive of the group ; but the old and 
 young man exchanged looks of restored confidence, which, on 
 the part of the former, were softened by a pitying tenderness. 
 
 When the cloth was removed, and the servants gone, Lester 
 took it on himself to break to the sisters the intended departure 
 of their cousin. Madeline received the news with painful 
 blushes, and a certain self-reproach ; for even where a woman 
 has no cause to blame herself, she, in these cases, feels a 
 sort of remorse at the unhappiness she occasions. But Ellinor 
 rose suddenly and left the room. 
 
 "And now," said Lester, "London will, I suppose, be your 
 first destination. I can furnish you with letters to some of my 
 old friends there : merry fellows they were once : you must 
 take care of the prodigality of their wine. There's John Court- 
 land ah ! a seductive dog to drink with. Be sure and let me 
 know how honest John looks, and what he says of me. I recol- 
 lect him as if it were yesterday ; a roguish eye, with a moisture 
 in it ; full cheeks ; a straight nose ; black, curled hair ; and 
 teeth as even as dies : honest John showed his teeth pretty 
 often, too : ha, ha ! how the dog loved a laugh ! Well, and 
 Peter Hales Sir Peter now, has his uncle's baronetcy a gen- 
 erous, open-hearted fellow as ever lived will ask you very 
 often to dinner nay, offer you money if you want it : but take 
 care he does not lead you into extravagances : out of debt out 
 of danger, Walter. It would have been well for poor Peter 
 Hales, had he remembered that rnaxim. Often and often have 
 I been to see him in the Marshalsea ; but he was the heir to 
 good fortunes, though his relations kept him close ; sol sup- 
 pose he is well off now. His estates lie in shire, on your 
 
 road to London ; so, if he is at his country seat, you can beat 
 up his quarters, and spend a month or so with him : a most 
 hospitable fellow." 
 
 With these little sketches of his contemporaries the good 
 squire endeavored to while the time, taking, it is true, some 
 pleasure in the youthful reminiscences they excited, but chiefly 
 designed to enliven the melancholy of his nephew. When, 
 however, Madeline had retired, and they were alone, he' drew 
 his chair closer to Walter's, and changed the conversation into 
 a more serious and anxious strain. The guardian and the 
 ward sat up late that night ; and when Walter retired to rest,
 
 92 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 it was with a heart more touched by his uncle's kindness than 
 his own sorrows. 
 
 But we are not about to close the day without a glance at 
 the chamber which the two sisters held in common. The night 
 was serene and starlit, and Madeline sat by the open window, 
 leaning her face upon her hand, and gazing on the lone house 
 of her lover, which might be seen far across the landscape, the 
 trees sleeping around it, and one pale and steady light gleam- 
 ing from its lofty casement like a star. 
 
 " He has broken faith," said Madeline ; " I shall chide him 
 for this to-morrow. He premised me the light should be ever 
 quenched before this hour." 
 
 " Nay," said Ellinor, in a tone somewhat sharpened from its 
 native sweetness, and who now sat up in the bed, the curtain 
 of which was half-drawn aside, and the soft light of the skies 
 rested full upon her rounded neck and youthful countenance, 
 "nay, Madeline, do not loiter there any longer ; the air grows 
 sharp and cold, and the clock struck one several minutes since. 
 Come, sister, come ! " 
 
 " I cannot sleep," replied Madeline, sighing, " and think that 
 yon light streams upon those studies which steal the healthful 
 hues from his cheek, and the very life from his heart." 
 
 " You are infatuated, you are bewitched by that man," said 
 Ellinor peevishly. 
 
 " And have I not cause ample cause ? " returned Madeline, 
 with all a girl's beautiful enthusiasm, as the color mantled her 
 cheek, and gave it the only additional loveliness it could re- 
 ceive. " When he speaks, is it not like music ? or rather, what 
 music so arrests and touches the heart ? Methinks it is heaven 
 only to gaze upon him, to note the changes of that majestic 
 countenance, to set down as food for memory every look and 
 every movement. But when the look turns to me, when the 
 voice utters my name, ah ! Ellinor, then it is not a wonder that 
 I love him thus much : but that any others should think they 
 have known love, and yet not loved him ! And, indeed, I feel 
 assured that what the world calls love is not my love. Are 
 there more Eugenes in the world than one ? Who but Eugene 
 could be loved as I love ? " 
 
 " What ! are there none as worthy ? " said Ellinor, half 
 smiling. 
 
 " Can you ask it ? " answered Madeline, with a simple wonder 
 in her voice : " whom would you compare compare ! nay, 
 place within a hundred grades of the height which Eugene 
 Aram holds in this little world ? "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 93 
 
 " This is folly dotage," said Ellinor indignantly: "surely 
 there are others as brave, as gentle, as kind, and, if not so wise, 
 yet more fitted for the world." 
 
 " You mock me," remarked Madeline incredulously ; " whom 
 could you select ? " 
 
 Ellinor blushed deeply, blushed from her snowy temples to 
 her yet whiter bosom, as she answered : 
 
 " If I said Walter Leslie, could you deny it ? " 
 
 "Walter ! " repeated Madeline ; " he equal to Eugene 
 Aram ! " 
 
 " Ay.'and more than equal," said Ellinor, with spirit, and a 
 warm and angry tone. " And, indeed, Madeline," she continued, 
 after a pause, " I lose something of that respect which, passing 
 a sister's love, I have always borne towards you, when I see the 
 unthinking and lavish idolatry you manifest to one'who, but 
 for a silver tongue and florid words, would rather want attrac- 
 tions than be the wonder you esteem him. Fie, Madeline ! I 
 blush for you when you speak ; it is unmaidenly so to love any 
 one ! " 
 
 Madeline rose from the window ; but the angry word died 
 on her lips when she saw that Ellinor, who had worked her 
 mind beyond her self-control, had thrown herself back on the 
 pillow and now sobbed aloud. 
 
 The natural temper of the elder sister had always been much 
 more calm and even than that of the younger, who united with 
 her vivacity something of the passionate caprice and fitfulness 
 of her sex. And Madeline's affection for her had been tinged 
 by that character of forbearance and soothing, which a 
 superior nature often manifests to one more imperfect, and 
 which in this instance did not desert her. She gently closed 
 the window, and, gliding to the bed, threw her arms around 
 her sister's neck and kissed away her tears with a caressing 
 fondness, that if Ellinor resisted for one moment she returned 
 with equal tenderness the next. 
 
 "Indeed, dearest," said Madeline gently, " I cannot guess 
 how I hurt you, and still less how Eugene has offended you." 
 
 " He has offended me in nothing," replied Ellinor, still 
 weeping, "if he has not stolen away all your affection from me. 
 But I was a foolish girl ; forgive me, as you always do ; and at 
 this time I need your kindness, for I am very, very unhappy." 
 
 " Unhappy, dearest Nell, and why ? " 
 
 Ellinor wept on without answering. 
 
 Madeline persisted in pressing for a reply ; and at length 
 her sister sobbed out :
 
 94 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "I know that that Walter only has eyes for you, and a 
 heart for you, who neglect, who despise his love ; and I I 
 but no matter, he is going to leave us, and of me poor me, he 
 will think no more ! " 
 
 Ellinor's attachment to their cousin, Madeline had long 
 half suspected, and she had often rallied her sister upon it ; 
 indeed, it might have been this suspicion which made her at 
 the first steel her breast against Walter's evident preference to 
 herself. But Ellinor had never till now seriously confessed 
 how much her heart was affected ; and Madeline, in .the nat- 
 ural engrossment of her own ardent and devoted love, had not 
 of late spared much observation to the tokens of her sister's. 
 She was therefore dismayed, if not surprised, as she now per- 
 ceived the cause of the peevishness Ellinor had just mani- 
 fested, and by the nature of the love she felt herself, she 
 judged, and perhaps somewhat overrated, the anguish that 
 Ellinor endured. 
 
 She strove to comfort her by all the arguments which the 
 fertile ingenuity of kindness could invent ; she prophesied 
 Walter's speedy return, with his boyish disappointment forgot- 
 ten, and with eyes no longer blinded to the attractions of one 
 sister by a bootless fancy for another. And though Ellinor 
 interrupted her from time to time with assertions, now of 
 Walter's eternal constancy to his present idol, now with yet 
 more vehement declarations of the certainty of his finding new 
 objects for his affections in new scenes, she yet admitted, by 
 little and little, the persuasive power of Madeline to creep into 
 her heart, and brighten away its griefs with hope, till at last, 
 with the tears yet wet on her cheek, she fell asleep in her sis- 
 ter's arms. 
 
 And Madeline, though she would not stir from her post lest 
 the movement should awaken her sister, was yet prevented 
 from closing her eyes in a similar repose ; ever and anon she 
 breathlessly and gently raised herself to steal a glimpse of that 
 solitary light afar ; and ever, as she looked, the ray greeted her 
 eyes with an unswerving and melancholy stillness, till the dawn 
 crept grayly over the heavens, and that speck of light, holier to 
 her than the stars, faded also with them beneath the broader 
 lustre of the day. 
 
 The next week was passed in preparations for Walter's depar- 
 ture. At that time, and in that distant part of the country, it 
 was greatly the fashion among the younger travellers to perform 
 their excursions on horseback, and it was this method of con- 
 veyance that Walter preferred. The best steed in the squire's
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 95 
 
 stables was therefore appropriated to his service, and a strong 
 black horse with a Roman nose and a long tail was consigned 
 to the mastery of Corporal Bunting. The squire was delighted 
 that his nephew had secured such an attendant. For the sol- 
 dier, though odd and selfish, was a man of some sense and 
 experience, and Lester thought such qualities might not be 
 without their use to a young master, new to the common frauds 
 and daily usages of the world he was about to enter. 
 
 As for Bunting himself, he covered his secret exultation at 
 the prospect of change and board-wages with the cool sem- 
 blance of a man sacrificing his wishes to his affections, lie made 
 it his peculiar study to impress upon the squire's mind the ex- 
 tent of the sacrifice he was about to make. The bit cot had 
 been just whitewashed, the pet cat just lain in ; then, too, who 
 would dig, and gather seeds in the garden, defend the plants 
 (plants ? the corporal could scarce count a dozen, and nine out 
 of them were cabbages !) from the impending frosts ? It was 
 exactly, too, the time of year when the rheumatism paid flying 
 visits to the bones and loins of the worthy corporal ; and to 
 think of his "galavanting about the country " when he ought 
 to be guarding against that sly foe, the lumbago, in the fortress 
 of his chimney-corner ! 
 
 To all these murmurs and insinuations the good Lester se- 
 riously inclined, not with the less sympathy, in that they invari- 
 ably ended in the corporal's slapping his manly thigh, and 
 swearing that he loved Master Walter like gunpowder, and that 
 were it twenty times as much he would cheerfully do it for the 
 sake of his handsome young honor. Ever at this peroration 
 the eyes of the squire began to twinkle, and new thanks were 
 given to the veteran for his disinterested affection, and new 
 promises pledged him in inadequate return. 
 
 The pious Dealtry felt a little jealousy at the trust imparted 
 to his friend. He halted, on his return from his farm, by the 
 spruce stile which led to the demesne of the corporal, and eyed 
 the warrior somewhat sourly, as he now, in the cool of the 
 evening, sat without his door arranging his fishing-tackle and 
 flies in various little papers, which he carefully labelled by the 
 help of a stunted pen that had seen at least as much service 
 as himself. 
 
 "Well, neighbor Bunting," said the little landlord, leaning 
 over the stile, but not passing its boundary, " and when do you 
 go ? You will have wet weather of it (looking up to the skies) ; 
 you must take care of the rumatiz. At your age it's no trifle, 
 eh-hem."
 
 96 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " My age ! should like to know what mean by tKat ! my 
 age, indeed ! augh ! bother ! " grunted Bunting, looking up 
 from his occupation. Peter chuckled inly at the corporal's 
 displeasure, and continued, as in an apologetic tone : 
 
 " Oh, I ax your pardon, neighbor. I don't mean to say you 
 are too old to travel. Why there was Hal Whitol eighty-two 
 come next Michaelmas, took a trip to Lunnun last year, 
 
 ' For young and old, the stout, the poorly, 
 The eye of God be on them surely.' " 
 
 " Bother ! " said the corporal, turning round on his seat. 
 
 " And what do you intend doing with the brindled cat ? put 
 'un up in the saddle-bags ? You won't surely have the heart 
 to leave 'un." 
 
 " As to that," quoth the corporal, sighing, " the poor dumb 
 animal makes me sad to think on 't." And, putting down his 
 fish-hooks, he stroked the sides of an enormous cat, who now, 
 with tail on end, and back bowed up. and uttering her Icnes su- 
 surrus Anglice, purr ! rubbed herself to and fro athwart the 
 corporal's legs. 
 
 " What staring there for ? won't ye step in, man ? Can 
 climb the stile I suppose ? augh ! " 
 
 " No, thank ye, neighbor. I do very well here, that is, if you 
 can hear me ; your deafness is not so troublesome as it was 
 last win " 
 
 " Bother ! " interrupted the corporal, in a voice that made 
 the little landlord start bolt upright from the easy confidence 
 of his position. Nothing on earth so offended the perpendic- 
 ular Jacob Bunting as any insinuation of increasing years or 
 growing infirmities ; but at this moment, as he meditated put- 
 ting Dealtry to some use, he prudently conquered the gather- 
 ing anger, and added, like the man of the world he justly plumed 
 himself on being, in a voice gentle as a dying howl : 
 
 " What 'fraid on ? Come in, there's good fellow : want to 
 speak to ye. Comedo a-u-g-h ! " the last sound being pro- 
 longed into one of unutterable coaxingness, and accompanied 
 with a beck of the hand and a wheedling wink. 
 
 These allurements the good Peter could not resist ; he clam- 
 bered the stile, and seated himself on the bench beside the 
 corporal. 
 
 " There now, fine fellow, fit for the Forty-second," said Bunt- 
 ing, clapping him on the back. " Well, and a-nd a beauti- 
 ful cat, isn't her ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Peter, very shortly for though a remarkably
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 97 
 
 mild man, Peter did not love cats : moreover, we must now in- 
 form the reader that the cat of Jacob Bunting was one more 
 feared than respected throughout the village. The corporal 
 was a cunning instructor of all animals : he could teach gold- 
 finches the use of the musket ; dogs, the art of the broadsword ; 
 horses, to dance hornpipes and pick pockets ; and he had re- 
 lieved the ennui of his solitary moments by imparting sundry 
 accomplishments to the ductile genius of his cat. Under his 
 tuition puss had learned to fetch and carry ; to turn over head 
 and tail like a tumbler ; to run up your shoulder when you 
 least expected it ; to fly as if she were mad at any one upon 
 whom the corporal thought fit to set her ; and, above all, to 
 rob larders, shelves, and tables, and bring the produce to the cor- 
 poral, who never failed to consider such stray waifs lawful 
 manorial acquisitions. These little feline cultivations of talent, 
 however delightful to the corporal, and creditable to his 
 powers of teaching the young idea how to shoot, had, neverthe- 
 less, since the truth must be told, rendered the corporal's cat 
 a proverb and by-word throughout the neighborhood. Never 
 was cat in such bad odor ; and the dislike in which it was held 
 was wonderfully increased by tenor ; for the creature was 
 singularly large and robust, and withal of so courageous a tem- 
 per, that if you attempted to resist its invasion of your proper- 
 ty it forthwith set up its back, put down its ears, opened its 
 mouth, and bade you fully comprehend that what it feloniously 
 seized it could gallantly defend. More than one gossip in the 
 village had this notable cat hurried into premature parturition 
 as, on descending at daybreak into the kitchen, the dame 
 would descry the animal perched on the dresser, having en- 
 tered Heaven knows how, and glaring upon her with its great 
 green eyes, and a malignant brawnie expression of counte- 
 nance. 
 
 Various deputations had, indeed, from time to time arrived 
 at the corporal's cottage requesting the death, expulsion, or 
 perpetual imprisonment of the favorite. But the stout corpo- 
 ral received them grimly, and dismissed them gruffly, and the 
 cat went on waxing in size and wickedness, and baffling, as if 
 inspired by the devil, the various gins and traps set for its 
 destruction. But never, perhaps, was there a greater disturb- 
 ance and perturbation in the little hamlet than when, some 
 three weeks since, the corporal's cat was known to be brought 
 to bed, and safely delivered of a numerous offspring. The 
 village saw itself overrun with a race and a perpetuity of cor- 
 poral's cats ! Perhaps, too, their teacher growing more expert
 
 98 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 by practice, the descendants might attain to even greater ac- 
 complishment than their nefarious progenitor. No longer did 
 the faint hope of being delivered from their tormentor by an 
 untimely or even natural death occur to the harrassed Grass- 
 dalians. Death was an incident natural to one cat, however 
 vivacious, but here was a dynasty of cats ! Principes mortales^ 
 respublica czterna ! 
 
 Now the corporal loved this creature better, yes, better than 
 anything in the world except travelling and board wages; and 
 he was sorely perplexed in his mind how he should be able to 
 dispose of her safely in his absence. He was aware of the 
 general enmity she had inspired, and trembled to anticipate its 
 probable result when he was no longer by to afford her 
 shelter and protection. The squire had, indeed, offered her 
 an asylum at the manor-house ; but the squire's cook was the 
 cat's most embittered enemy ; and what man can answer for the 
 peaceable behavior of his cook ? The corporal, therefore, with 
 a reluctant sigh, renounced the friendly offer, and after lying 
 awake three nights, and turning over in his mind the charac- 
 ters, consciences, and capabilities of all his neighbors, he came 
 at last to the conviction that there was no one with whom he 
 could so safely intrust his cat as Peter Dealtry. It is true, as we 
 said before, that Peter was no lover of cats ; and the task of 
 pursuading him to afford board and lodging to a cat, of all cats 
 the most odious and malignant, was therefore no easy matter. 
 But to a man of the world what intrigue is impossible ? 
 
 The finest diplomatist in Europe might have taken a lesson 
 from the corporal, as he now proceeded earnestly towards the 
 accomplishment of his project. 
 
 He took the cat, which, by the by, we forgot to say that he 
 had thought fit to christen after himself, and to honor with a 
 name, somewhat lengthy for a cat (but, indeed, this was no 
 ordinary cat !) namely Jacobina he took Jacobina then, we 
 say, upon his lap, and, stroking her brindled sides with great 
 tenderness, he bade Dealtry remark how singularly quiet the 
 animal was in its manners. Nay, he was not contented until 
 Peter himself had patted her with a timorous hand, and had 
 reluctantly submitted the said hand to the honor of being 
 licked by the cat in return. Jacobina, who. to do her justice, 
 was always meek enough in the presence and at the will 
 of her master, was, fortunately, this day, on her very best 
 behavior. 
 
 " Them dumb animals be mighty grateful," quoth the cor- 
 poral.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 99 
 
 " Ah ! " rejoined Peter, wiping his hand with his pocket- 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " But, Lord ! what scandal there be in the world ! " 
 
 " ' Though slander's breath may raise a storm, 
 
 It quickly does decay ! ' " 
 muttered Peter. 
 
 " Very well, very true ; sensible verses those," said the cor- 
 poral approvingly : " and yet mischief's often done before the 
 amends come. Body o' me, it makes a man sick of his kind, 
 ashamed to belong to the race of men, to see the envy that 
 abounds in this here sublunary wale of tears ! " said the cor- 
 poral, lifting up his eyes. 
 
 Peter stared at him with open mouth ; the hypocritical ras- 
 cal continued, after a pause : 
 
 " Now there's Jacobina, 'cause she's a good cat, a faithful 
 servant, the whole village is against her : such lies as they tell 
 on her, such wappers, }ou'd think she was the devil in garnet !' 
 I grant, I grant," added the corporal, in a tone of apologetic 
 candor, " that she's wild, saucy, knows her friends from her 
 foes, steals Goody Solomon's butter ; but what then ? Goody 
 Solomon's d db h! Goody Solomon sold beer in opposi- 
 tion to you, set up a public ; you do not like Goody Solomon, 
 Peter Dealtry ? " 
 
 " If that were all Jacobina had done ! " said the landlord 
 grinning. 
 
 " All ! what else did she do ? Why, she eat up John Tom- 
 kin's canary-bird ; and did not John Tomkins, saucy rascal/ 
 say you could not sing better nor a raven ?" 
 
 "I have nothing to say against the poor creature for that," 
 said Peter, stroking the cat of his own accord. " Cats will 
 eat birds, 'tis the 'spensation of Providence. But what, cor- 
 poral ! " and Peter, hastily withdrawing his hand, hurried it 
 into his breeches pocket but what ! did not she scratch Joe 
 Webster's little boy's hand into ribands, because the boy tried 
 to prevent her running off with a ball of string ? " 
 
 " And well," grunted the corporal, " that was not Jacobina's 
 doing ; that was my doing. I wanted the string offered to 
 pay a penny for it think of that ! " 
 
 " It was priced two pence ha' penny," said Peter. 
 
 " Augh baugh ! You would not pay Joe Webster all he 
 asks ! What's the use of being a man of the world, unless one 
 makes one's tradesman bate a bit ? Bargaining is not cheating, 
 I hope ? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " said Peter.
 
 tOO EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "But as to the bit string, Jacobina took it solely for your 
 sake. Ah, she did not think you were to turn against her ! " 
 
 So saying, the corporal got up, walked into his house, and 
 presently came back with a little net in his hand. 
 
 " There, Peter, net for you, to hold lemons. Thank Jacob- 
 ina for that ; she got the string. Says I to her one day, as I 
 was sitting, as I might be now, without the door, ' Jacobina, 
 Peter Dealtry's a good fellow, and he keeps his lemons in a 
 bag : bad habit, get mouldy, we'll make him a net ' ; and 
 Jacobina purred (stroke the poor creature, Peter !) so Jacob- 
 ina and I took a walk, and when we came to Joe Webster's, I 
 pointed out the ball o' twine to her. So, for your sake, Peter, 
 she got into this here scrape augh." 
 
 "Ah!" quoth Peter, laughing, "poor puss! poor pussy! 
 poor little pussy ! " 
 
 " And now, Peter," said the corporal, taking his friend's 
 hand, " I am going to prove friendship to you going to do you 
 great favor." 
 
 " Aha ! " said Peter, " my good friend, I'm very much obliged 
 to you. I know your kind heart, but I really don't want 
 any " 
 
 " Bother ! " cried the corporal ; " I'm not the man as makes 
 much of doing a friend a kindnsss. Hold jaw ! Tell you what, 
 tell you what : am going away on Wednesday at daybreak, and 
 in my absence you shall " 
 
 ' What ? my good corporal ? " 
 
 ' Take charge of Jacobina ! " 
 
 'Take charge of the devil !" cried Peter. 
 
 ' Augh ! baugh ! what words are those? Listen to me." 
 
 ' I won't ! " 
 
 ' You shall ! " 
 
 ' I'll be d d if I do ! " quoth Peter sturdily. It was the 
 first time he had been known to swear since he was parish 
 clerk ! " 
 
 " Very well, very well ! " said the corporal, chucking up his 
 chin, " Jacobina can take care of herself ! Jacobina knows 
 her friends and her foes as well as her master ! Jacobina 
 never injures her friends, never forgives foes. Look to your- 
 self ! look to yourself ! Insult my cat, insult me ! Swear at 
 Jacobina, indeed ! " 
 
 " If she steals my cream ! " cried Peter. 
 
 " Did she ever steal your cream ? " 
 
 " No ! but if" 
 
 " Did she ever steal your cream ! "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. IOI 
 
 " I can't say she ever did." 
 "Or anything else of yours ?" 
 " Not that I know of ; but " 
 " Never too late to mend." 
 "If " 
 
 " Will you listen to me or not ? " 
 
 "Well." 
 
 " You'll listen ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Know, then, that 1 wanted to do you kindness." 
 
 " Humph ! " 
 
 " Hold jaw ! I taught Jacobinaall she knows." 
 
 " More's the pity ! " 
 
 " Hold jaw ! I taught her to respect her friends, never to 
 commit herself indoors never to steal at home never to fly 
 at home never to scratch at home to kill mice and rats 
 bring all she catches to her master to do what he tells her 
 and to defend his house as well as a mastiff : and this invaluable 
 creature I was going to lend you : won't now, d d if I do ! " 
 
 " Humph ! " 
 
 " Hold jaw ! When I'm gone, Jacobina will have no one to 
 feed her. She'll feed herself will go to every larder, every 
 house in the place yours best larder, best house will come 
 to you oftenest. If your wife attempts to drive her away, 
 scratch her eyes out ; if you disturb her, serve you worse than 
 Joe Webster's little boy : wanted to prevent this won't now, 
 d d if I do ! " 
 
 " But, corporal, how would it mend the matter to take the 
 devil indoors ? " 
 
 " Devil ! don't call names. Did not I tell you, only one Ja- 
 cobina does not hurt is her master? make you her master: 
 now d'ye see ? " 
 
 " It's very hard," said Peter grumblingly, " that the only way 
 I can defend myself from this villainous creature is to take 
 her into my house." 
 
 " Villainous ! You ought to be proud of her affection. She 
 returns good for evil she always loved you ; see how she rubs 
 herself against you and that's the reason why I selected you 
 from the whole village, to take care of her ; but you at once 
 injure yourself and refuse to do your friend a service. How- 
 somever, you know I shall be with young squire, and he'll be 
 master here one of these days, and I shall have an influence 
 over him you'll see you'll see. Look that there's not an- 
 other Spotted Dog set up augh ! bother ! "
 
 102 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " But what would my wife say, if I took the cat ? She can't 
 abide its name." 
 
 " Let me alone to talk to your wife. What would she 
 say if I bring her from Lunnun town a fine silk gown, or a 
 neat shawl with a blue border blue becomes her, or a tay- 
 chest that will do for you both, and would set off the little 
 back parlor ? Mahogany tay-chest, inlaid at top initials 
 in silver, J. B. to D. and P. D.; two boxes for tay, and a bowl for 
 sugar in the middle. Ah! ah! Love me, love my cat ! When 
 was Jacob Bunting ungrateful augh !" 
 
 "Well, well! will you talk to Dorothy about it ?" 
 
 " I shall have your consent, then ? Thanks my dear, dear 
 Peter ; 'pon my soul you're a fine fellow ! you see, you're 
 great man of the parish. If you protect her, none dare in jure ; 
 if you scout her, all set upon her. For, as you said, or rather 
 sung, t'other Sunday capital voice you were in, too : 
 
 ' The mighty tyrants without cause, 
 Conspire her blood to shed J ' ' 
 
 " I did not think you had so good a memory, corporal," said 
 Peter, smiling ; the cat was now curling itself up in his lap : 
 "after all, Jacobina what a deuce of a name ! seems gentle 
 enough." 
 
 " Gentle as a lamb, soft as butter, kind as cream, and such a 
 mouser ! " 
 
 " But I don't think Dorothy" 
 
 " I'll settle Dorothy." 
 
 "Well, when will you look up ?" 
 
 " Come and take a dish of tay with you in half an hour ; you 
 want a new tay-chest ; something new and genteel." 
 
 " I think we do," said Peter, rising and gently depositing the 
 cat on the ground. 
 
 " Aha ! we'll see to it ! we'll see ! Good-by for the present 
 in half an hour be with you ! " 
 
 The corporal, left alone with Jacobina, eyed her intently, and 
 burst into the following pathetic address : 
 
 "Well, Jacobina ! you little know the pains I takes to serve 
 you the lies I tells for you endangered my precious soul 
 for your sake, you jade ! Ah ! may well rub your sides against 
 me. Jacobina ! Jacobina ! you be the only thing in the 
 world that cares a button for me. I have neither kith nor kin. 
 You are daughter, friend, wife to me : if anything happened 
 to you, I should not have the heart to love anything else. And 
 l*>dy o' me, but you be as kind as any mistress, and much
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 103 
 
 more tractable than any wife ; but the world gives you a bad 
 name, Jacobina. Why ? Is it that you do worse than the 
 world do ? You has no morality in you, Jacobina ; well, but 
 has the world ? No ! But it has humbug you have no hum- 
 bug, Jacobina. On the faith of a man, Jacobina, you be better 
 than the world ! baugh ! You takes care of your own inter- 
 est, but you takes care of your master's too ! You loves me as 
 well as yourself. Few cats can say the same, Jacobina ! and 
 no gossip that flings a stone at your pretty brindled skin can 
 say half as much. We must not forget your kittens, Jacobina ; 
 you have four left they must be provided for. Why not a 
 cat's children as well as a courtier's ; I have got you a comforta- 
 ble home, Jacobina ; take care of yourself, and don't fall in love 
 with every torn cat in the place. Be sober, and lead a single 
 life till my return. Come, Jacobina, we will lock up the house 
 and go and see the quarters I have provided for you. 
 Heigho ! " 
 
 As he finished his harangue, the corporal locked the door 
 of his cottage, and, Jacobina trotting by his side, he stalked 
 with his usual stateliness to The Spotted Dog. 
 
 Dame Dorothy Dealtry received him with a clouded brow ; 
 but the man of the world knew whom he had to deal with. On 
 Wednesday morning Jacobina was inducted into the comforts 
 of the hearth of mine host ; and her four little kittens mewed 
 hard by, from the sinecure ot a basket lined with flannel. 
 
 Reader. Here is wisdom in this chapter : it is not every 
 man who knows how to dispose of his cat. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A STRANGE HABIT. WALTER'S INTERVIEW WITH MADELINE. 
 HER GENEROUS AND CONFIDING DISPOSITION. WALTER'S 
 
 ANGER. THE PARTING MEAL. CONVERSATION BETWEEN 
 
 THE UNCLE AND NEPHEW. WALTER ALONE. SLEEP THE 
 BLESSING OF THE YOUNG. 
 
 " Fall. Out, out, unworthy to speak where he breatheth, 
 
 etc. 
 
 Punt. Well now, my whole venture is forth, I will resolve to depart." 
 BEN JONSON : Every Man out of his Humor. 
 
 IT was now the eve before Walter's departure, and on re- 
 turning home from a farewell walk among his favorite haunts, 
 he found Aram, whose visit had been made during Walter's
 
 104 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 absence, now standing on the threshold of the door, and taking 
 leave of Madeline and her father. Aram and Walter had only 
 met twice before since the interview we recorded, and each 
 time Walter had taken care that the meeting should be but of 
 short duration. In these brief encounters Aram's manner had 
 been even more gentle than heretofore ; that of Walter's more 
 cold and distant. And now, as they thus unexpectedly met at 
 the door, Aram, looking at him earnestly, said : 
 
 " Farewell, sir ! You are to leave us for some time. I hear. 
 Heaven speed you ! " Then he added, in a lower tone, "Will 
 you take my hand, now, in parting ? " 
 
 As he said, he put forth his hand, it was the left. 
 
 " Let it be the right hand," observed the elder Lester, smil- 
 ing : "it is a luckier omen." 
 
 "I think not," said Aram dryly. And Walter noted that he 
 had never remembered him to give his right hand to any one, 
 even to Madeline : the peculiarity of this habit might, how- 
 ever, arise from an awkward early habit ; it was certainly 
 scarce worth observing, and Walter had already coldly 
 touched the hand extended to him when Lester said care- 
 lessly : 
 
 "Is there any superstition that makes you think, as some of 
 the ancients did, the left hand luckier than the right?" 
 
 " Yes," replied Aram ; " a superstition. Adieu." 
 
 The student departed ; Madeline slowly walked up one of 
 the garden alleys, and thither Walter, after whispering to his 
 uncle, followed her. 
 
 There is something in those bitter feelings which are the off- 
 spring of disappointed love ; something in the intolerable an- 
 guish of well-founded jealousy, that, when the first shock is 
 over, often hardens, and perhaps elevates, the character. The 
 sterner powers that we arouse within us to combat a passion 
 that can no longer be worthily indulged, are never afterwards 
 wholly allayed. Like the allies which a nation summons to its 
 bosom to defend it from its foes, they expel the enemy only to 
 find a settlement for themselves. The mind of every man who 
 conquers an unfortunate attachment becomes stronger than be- 
 fore ; it may be for evil, it may be for good, but the capacities 
 for either are more vigorous and collected. 
 
 The last few weeks had done more for Walter's character 
 than years of ordinary, even of happy, emotion might have ef- 
 fected. He had passed from youth to manhood, and with the 
 sadness had acquired also something of the dignity of experi- 
 ence. Not that we would say that he had subdued his love,
 
 EUGENE AkAM. id$ 
 
 but he had made the first step towards it ; he had resolved that 
 at all hazards it should be subdued. 
 
 As he now joined Madeline, and she perceived him by her 
 side, her embarrassment was more evident than his. She 
 feared some avowal, and, from his temper, perhaps some 
 violence on his part. However, she was the first to speak ; 
 women in such cases always are. 
 
 "It is a beautiful evening," said she, "and the sun set in 
 promise of a fine day for your journey to-morrow." 
 
 Walter walked on silently ; his heart was full. " Madeline," 
 he said at length, " dear Madeline, give me your hand. Nay, 
 do not fear me ; I know what you think, and you are right : 
 I love I still love you ! but I know well that I can have no 
 hope in making this confession ; and when I ask you for your 
 hand, Madeline, it is only to convince you that I have no suit 
 to press ; had I, I would not dare to touch that hand." 
 
 Madeline, wondering and embarrassed, gave him her hand ; 
 he held it for a moment with a trembling clasp, pressed it to 
 his lips, and then resigned it. 
 
 "Yes, Madeline, my cousin, my sweet cousin, I have loved 
 you deeply, but silently, long before my heart could unravel 
 the mystery of the feelings with which it glowed. But this 
 all this it were now idle to repeat. I know that the heart 
 whose possession would have made my whole life a dream, a 
 transport, is given to another. I have not sought you now, 
 Madeline, to repine at this, or to vex you by the tale of any 
 suffering I may endure ; I am come only to give you the 
 parting wishes, the parting blessing, of one who, wherever he 
 goes, or whatever befall him, will always think of you as the 
 brightest and loveliest of human beings. May you be happy, 
 yes, even with another ! " 
 
 "Oh, Walter !" said Madeline, affected to tears, " if I ever 
 encouraged if I ever led you to hope for more than the warm, 
 the sisterly affection I bear you, how bitterly I should reproach 
 myself ! " 
 
 " You never did, dear Madeline ; I asked for no inducement 
 to love you, I never dreamed of seeking a motive or inquiring 
 if I had cause to hope. But as I am now about to quit you, 
 and as you confess you feel for me a sister's affection, will you 
 give me leave to speak to you as a brother might ?" 
 
 Madeline held out her hand to him with frank cordiality. 
 "Yes!" said she, "speak!" 
 
 "Then," said Walter, turning away his head in a spirit 
 of delicacy that did him honor, "is it yet all too late
 
 Io6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 for me to say one word of caution that relates to Eugene 
 Aram ? " 
 
 " Of caution ! you alarm me, Walter : speak, has aught 
 happened to him ? I saw him as lately as yourself. Does 
 aught threaten him ? Speak, I implore you, quick ! " 
 
 " I know of no danger to him!" replied Walter, stung to 
 perceive the breathless anxiety with which Madeline spoke ; 
 " but pause, my cousin, may there be no danger to you from 
 this man ? " 
 
 " Walter ! " 
 
 " I grant him wise, learned, gentle, nay, more than all, 
 bearing about him a spell, a fascination, by which he softens, or 
 awes at will, and which even I cannot resist. But yet his ab- 
 stracted mood, his gloomy life, certain words that have broken 
 from him unawares, certain tell-tale emotions which words of 
 mine, heedlessly said, have fiercely aroused, all united inspire 
 me shall I say it ? with fear and distrust. I cannot think 
 him altogether the calm and pure being he appears. Madeline, 
 I have asked myself again and again, is this suspicion the effect 
 of jealousy ? do I scan his bearing with the jaundiced eye of 
 disappointed rivalship ? And I have satisfied my conscience 
 that my judgment is not thus biassed. Stay ! listen yet a little 
 while ! You have a high, a thoughtful mind. Exert it now. 
 Consider, your whole happiness rests on one step ! Pause, ex- 
 amine, compare ! Remember, you have not of Aram, as of 
 those you have hitherto mixed with, the eye-witness of a life ! 
 You can know but little of his real temper, his secret qualities ; 
 still less of the tenor of his former existence. I only ask of you 
 for your own sake, for my sake, your sister's sake, and your 
 good father's, not to judge too rashly ! Love him, if you will, 
 but observe him ! " 
 
 " Haye you done ? " said Madeline, who had hitherto with 
 difficulty contained herself ; " then hear me. Was it I was it 
 Madeline Lester whom you asked to play the watch, to enact the 
 spy upon the man whom she exults in loving? Was it not 
 enough that^w/ should descend to mark down each incautious 
 look to chronicle every heedless word to draw dark de- 
 ductions from the unsuspecting confidence of my father's 
 friend to lie in wait to hang with a foe's malignity upon the 
 unbendings of familiar intercourse to extort anger from 
 gentleness itself, that you might wrest the anger into crime ! 
 Shame, shame upon you for the meanness ! And must you also 
 suppose that I, to whose trust he has given his noble heart, will 
 receive it only to play the eavesdropper to its secrets ? Away ! "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. IQj 
 
 The generous blood crimsoned the cheek and brow of this 
 high-spirited girl as she uttered her galling reproof : her eyes 
 sparkled, her lip quivered, fier whole frame seemed to have 
 grown larger with the majesty of indignant love. 
 
 "Cruel, unjust, ungrateful!" ejaculated Walter, pale with 
 rage, and trembling under the conflict of his roused and 
 wounded feelings. "Is it thus you answer the warning of too 
 disinterested and self-forgetful a love ? " 
 
 " Love ! " exclaimed Madeline. " Grant me patience ! Love ! 
 It was but now I thought myself honored by the affection you 
 said you bore me. At this instant, I blush to have called forth 
 a single sentiment in one who knows so little what love is ! 
 Love ! methought that word denoted all that was high and 
 noble in human nature confidence, hope, devotion, sacrifice 
 of all thought of self ! but you would make it the type and 
 concentration of all that lowers and debases ! suspicion 
 cavil fear selfishness in all its shapes ! Out on you ! love!'* 
 
 " Enough, enough ! Say no more, Madeline, say no more. 
 We part not as 1 had hoped ; but be it so. You are changed 
 indeed, if your conscience smite you not hereafter for this in- 
 justice. Farewell, and may you never regret, not only the 
 heart you have rejected, but the friendship you have belied." 
 With these words, and choked by his emotion, Walter hastily 
 strode away. 
 
 He hurried into the house, and into a little room adjoining 
 the chamber in which he slept, and which had been also ap- 
 propriated solely to his use. It was now spread with boxes 
 and trunks, some half-packed, some corded, and inscribed with 
 the address to which they were to be sent in London. All 
 these mute tokens of his approaching departure struck upon 
 his excited feelings with a suddenness that overpowered him. 
 
 "And it is thus thus," said he, aloud, "that I am to leave, 
 for the first time, my childhood's home ! " 
 
 He threw himself on his chair, and, covering his face with 
 his hands, burst, fairly subdued and unmanned, into a paroxysm 
 of tears. 
 
 When this emotion was over, he felt as if his love for Made- 
 line had also disappeared ; a sore and insulted feeling was all that 
 her image now recalled to him. This idea gave him some con- 
 solation. " Thank Heaven !" he muttered, "thank Heaven, 
 I am cured at last !" 
 
 The thanksgiving was scarcely over, before the door opened 
 softly, and Ellinor, not perceiving him where he sat, entered 
 the room, and laid on the table a purse which she had long
 
 I08 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 promised to knit him, and which seemed now designed as a 
 parting gift. 
 
 She sighed heavily as she laid it down, and he observed that 
 her eyes seemed red as with weeping. 
 
 He did not move, and Ellinor left the room without discover- 
 ing him ; but he remained there till dark, musing on her appari- 
 tion ; and before he went downstairs he took up the little purse, 
 kissed it, and put it carefully into his bosom. 
 
 He sat next to Ellinor at supper that evening, and, though 
 he did not say much, his last words were more to her than 
 words had ever been before. When he took leave of her for the 
 night, he whispered as he kissed her cheek, "God bless you, 
 dearest Ellinor ! and till I return take care of yourself, for the 
 sake of one who loves you now, better than anything on earth." 
 
 Lester had just left the room to write some letters for Walter ; 
 and Madeline, who had hitherto sat absorbed and silent by the 
 window, approached Walter, and offered him her hand. 
 
 " Forgive me, my dear cousin," she said, in her softest voice. 
 " I feel that I was hasty, and to blame. Believe me, I am 
 now at last grateful, warmly grateful, for the kindness of your 
 motives." 
 
 " Not so," said Walter bitterly ; " the advice of a friend is 
 only meanness." 
 
 " Come, come, forgive me ; pray do not let us part unkindly. 
 When did we ever quarrel before ? I was wrong, grievously 
 wrong I will perform any penance you may enjoin." 
 
 " Agreed, them : follow my admonitions." 
 
 "Ah! anything else," said Madeline gravely, and coloring 
 deeply. 
 
 Walter said no more ; he pressed her hand lightly, and 
 turned away. 
 
 " Is all forgiven ! " said she, in so bewitching a tone, and 
 with so bright a smile, that Walter, against his conscience, 
 answered "Yes." 
 
 The sisters left the room ; I know not which of the two 
 received his last glance. 
 
 Lester now returned with the letters. " There is one charge, 
 my dear boy," said he, in concluding the moral injunctions 
 and experienced suggestions with which the young generally 
 leave trie ancestral home " there is one charge which I need 
 not commend to your ingenuity and zeal. You know my strong 
 conviction, that your father, my poor brother, still lives. Is it 
 necessary for me to tell you to exert yourself by all ways, and 
 in all means, to discover some clue to his fate ? Who knows,"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 160 
 
 added Lester, with a smile, "but that you may find him a rich 
 nabob ! I confess that I should feel but little surprise if it 
 were so ; but, at all events, you will make every possible inquiry. 
 I have written down in this paper the few particulars concern- 
 ing him which I have been enabled to glean since he left his 
 home ; the places where he was last seen, the false names he 
 assumed, etc. I shall wait with great anxiety for any fuller 
 success to your researches." 
 
 " You needed not, my dear uncle," said Walter seriously, 
 "to have spoken to me on this subject. No one, not even your- 
 self, can have felt what I have can have cherished the same 
 anxiety, nursed the same hope, indulged the same conjecture. 
 I have not, it is true, often of late years spoken to you on a matter 
 so near to us both ; but I have spent whole hours in guesses at 
 my father's fate, and in dreams that for me was reserved the 
 proud task to discover it. I will not say, indeed, that it makes 
 at this moment the chief motive for my desire to travel, but in 
 travel it will become my chief object. Perhaps I may find 
 him not only rich that, for my part, is but a minor wish but 
 sobered, and reformed from the errors and wildness of his 
 earlier manhood. Oh, what should be his gratitude to you for 
 all the care with which you have supplied to the forsaken child 
 the father's place ; and not the least, that you have, in soften- 
 ing the colors of his conduct, taught me still to prize and seek 
 for a father's love ! " 
 
 "You have a kind heart, Walter," said the good old man, 
 pressing his nephew's hand , "and that has more than repaid 
 me for the little I have done for you : it is better to sow a good 
 heart with kindness than a field with corn, for the heart's har- 
 vest is perpetual." 
 
 Many, and earnest, that night, were the meditations of Walter 
 Lester. He was about to quit the home in which youth had 
 been passed in which first love had been formed and blighted : 
 the world was before him ; but there was something more 
 grave than pleasure more steady than enterprise that beck- 
 oned him to its paths. The deep mystery that for so many 
 years had hung over the fate of his parent it might indeed be his 
 lot to pierce ; and with a common waywardness in our nature, 
 the restless son felt his interest in that parent the livelier, from 
 the very circumstance of remembering nothing of his person. 
 Affection had been nursed by curiosity and imagination ; and 
 the bad father was thus more fortunate in winning the heart 
 of the son, than had he, perhaps by the tenderness of years, 
 deserved that affection.
 
 tl6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Oppressed and feverish, Walter opened the lattice of his 
 room, and looked forth on the night. The broad harvest-moon 
 was in the heavens, and filled the air as with a softer and holier 
 day. At a distance its light just gave the dark outline of Aram's 
 house, and beneath the window it lay, bright and steady on the 
 green, .still churchyard, that adjoined the house. The air and 
 the light allayed the fitfulness at the young man's heart, but 
 served to solemnize the project and desire with which it beat. 
 Still leaning from the casement, with his eyes fixed upon the 
 tranquil scene below, he poured forth the prayer, that to his 
 hands might the discovery of his lost sire be granted. The 
 prayer seemed to lift the oppression from his breast ; he felt 
 cheerful and relieved, and flinging himself on his bed, soon fell 
 into the sound and healthful sleep of youth. And oh ! let 
 Youth cherish that happiest of earthly boons while yet it is at its 
 command ; for there cometh the day to all, when " neither 
 the voice of the lute nor the birds"* shall bring back the 
 sweet slumbers that fell on their young eyes, as unbidden as the 
 dews. It is a dark epoch in a man's life when sleep forsakes 
 him ; when he tosses to and fro, and thought will not be silenced ; 
 when the drug and draught are the couriers of stupefaction, 
 not sleep ; when the down pillow is as a knotted log ; when the 
 eyelids close but with an effort, and there is a drag, and a weight, 
 and a dizziness in the eyes at morn. Desire, and grief, and 
 love, these are the young man's torments ; but they are the 
 creatures of time : time removes them as it brings, and the 
 vigils we keep, " while the evil days come not," if weary, are 
 brief and few. But memory, and care, and ambition, and 
 avarice, these are demon-gods that defy the Time that fathered 
 them. The worldlier passions are the growth of mature years, 
 and their grave is dug but in our own. As the dark spirits in 
 the northern tale, that watch against the coming of one of a 
 brighter and holier race, lest, if he seize them unawares, he bind 
 them prisoners in his chain, they keep ward at night over the 
 entrance of that deep cave the human heart and scare away 
 the angel Sleep. 
 
 * " Non avium citharaeque," etc. HORAT.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. Ill 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Afifyi (T avQpuwuv 
 
 'AvapiQuaroi Kpeuavrat. 
 
 Toirro <F afid^avov evpelv, 
 
 'Ori virv, Kal h retevrp ^iprarov avdpl 
 
 FIND. O. vii. 44. 
 
 Innumerous, o'er their human prey, 
 Grim errors hang the human sorrow ; 
 
 Thro' vapor gleams the present day, 
 And darkness wraps the morrow. 
 
 PARAPHRASE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE SETTLED. LESTER'S HOPES AND SCHEMES. 
 GAIETY OF TEMPER A GOOD SPECULATION. THE TRUTH 
 AND FERVOR OF ARAM'S LOVE. 
 
 "Love is better than a pair of spectacles, to make everything seem 
 greater which is seen through it." SIR PHILIP SIDNEY : Arcadia. 
 
 ARAM'S affection to Madeline having now been formally an- 
 nounced to Lester, and Madeline's consent having been some- 
 what less formally obtained, it only remained to fix the time 
 for their wedding. Though Lester forbore to question Aram 
 as to his circumstances, the student frankly confessed, that, if 
 not affording what the generality of persons would consider 
 even a competence, they enabled one of his moderate wants 
 and retired life (especially in the remote and cheap district in 
 which they lived), to dispense with all fortune in a wife, who, 
 like Madeline, was equally with himself enamoured of obscurity. 
 The good Lester, however, proposed to bestow upon his daugh- 
 ter such a portion as might allow for the wants of an increased 
 family, or the probable contingencies of Fate. For though 
 Fortune may often slacken her wheel, there is no spot in which 
 she suffers it to be wholly still. 
 
 It was now the middle of September, and by the end of 
 the ensuing month it was agreed that the spousals of the lovers 
 should be held. It is certain that Lester felt one pang for his 
 nephew as he subscribed to this proposal ; but he consoled 
 himself with recurring to a hope he had long cherished, viz.,
 
 112 EUGENE AkAM. 
 
 that Walter would return home not only cured of his vain at- 
 tachment to Madeline, but with the disposition to admit the 
 attractions of her sister. A marriage between these two cousins 
 had for years been his favorite project. The lively and ready 
 temper of Ellinor, her household turn, her merry laugh, a win- 
 ning playfulness that characterized even her defects, were all 
 more after Lester's secret heart than the graver and higher 
 nature of his elder daughter. This might mainly be that they 
 were traits of disposition that more reminded him of his lost 
 wife, and were, therefore, more accordant with his ideal stand- 
 ard of perfection ; but I incline also to believe that the more 
 persons advance in years, the more, even if of staid and sober 
 temper themselves, they love gaiety and elasticity in youth. I 
 have often pleased myself by observing, in some happy family 
 circle embracing all ages, that it is the liveliest and wildest 
 child that charms the grandsire the most. And after all it is, 
 perhaps, with characters as with books, the grave and thought- 
 ful may be more admired than the light and cheerful, but they 
 are less liked ; it is not only that the former, being of a more 
 abstruse and recondite nature, find fewer persons capable of 
 judging of their merits, but also that the great object of the, 
 majority of human beings is to be amused, and that they nat- 
 urally incline to love those the best who amuse them most. 
 And to so great a practical extent is this preference pushed, 
 that I think were a nice observer to make a census of all those 
 who have received legacies, or dropped unexpectedly into for- 
 tunes, he would find that where one grave disposition had so 
 benefited, there would be at least twenty gay. Perhaps, how- 
 ever, it may be said that I am, here, taking the cause for the 
 effect ! 
 
 But to return from our speculative disquisitions : Lester, 
 then, who though he had so slowly discovered his nephew's 
 passion for Madeline, had long since guessed the secret of Elli- 
 nor's affection for him, looked forward with a hope rather san- 
 guine than anxious to the ultimate realization of his cherished 
 domestic scheme. And he pleased himself with thinking that 
 when all soreness would, by this double wedding, be banished 
 from Walter's mind, it would be impossible to conceive a 
 family group more united or more happy. 
 
 And Ellinor herself, ever since the parting words of her 
 cousin, had seemed, so far from being inconsolable for his ab- 
 sence, more bright of cheek and elastic of step than she had 
 been for months before. What a world of all feelings which 
 forbid despondence lies hoarded in the hearts of the young J
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 113 
 
 As one fountain is filled by the channels that exhaust another, 
 we cherish wisdom at the expense of hope. It thus happened, 
 from one cause or another, that Walter's absence created a less 
 cheerless blank in the family circle than might have been ex- 
 pected ; and the approaching bridals of Madeline and her 
 lover naturally diverted, in a great measure, the thoughts of 
 each, and engrossed their conversation. 
 
 Whatever might be Madeline's infatuation as to the merits of 
 Aram, one merit, the greatest of all in the eyes of a woman 
 who loves, he at least, possessed. Never was mistress more 
 burningly and deeply loved than she who, for the first time, 
 awoke the long slumbering passions in the heart of Eugene 
 Aram. Every day the ardor of his affections seemed to in- 
 crease. With what anxiety he watched her footsteps ! with 
 what idolatry he hung upon her words ! with what unspeakable 
 and yearning emotion he gazed upon the changeful eloquence 
 of her cheek ! Now that Walter was gone, he almost took up 
 his abode at the manor-house. He came thither in the early 
 morning, and rarely returned home before the family retired 
 for the night ; and even then, when all was hushed, and they 
 believed him in his solitary home, he lingered for hours around 
 the house, to look up to Madeline's window, charmed to the 
 spot which held the intoxication of her presence. Madeline 
 discovered this habit, and chid it ; but so tenderly, that it was 
 not cured. And still at times, by the autumnal moon, she 
 marked from her window his dark figure gliding among the 
 shadows of the trees, or pausing by the lowly tombs in the still 
 churchyard the resting-place of hearts that once, perhaps, 
 beat as wildly as his own. 
 
 It was impossible that a love of this order, and from one so 
 richly gifted as Aram, a love which in substance, was truth, 
 and yet in language poetry, could fail wholly to subdue and 
 enthral a girl so young, so romantic, so enthusiastic, as Made- 
 line Lester. How intense and delicious must have been her 
 sense of happiness! In the pure heart of a girl loving for the 
 first time, love is far more ecstatic than in man, inasmuch as it 
 is unfevered by desire ; love, then and there, makes the only 
 state of human existence which is at once capable of calmness 
 and transport I
 
 114 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A FAVORABLE SPECIMEN OF A NOBLEMAN AND A COURTIER. A 
 MAN OF SOME FAULTS AND MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 
 
 " Titinius Capito is to rehearse. He is a man of an excellent disposition, 
 and to be numbered among the chief ornaments of his age. He cultivates 
 literature he loves men of learning, etc." LORD ORRERY'S Pliny. 
 
 ABOUT this time the Earl of , the great nobleman of 
 
 the district, and whose residence was within a few miles of 
 Grassdale, came down to pay his wonted yearly visit to his 
 country domains. He was a man well known in the history of 
 the times ; though, for various reasons, I conceal his name He 
 was a courtier, deep, wily, accomplished ; but capable of 
 generous sentiments and enlarged views. Though, from regard 
 to his interests, he seized and lived as it were upon the fleeting 
 spirit of the day, the penetration of his intellect went far be- 
 yond its reach. He claims the merit of having been the one, 
 of all his contemporaries (Lord Chesterfield alone excepted), 
 who most clearly saw, and most distinctly prophesied, the dark 
 and fearful storm that, at the close of the century, burst 
 over France visiting indeed the sins of the fathers upon the 
 sons. 
 
 From the small circle of pompous trifles in which the 
 dwellers of a court are condemned to live, and which he 
 brightened by his abilities and graced by his accomplishments, 
 the sagacious and far-sighted mind of Lord compre- 
 hended the vast field without, usually invisible to those of his 
 habits and profession. Men who the best know the little 
 nucleus which is called the world are often the most ignorant 
 of mankind ; but it was the peculiar attribute of this noble- 
 man, that he could not only analyze the external customs of 
 his species, but also penetrate into their deeper and more 
 hidden interests. 
 
 The works and correspondence he has left behind him, 
 though far from voluminous, testify a consummate knowledge 
 of the varieties of human nature. The refinement of his taste 
 appears less remarkable than the vigor of his understanding. 
 It might be that he knew the vices of men better than their 
 virtues ; yet he was no shallow disbeliever in the latter : he read 
 the heart too accurately not to know that it is guided as often 
 by its affections as its interests. In his early life he had in- 
 curred, not without truth, the charge of licentiousness ; but
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 1 15 
 
 even in pursuit of pleasure, he had been neither weak on the 
 one hand, nor gross on the other, neither the headlong dupe 
 nor the callous sensualist ; but his graces, his rank, his wealth, 
 had made his conquests a matter of too easy purchase ; and 
 hence, like all voluptuaries, the part of his worldly knowledge 
 which was the most fallible was that which related to the sex. 
 He judged of women by a standard too distinct from that by 
 which he judged of men, and considered those foibles peculiar 
 to the sex, which in reality are incident to human nature 
 
 His natural disposition was grave and reflective ; and though 
 he was not without wit, it was rarely used. He lived, neces- 
 sarily, with the frivolous and the ostentatious ; yet ostentation and 
 frivolity were charges never brought against himself. As a 
 diplomatist and a statesman, he was of the old and erroneous 
 school of intriguers ; but his favorite policy was the science of 
 conciliation. He was one who would so far have suited the 
 present age, that no man could have better steered a nation 
 from the chances of war ; James the First could not have been 
 inspired with a greater affection for peace ; but the peer's 
 dexterity would have made that peace as honorable as the 
 king's weakness made it degraded. Ambitious to a certain 
 extent, but neither grasping or mean, he never obtained for his 
 genius the full and extensive field it probably deserved. He 
 loved a happy life above all things ; and he knew that, while 
 activity is the spirit, fatigue is the bane, of happiness. 
 
 In his day he enjoyed a large share of that public attention 
 which generally bequeaths fame ; yet, from several causes (of 
 which his own moderation is not the least), his present reputa- 
 tion is infinitely less great than the opinions of his most dis- 
 tinguished contemporaries foreboded. 
 
 It is a more difficult matter for men of high rank to become 
 illustrious to posterity, than for persons in a sterner and more 
 wholesome walk of life. Even the greatest among the dis- 
 tinguished men of the patrician order suffer in the eyes of the 
 after-age for the very qualities, chiefly dazzling defects or 
 brilliant eccentricities, which made them most popularly re- 
 markable in their day. Men forgive Burns his amours and his 
 revellings, with greater ease than they will forgive Bolingbroke 
 and Byron for the same offences. 
 
 Our earl was fond of the society of literary men ; he himself 
 was well, perhaps even deeply, read. Certainly his intellectual 
 acquisitions were more profound than they have been generally 
 esteemed, though, with the common subtlety of a ready genius, 
 he could make the quick adaptation of a timely fact, acquired
 
 Il6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 for the occasion, appear the rich overflowing of a copious 
 erudition. He was a man who instantly perceived, and 
 liberally acknowledged,. the merits of others. No connoisseur 
 had a more felicitous knowledge of the arts, or was more just 
 in the general objects of his patronage. In short, what with 
 all his advantages, he was one whom an aristocracy may boast 
 of, though a people may forget ; and, if not a great man, was 
 at least a most remarkable lord. 
 
 The Earl of , in his last visit to his estates, had not 
 
 forgotten to seek out the eminent scholar who shed an honor 
 upon his neighborhood ; he had been greatly struck with the 
 bearing, and conversation of Aram ; and, with the usual felicity 
 with which the accomplished earl adapted his nature to those 
 with whom he was thrown, he had succeeded in ingratiating him- 
 self with Aram in return. He could not, indeed, persuade the 
 haughty and solitary student to visit him at the castle ; but 
 the earl did not disdain to seek any one from whom he could 
 obtain instruction, and he had twice or thrice voluntarily en- 
 countered Aram, and effectually drawn him from his reserve. 
 The earl now heard with some pleasure, and more surprise, 
 that the austere recluse was about to be married to the beauty 
 of the county, and he resolved to seize the first occasion to 
 call at the manor-house to offer his compliments and congratu- 
 lations to its inmates. 
 
 Sensible men of rank who, having enjoyed their dignity from 
 their birth, may reasonably be expected to grow occasionally 
 tired of it, often like mixing with those) the most who are the 
 least dazzled by the condescension ; I do not mean to say, with 
 the vulgar parvenus who mistake rudeness for independence- 
 no man forgets respect to another who knows the value of re- 
 spect to himself ; but the respect should be paid easily ; it is not 
 every Grand Seigneur who, like Louis the Fourteenth, is only 
 pleased when he puts those he addresses out of countenance. 
 
 There was, therefore, much in the simplicity of Lester's 
 manners, and those of his nieces, which rendered the family at 
 
 the manor-house especial favorites with Lord ; and the 
 
 wealthier but less honored squirearchs of the county, stiff in 
 awkward pride, and bustling with yet more awkward venera- 
 tion, heard with astonishment and anger of the numerous visits 
 which his lordship, in his brief sojourn at the castle, always 
 contrived to pay to the Lesters, and the constant invitations 
 which they received to his most familiar festivities. 
 
 Lord was no sportsman ; and one morning, when all his 
 
 guests were engaged among the stubbles of September, he
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 117 
 
 mounted his quiet palfrey, and gladly took his way to the 
 manor-house. 
 
 It was towards the latter end of the month, and one of the 
 earliest of the autumnal fogs hung thinly over the landscape. 
 As the earl wound along the sides of the hill on which his 
 castle was built, the scene on which he gazed below received 
 from the gray mists capriciously hovering over it a dim and 
 melancholy wildness. A broader and whiter vapor, that streaked 
 the lower part of the valley, betrayed the course of the rivulet ; 
 and beyond, to the left, rose, wan and spectral, the spire of the 
 little church adjoining Lester's abode. As the horseman's eye 
 wandered to this spot, the sun suddenly broke forth, and lit up 
 as by enchantment the quiet and lovely hamlet, embedded as 
 it were beneath, the cottages, with their gay gardens and jas- 
 mined porches the streamlet half in mist, half in light, while 
 here and there columns of vapor rose above its surface like the 
 chariots of the water genii, and broke into a thousand hues be- 
 neath the smiles of the unexpected sun ; but far to the right, 
 the mists around it yet unbroken, and the outline of its form 
 only visible, rose the lone house of the student, as if there the 
 sadder spirits of the air yet rallied their broken armament of 
 mist and shadow. 
 
 The earl was not a man peculiarly alive to scenery, but he 
 now involuntarily checked his horse, and gazed for a few 
 moments on the beautiful and singular aspect which the land- 
 scape had so suddenly assumed. As he so gazed, he observed 
 in a field at some little distance three or four persons gathered 
 round a bank, and among them he thought he recognized the 
 comely form of Rowland Lester. A second inspection con- 
 vinced him that he was right in his conjecture, and, turning 
 from the road through a gap in the hedge, he made towards 
 the group in question. He had not proceeded far, before he 
 saw that the remainder of the party was composed of Lester's 
 daughters, the lover of the elder, and a fourth, whom he recog- 
 nized as a celebrated French botanist, who had lately arrived 
 in England, and who was now making an amateur excursion 
 throughout the more attractive districts of the island. 
 
 The earl guessed rightly that Monsieur de N had not 
 
 neglected to apply to Aram for assistance in a pursuit which 
 the latter was known to have cultivated with such success, and 
 that he had been conducted hither as to a place affording some 
 specimen or another not unworthy of research. He now, giv- 
 ing his horse to his groom, joined the group.
 
 Ho* EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHEREIN THE EARL AND THE STUDENT CONVERSE ON GRAVE 
 BUT DELIGHTFUL MATTERS. THE STUDENT'S NOTION OF THE 
 ONLY EARTHLY HAPPINESS. 
 
 " Aram. If the witch Hope forbids us to be wise, 
 Yet when I turn to thtse Woe's ouly fi lends, [Pointing to his books. 
 And with thtir weird and eloquent voices calm 
 The stir and B^iiel of lie woild within, 
 I can but dream that my vex'd years al last 
 Shall find the quiet of a hermii's cell 
 And, neighboring not this worn and jaded world, 
 Beneath the lambent eyes of the loved stars, 
 And, with the hollow rocks and spairy caves, 
 The tides, and all the many-music'd winds, 
 My oracles and co-males watch my life 
 Glide down the Stream of Knowledge, and behold 
 Its waters with a musing stillness glass 
 The thousand hues of Nature and of Heaven." 
 
 from " Eugene Aram" a MS. Tragedy. 
 
 THE earl continued with the party he had joined ; and when 
 their occupation was concluded, and they turned homeward, he 
 accepted the squire's frank invitation to partake of some re- 
 freshment at the manor-house. It so chanced, or perhaps the 
 earl so contrived it, that Aram and himself, in their way to the 
 village, lingered a little behind the rest, and that their conver- 
 sation was thus, for a few minutes, not altogether general. 
 
 " Is it I, Mr. Aram," said the earl, smiling, " or is it Fate 
 that has made you a convert ? The last time we sagely and 
 quietly conferred together you contended that the more the circle 
 of existence was contracted, the more we clung to a state of pure 
 and self-dependent intellect, the greater our chance of happiness. 
 Thus you denied that we were rendered happier by our luxuries, 
 by our ambition, or by our affections. Love and its ties were 
 banished from your solitary Utopia ; and you asserted that th 
 true wisdom of life lay solely in the cultivation not of our 
 feelings, but our faculties. You know, I held a different doc- 
 trine ; and it is with the natural triumph of a hostile partisan 
 that I hear you are about to relinquish the practice of one of 
 your dogmas ; in consequence, may I hope, of having forsworn 
 the theory?" 
 
 "Not so, my lord," answered Aram, coloring slightly; my 
 weakness only proves that my theory is difficult, not that it is 
 wrong. 1 still venture to think it true. More pain than pleas-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. IIQ 
 
 ure is occasioned us by others ; banish others, ana you are 
 necessarily the gainer. Mental activity and moral quietude are 
 the two states which, were they perfected and united, would blend 
 into happiness. It is such a union which constitutes all we im- 
 agine of heaven, or conceive of the majestic felicity of a God." 
 
 " Yet, while you are on earth you will be (believe me) hap- 
 pier in the state you are about to choose," said the earl. 
 " Who could look at that enchanting face (the speaker direct- 
 ed his eyes toward Madeline) and not feel that it gave a pledge 
 of happiness that could not be broken ? " 
 
 It was not in the nature of Aram to like any allusion to him- 
 self, and still less to his affections : he turned aside his head, 
 and remained silent : the wary earl discovered his indiscretion 
 immediately. 
 
 ''But let us put aside individual cases," said he, " the meant 
 and the titum forbid all general argument : and confess that 
 there is for the majority of human beings a greater happiness 
 in love than in the sublime state of passionless intellect to 
 which you would so chillingly exalt us. Has not Cicero said 
 wisely, that we ought no more to subject too slavishly our 
 affections, than to elevate them too imperiously into our mas- 
 ters ? Neque se nimium erigerc, nee subjacere serviliter." 
 
 " Cicero loved philosophizing better than philosophy," said 
 Aram coldly: "but surely, my lord, the affections give us pain 
 as well as pleasure? The doubt, the dread, the restlessness of 
 love, surely these prevent the passion from constituting a 
 happy state of mind ? To me, one knowledge alone seems suf- 
 ficient to embitter all its enjoyments the knowledge that the ob- 
 ject beloved must die. What a perpetuity of fear that knowl- 
 edge creates ! The avalanche that may crush us depends upon 
 a single breath ! " 
 
 "Is not that too refined a sentiment ? Custom surely blunts 
 us to every chance, every danger, that may happen to us hour- 
 ly. Were the avalanche over you for a day, I grant your state 
 of torture : but had an avalanche rested over you for years 
 and not yet fallen, you would forget that it could ever fall ; 
 you would eat, sleep, and make love, as if it were not ! " 
 
 " Ha ! my lord, you say well you say well," said Aram, 
 with a marked change of countenance ; and, quickening his 
 pace, he joined Lester's side, and the thread of the previous 
 conversation was broken off. 
 
 The earl afterward in walking through the garden (an ex- 
 cursion which he proposed himself, for he was somewhat of an 
 horticulturist), took an opportunity to renew the subject.
 
 120 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "You will pardon me," said he, " but I cannot convince my- 
 self that man would be happier were he without emotions ; 
 and that to enjoy life he should be solely dependent on him- 
 self." 
 
 " Yet it seems to me," said Aram, " a truth easy of proof. 
 If we love, we place our happiness in others. The moment 
 we place our happiness in others, comes uncertainty, but un- 
 certainty is the bane of happiness. Children are the source of 
 anxiety to their parents ; his mistress to the lover. Change, 
 accident, death, all menace us in each person whom we regard. 
 Every new affection opens new channels by which grief can in- 
 vade us ; but, you will say, by which joy also can flow in : 
 granted ! But in human life is there not more grief than joy ? 
 What is it that renders the balance even ? What makes the 
 staple of our happiness, endearing to us the life at which we 
 should otherwise repine ? It is the mere passive, yet stirring, 
 consciousness of life itself ! of the sun and the air, of the 
 physical being ; but this consciousness every emotion disturbs. 
 Yet could you add to its tranquillity an excitement that never 
 exhausts itself, that becomes refreshed, not sated, with every 
 new possession, then you would obtain happiness. There is 
 only one excitement of this divine order, that of intellectual 
 culture. Behold now my theory ! Examine it, it contains no 
 flaw. But if," renewed Aram, after a pause, " a man is sub- 
 ject to fate solely in himself, not in others, he soon hardens his 
 mind against all fear, and prepares it for all events. A little 
 philosophy enables him to bear bodily pain, or the common in- 
 firmities of flesh : by a philosophy somewhat deeper, he can 
 conquer the ordinary reverses of fortune, the dread of shame, 
 and the last calamity of death. But what philosophy could 
 ever thoroughly console him for the ingratitude of a friend, the 
 worthlessness of a child, the death of a mistress ? Hence, only, 
 when he stands alone, can a man's soul say to Fate, ' I defy 
 thee.' " 
 
 "You think, then," said the earl, reluctantly diverting the 
 conversation into a new channel, " that in the pursuit of knowl- 
 edge lies our only active road to real happiness. Yet here how 
 eternal must be the disappointments even of the most success- 
 ful ! Does not Boyle tell us of a man who, after devoting his 
 whole life to the study of one mineral, confessed himself, at 
 last, ignorant of all its properties?" 
 
 "Had the object of his study been himself, and not themin- 
 era.1, he would not have been so unsuccessful a student," said 
 Aram, smiling. " Yet," added he, in a graver tone, " we do
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 121 
 
 indeed cleave the vast heaven of Truth with a weak and crip- 
 pled wing : and often we are appalled in our way by a dread 
 sense of the immensity around us, and of the inadequacy of our 
 own strength. But there is a rapture in the breath of the pure 
 and difficult air, and in the progress by which we compass 
 earth, the while we draw nearer to the stars, that again exalts 
 us beyond ourselves, and reconciles the true student unto all 
 things, even to the hardest of them all, the conviction how 
 feebly our performance can ever imitate the grandeur of our 
 ambition ! As you see the spark fly upward, sometimes not 
 falling to earth till it be dark and quenched, thus soars, 
 whither it recks not, so that the direction be above, the lumi- 
 nous spirit of him who aspires to Truth ; nor will it back to 
 the vile and heavy clay from which it sprang, until the light 
 which bore it upward be no more ! " 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A DEEPER EXAMINATION INTO THE STUDENT'S HEART. THE 
 
 VISIT TO THE CASTLE. PHILOSOPHY PUT TO THE TRIAL. 
 
 " I weigh not Fortune's frown or smile, 
 
 I joy not much in earthly joys, 
 I seek not state, I seek not style, 
 
 I am not fond of Fancy's toys ; 
 I rest so pleased with what I have, 
 I wish no more, no more I crave." JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 
 
 THE reader will pardon me if I somewhat clog his interest 
 in my tale by the didactic character of brief conversations I 
 have just given, and which I am compelled to ren.ew. It is not 
 only the history of his life, but the character and tone of Aram's 
 mind, that I wish to stamp upon my page. Fortunately, how- 
 ever, the path my story assumes is of such a nature that, in 
 order to effect this object, I shall never have to desert, and 
 scarcely again even to linger by, the way. 
 
 Every one knows the magnificent moral of Goethe's Faust, 
 Every one knows that sublime discontent ; that chafing at the 
 bounds of human knowledge ; that yearning for the intellectual 
 Paradise beyond, which "the sworded angel" forbids us to 
 approach ; that daring, yet sorrowful, state of mind ; that sense 
 of defeat, even in conquest, which Goethe has embodied a 
 picture of the loftiest grief of which the soul is capable, and
 
 122 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 which may remind us of the profound and august melancholy 
 which the Great Sculptor breathed into the repose of the 
 noblest of mythological heroes, when he represented the god 
 resting after his labors, as if more convinced of their vanity 
 than elated with their extent ! 
 
 In this portrait, the grandeur of which the wild scenes that 
 follow in the drama we refer to do not (strangely wonderful as 
 they are) perhaps altogether sustain, Goethe has bequeathed to 
 the gaze of a calmer and more practical posterity the burning 
 and restless spirit the feverish desire for knowledge more vague 
 than useful, which characterized the exact epoch in the intel- 
 lectual history of Germany in which the poem was inspired and 
 produced. 
 
 At these bitter waters, the Marah of the streams of Wisdom, 
 the soul of the man whom we have made the hero of these 
 pages had also, and not lightly quaffed. The properties of a 
 mind, more calm and stern than belonged to the visionaries of 
 the Hartz and the Danube, might indeed have preserved him 
 from that thirst for the Impossible, which gives so peculiar a 
 romance, not only to the poetry, but the philosophy, of the 
 German people. But if he rejected the superstitions, he did 
 not also reject the bewilderments of the mind. He loved to 
 plunge into the dark and metaphysical subtleties which human 
 genius has called daringly forth from the realities of things : 
 
 " to spin 
 
 A shroud of thought, to hide him from the sun 
 Of this familiar life, which seems to be, 
 But is not or is but quaint mockery 
 Of all we would believe or sadly blame 
 The jarring and inexplicable frame 
 Of this wrong world : and then anatomize 
 The purposes and thoughts of man, whose eyes 
 Were closed in distant years ; or widely guess 
 The issue of the earth's great business, 
 When we shall be, as we no longer are 
 Like babbling gossips, safe, who hear the war 
 Of winds, and sigh ! but tremble not ! " 
 
 Much in him was a type, or rather forerunner, of the intel- 
 lectual spirit that broke forth among our countrymen, when we 
 were children, and is now slowly dying away amidst the loud 
 events and absorbing struggles of the awakening world. But 
 in one respect he stood aloof from all his tribe, in his hard 
 indifference to worldly ambition and his contempt of fame. As 
 some sages have considered the universe a dream, and self the 
 only reality, so in his austere and collected reliance upon his
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 123 
 
 own mind, the gathering in, as it were, of his resources, he 
 appeared to regard the pomps of the world as shadows, and the 
 life of his own spirit the only substance. He had built a city 
 and a tower within the Shinar of his own heart, whence he 
 might look forth, unscathed and unmoved, upon the deluge 
 that broke over the rest of earth. 
 
 Only in one instance, and that, as we have seen, after much 
 struggle, he had given way to the emotions that agitate his kind, 
 and had surrendered himself to the dominion of another. This 
 was against his theories, but what theories ever resist love ? In 
 yielding, however, thus far, he seemed more on his guard than 
 ever against a broader encroachment. He had admitted one 
 " fair spirit" for his "minister," but it was only with a deeper 
 fervor to invoke " the desert " as "his dwelling-place." Thus, 
 when the earl, who, like most practical judges of mankind, 
 loved to apply to each individual the motives that actuate the 
 mass, and who only unwillingly, and somewhat sceptically, 
 assented to the exceptions, and was driven to search for pecu- 
 liar clues to the eccentric instance, finding, to his secret triumph, 
 that Aram had admitted one intruding emotion into his boasted 
 circle of indifference, imagined that he should easily induce 
 him (the spell once broken) to receive another, he was sur- 
 prised and puzzled to discover himself in the wrong. 
 
 Lord at that time had been lately called into the admin- 
 istration, and he was especially anxious to secure the support 
 of all the talent that he could enlist on his behalf. The times 
 were those in which party ran high, and in which individual 
 political writings were honored with an importance which the 
 periodical press in general has now almost wholly monopolized. 
 On the side opposed to government, writers of great name and 
 high attainments had shone with peculiar effect, and the earl 
 was naturally desirous that they should be opposed by an equal 
 array of intellect on the side espoused by himself. The name 
 alone of Eugene Aram, at a day when scholarship was renown, 
 would have been no ordinary acquisition to the cause of the 
 earl's party ; but that judicious and penetrating nobleman per- 
 ceived that Aram's abilities, his various research, his extended 
 views, his facility of argument, and the heat and energy of 
 his eloquence, might be rendered of an importance which 
 could not have been anticipated from the name alone, however 
 eminent, of a retired and sedentary scholar : he was not, there- 
 fore, without an interested motive in the attentions he now 
 lavished upon the student, and in his curiosity to put to the proof 
 the disdain of all worldly enterprise, and worldly temptation,
 
 124 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 which Aram affected. He could not but think, that, to a man 
 poor and lowly of circumstance, conscious of superior acquire- 
 ments, about to increase his wants by admitting to them a 
 partner, and arrived at that age when the calculations of interest 
 and the whispers of ambition have usually most weight, he 
 could not but think that to such a man the dazzling prospects 
 of social advancement, the hope of the high fortunes, and the 
 powerful and glittering influence which political life, in 
 England, offers to the aspirant, might be rendered altogether 
 irresistible. 
 
 He took several opportunities, in the course of the next 
 week, of renewing his conversation with Aram, and of artfully 
 turning it into the channels which he thought most likely to 
 produce the impression he desired to create. He was some- 
 what baffled, but by no means dispirited, in his attempts ; but 
 he resolved to defer his ultimate proposition until it could be 
 made to the fullest advantage. He had engaged the Lesters 
 to promise to pass a day at the castle ; and with great diffi- 
 culty, and at the earnest intercession of Madeline, Aram was 
 prevailed upon to accompany them. So extreme was his 
 distaste to general society, and, from some motive or another 
 more powerful than mere constitutional reserve, so invariably 
 had he for years refused all temptations to enter it, that, natu- 
 ral as this concession was rendered by his approaching marriage 
 to one of the party, it filled him with a sort of terror and fore- 
 boding of evil. It was as if he were passing beyond the 
 boundary of some law, on which the very tenure of his existence 
 depended. After he had consented, a trembling came over 
 him ; he hastily left the room, and, till the day arrived, was 
 observed by his friends of the manor-house to be more gloomy 
 and abstracted than they ever had known him, even at the 
 earliest period of acquaintance. 
 
 On the day itself, as they proceeded to the castle, Madeline 
 perceived, with a tearful repentance of her interference, that 
 he sat by her side cold and rapt ; and that, once or twice, 
 when his eyes dwelt upon her, it was with an expression of re- 
 proach and distrust. 
 
 It was not till they entered the lofty hall of the castle, when 
 a vulgar diffidence would have been most abashed, that Aram 
 recovered himself. The earl was standing the centre of a 
 group in the recess of a window in the saloon, opening upon 
 an extensive and stately terrace. He came forward to receive 
 them with the polished and warm kindness which he bestowed 
 uoon all his inferiors in rank. He complimented the sisters ;
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 125 
 
 he jested with Lester ; but to Aram only he manifested less the 
 courtesy of kindness than of respect. He took his arm, and, 
 leaning on it with a light touch, led him to the group at the 
 window. It was composed of the most distinguished public 
 men in the country, and among them (the earl himself was 
 connected, through an illegitimate branch, with the reigning 
 monarch) was a prince of the blood royal. 
 
 To these, whom he had prepared for the introduction, he 
 severally, and with an easy grace, presented Aram, and then, fall- 
 ing back a few steps, he watched, with a keen but seemingly 
 careless eye, the effect which so sudden a contact with royalty 
 itself would produce on the mind of the shy and secluded 
 student, whom it was his object to dazzle and overpower. It 
 was at this moment that the native dignity of Aram, which his 
 studies, unworldly as they were, had certainly tended to in- 
 crease, displayed itself, in a trial which, poor as it was in 
 abstract theory, was far from despicable in the eyes of the 
 sensible and practised courtier. He received with his usual 
 modesty, but not with his usual shrinking and embarrassment 
 on such occasions, the compliments he received ; a certain and 
 far from ungracefiil pride was mingled with his simplicity of 
 demeanor ; no fluttering of manner betrayed that he was either 
 dazzled or humbled by the presence in which he stood, and 
 the earl could not but confess that there was never a more 
 favorable opportunity for comparing the aristocracy of genius 
 with that of birth ; it was one of those homely everyday 
 triumphs of intellect which please us more than they ought to 
 do, for, after all, they are more common than the men of courts 
 are willing to believe. 
 
 Lord did not, however, long leave Aram to the support 
 
 of his own unassisted presence of mind and calmness of nerve ; 
 he advanced, and led the conversation, with his usual tact, into 
 a course which might at once please Aram, and afford him the 
 opportunity to shine. The earl had imported from Italy some 
 of the most beautiful specimens of classic sculpture which this 
 country now possesses. These were disposed in niches around 
 the magnificent apartment in which the guests were assembled, 
 and as the earl pointed them out, and illustrated each from the 
 beautiful anecdotes and golden allusions of antiquity, he felt 
 that he was affording to Aram a gratification he could never have 
 experienced before, and in the expression of which the grace 
 and copiousness of his learning would find vent. Nor was he 
 disappointed. The cheek, which till then had retained its steady 
 paleness, now caught the glow of enthusiasm ; and in a few
 
 126 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 moments there was not a person in the group who did not feel, 
 and cheerfully feel, the superiority of the one who, in birth and 
 fortune, was immeasurably the lowest of all. 
 
 The English aristocracy, whatever be the faults of their edu- 
 cation, have at least the merit of being alive to the possession, 
 and easily warmed to the possessor, of classical attainments : 
 perhaps too much so ; for they are thus apt to judge all talent 
 by a classical standard, and all theory by classical experience. 
 Without save in very rare instances the right to boast of 
 any deep learning, they are far more susceptible than the no- 
 bility of any other nation to the spiritual Camxnce. They are 
 easily and willingly charmed back to the studies which, if not 
 eagerly pursued in their youth, are still entwined with all their 
 youth's brightest recollections : the schoolboy's prize and the 
 master's praise, the first ambition and its first reward. A 
 felicitous quotation, a delicate allusion, are never lost upon 
 their ear ; and the veneration which, at Eton, they bore to the 
 best verse-maker in the school, tinctures their judgment of 
 others throughout life, mixing, I know not what, both of liking 
 and esteem, with their admiration of one who uses his classical 
 weapons with a scholar's dexterity, not a pedant's inaptitude : 
 for such a one there is a sort of agreeable confusion in their 
 respect ; they are inclined, unconsciously, to believe that he 
 must necessarily be a high gentleman ay, and something of 
 a good fellow into the bargain. 
 
 It happened, then, that Aram could not have dwelt upon a 
 theme more likely to arrest the spontaneous interest of those 
 with whom he now conversed men themselves of more culti- 
 vated minds than usual, and more capable than most (from 
 that acute perception of real talent, which in produced by ha- 
 bitual political warfare), of appreciating not only his endow- 
 ments, but his facility in applying them. 
 
 "You are right, my lord," said Sir , the whipper-in of 
 
 the - party, taking the earl aside ; " he would be an inesti- 
 mable pamphleteer." 
 
 " Could you get him to write us a sketch of the state of par- 
 ties ; luminous, eloquent?" whispered a lord of the bed- 
 chamber. 
 
 The earl answered by a bon mot, and turned to a bust of 
 Caracalla. 
 
 The hours at that time were (in the country at least) not 
 late, and the earl was one of the first introducers of the pol- 
 ished fashion of France, by which we testify a preference of 
 the society of the women to that of our own sex ; so that, in
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 127 
 
 leaving the dining-room, it was not so late but that the greater 
 part of the guests walked out upon the terrace, and admired 
 the expanse of country which it overlooked, and along which 
 the thin veil of the twilight began now to hover. 
 
 Having safely deposited his royal guest at a whist table, and 
 thus left himself a free agent, the earl, inviting Aram to join 
 him, sauntered among the loiterers on the terrace for a few 
 moments, and then descended a broad flight of steps, which 
 brought them into a more shaded and retired walk, on either 
 side of which rows of orange-trees gave forth their fragrance, 
 while, to the right, sudden and numerous vistas were cut 
 amidst the more regular and dense foliage, affording 
 glimpses now of some rustic statue now of some lonely tem- 
 ple now of some quaint fountain, on the play of whose waters 
 the first stars had begun to tremble. 
 
 It was one of those magnificent gardens, modelled from the 
 stately, glories of Versailles, which it is now the mode to decry, 
 but which breathe so unequivocally of the palace. I grant that 
 they deck Nature with somewhat too prolix a grace ; but is 
 Beauty always best seen in deshabille ? And with what asso- 
 ciations of the brightest traditions connected with Nature they 
 link her more luxuriant loveliness ! Must we breathe only the 
 malaria of Rome to be capable of feeling the interest attached 
 to the fountain or the statue ? 
 
 "I am glad," said the earl, "that you admired my bust of 
 Cicero it is from an original very lately discovered. What 
 grandeur in the brow ! what energy in the mouth and down- 
 ward bend of the head ! It is pleasant even to imagine we 
 gaze upon the likeness of so bright a spirit : and confess, at 
 least of Cicero, that in reading the aspirations and outpour- 
 ings of his mind, you have felt your apathy to fame melting 
 away ; you have shared the desire to live in the future age, 
 ' the longing after immortality ! " 
 
 "Was it not that longing," replied Aram, "which gave the 
 character of Cicero its poorest and most frivolous infirmity ? 
 Has it not made him, glorious as he is despite of it, a byword 
 in the mouth of every schoolboy ? Whenever you mention his 
 genius, do you not hear an appendix on his vanity ? " 
 
 "Yet without that vanity, that desire for a name with pos- 
 terity, would he have been equally great would he equally have 
 cultivated his genius?" 
 
 " Probably, my lord, he would not have equally culti- 
 vated his genius, but in reality he might have been equally 
 great. A man often injures his mind by the means that in-
 
 128 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 crease his genius. You think this, ray lord, a paradox ; but 
 examine it. How many men of genius have been but ordinary 
 men, take them from the particular objects in which they 
 shine ! Why is this, but that in cultivating one branch of in- 
 tellect they neglect the rest ? Nay, the very torpor of the rea- 
 soning faculty lias often kindled the imaginative. Lucretius is 
 said to have composed his sublime poem under the influence 
 of a delirium. The susceptibilities that we create or refine by 
 the pursuit of one object weaken our general reason ; and I 
 may compare with some justice the powers of the mind to the 
 faculties of the body, in which squinting is occasioned by an 
 inequality of strength in the eyes, and discordance of voice by 
 the same inequality in the ears." 
 
 " I believe you are right," said the earl ; "yet I own I will- 
 ingly forgive Cicero for his vanity, if it contributed to the pro- 
 duction of his orations and his essays. And he is a greater man, 
 even with his vanity unconquered, than if he had conquered his 
 foible, and, in doing so, taken away the incitements to his genius." 
 
 "A greater man in the world's eye, my lord, but scarcely in 
 reality. Had Homer written his Iliad and then burned it, 
 would his genius have been less ? The world would have 
 known nothing of him ; but would he have been a less extra- 
 ordinary man on that account ? We are too apt, my lord, to 
 confound greatness and fame." 
 
 "There is one circumstance," added Aram, after a pause, 
 " that should diminish our respect for renown. Errors of life, 
 as well as foibles of character, are often the real enhancers of 
 celebrity. Without his errors, I doubt whether Henri Quatre 
 would have become the idol of a people. How many W bar- 
 tons has the world known, who, deprived of their frailties, had 
 been inglorious ! The light that you so admire reaches you 
 only through the distance of time, on account of the angles 
 and unevenness of the body whence it emanates. Were the 
 surface of the moon smooth it would be invisible." 
 
 "I admire your illustrations," said the earl; "but I reluc- 
 tantly submit to your reasonings. You would then neglect your 
 powers, lest they should lead you into errors ?" 
 
 " Pardon me, my lord ; it is because I think all the powers 
 should be cultivated, that I quarrel with the exclusive cultiva- 
 tion of one. And it is only because I would strengthen the 
 whole mind that I dissent from the reasonings of those who 
 tell you to consult your genius." 
 
 " But your genius may serve mankind more than this general 
 cultivation of intellect."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 12$ 
 
 "My lord," replied Aram, with a mournful cloud upon his 
 countenance, " that argument may have weight with those who 
 think mankind can be effectually served, though they may be 
 often dazzled, by the labors of an individual. But, indeed, 
 this perpetual talk of ' mankind ' signifies nothing : each of us 
 consults his proper happiness, and we consider him a madman 
 who ruins his own peace of mind by an everlasting fretfulness 
 of philanthropy." 
 
 This was a doctrine that half pleased, half displeased the 
 earl : it shadowed forth the most dangerous notions which 
 Aram entertained. 
 
 " Well, well," said the noble host, as, after a short contest on 
 the ground of his guest's last remark, they left off where they 
 began, "let us drop these general discussions : I have a par- 
 ticular proposition to unfold. We have, I trust, Mr. Aram, 
 seen enough of each other to feel that we can lay a sure foun- 
 dation for mutual esteem. For my part, I own frankly, that I 
 have never met with one who has inspired me with a sincerer 
 admiration. I am desirous that your talents and great learn- 
 ing should be known in the widest sphere. You may despise 
 fame, but you must permit your friends the weakness to wish 
 you justice, and themselves triumph. You know my post in 
 the present administration : the place of my secretary is one of 
 great trust, some influence, and fair emolument. I offer it to 
 you ; accept it, and you will confer upon me an honor and an 
 obligation. You will have your own separate house ; or, apart- 
 ments in mine, solely appropriated to your use. Your privacy 
 will never be disturbed. Every arrangement shall be made for 
 yourself and your bride, that either of you can suggest. Leisure 
 for your o\vn pursuits you will have, too, in abundance ; there 
 are others who will perform all that is toilsome in the mere de- 
 tails of your office. In London, you will see around you the 
 most eminent living men of all nations, and in all pursuits. If 
 you contract (which believe me is possible it is a tempting 
 game !) any inclination toward public life, you will have the 
 most brilliant opportunities afforded you, and I foretrll you 
 the most signal success. Stay yet one moment ; for this 
 you will owe me no thanks. Were I not sensible that I con- 
 sult my own interests in this proposal, I should be courtier 
 enough to suppress it." 
 
 " My lord," said Aram, in a voice which, in spite of its 
 calmness, betrayed that he was affected, " it seldom happens 
 to a man of my secluded habits, and lowly pursuits, to have 
 the philosophy he affects put to so severe a trial. I am grate-
 
 130 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 ful to you deeply grateful for an offer so munificent so un- 
 deserved. I am yet more grateful that it allows me to sound 
 the strength of my own heart, and to find that I did not too 
 highly rate it. Look, my lord, from the spot where we now 
 stand " (the moon had risen, and they had now returned to 
 the terrace) : " in the vale below, and far among those trees, 
 lies my home. More than two years ago I came thither to 
 fix the resting-place of a sad and troubled spirit. There have 
 I centred all my wishes and my hopes ; and there may I breathe 
 my last ! My lord, you will not think me ungrateful that my 
 choice is made ; and you will not blame my motive, though 
 you may despise my wisdom." 
 
 " But," said the earl, astonished, " you cannot foresee the 
 the advantages you would renounce ? At your age with your 
 intellect to choose the living sepulchre of a hermitage it was 
 wise to reconcile yourself to it. but it is not wise to prefer it ! 
 Nay, nay ; consider pause. I am in no haste for your deci- 
 sion ; and what advantages have you in your retreat, that you 
 will not possess in a greater degree with me?" Quiet? I 
 pledge it to you under my roof. Solitude? you shall have it 
 at your will. Books ? what are those which you, which any 
 individual may possess, to the public institutions, the magnifi- 
 cent collections, of the metropolis ? What else is it you enjoy 
 yonder, and cannot enjoy with me ? " 
 
 " Liberty ! " said Aram energetically. " Liberty ! the wild 
 sense of independence. Could I exchange the lonely stars and 
 the free air, for the poor lights and feverish atmosphere of 
 worldly life ? Could I surrender my mood, with its thousand 
 eccentricities and humors its cloud and shadow to the eyes 
 of strangers, or veil it from their gaze by the irksomeness of an 
 eternal hypocrisy ? No, my lord ! I am too old to turn disciple 
 to the world ! You promise me solitude and quiet. What charm 
 would they have for me, if I felt they were held from the gene- 
 rosity of another ? The attraction of solitude is only in its in- 
 dependence. You offer me the circle, but not the magic which 
 made it holy. Books. They, years since, would have tempted 
 me; but those whose wisdom I have already drained, have taught 
 me now almost enough ; and the two books whose interest can 
 never be exhausted Nature and my own heart will suffice for 
 the rest of life. My lord, I require no time for consideration." 
 
 " And you positively refuse me ?" 
 
 " Gratefully refuse you." 
 
 The earl peevishly walked away for one moment ; but it 
 was not in his nature to lose himself for more.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. IJt 
 
 " Mr. Aram," said he frankly, and holding out his hand* 
 "you have chosen nobly, if not wisely; and though I cannot 
 forgive you for depriving me of such a companion, I thank you 
 for teaching me such a lesson. Henceforth I will believe that 
 philosophy may exist in practice, and that a contempt for 
 wealth and for honors is not the mere profession of discontent. 
 This is the first time, in a various and experienced life, that I 
 have found a man sincerely deaf to the temptations of the 
 world, and that man of such endowments ! If ever you see 
 cause to alter a theory that I still think erroneous, though 
 lofty remember me ; and at all times, and on all occasions," 
 he added with a smile, "when a friend becomes a necessary 
 evil, call to mind our starlight walk on the castle terrace." 
 
 Aram did not mention to Lester, or even Madeline, the 
 above conversation. The whole of the next day he shut him- 
 self up at home ; and when he again appeared at the manor- 
 house he heard, with evident satisfaction, that the earl had 
 been suddenly summoned on state affairs to London. 
 
 There was an unaccountable soreness in Aram's mind, which 
 made him feel a resentment a suspicion against all who 
 sought to lure him from his retreat. " Thank Heaven ! " 
 thought he, when he heard of the earl's departure ; " we shall 
 not meet for another year ! " He was mistaken. Another 
 year ! 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IN WHICH THE STORY RETURNS TO WALTER AND THE COR- 
 PORAL. THE RENCONTRE WITH A STRANGER, AND HOW THE 
 STRANGER PROVES TO BE NOT ALTOGETHER A STRANGER. 
 
 " Being got out of town in the road to Penaflor, master of my own action, 
 and forty good ducats, the first thing I did was to give my mule her head, 
 and to go at what pace she pleased. 
 
 ********* 
 
 " I left them in the inn, and continued my journey ; I was hardly got 
 half a mile farther, when I met a cavalier very genteel," etc. Gil Bias. 
 
 IT was broad and sunny noon on the second day of their 
 journey, as Walter Lester, and the valorous attendant with 
 whom it had pleased Fate to endow him, rode slowly into a 
 small town in which the corporal, in his own heart, had re- 
 solved to bait his Roman-nosed horse and refresh himself. Two 
 comely inns had the younger traveller of the two already passed
 
 133 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 v/ith an indifferent air, as if neither bait nor refreshment made 
 any part of the necessary concerns of this habitable world. 
 And in passing each of the said hostelries, the Roman-nosed 
 horse had uttered a snort of indignant surprise, and the worthy 
 corporal had responded to the quadrupedal remonstrance by a 
 loud hem. It seemed, however, that Walter heard neither of 
 the above significant admonitions ; and now the town was 
 nearly passed, and a steep hill, that seemed winding away into 
 eternity, already presented itself to the rueful gaze of the cor- 
 poral. 
 
 "The boy's clean rnad," grunted Bunting to himself "must 
 do my duty to him give him a hint." 
 
 Pursuant to this notable and conscientious determination, 
 Bunting jogged his horse into a trot, and coming alongside of 
 Walter, put his hand to his hat and said, 
 
 " Weather warm, your honor horses knocked up next town 
 far as hell ! Halt a bit here augh ! " 
 
 " Ha ! that is very true, Bunting ; I had quite forgotten the 
 length of our journey. But see, there is a signpost yonder, 
 we wiil take advantage of it." 
 
 " Augh ! and your honor's right fit for the Forty-second," 
 said the corporal, falling back ; and in a few moments he and 
 his charger found themselves, to their mutual delight, entering 
 the yard of a small but comfortable-looking inn. 
 
 The host, a man of a capacious stomach and a rosy cheek 
 in short, a host whom your heart warms to see stepped forth 
 immediately, held the stirrup for the young squire (for the 
 corporal's movements were too stately to be rapid), and ushered 
 him with a bow, a smile, and a flourish of his napkin, into 
 one of those little quaint rooms, with cupboards bright with 
 high glasses and old china, that it pleases us still to find ex- 
 tant in the old-fashioned inns, in our remoter roads and less 
 Londonized districts. 
 
 Mine host was an honest fellow, and not above his profes- 
 sion ; he stirred the fire, dusted the table, brought the bill of 
 fare, and a newspaper seven days old, and then bustled away 
 to order the dinner, and chat with the corporal. That accom- 
 plished hero had already thrown the stables into commotion, 
 and. frightening the two ostlers from their attendance on the 
 steeds of more peaceable men, had set them both at leading 
 his own horse and his master's to and fro the yard, to be cooled 
 into comfort and appetite. 
 
 He was now busy in the kitchen, where he had seized the 
 reins of government, sent the scullion to see if the hens had
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 133 
 
 laid any fresh eggs, and drawn upon himself the objugations of 
 a very thin cook with a squint. 
 
 " Tell you, ma'am, you are wrong quite wrong ; seen the 
 world old soldier and know how to fry eggs better than any 
 she in the three kingdoms. Hold jaw mind your own busi- 
 ness where's the frying-pan ? Baugh ! 
 
 So completely did the corporal feel himself in his element, 
 while he was putting everybody else out of the way ; and so com- 
 fortable did he find his new quarters, that he resolved that the 
 " bait" should be at all events prolonged until his good cheer 
 had been deliberately digested, and his customary pipe duly 
 enjoyed. 
 
 Accordingly, but not till Walter had dined, for our man of 
 the world knew that it is the tendency of that meal to abate 
 our activity, while it increases our good-humor, the corporal 
 presented himself to his master, with a grave countenance. 
 
 " Greatly vexed, your honor who'd have thought it? But 
 those large animals are bad on long march." 
 
 " Why, what's the matter now, Bunting? " 
 
 " Only, sir, that the brown horse is so done up, that I think 
 it would be as much as life's worth to go any farther for several 
 hours." 
 
 "Very well ; and if I propose staying here till the evening ? 
 We have ridden far, and are in no great hurry." 
 
 " To be sure not sure and certain not," cried the corporal. 
 " Ah, master, you know how to command, I see. Nothing like 
 discretion discretion, sir, is a jewel. Sir, it is more than a 
 jewel it's a pair of stirrups ! " 
 
 "A what, Bunting?" 
 
 " Pair of stirrups, your honor. Stirrups help us to get on, so 
 does discretion ; to get off, ditto discretion. Men without 
 stirrups look fine, ride bold, tire soon : men without discretion 
 cut dash, but knock up all of a crack. Stirrups but what 
 signifies ? Could say much more, your honor, but don't love 
 chatter." 
 
 " Your simile is ingenious enough, if not poetical," said 
 Walter : " but it does not hold good to the last. When a man 
 falls, his discretion should preserve him ; but he is often 
 dragged in the mud by his stirrups." 
 
 " Beg pardon you're wrong," quoth the corporal, nothing 
 taken by surprise; "spoke of the new-fangled stirrups that 
 open, crank, when we fall, and let us out of the scrape."* 
 
 * Of course the corporal does not speak of the patent stirrup ; that would be an 
 anachronism.
 
 134 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Satisfied with this repartee, the corporal now (like an expe- 
 rienced jester) withdrew to leave its full effect on the admira- 
 tion of his master. A little before sunset the two travellers 
 renewed their journey. 
 
 " I have loaded the pistols, sir," said the corporal, pointing 
 to the holsters on Walter's saddle. "It is eighteen miles off to 
 the next town will be dark long before we get there." 
 
 " You did very right, Bunting, though I suppose there is not 
 much danger to be apprehended from the gentlemen of the 
 highway." 
 
 " Why, the landlord do say the revarse, your honor ; been 
 many robberies lately in these here parts." 
 
 " Well, we are fairly mounted, and you are a formidable- 
 looking fellow. Bunting." 
 
 " Oh ! your honor," quoth the corporal, turning his head 
 stiffly away, with a modest simper, "you makes me blush; 
 though, indeed, bating that I have the military air, and am 
 more in the prime of life, your honor is well-nigh as awkward 
 a gentleman as myself to come across." 
 
 " Much obliged for the compliment ! " said Walter, pushing 
 his horse a little forward : the corporal took the hint, and fell 
 back. 
 
 It was now that beautiful hour of twilight when lovers grow 
 especially tender. The young traveller every instant threw his 
 dark eyes upward, and thought not of Madeline, but her sister. 
 The corporal himself grew pensive, and in a few moments his 
 whole soul was absorbed in contemplating the forlorn state of 
 the abandoned Jacobina. 
 
 In this melancholy and silent mood, they proceeded onward 
 till the shades began to deepen ; and by the light of the first 
 stars Walter beheld a small, spare gentleman riding before him 
 on an ambling nag, with cropped ears and mane. The rider, 
 as he now came up to him, seemed to have passed the grand 
 climacteric, but looked hale and vigorous ; and there was a cer- 
 tain air of staid and sober aristocracy about him, which invol- 
 untarily begat your respect. 
 
 He looked hard at Walter as the latter approached, and still 
 more hard at the corporal. He seemed satisfied with the 
 survey. 
 
 " Sir," said he, slightly touching his hat to Walter, and with 
 an agreeable though rather sharp intonation of voice, " I am 
 very glad to see a gentleman of your appearance travelling my 
 road. Might I request the honor of being allowed to join you 
 so far as you go ? To say the truth, I am a little afraid of en-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 135 
 
 countering those industrious gentlemen who have been lately 
 somewhat notorious in these parts ; and it may be better for 
 all of us to ride in as strong a party as possible." 
 
 " Sir," replied Walter, eyeing in his turn the speaker, and in his 
 
 turn also feeling satisfied with the scrutiny, " I am going to , 
 
 where I shall pass the night on my way to town, and shall be 
 very happy in your company." 
 
 The corporal uttered a loud hem ; that penetrating man of the 
 world was not too well pleased with the advances of a stranger. 
 
 " What fools them boys be ! " thought he, very discontentedly. 
 "Howsomever, the man does seem like a decent country gentle- 
 man, and we are two to one : besides, he's old, little, and 
 augh, baugh ! I dare say we are safe enough, for all that he 
 can do." 
 
 The stranger possessed a polished and well-bred demeanor ; 
 he talked freely and copiously, and his conversation was that 
 of a shrewd and cultivated man. He informed Walter that 
 not only the roads had been infested by those more daring 
 riders common at that day, and to whose merits we ourselves 
 have endeavored to do justice in a former work of blessed 
 memory, but that several houses had been lately attempted, and 
 two absolutely plundered. 
 
 " For myself," he added, " I have no money to signify, 
 about my person : my watch is only valuable to me for the 
 time it has been in my possession ; and if the rogues robbed 
 one civilly, I should not so much mind encountering them : 
 but they are a desperate set, and use violence when there is 
 nothing to be got by it. Have you travelled far to-day, sir ? " 
 
 " Some six or seven-and-twenty miles," replied Walter. " I 
 am proceeding to London, and not willing to distress my 
 horses by too rapid a journey." 
 
 " Very right, very good ; and horses, sir, are not now what 
 they used to be when I was a young man. Ah, what wagers I 
 used to win then ! Horses galloped, sir, when I was twenty ; 
 they trotted when I was thirty-five ; but they only amble now. 
 Sir, if it does not tax your patience too severely, let us give our 
 nags some hay and water at the half-way house yonder." 
 
 Walter assented ; they stopped at a little solitary inn by the 
 side of the road, and the host came out with great obsequious- 
 ness when he heard the voice of Walter's companion. 
 
 "Ah, Sir Peter! " said he, "and how be'st your honor? 
 fine night, Sir Peter hope you'll get home safe, Sir Peter." 
 
 " Safe ay ! indeed Jock, I hope so too. Has all been quiet 
 here this last night or two? "
 
 136 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Whish, sir ! " whispered my host, jerking his thumb back 
 toward the house ; " there be two ugly customers within I does 
 not know ; they have got famous good horses, and are drink- 
 ing hard. I can't say as I knows anything agen 'em, but I 
 think your honors had better be jogging." 
 
 " Aha ! thank ye, Jock, thank ye. Never mind the hay now," 
 said Sir Peter, pulling away the reluctant mouth of his nag ; 
 and turning to Walter, "come sir, let us move on. Why, 
 zounds ! where is that servant of yours? " 
 
 Walter now perceived, with great vexation, that the corporal 
 had disappeared within the alehouse ; and looking through the 
 casement, on which the ruddy light of the fire played cheerily, 
 he saw the man of the world lifting a little measure of " the 
 pure creature " to his lips ; and close by the hearth, at a small, 
 round table, covered with glasses, pipes, etc., he beheld two 
 men eyeing the tall corporal very wistfully, and of no prepos- 
 sessing appearance themselves. One, indeed, as the fire 
 played full on his countenance, was a person of singularly 
 rugged and sinister features ; and this man, he now remarked, 
 was addressing himself with a grim smile to the corporal, who, 
 setting down his little " noggin," regarded him with a stare, 
 which appeared to Walter to denote recognition. This survey 
 was the operation of a moment ; for Sir Peter took it upon 
 himself to despatch the landlord into the house, to order forth 
 the unseasonable carouser ; and presently the corporal stalked 
 out, and having solemnly remounted, the whole trio set onward 
 in a brisk trot. As soon as they were without sight of the ale- 
 house, the corporal brought the aquiline profile of his gaunt 
 steed on a level with his master's horse. 
 
 " Augh, sir!" said he, with more than his usual energy of 
 utterance, " I see'd him ! " 
 
 " Him ! whom? " 
 
 " Man with ugly face what drank at Peter Dealtry's, and 
 went to Master Aram's knew him in a crack ; sure he's a 
 tartar ! " 
 
 "What ! does your servant recognize one of those suspicious 
 fellows whom Jock warned us against ? " cried Sir Peter, prick- 
 ing up his ears. 
 
 "So it seems, sir," said Walter : " he saw him once before, 
 many miles hence ; but I fancy he knows nothing really to his 
 prejudice." 
 
 "Augh!" cried the corporal; "he's d d ugly, any- 
 how ! " 
 
 "That's a tall fellow of yours," said Sir Peter, jerking up his
 
 EttGENE ARAM. 137 
 
 chin with that peculiar motion common to the brief in stature, 
 when they are covetous of elongation. "He looks military: 
 has he been in the army? Ay, I thought so; one of the King of 
 Prussia's grenadiers, I suppose? Faith, I hear hoofs behind !" 
 
 " Hem !" cried the corporal, again coming alongside of his 
 master. " Beg pardon, sir, served in the Forty-second nothing 
 like regular line stragglers always cut off ; had rather not 
 straggle just now enemy behind ! " 
 
 Walter looked back and saw two men approaching them at 
 a hand-gallop. " We are a match at least for them, sir," said 
 he, to his new acquaintance. 
 
 " I am devilish glad I met you," was Sir Peter's rather selfish 
 reply. 
 
 ' Tis he ! 'tis the devil ! " grunted the corporal, as the two 
 men now gained their side and pulled up; and Walter recog- 
 nized the faces he had remarked in the alehouse. 
 
 "Your servant, gentlemen," quoth the uglier of the two; 
 "you ride fast " 
 
 *' And ready ; bother -baiigh ! " chimed in the corporal, 
 plucking a gigantic pistol from his holster, without any further 
 ceremony. 
 
 "Glad to hear it, sir!" said the hard-featured stranger, 
 nothing dashed. " But I can tell you a secret ! " 
 
 " What's that augh ? " said the corporal, cocking his pistol. 
 
 " Whoever hurts you, friend, cheats the gallows ! " replied the 
 stranger, laughing, and spurring on his horse, to be out of reach 
 of any practical answer with which the corporal might favor him. 
 But Bunting was a prudent man, and not apt to be choleric. 
 
 " Bother ! " said he, and dropped his pistol, as the other 
 stranger followed his ill-favored comrade. 
 
 " You see we are too strong for them ! " cried Sir Peter 
 gaily ; " evidently highwaymen ! How very fortunate that I 
 should have fallen in with you ! " 
 
 A shower of rain now began to fall. Sir Peter looked serious ; 
 he halted abruptly unbuckled his cloak, which had been 
 strapped before his saddle wrapped himself up in it buried 
 his face in the collar muffled his chin with a red handkerchief, 
 which he took out of his pocket, and then turning to Walter, 
 he said to him, "What ! no cloak, sir? no wrapper even ? Upon 
 my soul I am very sorry I have not another handkerchief to 
 lend you ! " 
 
 " Man of the world baugh ! " grunted the corporal, and 
 his heart quite warmed to the stranger he had at first taken for 
 a robber.
 
 138 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " And now, sir," said Sir Peter, patting his nag, and pulling 
 up his cloak-collar still higher, "let us go gently: there is no 
 occasion for hurry. Why distress our horses? " 
 
 "Really, sir," said Walter, smiling, "though I have a great 
 regard for my horse, I have some for myself; and I should 
 rather like to be out of this rain as soon as possible." 
 
 " Oh, ah ! you have no cloak. I forgot that ; to be sure 
 to be sure ; let us trot on, gently though gently. Well, sir, 
 as I was saying, horses are not so swift as they were. The 
 breed is bought up by the French ! I remember once, Johnny 
 Courtland and I, after dining at my house till the champagne 
 had played the dancing-master to our brains, mounted our 
 horses, and rode twenty miles for a cool thousand the winner. 
 I lost it, sir, by a hair's breadth ; but I lost it on purpose : it 
 would have half-ruined Johnny Courtland to have paid me, and 
 he had that delicacy, sir, he had that delicacy, that he would 
 not have suffered me to refuse taking his money ; so what 
 could I do, but lose on purpose ? You see I had no alterna- 
 tive ! " 
 
 " Pray, sir," said Walter, charmed and astonished at so rare 
 an instance of the generosity of human friendships "pray, 
 sir, did I not hear you called Sir Peter by the landlord of the 
 little inn ? Can it be, since you speak so familiarly of Mr. 
 Courtland, that I have the honor to address Sir Peter Hales?" 
 
 " Indeed that is my name," replied the gentleman, with some 
 surprise in his voice. " But I have never had the honor of 
 seeing you before." 
 
 " Perhaps my name is not unfamiliar to you," said Walter. 
 " And among my papers I have a letter addressed to you from 
 my uncle, Rowland Lester." 
 
 "God bless me !" cried Sir Peter. "What! Rowy? 
 well, indeed, I am overjoyed to hear of him. So you are his 
 nephew? Pray tell me all about him a wild, gay, rollicking 
 fellow still, eh ! Always fencing, sa sa ! or playing at billiards, 
 or hot in a steeple chase ; there was not a jollier, better- 
 humored fellow in the world than Rowy Lester." 
 
 " You forget, Sir Peter," said Walter, laughing at a descrip- 
 tion so unlike his sober and steady uncle, " that some years 
 have passed since the time you speak of." 
 
 " Ah, and so there have," replied Sir Peter. "And what 
 does your uncle say of me?" 
 
 " That when he knew you, you were all generosity, frankness, 
 hospitality." 
 
 " Humph, humph ! " said Sir Peter, looking extremely dis
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 13$ 
 
 concerted, a confusion which Walter imputed solely to modesty. 
 *' I was a hairbrained, foolish fellow then quite a boy, quite 
 a boy : but bless me, it rains sharply, and you have no cloak. 
 But we are close on the town now. An excellent inn is the 
 ' Duke of Cumberland's Head ; you will have charming accom- 
 modation there." 
 
 " What, Sir Peter, you know this part of the country well ! " 
 
 " Pretty well, pretty well ; indeed I live near, that is to say, 
 not very far from, the town. This turn, if you please. We 
 separate here. I have brought you a little out of your way 
 not above a mile or two for fear the robbers should attack 
 me if I was left alone. I had quite forgot you had no cloak. 
 That's your road this mine. Aha ! so Rowy Lester is still 
 alive and hearty ? the same excellent wild fellow, no doubt. 
 Give my kindest remembrance to him when you write. Adieu, 
 sir." 
 
 This latter speech having been delivered during a halt, the 
 corporal had heard it : he grinned delightedly as he touched 
 his hat to Sir Peter, who now trotted off, and muttered to his 
 young master : 
 
 " Most sensible man, that, sir ! " 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SIR PETER DISPLAYED. ONE MAN OF THE WORLD SUFFERS FROM 
 ANOTHER. THE INCIDENT OF THE BRIDLE BEGETS THE 
 
 INCIDENT OF THE SADDLE ; THE INCIDENT OF THE SADDLE 
 
 BEGETS THE INCIDENT OF THE WHIP : THE INCIDENT OF 
 
 THE WHIP BEGETS WHAT THE READER MUST READ TO SEE. 
 
 " Nihil est aliud magnum quam multa minuta." * Vet Auct. 
 
 " AND so," said Walter the next morning to the head-waitev 
 who was busied about their preparations for breakfast ; " and 
 so Sir Peter Hales, you say, lives within a mile of the town ? " 
 
 " Scarcely a mile, sir, black or green ? you passed the 
 turn to his house last night ; sir, the eggs are quite fresh this 
 morning. This inn belongs to Sir Peter." 
 
 " Oh ! Does Sir Peter see much company ? " 
 
 The waiter smiled. 
 
 "Sir Peter gives very handsome dinners, sir ; twice a year \ 
 
 'Nor is there anything that hath so great a power as the aggregate of small things.
 
 i'46 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 A most clever gentleman, Sir Peter ! They say he is the best 
 manager of property in the whole county. Do you like York- 
 shire cake ? toast ? yes, sir ! " 
 
 "So, so," said Walter to himself, "a pretty true description 
 my uncle gave me of this gentleman. 'Ask me too often to 
 dinner, indeed ! ' ' offer me money if I want it ! ' ' spend a 
 month at his house !' ' most hospitable fellow in the world ! ' 
 My uncle must have been dreaming." 
 
 Walter had yet to learn, that the men most prodigal when 
 they have nothing but expectations, are often most thrifty when 
 they know the charms of absolute possession. Besides, Sir 
 Peter had married a Scotch lady, and was blessed with eleven 
 children ! But was Sir Peter Hales much altered ? Sir Peter 
 Hales was exactly the same man in reality that he always had 
 been. Once he was selfish in extravagance ; he was now selfish 
 in thrift. He had always pleased himself, and forgot other 
 people ; that was exactly what he valued himself on doing 
 now. Buc the most absurd thing about Sir Peter was, that 
 while he was forever extracting use from every one else, he 
 was mightily afraid of being himself put to use. He was in 
 Parliament, and noted for never giving a frank out of his own 
 family. Yet withal, Sir Peter Hales was still an agreeable 
 fellow ; nay, he was more liked and much more esteemed than 
 ever. There is something concilatory in a saving disposition ; 
 but people put themselves in a great passion when a man is too 
 liberal with his own. It is an insult on their own prudence. 
 " What right has he to be so extravagant ? What an example 
 to our servants !" But your close neighbor does not humble 
 you. You love your close neighbor ; you respect your close 
 neighbor ; you have your harmless jest against him but he is 
 a most respectable man. 
 
 "A letter, sir, and a parcel, from Sir Peter Hales," said the 
 waiter, entering. 
 
 The parcel was a bulky, angular, awkward packet of brown 
 paper, sealed once and tied with the smallest possible quantity 
 
 of string ; it was addressed to Mr. James Holwell, Saddler, 
 
 Street, . The letter was to Lester, Esq., and ran thus, 
 
 written in a very, neat, stiff, Italian character : 
 
 " D r S r : I trust you had no difficulty in find* y e Duke of 
 Cumberland's Head ; it is an excellent P. 
 
 " I greatly reg 1 y* you are unavoid y oblig'd to go on to Lond n ; 
 for, otherwise I sh d have had the sincerest pleas 6 in seeing you 
 here at din', & introducing you to L y Hales. Anoth p time I 
 trust we may be more fortunate.
 
 EtJGENE ARAM. I4t 
 
 "As 'you pass thro* y e litt e town of , exactly 21 miles 
 
 hence, on the road to Lond n , will you do me the fav r to allow 
 your serv* to put the little parcel I send, into his pock*, & 
 drop it as direct* 1 . It is a bridle I am forc'd to return. Coun- 
 try work n are such bung. 
 
 " I sh d most certain y have had y e hon r to wait on you person 7 , 
 but the rain has given me a m sev e cold ; hope you have 
 escap'd, tho' by y e by, you had no cloke, nor wrapp r ! 
 
 " My kindest regards to your m excellent unc*. I am quite 
 sure he is the same fine merr y fell w he always was ! Tell 
 him so ! D r S r , Yours faith y , 
 
 " PETER GRINDLESCREW HALES. 
 
 " P.S. You know perh 8 y* poor Jn Court d , your uncle's m 
 
 intim* friend, lives in , the town in which your serv* will 
 
 drop y e brid e . He is much alter'd, poor Jn !" 
 
 " Altered ! alteration then seems the fashion with my uncle's 
 friends ! " thought Walter, as he rang for the corporal, and con- 
 signed to his charge the unsightly parcel. 
 
 " It is to be carried twenty-one miles at the request of the 
 gentleman we met last night, a most sensible man, Bunting ! " 
 
 " Augh waugh, your honor ! " grunted the corporal, thrust- 
 ing the bridle very discontentedly into his pocket, where it 
 annoyed him the whole journey, by incessantly getting between 
 his seat of leather and his seat of honor. It is a comfort to 
 the inexperienced, when one man of the world smarts from the 
 sagacity of another ; we resign ourselves more willingly to our 
 fate. Our travellers resumed their journey, and in a few 
 minutes, from the cause we have before assigned, the corporal 
 became thoroughly out of humor. 
 
 "Pray, Bunting," said Walter, calling his attendant to his 
 side, "do you feel sure that the man we met yesterday at the 
 alehouse is the same you saw at Glassdale some months 
 ago ? " 
 
 " D n it !" cried the corporal quickly, and clapping his 
 hand behind. 
 
 " How, sir ! " 
 
 "Beg pardon, your honor slip tongue, but this confounded 
 parcel ! augh bother." 
 
 " Why don't you carry it in your hand ? " 
 
 ' 'Tis so ungainsome, and be d d to it ! And how can I 
 hold parcel and pull in this beast, which requires two hands : 
 his mouth's as hard as a brickbat. Augh ! " 
 
 " You have not answered my question yet ? "
 
 142 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Beg pardon, your honor. Yes, certain sure the man's the 
 same ; phiz not to be mistaken." 
 
 " It is strange," said Walter, musing, " that Aram should 
 know a man, who, if not a highwayman, as we suspected, is at 
 least of rugged manner and disreputable appearance ; it is 
 strange, too, that Aram always avoided recurring to the ac- 
 quaintance, though he confessed it." With this he broke into 
 a trot, and the corporal into an oath. 
 
 They arrived by noon at the little town specified by Sir 
 Peter, and in their way to the inn (for Walter resolved to rest 
 there) passed by the saddler's house. It so chanced that Mas- 
 ter Holwell was an adept in his craft, and that a newly invented 
 hunting saddle at the window caught Walter's notice. The 
 artful saddler persuaded the young traveller to dismount and 
 look at " the most convenientest and handsomest saddle that 
 ever was seen " ; and the corporal, having lost no time in get- 
 ting rid of his incumbrance, Walter dismissed him to the inn 
 with the horses, and after purchasing the saddle in exchange 
 for his own, he sauntered into the shop to look at a new snaf- 
 fle. A gentleman's servant was in the shop at the time, bar- 
 gaining for a riding whip ; and the shop boy, among others, 
 showed him a large old-fashioned one, with a tarnished silver 
 handle. Grooms have no taste for antiquity, and in spite of 
 the silver handle, the servant pushed it aside with some con- 
 tempt. Some jest he uttered at the time chanced to attract 
 Walter's notice to the whip ; he took it up carelessly and per- 
 ceived, with great surprise, that it bore his own crest, a bittern, 
 on the handle. He examined it now with attention, and un- 
 derneath the crest were the letters G. L., his father's initials. 
 
 " How long have you had this whip?" said he to the saddler, 
 concealing the emotion which this token of his lost parent nat- 
 urally excited. 
 
 " Oh, a nation long time, sir," replied Mr. Holwell. " It is 
 a queer old thing, but really is not amiss, if the silver was 
 scrubbed up a bit, and a new lash put on ; you may have it 
 a bargain, sir, if so be you have taken a fancy to it." 
 
 "Can you at all recollect how you came by it?" said Walter 
 earnestly. " The fact is, that I see by the crest and initials 
 that it belonged to a person whom I have some interest in dis- 
 covering." 
 
 " Why, let me think," said the saddler, scratching the tip 
 of his right ear ; " 'tis so long ago sin I had it, I quite forget 
 how I came by it." 
 
 "Oh, is it that whip, John ?" said the wife, who had been
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 143 
 
 attracted from the hack parlor hy the sight of the handsome 
 young stranger. " Don't you remember, it's a many year ago, 
 a gentleman who passed a day with Squire Courtland, when he 
 first came to settle here, 'called and left the whip to have a new- 
 thong put to it ? But I fancies he forgot it, sir (turning to 
 Walter), for he never called for it again ; and the squire's peo- 
 ple said as how he was agone into Yorkshire : so there the 
 whip's been ever sin. I remembers it, sir, 'cause I kept it in 
 the little parlor nearly a year to be in the way like." 
 
 "Ah ! I thinks I do remember it now," said Master Howell. 
 " I should think it's a matter of twelve yearn ago. I suppose 
 I may sell it without fear of the gentleman's claiming it again." 
 
 "Not more than twelve years!" said Walter anxiously, for 
 it was some seventeen years since his father had been last 
 heard of by his family. 
 
 " Why, it may be thirteen, sir, or so, more or less ; I can't 
 say exactly." 
 
 " More likely fourteen ! " said the dame ; " it can't be much 
 more, sir ; we have only been a married fifteen year come next 
 Christmas ! But my old man here is ten years older nor I." 
 
 " And the gentleman, you say, was at Mr. Courtland's ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; that I'm sure of," replied the intelligent Mrs. 
 Holwell : " they said he had come lately from Ingee.'' 
 
 Walter now despairing of hearing more, purchased the whip ; 
 and blessing the worldly wisdom of Sir Peter Hales, that had 
 thus thrown him on a clue, which, however slight, he resolved to 
 follow up. he inquired the way to Squire Courtland's, and pro- 
 ceeded thither at once. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WALTER VISITS ANOTHER OF HIS UNCLE'S FRIENDS. MR. 
 COURTLAND'S STRANGE COMPLAINT. WALTER LEARNS 
 NEWS OF HIS FATHER, WHICH SURPRISES HIM. THE 
 CHANGE IN HIS DESTINATION. 
 
 " Gad's my life, did you ever hear the like, what a strange man is this ! 
 What you have possessed me withal, I'll discharge it amply." 
 
 BEN JONSON : Every Man in his Humor. 
 
 MR. COURTLAND'S house was surrounded by a high wall, 
 and stood at the outskirts of the town. A little wooden door, 
 buried deep within the wall, seemed the only entrance. At
 
 144 EtlGENE A&AM. 
 
 this Walter paused, and after twice applying to the bell, a foot- 
 man of a peculiarly grave and sanctimonious appearance 
 opened the door. 
 
 In reply to Walter's inquiries, he informed him that Mr. 
 Courtland was very unwell, and never saw "company." Walter, 
 however, producing from his pocket-book the introductory 
 letter given him by his uncle, slipped it into the servant's 
 hand, accompanied by half-a-crown, and begged to be an- 
 nounced as a gentleman on very particular business. 
 
 "Well, sir, you can step in," said the servant, giving way ; 
 "but my master is very poorly very poorly indeed." 
 
 "Indeed, I am sorry to hear it ; has he been long so ?" 
 
 " Going on for ten years, sir ! " replied the servant, with 
 great gravity ; and opening the door of the house, which stood 
 within a few paces of the wall, on a singularly flat and bare 
 grassplot, he showed him into a room, and left him alone. 
 
 The first thing. that struck Walter in this apartment was its 
 remarkable lightness. Though not large, it had no less than 
 seven windows. Two sides of the wall seemed indeed all 
 window ! Nor were these admittants of the celestial beam 
 shaded by any blind or curtain ; 
 
 " The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day " 
 
 made itself "thoroughly at home in this airy chamber. Never- 
 theless, though so light, it seemed to Walter anything but 
 cheerful. The sun had blistered and discolored the painting 
 of the wainscot, originally of a pale sea-green ; there was little 
 furniture in the apartment ; one table in the centre, some half- 
 a-dozen chairs, and a very small Turkey carpet, which did not 
 cover one-tenth part of the clean, cold, smooth oak boards, 
 constituted all the goods and chattels visible in the room. 
 But what particularly added effect to the bareness of all 
 within, was the singular and laborious bareness of all without. 
 From each of these seven windows, nothing but a forlorn 
 green flat of some extent was to be seen ; there was neither 
 tree, nor shrub, nor flower, in the whole expanse, although by 
 several stumps of trees near the house, Walter perceived that 
 the place had not always been so destitute of vegetable life. 
 
 While he was yet looking upon this singular baldness of 
 scene, the servant re-entered with his master's compliments, 
 and a message that he should be happy to see any relation of 
 Mr. Lester. 
 
 Walter accordingly followed the footman into an apartment 
 possessing exactly the same peculiarities as the former one ;
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 145 
 
 viz., a most disproportionate plurality of windows, a commo- 
 dious scantiness of furniture, and a prospect without, that 
 seemed as if the house had been built in the middle of Salis- 
 bury Plain. 
 
 Mr. Courtland himself, a stout man, still preserving the rosy 
 hues and comely features, though certainly not the hilarious 
 expression, which Lester had attributed to him, sat in a large 
 chair, close by the centre window, which was open. He rose 
 and shook Walter by the hand with great cordiality. 
 
 " Sir, I am delighted to see you ! How is your worthy uncle ? 
 I only wish he were with you you dine with me, of course. 
 Thomas, tell the cook to add a tongue and chicken to the 
 roast beef no young gentleman, I will have no excuse : sit 
 down, sit down ; pray come near the window ; do you not find 
 it dreadfully close? not a breath of air? This house is so 
 choked up; don't you find it so, eh? Ah, I see, you can 
 scarcely gasp." 
 
 " My dear sir, you are mistaken : I am rather cold, on the 
 contrary : nor did I ever in my life see a more airy house 
 than yours." 
 
 "I try to make it so, sir, but I can't succeed; if you had 
 seen what it was when I first bought it ! A garden here, sir ; 
 a copse there ; a wilderness, God wot ! at the back ; and a 
 row of chestnut-trees in the front ! You may conceive the 
 consequence, sir ; I had not been long here, not two years, 
 before my health was gone, sir, gone the d d vegetable 
 life sucked it out of me. The trees kept away all the air ; I 
 was nearly suffocated without, at first, guessing the cause. 
 But at length, though not till I had been withering away 
 for five years, I discovered the origin of my malady. I went 
 to work, sir ; I plucked up the cursed garden, I cut down the 
 infernal chestnuts, I made a bowling-green of the diabolical 
 wilderness, but I fear it is too late. I am dying by inches, 
 have been dying ever since. The malaria has effectually 
 tainted my constitution." 
 
 Here Mr. Courtland heaved a deep sigh, and shook his head 
 with a most gloomy expression of countenance. 
 
 "Indeed, sir," said Walter, "I should not, to look at you, 
 imagine that you suffered under any complaint. You seem 
 still the same picture of health that my uncle describes you to 
 have been when you knew him so many years ago." 
 
 "Yes, sir, yes ; the confounded malaria fixed the color to 
 my cheeks : the blood is stagnant, sir. Would to Heaven I 
 could see myself a shade paler ! the blood does not flow. I
 
 146 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 am like a pool in a citizen's garden, with a willow at each 
 corner ; but a truce to my complaints. You see, sir, I am no 
 hypochondriac, as my fool of a doctor wants to persuade me : 
 a hypochondriac shudders at every breath of air, trembles 
 when a door is open, and looks upon a window as an entrance 
 of death. But 1, sir, never can have enough air ; thorough 
 draught or east wind, it is all the same to me, so that I do but 
 breathe. Is that like hypochondria ? pshaw ! But tell me, 
 young gentleman, about your uncle ; is he quite well, stout 
 hearty, does he breathe easily, no oppression ? " 
 
 "Sir, he enjoys exceedingly good health; he did please 
 himself with the hope that I should give him good tidings of 
 yourself, and another of his old friends, whom I accidentally 
 saw yesterday, Sir Peter Hales." 
 
 "Hales ! Peter Hales ! ah ! a clever little fellow that. 
 How delighted Lester's good heart will be to hear that little 
 Peter is so improved ; no longer a dissolute, harum-scarum 
 fellow, throwing away his money, and always in debt. No, no ; 
 a respectable, steady character, an excellent manager, an 
 active member of Parliament, domestic in private life, oh, a 
 very worthy man, sir ; a very worthy man ! " 
 
 " He seems altered, indeed, sir," said Walter, who was young 
 enough in the world to be surprised at this eulogy; "but is 
 still agreeable and fond of anecdote. He told me of his race 
 with you for a thousand guineas." 
 
 "Ah, don't talk of those days," said Mr. Courtland, shaking 
 his head pensively : " it makes me melancholy. Yes, Peter 
 ought to recollect that, for he has never paid me to this day ; 
 affected to treat it as a jest, and swore he could have beat me 
 if he would. But indeed it was my fault, sir ; Peter had not 
 then a thousand farthings in the world ; and when he grew 
 rich, he became a steady character, and I did not like to re- 
 mind him of our former follies. Aha ! can I offer you a pinch 
 of snuff? You look feverish, sir; surely this room must affect 
 you, though you are too polite to say so. Pray open that door, 
 and then this window, and put your chair right between the 
 two. You have no notion how refreshing the draught is." 
 
 Walter politely declined the proffered ague, and thinking he 
 had now made sufficient progress in the acquaintance of this 
 singular non-hypochondriac to introduce the subject he had 
 most at heart, hastened to speak of his father. 
 
 " I have chanced, sir," said he, " very unexpectedly upon 
 something that once belonged to my poor father "; here he 
 showed the whip. "I find from the saddler of whom I bought
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 147 
 
 it, that the owner was at your house some twelve or fourteen 
 years ago. I do not know whether you are aware that our 
 family have heard nothing respecting my father's fate for a 
 considerably longer time than that which has elapsed since you 
 appear to have seen him, if at least I may hope that he was 
 your guest, and the owner of this whip ; and any news you can 
 give me of him, any clue by which he can possibly be traced, 
 would be to us all to me in particular an inestimable obli- 
 gation." 
 
 " Your father ! " said Mr. Courtland. " Oh, ay, your uncle's 
 brother. What was his Christian name ? Henry? " 
 
 " Geoffrey." 
 
 " Ay, exactly ; Geoffrey ! What ! not been heard of ? His 
 family not know where he is? A sad thing, sir ; but he was 
 always a wild fellow ; now here, now there, like a flash of light- 
 ning. But it is true, it is true, he did stay a day here, several 
 years ago, when I first bought the place. I can tell you all 
 about it ; but you seem agitated, do come nearer the window : 
 there, that's right. Well, sir, it is, as I said, a great many years 
 ago, perhaps fourteen, and I was speaking to the landlord 
 of the Greyhound about some hay he wished to sell, when a 
 gentleman rode into the yard full tear, as your father always 
 did ride, and in getting out of his way I recognized Geoffrey 
 Lester. I did not know him well far from it ; but I had seen 
 him once or twice with your uncle, and though he was a strange 
 pickle, he sang a good song, and was deuced amusing. Well, 
 sir, I accosted him ; and, for the sake of your uncle, I asked 
 him to dine with me and take a bed at my new house. Ah ! I 
 little thought what a dear bargain it was to be ! He accepted 
 my invitation ; for I fancy no offence, sir, there were few 
 invitations that Mr. Geoffrey 'Lester ever refused to accept. 
 We dined tttc-b-ttte, I am an old bachelor, sir, and very en- 
 tertaining he was, though his sentiments seemed to me broader 
 than ever. He was capital, however, about the tricks he had 
 played his creditors, such manoeuvres such escapes ! After 
 dinner he asked me if I ever corresponded with his brother. 
 I told him no ; that we were very good friends, but never 
 heard from each other ; and he then said, ' Well, I shall surprise 
 him with a visit shortly ; but in case you should unexpectedly 
 have any communication with him, don't mention having seen 
 me ; for, to tell you the truth, I am just returned from India, 
 where I should have scraped up a little money, but that I spent 
 it as fast as I got it. However, you know that I was always pro- 
 verbially the luckiest fellow in the world (and so, sir, your
 
 148 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 father was !), and while I was in India, I saved an old colonel's 
 life at a tiger-hunt; he went home shortly afterward, and settled 
 in Yorkshire ; and the other day, on my return to England, to 
 which ray ill health drove me, 1 learned that my old colonel had 
 died recently, and left me a handsome legacy, with his house in 
 Yorkshire. I am now going down to Yorkshire to convert the 
 chattels into gold to receive my money ; and I shall then 
 seek out my good brother, my household gods, and, perhaps, 
 though it's not likely, settle into a sober fellow for the rest of 
 my life.' I don't tell you, young gentleman, that those were 
 your father's exact words, one can't remember verbatim so 
 many years ago ; but it was to that effect. He left me the 
 next day, and i never heard anything more of him : to say the 
 truth, he was looking wonderfully yellow and fearfully reduced. 
 And I fancied at the time that he could not live long ; he was 
 prematurely old, and decrepit in body, though gay in spirit ; so 
 that I had tacitly imagined, in never hearing of him more, that 
 he had departed life. But, good Heavens ! did you never hear 
 of this legacy ? " 
 
 " Never : not a word ! " said Walter, who had listened to 
 these particulars in great surprise. " And to what part of York- 
 shire did he say he was going ? " 
 
 " That he did not mention." 
 
 " Nor the colonel's name ? " 
 
 " Not as I remember ; he might, but I think not. But I am 
 certain that the county was Yorkshire ; and the gentleman, 
 whatever his name, was a colonel. Stay . I recollect one more 
 particular, which it is lucky I do remember. Your father, in 
 giving me, as I said before, in his own humorous strain, the his- 
 tory of his adventures, his hair-breadth escapes from his duns, 
 the various disguises and the numerous aliases he had assumed, 
 mentioned that the name he had borne in India and by which, 
 he assured me, he had made quite a good character was 
 Clarke ; he also said, by the way, that he still kept to that 
 name, and was very merry on the advantages of having so 
 common a one, ' By which,' he observed wittily, ' he could 
 father all his own sins on some other Mr. Clarke, at the same 
 time that he could seize and appropriate all the merits of all 
 his other namesakes.' Ah, no offence, but he was a sad dog, 
 that father of yours ! So you see that, in all probability, if he 
 ever reached Yorkshire, it was under the name of Clarke that 
 he claimed and received his legacy." 
 
 "You have told me more," said Walter joyfully, "than we 
 have heard since his disappearance ; and I shall turn my horses'
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 149 
 
 heads northward to-morrow, by break of day. But you say, 
 ' If he ever reached Yorkshire.' What should prevent him ?" 
 
 " His health ! " said the non-hypochondriac. "I should not 
 be greatly surprised if if in short, you had better look at the 
 gravestones by the way, for the name of Clarke." 
 
 " Perhaps you can give me the dates, sir," said Walter, some- 
 what cast down by that melancholy admonition. 
 
 " Ay ! I'll see I'll see after dinner ; the commonness of 
 the name has its disadvantages now. Poor Geoffrey ! I dare 
 say there are fifty tombs to the memory of fifty Clarkes between 
 this and York. But come, sir, there's the dinner-bell." 
 
 Whatever might have been the maladies entailed upon the 
 portly frame of Mr. Courtland by the vegetable life of the de- 
 parted trees, a want of appetite was not among the number. 
 Whenever a man is not abstinent from rule, or from early habit, 
 solitude makes its votaries particularly fond of their dinner. 
 They have no other event wherewith to mark their day ; they 
 think over it, they anticipate it, they nourish its soft idea in 
 their imagination : if they do look forward to anything else 
 more than dinner, it is supper. 
 
 Mr. Courtland deliberately pinned the napkin to his waist- 
 coat, ordered all the windows to be thrown open, and set to 
 work like the good canon in Gil Bias. He still retained enough 
 of his former self to preserve an excellent cook ; and though 
 most of his viands were of the plainest, who does not know 
 what skill it requires to produce an unexceptionable roast, or a 
 blameless broil ? 
 
 Half a tureen of strong soup, three pounds, at least, of stewed 
 carp, all the under part of a sirloin of beef, three quarters of a 
 tongue, the moiety of a chicken, six pancakes, and a tartlet, 
 having severally disappeared down the jaws of the invalid, 
 
 " Et cuncta terrarum subacta 
 Prseter atrocem animum Catonis," * 
 
 he still called for two devilled biscuits and an anchovy ! 
 
 When these were gone, he had the wine set on a little table 
 by the window, and declared that the air seemed closer than 
 ever. Walter was no longer surprised at the singular nature of 
 the non-hypochondriac's complaint. 
 
 Walter declined the bed that Mr. Courtland offered him, 
 though his host kindly assured him that it had no curtains, and 
 that there was not a shutter to the house, upon the plea of 
 starting the next morning at daybreak, and his consequent un- 
 
 * " And everything of earth subdued, except the resolute mind of Cato."
 
 ?5 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 willingness to disturb the regular establishment of the invalid ; 
 and Courtland, who was still an excellent, hospitable, friendly 
 man, suffered his friend's nephew to depart with regret. He 
 supplied him, however, by a reference to an old note-book, with 
 the date of the year, and even month, in which he had been fa- 
 vored by a visit from Mr. Clarke, who, it seemed, had also changed 
 his Christian name from Geoffrey to one beginning with D ;-but 
 whether it was David or Daniel the host remembered not. In 
 parting with Walter, Courtland shook his head, and observed : 
 
 " Entre nous, sir, I fear this may be a wild-goose chase. Your 
 father was too facetious to confine himself to fact excuse me, 
 sir; and, perhaps, the colonel and the legacy were merely in- 
 ventions pour passer le temps; there was only one reason, indeed, 
 that made me fully believe the story." 
 
 " What was that, sir ? " asked Walter, blushing deeply, at the 
 universality of that estimation his father had obtained. 
 
 " Excuse me, my young friend." 
 
 " Nay, sir, let me press you." 
 
 "Why, then, Mr. Geoffrey Lester did not ask me to lend him 
 any money ! " 
 
 The next morning, instead of repairing to the gaieties of the 
 metropolis, Walter had, upon this dubious clue, altered his jour- 
 ney northward ; and with an unquiet yet sanguine spirit, the 
 adventurous son commenced his search after the fate of a 
 father evidently so unworthy of the anxiety he had excited. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WALTER'S MEDITATIONS. THE CORPORAL'S GRIEF AND 
 ANGER. THE CORPORAL PERSONALLY DESCRIBED. AN EX- 
 PLANATION WITH HIS MASTER. THE CORPORAL OPENS 
 HIMSELF TO THE YOUNG TRAVELLER. HIS OPINIONS ON 
 LOVE ; ON THE WORLD ; ON THE PLEASURE AND RESPEC- 
 TABILITY OF CHEATING ; ON LADIES AND A PARTICULAR 
 CLASS OF LADIES ; ON AUTHORS ; ON THE VALUE OF 
 WORDS; ON FIGHTING; WITH SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS OF 
 EQUAL DELECTATION AND IMPROVEMENT. AN UNEXPECTED 
 
 EVENT. 
 
 " Quale per incertam Lunam sub luce malignS 
 Est iter."* VIRGIL. 
 
 THE road prescribed to our travellers by the change in their 
 destination led them back over a considerable portion of the 
 
 * " Even as a journey by the unpropitious light of the uncertain moon."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 151 
 
 ground they had already traversed ; and since the corporal 
 took care that they should remain some hours in the place 
 where they dined, night fell upon them as they found them- 
 selves in the midst of the same long and dreary stage in which 
 they had encountered Sir Peter Hales and the two suspected 
 highwaymen. 
 
 Walter's mind was full of the project on which he was bent. 
 The reader can fully comprehend how vivid were the emotions 
 called up by the hope of a solution to the enigma of his father's 
 fate ; and sanguinely did he now indulge those intense medita- 
 tions with which the imaginative minds of the young always 
 brood over every more favorite idea, until they exalt the hope 
 into a passion. Everything connected with this strange and 
 roving parent had possessed for the breast of his son not only an 
 anxious, but indulgent interest. The judgment of a young man 
 is always inclined to sympathize with the wilder and more en- 
 terprising order of spirits ; and Walter had been at no loss for 
 secret excuses wherewith to defend the irregular life and reck- 
 less habits of his parent. Amidst all his father's evident and 
 utter want of principle, Walter clung with a natural and self- 
 deceptive partiality to the few traits of courage or generosity 
 which relieved, if they did not redeem, his character ; traits 
 which, with a character of that stamp, are so often, though al- 
 ways so unprofitably, blended, and which generally cease with 
 the commencement of age. He now felt elated by the convic- 
 tion, as he had always been inspired by the hope, that it was to 
 be his lot to discover one whom he still believed living, and 
 whom he trusted to find amended. The same intimate persua- 
 sion of the "good luck" of Geoffrey Lester, which all who 
 had known him appeared to entertain, was felt even in a more 
 credulous and earnest degree by his son. Walter gave way 
 now, indeed, to a variety of conjectures as to the motives 
 which could have induced his father to persist in the 
 concealment of his fate after his return to England ; but 
 such of those conjectures as, if the more rational, were 
 ?.lso the more despondent, he speedily and resolutely 
 dismissed. Sometimes he thought that his father, on learning 
 the death of the wife he had abandoned, might have been pos- 
 sessed with a remorse which rendered him unwilling to dis- 
 close himself to the rest of his family, and a feeling that the 
 main tie of home was broken ; sometimes he thought that the 
 wanderer had been disappointed in his expected legacy, and, 
 dreading the attacks of his creditors, or unwilling to throw 
 himself once more on the generosity of his brother, had again
 
 1CJ2 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 suddenly quitted England, and entered on some enterprise or oc- 
 cupation abroad. It was also possible, to one so reckless and 
 changeful, that, even after receiving the legacy, a proposition 
 from some wild comrade might have hurried him away on any 
 continental project at the mere impulse of the moment, for the 
 impulse of the moment had always been the guide of his life ; 
 and, once abroad, he might have returned to India, and in new 
 connections forgotten the old ties at home. Letters from 
 abroad, too, miscarry ; and it was not improbable that the 
 wanderer might have written repeatedly, and, receiving no 
 answer to his communications, imagined that the dissolute- 
 ness of his life had deprived him of the affections of his fami- 
 ly ; and deserving so well to have the proffer of renewed in- 
 tercourse rejected, believed that it actually was so. These, 
 and a hundred similar conjectures, found favor in the eyes of 
 the young traveller ; but the chances of a fatal accident, or 
 sudden death, he pertinaciously refused at present to include 
 in the number of probabilities. Had his father been seized 
 with a mortal illness on the road, was it not likely that, in the 
 remorse occasioned in the hardiest by approaching death, he 
 would have written to his brother, and, recommending his 
 child to his care, have apprised him of the addition to his for- 
 tune ? Walter, then, did not meditate embarrassing his pres- 
 ent journey by those researches among the dead which the 
 worthy Courtland had so considerately recommended to his 
 prudence : should his expedition, contrary to his hopes, prove 
 wholly unsuccessful, it might then be well to retrace his 
 steps and adopt the suggestion. But what man, at the age of 
 twenty-one, ever took much precaution on the darker side of 
 a question in which his heart was interested ? 
 
 With what pleasure, escaping from conjecture to a more ul- 
 timate conclusion, did he, in recalling those words, in which 
 his father had more than hinted to Courtland of his future 
 amendment, contemplate recovering a parent made wise by 
 years and sober by misfortunes, and restoring him to a hearth 
 of tranquil virtues and peaceful enjoyments ! He imaged to 
 himself a scene of that domestic happiness which is so perfect 
 in our dreams, because in our dreams monotony is always ex- 
 cluded from the picture. And, in this creation of Fancy, the 
 form of Ellinor his bright-eyed and gentle cousin was not 
 the least conspicuous. Since his altercation with Madeline, 
 the love he had once thought so ineffaceable had faded into a 
 dim and sullen hue ; and, in proportion as the image of Mad- 
 eline grew indistinct, that of her sister became more brilliant.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 153 
 
 Often, now, as he rode slowly onward, in the quiet of the deep- 
 ening night, and the mellow stars softening all on which they 
 shone, he pressed the little token of Ellinor's affection to his 
 heart, and wondered that it was only within the last few days 
 he had discovered that her eyes were more beautiful than 
 Madeline's and her smile more touching. Meanwhile the 
 redoubted corporal, who was by no means pleased with the 
 change in his master's plans, lingered behind, whist- 
 ling the most melancholy tune in his collection. No 
 young lady, anticipative of balls or coronets, had ever 
 felt more complacent satisfaction on a journey to London 
 than that which had cheered the athletic breast of the veteran 
 on finding himself, at last, within one day's gentle march of 
 the metropolis. And no young lady, suddenly summoned 
 back in the first flush of her dtbut by an unseasonable fit of 
 gout or economy in papa, ever felt more irreparably aggrieved 
 than now did the dejected corporal. His master had not yet 
 even acquainted him with the cause of the -countermarch ; 
 and, in his own heart, he believed it nothing but the wanton 
 levity and unpardonable fickleness "common to all them ere 
 boys afore they have seen the world." He certainly consid- 
 ered himself a singularly ill-used and injured man, and draw- 
 ing himself up to his full height, as if it were a matter with 
 which Heaven should be acquainted at the earliest possible op- 
 portunity, he indulged, as we said before, in the melancholy 
 consolation of a whistled death-dirge, occasionally interrupted 
 by a long-drawn interlude, half sigh, half snuffle, of his favor- 
 ite augh baugh. 
 
 And here, we remember, that we have not as yet given to 
 our reader a fitting portrait of the corporal on horseback. 
 Perhaps no better opportunity than the present may occur ; 
 and perhaps, also, Corporal Bunting, as well as Melrose Abbey, 
 may seem a yet more interesting picture when viewed by the 
 pale moonlight. 
 
 The corporal, then, wore on his head a small cocked hat, 
 which had formerly belonged to the colonel of the Forty-sec- 
 ond the prints of my uncle Toby may serve to suggest its 
 shape ; it had once boasted a feather that was gone : but the 
 gold lace, though tarnished, and the cockade, though battered, 
 still remained. From under this shade the profile of the cor- 
 poral assumed a particular aspect of heroism ; though a good- 
 looking man in the main, it was his air, height, and complex- 
 ion, which made him so ; and, unlike Lucian's one-eyed 
 prince, a side view was not the most favorable point in which
 
 154 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 his features could be regarded. His eyes, which were small and 
 shrewd, were half hid by a pair of thick, shaggy brows, which, 
 while he whistled, he moved to and fro, as a horse moves his 
 ears when he gives warning that he intends to shy ; his nose 
 was straight ; so far so good ; but then it did not go far 
 enough ; for though it seemed no despicable proboscis in front, 
 somehow or another it appeared exceedingly short in pro- 
 file : to make up for this, the upper lip was of a length the 
 more striking from being exceedingly straight ; it had learned 
 to hold itself upright, and make the most of its length as well 
 as its master ! His under lip, alone protruded in the act of 
 whistling, served yet more markedly to throw the nose into the 
 background ; and, as for the chin talk of the upper lip 
 being long indeed ! the chin would have made two of it ; 
 such a chin ! so long, so broad, so massive, had it been 
 put on a dish it might have passed, without discredit, for a 
 round of beef ! and it looked yet larger than it was from 
 the exceeding tightness of the stiff black-leather stock below, 
 which forced forth all the flesh it encountered, into another 
 chin a remove to the round ! The hat, being somewhat too 
 small for the corporal, and being cocked knowingly in front, left 
 the hinder half of the head exposed. And the hair, carried into 
 a club according to the fashion, lay thick, and of a grizzled 
 black, on the brawny shoulders below. The veteran was 
 dressed in a blue coat, originally a frock ; but the skirts 
 having once, to the imminent peril of the place they guarded, 
 caught fire, as the corporal stood basking himself at Peter Deal- 
 try's, had been so far amputated as to leave only the stump 
 of a tail, which just covered, and no more, that part which 
 neither Art in bipeds nor Nature in quadrupeds loves to leave 
 wholly exposed. And that part, ah, how ample ! Had Listen 
 seen it, he would have hid forever his diminished opposite to 
 head ! No wonder the corporal had been so annoyed by the 
 
 parcel of the previous day, a coat so short, and a ; but 
 
 no matter, pass we to the rest ! It was not only in its skirts 
 that this wicked coat was deficient ; the corporal, who had 
 within the last few years thriven lustily in the inactive serenity 
 of Grassdale, had outgrown it prodigiously across the chest 
 and girth ; nevertheless, he managed to button it up. And 
 thus the muscular proportions of the wearer, bursting forth in 
 all quarters, gave him the ludicrous appearance of a gigantic 
 schoolboy. His wrists, and large sinewy hands, both employed 
 at the bridle of his hard-mouthed charger, were markedly 
 visible ; for it was the corporal's custom, whenever he came to
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 155 
 
 an obscure part of the road, carefully to take off, and prudently 
 to pocket, a pair of scrupulously clean white leather gloves, 
 which smartened up his appearance prodigiously in passing 
 through the towns in their route. His breeches were of yellow 
 buckskin, and ineffably tight ; his stockings were of gray 
 worsted ; and a pair of laced boots, that reached the ascent of 
 a very mountainous calf, but declined any further progress, 
 completed his attire. 
 
 Fancy then this figure, seated with laborious and unswerving 
 perpendicularity on a a clemi-pique saddle, ornamented with a 
 huge pair of well-stuffed saddle-bags, and holsters revealing 
 the stocks of a brace of immense pistols, the horse with its 
 obstinate mouth thrust out, and the bridle drawn as tight as a 
 bowstring ! its ears laid sullenly down, as if, like the corporal, 
 it complained of going to Yorkshire ; and its long, thick tail, 
 not set up in a comely and well-educated arch, but hanging 
 sheepishly down, as if resolved that its buttocks should at least 
 be better covered than its master's ! 
 
 And now, reader, it is not our fault if you cannot form 
 some conception of the physical perfections of the corporal 
 and his steed. 
 
 The revery of the contemplative Bunting was interrupted by 
 the voice of his master calling upon him to approach. 
 
 " Well, well," muttered he, "the younker can't expect one as 
 close at his heels is if we were trotting into Lunnon, which we 
 might be at this time, sure enough, if he had not been so d d 
 flighty augh ! " 
 
 "Bunting, I say, do you hear?" 
 
 " Yes, your honor, yes ; this ere horse is so nation sluggish." 
 
 " Sluggish ! why, I thought he was too much the reverse, 
 Bunting. I thought he was one rather requiring the bridle 
 than the spur." 
 
 " Augh ! your honor, he's slow when he should not, and fast 
 when he should not : changes his mind from pure whim, or pure 
 spite ; new to the world, your honor, that's all ; a different 
 thing if properly broke. There be a many like him !" 
 
 "You mean to be personal, Mr. Bunting," said Walter, 
 laughing at the evident ill-humor of his attendant. 
 
 " Augh ! indeed and no ! I daren't a poor man like me 
 go for to presume to be personal, unless I get hold of a 
 poorer ! " 
 
 " Why, Bunting, you do not mean to say that you would be 
 so ungenerous as to affront a man because he was poorer than 
 you ? fie ! "
 
 156 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Whaugh, your honor ! and is not that the very reason why 
 I'd affront him ? Surely, it is not my betters I should affront ; 
 that would be ill-bred, your honor, quite want of discipline." 
 
 " But we owe it to our great Commander," said Walter, "to 
 love all men." 
 
 " Augh ! sir, that's very good maxim, none better but 
 shows ignorance of the world, sir, great ! 
 
 " Bunting, your way of thinking is quite disgraceful. Do 
 you know, sir, that it is the Bible you were speaking of ? " 
 
 " Augh, sir ! but the Bible was addressed to them Jew 
 creturs ! Howsomever, its an excellent book for the poor ; 
 keeps 'em in order, favors discipline, none more so." 
 
 " Hold your tongue. I called you, Bunting, because I think 
 I heard you say you had once been at York. Do you know 
 what towns we shall pass on our road thither? " 
 
 " Not I, your honor ; it's a mighty long way. What would 
 the squire think? just at Lunnon, too ! Could have learned 
 the whole road, sir, inns and all, if you had but gone on to 
 Lunnon first. Howsomever, young gentlemen will be hasty, 
 no confidence in those older, and who are experienced in the 
 world. I knows what I knows," and the corporal recommenced 
 his whistle. 
 
 " Why, Bunting, you seem quite discontented at my change 
 of journey. Are you tired of riding, or were you very eager 
 to get to town ? " 
 
 "Augh ! sir ; I was only thinking of what's best for your 
 honor, I ! 'Tis not for me to like or dislike. Howsomever, 
 the horses, poor creturs, must want rest for some days. 
 Them dumb animals can't go on for ever, bumpety, bumpety, 
 as your honor and I do. Whaugh ! " 
 
 "It is very true, Bunting ; and I have had some thoughts 
 of sending you home again with the horses, and travelling 
 post." 
 
 " Eh !" grunted the corporal, opening his eyes, " hopes your 
 honor ben't serious." 
 
 "Why, i(you continue to look so serious, I must be serious 
 too. You understand, Bunting?" 
 
 " Augh ! and that's all, your honor," cried the corporal, 
 brightening up ; " shall look merry enough to-morrow, when 
 one's in, as it were, like, to the change of the road. But you see, 
 sir, it took me by surprise. Said I to myself, says I, it is an odd 
 thing for you, Jacob Bunting, on the faith of a man, it is ! to 
 go tramp here, tramp there, without knowing why or where- 
 fore, as if you were still a private in the Forty-second, 'stead of
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 157 
 
 a retired corporal. You see, your honor, my pride was a-hurt ; 
 but it's all over now ; only spites those beneath me ; I knows 
 the world at my time o' life." 
 
 " Well, Bunting, when you learn the reason of my change of 
 plan, you'll be perfectly satisfied that I do quite right. In a 
 word, you know that my father has been long missing ; I have 
 found a clue by which I yet hope to trace him. This is the 
 reason of my journey to Yorkshire." 
 
 "Augh!" said the corporal, "and a very good reason: 
 " you're a most excellent son, sir ; and Lunnon so nigh ! " 
 
 " The thought of London seems to have bewitched you. 
 Did you expect to find the streets of gold since you were 
 there last ? " 
 
 " A well, sir ; I hears they be greatly improved." 
 
 " Pshaw ! you talk of knowing the world, Bunting, and yet 
 you pant to enter it with all the inexperience of a boy. Why, 
 even I could set you an example." 
 
 " 'Tis cause I knows the world," said the corporal, exceed- 
 ingly nettled, " that I wants to get back to it. I have heard of 
 some spoonies as never kist a girl, but never heard of any 
 one who had kist a girl once that did not long to be at 
 it again." 
 
 "And I suppose, Mr. Profligate, it is that longing which 
 makes you so hot for London ? " 
 
 "There have been worse longings nor that," quoth the 
 corporal gravely. 
 
 " Perhaps you meditate marrying one of the London belles ; 
 an heiress, eh ? " 
 
 "Can't but say," said the corporal very solemnly, "but that 
 might be 'ticed to marry a fortin,if so be she was young, pretty, 
 good-tempered, and fell desperately in love with me, best 
 quality of all." 
 
 " You're a modest fellow." 
 
 "Why, the longer a man lives, the more knows his value; 
 would not sell myself a bargain now, whatever might at twenty- 
 one." 
 
 " At that rate you would be beyond all price at seventy," 
 said Walter. " But now tell me, Bunting, were you ever in 
 love, really and honestly in love?" 
 
 " Indeed, your honor," said the corporal, " I have been over 
 head and ears ; but that was afore I learnt to swim. Love's 
 very like bathing. At first we go souse to the bottom, but if 
 we're not drowned then, we gather pluck, grow calm, strike 
 out gently, and make a deal pleasanter thing of it afore we've
 
 158 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 done. I'll tell you, sir, what I thinks of love : 'twixt you and 
 me, sir, 'tis not that great thing in life boys and girls want 
 to make it out to be : if 'twere one's dinner, that would be 
 summut, for one can't do without that ; but lauk, sir, love's all 
 in the fancy. One does not eat it, nor drink it : and as for the 
 rest, why it's bother ! " 
 
 "Bunting, you're a beast," said Walter, in a rage ; for though 
 thfc corporal had come off with a slight rebuke for his sneer at 
 religion, we grieve to say that an attack on the sacredness of 
 love seemed a crime beyond all toleration to the theologian of 
 twenty-one. 
 
 The corporal bowed, and thrust his tongue in his cheek. 
 
 There was a pause of some moments. 
 
 "And what," said Walter, for his spirits were raised, and 
 he liked recurring to the quaint shrewdness of the corporal, 
 "and what, after all, is the great charm of the world, that you 
 so much wished to return to it?" 
 
 "Augh!" replied the corporal, "'tis a pleasant thing to 
 look about un with all one's eyes open ; rogue here, rogue 
 there, keeps one alive ; life in Lunnon, life in a village all 
 the difference 'twixt healthy walk and a doze in arm-chair ; 
 by the faith of a man, 'tis ! " 
 
 " What ! it is pleasant to have rascals about one ? " 
 
 " Sure/y yes," returned the corporal dryly : " what so de- 
 lightful like as to feel one's cliverness and 'bility all set an 
 end bristling up like a porkypine ? Nothing makes a man 
 tread so light, feel so proud, breathe so briskly, as the knowl- 
 edge that he has all his wits about him, that he's a match for 
 any one, that the divil himself could not take him in ! " 
 
 Walter laughed. 
 
 "And to feel one is likely to be cheated is the pleasantest 
 way of passing one's time in town, Bunting, eh? " 
 
 " Augh ! and in cheating too ! " answered the corporal ; 
 " 'cause you sees, sir, there be two ways o' living ; one to 
 cheat, one to be cheated. 'Tis pleasant enough to be cheated 
 for a little while, as the younkers are, and as you'll be, your 
 honor; but that's a pleasure don't last long; t'other lasts all 
 your life ; dare say your honor's often heard rich gentlemen say 
 to their sons, ' You ought, for your own happiness' sake, like, my 
 lad, to have summut to do ; ought to have some profession, be 
 you niver so rich': very true, your honor; and what does that 
 mean ? Why, it means that, 'stead of being idle and cheated, 
 the boy ought to be busy, and cheat. Augh ! " 
 
 "Must a man who follows a profession necessarily cheat, then ?"
 
 KUGENE ARAM. 159 
 
 " Baugh ! can your honor ask that ? Does not the lawyer 
 cheat ? and the doctor cheat ? and the parson cheat, more 
 than any? And that's the reason they all takes so much in- 
 t'rest in their profession bother ! " 
 
 "But the soldier? you say nothing of him." 
 
 "Why, the soldier," said the corporal, with dignity, "the 
 private soldier, poor fellow ! is only cheated ; but when he 
 comes for to get for to be as high as a corp'ral, or a sargent, 
 he comes for to get to bully others and to cheat. Augh ! then, 
 'tis not for the privates to cheat ; that would be "sumption, in- 
 deed, save us ! " 
 
 " The general, then, cheats more than any, I suppose ? " 
 
 " 'Course, your honor ; he talks to the world 'bout honor, 
 an' glory, and love of his country, and such like ! Augh ! that's 
 proper cheating ! " 
 
 " You're a bitter fellow, Mr. Bunting. And, pray, what do 
 you think of the ladies ; are they as bad as the men ? " 
 
 " Ladies augh ! when they're married yes ! but of all 
 them ere creturs, I respects the kept ladies the most ; on the 
 faith of a man, I do ! Gad ! how well they knows the world. 
 One quite envies the she-rogues ; they beats the wives hollow ! 
 Augh ! and your honor should see how they fawns, and flatters, 
 and butters up a man, and makes him think they loves him 
 like winkey, all the time they ruins him ! They kisses money 
 out of the miser, and sits in their satins, while the wife 'drot 
 her ! sulks in a gingham. Oh, they be cliver creturs. and 
 they'll do what they likes with Old Nick, when they gets there, 
 for 'tis the old gentlemen they cozens the best ; and then," con- 
 tinued the corporal, waxing more and more loquacious, for 
 his appetite in talking grew with that it fed on, " then there 
 be another set o' queer folks you'll see in Lunnun, sir, that is, 
 if you falls in with 'em, hang all together, quite in a clink. I 
 seed lots on 'em when lived with the colonel Colonel Dysart, 
 you knows augh ? " 
 
 " And what are they ? " 
 
 " Rum ones, your honor ; what they calls authors." 
 
 "Authors ! what the deuce had you or the colonel to do with 
 authors?" 
 
 "Augh ! then, the colonel was a very fine gentleman, what 
 the larned calls a my-seen-ass ; wrote little songs himself 
 'crossticks, you knows, your honor ; once he made a play 
 'cause why ? he lived with an actress ! " 
 
 " A very good reason, indeed, for emulating Shakespeare ; 
 and did the play succeed ? "
 
 l6o EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "Fancy it did, your honor; for the colonel was a dab with 
 the scissors." 
 
 " Scissors ! the pen you mean ?" 
 
 " No ! that's what the dirty authors makes plays with ; a lord 
 and a colonel, my-seen-asses, always takes the scissors." 
 
 "How!" 
 
 " Why, the colonel's lady had lots of plays, and she marked 
 a scene here, a jest there, a line in one place, a bit of blarney in 
 t'other ; and the colonel sat by with a great paper book, cut 
 'em out, pasted them in book. Augh ! but the colonel pleased 
 the town mightily." 
 
 " Well, so he saw a great many authors ; and did not they 
 please you ? " 
 
 " Why, they did be so d d quarrelsome, "said the corporal ; 
 " vvringle wrangle, wrongle, snap, growl, scratch ; that's not 
 what a man of the world does ; man of the world niver quar- 
 rels ; then, too, these creturs always fancy you forgets that 
 their father was a clargyman ; they always thinks more of their 
 family, like, than their writings; and 'if they does not get 
 money when they wants it, they bristles up and cries, ' Not 
 treated like a gentleman, by G ! ' Yet, after all, they've a 
 deal of kindness in 'em, if you knows how to manage 'em augh ! 
 but, cat-kindness, paw to-day, claw to-morrow. And, then, 
 they marries young the poor things ! and have a power of 
 children, and live on the fame and fortin they are to get one of 
 these days ; for, my eye ! they be the most sanguines folks 
 alive ! " 
 
 "Why, Bunting, what an observer you have been! Who 
 could ever have imagined that you had made yourself master 
 of so many varieties in men ! " 
 
 " Augh, your honor, I had nothing to do when I was the 
 colonel's valley but to take notes to ladies and make use of my 
 eyes. Always a 'flective man." 
 
 " It is odd that, with all your abilities, you did not provide 
 better for yourself." 
 
 " 'Twas not my fault," said the corporal quickly ; " but, 
 somehow, do what will, 'tis not always the cliverest as foresees 
 the best. But I be young yet, your honor ! " 
 
 Walter stared at the corporal, and laughed outright : the 
 corporal was exceedingly piqued. 
 
 " Augh ! mayhap you thinks, sir, that 'cause not so young as 
 you, not young at all ; but what's forty, or fifty, or fifty-five, in 
 public life? Never hear much of men afore then. 'Tis the 
 autumn that reaps, spring sows, augh ! bother t "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. l6t 
 
 " Very true, and very poetical. I see you did not live among 
 authors for nothing." 
 
 " I knows summut of language, your honor," quoth the cor- 
 poral pedantically. 
 
 " It is evident." 
 
 " For, to be a man of the world, sir, must know all the ins 
 and outs of speechifying ; 'tis words, sir, that makes another 
 man's mare go your road. Augh ! that must have been acliver 
 man as invented language ; wonders who 'twas mayhap Moses, 
 your honor ?" 
 
 " Never mind who it was," said Walter gravely ; " use the 
 gift discreetly." 
 
 " Umph ! " said the corporal. " Yes, your honor," renewed 
 he, after a pause, "it be a marvel to think on how much a man 
 does in the way of cheating as has the gift of the gab. Wants 
 a missis, talks her over ; wants your purse, talks you out on it; 
 wants a place, talks himself into it. What makes the parson ? 
 words ; the lawyer ? words ; the parliament-man ? words ! 
 Words can ruin a country, in the big house ; words save souls, 
 in the pulpits ; words make even them ere authors, poorcreturs ! 
 in every man's mouth. Augh ! sir, take note of the words, and 
 the things will take care of themselves bother ! " 
 
 " Your reflections amaze me, Bunting," said Walter, smiling. 
 " But the night begins to close in : I trust we shall not meet 
 with any misadventure." 
 
 " 'Tis an ugsome bit of road ! " said the corporal, looking 
 round him. 
 
 " The pistols ? " 
 
 " Primed and loaded, your honor." 
 
 " After all, Bunting, a little skirmish would be no bad sport 
 eh ? especially to an old soldier like you." 
 
 " Augh, baugh ! 'tis no pleasant work fighting, without pay 
 at least ; 'tis not like love and eating, your honor, the better 
 for being what they calls ' gratis ! ' ' 
 
 " Yet I have heard you talk of the pleasure of fighting ; not 
 for pay, Bunting, but for your king and country ! " 
 
 " Augh ! and that's when I wanted to cheat the poor creturs 
 at Grassdale, your honor ; don't take the liberty to talk stuff 
 to my master ! " 
 
 They continued thus to beguile the way till Walter again 
 sank into a revery, while the corporal, who began more and 
 more to dislike the aspect of the ground they had entered on, 
 still rode by his side. 
 
 The road was heavy, and wound down the long hill which
 
 162 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 had stricken so much dismay into the corporal's stout heart on 
 the previous day when he had beheld its commencement at the 
 extremity of the town, where but for him they had not dined. 
 They were now a little more than a mile from the said town ; 
 the whole of the way was taken up by this hill ; and the road, 
 very different from the smoothened declivities of the present 
 day, seemed to have been cut down the very steepest part of its 
 centre ; loose stones and deep ruts increased the difficulty of 
 the descent, and it was with a slow pace and a guarded rein 
 that both our travellers now continued their journey. On the 
 left side of the road was a thick and lofty hedge ; to the right, 
 a wild, bare, savage heath sloped downward, and just afforded 
 a glimpse of the spires and chimneys of the town, at which the 
 corporal was already supping in idea ! That incomparable 
 personage was, however, abruptly recalled to the present in- 
 stant, by a most violent stumble on the part of his hard-mouthed, 
 Roman-nosed horse. The horse was all but down, and the cor- 
 poral all but over. 
 
 " D n it," said the corporal, slowly recovering his per- 
 pendicularity, " and the way to Lunnun was as smooth as a 
 bowling-green ! " 
 
 Ere this rueful exclamation was well out of the corporal's 
 mouth, a bullet whizzed past him from the hedge ; it went so 
 close to his ear, that but for that lucky stumble, Jacob Bunting 
 had been as the grass of the field, which flourisheth one moment 
 and is cut down the next ! 
 
 Startled by the sound, the corporal's horse made off full tear 
 down the hill, and carried him several paces beyond his master 
 ere he had power to stop its career. But Walter, reining up 
 his better-managed steed, looked round for the enemy, nor 
 looked in vain. 
 
 Three men started from the hedge with a simultaneous shout. 
 Walter fired, but without effect ; ere he could lay hand on the 
 second pistol his bridle was seized, and a violent blow from a 
 long double-handed bludgeon brought him to the ground.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 163 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 0. Afarq pakia-a. / 1} 6ia<j>6ipovod (it. 
 M . &uvi) yap y deof a/JC wwf taaifiof. 
 0. Maviai re 
 
 * * * * 
 
 M. QavraapaTuv 6e rade vooelf noluv mo ; 
 
 ORESTES, 398-407. 
 
 O. Mightiest indeed is the grief consuming me- 
 M. Dreadful is the Divinity, but still placable, 
 
 O. The Furies also 
 
 ******** 
 M. Urged by what apparitions do you rave thus ? 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FRAUD AND VIOLENCE ENTER EVEN GRASSDALE. PETER'S 
 NEWS. THE LOVERS' WALK. THE REAPPEARANCE. 
 
 " Auf. Whence comest thou ! What wouldest thou ?" Coriolanus. 
 
 ONE evening Aram and Madeline were passing through the 
 village in their accustomed walk, when Peter Dealtry sallied 
 forth from the Spotted Dog, and hurried up to the lovers with 
 a countenance full of importance, and a little ruffled by fear. 
 
 "Oh, sir, sir (miss, your servant !), have you heard the 
 news! Two houses at Checkington (a small town, some miles 
 distant from Grassdale) were forcibly entered last night 
 robbed, your honor, robbed. Squire Tibson was tied to his 
 bed, his bureau rifled, himself shockingly confused on the head; 
 and the maidservant, Sally her sister lived with me, a very 
 good girl was locked up in the cupboard. As to the other 
 house, they carried off all the plate. There were no less than 
 four men all masked, your honor, and armed with pistols. 
 What if they should come here ! such a thing was never heard 
 of before in these parts. But, sir but, miss do not be afraid; 
 do not ye, now, for I may say with the Psalmist : 
 
 ' But wicked men shall drink the dregs 
 
 Which they in wrath shall wring ; 
 For /will lift my voice, and make 
 
 Them flee while 1 do sing.' " 
 
 " You could not find a more effectual method of putting them 
 to flight, Peter," said Madeline, smiling ; " but go and talk to
 
 164 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 my uncle. I know we have a whole magazine of blunderbusses 
 and guns at home ; they may be useful now. But you are 
 well provided in case of attack. Have you not the corporal's 
 famous cat, Jacobina ? surely a match for fifty robbers ! " 
 
 " Ay, miss, on the principle set a thief to catch a thief, per- 
 haps she may be ; but really, it is no jesting matter. I don't 
 say as how I am timbersome ; but, tho' flesh is grass, I does 
 not wish to be cut down afore my time. Ah, Mr. Aram your 
 house is very lonesome like ; it is out of reach of all your 
 neighbors. Hadn't you better, sir, take up your lodging at the 
 squire's for the present ?" 
 
 Madeline pressed Aram's arm, and looked up fearfully in 
 his face. " YVhy, my good friend," said he to Dealtry, " robbers 
 will have little to gain in my house, unless they are given to 
 learned pursuits. It would be something new, Peter, to see a 
 gang of housebreakers making off with a telescope, or a pair of 
 globes, or a great folio, covered with dust." 
 
 " Ay, your honor, but they may be the more savage for being 
 Disappointed." 
 
 " Well, well, Peter, we will see," replied Aram impatiently ; 
 " meanwhile we will meet you again at the hall. Good-evening 
 for the present." 
 
 " Do, dearest Eugene do, for Heaven's sake," said Made- 
 line, with tears in her eyes, as, turning from Dealtry, they di- 
 rected their steps towards the quiet valley, at the end of which 
 the student's house was situated, and which was now more 
 than ever Madeline's favorite walk, " do, dearest Eugene, 
 come up to the manor-house till these wretches are apprehended. 
 Consider how openyvur house is to attack ; and surely there 
 can be no necessity to remain in it now." 
 
 Aram's calm brow darkened for a moment. "What ! dear- 
 est," said he ; " can you be affected by the foolish fears of 
 yon dotard ? How do we know as yet, whether this improb- 
 able story have any foundation in truth ? At all events, it is 
 evidently exaggerated. Perhaps an invasion of the poultry- 
 yard, in which some hungry fox was the real offender, may be 
 the true origin of this terrible tale. Nay, love nay, do not 
 look thus reproachfully ; it will be time enough for us when 
 we have sifted the grounds of alarm, to take our precautions ; 
 meanwhile do not blame me if in your presence I cannot admit 
 fear. Oh, Madeline dear, dear Madeline, could you guess, 
 could you dream, how different life has become to me since I 
 knew you ! Formerly, I will frankly own to you, that dark 
 and boding apprehensions were wont to lie heavy at my heart ;
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 165 
 
 the cloud was more familiar tome than the sunshine. But now 
 I have grown a child, and can see around me nothing but hope,; 
 my life was winter ; your love has breathed it into spring." 
 
 " And yet, Eugene yet " 
 
 " Yet what, my Madeline ? " 
 
 " There are still moments when I have no power over your 
 thoughts ; moments when you break away from me ; when you 
 mutter to yourself feelings in which I have no share, and which 
 seem to steal the consciousness from your eye and the color 
 from your lip." 
 
 " Ah, indeed ! " said Aram quickly : " what ! you watch me 
 so closely ? " 
 
 " Can you wonder that I do ? " said Madeline, with an earn- 
 est tenderness in her voice. 
 
 " You must not, then, you must not," returned her lover 
 almost fiercely. " I cannot bear too nice and sudden a scrutiny ; 
 consider how long I have clung to a stern and solitary inde- 
 pendence of thought, which allows no watch, and forbids ac- 
 count of itself to any one. Leave it to time and your love to 
 win their inevitable way. Ask not too much from me now. 
 And mark mark, I pray you, whenever, in spite of myself, 
 these moods you refer to darken over me, heed not listen not. 
 Leave me! solitude is their only cure ! Promise me this, 
 love promise." 
 
 " It is a harsh request, Eugene ; and I do not think I will 
 grant you so complete a monopoly of thought," answered Mad- 
 eline, playfully, yet half in earnest. 
 
 " Madeline," said Aram, with a deep solemnity of manner, 
 "I ask a request on which my very love for you depends. 
 From the depths of my soul, I implore you to grant it ; yea, to 
 the very letter." 
 
 "Why, why, this is " began Madeline, when, encounter- 
 ing the full, the dark, the inscrutable gaze of her strange lover, 
 she broke off in a sudden fear, which she could not analyze ; 
 and only added, in a low and subdued voice, " I promise to 
 obey you." 
 
 As if a weight were lifted from his heart, Aram now bright- 
 ened at once into himself in his happiest mood. He poured 
 forth a torrent of grateful confidence, of buoyant love, that soon 
 swept from the remembrance of the blushing and enchanted 
 Madeline the momentary fear, the sudden chillness, which his 
 look had involuntarily stricken into her mind. And as they 
 now wound along the most lonely part of that wild valley, his 
 arm twined round her waist, and his low but silver voice giving
 
 l66 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 magic to the very air she breathed she felt, perhaps, a more 
 entire and unruffled sentiment of present, and a more credu- 
 lous persuasion of future, happiness, than she had ever experi- 
 enced before. And Aram himself dwelt with a more lively 
 and detailed fulness than he was wont, on the prospects they 
 were to share, and the security and peace which retirement 
 would bestow upon their life. 
 
 " Shall it not," he said, " shall it not be, that we shall look 
 from our retreat upon the shifting passions and the hollow 
 loves of the distant world ? We can have no petty object, no 
 vain allurement, to distract the unity of our affection ; we must 
 be all in all to each other : for what else can there be to en- 
 gross our thoughts and occupy our feelings here ? 
 
 "If, my beautiful love, you have selected one whom the 
 world might deem a strange choice for youth and loveliness 
 like yours ; you have, at least, selected one who can have 
 no idol but yourself. The poets tell you, and rightly, that soli- 
 tude is the fit sphere for love ; but how few are the lovers 
 whom solitude does not fatigue ! They rush into retirement, 
 with souls unprepared for its stern joys and its unvarying tran- 
 quillity : they weary of each other, because the solitude itself 
 to which they fled palls upon and oppresses them. But to me, 
 the freedom which low minds call obscurity is the aliment of 
 life : I do not enter the temples of Nature as a stranger, but 
 the priest : nothing can ever tire me of the lone and august 
 altars on which I sacrificed my youth : and now, what Nature, 
 what Wisdom once were to me no, no, more, immeasurably 
 more than these you are ! Oh, Madeline ! methinks there is 
 nothing under heaven like the feeling which puts us apart from 
 all that agitates, and fevers, and degrades the herd of men ; 
 which grants us to control the tenor of our future life, because 
 it annihilates our dependence upon others ; and while the rest of 
 earth are hurried on, blind and unconscious, by the hand of Fate, 
 leaves us the sole lords of our destiny; and able, from the Past, 
 which we have governed, to become the Prophets of our Future!" 
 
 At ihis moment Madeline uttered a faint shriek, and clung 
 trembling to Aram's arm. Amazed, and aroused from his en- 
 thusiasm, he looked up, and, on seeing the cause of her alarm, 
 seemed himself transfixed, as by a sudden terror, to the earth. 
 
 But a few paces distant, standing amidst the long and rank 
 fern that grew on either side of their path, quite motionless, 
 and looking on the pair with a sarcastic smile, stood the omi- 
 nous stranger, whom the second chapter of our first BOOK intro- 
 duced to the reader.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 167 
 
 For one instant Aram seemed utterly appalled and over- 
 come ; his cheek grew the color of death ; and Madeline felt 
 his heart beat with a loud, a fearful force beneath the breast 
 to which she clung. But his was not the nature any earthly 
 dread could long daunt. He whispered to Madeline to come 
 on : and slowly, and with his usual firm but gliding step, con- 
 tinued his way. 
 
 " Good evening, Eugene Aram," said the stranger ; and as 
 he spoke, he touched his hat slightly to Madeline. 
 
 " i thank you," replied the student, in a calm voice ; " do 
 you want aught with me ? " 
 
 " Humph ! yes, if it so please you." 
 
 " Pardon me, dear Madeline,"said Aram softly, and disengag- 
 ing himself from her, "but for one moment." 
 
 He advanced to the stranger, and Madeline could not but 
 note that, as Aram accosted him, his brow fell, and his manner 
 seemed violent and agitated : but she could not hear the words 
 of either, nor did the conference last above a minute. The 
 stranger bowed, and turning away, soon vanished among the 
 shrubs. Aram regained the side of his mistress. 
 
 " Who," cried she eagerly, "is that fearful man? What is 
 his business ? What his name?" 
 
 " He is a man whom I knew well some fourteen years ago," 
 replied Aram coldly, and with ease ; "I then did not lead quite 
 so lonely a life, and we were thrown much together. Since 
 that time, he has been in unfortunate circumstances rejoined 
 the army he was in early life a soldier, and has been disbanded 
 entered into business, and failed ; in short, he has partaken 
 of those vicissitudes inseparable from the life of one driven to 
 seek the world. When he travelled this road some months 
 ago, he accidentally heard of my residence in the neighbor- 
 hood, and naturally sought me. Poor as I am, I was of some 
 assistance to him. His route brings him hither again, 
 and he again seeks me ; I suppose, too, that I must again 
 aid him." 
 
 "And is that, indeed, all?" said Madeline, breathing more 
 freely. " Well, poor man, if he be your friend, he must be in- 
 offensive ; I have done him wrong. And does he want money? 
 I have some to give him here, Eugene ! " And the simple- 
 hearted girl put her purse into Aram's hand. 
 
 " No, dearest," said he, shrinking back ; " no, we shall not 
 require your contribution ; I can easily spare him enough for 
 the present. But let us turn back, it grows chill." 
 
 "And why did he leave us, Eugene?"
 
 l68 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Because I desired him to visit me at home an hour hence." 
 
 " An hour ! then you will not sup with us to-night ?" 
 
 " No, not this night, dearest." 
 
 The conversation now ceased ; Madeline in vain endeavored 
 to renew it. Aram, though without relapsing into one of his 
 frequent reveries, answered her only in monosyllables. They 
 arrived at the manor-house, and Aram at the garden-gate took 
 leave of her for the night, and hastened backward towards his 
 home. Madeline, after watching his form through the deep- 
 ening shadows until it disappeared, entered the house with a 
 listless step; a nameless and thrilling presentiment crept to 
 her heart ; and she could have sat down and wept, though with- 
 out a cause. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN ARAM AND THE STRANGER. 
 
 ' ' The spirits I have raised abandon me ; 
 
 The spells which I have studied baffle me." Manfred. 
 
 MEANWHILE Aram strode rapidly through the village, and 
 not till he had regained the solitary valley did he relax his step. 
 
 The evening had already deepened into night. Along the 
 sere and melancholy woods the autumnal winds crept with a 
 lowly but gathering moan. Where the water held its course, a 
 damp and ghostly mist clogged the air ; but the skies were 
 calm, and chequered only by a few clouds, that swept in long, 
 white, spectral streaks, over the solemn stars. Now and then 
 the bat wheeled swiftly round, almost touching the figure of the 
 student, as he walked musingly onward. And the owl,* that 
 before the month waned many days would be seen no more in 
 that region, came heavily from the trees like a guilty thought 
 that deserts its shade. It was one of those nights half dim, 
 half glorious, which mark the early decline of the year. Nature 
 seemed restless and instinct with change ; there were those 
 signs in the atmosphere which leave the most experienced in 
 doubt whether the morning may rise in storm or sunshine. 
 And in this particular period, the skyey influences seem to 
 tincture the animal life with their own mysterious and wayward 
 spirit of change. The birds desert their summer haunts ; an 
 unaccountable disquietude pervades the brute creation ; even 
 
 * That species called the short-eared owl.
 
 EUGENE AfcAM. 169 
 
 in this unsettled season have considered themselves, more 
 than at others, stirred by the motion and whisperings of their 
 genius. And every creature that flows upon the tide of the 
 Universal Life of Things feels upor *he ruffled surface the 
 mighty and solemn change which is at work within its depths. 
 
 And now Aram had nearly threaded the valley, and his own 
 abode became visible on the opening plain, when the stranger 
 emerged from the trees to the right, and suddenly stood before 
 the student. " I tarried for you here, Aram," said he, "instead 
 of seeking you at home, at the time you fixed : for there are 
 certain private reasons which make it prudent I should keep as 
 much as possible among the owls, and it was therefore safer, if 
 not more pleasant, to lie here amidst the fern, than to make 
 myself merry in the village yonder." 
 
 " And what," said Aram, " again brings you hither ? Did 
 you not say, when you visited me some months since, that you 
 were about to settle in a different part of the country, with a 
 relation ? " 
 
 " And so I intended ; but Fate, as you would say, or the 
 Devil, as I should, ordered it otherwise. I had not long left 
 you, when I fell in with some old friends, bold spirits and true; 
 the brave outlaws of the road and the field. Shall I have any 
 shame in confessing that I preferred their society, a society not 
 unfamiliar to me, to the dull and solitary life that I might have 
 led in tending my old bedridden relation in Wales, who, after 
 all, may live these twenty years, and at the end can scarcely 
 leave me enough for a week's ill-luck at the hazard-table ? In 
 a word, I joined my gallant friends and entrusted myself to 
 their guidance. Since then, we have cruised around the 
 country, regaled ourselves cheerily, frightened the timid, 
 silenced the fractious, and by the help of your fate or my 
 devil, have found ourselves, by accident, brought to exhibit our 
 valor in this very district, honored by the dwelling-place of my 
 learned friend Eugene Aram." 
 
 "Trifle not with me," said Aram sternly; "I scarcely yet 
 understand you. Do you mean to imply that yourself, and the 
 lawless associates you say you have joined, are lying out now 
 for plunder in these parts?" 
 
 " You say it : perhaps you heard of our exploits last night, 
 some four miles hence ? " 
 
 " Ha ! was that villany yours ?" 
 
 "Villany ! " repeated Houseman, in a tone of sullen offence. 
 " Come, Master Aram, these words must not pass between you 
 and me, friends of such date, and on such a footing."
 
 176 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "Talk not of the past," replied Aram with a livid lip, "and 
 call not those whom Destiny once, in despite of Nature, drove 
 down her dark tide in a momentary companionship, by the 
 name of friends. Friends we are not ; but while we live there 
 is a tie between us stronger than that of friendship." 
 
 " You speak truth and wisdom," said Houseman sneeringly ; 
 " for my part, I care not what you call us, friends or foes." 
 
 " Foes, foes ! " exclaimed Aram abruptly ; "not that. Has 
 fife no medium in its ties ? Pooh pooh ! not foes ; we may 
 not be foes to each other." 
 
 " It were foolish, at least at present," said Houseman care- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Look you, Houseman," continued Aram, drawing his com- 
 rade from the path into a wilder part of the scene, and, as he 
 spoke, his words were couched in a more low and inward voice 
 than heretofore. " Look you, I cannot live and have my life 
 darkened thus by your presence. Is not the world wide enough 
 for us both ? Why haunt each other ? what have you to gain 
 from me ? Can the thoughts that my sight recalls to you be 
 brighter, or more peaceful, than those which start upon me 
 when I gaze on you ? Does not a ghastly air, a charnel breath 
 hover about us both ? Why perversely incur a torture it is so 
 easy to avoid ? Leave me leave these scenes. All earth 
 spreads before you ; choose your pursuits, and your resting- 
 place elsewhere, but grudge me not this little spot." 
 
 " I have no wish to disturb you, Eugene Aram, but I must 
 live ; and in order to live I must obey my companions : if I 
 deserted them, it would be to starve. They will not linger 
 long in this district ; a week, it may be ; a fortnight, at most : 
 then, like the Indian animal, they will strip the leaves, and de- 
 sert the tree. In a word, after we have swept the country, we 
 are gone." 
 
 " Houseman, Houseman ! " said Aram passionately, and 
 frowning till his brows almost hid his eyes ; but that part of 
 the orb which they did not hide seemed as living fire ; " I 
 now implore, but I can threaten beware ! silence, I say " 
 (and he stamped his foot violently on the ground, as he saw 
 Houseman about to interrupt him) ; "listen to me through- 
 out. Speak not to me of tarrying here speak not of days, of 
 weeks every hour of which would sound upon my ear like a 
 death-knell. Dream not of a sojourn in these tranquil shades, 
 upon an errand of dread and violence the minions of the law 
 aroused against you, girt with the chances of apprehension and 
 a shameful death "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. Ifl 
 
 "And a full confession of my past sins," interrupted 
 Houseman, laughing wildly. 
 
 "Fiend! devil !" cried Aram, grasping his companion by 
 the throat, and shaking him with a vehemence that Houseman, 
 though a man of great strength and sinew, impotently attempted 
 to resist. " Breathe but another word of such import ; dare to 
 menace me with the vengeance of such a thing as thou, and, 
 by the Heaven above us, I will lay thee dead at my feet ! " 
 
 " Release my throat, or you will commit murder," gasped 
 Houseman, with difficulty, and growing already black in the face. 
 
 Aram suddenly relinquished his gripe, and walked away 
 with a hurried step, muttering to himself. He then returned to 
 the side of Houseman, whose flesh still quivered either with 
 rage or fear, and, his own self-possession completely re- 
 stored, stood gazing upon him with folded arms, and his usual 
 deep and passionless composure of countenance ; and House- 
 man, if he could not boldly confront, did not altogether shrink 
 from, his eye. So there and thus they stood, at a little distance 
 from each other, both silent, and yet with something unutter- 
 ably fearful in their silence. 
 
 " Houseman," said Aram at length in a calm, yet a hollow 
 voice, " it may be that I was wrong ; but there lives no man on 
 earth, save you, who could thus stir my blood, nor you with 
 ease. And know, when you menace me, that it is not your 
 menace that subdues or shakes my spirit ; but that which robs my 
 veins of their even tenor is, that you should deem your menace 
 could have such power, or that you that any man should ar- 
 rogate to himself the thought that he could, by the prospect of 
 whatsoever danger, humble the soul and curb the will of Eugene 
 Aram. And now I am calm ; say what you will, I cannot be 
 vexed again." 
 
 ''I have done," replied Houseman coldly. I have nothing 
 to say ; farewell ! " and he moved away among the trees. 
 
 " Stay," cried Aram, in some agitation ; " stay ; we must not 
 part thus. Look you, Houseman, you say you would starve 
 should you leave your present associates. That may not be ; 
 quit them this night, this moment : leave the neighborhood, 
 and the little in my power is at your will." 
 
 " As to that," said Houseman dryly, " what is in your power 
 is, I fear me, so little as not to counterbalance the advantages 
 I should lose in quitting my companions. I expect to net some 
 three hundreds before I leave these parts." 
 
 "Some three hundreds !" repeated Aram, recoiling : "that 
 were indeed beyond me. I told you when we last met that it is
 
 172 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 only from an annual payment I draw the means of subsist- 
 ence." 
 
 " I remember it. I do not ask you for money, Eugene 
 Aram ; these hands can maintain me," replied Houseman, 
 smiling grimly. " I told you at once the sum I expected to re- 
 ceive somewhere, in order to prove that you need not vex your 
 benevolent heart to afford me relief. I knew well the sum I 
 named was out of your power, unless indeed it be part of the 
 marriage portion you are about to receive with your bride. 
 Fie, Aram ! what, secrets from your old friend ! You see I 
 pick up the news of the place without your confidence." 
 
 Again Aram's face worked, and his lip quivered ; but h 
 conquered his passion with a surprising self-command, and 
 answered mildly : 
 
 " I do not know, Houseman, whether I shall receive any 
 marriage portion whatsoever ; if I do, I am willing to make 
 some arrangement by which I could engage you to molest me 
 no more. But it yet wants several days to my marriage ; quit 
 the neighborhood now, and a month hence let us meet again. 
 Whatever at that time may be my resources, you shall frankly 
 know them." 
 
 " It cannot be," said Houseman. " I quit not these districts 
 without a certain sum, not in hope, but possession. But why 
 interfere with me ? I seek not my hoards in your coffer. Why 
 so anxious that I should not breathe the same air as yourself ? 
 
 "It matters not," replied Aram, with a deep and ghastly 
 voice ; " but when you are near me, I feel as if I were with the 
 dead ; it is a spectre that I would exorcise in ridding me of 
 your presence. Yet this is not what I now speak of. You are 
 engaged, according to your own lips, in lawless and midnight 
 schemes, in which you may (and the tide of chances runs to- 
 wards that bourne) be seized by the hand of Justice." 
 
 " Ho ! " said Houseman sullenly ; "and was it not for saying 
 that you feared this, and its probable consequences, that you 
 well-nigh stifled me, but now ? So truth may be said one 
 moment with impunity, and the next at peril of life ! These 
 are the subtleties of you wise schoolmen, I suppose Your 
 Aristotles and your Zenos, your Platos and your Epicuruses, 
 teach you notable distinctions, truly ! " 
 
 " Peace ! " said Aram ; " are we at all times ourselves ? Are 
 the passions never our masters? You maddened me into 
 anger ; behold I am now calm : the subjects discussed between 
 myself and you are of life and death ; let us approach them 
 with our senses collected and prepared. What, Houseman, are
 
 fcUGENE ARAM. I?3 
 
 you bent upon your own destruction, as well as mine, that you 
 persevere in courses which must end in a death of shame ? " 
 
 " What else can I do ? " I will not work, and I cannot live 
 like you in a lone wilderness on a crust of bread. Nor is my 
 name, like yours, mouthed by the praise of honest men : my 
 character is marked ; those who once welcomed me shun now. 
 I have no resource for society (for /cannot face myself alone), 
 but in the fellowship of men like myself, whom the world has 
 thrust from its pale. I have no resource for bread, save in the 
 pursuits that are branded by justice, and accompanied with 
 snares and danger. What would you have me do?" 
 
 "Is it not better," said Aram, "to enjoy peace and safety 
 upon a small but certain pittance, than to live thus from hand 
 to mouth ? vibrating from wealth to famine, and the rope 
 around your neck, sleeping and awake ? Seek your relation ; 
 in that quarter you yourself said your character was not 
 branded : live with him, and know the quiet of easy days, 
 and I promise you, that if aught be in my power to make your 
 lot more suitable to your wants, so long as you lead the life of 
 honest men, it shall be freely yours. Is not this better, House- 
 man, than a short and sleepless career of dread ? " 
 
 " Aram," answered Houseman, " are you, in truth, calm 
 enough to hear me speak ? I warn you, that if again you for- 
 get yourself, and lay hands on me " 
 
 " Threaten not, threaten not," interrupted Aram, "but pro- 
 ceed ; all within me is now still and cold as ice. Proceed with- 
 out fear or scruple." 
 
 " Be it so ; we do not love one another : you have affected 
 contempt for me and I I no matter I am not a stone or 
 a stick, that I should not feel. You have scorned me you 
 have outraged me you have not assumed towards me even the 
 decent hypocrisies of prudence ; yet now you would ask of me 
 the conduct, the sympathy, the forbearance, the concession of 
 friendship. You wish that I should quit these scenes, where, to 
 my judgment, a certain advantage awaits me, solely that I may 
 lighten your breast of its selfish fears. You dread the dangers 
 that await me on your own account. And in my apprehension 
 you forbode your own doom. You ask me, nay not ask, you 
 would command, you would awe me to sacrifice my will and 
 wishes, in order to soothe your anxieties and strengthen your 
 own safety. Mark me ! Eugene Aram, I have been treated as 
 a tool, and I will not be governed as a friend. I will not stir 
 from the vicinity of your home till my designs be fulfilled, I 
 enjoy, I hug myself in your torments. I exult in the terror
 
 174 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 with which you will hear of each new enterprise, each new dar- 
 ing, each new triumph of myself and my gallant comrades. 
 And now I am avenged for the affront you put upon me." 
 
 Though Aram trembled with suppressed passion from limb 
 to limb, his voice was still calm, and his lip even wore a smile 
 as he answered : 
 
 " I was prepared for this, Houseman ; you utter nothing that 
 surprises or appals me. You hate me ; it is natural : men 
 united as we are rarely look on each other with a friendly or a 
 pitying eye. But, Houseman, I KNOW YOU ! you are a man of 
 vehement passions, but interest with you is yet stronger than pas- 
 sion. If not, our conference is over. Go and do your worst." 
 
 " You are right, most learned scholar ; I can fetter the tige* 
 within, in his deadliest rage, by a golden chain." 
 
 " Well, then, Houseman, it is not your interest to betray me 
 my destruction is your own." 
 
 " I grant it ; but if I am apprehended, and to be hung for 
 robbery ? " 
 
 " It will be no longer an object to you, to care for my safety. 
 Assuredly, I comprehend this. But my interest induces me 
 to wish that you be removed from the peril of apprehension, 
 and your interest replies, that if you can obtain equal advan- 
 tages in security, you would forego advantages accompanied 
 by peril. Say what we will, wander as we will, it is to this 
 point that we must return at last." 
 
 "Nothing can be clearer ; and were you a rich man, Eugene 
 Aram, or could you obtain your bride's dowry (no doubt a respec- 
 table sum) in advance, the arrangement might at once be settled." 
 
 Aram gasped for breath, and, as usual with him in emotion, 
 made several strides muttering rapidly and indistinctly to him- 
 self, and then returned: 
 
 " Even were this possible, it would be but a short reprieve ; 
 I could not trust you ; the sum would be spent, and I again 
 in the state to which you have compelled me now, but without 
 the means again to relieve myself. No, no ! if the blow must 
 fall, be it so, one day as another." 
 
 "As you will," said Houseman ; "but " Just at that mo- 
 ment, a long, shrill whistle sounded below, as from the water. 
 Houseman paused abruptly " Thai signal is from my com- 
 rades ; I must away. Hark, again ! Farewell, Aram." 
 
 "Farewell, if it must be so," said Aram, in a tone of dogged 
 sullenness ; " but to-morrow, should you know of any means 
 by which I could feel secure beyond the security of your own 
 "word, from your future molestation, 1 might yet how ? "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 175 
 
 "To-morrow," said Houseman, " I cannot answer for myself; 
 /t is not always that I can leave my comrades : a natural jeal- 
 ousy makes them suspicious of the absence of their friends. 
 Yet hold ; the night after to-morrow, the Sabbath night, most 
 virtuous Aram, I can meet you but not here some miles 
 hence. You know the foot of the Devil's Crag, by the water- 
 fall ; it is a spot quiet and shaded enough in all conscience 
 for our interview ; and I will tell you a secret I would trust 
 to no other man (hark, again !) it is close by our present lurk- 
 ing-place. Meet me there ! it would, indeed, be pleasanter to 
 hold our conference under shelter ; but just at present, I would 
 rather not trust myself under any honest man's roof in this neigh- 
 borhood. Adieu! on Sunday night, one hour before midnight." 
 
 The robber, for such then he was, waved his hand, and hur- 
 ried away in the direction from which the signal seemed to come. 
 
 Aram gazed after him, but with vacant eyes ; and remained for 
 several minutes rooted to the spot as if the very life had left him. 
 
 " The Sabbath night ! " said he, at length, moving slowly on ; 
 " and I must spin forth my existence in trouble and fear till 
 then //'// then ! what remedy can I then invent ? It is clear 
 that I can have no dependence on his word, if won ; and I 
 have not even aught wherewith to buy it. But courage, cour- 
 age, my heart ; and work thou, my busy brain ! Ye have never 
 failed me yet." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FRESH ALARM IN THE VILLAGE. LESTER'S VISIT TO ARAM. A 
 TKAIT OF DELICATE KINDNESS IN THE STUDENT. MADE- 
 LINE. HER PRONENESS TO CONFIDE. THE CONVERSATION 
 
 BETWEEN LESTER AND ARAM. THE PERSONS BY WHOM IT 
 IS INTERRUPTED. 
 
 " Not my own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
 
 Of the wide word, dreaming on things to come, 
 Can yet the lease of my true love control." 
 
 SHAKSPEARE'S Sonnets. 
 
 " Commend me to their love, and I am proud, say, 
 That my occasions have found time to use them, 
 Toward a supply of money ; let the request 
 Be fifty talents." Timon of Athens. 
 
 THE next morning the whole village was alive and bustling 
 with terror and consternation. Another, and a yet more dar- 
 ing robbery, had been committed in the neighborhood, and
 
 i?6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the police of the county town had been summoned, and were 
 now busy in search of the offenders. Aram had been early 
 disturbed by the officious anxiety of some of his neighbors ; 
 and it wanted yet some hours of noon, when Lester himself 
 came to seek and consult with the student. 
 
 Aram was alone in his large and gloomy chamber, sur- 
 rounded, as usual, by his books, but not, as usual, engaged in 
 their contents. With his face leaning on his hand, and his 
 eyes gazing on a dull fire, that crept heavily upward through 
 the damp fuel, he sat by his hearth listless, but wrapped in 
 thought. 
 
 " Well, my friend," said Lester, displacing the books from 
 one of the chairs, and drawing his seat near the student's 
 " you have ere this heard the news ; and, indeed, in a county 
 so quiet as ours, these outrages appear the more fearful from 
 their being so unlocked for. We must set a guard in the vil- 
 lage, Aram, and you must leave this defenceless hermitage and 
 come down to us, not for your own sake, but consider, you 
 will be an additional safeguard to Madeline. You will lock up 
 the house, dismiss your poor old governant to her friends 
 in the village, and walk back with me at once to the hall." 
 
 Aram turned uneasily in his chair. 
 
 " I feel your kindness," said he, after a pause, " but I can- 
 not accept it, Madeline " he stopped short at that name, and 
 added, in an altered voice " no, I will be one of the watch, 
 Lester ; I will look to her to your safety ; but I cannot sleep 
 under another roof. I am superstitious, Lester .superstitious. 
 I have made a vow, a foolish one, perhaps, but I dare not 
 break it. And my vow binds me, not to pass a night, save on 
 indispensable and urgent necessity, anywhere but in my own 
 home." 
 
 " But there is necessity." 
 
 " My conscience says not," said Aram, smiling. " Peace, my 
 good friend, we cannot conquer men's foibles, or wrestle with 
 men's scruples." 
 
 Lester in vain attempted to shake Aram's resolution on this 
 head ; he found him immovable, and gave up the effort in despair 
 
 " Well," said he, "at all events we have set up a watch, and 
 can spare you a couple of defenders. They shall reconnoitre 
 in the neighborhood of your house, if you persevere in your de- 
 termination ; and this will serve, in some slight measure, to 
 satisfy poor Madeline." 
 
 " Be it so," replied Aram ; " and dear Madeline herself, is she 
 so alarmed ? "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 177 
 
 And now, in spite of all the more wearing and haggard 
 thoughts that preyed upon his breast, and the dangers by 
 which he conceived himself beset, the student's face, as he 
 listened with eager attention to every word that Lester uttered 
 concerning his daughter, testified how alive he yet was to the 
 least incident that related to Madeline, and how easily her in- 
 nocent and peaceful remembrance could allure him from 
 himself. 
 
 " This room," said Lester, looking round, " will be, I con 
 elude, after Madeline's own heart ; but will you always suffer 
 her here ? Students do not sometimes like even the gentlest 
 interruption." 
 
 "I have not forgotten that Madeline's comfort requires some 
 more cheerful retreat than this," said Aram, with a melancholy 
 expression of countenance. '* Follow me, Lester ; I meant 
 this for a little surprise to her. But Heaven only knows if I 
 shall ever show it to herself." 
 
 "Why? what doubt of that can even your boding temper 
 indulge? " 
 
 " We are as the wanderers in the desert," answered Aram, 
 " who are taught wisely to distrust their own senses : that 
 which they gaze upon as the waters of existence is often but a 
 faithless vapor that would lure them to destruction." 
 
 In thus speaking he had traversed the room, and, opening a 
 door, showed a small chamber with which it communicated, 
 and which Aram had fitted up with evident, and not ungrace- 
 ful care. Every article of furniture that Madeline might most 
 fancy, he had procured from the neighboring town. And some 
 of the lighter and more attractive books that he possessed were 
 ranged around on shelves, above which were vases, intended for 
 flowers ; the window opened upon a little plot that had been 
 lately broken up into a small garden, and was already inter- 
 sected with walks, and rich with shrubs. 
 
 There was something in this chamber that so entirely con- 
 trasted the one it adjoined, something so light, and cheerful, 
 and even gay in its decoration and general aspect, that Lester 
 uttered an exclamation of delight and surprise. And indeed 
 it did appear to him touching, that this austere scholar, so 
 wrapped in thought, and so inattentive to the common forms 
 of life, should have manifested so much of tender and delicate 
 consideration. In another it would have been nothing, but in 
 Aram it was a trait that brought involuntary tears to the eyes 
 of the good Lester ; Aram observed them ; he walked hastily 
 away to the window, and sighed heavily ; this did not escape
 
 178 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 his friend's notice, and after commenting on the attractions ot 
 the little room, Lester said : 
 
 " You seem oppressed in spirits, Eugene : can anything have 
 chanced to disturb you, beyond, at least, these alarms, which 
 are enough to agitate the nerves of the hardiest of us ? " 
 
 " No," said Aram, " I had no sleep last night, and my health 
 is easily affected, and with my health my mind. But let us go 
 to Madeline ; the sight of her will revive me." 
 
 They then strolled down to the manor-house, and met by 
 the way a band of the younger heroes of the village, who had 
 volunteered to act as a patrol, and who were now marshalled by 
 Peter Dealtry, in a fit of heroic enthusiasm. 
 
 Although it was broad daylight, and consequently there was 
 little cause of immediate alarm, the worthy publican carried on 
 his shoulder a musket on full cock ; and each moment he kept 
 peeping about, as if not only every bush, but every blade of 
 grass, contained an ambuscade, ready to spring up the instant 
 he was off his guard. By his side the redoubted Jacobina, who 
 had transferred to her new master the attachment she had 
 originally possessed for the corporal, trotted peeringly along, 
 her tail perpendicularly cocked, and her ears moving to and 
 fro with a most incomparable air of vigilant sagacity. The 
 cautious Peter every now and then checked her ardor, as she 
 was about to quicken her step, and enliven the march by gam- 
 bols better adapted to serener times. 
 
 " Soho, Jacobina, soho ! gently, girl, gently ; thou little 
 knowest the dangers that may beset thee. Come up, my good 
 fellows, come to The Spotted Dog ; I will tap a barrel on pur- 
 pose for you ; and we will settle the plan of defence for the 
 night. Jacobina, come in, I say ; come in, 
 
 ' Lest, like a lion, they thee tear, 
 
 And rend in pieces small : 
 While there is none to succor thee, 
 And rid thee out of thrall.' 
 
 What ho, there ! Oh ! I beg your honor's pardon ! Your 
 servant, Mr. Aram." 
 
 " What, patrolling already?" said the squire; "your men 
 will be tired before they are wanted ; reserve their ardor for the 
 night." 
 
 " Oh, your honor, I have only been beating up for recruits ; 
 and we are going to consult a .bit at home. Ah ! what a pity 
 the corporal isn't here : he would have been a tower of strength 
 unto the righteous. But, howsomever, I do my best to supply 
 his place Jacobina, child, be still : I can't say as I knows the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 musket-sarvice, your honor ; but I fancy's as how we can do it 
 extemporaneous like at a pinch." 
 
 "A bold heart, Peter, is the best preparation," said the 
 squire. 
 
 " And," quoth Peter quickly, " what saith the worshipful 
 Mister Sternhold, in the 45th Psalm, 5th verse ? 
 
 ' Go forth with godly speed, in meekness, truth, and might, 
 And thy right hand shall thee instruct in works of dreadful might.' " 
 
 Peter quoted these verses, especially the last, with a trucu- 
 lent frown, and a brandishing of the musket, that surprisingly 
 encouraged the hearts of his little armament ; and with a gen- 
 eral murmur of enthusiasm, the warlike band marched off to 
 The Spotted Dog. 
 
 Lester and his companion found Madeline and Ellinor 
 standing at the window of the hall ; and Madeline's light step 
 was the first that sprang forward to welcome their return ; even 
 the face of the studen f brightened, when he saw the kindling 
 eye, the parted lip, the buoyant form, from which the pure and 
 innocent gladness she felt on seeing him broke forth. 
 
 There was a remarkable trustfulness in Madeline's disposi- 
 tion. Thoughtful and grave as she was by nature, she was yet 
 ever inclined to the more sanguine colorings of life ; she never 
 turned to the future with fear a placid sentiment of hope 
 slept at her heart she was one who surrendered herself with a 
 fond and implicit faith to the guidance of all she loved ; and 
 to the chances of life. It was a sweet indolence of the mind, 
 which made one of her most beautiful traits of character ; 
 there is something so unselfish in tempers reluctant to despond. 
 You see that such persons are not occupied with their own ex- 
 istence ; they are not fretting the calm of the present life with 
 the egotisms of care, and conjecture, and calculation ; if they 
 learn anxiety, it is for another : but in the heart of that other, 
 how entire is their trust ! 
 
 It was this disposition in Madeline which perpetually charmed, 
 and yet perpetually wrung, the soul of her wild lover ; and as 
 she now delightedly hung upon his arm, uttering her joy at 
 seeing him safe, and presently forgetting that there ever had 
 been cause for alarm, his heart was filled with the most gloomy 
 sense of horror and desolation. "What," thought he, "if this 
 poor unconscious girl could dream that at this moment I am 
 girded with peril, from which I see no ultimate escape ? Delay 
 it as I will, it seems as if the blow must come at last. What, if 
 she could think how fearful is my interest in these outrages, tha*
 
 I#0 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 in all probability, if their authors are detected, there is one who 
 will drag me into their ruin ; that I am ^iven over, bound and 
 blinded, into the hands of another ; and that other, a man steeled 
 to mercy, and withheld from my destruction by a thread a 
 thread that a blow on himself would snap. Great God ! wherever 
 I turn, I see despair ! And she she clings to me ; and be- 
 holding me, thinks the whole earth is filled with hope ! " 
 
 While these thoughts darkened his mind, Madeline drew him 
 onward into the more sequestered walks of the garden, to show 
 him some flowers she had transplanted. And when an hour 
 afterwards he returned to the hall, so soothing had been the 
 influence of her looks and words upon Aram, that if he had 
 not forgotten the situation in which he stood, he had at least 
 calmed himself to regard with a steady eye the chances of es- 
 cape. 
 
 The meal of the day passed as cheerfully as usual, and when 
 Aram and his host were left over their abstemious potations, 
 the former proposed a walk before the evening deepened. Les- 
 ter readily consented, and they sauntered into the fields. The 
 squire soon perceived that something was on Aram's mind, of 
 which he felt evident embarrassment in ridding himself ; at 
 length the student said, rather abruptly : 
 
 " My dear friend, I am but a bad beggar, and therefore let 
 me get over my request as expeditiously as possible. You said 
 to me once that you intended bestowing some dowry upon 
 Madeline a dowry I would and could willingly dispense with ; 
 but should you of that sum be now able to spare me some por- 
 tion as a loan, should you have some three hundred pounds 
 with which you could accommodate me " 
 
 " Say no more, Eugene, say no more," interrupted the squire ; 
 " you can have double that amount. I ought to have foreseen 
 that your preparations for your approaching marriage must 
 have occasioned you some inconvenience : you can have six 
 hundred pounds from me to-morrow." 
 
 Aram's eyes brightened. "It is too much, too much, my 
 generous friend," said he ; " the half suffices ; but but, a debt 
 of old stand'ng presses me urgently, and to-morrow, or rather 
 Monday morning, is the time fixed for payment." 
 
 " Consider it arranged," said Lester, putting his hand on 
 Aram's arm; and then leaning on it gently, he added, "and 
 now that we are on this subject, let me tell you what I intended 
 as a gift to you and my dear Madeline ; it is but small, but my 
 estates are rigidly entailed on Walter, and of poor value in 
 themselves, and it is half the savings ot many years."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. tt 
 
 The squire then named a sum, which, however small it may 
 seem to our reader, was not considered a despicable portion for 
 the daughter of a small country squire at that day, and was, in 
 reality, a generous sacrifice for one whose whole income was 
 scarcely, at the most, seven hundred a year. The sum men- 
 tioned doubled that now to be lent, and which was of course 
 a part of it ; an equal portion was reserved for Ellinor. 
 
 " And to tell you the truth," said the squire, " you must give 
 me some little time for the remainder ; for not thinking some 
 months ago it would be so soon wanted, I laid out eighteen 
 hundred pounds in the purchase of Winclose farm, six of which 
 (the remainder of your share) I can pay off at the end of the 
 year : the other twelve, Ellinor's portion, will remain a mort- 
 gage on the farm itself. And between us," added the squire, 
 " I do hope that I need be in no hurry respecting her, dear 
 girl. When Walter returns, I trust matters may be arranged 
 in a manner, and through a channel, that would gratify the 
 most cherished wish of my heart. I am convinced that Ellinor 
 is exactly suited to him, and, unless he should lose his senses 
 for some one else in the course of his travels, I trust that he 
 will not be long returned before he will make the same discov- 
 ery. I think of writing to him very shortly after your marriage, 
 and making him promise, at all events, to revisit us at Christ- 
 mas. Ah ! Eugene, we shall be a happy party then, I trust. 
 And be assured that we shall beat up your quarters, and put 
 your hospitality, and Madeline's housewifery, to the test." 
 
 Therewith, the good squire ran on for some minutes in the 
 warmth of his heart, dilating on the fireside prospects before 
 them, and rallying the student on those secluded habits, which 
 he promised him he should no longer indulge with impunity. 
 
 " But it is growing dark," said he, awakening from the 
 theme which had carried him away, "and by this time Peter and 
 our patrol will be at the hall. I told them to look up in the 
 evening, in order to appoint their several duties and stations ; 
 let us turn back. Indeed, Aram, I can assure you, that I, for 
 my own part, have strong reasons to take precautions against 
 any attack ; for besides the old family plate (though that's not 
 much), I have, you know the bureau in the parlor to 
 the left of the hall ? well, I have in that bureau three hun- 
 dred guineas, which I have not as yet been able to take to safe 
 
 hands at , and which, by the way, will be yours to-morrow. 
 
 So, you see, it would be no light misfortune to me to be robbed." 
 
 " Hist ! " said Aram, stopping short ; " I think I heard steps 
 on the other side of the hedge."
 
 182 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 The squire listened, but heard nothing ; the senses of his 
 companion were, however, remarkably acute, more especially 
 that of hearing. 
 
 " There is certainly some one ; nay, I catch the steps of two 
 persons," whispered he to Lester. 
 
 " Let us come round the hedge by the gap below." 
 
 They both quickened their pace, and gaining the other side 
 of the hedge, did indeed perceive two men in carters' frocks, 
 strolling on toward the village. 
 
 " They are strangers, too," said the squire suspiciously ; 
 " not Grassdale men. Humph ! could they have overheard us, 
 think you ? " 
 
 " If men whose business is to overhear their neighbors yes ; 
 but not if they be honest men," answered Aram, in one of 
 those shrewd remarks which he often uttered, and which 
 seemed almost incompatible with the tenor of those quiet and 
 abstruse pursuits that generally deaden the mind to worldly 
 wisdom. 
 
 They had now approached the strangers, who, however, ap- 
 peared mere rustic clowns, and who pulled off their hats with 
 the wonted obeisance of their tribe. 
 
 " Holla, my men," said the squire, assuming his magisterial 
 air ; for the mildest squire in Christendom can play the bashaw 
 when he remembers he is a justice of the peace. " Holla ! 
 whal are you doing here this time of day ? You are not after 
 any good, I fear." 
 
 " We ax pardon, your honor," said the elder clown, in the 
 peculiar accent of the country, " but we be come from Glads- 
 muir, and be going to work at Squire Nixon's, at Mowhall, on 
 Monday ; so as I has a brother living on the green afore the 
 squire's, we be a going to sleep at his house to-night, and spend 
 the Sunday there, your honor." 
 
 "Humph ! humph ! What's your name? " 
 
 " Joe Wood, your honor, and this here chap is Will Hutchings." 
 
 " Well, well, go along with you," said the squire ; " and mind 
 what you are about. I should not be surprised if you snared 
 one of Squire Nixon's hares by the way." 
 
 " Oh, well and indeed, your honor " 
 
 "Go along, go along," said the squire, and away went the men. 
 
 "They seem honest bumpkins enough," observed Lester. 
 
 '' It would have pleased me better," said Aram, " had the 
 speaker of the two particularized less ; and you observed that 
 he seemed eager not to let his companion speak ; that is a little 
 suspicious."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. jg* 
 
 * Shall I call them back ? " asked the squire. 
 
 " Why, it is scarcely worth while," said Aram ; " perhaps 1 
 over-refine. And now I look again at them, they seem really 
 what they affect to be. No, it is useless to molest the pool 
 wretches any more. There is something. Lester, humbling to 
 human pride in a rustic's life. It grates against the heart to 
 think of the tone in which we unconsciously permit ourselves 
 to address him. We see in him humanity in its simple state ; 
 it is a sad thought to feel that we despise it, that all we respect 
 in our species is what has been created by art : the gaudy dress, 
 the glittering equipage, or even the cultivated intellect ; the 
 mere and naked material of nature we eye with indifference 
 or trample on with disdain. Poor child of toil, from the gray 
 dawn to the setting sun, one long task ! no idea elicited no 
 thought awakened beyond those that suffice to make him the 
 machine of others the serf of the hard soil. And then, too, 
 mark how we scowl upon his scanty holidays, how we 
 hedge in his mirth with laws, and turn his hilarity into crime ! 
 We make the whole of the gay world wherein we walk and 
 take our pleasure to him a place of snares and perils. If he 
 leave his labor for an instant, in that instant how many 
 temptations spring up to him ! And yet we have no mercy 
 for his errors ; the gaol the transport ship the gallows ; 
 those are the illustrations of our lecture-books, those the 
 bounds of every vista that we cut through the labyrinth of our 
 laws. Ah, fie on the disparities of the world ! They cripple 
 the heart, they blind the sense, they concentrate the thousand 
 links between man and man into the two basest of earthly 
 ties servility and pride. Methinks the devils laugh out 
 when they hear us tell the poor that his soul is as glorious and 
 eternal as our own ; and yet when in the grinding drudgery 
 of his life, not a spark of that soul can be called forth ; when 
 it sleeps, walled around in its lumpish clay, from the cradle to 
 the grave, without a dream to stir the deadness of its torpor." 
 
 " And yet, Aram," said Lester, " the lords of science have 
 their ills. Exalt the soul as you will, you cannot raise it above 
 pain. Better, perhaps, to let it sleep, since in waking it looks 
 only upon a world of trial." 
 
 " You say well, you say well," said Aram, smiting his heart ; 
 " and I suffered a foolish sentiment to carry me beyond th 
 sober boundaries of our daily sense."
 
 184 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MILITARY PREPARATIONS. THE COMMANDER AND HIS MEN. 
 ARAM IS PERSUADED TO PASS THE NIGHT AT THE MANOR- 
 HOUSE. 
 
 " Falstaff. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end 
 
 I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no 
 bigger than pins' heads." First Part of King Henty IV. 
 
 THEY had scarcely reached the manor-house before the 
 rain, which the clouds had portended throughout the whole 
 day, began to descend in torrents, and. to use the strong ex- 
 pression of the Latin poet, the night rushed down, black and 
 sudden over the face of the earth. 
 
 The new watch were not by any means the hardy and ex- 
 perienced soldiery, by whom rain and darkness are unheeded, 
 They looked with great dismay upon the character of the night 
 in which their campaign was to commence. The valorous Peter, 
 who had sustained his own courage by repeated applications to 
 a little bottle, which he never failed to carry about him in all 
 the more bustling and enterprising occasions of life, endeavored, 
 but with partial success, to maintain the ardor of his band. 
 Seated in the servants' hall of the manor-house, in a large arm- 
 chair, Jacobina on his knee, and his trusty musket, which, to 
 the great terror of the womankind, had never been uncocked 
 throughout the day, still grasped in his right hand, while the stock 
 was grounded on the floor ; he indulged in martial harangues, 
 plentifully interlarded with plagiarisms from the worship, 
 ful translations of Messrs. Sternhold and Hopkins, and psalm- 
 odic versions of a more doubtful authorship. And when at the 
 hour of ten, which was the appointed time, he led his warlike 
 force, which consisted of six rustics, armed with sticks of in^ 
 credible thickness, three guns, one pistol, a broadsword, and a 
 pitchfork (the last a weapon likely to be more effectively used 
 than all the rest put together) ; when at the hour of ten he led 
 them up to the room above, where they were to be passed in 
 review before the critical eye of the squire, with Jacobina 
 leading the on-guard, you could not fancy a prettier picture 
 for a hero in a little way than mine host of The Spotted Dog. 
 
 His hat was fastened tight on his brow by a blue pocket- 
 handkerchief ; he wore a spencer of a light brown drugget, a 
 world too loose, above a leather jerkin ; his breeches of cordu- 
 roy were met all of a sudden, half-way up the thigh, by a de-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 185 
 
 tachment of Hessians, formerly in the service of the corporal, 
 and bought some time since by Peter Dealtry to wear when 
 employed in shooting snipes for the squire, to whom he occas- 
 ionally performed the office of gamekeeper ; suspended round 
 his wrist by a bit of black riband was his constable's baton ; 
 he shouldered his musket gallantly, and he carried his person 
 as erect as if the least deflection from its perpendicularity were 
 to cost him his life. One may judge of the revolution that 
 had taken place in the village, when so peaceable a man as 
 Peter Dealtry was thus metamorphosed into a commander-in- 
 chief ! The rest of the regiment hung sheepishly back, each 
 trying to get as near to the door, and as far from the ladies, as 
 possible, but Peter having made up his mind that a hero should 
 only look straight forward, did not condescend to turn round 
 to perceive the irregularity of his line. Secure in his own ex- 
 istence, he stood truculently forth, facing the squire, and pre- 
 pared to receive his plaudits. 
 
 Madeline and Aram sat apart at one corner of the hearth, 
 and Ellinor leaned over the chair of the former ; the mirth 
 that she struggled to suppress from being audible mantling over 
 her arch face and laughing eyes, while the squire, taking 
 the pipe from his mouth, turned round on his easy-chair, and 
 nodded complacently to the little corps and the great com- 
 mander. 
 
 "We are all ready now, your honor," said Peter, in a voice 
 that did not seem to belong to his body, so big did it sound, 
 " all hot, all eager." 
 
 "Why, you yourself are a host, Peter," said Ellinor, with af- 
 fected gravity ;" your sight alone would frighten an army of 
 robbers : who could have thought you could assume so military 
 an air ? The corporal himself was never so upright ! " 
 
 " I have practised my present ^attitude all the day, miss," 
 said Peter proudly ; " and I believe I may now say, as Mr. 
 Sternhold says or sings, in the twenty-sixth Psalm, verse twelfth: 
 
 4 My foot is stayed for all essays, 
 
 It standeth well and right ; 
 Wherefore to God will I give praise 
 In all the people's sight ! ' 
 
 Jacobina, behave yourself, child. I don't think, your honor, 
 that we miss the corporal so much as I fancied at first, for we 
 all does very well without him." 
 
 " Indeed, you are a most worthy substitute, Peter. And now 
 Nell, just reach me my hat and cloak : I will set you at youi 
 posts : you will have an ugly night of it."
 
 l86 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 '' Very, indeed, your honor," cried all the army, speaking 
 for the first time. 
 
 " Silence order discipline," said Peter gruffly. " March ! " 
 
 But, instead of marching across the hall, the recruits huddled 
 up one after the other, like a flock of geese, whom Jacobina 
 might be supposed to have set in motion, and each scraping to 
 the ladies, as they shuffled, sneaked, bundled, and bustled out 
 at the door. 
 
 "We are well guarded now, Madeline," said Ellinor. "I 
 fancy we may go to sleep as safely as if there were not a house- 
 breaker in the world." 
 
 " Why," said Madeline, " let us trust they will be more 
 efficient than they seem, though I cannot persuade myself that 
 we shall really need them. One might almost as well conceive 
 a tiger in our arbor as a robber in Grassdale. But dear, dear 
 Eugene, do not, do not leave us this night: Walter's room is 
 ready for you, and if it were only to walk across that valley 
 in such weather, it would be cruel to leave us. Let me be- 
 seech you ; come, you cannot, you dare not refuse me such a 
 favor." 
 
 Aram pleaded his vow, but it was overruled ; Madeline 
 proved herself a most exquisite casuist in setting it aside. One 
 by one his objections were broken down ; and how, as he gazed 
 into those eyes, could he keep any resolution that Madeline 
 wished him to break ? The power she possessed over him 
 seemed exactly in proportion to his impregnability to every 
 one else. The surface on which the diamond cuts its easy way 
 will yield to no more ignoble instrument ; it is easy to shatter 
 it, but by only one pure and precious gem can it be shaped. 
 But if Aram remained at the house this night, how could he 
 well avoid a similar compliance the next? And on the next 
 was his interview with Houseman. This reason for resistance 
 yielded to Madeline's soft entreaties; he trusted to the time 
 to furnish him with excuses ; and when Lester returned, Mad- 
 eline, with a triumphant air, informed him that Aram had con- 
 sented to be their guest for the night. 
 
 " Your influence is indeed greater than mine," said Lester, 
 wringing his hat as the delicate fingers of Ellinor loosened his 
 cloak ; " yet one can scarcely think our friend sacrifices much 
 in concession, after proving the weather without. I should 
 pity our poor patrol most exceedingly if I were not thoroughly 
 assured that within two hours every one of them will have 
 quietly slunk home ; and even Peter himself, when he has ex- 
 hausted his bottle, will be the first to set the example. How-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 187 
 
 <ver, I have stationed two of the men near our house, and the 
 rest at equal distances along the village." 
 
 " Do you really think they will go home, sir? " said Ellinor, 
 in a little alarm ; " why, they would be worse than I thought 
 them, if they were driven to bed by the rain. I knew they 
 could not stand a pistol, but a shower, however hard, I did 
 imagine would scarcely quench their valor." 
 
 " Never mind, girl," said Lester, gaily chucking her under 
 the chin, "we are quite strong enough now to resist them. You 
 see Madeline has grown as brave as a lioness. Come, girls ; 
 come, let's have supper, and stir up the fire. And, Nell, where 
 are my slippers ?" 
 
 And thus on the little family scene, the cheerful wood fire flick- 
 ering against the polished wainscot ; the supper-table arranged, 
 the squire drawing his oak chair toward it, Ellinor mixing his 
 negus ; and Aram and Madeline, though three times summoned 
 to the table, and having three times answered to the summons, 
 still lingering apart by the hearth let us drop the curtain. 
 
 We have only, ere we close our chapter, to observe, that 
 when Lester conducted Aram to his chamber, he placed in his 
 hands an order, payable at the county town, for three hundred 
 pounds. "The rest," he said in a whisper, " is below, where I 
 mentioned ; and there, in my secret drawer, it had better rest 
 till the morning." 
 
 The good squire then, putting his finger to his lip, hurried 
 away, to avoid the thanks ; which, indeed, whatever gratitude 
 he might feel, Aram was ill able to express. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SISTERS ALONE. THE GOSSIP OF LOVE. AN ALARM, AND 
 
 AN EVENT. 
 
 "Juliet. My true love is grown to such excess, 
 I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth." Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 " Eros. Oh, a man in arms ; 
 
 His weapon drawn too ! " The False One. 
 
 IT was a custom with the two sisters, when they repaired to 
 their chamber for the night, to sit conversing, sometimes even 
 for hours, before they finally retired to bed. This, indeed, was 
 :he usual time for their little confidences, and their mutual di-
 
 188 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 lations over those hopes and plans for the future, which al- 
 ways occupy the larger share of the thoughts and conversation 
 of the young. I do not know anything in the world more love- 
 ly than such conferences between two beings who have no se- 
 crets to relate but what arise, all fresh, from the springs of a 
 guileless heart, those pure and beautiful mysteries of an un- 
 sullied nature which warm us to hear ; and we think with a 
 sort of wonder when we feel how arid experience has made 
 ourselves, that so much of the dew and sparkle of existence 
 still lingers in the nooks and valleys, which are as yet virgin of 
 the sun and of mankind. 
 
 The sisters this night were more than commonly indifferent 
 to sleep. Madeline sat by the small but bright hearth of the 
 chamber, in her night-dress, and Ellinor, who was much 
 prouder of her sister's beauty than her own, was employed in 
 knotting up the long and lustrous hair which fell in rich lux- 
 uriance over Madeline's throat and shoulders. 
 
 " There certainly never was such beautiful hair ! " said Elli- 
 nor admiringly. " And, let me see, yes, on Thursday fort- 
 night I may be dressing it, perhaps, for the last time heigho ! " 
 
 " Don't flatter yourself that you are so near the end of your 
 troublesome duties," said Madeline, with her pretty smile, 
 which had been much brighter and more frequent of late than 
 it was formerly wont to be ; so that Lester had remarked, " That 
 Madeline really appeared to have become the lighter and gayer 
 of the two." 
 
 " You will often come to stay with us for weeks together, at 
 least till till you have a double right to be mistress here. 
 Ah ! my poor hair, you need not pull it so hard." 
 
 " Be quiet, then," said Ellinor, half laughing, and wUolly 
 blushing. 
 
 " Trust me, I have not been in love myself without learning 
 its signs ; and I venture to prophesy that within six months 
 you will come to consult me whether or not for there is a 
 great deal to be said on both sides of the question you can 
 make up your mind to sacrifice your own wishes and marry 
 Walter Lester. Ah ! gently, gently ! Nell " 
 
 "Promise to be quiet." 
 
 " I will I will ; but you began it." 
 
 As Ellinor now finished her task, and kissed her sister's 
 forehead, she sighed deeply. 
 
 " Happy Walter ! " said Madeline. 
 
 " I was not sighing for Walter, but for you." 
 
 ''For me ? impossible ! " I cannot imagine any part of my
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 189 
 
 future life that can cost you a sigh. Ah, that I were more 
 worthy of my happiness ! " 
 
 " Well, then," said Ellinor, " I sighed for myself ; I sighed 
 to think we should so soon be parted, and that the continu- 
 ance of your society would then depend, not on our mutual 
 love, but on the will of another." 
 
 " What, Ellinor, and can you suppose that Eugene my Eu- 
 gene would not welcome you as warmly as myself ? Ah ! 
 you misjudge him ; I know you have not yet perceived how 
 tender a heart lies beneath all that melancholy and reserve." 
 
 " I feel, indeed," said Ellinor warmly, " as if it were impos- 
 sible that one whom you love should not be all that is good 
 and noble : yet if this reserve of his should increase, as is at 
 least possible, with increasing years ; if our society should be- 
 come again, as it once was, distasteful to him, should I not lose 
 you, Madeline? " 
 
 " But his reserve cannot increase : do you not perceive how 
 much it is softened already? Ah! be assured that I will 
 charm it away." 
 
 "But what is the cause of the melancholy that even now, at 
 times, evidently preys upon him ? Has he never revealed it to 
 you ? " 
 
 " It is merely the early and long habit of solitude and study, 
 Ellinor," replied Madeline : "and shall I own to you, I would 
 scarcely wish that away ? His tenderness itself seems linked 
 with his melancholy ; it is like a sad but gentle music, that 
 brings tears into our eyes, but who would change it for gayer 
 airs ?" 
 
 "Well, I must own," said Ellinor reluctantly, " that I no 
 longer wonder at your infatuation ; I can no longer chide you 
 as I once did : there is, assuredly, something in his voice, his 
 look, which irresistibly sinks into the heart. And there are 
 moments when, what with his eyes and forehead, his coun- 
 tenance seems more beautiful, more impressive, than any I 
 ever beheld. Perhaps, too, for you, it is better that your lover 
 should be no longer in the first flush of youth. Your nature 
 seems to require something to venerate as well as to love. And 
 I have ever observed at prayers, that you seem more especially 
 rapt and carried beyond yourself, in those passages which call 
 peculiarly for worship and adoration." 
 
 "Yes, dearest," said Madeline fervently, "I own that Eu- 
 gene is of all beings not only of all whom I ever knew but of 
 all whom I everdreamed, or imagined, the one that I am most 
 fitted 10 love and to appreciate. His wisdom, but, more than
 
 190 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 that, the lofty tenor of his mind, calls forth all that is highest 
 and best in my own nature. I feel exalted when I listened to 
 him ; and yet, how gentle, with all that nobleness ! And to 
 think that he should descend to love me, and so to love me ! 
 It is as if a star were to leave its sphere ! " 
 
 " Hark ! one o'clock," said Ellinor, as the deep voice of the 
 clock told the first hour of morning. " Heavens ! how much 
 louder the winds rave ! And how the heavy sleet drives 
 against the window ! Our poor watch without ! but you may 
 be sure my father was right, and they are safe at home by this 
 time ; nor is it likely, I should think, that even robbers would 
 be abroad in such weather ! " 
 
 '' I have heard," said Madeline, " that robbers generally 
 choose these dark, stormy nights for their designs ; but I con- 
 fess I don't feel much alarm, and he is in the house. Draw 
 nearer to the fire, Ellinor ; is it not pleasant to see how serene- 
 ly it burns, while the storm howls without ? It is like my Eu- 
 gene's soul, luminous and lone amidst the roar and darkness 
 of this unquiet world ! " 
 
 "There spoke himself," said Ellinor, smiling to perceive 
 how invariably women who love imitate the tone of the be- 
 loved one. And Madeline felt it, and smiled too. 
 
 " Hist !" said Ellinor abruptly; "did you not hear a low, 
 grating noise below? Ah ! the winds noiv prevent your catch- 
 ing the sound ; but hush, hush ! the wind pauses, there it is 
 again ! " 
 
 "Yes, I hear it," said Madeline, turning pale ; "it seems in 
 the little parlor ; a continued, harsh, but very low, noise. 
 Good heavens ! it seems at the window below." 
 
 "It is like a file," whispered Ellinor ; perhaps 
 
 " You are right," said Madeline, suddenly rising ; " it is a 
 file, and at the bars my father had fixed against the window 
 yesterday. Let us go down and alarm the house." 
 
 "No, no ; for Heaven's sake, don't be so rash," cried Elli- 
 nor, losing all presence of mind : " hark ! the sound ceases, 
 
 there is. a louder noise below, and steps. Let us lock the 
 
 j 
 
 door. 
 
 But Madeline was of that fine and high order of spirit, 
 which rises in proportion to danger, and calming her sister as 
 well as she could, she seized the light with a steady hand, 
 opened the door, and (Ellinor still clinging to her) passed 
 the landing-place, and hastened to her father's room : he slept 
 at the opposite corner of the staircase. Aram's chamber was 
 at the extreme end of the house. Before she reached the door
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 19! 
 
 of Lestei's apartment, the noise below grew loud and distinct 
 a scuffle voices curses and now the sound of a pistol ! 
 in a minute more the whole house was stirring. Lester in his 
 night robe, his broadsword in his hand, and his long gray hair 
 floating behind, was the first to appear : the servants, old and 
 young, male and female, now came thronging simultaneously 
 round ; and in a general body, Lester several paces at their 
 head, his daughters following next to him, they rushed to the 
 apartment whence the noise, now suddenly stilled, had pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 The window was opened, evidently by force : an instrument 
 like a wedge was fixed in the bureau containing Lester's mon- 
 ey, and seemed to have been left there, as if the person using 
 it had been disturbed before the design for which it was intro- 
 duced had been accomplished, and (the only evidence of life) 
 Aram stood, dressed, in the centre of the room, a pistol in his 
 left hand, a sword in his right ; a bludgeon severed in two lay 
 at his feet, and on the floor within two yards of him, toward 
 the window, drops of blood yet warm showed that the pistol had 
 not been discharged in vain. 
 
 " And is it you, my brave friend, whom I have to thank for 
 our safety ? " cried Lester, in great emotion. 
 
 "You, Eugene ! " repeated Madeline, sinking on his breast. 
 
 " But thanks hereafter," continued Lester ; " let us now to 
 the pursuit, perhaps the villain may have perished beneath 
 your bullet ! " 
 
 " Ha !" muttered Aram, who had hitherto seemed uncon- 
 scious of all around him; so fixed had been his eye, so color- 
 less his cheek, so motionless his posture. . " Ha ! say you so? 
 think you I have slain him ? No ! it cannot be the ball did 
 not slay; I saw. him stagger; but he rallied not so one who 
 receives a mortal wound ? Ha ! h ! a ! there is blood, you say : 
 that is true ; but what then ? it is not the first wound that 
 kills ; you must strike again. Pooh, pooh ! what is a little 
 blood ? " 
 
 While he was thus muttering, Lester and the more active of 
 the servants had already sallied through the window ; but the 
 night was so intensely dark that they could not see a step be- 
 yond them. Lester returned, therefore, in a few moments, 
 and met Aram's dark eye fixed upon him with an unutterable 
 expression of anxiety. 
 
 "You have found no one?" said he, "no dying- man? 
 Ha ? well well well ! they must both have escaped ; the 
 Tvight must favor them."
 
 192 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Do you fancy the villain was severely wounded ? " 
 
 " Not so I trust not so ; he seemed able to But stop 
 oh God ! stop ! your foot is dabbling in blood blood shed 
 by me, off ! off ! " 
 
 Lester moved aside with a quick abhorrence, as he saw that 
 his feet were indeed smearing the blood over the polished and 
 slippery surface of the oak boards, and in moving he stumbled 
 against a dark lantern in which the light still burned, and 
 which the robbers in their flight had left. 
 
 " Yes," said Aram, observing it, " it was by that, their own 
 light, that I saw them saw their faces and and (bursting 
 into a loud, wild laugh) they were both strangers ! " 
 
 " Ah , I thought so, I knew so," said Lester, plucking the 
 instrument from the bureau. " I know they could be no 
 Grassdale men. What did you fancy they could be ? But 
 bless me, Madeline what ho ! help ! Aram, she has fainted at 
 your feet ! " 
 
 And it was indeed true and remarkable that so utter had 
 been the absorption of Aram's mind, that he had been not 
 only insensible to the entrance of Madeline, but even uncon- 
 scious that she had thrown herself on his breast. And she, 
 overcome by her feelings, had slid to the ground from that 
 momentary resting-place, in a swoon which Lester, in the 
 general tumult and confusion, was now the first to perceive. 
 
 At this exclamation, at the sound of Madeline's name, the 
 blood rushed back from Aram's heart, where it had gathered, icy 
 and curdling ; and, awakened thoroughly and at once to him- 
 self, he knelt down, and weaving his arms around her, sup- 
 ported her head on his breast, and called upon her with the 
 most passionate and moving exclamations. 
 
 But when the faint bloom retinged her cheek, and her lips 
 stirred, he printed a long kiss on that cheek on those lips, 
 and surrendered his post to Ellinor ; who blushingly gathering 
 the robe over the beautiful breast from which it had been 
 slightly drawn, now entreated all, save the women of the 
 house, to withdraw till her sister was restored. 
 
 Lester, eager to hear what his guest could relate, therefore 
 took Aram to his own apartment, where the particulars were 
 briefly told. 
 
 Suspecting, which indeed was the chief reason that excused 
 him to himself in yielding to Madeline's request, that the 
 men Lester and himself had encountered in their evening walk 
 might be other than they seemed, and that they might have 
 well overheard Lester's communication as to the sum in his
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 193 
 
 house, and the place where it was stored he had not undressed 
 himself, but kept the door of his room open to listen if any- 
 thing stirred. The keen sense of hearing, which we have 
 before remarked him to possess, enabled him to catch the sound 
 of the file at the bars, even before Ellinor, notwithstanding the 
 distance of his own chamber from the place, and seizing the 
 sword which had been left in his room (the pistol was his own), 
 he had descended to the room below. 
 
 "What ! " said Lester, "and without a light?" 
 
 " The darkness is familiar to me," said Aram. " I could walk 
 by the edge of a precipice in the darkest night without one 
 false step, if I had but once passed it before. I did not gain 
 the room, however, till the window had been forced ; and by 
 the light of a dark lantern which one of them held, I perceived 
 two men standing by the bureau ; the rest you can imagine ; 
 mv victory was easy, for the bludgeon, which one of them 
 aimed at me, gave way at once to the edge of your good sword, 
 and my pistol delivered me of the other. There ends the 
 history." 
 
 Lester overwhelmed him with thanks and praises, but Aram, 
 glad to escape them, hurried away to see after Madeline, whom 
 he now met on the landing-place, leaning on Ellinor's arm, and 
 still pale. 
 
 She gave him her hand, which he for one moment pressed 
 passionately to his lips, but dropped the next, with an altered 
 and chilled air. And hastily observing that he would not now 
 detain her from a rest which she must so much require, he 
 turned away and descended the stairs. Some of the servants 
 were grouped around the place of enu^unter ; he entered the 
 room, and again started at the sight of the blood. 
 
 "Bring water," said he fiercely : "will you let the stagnant 
 gore ooze and rot into the boards, to startle the eye and still 
 the heart with its filthy and unutterable stain ? Water, I say ! 
 water ! " 
 
 They hurried to obey him, and Lester coming into the room 
 to see the window reclosed by the help of boards, etc., found 
 the student bending over the the servants as they performed 
 their reluctant task, and rating them with a raised and harsh 
 voice for the hastiness with which he accused chem of seeking 
 to slur it over.
 
 194 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ARAM ALONE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. HIS SOLILOQUY AND 
 PROJECT. SCENE BETWEEN HIMSELF AND MADELINE. 
 
 " Luce non grata fruor ; 
 Trepidante semper corde, nan mortis metu 
 Sed*. . . ." SENECA; Oc tavia, Act i. 
 
 THE two men-servants of the house remained up the rest of 
 the night ; but it was not till the morning had advanced far 
 beyond the usual time of rising in the fresh shades of Grass- 
 dale, that Madeline and Ellinor became visible; even Lester 
 left his bed an hour later than his wont ; and' knocking at 
 Aram's door, found the student was already abroad, while it was 
 evident that his bed had not been pressed during the whole of 
 the night. Lester descended into the garden, and was there 
 met by Peter Dealtry and a detachment of the band ; who, as 
 common sense and Lester had predicted, were indeed, at a very 
 early period of the watch, driven to their respective homes. 
 They were now seriously concerned for their unmanliness, 
 which they passed off as well as they could upon their convic- 
 tion " that nobody at Grassdale could ever really be robbed"; 
 and promised, with sincere contrition, that they would be most 
 excellent, guards for the future. Peter was, in sooth, singularly 
 chop-fallen, and could only defend himself by an incoherent 
 mutter ; from which the squire turned somewhat impatiently 
 when he heard, louder than the rest, the words "seventy-seventh 
 psalm, seventeenth verse, 
 
 " The clouds that were both thick and black. 
 Did rain full plenteously." 
 
 Leaving the squire to the edification of the pious host, let us 
 follow the steps of Aram, who at the early dawn had quitted 
 his sleepless chamber, and though the clouds at that time still 
 poured down in a dull and heavy sleet, wandered away, whither 
 he neither knew nor heeded. He was now hurrying, with 
 unabated speed, though with no purposed bourne or object, 
 over the chain of mountains that backed the green and lovely 
 valleys among which his home was cast. 
 
 "Yes!" said he, at last, halting abruptly, with a desperate 
 resolution stamped on his countenance, " yes ! I will so deter- 
 mine. If, after this interview, I feel that I cannot command 
 and bind Houseman's perpetual secrecy, I will surrender 
 
 * I live a life of wretchedness : my heart perpetually trembling, not through fear o( 
 death, but
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 195 
 
 Madeline at once. She has loved me generously and trustingly. 
 I will not link her life with one that may be called hence in 
 any hour,, and to so dread an account. Neither shall the gray 
 hairs of Lester be brought, with the sorrow of my shame, to a 
 dishonored and untimely grave. And after the outrage of last 
 night, the daring outrage, how- can I calculate on the safety of 
 a day ? Though Houseman was not present, though I can 
 scarce believe he knew or at least abetted the attack, yet they 
 were assuredly of his gang : had one been seized, the clue 
 might have traced to his detection ; were he detected, what 
 should I have to dread ? No, Madeline ! no ; not while this 
 sword hangs over me will I subject thee to share the horror of 
 my fate ! " 
 
 This resolution, which was certainly generous, and yet no 
 more than honest, Aram had no sooner arrived at, than he 
 dismissed, at once, by one of those efforts which powerful 
 minds can command, all the weak and vacillating thoughts 
 that might interfere with the sternness of his determination. 
 He seemed to breathe more freely, and the haggard wanness 
 of his brow relaxed at least from the workings that, but the 
 moment before, distorted its wonted serenity with a maniac 
 wildness. 
 
 He now pursued his desultory way with a calmer step. 
 
 "What a night ! " said he, again breaking into the low mur- 
 mur in which he was accustomed to hold commune with him- 
 self. "Had Houseman been one of the ruffians a shot might 
 have freed me, and without a crime, forever ; and till the light 
 flashed on their brows, I thought the smaller man bore his 
 aspect. Ha ! out, tempting thought ! out on thee ! " he cried 
 aloud, and stamping with his foot ; then recalled by his own 
 vehemence, he cast a jealous and hurried glance round him, 
 though at that moment his step was on the very height of the 
 mountains, where not even the solitary shepherd, save in search 
 of some more daring straggler of the flock, ever brushed the 
 clew from the cragged, yet fragrant soil. " Yet," he said, in a 
 lower voice, and again sinking into the sombre depths of his 
 revery, " it is a. tempting, a wondrously tempting thought. 
 And it struck athwart me like a flash of lightning when this 
 hand was at his throat a tighter strain, another moment, and 
 Eugene Aram had not had an enemy, a witness against him left 
 in the world. Ha ! are the dead no foes then ? are the dead 
 no witnesses ? " Here he relapsed into utter silence, but his 
 gestures continued wild, and his eyes wandered round, with a 
 bloodshot and unquiet glare. " Enough," at length he said
 
 Ig6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 calmly, and with the manner of one 'who has rolled a stone 
 from his heart';* "Enough! I will not so sully myself, 
 unless all other hope of self-preservation be extinct. And why 
 despond ? the plan I have thought of seems well-laid, wise, 
 consummate at all points. Let me consider forfeited the 
 moment he re-enters England 'not given till he has left it 
 paid periodically, and of such extent as to supply his wants, 
 preserve him from crime, and forbid the possibility of extort- 
 ing more : all this sounds well ; and if not feasible at last, why 
 farewell Madeline, and I myself leave this land forever. Come 
 what will to me death in its vilest shape let not the stroke 
 fall on that breast. And if it be," he continued, his face light- 
 ing up, "if it be, as it may yet, that I can chain this hell-hound, 
 why, even then, the instant that Madeline is mine I will fly 
 these scenes ; I will seek a yet obscurer and remoter corner of 
 earth : I will choose another name. Fool ! why did I not so 
 before ? But matters it ? What is writ is writ. Who can 
 struggle with the invisible and giant hand that launched the 
 world itself into motion, and at whose pre-decree we hold the 
 dark boons of life and death ?" 
 
 It was not till evening that Aram, utterly worn out and 
 exhausted, found himself in the neighborhood of Lester's 
 house. The sun had only broken forth at its setting, and it 
 now glittered, from its western pyre, over the dripping hedges, 
 and spread a brief but magic glow along the rich landscape 
 around ; the changing woods clad in the thousand dyes of 
 autumn ; the scattered and peaceful cottages, with their long 
 wreaths of smoke curling upward, and the gray and venerable 
 walls of the manor-house, with the church hard by, and the 
 delicate spire, which, mixing itself with heaven, is at once the 
 most touching and solemn emblem of the faith to which it is 
 devoted. It was a Sabbath eve ; and from the spot on which 
 Aram stood, he might discern many a rustic train trooping 
 slowly up the green village lane toward the church ; and the 
 deep bell which summoned to the last service of the day now 
 swung its voice far over the sunlit and tranquil scene. 
 
 But it was not the setting sun, nor the autumnal landscape, 
 nor the voice of the holy bell, that now arrested the step of 
 Aram. At a little distance before him, leaning over a gate, 
 and seemingly waiting till the ceasing of the bell should an- 
 nounce the time to enter the sacred mansion, he beheld the 
 figure of Madeline Lester. Her head, at the moment, was 
 averted from him, as if she were looking after Ellinor and her 
 
 * Eastern saying.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. Ip7 
 
 uncle, who were in the churchyard among a little group of 
 their homely neighbors ; and he was half in doubt whether to 
 shun her presence, when she suddenly turned round, and, seeing 
 him, uttered an exclamation of joy. It was now too late for 
 avoidance ; and calling to his aid that mastery over his fea- 
 tures which, in ordinary times, few more eminently possessed, 
 he approached his beautiful mistress with a smile as serene, if 
 not as glowing, as her own. But she had already opened the 
 gate, and, bounding forward, met him half-way. 
 
 "Ah, truant, truant," said she; "the whole day absent, 
 without inquiry or farewell ! After this, when shall I believe 
 that thou really lovest me?" 
 
 " But," continued Madeline, gazing on his countenance, 
 which bore witness, in its present languor, to the fierce emo- 
 tions which had lately raged within, " but heavens ! dearest, 
 how pale you look ; you are fatigued ; give me your hand, 
 Eugene, it is parched and dry. Come into the house ; you 
 must need rest and refreshment." 
 
 " I am better here, my Madeline, the air and the sun re- 
 vive me : let us rest by the stile yonder. But you were going 
 to church, and the bell has ceased." 
 
 "I could attend, I fear, little to the prayers now," said 
 Madeline, " unless you feel well enough, and will come to 
 church with me." 
 
 " To church ! " said Aram, with a half shudder. " No ; my 
 thoughts are in no mood for prayer." 
 
 " Then you shall give your thoughts to me, and I, in return, 
 will pray for you before I rest." 
 
 And so saying, Madeline, with her usual innocent frankness 
 of manner, wound her arm in his, and they walked onward 
 towards the stile Aram had pointed out. It was a little rustic 
 stile, with chestnut-trees hanging over it on either side. It 
 stands to this day, and I have pleased myself with finding 
 Walter Lester's initials, and Madeline's also, with the date of 
 the year, carved in half-worn letters on the wood, probably by 
 the hand of the former. 
 
 They now rested ac this spot. All around them was still 
 and solitary ; the group? of peasants had entered the church, 
 and nothing of life, save the cattle grazing in the distant fields, 
 or the thrush starting from the wet bushes, was visible. The 
 winds were lulled to rest, and, though somewhat of the chill of 
 autumn floated on the air, it only bore a balm to the harassed 
 brow and fevered veins of the student ; and Madeline ! she 
 felt nothing but his presence. It was exactly what we picture
 
 198 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 to ourselves of a Sabbath eve, unutterably serene and soft, and 
 borrowing from the very melancholy of the declining year an 
 impressive yet a mild solemnity. 
 
 There are seasons, often in the most dark or turbulent peri- 
 ods of our life, when (why, we know not) we are suddenly 
 called from ourselves, by the remembrances of early childhood : 
 something touches the electric chain, and, lo ! a host of shad- 
 owy and sweet recollections steal upon us. The wheel rests, 
 the oar i? suspended, we are snatched from the labor and trav- 
 ail of the present life ; we are born again, and live anew. 
 As the secret page in which the characters once written seem 
 forever effaced, but which, if breathed upon, gives them again 
 into view : so the memory can revive the images invisible for 
 years ; but while we gaze, the breath recedes from the surface, 
 and all one moment so vivid, with the next moment has be- 
 come once more a blank ! 
 
 "It is singular," said Aram, "but often as I have paused at 
 this spot, and gazed upon this landscape, a likeness to the 
 scenes of my childish life, which it novy seems to me to pre- 
 sent, never occurred to me before. Yes, yonder, in that cot- 
 tage, with the sycamores in front, and the orchard extending 
 behind, till its boundary, as it now stands, seems lost among 
 the woodland, I could fancy that I looked upon my father's 
 home. The clump of trees that lies yonder to the right could 
 cheat me readily to the belief that I saw the little grove, in 
 which, enamoured with the first passion of study, I was wont 
 to pore over the thrice-read book through the long summer 
 days ; a boy a thoughtful boy ; yet, oh, how happy ! What 
 worlds appeared then to me to open in every page ! how ex- 
 haustless I thought the treasures and the hopes of life ! and 
 beautiful on the mountain tops seemed to me the steps of 
 Knowledge ! I did not dream of all that the musing and lone- 
 ly passion that I nursed was to entail upon me. There, in the 
 clefts of the valley, on the ridges of the hills, or by the fra- 
 grant course of the stream, I began already to win its history 
 from the herb or flower ; I saw nothing, that I did not long to 
 unravel its secrets ; all that the earth nourished ministered to 
 one desire : and what of low or sordid did there mingle with 
 that desire? The petty avarice, the mean ambition, the de- 
 basing love, even the heat, the anger, the fickleness, the caprice 
 of other men, did they allure or bow down my nature from its 
 steep and solitary eyrie ? I lived but to feed my mind ; wis- 
 dom was my thirst, my dream, my aliment, my sole fount and 
 sustenance of life. And have I not sown the wind and reaped
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 199 
 
 the whirlwind ? The glory of my youth is gone, my veins are 
 chilled, my frame is bowed, my heat is gnawed with cares, my 
 nerves are unstrung as a loosened bow : and what, after all, is 
 my gain ? Oh, God ! what is my gain ?" 
 
 ." Eugene, dear, dear Eugene ! " murmured Madeline sooth- 
 ingly, and wrestling with her tears, " is not your gain great? is 
 it not triumph that you stand, while yet young, almost alone in 
 the world, for success in all that you have attempted?" 
 
 " And what," exclaimed Aram, breaking in upon her, " what 
 is this world which we ransack but a stupendous charnel-house? 
 Everything that we deem most lovely, ask its origin ? Decay ! 
 When we rifle nature, and collect wisdom, are we not like the 
 hags of old, culling simples from the rank grave, and extracting 
 sorceries from the rotting bones of the dead ? Everything 
 around us is fathered by corruption, battened by corruption, 
 and into corruption returns at last. Corruption is at once the 
 womb and grave of Nature, and the very beauty on which we 
 gaze, the cloud, and the tree, and the swarming waters, all 
 are one vast panorama of death ! But it did not always seem 
 to me thus ; and even now I speak with a heated pulse and a 
 dizzy brain. Come, Madeline, let us change the theme." 
 
 And dismissing at once from his language, and perhaps, as 
 he proceeded, also from his mind, all of its former gloom, ex- 
 cept such as might shade, but not embitter, the natural tender- 
 ness of remembrance, Aram now related, with that vividness 
 of diction which, though we feel we can very inadequately 
 convey its effect, characterized his conversation, and gave 
 something of poetic interest to all he uttered, those reminis- 
 cences which belong to childhood, and which all of us take de- 
 light to hear from the lips of one we love. 
 
 It was while on this theme that the lights which the deepen- 
 ing twilight had now made necessary became visible in the 
 church, streaming afar through its large oriel window, and 
 brightening the dark^rs that overshadowed the graves around : 
 and just at that moment the organ (a gift from a rich rector, 
 and the boast of the neighboring country), stole upon the si- 
 lence with its swelling and solemn note. There was something 
 in the strain of this sudden music that was so kindred with the 
 holy repose of the scene, chimed so exactly to the chord now 
 vibrating in Aram's mind, that it struck upon him at once with 
 an irresistible power. He paused abruptly "as if an angel 
 spoke ! " That sound, so peculiarly adapted to express sacred 
 and unearthly emotion, none who have ever mourned or sinned 
 can hear, at an unlooked-for moment, without a certain senti-
 
 200 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 ment that either subdues, or elevates, or awes. But he, he 
 was a boy once more ! he was again in the village church of 
 his native place : his father, with his silver hair, stood again 
 beside him ; there was his mother, pointing to him the holy 
 verse ; there the half-arch, half-reverent face of his little sister 
 (she died young !), there the upward eye and hushed counte- 
 nance ofjthe preacher who had first raised his mind to knowl- 
 edge, and supplied its food, all, all lived, moved, breathed, 
 again before him, all, as when he was young and guiltless, and 
 at peace ; hope and the future one word ! 
 
 He bowed his head lower and lower ; the hardness and hy- 
 pocrisies of pride, the sense of danger and of horror, that, in 
 agitating, still supported, the mind of this resolute and schem- 
 ing man, at once forsook him. Madeline felt his tears drop 
 fast and burning on her hand, and the next moment, overcome 
 by the relief it afforded to a heart preyed upon by fiery and 
 dread secrets, which it could not reveal, and a frame exhausted 
 by the long and extreme tension of all its powers, he laid his 
 head upon that faithful bosom, and wept aloud. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ARAM'S SECRET EXPEDITION. A SCENE WORTHY THE ACTORS. 
 ARAM'S ADDRESS AND POWERS OF PERSUASION OR HYPOCRI- 
 SY. THEIR RESULT. A FEARFUL NIGHT. ARAM'S SOLI- 
 TARY RIDE HOMEWARD. WHOM HE MEETS BY THE WAY, 
 AND WHAT HE SEES. 
 
 " Macbeth. Now o'er the one half world 
 Nature seems dead. 
 
 * * * * 
 Donalbain. Our separated fortune 
 
 Shall keep us both the safer. : 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Old Man. Hours dreadful, and things strange. " Macbeth. 
 
 " AND you must really go to to pay your importunate 
 
 creditor this very evening ? Sunday is a bad day for such 
 matters: but as you pay him by an order, it does not much 
 signify ; and I can well understand your impatience to feel re- 
 lieved from the debt. But it is already late ; and if it must 
 be so, you had better start." 
 
 " True," said Aram, to the above remark of Lester's, as the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 2Oi 
 
 two stood together without the door ; " but do you feel quite 
 secure and guarded against any renewed attack ? " 
 
 " Why, unless they bring a regiment, yes ! I have put a 
 body of our patrol on a service where they can scarce be inef- 
 ficient, viz., I have stationed them in the house instead of with- 
 out ; and I shall myself bear them company through the great- 
 er part of the night : to-morrow I shall remove all that I pos- 
 sess of value to (the county town), including those unlucky 
 
 guineas, which you will not ease me of." 
 
 " The order you have kindly given me will amply satisfy my 
 purpose," answered Aram. " And so there has been no clue 
 to these robbers discovered throughout the day ? " 
 
 " None : to-morrow, the magistrates are to meet at 
 
 and concert measures : it is absolutely impossible but that we 
 should detect the villains in a few days, viz., if they remain in 
 these parts. I hope to heaven you will not meet them this 
 evening." 
 
 " I shall go well armed," answered Aram, "and the horse you 
 lend me is fleet and strong. And now farewell for the present. 
 I shall probably not return to Grassdale this night, or if I do, 
 it will be at so late an hour, that I shall seek my own domicile 
 without disturbing you." 
 
 " No, no ; you had better remain in the town, and not return 
 till morning," said the squire. " And now let us come to the 
 stables." 
 
 To obviate all chance of suspicion as to the real place of his 
 destination, Aram deliberately rode to the town he had men- 
 tioned, as the one in which his pretended creditor expected 
 him. He put up at an inn, walked forth as if to visit some one 
 in the town, returned, remounted, and by a circuitous route 
 came into the neighborhood of the place in which he was to 
 meet Houseman : then turning into a long and dense chain of 
 wood, he fastened his horse to a tree, and looking to the prim- 
 ing of his pistols, which he carried under his riding-cloak, pro- 
 ceeded to the spot on foot. 
 
 The night was still, and not wholly dark ; for the clouds lay 
 scattered though dense, and suffered many stars to gleam 
 through the heavy air ; the moon herself was abroad, but on 
 her decline, and looked forth with a wan and saddened aspect 
 as she travelled from cloud to cloud. It has been the neces- 
 sary course of our narrative, to portray Aram more often in his 
 weaker moments than, to give an exact notion of his character, 
 we could have altogether wished ; but whenever he stood in 
 the actual presence of danger, his whole soul was in arms to
 
 202 EUGENE AkAM. 
 
 cope with it worthily : courage, sagacity, even cunning, all 
 awakened to the encounter ; and the mind which his life had 
 so austerely cultivated repaid him in the urgent season with its 
 acute address and unswerving hardihood. The Devil's Crag, 
 as it was popularly called, was a spot consecrated by many a 
 wild tradition, which would not, perhaps, be wholly out of 
 character with the dark thread of this tale, did the rapidity of 
 our narrative allow us to relate them. 
 
 The same stream which lent so soft an attraction to the val- 
 leys of Grassdale here assumed a different character ; broad, 
 black, and rushing, it whirled along a course overhung by 
 shagged and abrupt banks. On the opposite side to that by 
 which Aram now pursued his path, an almost perpendicular 
 mountain was covered with gigantic pine and fir, that might 
 have reminded a German wanderer of the darkest recesses of 
 the Hartz ; and seemed, indeed, no unworthy haunt for the 
 weird huntsman or the forest fiend. Over this wood the moon 
 now shimmered, with the pale and feeble light we have already 
 described ; and only threw into a more sombre shade the 
 vrjotionless and gloomy foliage. Of all the offspring of the 
 .forest, the fir bears, perhaps, the most saddening and desolate 
 aspect. Its long branches, without absolute leaf or blossom ; 
 its dead, dark, eternal hue, which the winter seems to wither 
 not, nor the spring to revive, have I know not what of a mystic 
 and unnatural life. Around all woodland, there is that horror 
 umbrarum* which becomes more solemn and awful amidst the 
 silence and depth of night : but this is yet more especially the 
 characteristic of that sullen evergreen. Perhaps, too, this ef- 
 fect is increased by the sterile and dreary soil on which, when 
 in groves, it is generally found ; and its very hardiness, the very 
 pertinacity with which it draws its strange, unfluctuating life 
 from the sternest wastes and most reluctant strata, enhance, 
 unconsciously, the unwelcome effect it is calculated to create 
 upon the mind. At this place, too, the waters that dashed be- 
 neath gave yet additional wildness to the rank verdure of the 
 wood, and contributed, by their rushing darkness partially 
 broken by the stars, and the hoarse roar of their chafed course, 
 a yet more grim and savage sublimity to the scene. 
 
 Winding a narrow path (for the whole country was as famil- 
 iar as a garden to his footstep), that led through the tall wet 
 herbage, almost along the perilous brink of the stream, Aram 
 was now aware, by the increased and deafening sound of the 
 waters, that the appointed spot was nearly gained ; and presently 
 
 * Shadowy horror.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 203 
 
 the glimmering and imperfect light of the skies revealed the 
 dim shape of a gigantic rock, that rose abruptly from the middle 
 of the stream ; and which, rude, barren, vast, as it really was, 
 seemed now, by the uncertainty of night, like some monstrous 
 and deformed creature of the waters suddenly emerging from 
 their vexed and dreary depths. This was the far-famed Crag, 
 which had borrowed from tradition its evil and ominous name. 
 And now, the stream, bending round with a broad and sudden 
 swoop, showed at a little distance, ghostly and indistinct through 
 the darkness, the mighty Waterfall, whose roar had been his 
 guide. Only in one streak a-dovvn the giant cataract the stars 
 were reflected ; and this long train of broken light glittered 
 preternaturally forth through the rugged crags and sombre 
 verdure, that wrapped either side of the waterfall in utter and 
 rayless gloom. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the forlorn and terrific grandeur of 
 the spot ; the roar of the waters supplied to the ear what the 
 night forbade to the eye. Incessant and eternal they thundered 
 down into the gulf; and then shooting over that fearful basin, 
 and forming another, but a mimic fall, dashed on, till they were 
 opposed by the sullen and abrupt crag below ; and besieging 
 its base with a renewed roar, sent their foamy and angry spray 
 half-way up the hoar ascent. 
 
 At this stern and dreary spot, well suited for such conferences 
 as Aram and Houseman alone could hold ; and which, what- 
 ever was the original secret that linked the two men thus 
 strangely, seemed of necessity to partake of a desperate and 
 lawless character, with danger for its main topic, and death 
 itself for its coloring, Aram now paused, and with an eye 
 accustomed to the darkness, looked around for his com- 
 panion. 
 
 He did not wait long : from the profound shadow that girded 
 the space immediately around the fall, Houseman emerged and 
 joined the student. The stunning noise of the cataract in the 
 place where they met forbade any attempt to converse ; and 
 they walked on by the course of the stream, to gain a spot less 
 in reach of the deafening shout of the mountain giant as he 
 rushed with his banded waters upon the valley like a foe. 
 
 It was noticeable that, as they proceeded, Aram walked on 
 with an unsuspicious and careless demeanor; but Houseman, 
 pointing out the way with his hand, not leading it, kept a little 
 behind Aram, and watched his motions with a vigilant and 
 wary eye. The student, who had diverged from the path at 
 Houseman's direction, now paused at a place where the matted
 
 264 EUGENE 
 
 bushes seemed to forbid any farther progress ; and said, foi 
 the first time breaking the silence, " We cannot proceed ; shall 
 this be the place of our conference? " 
 
 "No," said Houseman, "we had better pierce the bushes. 
 I know the way, but will not lead it." 
 
 " And wherefore? " 
 
 " The mark of your gripe is still on my throat," replied 
 Houseman significantly : " you know as well as I, that it is 
 not always safe to have a friend lagging behind." 
 
 " Let us rest here, then," said Aram calmly, the darkness 
 veiling any alteration of his countenance, which his comrade's 
 suspicion might have created. 
 
 " Yet it were much better," said Houseman doubtingly, 
 " could we gain the cave below." 
 
 "The cave!" said Aram, starting, as if the word had a 
 sound of fear. 
 
 " Ay, ay : but not St. Robert's," said Houseman ; and the 
 grin of his teeth was visible through the dulness of the shade. 
 " But come, give me your hand, and I will venture to conduct 
 you through the thicket : that is your left hand," observed 
 Houseman, with a sharp and angry suspicion in his tone ; 
 "give me the right." 
 
 "As you will," said Aram, in a subdued, yet meaning voice, 
 that seemed to come from his heart ; and thrilled, for an in- 
 stant, to the bones of him who heard it ; "as you will ; but for 
 fourteen years I have not given this right hand, in pledge of 
 fellowship, to living man ; you alone deserve the courtesy 
 there ! " 
 
 Houseman hesitated before he took the hand now extended 
 to him. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said he, as if indignant at himself ; " what scru- 
 ples at a shadow ! Come" (grasping the hand) " that's well 
 so, so : now we are in the thicket tread firm this way 
 hold," continued Houseman under his breath, as suspicion 
 anew seemed to cross him ; " hold ! we can see each other's 
 face not even dimly now : but in this hand, my right is free, I 
 have a knife that has done good service ere this ; and if I do 
 but suspect that you are about to play me false, I bury it in 
 your hearc. Do you heed me ? " 
 
 " Fool ! " said Aram scornfully, " I should dread you dead 
 yet more than living." 
 
 Houseman made no answer ; but continued to grope on 
 through the path in the thicket, which he evidently knew well ; 
 though even in daylight, so thick were the trees, and so artfully
 
 EtfGENE ARAM. 2O$ 
 
 had their boughs been left to cover the track, no path could 
 have been discovered by one unacquainted with the clue. 
 
 They had now walked on for some minutes, and of late their 
 steps had been threading a rugged and somewhat precipitous 
 descent : all this while, the pulse of the hand Houseman held 
 beat with as steadfast and calm a throb, as in the most quiet 
 mood of learned meditation ; although Aram could not but be 
 conscious that a mere accident, a slip of the foot, an entangle- 
 ment in the briars, might awaken the irritable fears of his ruf- 
 fian comrade, and bring the knife to his breast. But this was 
 not that form of death that could shake the nerves of Aram ; 
 nor, though arming his whole soul to ward off one danger, was 
 he well sensible of another, that might have seemed equally 
 near and probable, to a less collected and energetic nature. 
 Houseman now halted, again put aside the boughs, proceeded 
 a few steps, and by a certain dampness and oppression in the 
 air, Aram rightly conjectured himself in the cavern Houseman 
 had spoken of. 
 
 " We are landed now," said Houseman : " but wait, I will 
 strike a light. I do not love darkness, even with another sort 
 of companion than the one I have now the honor to entertain ! " 
 
 In a few moments a light was produced, and placed aloft on 
 a crag in the cavern ; but the ray it gave was feeble and dull, 
 and left all, beyond the immediate spot in which they stood, in 
 a darkness little less Cimmerian than before. 
 
 " 'Fore Gad, it is cold," said Houseman, shivering ; " but I 
 have taken care, you see, to provide for a friend's comfort." 
 So saying, he approached a bundle of dry sticks and leaves, 
 piled at one corner of the cave, applied the light to the fuel, 
 and presently the fire rose crackling, breaking into a thousand 
 sparks, and freeing itself gradually from the clouds of smoke in 
 which it was enveloped. It now mounted into a ruddy and 
 cheering flame, and the warm glow played picturesquely upon 
 the gray sides of the cavern, which was of a rugged shape, and 
 small dimensions, and cast its reddening light over the forms 
 of the two men. 
 
 Houseman stood close to the flame, spreading his hands over 
 it, and a sort of grim complacency stealing along features sin- 
 gularly ill favored, and sinister in their expression, as he felt 
 the animal luxury of the warmth. 
 
 Across his middle was a broad leathern belt, containing a 
 brace of large horse-pistols, and the knife, or rather dagger, 
 with which he had menaced Aram an instrument sharpened 
 on both sides, and nearly a foot in length. Altogether, wha,{
 
 06 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 with his muscular breadth of figure, his hard and rugged 
 features, his weapons, and a certain reckless, bravo air which 
 indescribably marked his attitude and bearing, it was not well 
 possible to imagine a fitter habitant for that grim cave, or one 
 from whom men of peace, like Eugene Aram, might have 
 seemed to derive more reasonable cause of alarm. 
 
 The scholar stood at a liltle distance, waiting till his com- 
 panion was entirely prepared for the conference, and his pale 
 and lofty features hushed in their usual deep, but at such a 
 moment almost preternatural, repose. He stood leaning with 
 folded arms against the rude wall ; the light reflected upon his 
 dark garments, with the graceful liding-cloak of the day half- 
 falling from his shoulder, and revealing also the pistols in his 
 belt, and the sword which, though commonly worn at that time 
 by all pretending to superiority above the lower and trading 
 orders, Aram usually waived as a distinction, but now carried 
 as a defence. And nothing could be more striking than the 
 contrast between the ruffian form of his companion and the 
 delicate and chiselled beauty of the student's features, with 
 their air of mournful intelligence and serene command, and the 
 slender though nervous symmetry of his frame. 
 
 " Houseman," said Aram, now advancing, as his comrade 
 turned his face from the flame toward him ; " before we enter 
 6n the main subject of our proposed commune, tell me, were 
 you engaged in the attempt last night upon Lester's house ? " 
 
 " By the fiend, no ! " answered Houseman ; "nor did I learn 
 it till this morning : it was unpremeditated till within a few 
 hours of the time, by the two fools who alone planned it. The 
 fact is, that I myself and the greater part of our little band, 
 were engaged some miles off, in the western part of the county. 
 Two our general spies had been, of their own accord, into 
 your neighborhood, to reconnoitre. They marked Lester's 
 house during the day, and gathered from unsuspected inquiry 
 in the village, for they were dressed as mere country clowns, 
 several particulars which induced them to think the house con- 
 tained what might repay the trouble of breaking into it. And 
 walking along the fields they overheard the good master of the 
 house tell on.e of his neighbors of a large sum at home ; nay, 
 even describe the place where it was kept : that determined 
 them ; they feared that the sum might be removed the next 
 day ; they had noted the house sufficiently to profit by the 
 description given : they determined, then, of themselves, for it 
 was too late to reckon on our assistance, to break into the room 
 in which the money was kept though from the aroused vigil-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 20? 
 
 ance of the frightened hamlet and the force within the house, 
 they resolved to attempt no further booty. They reckoned on 
 the violence of the storm, and the darkness of the night, to 
 prevent their being heard or seen : they were mistaken ; the 
 house was alarmed, they were no sooner in the luckless room, 
 than " 
 
 " Well, I know the rest. Was the one wounded dangerously 
 hurt ?" 
 
 " Oh, he will recover he will recover ; our men are no 
 chickens. But I own I thought it natural that you might sus- 
 pect me of sharing in the attack ; and though, as I have said 
 before, I do not love you, I have no wish to embroil matters so 
 far as an outrage on the house of your father-in-law might be 
 reasonably expected to do ; at all events, while the gate to an 
 amicable compromise between us is still open." 
 
 "I am satisfied on this head," said Aram, "and I can now 
 treat with you in a spirit of less distrustful precaution than before. 
 I tell you, Houseman, that the terms are no longer at your con- 
 trol ; you must leave this part of the country, and that forthwith, 
 or you inevitably perish. The whole population is alarmed, and 
 the most vigilant of the London police have been already sent 
 for. Life is sweet to you, as to us all, and I cannot imagine 
 you so mad as to incur, not the risk, but the certainty, of los- 
 ing it. You can no longer, therefore, hold the threat of your 
 presence over my head. Be^des, were you able to do so, I at 
 least have the power, which you seem to have forgotten, of 
 freeing myself from it. Am I chained to yonder valleys ? 
 Have I not the facility of quitting them at any moment I will ? 
 Of seeking a hiding-place which might baffle, not only your 
 vigilance to discover me, but that of the law? True, my ap- 
 proaching marriage puts some clog upon my wing; but you 
 know that I, of all men, am not likely to be the slave of 
 passion. And what ties are strong enough to arrest the steps 
 of him who flies from a fearful death ? Am I using sophistry 
 here, Houseman ? Have I not reason on my side ? " 
 
 "What you say is true enough," said Houseman reluctantly ; 
 "I do not gainsay it. But I know you have not sought me, in 
 this spot, and at this hour, for the purpose of denying my 
 claims ; the desire of compromise alone can have brought you 
 hither." 
 
 " You speak well," said Aram, preserving the admirable 
 coolness of his manner ; and continuing the deep and sagacious 
 hypocrisy by which he sought to baffle the dogged covetous- 
 ness and keen sense of interest with which he had to contend.
 
 ioS EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "It is not easy for either of us to deceive the other. We are 
 men, whose perception a life of danger has sharpened upon all 
 points ; I speak to you frankly, for disguise is unavailing. 
 Though I can fly from your reach, though I can desert my 
 present home and my intended bride, I would fain think I 
 have free and secure choice to preserve that exact path and 
 scene of life which I have chalked out for myself : I would 
 fain be rid of all apprehension from you. There are two ways 
 only by which this security can be won : the first is through 
 your death ; nay, start not, nor put your hand on your pistol ; 
 you have not now cause to fear me. Had I chosen that 
 method of escape, I could have effected it long since ; when 
 months ago, you slept under my roof, ay, slept what should 
 have hindered me from stabbing you during the slumber? 
 Two nights since, when my blood was up, and the fury upon 
 me, what should have prevented me tightening the grasp that 
 you so resent, and laying you breathless at my feet ? Nay, 
 now, though you keep your eye fixed on my motions, and your 
 hand upon your weapon, you would be no match for a desperate 
 and resolved man, who might as well perish in conflict with 
 you as by the protracted accomplishment of your threats. 
 Your ball might fail ( even now I see your hand trembles ) 
 mine, if I so will it, is certain death. No, Houseman, it would 
 be as vain for your eye to scan the dark pool into whose breast 
 yon cataract casts its waters, as for your intellect to pierce 
 the depths of my mind and motives. Your murder, though in 
 self-defence, would lay a weight upon my soul, which would 
 sink it forever : I should see, in your death, new chances of 
 detection spread themselves before me : the terrors of the 
 dead are not to be bought or awed into silence ; I should pass 
 from one peril into another ; and the law's dread vengeance 
 might fall upon me, through the last peril, even yet more 
 surely than through the first. Be composed, then, on this 
 point ! From my hand, unless you urge it madly upon your- 
 self, you are wholly safe. Let us turn to my second method 
 of attaining security. It lies, not in your momentary cessation 
 from persecutions ; not in your absence from this spot alone ; 
 you must quit the country you must never return to it your 
 home must be cast, and your very grave dug, in a foreign soil. 
 Are you prepared for this? If not, I can say no more ; and I 
 again cast myself passive into the arms of fate." 
 
 " You ask," said Houseman, whose fears were allayed by 
 Aram's address, though, at the same time, his. dissolute and 
 desperate nature was subdued and tamed, in spite of himself, by
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 309 
 
 the very composure of the loftier mind with which it wasbrought 
 in contact : " you ask," said he, " no trifling favor of a man 
 to desert his country forever ; but I am no dreamer, that I 
 should love one spot better than another. I might, perhaps, 
 prefer a foreign clime, as the safer and the freer from old rec- 
 ollections, if I could live in it as a man who loves the relish of 
 life should do. Show me the advantages I am to gain by exile, 
 and farewell to the pale cliffs of England forever." 
 
 " Your demand is just," answered Aram. " Listen, then. 1 
 am willing to coin all my poor wealth, save alone the barest 
 pittance wherewith to sustain life ; nay. more, I am prepared 
 also to melt down the whole of my possible expectations from 
 others, into the form of an annuity to yourself. But mark, it 
 will be taken out of my hands, so that you can have no power 
 over me to alter the conditions with which it will be saddled. 
 It will be so vested that it shall commence the moment you 
 touch a foreign clime ; and wholly and forever cease the moment 
 you set your foot on any part of English ground ; or, mark also, at 
 the moment of my death. I shall then know that no further 
 hope from me can induce you to risk this income ; for, as I 
 shall have spent my all in attaining it, you cannot even medi- 
 tate the design of extorting more. I shall know that you will 
 not menace my life ; for my death would be the destruction 
 of your fortunes. We shall live thus separate and secure from 
 each other ; you will have only cause to hope for my safety ; 
 and I shall have no reason to shudder at your pursuits. It is 
 true, that one source of fear might exist for me still namely, 
 that in dying you should enjoy the fruitless vengeance of 
 criminating me. But this chance I must patiently endure ; 
 you, if older, are more robust and hardy than myself ; your 
 life will probably be longer than mine ; and, even were it other- 
 wise, why should we destroy one another ? I will solemnly 
 swear to respect your secret at my death-bed ; why not on 
 your part, I say not swear, but resolve to respect mine ? We 
 cannot love one another ; but why hate with a gratuitous and 
 demon vengeance ? No, Houseman, however circumstances 
 may have darkened or steeled your heart, it is touched with 
 humanity yet ; you will owe to me the bread of a secure and 
 easy existence ; you will feel that I have stripped myself, even 
 to penury, to purchase the comforts I cheerfully resign to you ; 
 you will remember that, instead of the sacrifices enjoined by 
 this alternative, I might have sought only to counteract your 
 threats, by attempting a life that you strove to make a snare 
 and torture to my own. You will remember this ; and you will
 
 210 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 not grudge me the austere and gloomy solitude in which I seek 
 to forget, or the one solace with which I, perhaps vainly, en- 
 deavor to cheer my passage to a quiet grave. No, Houseman, 
 no ; dislike, hate, menace me as you will, I still feel I shall have 
 no cause to dread the mere wantonness of your revenge." 
 
 These words, aided by a tone of voice, and an expression of 
 countenance that gave them perhaps their chief effect, took 
 even the hardened nature of Houseman by surprise : he was 
 affected by an emotion which he could not have believed it 
 possible the man who till then had galled him by the humbling 
 sense of inferiority could have created. He extended his hand 
 to Aram. 
 
 "By ," he exclaimed, with an oath which we spare the 
 
 reader ; "you are right ! you have made me as helpless in your 
 hands as an infant. I accept your offer; if I were to refuse 
 it, I should be driven to the same courses I now pursue. But 
 look you ; I know not what may be the amount of the annuity 
 you can raise. I shall not, however, require more than will 
 satisfy my wants ; which, if not so scanty as your own, are not 
 at least very extravagant or very refined. As for the rest, if 
 there be any surplus, in God's name keep it for yourself, and 
 rest assured that, so far as I am concerned, you shall be 
 molested no more." 
 
 " No, Houseman," said Aram, with a half smile, "you shall 
 have all I first mentioned ; that is, all beyond what nature 
 craves, honorably and fully. Man's best resolutions are weak: 
 if you knew I possessed aught to spare, a fancied want, a momen- 
 tary extravagance, might tempt you to demand it. Let us put 
 ourselves beyond the possible reach of temptation. But do 
 not flatter yourself by the hope that the income will be magnif- 
 icent. My own annuity is but trifling, and the half of the 
 dowry I expect from my future father-in-law is all that I can 
 at present obtain. The whole of that dowry is insignificant as 
 a sum. But if this does not suffice for you, I must beg or 
 borrow elsewhere." 
 
 " This, after all, is a pleasanter way of settling business," 
 said Houseman, "than by threats and anger. And now I will 
 tell you exactly the sum on which, if I could receive it yearly, 
 I could live without looking beyond the pale of the law for 
 more on which I could cheerfully renounce England, and 
 commence the honest man.' But then, hark you, I must have 
 half settled on my little daughter." 
 
 "What! have you a child?" said Aram eagerly, and well 
 pleased to find an additional security for his own safety.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 211 
 
 "Ay, a little girl my only one in her eighth year. She 
 jives with her grandmother, for she is motherless ; and that 
 girl must not be left quite destitute should I be summoned 
 hence before my time. Some twelve years hence as poor Jane 
 promises to be pretty she may be married off my hands ; but 
 her childhood must not be exposed to the chances of beggary 
 or shame." 
 
 " Doubtless not, doubtless not. Who shall say now that we 
 ever outlive feeling?" said Aram. "Half the annuity shall be 
 settled upon her, should she survive you ; but on the same 
 condition, ceasing when I die, or the instant of your return to 
 England. And now, name the sum that you deem sufficing." 
 
 " Why," said Houseman, counting on his fingers, and mutter- 
 ing, " twenty fifty wine and the creature cheap abroad 
 humph ! a hundred for living, and half as much for pleasure. 
 Come, Aram, one hundred and fifty guineas per annum, English 
 money, will do for a foreign life ; you see I am easily satisfied." 
 
 " Be it so," said Aram ; " I will engage, by one means or 
 another, to obtain what you ask. For this purpose I shall set 
 out for London to-morrow ; I will not lose a moment in seeing 
 the necessary settlement made as we have specified. But, 
 meanwhile, you must engage to leave this neighborhood, and, 
 if possible, cause your comrades to do the same ; although you 
 will not hesitate, for the sake of your own safety, immediately 
 to separate from them." 
 
 " Now that we are on good terms," replied Houseman, " I 
 will not scruple to oblige you in these particulars. My com- 
 rades intend to quit the country before to-morrow ; nay, half are 
 already gone : by daybreak I myself will be some miles 
 hence, and separated from each of them. Let us meet in 
 London after the business is completed, and there conclude 
 our last interview on earth." 
 
 "What will be your address? " 
 
 "In Lambeth there is a narrow alley that leads to the water- 
 side, called Peveril Lane. The last house to the right, toward 
 the river, is my usual lodging ; a safe resting-place at all times, 
 and for all men." 
 
 " There, then, will I seek you. And now, Houseman, fare 
 you well ! As you remember your word to me, may life flow 
 smooth for your child." 
 
 "Eugene Aram," said Houseman, "there is about you some- 
 thing against which the fiercer devil within me would rise in 
 vain. I have read that the tiger can be awed by the human 
 eye, and you compel me into submission by a spell equally
 
 212 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 unaccountable. You are a singular man, and it seems to me a 
 riddle how we could ever have been thus connected ; or how 
 but we will not rip up the past, it is an ugly sight, and the fire 
 is just out. Those stories do not do for the dark. But to re- 
 turn ; were it only for the sake of my child, you might 
 depend upon me now ; better, too, an arrangement of this sort, 
 than if I had a larger sum in hand which I might be tempted 
 to fling away, and, in looking for more, run my neck into a 
 halter, and leave poor Jane upon charity. But come, it is 
 almost dark again, and no doubt you wish to be stirring : stay, 
 I will lead you back, and put you on the right track, lest you 
 stumble on my friends." 
 
 "Is this cavern one of their haunts ? " said Aram. 
 
 " Sometimes ; but they sleep the other side of The Devil's 
 Crag to-night. Nothing like a change of quarters for lon- 
 gevity eh ? " 
 
 " And they easily spare you ? " 
 
 " Yes, if it be only on rare occasions, and on the plea of 
 family business. Now then, your hand, as before. 'Sdeath ! 
 how it rains ! lightning too ! I could look with less fear on 
 a naked sword than'those red, forked, blinding flashes. Hark ! 
 thunder ! " 
 
 The night had now, indeed, suddenly changed its aspect ; 
 the rain descended in torrents, even more impetuously than on 
 the former night, while the thunder burst over their very heads, 
 as they wound upward through the brake. With every instant 
 the lightning, darting through the riven chasm of the black- 
 ness that seemed suspended as in a solid substance above, 
 brightened the whole heaven into one livid and terrific flame, 
 and showed to the two men the faces of each other, rendered 
 deathlike and ghastly by the glare. Houseman was evidently 
 affected by the fear that sometimes seizes even the sturdiest 
 criminals, when exposed to those more fearful phenomena of 
 the heavens, which seem to humble into nothing the power and 
 the wrath of man. His teeth chattered, and he muttered 
 broken words about the peril of wandering near trees when 
 the lightning was of that forked character, quickening his pace 
 at every sentence, and sometimes interrupting himself with an 
 ejaculation, half oath, half prayer, or a congratulation that the 
 rain at least diminished the danger. They soon cleared the 
 thicket, and a few minutes brought them once more to the 
 banks of the stream, and the increased roar of the cataract. 
 No earthly scene, perhaps, could surpass the appalling sublimity 
 of that which they beheld ; every instant the lightning, which
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 213 
 
 became more and more frequent, converting the black waters 
 into billows of living fire, or wreathing itself in lurid spires 
 around the huge crag that now rose in sight ; and again, as the 
 thunder rolled onward, darting its vain fury upon the rushing 
 cataract and the tortured breast of the gulf that raved below. 
 And the sounds that filled the air were even more fraught with 
 terror and menace than the scene : the waving, the groans, 
 the crash of the pines on the hill, the impetuous force of the 
 rain upon the whirling river, and the everlasting roar of the 
 cataract, answered anon by the yet more awful voice that 
 burst above it from the clouds. 
 
 They halted while yet sufficiently distant from the cataract 
 to be heard by each other. " My path," said Aram, as 
 the lightning now paused upon the scene, and seemed 
 literally to wrap in a lurid shroud the dark figure of the stu- 
 dent, as he stood, with his hand calmly raised, and his cheek 
 pale, but dauntless and composed, "my path now lies yonder : 
 in a week we shall meet again." 
 
 " By the fiend ! " said Houseman, shuddering, " I would not, 
 for a full hundred, ride alone through the moor you will pass ! 
 There stands a gibbet by the road, on which a parricide was 
 hanged in chains. Pray Heaven this night be no omen of the 
 success of our present compact ! " 
 
 " A steady heart, Houseman," answered Aram, striking into 
 the separate path, " is its own omen." 
 
 The student soon gained the spot in which he had left his 
 horse ; the animal had not attempted to break the bridle, but 
 stood trembling from limb to limb, and testified by a quick, 
 short neigh the satisfaction with which it hailed the approach 
 of its master, and found itself no longer alone. 
 
 Aram remounted, and hastened once more into the main 
 road. He scarcely felt the rain, though the fierce wind drove 
 it right against his path ; he scarcely marked the lightning, 
 though, at times, it seemed to dart its arrows on his very form : 
 his heart was absorbed in the success of his schemes. 
 
 " Let the storm without howl on," thought he, "that within 
 hath a respite at last. Amidst the winds and rains I can breathe 
 more freely than I have done on the smoothest summer day. 
 By the charm of a deeper mind and a subtler tongue, I have 
 conquered this desperate foe ; I have silenced this inveterate 
 spy : and, Heaven be praised, he too has human ties ; and by 
 those ties I hold him ! Now, then, I hasten to London I 
 arrange this annuity see that the law tightens every cord of 
 the compact ; ind when all is done, and this dangerous man
 
 214 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 fairly departed on his exile, I return to Madeline, and devote to 
 her a life no longer the vassal of accident and the hour. But 
 I have been taught caution. Secure as my own prudence may 
 have made me from further apprehension of Houseman, I will 
 yet place myself wholly beyond his power : I will still consummate 
 my former purpose, adopt a new name, and seek a new retreat : 
 Madeline may not know the real cause ; but this brain is not 
 barren of excuse. Ah ! " as drawing his cloak closer around 
 him, he felt the purse hid within his breast which contained the 
 onder he had obtained from Lester, "ah ! this will now add 
 its quota to purchase, not a momentary relief, but the stipend 
 of perpetual silence. I have passed through the ordeal easier 
 than I had hoped for. Had the devil at his heart been more 
 difficult to lay, so necessary is his absence, that I must have 
 purchased it at any cost. Courage, Eugene Aram ! thy mind, 
 for which thou hast lived, and for which thou hast hazarded 
 thy soul if soul and mind be distinct from each other thy 
 mind can support thee yet through every peril : not till thou 
 art stricken into idiotcy shalt thou behold thyself defenceless. 
 How cheerfully," muttered he, after a momentary pause, 
 " how cheerfully, for safety, and to breathe with a quiet heart 
 the air of Madeline's presence, shall I rid myself of all save 
 enough to defy want. And want can never now come to me, as 
 of old. He who knows the sources of every science from 
 which wealth is wrought holds even wealth at his will." 
 
 Breaking at every interval into these soliloquies, Aram con- 
 tinued to breast the storm until he had won half his journey, 
 and had come upon a long and bleak moor, which was the en- 
 trance to that beautiful line of country in which the valleys 
 around Grassdale are embosomed : faster and faster came the 
 rain ; and though the thunder-clouds were now behind, they 
 yet followed loweringly, in their black array, the path of the 
 lonely horseman. 
 
 But now he heard the sound of hoofs making towards him : 
 he drew his horse on one side of the road, and at that instant, a 
 broad flash of lightning illuminating the space around, he be- 
 held four horsemen speeding along at a rapid gallop : they wev^ 
 armed, and conversing loudly ; their oaths were heard jarringly 
 and distinctly amidst all the more solemn and terrific sounds 
 of the night. They came on, sweeping by the student, whose 
 hand was on his pistol, for he recognized in one of the riders 
 the man who had escaped unwounded from Lester's house. 
 He and his comrades were evidently, then, Houseman's des- 
 perate associates ; and they, too, though they were borne too 
 *
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 215 
 
 rapidly by Aram to be able to rein in their horses on the spot, 
 had seen the solitary traveller, and already wheeled round, and 
 called upon him to halt ! 
 
 The lightning was again gone, and the darkness snatched the 
 robbers, and their intended victim, from the sight of each 
 other. But Aram had not lost a moment; fast fled his horse 
 across the moor, and when, with the next flash, he looked back, 
 he saw the ruffians, unwilling even for booty to encounter the 
 horrors of the night, had followed him but a few paces, and 
 again turned round ; still he dashed on, and had now nearly 
 passed the moor ; the thunder rolled fainter and fainter from 
 behind, and the lightning only broke forth at prolonged inter- 
 vals, when suddenly, after a pause of unusual duration, it 
 brought the whole scene into a light, if less intolerable, even 
 more livid than before. The horse, that had hitherto sped on 
 without start or stumble, now recoiled in abrupt affright ; and 
 the horseman, looking up at the cause, beheld the gibbet, of 
 which Houseman had spoken, immediately fronting his path, 
 with its ghastly tenant waving to and fro, as the winds rattled 
 through the parched and arid bones ; and the inexpressible grin 
 of the skull fixed, as in mockery, upon his countenance.
 
 2l6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 'H TLvirpte av irdvdqfioc iAdff^eo rrp 6sbv embv 
 Ovpavtav 
 
 * * * # 
 
 flPASINO'H. Qdpoe, Zuirvpluv, yhvKspbv rt-xof, oi> T^iyu afifyvv ' 
 rOPFii. AiaddvETai TO /3/ac^of , val TUV rrdrvtav 
 
 THEOCR. 
 
 The Venus, not the vulgar ! Propitiate the divinity, terming her the Uranian. 
 ********* 
 
 PRAXINOE. Be of good cheer, Zopyrian, dear child ; I do not speak of thy 
 
 Father. 
 GORGO. The boy comprehends, by Proserpine ! 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN WHICH WE RETURN TO WALTER. HIS DEBT OF GRATI- 
 TUDE TO MR. PERTINAX FILLGKAVE. THE CORPORAL'S AD- 
 VICE, AND THE CORPORAL'S VICTORY. 
 
 " Let a physician be ever so excellent, there will be those that censure 
 him." Gil Bias. 
 
 WE left Walter in a situation of that critical nature, that it 
 would be inhuman to delay our return to him any longer. The 
 blow by which he had been felled stunned him for an instant ; 
 but his frame was of no common strength and hardihood, and 
 the imminent peril in which he was placed served to recall him 
 from the momentary insensibility. On recovering himself he 
 felt that the ruffians were dragging him towards the hedge, and 
 the thought flashed upon him that their object was murder. 
 Nerved by this idea, he collected his strength, and suddenly 
 wresting himself from the grasp of one of the ruffians who 
 had seized him by the collar, he had already gained his knee, 
 and now his feet, when a second blow once more deprived him 
 of sense. 
 
 When a dim and struggling consciousness recurred to him, 
 he found that the villains had dragged him to the opposite side 
 of the hedge and were deliberately robbing him. He was on 
 the point of renewing a useless and dangerous struggle, when 
 one of the ruffians said : 
 
 " I think he stirs. I had better draw my knife across his 
 throat."
 
 EUGENE ARAM, 2lJ 
 
 "Pooh, no ! " replied another voice ; "never kill if it can be 
 helped : trust me 'tis an ugly thing to think of afterwards. Be- 
 sides, what use is it ? A robbery in these parts is done and 
 forgotten ; but a murder rouses the whole country." 
 
 " Damnation, man ! why, the deed's done already : he's as 
 dead as a door-nail." 
 
 " Dead ! " said the other, in a startled voice ; " no, no ! " 
 and leaning down, the ruffian placed his hand on Walter's 
 heart. The unfortunate traveller felt his flesh creep as the 
 hand touched him, but prudently abstained from motion or 
 exclamation. He thought, however, as with dizzy and half- 
 shut eyes he caught the shadowy and dusk outline of the face 
 that bent over him so closely that he felt the breath of its lips, 
 that it was a face he had seen before ; and as the man now 
 rose, and the wan light of the skies gave a somewhat clearer 
 view of his features, the supposition was heightened, though 
 not absolutely confirmed. But Walter had no further power 
 to observe his plunderers : again his brain reeled ; the dark 
 trees, the grim shadows of human forms, swam before his glaz- 
 ing eye ; and he sunk once more into a profound insensibility. 
 Meanwhile, the doughty corporal had, at the first sight of 
 his master's fall, halted abruptly at the spot to which his steed 
 had carried him ; and coming rapidly to the conclusion that 
 three men were best encountered at a distance, he fired his two 
 pistols, and without staying to see it they took eftect, which, 
 indeed, they did not, galloped down the precipitous hill with as 
 much despatch as if it had been the last stage to"Lunnun." 
 
 " My poor young master ! " muttered he. " But if the worst 
 comes to the worst, the chief part of the money's in the saddle- 
 bags anyhow ; and so messieurs thieves, you're bit baugh ! " 
 The corporal was not long in reaching the town, and alarm- 
 ing the loungers at the inn-door. A posse comitatus was soon 
 formed ; and, armed as if they were to have encountered all the 
 robbers between Hounslow and the Apennine, a band of 
 heroes, with the corporal, who had first deliberately reloaded 
 his pistols, at their head, set off to succor "the poor gentleman 
 what was already murdered." 
 
 They had not got far before they found Walter's horse, which 
 had luckily broke from the robbers, and was now quietly re- 
 galing himself on a patch of grass by the roadside. " lie can 
 get his supper, the beast ! " grunted the corporal, thinking of 
 his own ; and bade one of the party try to catch the animal, 
 which, however, would have declined all such proffers, had not 
 a long neigh of recognition from the Roman nose of the cor
 
 2l8 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 poral's steed, striking' familiarly on the stragglers ear, called it 
 forthwith to the corporal's side ; and (while the two chargers 
 exchanged greeting) the corporal seized its rein. 
 
 When they came to the spot from which the robbers had 
 made their sally, all was still and tranquil ; no Walter was to 
 be seen : the corporal cautiously dismounted, and searched 
 about with as much minuteness as if he were looking for a pin ; 
 but the host of the inn at which the travellers had dined the 
 day before, stumbled at once on the right track. Gouts of 
 blood on the white chalky soil directed him to the hedge, and 
 creeping through a small and recent gap, he discovered the yet 
 breathing body of the young traveller. 
 
 Walter was now conducted with much care to the inn ; a 
 surgeon was already in attendance ; for having heard that a 
 gentleman had been murdered without his knowledge, Mr. 
 Pertinax Fillgrave had rushed from his house, and placed him- 
 self on the road, that the poor creature might not, at least, be 
 buried without his assistance. So eager was he to begin, that 
 he scarce suffered the unfortunate Walter to be taken within, 
 before he whipped out his instruments and set to work with the 
 smack of an amateur. 
 
 Although the surgeon declared his patient to be in the great- 
 est possible danger, the sagacious corporal, who thought him- 
 self more privileged to know about wounds than any manor 
 peace, by profession, however destructive by practice, could 
 possibly be, had himself examined those his master had re- 
 ceived, before he went down to taste his long-delayed supper ; 
 and he now confidently assured the landlord and the rest of 
 the good company in the kitchen, that, the blows on the head 
 had been mere flea-bites, and that his master would be as well as 
 ever in a week at the farthest. 
 
 And, indeed, when Walter the very next morning woke from 
 the stupor, rather than sleep, he had undergone, he felt himself 
 surprisingly better than the surgeon, producing his probe, has- 
 tened to assure him he possibly could be. 
 
 By the help of Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, Walter was detained 
 several days in the town ; nor is it wholly improbable, but that 
 for the dexterity of the corporal, he might be in the town to this 
 day ; not, indeed, in the comfortable shelter of the old-fashioned 
 inn, but in the colder quarters of a certain green spot, in which, 
 despite of its rural attractions, few persons are willing to fix, a 
 permanent habitation. 
 
 Luckily, however, one evening, the corporal, who had been, to 
 say truth, very regular in his attendance on his master ; for,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 219 
 
 bating the selfishness consequent, perhaps, on his knowledge of 
 the world, Jacob Bunting was a good-natured man on the 
 whole, and liked his master as well as he did anything, always 
 excepting Jacobina and board-wages ; one evening, we say, 
 the corporal, coming into Walter's apartment, found him sitting 
 up in his bed, with a very melancholy and dejected expression 
 of countenance. 
 
 "And well, sir, what does the doctor say?" asked the 
 corporal, drawing aside the curtains. 
 
 " Ah ! Bunting, I fancy it's all over with me ! " 
 
 " The Lord forbid, sir ! You're a-jesting, surely ? " 
 
 "Jesting ! my good fellow : ah ! just get me that phial." 
 
 " The filthy stuff ! " said the corporal, with a wry face. 
 "Well, sir, if I had had the dressing of you been half-way to 
 Yorkshire by this. Man's a worm ; and when a doctor gets un 
 on his hook, he is sure to angle for the devil with the bait. 
 Augh ! " 
 
 " What ! you really think that d d fellow, Fillgrave, is keep- 
 ing me on in this way ? " 
 
 " Is he a fool, to give up three phials a day, 4^. 6d. item, ditto, 
 ditto?" cried the corporal, as if astonished at the question. 
 " But don't you feel yourself getting a deal better every day ? 
 Don't you feel all this ere stuff revive you?" 
 
 " No, indeed ; I was amazingly better the first day than I am 
 now ; I make progress from worse to worse. Ah ! Bunting,, if 
 Peter Dealtry were here, he might help me to an appropriate 
 epitaph : as it is, I suppose I shall be very simply labelled. 
 Fillgrave will do the whole business, and put it down in his bill ; 
 item, nine draughts ; item, one epitaph." 
 
 " Lord-a-mercy, your honor ! " said the corporal, drawing 
 out a little red-spotted pocket-handkerchief ; '' how can jest 
 so? it's quite moving." 
 
 *' I wish we were moving ! " sighed the patient. 
 
 " And so we might be," cried the corporal ; " so we might, if 
 you'd pluck up a bit. Just let me look at your honor's : head ; 
 i : knows what a c6n/usion is better nor any of 'em." 
 
 The corporal, having obtained permission, now removed 
 the bandages wherewith the doctor had bound his intended 
 sacrifice to Pluto, and after peering, into the .wounds for 
 about a minute, he thrust out his under-lip, with a con- 
 temptuous 
 
 " Pshaugh ! augh ! And how long," said he, "does Master 
 Fillgrave say you be to be under his hands ? augh ! " 
 
 "He gives me hopes that I may be taken out an airing very
 
 220 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 gently (yes, hearses always go very gently !) in about three 
 weeks ! " 
 
 The corporal started, and broke into a long whistle. He then 
 grinned from ear to ear, snapped his fingers, and said, "Man of 
 the world, sir, man of the world every inch of him ! " 
 
 " He seems resolved that I shall be a man of another world," 
 said Walter. 
 
 " Tell ye what, sir, take my advice ; your honor knows I be 
 no fool. Throw off them ere wrappers ; let me put on a scrap 
 of plaster ; pitch phials to devil ; order out horses to-morrow, 
 and when you've been in the air half an hour, won't know your- 
 self again ! " 
 
 " Bunting ! the horses out to-morrow ? Faith, I don't think 
 I could walk across the room." 
 
 " Just try, your honor." 
 
 " Ah ! I'm very weak, very weak my dressing-gown and 
 slippers your arm, Bunting. Well, upon my honor, I walk very 
 stoutly, eh ? I should not have thought this ! Leave go : why, 
 I really get on without your assistance ! " 
 
 "Walk as well as ever you did." 
 
 " Now I'm out of bed, I don't think I shall go back again 
 to it." 
 
 " Would not, if I was your honor." 
 
 " And after so much exercise, I really fancy I've a sort of an 
 appetite." 
 
 " Like a beefsteak ? " 
 
 ' Nothing better." 
 
 'Pint of wine?" 
 
 ' Why, that would be too much eh ? " 
 
 'Not it." 
 
 ' Go, then, my good Bunting : go, and make haste stop, I 
 say, that d d fellow " 
 
 " Good sign to swear," interrupted the corporal ; " swore 
 twice within last five minutes famous symptom ! " 
 
 " Do you choose to hear me ? That d d fellow, Fillgrave, 
 is coming back in an hour to bleed me : do you mount guard 
 refuse to let him in pay him his bill you have the money. 
 And harkye, don't be rude to the rascal." 
 
 "Rude, your honor! not I been in the Forty-second 
 knows discipline only rude to the privates!" 
 
 The corporal having seen his master conduct himself respect- 
 ably towards the viands with which he supplied him; having set 
 his room to rights, brought him the candles, borrowed him a 
 book, and left him, for the present, in extremely good spirits,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 221 
 
 and prepared for the flight of the morrow ; the corporal, I say, 
 now lighting his pipe, stationed himself at the door of the inn, 
 and waited for Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave. Presently the doctor, 
 who was a little thin man, came bustling across the street, and 
 was about, with a familiar "Good-evening," to pass by the 
 corporal, when that worthy, dropping his pipe, said respectfully, 
 " Beg pardon, sir, want to speak to you a little favor. Will 
 your honor walk into the back-parlor ? " 
 
 "Oh! another patient," thought the doctor ; " these soldiers 
 are careless fellows often get into scrapes. Yes, friend, I'm at 
 your service." 
 
 The corporal showed the man of phials into the back-parlor, 
 and, hemming thrice, looked sheepish, as if in doubt how 
 to begin. It was the doctor's business to encourage the 
 bashful. 
 
 "Well, my good man," said he, brushing off, with the arm of 
 his coat, some dust that had settled on his inexpressibles, " so 
 you want to consult me?" 
 
 " Indeed, your honor, I do ; but feel a little awkward in 
 doing so a stranger and all." 
 
 "Pooh ! medical men are never strangers. I am the friend 
 of every man who requires my assistance." 
 
 "Augh! and I do require your honor's assistance very 
 sadly." 
 
 " Well well speak out. Anything of long standing ? " 
 
 " Why, only since we have been here, sir." 
 
 " Oh, that's all ! Well." 
 
 "Your honor's so good that won't scruple in telling you 
 all. You sees as how we were robbed master, at least, was 
 had some little in my pockets but we poor servants are never 
 too rich. You seems such a kind gentleman so attentive to 
 master though you must have felt how disinterested it was 
 to 'tend a man what had been robbed that I have no hesita- 
 tion in making bold to ask you to lend us a few guineas, just to 
 help us out with the bill here bother ! " 
 
 " Fellow ! " said the doctor, rising, "I don't know what you 
 mean ; but I'd have you to learn that I am not to be cheated 
 out of my time and property ! I shall insist upon being paid 
 my bill instantly, before I dress your master's wound once 
 more ! " 
 
 " Augh ! " said the corporal, who was delighted to find the 
 doctor come so immediately into the snare : "won't be so cruel, 
 surely ! why, you'll leave us without a shiner to pay my host 
 here ! "
 
 322 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Nonsense ! Your master, if he's a gentleman, can write 
 home for money." 
 
 "Ah, sir, all very well to say so ; but, between you and me 
 and the bed-post, young master's quarrelled with old master 
 old master won't give him a rap : so I'm sure, since your hon- 
 or's a friend to every man who requires your assistance noble 
 saying, sir ! you won't refuse us a few guineas. And as for 
 your bill why " 
 
 " Sir, you're an impudent vagabond ! " cried the doctor, as 
 red as a rose-draught, and flinging out of the room ; " and I 
 warn you, that I shall bring in my bill, and expect to be paid 
 within ten minutes." 
 
 The doctor waited for no answer ; he hurried home, scratched 
 off his account, and flew back with it in as much haste as if 
 his patient had been a month longer under his care, and was 
 consequently on the brink of that happier world, where, since 
 the inhabitants are immortal, it is very evident that doctors, as 
 being useless, are never admitted. 
 
 The corporal met him as before. 
 
 " There, sir ! " cried the doctor breathlessly ; and then put- 
 ting his arms akimbo, " take that to your master, and desire 
 him to pay me instantly." 
 
 " Augh ! and shall do no such thing." 
 
 "You won't?" 
 
 " No, for shall pay you myself. Where's your receipt eh ? " 
 
 And with great composure the corporal drew out a well- 
 filled purse, and discharged the bill. The doctor was so thun- 
 derstricken, that he pocketed the money without uttering a word. 
 He consoled himself, however, with the belief that Walter, 
 whom he had tamed into a becoming hypochondria, would be 
 sure to send for him the next morning. Alas, for mortal ex- 
 pectations ! the next morning Walter was once more on the 
 road.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 22$ 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 NEW TRACES OF THE FATE OF GEOFFREY LESTER. WALTER 
 AND THE CORPORAL PROCEED ON A FRESH EXPEDITION. 
 THE CORPORAL IS ESPECIALLY SAGACIOUS ON THE OLD 
 TOPIC OF THE WORLD. HIS OPINIONS ON THE MEN WHO 
 CLAIM KNOWLEDGE THEREOF ; ON THE ADVANTAGES EN- 
 JOYED BY A VALET ; ON THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESSFUL 
 LOVE ; ON VIRTUE AND THE CONSTITUTION ; ON QUALITIES 
 TO BE DESIRED IN A MISTRESS, ETC. A LANDSCAPE. 
 
 " This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among 
 us of a more sedate turn." Spectator, No. III. 
 
 WALTER found, while he made search himself, that it was 
 no easy matter, in so large a county as Yorkshire, to obtain 
 even the preliminary particulars, viz., the place of residence, 
 and the name of the colonel from India whose dying gift his 
 father had left the house of the worthy Courtland to claim and 
 receive. But the moment he committed the inquiry to the care 
 of an active and intelligent lawyer, the case seemed to brighten 
 up prodigiously ; and Walter was shortly informed that a 
 Colonel Elmore, who had been in India, had died in the year 
 1 7 ; that by a reference to his will, it appeared that he had left 
 to Daniel Clarke the sum of a thousand pounds, and the house 
 in which he resided before his death ; the latter being merely 
 leasehold, at a high rent, was specified in the will to be of 
 small value : it was situated in the outskirts of Knaresborough. 
 It was also discovered that a Mr. Jonas Elmore, the only sur- 
 viving executor of the will, and a distant relation of the de- 
 ceased colonel's, lived about fifty miles from York, and could, 
 in all probability, better than any one, afford Walter those 
 farther particulars of which he was so desirous to be informed. 
 Walter immediately proposed to his lawyer to accompany him 
 to this gentleman's house ; but it so happened that the lawyer 
 could not for three or four days leave his business at York ; 
 and Walter, exceedingly impatient to proceed on the intelligence 
 thus granted him, and disliking the meagre information ob- 
 tained from letters, when a personal interview could be obtained> 
 resolved himself to repair to Mr. Jonas Elmore's without fai- 
 ther delay. And behold, therefore, our worthy corporal and 
 his master again mounted, and commencing a new journey. 
 
 The corporal, always fond of adventure, was in high spirits. 
 
 " See, sir," said he to his master, patting with great affection
 
 224 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the neck of his steed, "see, sir, how brisk the creturs are ; 
 what a deal of good their long rest at York city's done 'ern ! 
 Ah, your honor, what a fine town that ere be ! Yet," added 
 the corporal, with an air of great superiority, " it gives you no 
 notion of Lunnun like ; on the faith a man, no ! " 
 
 " Well, Bunting, perhaps we may be in London within a 
 month hence." 
 
 " And afore we gets there, your honor, no offence, but 
 should like to give you some advice ; 'tis ticklish place that 
 Lunnun ; and though you be by no manner of means deficient 
 in genus, yet sir, you be young, and / be " 
 
 " Old ; true, Bunting," added Walter, very gravely. 
 
 " Augh bother ! old, sir ! old, sir ! A man in the prime of 
 life, hair coal black (bating a few gray ones that have had 
 since twenty, care, and military service, sir) carriage straight, 
 teeth strong, not an ail in the world, bating the rheu- 
 matics, is not old, sir, not by no manner of means 
 baugh ! " 
 
 " You are very right, Bunting : when I said old, I meant ex- 
 perienced. I assure you I shall be very grateful for your ad- 
 vice ; and suppose, while we walk our horses up this hill, you 
 begin lecture the first. London's a fruitful subject ; all you 
 can say on it will not be soon exhausted." 
 
 " Ah, may well say that," replied the corporal, exceedingly 
 flattered with the permission he had obtained ; "and anything 
 my poor wit can suggest, quite at your honor's sarvice, ehem, 
 hem ! You must know by Lunnun, I means the world, and by 
 the world means Lunnun ; know one know t'other. But 'tis 
 not them as affects to be most knowing as be so at bottom. 
 Begging your honor's pardon, I thinks gentlefolks what lives 
 only with gentlefolks, and calls themselves men of the world, 
 be often no wiser nor Pagan creturs, and live in a Gentile 
 darkness." 
 
 " The true knowledge of the world," said Walter, " is only 
 then for the corporals of the Forty-second, eh, Bunting ?" 
 
 "As to that, sir," quoth the corporal, " 'tis not being of this 
 calling or of that calling that helps one on ; 'tis an inborn sort 
 of genus, the talent of obsarving, and growing wise by obsarv- 
 ing. One picks up crumb here, crumb there ; but if one has 
 not good digestion, Lord, what sinnifies a feast ? Healthy man 
 thrives on a 'tatoe, sickly looks pale on a haunch. You sees, 
 your honor, as I said afore, I was own sarvant to Colonel Dy- 
 sart ; he was a lord's nephy, a very gay gentleman, and great 
 hand with the ladies, not a man more in the world ; so I had
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 22$ 
 
 the opportunity of laming what's what among the best set ; at 
 his honor's expense, too, augh ! To my mind, sir, there'snot 
 a place from which a man has a better view of things than the 
 bit carpet behind a gentleman's chair. The gentleman eats, 
 and talks, and swears, and jests, and plays cards, and makes 
 love, and tries to cheat, and is cheated, and his man stands 
 behind with his eyes and ears open augh ! " 
 
 "One should go into service to learn diplomacy, 1 see," s:\id 
 Walter, greatly amused. 
 
 u Does not know what 'plomacy be, sir, but knows it would 
 be better for many a young master nor all the colleges ; would 
 not be so many bubbles if my lord could take a turn now and 
 then with John. A-well, sir ! how I used to laugh in my 
 sleeve like, when I saw my master, who was thought the know- 
 ingest gentleman about Court, taken in every day smack afore 
 my face. There was one lady whom he had tried hard, as he 
 thought, to get away from her husband ; and he used to be so 
 mighty pleased at every glance from her brown eyes and be 
 d d to them ! and so careful the husband should not see 
 so pluming himself on his discretion here, and his conquest 
 there, when, Lord bless you, it was all settled 'twixt man and 
 wife aforehand ! And while the colonel laughed at the cuckold, 
 the cuckold laughed at the dupe. For you sees, sir, as how 
 the colonel was a rich man, and the jewels as he bought for the 
 lady went half into the husband's pocket he ! he ! That's 
 the way of the world, sir, that's the way of the world ! " 
 
 " Upon my word, you draw a very bad picture of the world : 
 you color highly ; and by the way, I observe that whenever you 
 find any man committing a roguish action, instead of calling 
 him a scoundrel, you show those great teeth of yours, and 
 chuckle out ' A man of the world ! a man of the world ! ' 
 
 " To be sure, your honor ; the proper name, too. 'Tis your 
 greenhorns who fly into a passion, and use hard words. You 
 see, sir, there's one thing we larn afore all other things in the 
 world to butter bread. Knowledge of others means only 
 the knowledge which side bread's buttered. In short, sir, the 
 wiser grow, the more take care of oursels. Some persons make 
 a mistake, and, in trying to take care of themsels, run neck 
 into halter baugh ! they are not rascals they are would-be 
 men of the world. Others be more prudent ( for, as I said 
 afore, sir, discretion is a pair of stirrups) ; they be the true 
 men of the world." 
 
 "I should have thought," said Walter, "that the knowledge 
 of the world might be that knowledge which preserves
 
 226 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 us from being cheated, but not that which enables us to 
 cheat." 
 
 "Augh ! " quoth the corporal, with that sort of smile with 
 which you see an old philosopher put down a high-sounding 
 error from a young disciple who flatters himself he has uttered 
 something prodigiously fine, " augh ! and did I not tell you, 
 t'other day, to look at the professions, your honor ? What 
 would a laryer be if he did not know how to cheat a witness 
 and humbug a jury ? knows he is lying ; why is he lying ? 
 for love of his fees, or his fame like, which gets fees ; augh ! 
 is not that cheating others ? The doctor, too Master Fill- 
 grave, for instance?" 
 
 " Say no more of doctors ; I abandon them to your satire, 
 without a word." 
 
 " The lying knaves ! Don't they say one's well when one's 
 ill ill when one's well ? profess to know what don't know ? 
 thrust solemn phizzes into every abomination, as if laming lay 
 
 hid in a ? and all for their neighbor's money, or their own 
 
 reputation, which makes money augh ! In short, sir, look 
 where will, impossible to see so much cheating allowed, praised, 
 encouraged, and feel very angry with a cheat who has only 
 made a mistake. But when I sees a man butter his bread 
 carefully knife steady butter thick, and hungry fellows look- 
 ing on and licking chops mothers stopping their brats; 'See, 
 child, respectable man, how thick his bread's buttered ! pull 
 off your hat to him'; when I see that, my heart warms: 
 there's the tnte man of the world augh ! " 
 
 "Well, Bunting," said Walter, laughing, " though you are 
 thus lenient to those unfortunate gentlemen whom others call 
 rogues, and thus laudatory of gentlemen who are at best dis- 
 creetly selfish, I suppose you admit the possibility of virtue, 
 and your heart warms as much when you see a man of worth 
 as when you see a man of the world ?" 
 
 "Why, you knows, your honor," answered the corporal, " so 
 far as vartue's concerned, there's a deal in constitution ; but as 
 for knowledge of the world, one gets it oneself ! " 
 
 " I don't wonder, Bunting as your opinion of women is 
 much the same as your opinion of men that you are still un- 
 married." 
 
 "Augh ! but your honor mistakes ; I am no mice-and-trope. 
 Men are neither one thing nor t'other, neither good nor bad. 
 A prudent parson has nothing to fear from 'em, nor a foolish 
 one anything to gain baugh ! As to the women creturs, your 
 honor, as I said, vartue's a deal in the constitution. Would
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 22J 
 
 not ask what a lassie's mind be, nor what her eddycation ; but 
 see what her habits be, that's all, habits and constitution all 
 one, play into one another's hands." 
 
 "And what sort of signs, Bunting, would you mostly esteem 
 in a lady ?" 
 
 " First place, sir, woman I'd marry must not mope when 
 alone ! must be able to 'muse herself ; must be easily 'mused. 
 That's a great sign, sir, of an innocent mind, to be tickled 
 with straws. Besides, employment keeps 'em out of harm's 
 way. Second place, should obsarve, if she was very fond of 
 places, your honor sorry to move that's a sure sign she 
 won't tire easily ; but that if she like you now from fancy, she'll 
 like you by and by from custom. Thirdly, your honor, she 
 should not be avarse to dress ; a leaning that way shows she 
 has a desire to please : people who don't care about pleasing, 
 always sullen. Fourthly, she must bear to be crossed ! I'd be 
 quite sure that she might be contradicted, without mumping 
 or storming ; 'cause then, you knows, your honor, if she wanted 
 anything expensive, need not give it augh ! Fifthly, must 
 not set up for a saint, your honor ; they pye-house she-creturs 
 always thinks themsels so much better nor we men ; don't un- 
 derstand our language and ways, your honor : they wants us 
 not only to belave, but to tremble bother ! " 
 
 " I like your description well enough, on the whole," said 
 Walter ; " and when I look out for a wife I shall come to you 
 for advice." 
 
 " Your honor may have it already Miss Ellinor's jist the 
 thing." 
 
 Walter turned away his head, and told Bunting, with great 
 show of indignation, not to be a fool. 
 
 The corporal, who was not quite certain of his ground here, 
 but who knew that Madeline, at all events, was going to be 
 married to Aram, and deemed it, therefore, quite useless to 
 waste any praise upon her, thought that a few random shots of 
 eulogium were worth throwing away on a chance, and conse- 
 quently continued : 
 
 "Augh, your honor 'tis not cause I have eyes, that I be's a 
 fool. Miss Eilinor and your honor be only cousins, to be 
 sure ; but more like brother and sister, nor anything else. 
 Howsomever, she's a rare cretur, whoever gets her ; has a face 
 that puts one in good-humor with the world, if one sees it first 
 thing in the morning ; 'tis as good as the sun in July augh ! 
 But, as I was saying, your honor, 'bout the women creturs in 
 general "
 
 28 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Enough of them, Bunting ; let us suppose you have been 
 so fortunate as to find one to suit you ; how would you woo 
 her? Of course there are certain secrets of courtship, which 
 you will not hesitate to impart to one who, like me, wants such 
 assistance from art, much more than you can do, who are so 
 bountifully favored bynature." 
 
 "As to nature," replied the corporal, with considerable 
 modesty, for he never disputed the truth of the compliment, 
 " 'tis not 'cause a man be six feet without's shoes that he's any 
 nearer to lady's heart. Sir, I will own to you, howsomever, it 
 makes 'gainst your honor and myself, for that matter 
 that don't think one is a bit more lucky with the ladies 
 for being so handsome ! 'Tis all very well with them ere will- 
 ing ones, your honor caught at a glance ; but as for the better 
 sort, one's beauty's all bother ! Why, sir, when we see some of 
 the most fortunatest men among she-creturs what poor little 
 minnikens they be ! One's a dwarf, another knock-kneed, a 
 third squints, and a fourth might be shown for a //ape ! Neither, 
 sir, is it your soft, insinivating, die-away youths, as seem at 
 first so seductive ; they do very well for lovers, your honor-, 
 but then it's always rejected ones ! Neither, your honor, 
 does the art of succeeding with the ladies 'quire all those finni- 
 ken nimini-pinimis, flourishes, and maxims, and saws, which the 
 colonel, my old master, and the great gentlefolks, as be know- 
 ing, call the art of love baugh ! The whole science, sir, con- 
 sists in these two rules 'Ax soon, and ax often.'" 
 
 "There seems no great difficulty in them, Bunting." 
 
 " Not to us who has gumption, sir ; but then there is summut 
 in the manner of axing ; one can't be too hot can't flatter too 
 much and, above all, one must never take a refusal. There, 
 sir, now if you takes my advice may break the peace of all 
 the husbands in Lunnun bother whaugh ! " 
 
 " My uncle little knows what a praiseworthy tutor he had 
 secured me in you, Bunting," said Walter, laughing ; " and 
 now, while the road is so good, let us make the most of it." 
 
 As they had set out late in the day, and the corporal was 
 fearful of another attack from a hedge, he resolved that, about 
 evening, one of the horses should be seized with a sudden 
 lameness (which he effected by slyly inserting a stone between 
 the shoe and the hoof), that required immediate attention and 
 a night's rest ; so that it was not till the early noon of the next 
 day that our travellers entered the village in which Mr. Jonas 
 Elmore resided. 
 
 It was a soft tranquil day, though one of the very last in
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 229 
 
 October ; for the reader will remember that time had not stood 
 still during Walter's submission to the care of Mr. Pertinax 
 Fillgrave, and his subsequent journey and researches. 
 
 The sunlight rested on a broad pain of green heath, covered 
 with furze, and around it were scattered the cottages and farm- 
 houses of the little village. On the other side, as Walter de- 
 scended the gentle hill that led into this remote hamlet, wide 
 and flat meadows, interspersed with several fresh and shaded 
 ponds, stretched away toward a belt of rich woodland gorgeous 
 with the melancholy pomp by which the " regal year " seeks to 
 veil its decay. Among these meadows you might now see 
 groups CM' cattle quietly grazing, or standing half hid in the still 
 and sheltered pools. Still farther, crossing to the woods, a soli- 
 tary sportsman walked careless on, surrounded by some half 
 a dozen spaniels, and the shrill, small tongue of one younger 
 straggler of the canine crew, who had broken indecorously 
 from the rest, and already entered the wood, might be just 
 heard, softened down by the distance, into a wild, cheery sound, 
 that animated, without disturbing, the serenity of the scene. 
 
 "After all," said Walter aloud, "the scholar was right there 
 is nothing like the country ! 
 
 ' Oh, happiness of sweet retired content, 
 To be at once secure and innocent ! ' " 
 
 "Be them verses in the Psalms, sir?" said the corporal, who 
 was close behind. 
 
 "No, Bunting; but they were written by one who, if I recol- 
 lect right, set the Psalms to verse.* I hope they meet with 
 your approbation ? " 
 
 "Indeed, sir, and no since they ben't in the Psalms." 
 
 "And why, Mr. Critic?" 
 
 " 'Cause what's the use of security, if one's innocent, and 
 does not mean to take advantage of it ? baugh ! One does 
 not lock the door for nothing, your honor ! " 
 
 "You shall enlarge on that honest doctrine of yours another 
 time ; meanwhile, call that shepherd, and ask the way to Mr. 
 Elmore's." 
 
 The corporal obeyed, and found that a clump of trees, at the 
 farther corner of the waste land, was the grove that surrounded 
 Mr. Elmore's house : a short canter across the heath brought 
 them to a white gate, and having passed this, a comfortable 
 brick mansion, of moderate size, stood before them. 
 
 * Denharo.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A SCHOLAR, BUT OF A DIFFERENT MOULD FROM THE STUDENT 
 OF GRASSDALE. NEW PARTICULARS CONCERNING GEOFFREY 
 LESTER. THE JOURNEY RECOMMENCED. 
 
 " ... Insenuitque 
 Libris." * HORAT. 
 
 " Volat, ambiguis 
 Mobilis alls, Hora."f SENECA. 
 
 UPON inquiring for Mr. Elmore, Walter was shown into a 
 handsome library, that appeared well stocked with books, of 
 that good, old-fashioned size and solidity, which are now fast 
 passing from the world, or at least shrinkinginto old shops and 
 public collections. The time may come, when the mouldering 
 remains of a folio will attract as much philosophical astonish- 
 ment as the bones of the mammoth. For behold, the deluge 
 of writers hath produced a new world of small octavo ! and in 
 the next generation, thanks to the popular libraries, we shall 
 only vibrate between the duodecimo and the diamond edition. 
 Nay, we foresee the time when a very handsome collection may 
 be carried about in one's waistcoat-pocket, and a whole library 
 of the British Classics be neatly arranged in a well-compacted 
 snuff-box. 
 
 In a few minutes Mr. Elmore made his appearance : he was 
 a short, well-built man, about the age of fifty. Contrary to 
 the established mode, he wore no wig, and was very bald ; ex- 
 cept at the sides of the head, and a little circular island of hair 
 in the centre. But this defect was rendered the less visible by 
 a profusion of powder. He was dressed with evident care and 
 precision ; a snuff -colored coat was adorned with a respectable 
 profusion of gold lace ; his breeches were of plum-colored 
 satin ; his salmon-colored stockings, scrupulously drawn up, 
 displayed a very handsome calf ; and a pair of steel buckles, 
 in his high-heeled and square-toed shoes, were polished into a 
 lustre which almost rivalled the splendor of diamonds. Mr. 
 Jonas Elmore was a beau, a wit, and a scholar of the old school. 
 He abounded in jests, in quotations, in smart sayings, and per- 
 tinent anecdotes ; but, withal, his classical learning (out of the 
 classics he knew little enough) was at once elegant, but weari- 
 some ; pedantic, but profound. 
 
 To this gentleman Walter presented a letter of introduction 
 
 t Time flies, still moving on uncertain wing. * And he hath grown old in books.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 231 
 
 which he had obtained from a distinguished clergyman in York. 
 Mr. Elmore received it with a profound salutation : 
 
 " Aha, from my friend, Dr. Hebraist," said he, glancing at 
 the seal : " a most worthy man, and a ripe scholar. I presume 
 at once, sir, from his introduction, that you yourself have culti- 
 vated the literas humaniorcs. Pray sit down ay, I see, you 
 take up a book an excellent symptom ; it gives me an im- 
 mediate insight into your character. But you have chanced, 
 sir, on light reading one of the Greek novels, I think : you 
 must not judge of my studies by such a specimen." 
 
 " Nevertheless, sir, it does not seem to my unskilful eye very 
 easy Greek." 
 
 " Pretty well, sir ; barbarous, but amusing ; pray, continue 
 it. The triumphal entry of Paulus Emilius is not ill told. I 
 confess, that I think novels might be made much higher works 
 than they have been yet. Doubtless, you remember what 
 Aristotle says concerning painters and sculptors, 'that they 
 teach and recommend virtue in a more efficacious and power- 
 ful manner than philosophers by their dry precepts, and are 
 more capable of amending the vicious, than the best moral 
 lessons without such aid.' But how much more, sir, can a good 
 novelist do this, than the best sculptor or painter in the world ! 
 Every one can be charmed by a fine novel, few by a fine paint- 
 ing. ' Docti rationtm artis intelltgunt, indocti voluptatem. '* A 
 happy sentence that in Quinctilian, sir, is it not? But, bless 
 me, I am forgetting the letter of my good friend, Dr. Hebraist. 
 The charms of your conversation carry me away. And, indeed, 
 I have seldom the happiness to meet a gentleman so well- 
 informed as yourself. I confess, sir, I confess that I still retain 
 the tastes of my boyhood ; the Muses cradled my childhood, 
 they now smooth the pillow on my footstool. Quern /;/, Melpom- 
 tne, etc. You are not yet subject to gout, dira podagra. By 
 the way, how is the worthy doctor, since his attack? Ah, see 
 now, if you have not still, by your delightful converse, 
 kept me from his .letter yet, positively, I need no introduction 
 to you : Apollo has already presented you to me.- And as for 
 the Doctor's letter, I will read it after dinner; for as Seneca " 
 
 " I beg your pardon a thousand times, sir," said Walter, who 
 began to despair of ever coming to the matter, which seemed 
 lost sight of beneath this battery of erudition, " but you will 
 find by Dr. Hebraist's letter, that it is only on business of the 
 utmost importance that I have presumed to break in upon the 
 learned leisure of Mr. Jonas Elmore." 
 
 * The learned understand the reason of art, the unlearned the pleasure.
 
 232 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "Business!" replied Mr. Elmore, producing his spectacles, 
 and deliberately placing them athwart his nose, 
 
 ' His mane edictum, post prandia Callirhoen,' etc. 
 
 Business in the morning, and the ladies after dinner. Well, 
 sir, I will yield to you in the one, and you must yield to me in 
 the other . I will open the letter, and you shall dine here, and 
 be introduced to Mrs. Elmore. What is your opinion of the 
 modern method of folding letters? 1 but I see you aie 
 impatient." Here Mr. Elmore at length broke the seal ; and 
 to Walter's great joy, fairly read the contents within. 
 
 " Oh ! I see, 1 see ! " he said, refolding the epistle, and 
 placing it in his pocket-book ; "my friend, Dr. Hebraist, says 
 you are anxious to be informed whether Mr. Clarke ever 
 received the legacy of my poor cousin, Colonel Elmore ; and 
 if so, any tidings I can give you of Mr. Clarke himself, or any 
 clue to discover him, will be highly acceptable. I gather, sir, 
 from my friend's letter, that this is the substance of your busi- 
 ness with me, caput negotii ; although, like Timanthes, the 
 painter, he leaves more to be understood than is described, 
 ' inielligitur plus quam pingiturj as Pliny has it." 
 
 " Sir," said Walter, drawing his chair close to Mr. Elmore, 
 and his anxiety forcing itself to his countenance, "that is 
 indeed the substance of my business with you ; and so import- 
 ant will be any information you can give me, that I shall esteem 
 it a" 
 
 " Not a very great favor, eh ? not very great ! " 
 
 "Yes, indeed, a very great obligation." 
 
 " I hope not, sir ; for what says Tacitus that profound 
 reader of the human heart? ' beneficia eo usque lata sunf, etc.; 
 favors easily repaid beget affection favors beyond return engen- 
 der hatred. But, sir, a truce to trifling" ; and here Mr. Elmore 
 composed his countenance, and changed, which he could do 
 at will, so that the change was not expected to last long the 
 pedant for the man of business. 
 
 " Mr. Clarke did receive his legacy: the lease of the house at 
 Knaresborough was also sold by his desire, and produced the 
 sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds ; which being added to 
 the farther sum of a thousand pounds, which was bequeathed 
 to him, amounted to seventeen hundred and fifty pounds. It 
 so happened that my cousin had possessed some very valuable 
 jewels, which were bequeathed to myself. I, sir, studious, and 
 a cultivator of the Muse, had no love and no use for these 
 baubles ; I preferred barbaric geld to barbaric pearl ; and
 
 ARAM. 5J3 
 
 knowing that Clarke had been in India, whence these jewels had 
 been brought, I showed them to him and consulted his knowl- 
 edge on these matters, as to the best method of obtaining a 
 sale. He offered to purchase them of me, under the impression 
 that he could turn them to a profitable speculation in London. 
 Accordingly we came to terms : Isold the greater part of them 
 to him for a sum a little exceeding a thousand pounds. He was 
 pleased with his bargain, and came to borrow the rest of me in 
 order to look at them more considerately at home, and deter- 
 mine whether or not he should buy them also. Well, sir (but 
 here comes the remarkable part of the story), about three days 
 after this last event, Mr. Clarke and my jewels both disap- 
 peared in rather a strange and abrupt manner. In the middle 
 of the night he left his lodging at Knaresborough and never 
 returned ; neither himself nor my jewels were ever heard of 
 more ! " 
 
 " Good heavens ! " exclaimed Walter, greatly agitated ; 
 "what was supposed to be the cause of his disappearance?" 
 
 " That," replied Elmore, " was never positively traced. It ex- 
 cited great surprise and great conjecture at the time. Adver- 
 tisements and handbills were circulated throughout the coun- 
 try, but in vain. Mr. Clarke was evidently a man of eccentric 
 habits, of a hasty temper, and a wandering manner of life ; yet 
 it is scarcely probable that he took this sudden manner of 
 leaving the country, either from whim or some secret but 
 honest motive never divulged. The fact is, that he owed a few 
 debts in the town that he had my jewels in his possession, and 
 as (pardon me for saying this, since you take an inter- 
 est in him) his connections were entirely unknown in these 
 parts, and his character not very highly estimated (whether 
 from his manner, or his conversation, or some undefined and 
 vague rumors, I cannot say), it was considered by no means 
 improbable that he had decamped with his property in this 
 sudden manner in order to save himself that trouble of settling 
 accounts which a more seemly and public method of departure 
 might have rendered necessary. A man of the name of House- 
 man, with whom he was acquainted (a resident in Knaresbor- 
 borough), declared that Clarke had borrowed rather a consider- 
 able sum from him, and did not scruple openly to accuse him 
 of the evident design to avoid repayment. A few more dark 
 but utterly groundless conjectures were afloat ; and since the 
 closest search, the minutest inquiry, was employed without any 
 result, the supposition that he might have been robbed and 
 murdered was strongly entertained for some time ; but as his
 
 234 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 body was never found, nor suspicion directed against any par- 
 ticular person, these conjectures insensibly died away ; and be- 
 ing so complete a stranger to these parts, the very circumstance 
 of his disappearance was not likely to occupy, for very long, 
 the attention of that old gossip, the Public, who, even in the 
 remotest parts, has a thousand topics to fill up her time and 
 talk. And now, sir, I think you know as much of the particu- 
 lars of the case as any one in these parts can inform you." 
 
 We may imagine the various sensations which this unsatis- 
 factory intelligence caused in the adventurous son of the lost 
 wanderer. He continued to throw out additional guesses, and 
 to make farther inquiries concerning a tale which seemed to 
 him so mysterious, but without effect ; and he had the mortifica- 
 tion to perceive that the shrewd Jonas was, in his own mind, 
 fully convinced that the permanent disappearance of Clarke 
 was accounted for only by the most dishonest motives. 
 
 " And," added Elmore, " I am confirmed in this belief by 
 discovering afterward, from a tradesman in York who had seen 
 my cousin's jewels, that those I had trusted to Mr. Clarke's 
 hands were more valuable than I had imagined them, and 
 therefore it was probably worth his while to make off with 
 them as quietly as possible. He went on foot, leaving his 
 horse, a sorry nag, to settle with me and the other claimants : 
 
 ' I, pedes quo te rapiunt et aurse ! ' " * 
 
 " Heavens ! " thought Walter, sinking back in his chair sick- 
 ened and disheartened, " what a parent, if the opinions of all 
 men who knew him be true, do I thus zealously seek to re- 
 cover ! " 
 
 The good-natured Elmore, perceiving the unwelcome and 
 painful impression his account had produced on his young 
 guest, now exerted himself to remove, or at least to lessen it ; 
 and, turning the conversation into a classical channel, which 
 with him was Lethe to all cares, he soon forgot that Clarke 
 had ever existed, in expatiating on the unappreciated excel- 
 lences of Propertius, who, to his mind, was the most tender of 
 all elegiac poets, solely because he was the most learned. 
 Fortunately this vein of conversation, however tedious to 
 Walter, preserved him from the necessity of rejoinder, and left 
 him to the quiet enjoyment of his own gloomy and restless re- 
 flections. 
 
 At length the time touched upon dinner ; Elmore, starting 
 up, adjourned to the drawing-room, in order to present the 
 
 * Go, where your feet and fortune take you.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 235 
 
 handsome stranger to the placens uxor the pleasing wife, 
 whom, in passing through the hall, he eulogized with an amaz- 
 ing felicity of diction. 
 
 The object of these praises was a tall, meagre lady, in a 
 yellow dress carried up to the chin, and who added a slight 
 squint to the charms of red hair, ill concealed by powder, and 
 the dignity of a prodigiously high nose. " There is nothing, 
 sir," said Elmore, "nothing, believe me, like matrimonial 
 felicity. Julia, my dear, I trust the chickens will not be over- 
 done." 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Elmore, I cannot tell ; I did not boil them." 
 "Sir," said Elmore, turning to his guest, "I do not know 
 whether you will agree with me, but I think a slight tendency 
 to gourmandism is absolutely necessary to complete the char- 
 acter of a truly classical mind. So many beautiful touches are 
 there in the ancient poets so many delicate allusions in his- 
 tory and in anecdote relating to the gratification of the palate, 
 that, if a man have no correspondent sympathy with the illus- 
 trious epicures of old, he is rendered incapable of enjoying 
 the most beautiful passages that Come, sir, the dinner is 
 served : 
 
 ' Nutrimus lautis mollissima corpora mensis.' " * 
 
 As they crossed the hall to the dining-room, a young lady, 
 whom Elmore hastily announced as his only daughter, ap- 
 peared descending the stair, having evidently retired for the 
 purpose of rearranging her attire for the conquest of the stran- 
 ger. There was something in Miss Elmore that reminded Walter 
 of Ellinor, and, as the likeness struck him, he felt, by the sud- 
 den and involuntary sigh it occasioned, how much the image 
 of his cousin had lately gained ground upon his heart. 
 
 Nothing of any note occurred during dinner, until the ap- 
 pearance of the second course, when Elmore, throwing him- 
 self back with an air of content, which signified that the first 
 edge of his appetite was blunted, observed : 
 
 " Sir, the second course I always opine to be the more digni- 
 fied and rational part of a repast : 
 
 ' Quod nunc ratio cst, impetus ante fuit.' "f 
 
 "Ah ! Mr. Elmore," said the lady, glancing toward a brace of 
 very fine pigeons, " I cannot tell you how vexed I am at a mistake 
 of the gardener's ; you remember my poor pet pigeons, so at- 
 tached to each other would not mix with the rest quite an 
 
 * We nourish softest bodies at luxurious banquets. 
 t That, which is now reason, at first was but desire,
 
 236 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 inseparable friendship, Mr. Lester ; well, they were killed, by 
 mistake, for a couple of vulgar pigeons. Ah ! I could not 
 touch a bit of them for the world." 
 
 " My love," said Elmore, pausing and with great solemnity, 
 "hear how beautiful a consolation is afforded to you in Valerius 
 Maximus : ' Ubi idemetmaximus et honestissimus amor est, 
 aliquandopraestatmorte jungi quam vita distrahi ! ' which, being 
 interpreted, means that wherever, as in the case of your pig- 
 eons, a thoroughly high and sincere affection exists, it is 
 sometimes better to be joined in death than divided in life. 
 Give me half the fatter one, if you please, Julia. 
 
 " Sir," said Elmore, when the ladies withdrew, " I cannot tell 
 you how pleased I am to meet with a gentleman so deeply im- 
 bued with classic lore. I remember, several years ago, before 
 my poor cousin died, it was my lot, when I visited him at 
 Knaresborough, to hold some delightful conversations on 
 learned matters with a very rising young scholar who then resided 
 at Knaresborough, Eugene Aram. Conversations as difficult 
 to obtain as delightful to remember, for he was exceedingly re- 
 served." 
 
 " Aram ! " repeated Walter. 
 
 " What ! you know him then ? and where does he live 
 now ? " 
 
 " In , very near my uncle's residence. He is certainly 
 
 a remarkable man." 
 
 " Yes, indeed, he promised to become so. At the time I re- 
 fer to, he was poor to penury, and haughty as poor ; but it was 
 wonderful to note the iron energy with which he pursued his 
 progess to learning. Never did I see a youth at that time he 
 was no more so devoted to knowledge for itself. 
 ' Doctrinse pretium triste magister habet." * 
 
 " Methinks," added Elmore, " I can see him now, stealing 
 away from the haunts of men, 
 
 1 With even step and musing gait/ 
 
 across the quiet fields, or into the woods, whence he was certain 
 not to reappear till nightfall. Ah ! he was a strange and soli- 
 tary being, but full of genius, and promise of bright things 
 hereafter. I have often heard since of his fame as a scholar, 
 but could never learn where he lived, or what was now his 
 mode of life. Is he yet married ? " 
 
 " Not yet, I believe ; but he is not now so absolutely poor as 
 
 * The master has but sorry remuneration for his teaching.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. Ztf 
 
 you describe him to have been then, though certainly far from 
 rich." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I remember that he received a legacy from a re- 
 lation shortly before he left Knaresborough. He had very 
 delicate health at that time ; has he grown stronger with in- 
 creasing years ? " 
 
 " He does not complain of ill health. And pray, was he then 
 of the same austere and blameless habits of life that he now 
 professes ? " 
 
 "Nothing could be so faultless as his character appeared ; 
 the passions of youth (ah ! / was a wild fellow at his age) 
 never seemed to venture near one 
 
 ' Quern casto erudit doeta Minerva sinu.'* 
 
 Well, I am surprised he has not married. We scholars, sir, fall 
 in love with abstractions, and fancy the first woman we see 
 is Sir, let us drink the ladies." 
 
 The next day Walter, having resolved to set out for Knares- 
 borough, directed his course toward that town ; he thought it yet 
 possible that he might by strict personal inquiry continue the clue 
 that Elmore's account had, to present appearance, broken. The 
 pursuit in which he was engaged, combined, perhaps, with the 
 early disappointment to his affections, had given a grave and 
 solemn tone to a mind naturally ardent and elastic. His char- 
 acter acquired an earnestness and a dignity from late events ; 
 and all that once had been hope within him deepened into 
 thought. As now, on a gloomy and clouded day, he pursued 
 his course along a bleak and melancholy road his mind was 
 filled with that dark presentiment that shadow from the com- 
 ing event, which superstition believes the herald of the more 
 tragic discoveries or the more fearful incidents of life : he felt 
 steeled and prepared for some dread a'Jnodment, to a journey 
 to which the hand of Providence seemed to conduct his steps ; 
 and he looked on the shroud that Time casts over all beyond 
 the present moment with the same intense and painful resolve 
 with which, in the tragic representations of life, we await the 
 drawing up of the curtain before the last act, which contains 
 the catastrophe, that, while we long, we half shudder to behold. 
 
 Meanwhile, in following the adventures of Walter Lester, we 
 have greatly outstripped the progress of events at Grassdale^ 
 and thither we now return. 
 
 * Whom wise Minerva taught with bosom chaste.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ARAM'S DEPARTURE. MADELINE. EXAGGERATION OF SENTI- 
 MENT NATURAL IN LOVE. MADELINE S LETTER. WALTER'S. 
 THE WALK. TWO VERY DIFFERENT PERSONS, YET BOTH IN- 
 MATES OF THE SAME COUNTRY VILLAGE. THE HUMORS OF 
 LIFE, AND ITS DARK PASSIONS, ARE FOUND IN JUXTAPOSITION 
 EVERYWHERE. 
 
 " Her thoughts as pure as the chaste morning's breath, 
 When from the Night's cold arms it creeps away, 
 Were clothed in words." Detraction Execrated, by SIR J. SUCKLING. 
 
 " Urticae proxima ssepe rosa est." * OVID. 
 
 " You positively leave us then to-day, Eugene ? " said the 
 squire. 
 
 "Indeed," answered Aram, "I hear from my creditor (now 
 no longer so, thanks to you), that my relation is so dangerously 
 ill, that, if I have any wish to see her alive, I have not an hour 
 to lose. It is the last surviving relative I have in the world." 
 
 " I can say no more, then," rejoined the squire, shrugging 
 his shoulders. " When do you expect to return ? " 
 
 " At least, before the day fixed for the wedding," answered 
 Aram, with a grave and melancholy smile. 
 
 " Well, can you find time, think you, to call at the lodging in 
 which my nephew proposed to take up his abode, my old lodg- 
 ing, I will give you the address, and inquire if Walter has 
 been heard of there? I confess that I feel considerable alarm 
 on his account. Since that short and hurried letter which I 
 read to you, I have heard nothing of him." 
 
 " You may rely on my seeing him if in London, and 
 faithfully reporting to you all that I can learn toward remov- 
 ing your anxiety." 
 
 " I do not doubt it ; no heart is so kind as yours, Eugene. 
 You will not depart without receiving the additional sum you 
 are entitled to claim from me, since you think it may be useful 
 to you in London, should you find a favorable opportunity of 
 increasing your annuity. And now I will no longer detain you 
 from taking your leave of Madeline." 
 
 The plausible story which Aram had invented, of the illness 
 and approaching death of his last living relation, was readily 
 believed by the simple family to whom it was told ; and Made- 
 
 * The rose is often nearest to the nettle.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 239 
 
 line herself checked her tears, that she might not, for his sake, 
 sadden a departure that seemed inevitable. Aram accord- 
 ingly repaired to London that day ; the one that followed the 
 night which witnessed his fearful visit to The Devil's Crag. 
 
 It is precisely at this part of my history that I love to pause 
 for a moment ; a sort of breathing interval between the cloud 
 that has been long gathering, and the storm that is about to 
 burst. And this interval is not without its fleeting gleam of 
 quiet and holy sunshine. 
 
 It was Madeline's first absence from her lover since their 
 vows had plighted them to each other ; and that first absence, 
 when softened by so many hopes as smiled upon her, is per- 
 haps one of the most touching passages in the history of a 
 woman's love. It is marvellous how many things, unheeded 
 before, suddenly become dear. She then feels what a power of 
 consecration there was in the mere presence of the one be- 
 loved ; the spot he touched, the book he read, have become a 
 part of him are no longer inanimate are inspired, and have 
 a being and a voice. And the heart, too, soothed in discover- 
 ing so many new treasures, and opening so delightful a world 
 of memory, is not yet acquainted with that weariness that 
 sense of exhaustion and solitude, which are the true pains of 
 absence, and belong to the absence, not of hope but regret. 
 
 " You are cheerful, dear Madeline," said Ellinor, " though 
 you did not think it possible, and he not here ! " 
 
 " I am occupied," replied Madeline, " in discovering how 
 much I loved him." 
 
 We do wrong when we censure a certain exaggeration in the 
 sentiments of those who love. True passion is necessarily 
 heightened by its very ardor to an elevation that seems extrav- 
 agant only to those who cannot feel it. The lofty language of 
 a hero is a part of his character ; without that largeness of idea 
 he had not been a hero. With love, it is the same as with 
 glory: what common minds would call natural in sentiment, 
 merely because it is homely, is not natural, except to tamed 
 affections. That is a very poor, nay, a very coarse, love, in 
 which the imagination makes not the greater part. And the 
 Frenchman, who censured the love of his mistress because it 
 was so mixed with the imagination, quarrelled with the body 
 for the soul which inspired and preserved it. 
 
 Yet we do not say that Madeline was so possessed by the 
 confidence of her love, that she did not admit the intrusion of 
 a single doubt or fear. When she recalled the frequent gloom 
 and moody fitfulness of her lover his strange and mysterious
 
 240 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 communings with self the sorrow which, at times, as on that 
 Sabbath eve when he wept upon her bosom, appeared suddenly 
 to come upon a nature so calm and stately, and without a visible 
 cause ; when she recalled all these symptoms of a heart not 
 now at rest, it was not possible for her to reject altogether a 
 certain vague and dreary apprehension. Nor did she herself, 
 although to Ellinor she so affected, ascribe this cloudiness and 
 caprice of mood merely to the result of a solitary and medita- 
 tive life ; she attributed them to the influence of an early grief, 
 perhaps linked with the affections, and did not doubt but that 
 one day or another she should learn the secret. As for re- 
 morse the memory of any former sin, a life so austerely 
 blameless, a disposition so prompt to the activity of good, and 
 so enamoured of its beauty a mind so cultivated, a temper so 
 gentle, and a heart so easily moved all would have forbidden, 
 to natures far more suspicious than Madeline's, the conception 
 of such a thought. And so, with a patient gladness, though 
 not without some mixture of anxiety, she suffered "herself to 
 glide onward to a future which, come cloud, come shine, was, 
 she believed at least, to be shared with him. 
 
 On looking over the various papers from which I have woven 
 this tale, I find a letter from Madeline to Aram, dated at this 
 time. The characters, traced in the delicate and fair Italian 
 hand coveted at that period, are fading, and in one part 
 wholly obliterated by time ; but there seems to me so much of 
 what is genuine in the heart's beautiful romance in this effusion, 
 that I will lay it before the reader without adding or altering a 
 word : 
 
 " Thank you thank you, dearest Eugene ! I have received, 
 then, the first letter you ever wrote me. I cannot tell you how 
 strange it seemed to me, and how agitated I felt, on seeing it; 
 more so, I think, than if it had been yourself who had returned. 
 However, when the first delight of reading it faded away, I 
 found that it had not made me so happy as it ought to have 
 done as I thought at first it had done. You seem sad and 
 melancholy ; a certain nameless gloom appears to me to hang 
 over your whole letter. It affects my spirits why I know not 
 and my tears fall even while I read the assurances of your un- 
 alterable love : and yet this assurance your Madeline vain 
 girl ! never for a moment disbelieves. I have often read and 
 often heard of the distrust and jealousy that accompany love ; 
 but I think that such a love must be a vulgar and low senti- 
 ment. To me there seems a religion in love, and its very 
 foundation is in faith. You say, dearest, that the noise and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 241 
 
 stir of the great city oppress and weary you even more than 
 you had expected. You say those harsh faces, in which busi- 
 ness, and care, and avarice, and ambition, write their linea- 
 ments, are wholly unfamiliar to you ; you turn aside to avoid 
 them ; you wrap yourself up in your solitary feelings of aver- 
 sion to those you see, and you call upon those not present 
 upon your Madeline ! And would that your Madeline were 
 with you ! It seems to me perhaps you will smile when I say 
 this that I alone can understand you I alone can read your 
 heart and your emotions ; and, oh ! dearest Eugene, that I 
 could read also enough of your past history to know all that 
 has cast so habitual a shadow over that lofty heart and that 
 calm and profound nature ! You smile when I ask you ; but 
 sometimes you sigh, and the sigh pleases and soothes me bet- 
 ter than the smile. . . . 
 
 "We have heard nothing more of Walter, and my father 
 continues to be seriously alarmed about him. Your account, 
 too, corroborates that alarm. It is strange that he has not yet 
 visited London, and that you can obtain no clue of him. He 
 is evidently still in search of his lost parent and following 
 some obscure and uncertain track. Poor Walter ! God speed 
 him ! The singular fate of his father, and the many conjec- 
 tures respecting him, have, I believe, preyed on Walter's mind 
 more than he acknowledged. Ellinor found a paper in his 
 closet, where we had occasion to search the other day for 
 something belonging to my father, which was scribbled with 
 all the various fragments of guess or information concerning 
 my uncle, obtained from time to time, and interspersed with 
 some remarks by Walter himself that affected me strangely. 
 It seems to have been, from early childhood, the one desire of 
 my cousin to discover his father's fate. Perhaps the discovery 
 may be already made, perhaps my long-lost uncle may yet be 
 present at our wedding. 
 
 "You ask me, Eugene, if I still pursue my botanical re- 
 searches? Sometimes I do; but the flower now has no 
 fragrance, and the herb no secret, that I care for ; and 
 astronomy, which you had just begun to teach me, pleases me 
 more ; the flowers charm me when you are present ; but the 
 stars speak to me of you in absence. Perhaps it would not be 
 so, had I loved a being less exalted than you. Every one, 
 even my father, even Ellinor, smile when they observe how 
 incessantly I think of you how utterly you have become all 
 in all to me. I could not tell this to you, though I write it : is 
 it not strange that letters should be more faithful than the
 
 242 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 tongue ? And even your letter, mournful as it is, seems to me 
 kinder, and dearer, and more full of yourself, than, with all 
 the magic of your language, and the silver sweetness of your 
 voice, your spoken words are. I walked by your house yes- 
 terday ; the windows were closed ; there was a strange air of 
 lifelessness and dejection about it. Do you remember the 
 evening in which I first entered that house? Do you or, 
 rather, is there one hour in which it is not present to you? 
 For me, I live in the past, it is the present (which is without 
 you) in which I have no life. I passed into the little garden, 
 that with your own hands you have planted for me, and filled 
 with flowers. Ellinor was with me, and she saw my lips move 
 She asked me what I was saying to myself. I would not tell 
 her ; I was praying for you, my kind, my beloved Eugene. I 
 was praying for the happiness of your future years, pray- 
 ing that I might requite your love. Whenever I feel the 
 most, I am the most inclined to prayer. Sorrow, joy, tender- 
 ness, all emotion, lift up my heart to God. And what a 
 delicious overflow of the heart is prayer? When I am with 
 you and I feel that you love me my happiness would be 
 painful, if there were no God whom I might bless for its 
 excess. Do those who believe not love? have they deep 
 emotions ? can they feel truly devotedly ? Why, when I talk 
 thus to you, do you always answer me with that chilling and 
 mournful smile? You would rest religion only on reason, as 
 well limit love to the reason also ! what were either without 
 the feelings? 
 
 ''When when when will you return? I think I love you 
 now more than ever. I think I have more courage to tell you 
 so. So many things I have to say, so many events to relate. 
 For what is not an event to us? the least incident that has 
 happened to either ; the very fading of a flower, if you 
 have worn it, is a whole history to me. 
 
 " Adieu, God bless you ; God reward you ; God keep your 
 heart with Him, dearest, dearest Eugene. And may you every 
 day know better and better how utterly you are loved by your 
 
 "MADELINE." 
 
 The epistle to which Lester referred, as received from Walter, 
 was one written on the day of his escape from Mr. Pertinax 
 Fillgrave, a short note rather than letter, which ran as follows : 
 
 " MY DEAR UNCLE: 
 
 " I have met with an accident, which confined me to my bed ; 
 a rencontre, indeed, with the knights of the road ; nothing
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 243 
 
 serious (so do not be alarmed !) though the doctor would fain 
 have made it so. I am just about to recommence my journey ; 
 but not towards London ; on the contrary, northward. 
 
 " I have, partly through the information of your old friend, 
 Mr. Courtland, partly by accident, found what I hope may 
 prove a clue to the fate of my father. I am now departing to 
 put this hope to the issue. More I would fain say ; but, lest 
 the expectation should prove fallacious, I will not dwell on cir- 
 cumstances which would, in that case, only create in you a dis- 
 appointment similar to my own. Only this take with you, that 
 my father's proverbial good-luck seems to have visited him 
 since your latest news of his fate ; a legacy, though not a large 
 one, awaited his return to England from India: but see if I 
 am not growing prolix already ; I must break off in order to 
 reserve you the pleasure (may it be so !) of a full surprise ! 
 
 " God bless you, my dear uncle ! I write in spirits and 
 hope. Kindest love to all at home. WALTER LESTER." 
 
 " P.S. Tell Ellinor that my bitterest misfortune, in the ad- 
 venture I have referred to, was to be robbed of her purse. 
 Will she knit me another ? By the way, I encountered Sir Peter 
 Hales : such an open-hearted, generous fellow as you said ! 
 4 thereby hangs a tale.' " 
 
 This letter, which provoked all the curiosity of our little cir- 
 cle, made them anxiously look forward to every post for addi- 
 tional explanation, but that explanation came not ; and they 
 were forced to console themselves with the evident exhilara- 
 tion under which Walter wrote, and the probable supposition 
 thac he delayed further information until it could be ample and 
 satisfactory. " Knights of the road," quoth Lester, one day; 
 "I wonder if they were any of the gang that have just visited 
 us. Well, but, poor boy ! he does not say whether he has any 
 money left : yet if he were short of the gold, he would be very 
 unlike his father (or his uncle, for that matter) had he forgot- 
 ten to enlarge on that subject, however brief upon others." 
 
 "Probably," said Ellinor, "the corporal carried the main 
 sum about him in those well-stuffed saddle-bags, and it was 
 only the purse that Walter had about his person that was stolen ; 
 and it is clear that the corporal escaped, as he mentions noth- 
 ing about that excellent personage." 
 
 " A shrewd guess, Nell ; but pray, why should Walter carry 
 the purse about him so carefully? Ah, you blush : well, will 
 you knit him another ? " 
 
 " Pshaw, papa ! Good-by ; I am going to gather you a 
 nosegay."
 
 244 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 But Ellinor was seized with a sudden fit of industry, and, 
 somehow or other, she grew fonder of knitting than ever. 
 
 The neighborhood was now tranquil and at peace ; the night- 
 ly depredators that h:;d infested the green valleys of Grassdale 
 were heard of no more ; it seemed a sudden incursion of fraud 
 and crime, which was too unnatural to the character of the spot 
 invaded to do more than to terrify and to disappear. The trudi- 
 tur dies die ; the serene steps of one calm day chasing another 
 returned, and the past alarm was only remembered as a tempt- 
 ing subject of gossip to the villagers, and (at the hall) a theme 
 of eulogium on the courage of Eugene Aram. 
 
 " It is a lovely day," said Lester to his daughters as they sat 
 at the window ; "come, girls, get your bonnets, and let us take 
 a walk into the village." 
 
 " And meet the postman," said Ellinor archly. 
 
 "Yes," rejoined Madeline, in the same vein, but in a whis- 
 per that Lester might not hear : " for who knows but that we 
 may have a letter from Walter ? " 
 
 How prettily sounds such raillery on virgin lips ! No, no ; 
 nothing on earth is so lovely as the confidence between two 
 happy sisters, who have no secrets but those of a guileless love 
 to reveal ! 
 
 As they strolled into the village they were met by Peter 
 Dealtry, who was slowly riding home on a large ass, which car- 
 ried himself and his panniers to the neighboring market in a 
 more quiet and luxurious indolence of action than would the 
 harsher motions of the equine species. 
 
 " A fine day, Peter ; and what news at market ? " said 
 Lester. 
 
 " Corn high, hay dear, your honor," replied the clerk. 
 
 "Ah, I suppose so ; a good time to sell ours, Peter: we 
 must see about it on Saturday. But, pray, have you heard 
 anything from the corporal since his departure ? " 
 
 "Not I, your honor, not I ; though I think as he might have 
 given us a line, if it was only to thank me for my care of his 
 cat ; but 
 
 ' Them as comes to go to roam, 
 Thinks slight of they as stays at home." 
 
 "A notable distich, Peter; your own composition,! warrant.* 
 " Mine ! Lord love your honor, I has no genus, but I has 
 memory ; and when them ere beautiful lines of poetry-like 
 comes into my head they stays there, and stays till they pops out 
 at my tongue like a bottle of ginger-beer, I do loves poetry, 
 sir, 'specially the sacred."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 245 
 
 "We know it, we know it." 
 
 "For there be summut in it," continued the clerk, "which 
 smooths a man's heart like a clothes-brush, wipes away the 
 dust and dirt, and sets all the nap right : and I thinks as how 
 'tis what a clerk of the parish ought to study, your honor." 
 
 "Nothing better ; you speak like an oracle." 
 
 "Now, sir, there be the corporal, honest man, what thinks 
 himself mighty clever, but he has no soul for varse. Lord 
 love ye, to see the faces he makes when I tells him a hymn or 
 so ; 'tis quite wicked, your honor, for that's what the heathen 
 did, as you well know, sir. 
 
 ' And when I does discourse of things 
 
 Most holy to their tribe. 
 What does they do ? they mocks at me, 
 And makes my harp a gibe.' 
 
 "Tis not what /calls pretty, Miss Ellinor." 
 
 "Certainly not, Peter ; I wonder, with your talents for verse, 
 you never indulge in a little satire against such perverse 
 taste." 
 
 "Satire! what's that? Oh, I know; what they writes in 
 elections. Why, miss, mayhap " here Peter paused, and 
 winked significantly " but the corporal's a passionate man, 
 you knows : but I could so sting him. Aha ! we'll see, we'll 
 see. Do you know, your honor," here Peter altered his air 
 to one of serious importance, as if about to impart a most 
 sagacious conjecture, "I think there be one reason why the 
 corporal has not written to me." 
 
 " And what's that, Peter?" 
 
 " Cause, your honor, he's ashamed of his writing : I fancy as 
 how his spelling is no better than it should be, but mum's 
 the word. You sees, your honor, the corporal's got a tarn for 
 conversation-like; he be a mighty fine talker, sure/y/ but he 
 be shy of the pen ; 'tis not every man what talks biggest what's 
 the best scholard at bottom. Why, there's the newspaper I 
 saw in the market (for I always sees the newspaper once a 
 week) says as how some of them great speakers in the parlia- 
 ment house are no better than ninnies when they gets upon 
 paper ; and that's the corporal's case, I sispect ; I suppose as 
 how they can't spell all them ere long words they make use on. 
 For my part, I thinks there be mortal desate (deceit) like in 
 that ere public speaking ; for I knows how far a loud voice 
 and a bold face goes, even in buying a cow, your honor ; and 
 I'm afraid the country's greatly bubbled in that ere partiklar ; 
 for if a man can't write down clearly what he means for
 
 246 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 to say, I does not think as how he knows what he means 
 when he goes for to speak ! " 
 
 This speech quite a moral exposition from Peter, and, 
 doubtless, inspired by his visit to market for what wisdom 
 cannot come from intercourse ? our good publican delivered 
 with especial solemnity, giving a huge thump on the sides of 
 his ass as he concluded. 
 
 " Upon my word, Peter," said Lester, laughing, " you have 
 grown quite a Solomon ; and, instead of a clerk, you ought to 
 be a justice of the peace, at the least ; and, indeed, I must say 
 that 1 think you shine more in the capacity of a lecturer than in 
 that of a soldier." 
 
 ' Tis not for a clerk of the parish to have too great a knack 
 at the weapons of the flesh," said Peter sanctimoniously, and 
 turning aside to conceal a slight confusion at the unlucky 
 reminiscence of his warlike exploits ; " but lauk, sir, even as 
 to that, why, we has frightened all the robbers away. What 
 would you have us do more ? " 
 
 " Upon my word, Peter, you say right ; and now, good day. 
 Your wife's well, I hope?" And Jacobina (is not that the 
 cat's name ?) in high health and favor ? " 
 
 " Hem, hem ! why, to be sure, the cat's a good cat ; but she 
 steals Goody Truman's cream as Goody sets for butter reg'larly 
 every night." 
 
 "Oh ! you must cure her of that," said Lester, smiling. " I 
 hope that's the worst fault." 
 
 "Why, your gardener do say," replied Peter reluctantly, 
 "as how she goes arter the pheasants in Copsehole." 
 
 " The deuce ! " cried the squire ; "that will never do : she 
 must be shot, Peter, she must be shot. My pheasants ! my best 
 preserves and poor Goody Truman's cream, too ! a perfect 
 devil ! Look to it, Peter ; if I hear any complaints again, 
 Jacobina is done for. What are you laughing at, Nell?" 
 
 " Well, go thy ways, Peter, for a shrewd man and a clever 
 man ; it is not every one who could so suddenly have elicited 
 my father's compassion for Goody Truman's cream." 
 
 " Pooh ! " said the squire : " a pheasant's a serious thing, 
 child ; but you women don't understand matters." 
 
 They had now crossed through the village into the fields, 
 and were slowly sauntering by 
 
 " Hedge-row elms on hillocks green," 
 
 when, seated under a stunted pollard, they came suddenly on 
 the ill-favored person of Dame Darkmans. She sat bent (with
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 247 
 
 her elbows on her knees, and her hands supporting her chin ), 
 looking up to the clear autumnal sky ; and as they approached, 
 she did not stir, or testify by sign or glance that she even per- 
 ceived them. 
 
 There is a certain kind-hearted sociability of temper that 
 you see sometimes among country gentlemen, especially not of 
 the highest rank, who knowing, and looked up to by, everyone 
 immediately around them, acquire the habit of accosting all 
 they meet a habit as painful for them to break, as it was 
 painful for poor Rousseau to be asked "how he did" by an 
 apple-woman. And the kind old squire could not pass even 
 Goody Darkmans (coming thus abruptly upon her ) without a 
 salutation. 
 
 "All alone, dame, enjoying the fine weather? that's right. 
 And how fares it with you ? " 
 
 The old woman turned round her dark and bleared eyes, but 
 without moving limb or posture. 
 
 " 'Tis well-nigh winter now ; 'tis not easy for poor folks to 
 fare well at this time o' year. Where be we to get the firewood, 
 and the clothing, and the dry bread, carse it ! and the drop o* 
 stuff that's to keep out the cold ? Ah, it's fine for you to ask 
 how we does, and the days shortening, and the air sharpening." 
 
 "Well, dame, shall I send to for a warm cloak for 
 
 you?" said Madeline. 
 
 " Ho ! thankye, young lady thankye kindly, and I'll wear 
 it at your widding, for they says you be going to git married to 
 the larned man yander. Wish ye well, ma'am, wish ye well." 
 
 And the old hag grinned as she uttered this benediction, 
 that sounded on her lips like the Lord's Prayer on a witch's ; 
 which converts the devotion to a crime, and the prayer to a 
 curse. 
 
 " Ye're very winsome, young lady," she continued, eyeing 
 Madeline's tall and rounded figure from head to foot. "Yes, 
 very ; but I was as bonny as you once, and if you lives mind 
 that fair and happy as you stand now, you'll be as withered, 
 and foul-faced, and wretched as me. Ha ! ha ! I loves to look 
 on young folks, and think o' that. But mayhap ye won't live 
 to be old more's the pity ! for ye might be a widow, and 
 childless, and a lone 'oman, as I be ; if you were to see sixty : 
 an' wouldn't that be nice? ha ! ha ! much pleasure ye'd have 
 in the fine weather then, and in people's fine speeches, eh? " 
 
 "Come, dame," said Lester, with a cloud on his benign 
 brow, " this talk is ungrateful to me, and disrespectful to Miss 
 Lester ; it is not the way to "
 
 248 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Hout ! " interrupted the old woman ; "I begs pardon, sir, 
 if I offended ; I begs pardon, young lady : 'tis my way, poor 
 old soul that I be. And you meant me kindly, and I would 
 not be uncivil, now you are a-going to give me a bonny cloak ; 
 and what color shall it be ? " 
 
 "Why, what color would you like best, dame red ? " 
 
 " Red ! no ! like a gypsy-quean, indeed ! Besides, they all 
 has red cloaks in the village, yonder. No ; a handsome dark 
 gray, or a gay, cheersome black, and then I'll dance in mourn- 
 ing at your wedding, young lady : and that's what ye'll like. 
 But what ha' ye done with the merry bridegroom, ma'am ? 
 Gone away, I hear. Ah, ye'll have a happy life on it, with a 
 gentleman like him. I never seed him laugh once. Why does 
 not he hire me as your sarvant ; would not I be a favorite, 
 thin ? I'd stand on the thrishold, and give ye good-morrow 
 every day. Oh ! it does me a deal of good to say a blessing 
 to them as be younger and gayer than me. Madge Darkmans's 
 blessing ! Och ! what a thing to wish for ! " 
 
 " Well, good-day, mother," said Lester, moving on. 
 
 " Stay a bit, stay a bit, sir ; has ye any commands, miss, 
 yonder, at Master Aram's ? His old 'ornan's a gossip of mine ; 
 we were young togither ; and the lads did not know which to 
 like the best. So we often meets and talks of the old times. 
 I be going up there now. Och ! I hope I shall be asked to the 
 widding. And what a nice month to wid in ! Novimber, 
 Novimber, that's the merry month for me ! But 'tis cold bit- 
 ter cold, too. Well, good-day, good-day. Ay," continued the 
 hag, as Lester and the sisters moved on, "ye all goes and 
 throws niver a look behind. Ye despises the poor in your 
 hearts. But the poor will have their day. Och ! an* I wish 
 ye were dead, dead, dead, an' I dancing in my bonny black 
 cloak about your graves ; for an't all mine dead, cold, cold, 
 rotting, and one kind and rich man might ha' saved them all ?" 
 
 Thus mumbling, the wretched creature looked after the 
 father and his daughters, as they wound onward, till her dim 
 eyes caught them no longer ; and then, drawing her rags round 
 her, she rose, and struck into the opposite path that led to 
 Aram's house. 
 
 " I hope that hag will be no constant visitor at your future 
 residence, Madeline," said the younger sister ; " it would be like 
 a blight on the air." 
 
 " And if we could remove her from the parish," said Lester, 
 " it would be a happy day for the village. Yet, strange as it 
 may seem, so great is her power over them all, that there is
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 24$ 
 
 never a marriage nor a christening in the village from which 
 she is absent ; they dread her spite and foul tongue enough, to 
 make them even ask humbly for her presence." 
 
 " And the hag seems to know that her bad qualities are a 
 good policy and obtain more respect than amiability would 
 do," said Ellinor. " I think there is some design in all she 
 utters." 
 
 "I don't know how it is, but the words and sight of that 
 woman have struck a damp into my heart," said Madeline 
 musingly. 
 
 " It would be wonderful if they had not, child," said Les- 
 ter soothingly ; and he changed the conversation to other 
 topics. 
 
 As, concluding their walk, they re-entered the village, they 
 encountered that most welcome of all visitants to a country 
 village, the postman -a. tall, thin pedestrian, famous for swift- 
 ness of foot, with a cheerful face, a swinging gait, and Lester's 
 bag slung over his shoulder. Our little party quickened their 
 pace one letter for Madeline Aram's handwriting. Happy 
 blush bright smile ! Ah ! no meeting ever gives the delight 
 that a letter can inspire in the short absences of a first love ! 
 
 "And none for me! " said Lester, in a disappointed tone, 
 and Ellinor's hand hung more heavily on his arm, and her 
 step moved slower. " It is very strange in Walter ; but I am 
 really more angry than alarmed." 
 
 " Be sure," said Ellinor, after a pause, " that it is not his fault. 
 Something may have happened to him. Good heavens ! if he 
 has been attacked again those fearful highwaymen ! " 
 
 " Nay," said Lester, "the most probable supposition after 
 all is, that he will not write until his expectations are realized 
 or destroyed. Natural enough, too ; it is what I should have 
 done, if I had been in his place." 
 
 " Natural ! " said Ellinor, who now attacked where she be- 
 fore defended " natural not to give us one line, to say he is 
 well and safe ! Natural ! /could not have been so remiss !" 
 
 " Ay, child, you women are so fond of writing : 'tis not so 
 with us, especially when we are moving about : it is always 
 ' Well, I must write to-morrow ; well, I must write when this is 
 settled; well, I must write when I arrive at such a place'; 
 and, meanwhile, time slips on, till perhaps we get ashamed of 
 writing at all. I heard a great man say once, that ' Men must 
 have something effeminate about them to be good correspond- 
 ents ' ; and, faith, I think it's true enough on the whole." 
 
 ( 'I wonder if Madeline thinks so ? " said Ellinor, enviously
 
 250 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 glancing at her sister's absorption, as, lingering a little behind, 
 she devoured the contents of her letter. 
 
 " He is coming home immediately, dear father ; perhaps he 
 may be here to-morrow," cried Madeline abruptly ; " think of 
 that, Ellinor ! Ah ! and he writes in spirits ! " and the poor 
 girl clapped her hands delightedly, as the color danced joy- 
 ously over her cheek and neck. 
 
 " I am glad to hear it," quoth Lester ; we shall have him at 
 last beat even Ellinor in gayety ! " 
 
 " That may easily be," sighed Ellinor to herself, as she 
 glided past them into the house, and sought her own chamber. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A REFLECTION NEW AND STRANGE. THE STREETS OF LON- 
 DON. A GREAT MAN'S LIBRARY. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN 
 
 THE STUDENT AND AN ACQUAINTANCE OF THE READER'S. 
 
 ITS RESULT. 
 
 " Here's a statesman ! 
 ***** 
 
 Kolla. Ask for thyself. 
 
 Lat. What more can concern me than this?" The Tiagedy of Rolla. 
 
 IT was an evening in the declining autumn of 1758 ; some 
 public ceremony had occurred during the day, and the crowd 
 which it had assembled was only now gradually lessening, as 
 the shadows darkened along the streets. Through this crowd, 
 self-absorbed as usual with them, not one of them Eugene 
 Aram slowly wound his uncompanioned way. What an incal- 
 culable field of dread and sombre contemplation is opened to 
 every man who, with his heart disengaged from himself and his 
 eyes accustomed to the sharp observance of his tribe, walks 
 through the streets of a great city ! What a world of dark and 
 troubled secrets in the breast of every one who hurries by you! 
 Goethe has said somewhere that each of us, the best as the 
 worst, hides within him something some feeling, some remem- 
 brance that, if known, would make you hate him. No doubt 
 the saying is exaggerated ; but still, what a gloomy and pro- 
 found sublimity in the idea ! what a new insight it gives into 
 the hearts of the common herd ! with what a strange interest 
 it may inspire us for the humblest, the tritest passenger that 
 shoulders us in the great thoroughfare of life ! One of the 
 greatest pleasures in the world is to walk alone, and at night
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 251 
 
 (while they are yet crowded), through the long, lamp-lit streets 
 of this huge metropolis. There, even more than in the silence 
 of woods and fields, seems to me the source of endless, various 
 meditation. 
 
 " Crescit enim cum amplitudine rerum vis ingenii. " * 
 
 There was that in Aram's person which irresistibly com- 
 manded attention. The earnest composure of his counte- 
 nance, its thoughtful paleness, the long hair falling back, the 
 i peculiar and estranged air of his whole figure, accompanied as 
 1 it was by a mildness of expression, and that lofty abstraction, 
 which characterizes one who is a brooder over his own heart 
 a soothsayer to his own dreams ; all these arrested from time 
 to time the second gaze of the passenger, and forced on him 
 the impression, simple as was the dress, and unpretending as 
 was the gait of the stranger, that in indulging that second gaze 
 he was in all probability satisfying the curiosity which makes us 
 love to fix our regard upon any remarkable man. 
 
 A.t length Aram turned from the more crowded streets, and 
 in a short time paused before one of the most princely houses 
 in London. It was surrounded by a spacious courtyard, and 
 over the porch the arms of the owner, with the coronet and 
 supporters, were raised in stone. 
 
 "Is Lord within ?" asked Aram, of the bluff porter 
 
 who appeared at the gate. 
 
 "My Lord is at dinner," replied the porter, thinking the an- 
 swer quite sufficient, and about to reclose the gate upon the 
 unseasonable visitor. 
 
 "I am glad to find he is at home," rejoined Aram, gliding 
 past the servant with an air of quiet and unconscious com- 
 mand, and passing the court-yard to the main building. 
 
 At the door of the house, to which you ascended by a flight 
 of stone steps, the valet of the nobleman the only nobleman 
 introduced in our tale, and consequently the same whom we 
 have presented to our reader in the earlier part of this work, 
 happened to be lounging and enjoying the smoke of the even- 
 ing air. High-bred, prudent, and sagacious, Lord - knew 
 well how often great men, especially in public life, obtain 
 odium for the rudeness of their domestics ; and all those es- 
 pecially about himself had been consequently tutored into the 
 habits of universal courtesy and deference, to the lowest 
 stranger as well as to the highest guest. And trifling as this 
 may seem, it was an act of morality as well as of prudence. 
 
 * For the power of the intellect is increased by the amplitude of the things that feed it.
 
 252 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Few can guess what pain may be saved to poor and proud men 
 of merit by a similar precaution. The valet, therefore, replied 
 to the visitor's inquiry with great politeness ; he recollected 
 Aram's name and repute ; and as the earl, taking delight in 
 the company of men of letters, was generally easy of access to 
 all such, the great man's great man instantly conducted the 
 student to the earl's library, and informing him that his lord- 
 ship had not yet left the dining-room, where he was entertain- 
 ing a large party, assured him that he should be apprised of 
 Aram's visit the moment he did so. 
 
 Lord was still in office ; sundry boxes were scattered 
 
 on the floor ; papers, that seemed countless, lay strewed over 
 the immense library table ; but here and there were books of a 
 more seductive character than those of business, in which the 
 mark lately set, and the pencilled note still fresh, showed .the 
 fondness with which men of cultivated minds, though engaged 
 in official pursuits, will turn in the momentary intervals of 
 more arid and toilsome life to those lighter studies which per- 
 haps they in reality the most enjoy. 
 
 One of these books, a volume of Shaftesbury, Aram carefully 
 took up ; it opened of its own accord at that most beautiful and 
 profound passage, which contains perhaps the justest sarcasm 
 to which that ingenious and graceful reasoner has given vent: 
 
 "The very spirit of Faction, for the greatest part, seems to 
 be no other than the abuse or irregularity of that social love 
 and common affection which is natural to mankind ; for the 
 opposite of sociableness is selfishness ; and of all characters, 
 the thorough selfish one is the least forward in taking party. 
 The men of this sort are, in this respect, true men of modera- 
 tion. They are secure of their temper, and possess themselves 
 too well to be in danger of entering warmly into any cause, or 
 engaging deeply with any side or faction." 
 
 On the margin of the page was the following note, in the 
 handwriting of Lord : 
 
 ' Generosity hurries a man into party philosophy keeps 
 him aloof from it ; the Emperor Julian says in his epistle to 
 Themistius, 'If you should form only three or four philoso- 
 phers, you would contribute more essentially to the happiness 
 of mankind than many kings united.' Yet, if all men were 
 philosophers, I doubt whether, though more men would be 
 virtuous, there would be so many instances of an extraordi- 
 nary virtue. The violent passions produce dazzling irregu- 
 larities." 
 
 The student was still engaged with this note when the earl
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 253 
 
 entered the loom. As the door through which he passed was 
 behind Aram, and he trod with a soft step, he was not perceived 
 by the scholar till he had reached him, and, looking over 
 Aram's shoulder, the earl said : " You will dispute the truth of 
 my remark, will you not ? Profound calm is the element in 
 which you would place all the virtues." 
 
 " Not #//, my lord," answered Aram, rising, as the earl now 
 shook him by the hand, and expressed his delight at seeing the 
 student again. Though the sagacious nobleman had no sooner 
 heard the student's name, than, in his own heart, he was con- 
 vinced that Aram had sought him for the purpose of soliciting 
 a renewal of the offers he had formerly refused ; he resolved 
 to leave his visitor to open the subject himself, and appeared 
 courteously to consider the visit as a matter of course, made 
 without any other object than the renewal of the mutual pleas- 
 ure of intercourse. 
 
 " I am afraid, my lord," said Aram, " that you are engaged. 
 My visit can be paid to-morrow if " 
 
 " Indeed," said the earl, interrupting him, and drawing a 
 chair to the table, " I have no engagements which should de- 
 prive me of the pleasure of your company. A few friends have 
 
 indeed dined with me, but as they are now with Lady , I 
 
 do not think they will greatly miss me ; besides, an occasional 
 absence is readily forgiven in us happy men of office, we who 
 have the honor of exciting the envy of all England, for being 
 made magnificently wretched." 
 
 "I am glad you allow so much, my. lord," said Aram, smiling ; 
 "/could not have said more. Ambition only makes a favorite 
 
 to make an ingrate ; she has lavished her honors on Lord , 
 
 and hear how he speaks of her bounty !." 
 
 " Nay," said the earl, " I spoke wantonly, and stand cor- 
 rected. I have no reason to complain of the course I have 
 chosen. Ambition, like any other passion, gives us unhappy 
 moments ; but it gives us also an animated life. In its pursuit, 
 the minor evils of the world are not felt ; little crosses, little 
 vexations do not disturb us. Like men who walk in sleep, we 
 are absorbed in one powerful dream, and do not even know 
 the obstacles in our way, or the dangers that surround us : in a 
 word, we have no private life. All that is merely domestic, the 
 anxiety and the loss which fret other men, which blight the 
 happiness of other men, are not felt by us : we are wholly 
 public, so that if we lose much comfort, we escape much 
 care." 
 
 The earl broke off for a moment ; and then turning the sub-
 
 254 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 ject, inquired after the Lesters, and making some general and 
 vague observations about that family, came purposely to a 
 pause. 
 
 Aram broke it : 
 
 "My lord," said he, with a slight, but not ungraceful embar- 
 rassment, " I fear that, in the course of your political life, you 
 must have made one observation,- that he who promises to-day, 
 will be called upon to perform to-morrow. No man who has 
 anything to bestow can ever promise with impunity. Some 
 time since, you tendered me offers that would have dazzled 
 more ardent natures than mine ; and which I might have 
 advanced some claim to philosophy in refusing. I do not now 
 come to ask a renewal of those offers. Public life and the 
 haunts of men are as hateful as ever to my pursuits : but I 
 come, frankly and candidly, to throw myself on that generosity, 
 which then proffered to me so large a bounty. Certain cir- 
 cumstances have taken from me the small pittance which sup- 
 plied my wants ; I require only the power to pursue my quiet 
 and obscure career of study ; your lordship can afford me that 
 power : it is not against custom for the government to grant 
 some small annuity to men of letters ; your lordship's interest 
 could obtain me this favor. Let me add, however, that I can 
 offer nothing in return ! Party politics sectarian interests 
 are forever dead to me : even my common studies are of small 
 general utility to mankind. I am conscious of this would 
 it were otherwise ! Once I hoped it would be but " 
 Aram here turned deadly pale, gasped for breath, mastered his 
 emotion, and proceeded : "I have no great claim, then, to this 
 bounty, beyond that which all poor cultivators of the abstruse 
 sciences can advance. It is well for a country that those 
 sciences should be cultivated ; they are not of a nature which 
 is ever lucrative to the possessor not of a nature that can often 
 be left, like lighter literature, to the fair favor of the public ; they 
 call, perhaps, more than any species of intellectual culture, for 
 the protection of a government'; and though in me would be a 
 poor selection, the principle would still be served, and the ex- 
 ample furnish precedent for nobler instances hereafter. I have 
 said all, my lord ! " 
 
 Nothing perhaps more affects a man of some sympathy with 
 those who cultivate letters than the pecuniary claims of one 
 who can advance them with justice, and who advances them 
 also with dignity. If the meanest, the most pitiable, the most 
 heart-sickening object in the world, is the man of letters, sunk 
 into the habitual beggar, practicing the tricks, incurring the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 255 
 
 rebuke, glorying in the shame, of the mingled mendicant and 
 swindler ; what, on the other hand, so touches, so subdues us, 
 as the first, and only petition, of one whose intellect dignifies 
 our whole kind ; and who prefers it with a certain haughtiness 
 in his very modesty ; because, in asking a favor to himself, he 
 may be only asking the power to enlighten the world ? 
 
 " Say no more, sir," said the earl, affected deeply, and grace- 
 fully giving way to the feeling ; " the affair is settled. Con- 
 sider it so. Name only the amount of the annuity you desire." 
 
 With some hesitation Aram named a sum so moderate, so 
 trivial, that the minister, accustomed as he was to the claims 
 of younger sons and widowed dowagers accustomed to the 
 hungry cravings of petitioners without merit, who considered 
 birth the only just title to the right of exactions from the pub- 
 lic was literally startled by the contrast. "More than this," 
 added Aram, " I do not require, and would decline to accept. 
 We have some right to claim existence from the administrators 
 of the common stock none to claim affluence." 
 
 " Would to Heaven ! " said the earl, smiling, " that all claim- 
 ants were like you ; pension lists would not then call for indig- 
 nation ; and ministers would not blush to support the justice of 
 the favors they conferred. But are you still firm in rejecting a 
 more public career, with all its deserved emoluments and just 
 honors ? The offer I made you once, I renew with increased 
 avidity now." 
 
 " ' Dcspiciam dites? " answered Aram, " and, thanks to you, 
 I may add, 'despiciamque famcm' " * 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE THAMES AT NIGHT. A THOUGHT. THE STUDENT RESEEKS 
 
 THE RUFFIAN. A HUMAN FEELING EVEN IN THE WORST 
 
 SOIL. 
 
 " Clem. 'Tis our last interview ! 
 
 Stat. Pray Heav'n it be ! " Clemanthes. 
 
 ON leaving Lord ' s, Aram proceeded, with a lighter 
 
 and more rapid step, towards a less courtly quarter of the 
 metropolis. 
 
 He had found, on arriving in London, that in order to secure 
 the annual sum promised to Houseman, it had been necessary to 
 strip himself even of the small stipend he had hoped to retain. 
 
 * " Let me despise wealth," and, thanks to you, I may add, "and let me look down on 
 famine."
 
 256 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 And hence his visit, and hence his petition, to Lord . He 
 
 now bent his way to the spot in which Houseman had appointed 
 their meeting. To the fastidious reader these details of pecuniary 
 matters, so trivial in themselves, may be a little wearisome, and 
 may seem a little undignified ; but we are writing a romance of 
 real life, and the reader must take what is homely with what 
 may be more epic the pettiness and the wants of the daily 
 world, with its loftier sorrows and its grander crimes. Besides, 
 who knows how darkly just may be that moral which shows us a 
 nature originally high, a soul once all athirst for truth, bowed 
 (by what events ?) to the manoeuvres and the lies of the worldly 
 hypocrite? 
 
 The night had now closed in, and its darkness was only 
 relieved by the wan lamps that vistaed the streets, and a few 
 dim stars that struggled through the reeking haze that curtained 
 the great city. Aram had now gained one of the bridges " that 
 arch the royal Thames," and, in no time dead to scenic attrac- 
 tion, he there paused for a moment, and looked along the dark 
 river that rushed below. 
 
 Oh, God ! how many wild and stormy hearts have stilled 
 themselves on that spot, for one dread instant of thought of 
 calculation of resolve one instant, the last of life ! Look at 
 night along the course of that stately river, how gloriously it 
 seems to mock the passions of them that dwell beside it. Un- 
 changedunchanging all around it quick death, and troubled 
 life ; itself smiling up to the gray stars, and singing from its 
 deep heart as it bounds along. Beside it is the senate, proud 
 of its solemn triflers ; and there the cloistered tomb, in which, 
 as the loftiest honor, some handful of the fiercest of the strug- 
 glers may gain forgetfulness and a grave ! There is no moral 
 to a great city like the river that washes its walls. 
 
 There was something in the view before him, that suggested 
 reflections similar to these, to the strange and mysterious breast 
 of the lingering student. A solemn dejection crept over him, 
 a warning voice sounded on his ear, the fearful genius within 
 him was aroused, and even in the moment when his triumph 
 seemed complete and his safety secured, he felt it only as 
 
 " The torrent's smoothness ere it clash below." 
 
 The mist obscured and saddened the few lights scattered on 
 either side the water ; and a deep and gloomy quiet brooded 
 round : 
 
 "The very heuses seemed asleep, 
 And all that mighty heart was lying still."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 257 
 
 Arousing himself from his short and sombre revery, Aram re- 
 sumed his way, and threading some of the smaller streets on 
 the opposite side of the water, arrived at last in the street in 
 which he was to seek Houseman. 
 
 It was a narrow and dark lane, and seemed altogether of a 
 suspicious and disreputable locality. One or two samples of 
 the lowest description of alehouses broke the dark silence of 
 the spot ; from them streamed the only lighis which assisted 
 the single lamp that burned at the entrance of the alley ; and 
 bursts of drunken laughter and obscene merriment broke out 
 every now and then from these wretched theatres of Pleasure. 
 As Aram passed one of them, a crowd of the lowest order of 
 ruffian and harlot issued noisily from the door, and suddenly 
 obstructed his way : through this vile press, reeking with the 
 stamp and odor of the most repellant character of vice, was 
 the lofty and cold student to force his path ! The darkness, 
 his quick step, his downcast head, favored his escape through 
 the unhallowed throng, and he now stood opposite the door of a 
 small and narrow house. A ponderous knocker adorned the 
 door, which seemed of uncommon strength, being thickly stud- 
 ded with large nails. He knocked twice before his summons 
 was answered, and then a voice from within cried, "Who's 
 there ? What want you ? " 
 
 "I seek one called Houseman." 
 
 No answer was returned ; some moments elapsed. Again 
 the student knocked, and presently he heard the voice of 
 Houseman himself call out : 
 
 " Who's there Joe the Cracksman ? " 
 
 " Richard Houseman, it is I," answered Aram, in a deep tone, 
 and suppressing the natural feelings of loathing and abhor- 
 rence. 
 
 Houseman uttered a quick exclamation ; the door was has- 
 tily unbarred. All within was utterly dark ; but Aram felt 
 with a thrill of repugnance the grip of his strange acquaintance 
 on his hand. 
 
 "Ha! it is you! Come in, come in! let me lead you. 
 Have a care cling to the wall the right hand now 
 then stay. So so (opening the door of a room, in which 
 a single candle, well nigh in its socket, broke on the previous 
 darkness); here we are! here we are! And how goes it, 
 eh ? " 
 
 Houseman now bustling about, did the honors of his apart- 
 ment with a sort of complacent hospitality. He drew two 
 rough wooden chairs, that in some late merriment seemed to have
 
 258 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 been upset, and lay cumbering the unwashed and carpetless 
 floor, in a position exactly contrary to that destined them by 
 their maker ; he drew these chairs near a table strewed with 
 drinking horns, half-emptied bottles, and a pack of cards. 
 Dingy caricatures, of the large, coarse fashion of the day, dec- 
 orated the walls ; and, carelessly thrown on the table, lay a 
 pair of huge horse-pistols, an immense shovel hat, a false 
 moustache, a rouge-pot, and a riding whip. All this the student 
 comprehended with a rapid glance ; his lip quivered for a mo- 
 ment, whether with shame or scorn of himself, and then throw- 
 ing himself on the chair Houseman had set for him, he said : 
 
 " I have come to discharge my part of our agreement." 
 
 " You are most welcome," replied Houseman, with that tone 
 of coarse, yet flippant jocularity, which afforded to the mien 
 and manner of Aram a still stronger contrast than his more 
 unrelieved brutality. 
 
 "There," said Aram, giving him a paper; "there you will 
 perceive that the sum mentioned is secured to you, the moment 
 you quit this country. When shall that be? Let me entreat 
 haste." 
 
 " Your prayer shall be granted. Before daybreak to-mor- 
 row, I will be on the road." 
 
 Aram's face brightened. 
 
 "There is my hand upon it," said Houseman earnestly. 
 "You may now rest assured that you are free of me for life. 
 Go home marry enjoy your existence, as I have done. 
 Within four days, if the wind set fair, I am in France." 
 
 " My business is done ; I will believe you," said Aram 
 frankly, and rising. 
 
 "You may," answered Houseman. "Stay I will light 
 you to the door. Devil and death how the d d candle 
 flickers ! " 
 
 Across the gloomy passage, as the candle now flared and 
 now was dulled by quick fits and starts, Houseman, after 
 this brief conference, reconducted the student. And as Aram 
 turned from the door, he flung his arms wildly aloft, and ex- 
 claimed, in the voice of one, from whose heart a load is lifted : 
 "Now, now, for Madeline ! I breathe freely at last ! " 
 
 Meanwhile, Houseman turned musingly back, and regained 
 his room, muttering : 
 
 "Yes yes my business here is also done ! Competence and 
 safety abroad after all, what a bugbear is this conscience ! 
 fourteen years have rolled away and lo ! nothing discovered ! 
 nothing known ! And easy circumstances the very conse-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 2$9 
 
 quence of the deed wait the remainder of my days ; my child, 
 too my Jane shall not want shall not be a beggar or a 
 harlot." 
 
 So musing, Houseman threw himself contentedly on the 
 chair, and the last flicker of the expiring light, as it played 
 upward on his rugged countenance, rested on one of those self- 
 hugging smiles, with which a sanguine man contemplates a 
 satisfactory future. 
 
 He had not been long alone before the door opened, and a 
 woman with a light in her hand appeared. She was evidently 
 intoxicated, and approached Houseman with a reeling and un- 
 steady step. 
 
 "How now, Bess? drunk as usual! Get to bed, you she 
 shark, go ! " 
 
 "Tush, man, tush! don't talk to your betters," said the 
 woman, sinking into a chair ; and her situation, disgusting as 
 it was, could not conceal the striking, though somewhat coarse, 
 beauty of her face and person. 
 
 Even Houseman (his heart being opened, as it were, by the 
 cheering prospects of which his soliloquy had indulged the 
 contemplation) was sensible of the effect of the mere physical 
 attraction, and drawing his chair closer to her, he said in a 
 tone less harsh than usual : 
 
 "Come, Bess, come, you must correct that d d habit of 
 yours ; perhaps I may make a lady of you after all. What if 
 I were to let you take a trip with me to France, old girl, eh ; and 
 let you set off that handsome face for you are devilish hand- 
 some, and that's the truth of it with some of the French gew- 
 gaws you women love? What if I were? would you be a good 
 girl, eh ? " 
 
 "I think I would, Dick, I think I would," replied the 
 woman, showing a set of teeth as white as ivory, with pleasure 
 partly at the flattery, partly at the proposition : '" you are a good 
 fellow, Dick, that you are." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Houseman, whose hard, shrewd mind was 
 not easily cajoled; "but what's that paper in your bosom, 
 Bess? A love-letter, I'll swear." 
 
 ' 'Tis to you, th^n ; came to you this morning, only some- 
 how or other I forgot to give it you till now." 
 
 " Ha ! a letter to me ! " said Houseman, seizing the epistle 
 in question. "Hem! "the Knaresbro' postmark my mother- 
 in-law's crabbed hand, too ! What can the old crone want ? " 
 
 He opened the letter, and hastily scanning its contents, 
 started up.
 
 266 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Mercy, mercy ! " cried he, "my child is ill dying. I may 
 never see her again, my only child, the only thing that loves 
 me, that does not loathe me as a villain !" 
 
 " Heyday, Dickey ! " said the woman, clinging to him, 
 " don't take on so ; who so fond of you as me ? what's a brat 
 like that ? " 
 
 "Curse on you, hag !" exclaimed Houseman, dashing her 
 to the ground with a rude brutality : "you love me ! Pah ! 
 My child my little Jane my pretty Jane my merry J;me 
 my innocent Jane I will seek her instantly instantly ! What's 
 money ? what's ease, if if " 
 
 And the father, wretch, ruffian as he was, stung to the core 
 of that last redeeming feeling of his dissolute nature, struck 
 his breast with his clenched hand and rushed from the room 
 from the house. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MADELINE, HER HOPES. A WILD AUTUMN CHARACTERIZED. A 
 LANDSCAPE. A RETURN. 
 
 " 'Tis late, and cold stir up the fire, 
 Sit close, and draw the table nigher ; 
 Be merry and drink wine that's old, 
 A hearty medicine 'gainst a cold : 
 Welcome welcome shall fly round ! " 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER : Song in the Lover's Progress. 
 
 As when the great poet, 
 
 " Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained 
 In that obscure sojourn ; while, in his flight, 
 Through utter and through middle darkness borne, 
 He sang of chaos, and eternal night ": 
 
 as when, revisiting the "holy light, offspring of heaven first- 
 born," the sense of freshness and glory breaks upon him, and 
 kindles into the solemn joyfulness of adjuring song ; so rises 
 the mind from the contemplation of the gloom and guilt of 
 life, " the utter and the middle darkness," to some pure and 
 bright redemption of our nature some creature of "the starry 
 threshold," "the regions mild of calm and serene air." Never 
 was a nature more beautiful and soft than that of Madeline 
 Lester never a nature more inclined to live " above the 
 smoke and stir of this dim spot, which men call earth "; to 
 commune with its own high and chaste creations of thought 
 to make a world out of the emotions which this world knows
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 261 
 
 not a paradise, which sin, and suspicion, and fear, had never 
 yet invaded where God might recognize no evil, and angels 
 forbode no change. 
 
 Aram's return was now daily, nay, even hourly, expected. 
 Nothing disturbed the soft, though thoughtful serenity, with 
 which his betrothed relied upon the future. Aram's letters had 
 been more deeply impressed with the evidence of love, than 
 even his spoken vows ; those letters had diffused not so much 
 an agitated joy, as a full and mellow light of happiness over 
 her heart. Everything, even nature, seemed inclined to smile 
 with approbation on her hopes. The autumn had never, in the 
 memory of man, worn so lovely a garment : the balmy and 
 freshening warmth which sometimes characterizes that period 
 of the year was not broken, as yet, by the chilling winds, or 
 the sullen mists, which speak to us so mournfully of the 
 change that is creeping over the beautiful world. The summer 
 visitants among the feathered tribe yet lingered in flocks, show- 
 ing no intention of departure ; and their song but above all, 
 the song of the skylark which, to the old English poet, was 
 what the nightingale is to the Eastern seemed even to grow 
 more cheerful as the sun shortened his daily task ; the very 
 mulberry-tree, and the rich boughs of the horse-chestnut, re- 
 tained something of their verdure ; and the thousand glories of 
 the woodland around Grassdale were still chequered with the 
 golden hues that herald, but beautify, decay. Still no news 
 had been received of Walter ; and this was the only source of 
 anxiety that troubled the domestic happiness of the manor- 
 house. But the squire continued to remember that in youth 
 he himself had been but a negligent correspondent ; and the 
 anxiety he felt had lately assumed rather the character of anger 
 at Walter's forgetfulness, than of fear for his safety. There 
 were moments when Ellinor silently mourned and pined ; but 
 she loved her sister not less even than her cousin ; and in the 
 prospect of Madeline's happiness did not too often question 
 the future respecting her own. 
 
 One evening the sisters were sitting at their work by the win- 
 dow of the little parlor, and talking over various matters ; of 
 which the Great World, strange as it may seem, never made a 
 part. 
 
 They conversed in a low tone ; for Lester sat by the hearth 
 in which a wood fire had just been kindled, and appeared to 
 have fallen into an afternoon slumber. The sun was sinking 
 to repose, and the whole landscape lay before them bathed in 
 light, till a cloud passing overhead darkened the heavens just
 
 262 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 immediately above them, and one of those beautiful sun show- 
 ers, that rather characterize the spring than autumn, began to 
 fall ; the rain was rather sharp, and descended with a pleasant 
 and freshening noise through the boughs, all shining in the 
 sunlight ; it did not, however, last long, and presently there 
 sprang up the glorious rainbow, and the voices of the birds, 
 which a minute before were mute, burst into a general chorus, 
 the last hymn of the declining day. The sparkling drops fell 
 fast and gratefully from the trees, and over the whole scene 
 there breathed an inexpressible sense of gladness, 
 
 " The odor and the harmony of eve." 
 
 " How beautiful ! " said Ellinor, pausing from her work. 
 " Ah, see the squirrel ; is that our pet one ? he is coming close 
 to the window, poor fellow ! Stay, I will get him some bread." 
 
 "Hush ! " said Madeline, half rising, and turning quite pale ; 
 " do you hear a step without ? " 
 
 "Only the dripping of the boughs," answered Ellinor. 
 
 " No, no it is he ! it is he ! " cried Madeline, the blood 
 rushing back vividly to her cheeks. " 1 know his step ! " 
 
 And yes winding round the house till he stood opposite 
 the window, the sisters now beheld Eugene Aram : the dia- 
 mond rain glittered on the locks of his long hair ; his cheeks 
 were flushed by exercise, or more probably the joy of return ; 
 a smile, in which there was no shade or sadness, played 
 over his features which caught also a fictitious semblance of 
 gladness from the rays of the setting sun which fell full upon 
 them. 
 
 " My Madeline ! my love ! my Madeline ! " broke from his 
 lips. 
 
 "You are returned thank God thank God safe well?" 
 
 " And happy ! " added Aram, with a deep meaning in the 
 tone of his voice. 
 
 " Heyday, heyday ! " cried the squire, starting up, " what's 
 this ? Bless me, Eugene ! wet through, too, seemingly ! Nell, 
 run and open the door more wood on the fire the pheasants 
 for supper and stay, girl, stay there's the key of the cellar 
 the twenty-one port you know it. Ah ! ah ! God willing, 
 Eugene Aram shall not complain of his welcome back to Grass- 
 dale ! "
 
 EUGENE ARAM, 263 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AFFECTION : ITS GODLIKE NATURE. THE CONVERSATION BE- 
 TWEEN ARAM AND MADELINE. THE FATALIST FORGETS FATE. 
 
 " Hope is a lover's staff ; walk hence with that, 
 And manage it against despairing thoughts." 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
 
 IF there be anything thoroughly lovely in the human heart, 
 it is affection ! All that makes hope elevated, or fear generous, 
 belongs to the capacity of loving. For my own part, I do not 
 wonder, in looking over the thousand creeds and sects of men, 
 that so many religionists have traced their theology that so 
 many moralists have wrought their system from love. The 
 errors thus originated have something in them that charms us, 
 even while we smile at the theology, or while we neglect the 
 system. What a beautiful fabric would be human nature 
 what a divine guide would be human reason if love were in- 
 deed the stratum of the one, and the inspiration of the other J 
 We are told of a picture by a great painter of old, in which an 
 infant is represented sucking a mother wounded to the death, 
 who, even in that agony, strives to prevent the child from in- 
 juring itself by imbibing the blood mingled with the milk.* 
 How many emotions, that might have made us permanently 
 wiser and better, have we lost in losing that picture ! 
 
 Certainly, love assumes a more touching and earnest sem- 
 blance, when we find it in some retired and sequestered hollow 
 of the world ; when it is not mixed up with the daily frivolities 
 and petty emotions of which a life passed in cities is so neces- 
 sarily composed : we cannot but believe it a deeper and a more 
 absorbing passion ; perhaps we are not always right in the 
 belief. 
 
 Had one of that order of angels to whom a knowledge of the 
 future, or the seraphic penetration into the hidden heart of man 
 is forbidden, stayed his wings over the lovely valley in which 
 the main scene of our history has been cast, no spectacle might 
 have seemed to him more appropriate to that pastoral spot, or 
 more elevated in the character of its tenderness above the fierce 
 and short-lived passions of the ordinary world, than the love 
 that existed between Madeline and her betrothed. Their 
 natures seemed so suited to each other ! the solemn and undi- 
 urnal mood of the one was reflected back in hues so gentle, and 
 
 * " Intelligitur sentire mater et timere. ne e mortuo lacte sanguinem lambat."
 
 264 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 yet so faithful, from the purer, but scarce less thoughtful, char- 
 acter of the other ! Their sympathies ran through the same 
 channel, and mingled in a common fount ; and whatever was 
 dark and troubled in the breast of Aram, v^as now suffered not 
 to appear. Since his return, his mood was brighter and more 
 tranquil ; and he seemed better fitted to appreciate and respond 
 to the peculiar tenderness of Madeline's affection. There are 
 some stars which, viewed by the naked eye, seem one, but in 
 reality are two separate orbs revolving round each other, and 
 drinking, each from each, a separate yet united existence : 
 such stars seemed a type of them. 
 
 Had anything been wanting to complete Madeline's happi- 
 ness, the change in Aram supplied the want. The sudden 
 starts, the abrupt changes of mood and countenance, that had 
 formerly characterized him, were now scarcely, if ever, visible. 
 He seemed to have resigned himself with confidence to the 
 prospects of the future, and to have forsworn the haggard 
 recollections of the past ; he moved, and looked, and smiled 
 like other men ; he was alive to the little'circumstances around 
 him, and no longer absorbed in the contemplation of a separate 
 and strange existence within himself. Some scattered frag- 
 ments of his poetry bear the date of this time : they are chiefly 
 addressed to Madeline ; and, amidst the vows of love, a spirit, 
 sometimes of a wild and bursting, sometimes of a profound 
 and collected, happiness are visible. There is great beauty in 
 many of these fragments, and they bear a stronger evidence of 
 heart they breathe more of nature and truth, than the poetry 
 that belongs of right to that time. 
 
 And thus day rolled on day, till it was now the eve before 
 their bridals. Aram had deemed it prudent to tell Lester that 
 he had sold his annuity, and that he had applied to the earl 
 for the pension which we have seen he had been promised. 
 As to his supposed relation the illness he had created he 
 suffered now to cease ; and indeed the approaching ceremony 
 gave him a graceful excuse for turning the conversation away 
 from any topics that did not relate to Madeline, or to that event. 
 
 It was the eve before their marriage : Aram and Madeline 
 were walking along the valley that led to the house of the 
 former. 
 
 "Ho\v fortunate it is," said Madeline, "that our future resi- 
 dence will be so near my father's. I cannot tell you with what 
 delight he looks forward to the pleasant circle we shall make. 
 Indeed, I think he \rould scarcely have consented to our wed- 
 ding, if it had separated us from him."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 265 
 
 Aram stopped, and plucked a flower. 
 
 "Ah! indeed, indeed, Madeline. Yet in the course of the 
 various changes of life, how more than probable it is that we 
 shall be divided from him that we shall leave this spot." 
 
 " It is possible, certainly ; but not probable : is it, Eugene?" 
 
 "Would it grieve thee, irremediably, dearest, were it so?" 
 rejoined Aram evasively. 
 
 "Irremediably! What could grieve me irremediably that 
 did not happen to you ?" 
 
 " Should, then, circumstances occur to induce us to leave 
 this part of the country, for one yet more remote, you could 
 submit cheerfully to the change?" 
 
 " I should weep for my father I should weep for Ellinor ; 
 but" 
 
 " But what ? " 
 
 "I should comfort myself in thinking that you would then 
 be yet more to me than ever ! " 
 
 " Dearest ! " 
 
 "But why do you speak thus; only to try me? Ah ! that is 
 needless." 
 
 " No, my Madeline ; I have no doubt of your affection. 
 When you loved such as me, I knew at once how blind, how 
 devoted must be that love. You were not won through the 
 usual avenues to a woman's heart ; neither wit nor gayety, nor 
 youth nor beauty, did you behold in me. Whatever attracted 
 you towards me, that which must have been sufficiently power- 
 ful to make you overlook these ordinary allurements, will be 
 also sufficiently enduring to resist all ordinary changes. But 
 listen, Madeline. Do not yet ask me wherefore ; but I fear, 
 that a certain fatality will constrain us to leave this spot very 
 shortly after our wedding." 
 
 "How disappointed my poor father will be !" said Made- 
 line, sighing. 
 
 " Do not, on any account, mention this conversation to him, 
 or to Ellinor: 'sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'" 
 
 Madeline wondered, but said no more. There was a pause 
 for some minutes. 
 
 " Do you remember," observed Madeline, "that it was about 
 here we met that strange man whom you had formerly known ?" 
 
 "Ha! was it? Here, was it?" 
 
 "What has become of him ?" 
 
 "He is abroad, I hope," said Aram calmly. "Yes, let ma 
 think ; by this time he must be in France. Dearest, let us rest 
 here on this dry mossy bank for a little while " ; and Aram
 
 266 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 drew his arm round her waist, and, Iris countenance brighten- 
 ing, as if with some thought of increasing joy, he poured out 
 anew those protestations of love, and those anticipations of 
 the future, which befitted the eve of a morrow so full of au- 
 spicious promise. 
 
 The heaven of their fate seemed calm and glowing, and 
 Aram did not dream that the one small cloud of fear which 
 was set within it, and which he alone beheld afar, and unpro- 
 phetic of the storm, was charged with the thunderbolt of a 
 doom he had protracted, not escaped. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WALTER AND THE CORPORAL ON THE ROAD. THE EVENING 
 
 SETS IN. THE GIPSY TENTS. ADVENTURE WITH THE HORSE- 
 MAN. THE CORPORAL DISCOMFITED, AND THE ARRIVAL AT 
 KNARESBRO*. 
 
 ' ' Long had he wandered, when from far he sees 
 A ruddy flame that gleam'd betwixt the trees. 
 .... Sir Gawaine prays him tell 
 Where lies the road to princely Carduel." 
 
 The Knight of the Sword. 
 
 " WELL, Bunting, we are not far from our night's resting 
 place," said Walter, pointing to a milestone on the road. 
 
 " The poor beast will be glad when we gets there, your 
 honor," answered the corporal, wiping his brows. 
 
 "Which beast, Bunting?" 
 
 " Augh ! now your honor's severe ! I am glad to see you 
 so merry." 
 
 Walter sighed heavily ; there was no mirth at his heart at 
 that moment. 
 
 "Pray, sir," said the corporal, after a pause, "if not too bold, 
 has your honor heard how they be doing at Grassdale? " 
 
 " No, Bunting ; I have not held any correspondence with my 
 uncle since our departure. Once I wrote to him on setting off 
 to Yorkshire, but I could give him no direction to write to me 
 again. The fact is, that I have been so sanguine in this search, 
 and from day to day I have been so led on in tracing a clue, 
 which I fear is now broken, that I have constantly put off writ- 
 ing till I could communicate that certain intelligence which I 
 flattered myself I should be able ere this to procure. How- 
 ever, if we are unsuccessful at Knaresbro', I shall write from 
 that place a detailed account of our proceedings."
 
 fcUGENE ARAif. 267 
 
 "And I hopes you will say as how I have given your honor 
 satisfaction." 
 
 " Depend upon that." 
 
 " Thank you, sir, thank you humbly ; I would not like the 
 squire to think I'm ungrateful ! augh, and mayhap I may 
 have more cause to be grateful by and by, whenever the squire, 
 God bless him ! in consideration of your honor's good offices, 
 should let me have the bit cottage rent free." 
 
 " A man of the world, Bunting ; a man of the world ! " 
 
 " Your honor's mighty obleeging," said the corporal, putting 
 his hand to his hat ; " I wonders," renewed he, after a short 
 pause. " I wonders how poor neighbor Dealtry is. He was a 
 sufferer last year ; I should like to know how Peter be getting 
 on 'tis a good creature." 
 
 Somewhat surprised at this sudden sympathy on the part of 
 the corporal, for it was seldom that Bunting expressed kindness 
 for any one, Walter replied : 
 
 "When I write, Bunting, I will not fail to inquire how Peter 
 Dealtry is ; does your kind heart suggest any other message to 
 him ? " 
 
 "Only to ask arter Jacobina, poor thing : she might get her- 
 self into trouble if little i 'eter fell sick and neglected her like 
 augh ! And I hopes as how Peter airs the bit cottage now and 
 then ; but the squire, God bless him ! will see to that and the 
 'tato garden, I'm sure." 
 
 " You may rely on that, Bunting," said Walter, sinking into 
 a revery, from which he was shortly roused by the corporal. 
 
 " I s'pose Miss Madeline be married afore now, your honor ? 
 Well, pray Heaven she be happy with that ere larned man ! " 
 
 Walter's heart beat faster for a moment at this sudden re- 
 mark, but he was pleased to find that the time when the thought 
 of Madeline's marriage was accompanied with painful emotion 
 was entirely gone by ; the reflection, however, induced a ne\v 
 train of idea, and without replying to the corporal, he sank into 
 a deeper meditation than before. 
 
 The shrewd Bunting saw that it was not a favorable moment 
 for renewing the conversation ; he therefore suffered his horse 
 to fall back, and taking a quid from his tobacco-box, was soon 
 as well entertained as his master. In this manner they rode on 
 for about a couple of miles, the evening growing darker as 
 they proceeded, when a green opening in the road brought them 
 within view of a gipsy's encampment ; the scene was so sudden 
 and picturesque, that it aroused the young traveller from his 
 revery, and as his tired horse walked slowly on, the bridle
 
 268 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 about its neck, he looked with an earnest eye on the vagrant 
 settlement beside his path. The moon had just risen above a 
 dark copse in the rear, and cast a broad, deep shadow along 
 the green, without lessening the vivid effect of the fires which 
 glowed and sparkled in the darker recess of the waste land, as 
 the gloomy forms of the Egyptians were seen dimly cowering 
 round the blaze. A scene of' this sort is, perhaps, one of the 
 most striking that the green lanes of old England afford ; to 
 me it has always an irresistible attraction, partly from its own 
 claims, partly from those of association. When I was a mere 
 boy, and bent on a solitary excursion over parts of England 
 and Scotland, I saw something of that wild people, though 
 not perhaps so much as the ingenious George Hanger, to whose 
 memoirs the reader may be referred for some rather amusing 
 pages on gipsy life. As Walter was still eyeing the encamp- 
 ment, he in return had not escaped the glance of an old crone, 
 who came running hastily up to him, and begged permission to 
 tell his fortune and to have her hand crossed with silver. 
 
 Very few men under thirty ever sincerely refuse an offer of 
 this sort. Nobody believes in these predictions, yet every one 
 likes hearing them : and Walter, after faintly refusing the pro- 
 posal twice, consented the third time : and drawing up his 
 horse, submitted his hand to the old lady. In the mean while, 
 one of the younger urchins who had accompanied her had run 
 to the encampments for a light, and now stood behind the old 
 woman's shoulder, rearing on high a pine brand, which cast 
 over the little group a red and weird-like glow. 
 
 The reader must not imagine we are now about to call his 
 credulity in aid to eke out any interest he may feel in our story ; 
 the old crone was but a vulgar gipsy, and she predicted to Wal- 
 ter the same fortune she always predicted to those who paid a 
 shilling for the prophecy ; an heiress with blue eyes seven 
 children troubles about the epoch of forty-three, happily soon 
 over and a healthy old age, with an easy death. Though 
 Walter was not impressed with any reverential awe for these 
 vaticinations, he yet could not refrain from inquiring whether 
 the journey on which he was at present bent was likely to prove 
 successful in its object. 
 
 ' 'Tis an ill night," said the old woman, lifting up her wild 
 face and elfin locks with a mysterious air " 'tis an ill night 
 for them as seeks, and for them as asks. Hes about " 
 
 " He who ? " 
 
 " No matter ! you may be successful, young sir, yet wish 
 you had not been so. The moon thus, and the wind there -
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 269 
 
 promise that you will get your desires, and find them 
 crosses." 
 
 The corporal had listened very attentively to these predic- 
 tions, and was now about to thrust forth his own hand to the 
 soothsayer, when from a cross-road to the right came the sound 
 of hoofs, and presently a horseman at full trot pulled up beside 
 them. 
 
 " Hark ye, old she-devil, or you, sirs is this the road to 
 Knaresbro' ?" 
 
 The gipsy drew back, and gazed on the countenance of the 
 rider, on which the red glare of the pine-brand shone full. 
 
 " To Knaresbro', Richard the dare-devil ? Ay, and what 
 does the ramping bird want in the old nest ? Welcome back 
 to Yorkshire, Richard, my ben cove ! " 
 
 " Ha ! " said the rider, shading his eyes with his hand, as he 
 returned the gaze of the gipsy "is it you, Bess Airlie? Your 
 welcome is like the owl's, and reads the wrong way. But I 
 must not stop. This takes to Knaresbro', then ?" 
 
 "Straight as a dying man's curse to hell," replied the crone, 
 in that metaphorical style in which all her tribe love to speak, 
 and of which their proper language is indeed almost wholly com- 
 posed. 
 
 The horseman answered not, but spurred on. 
 
 " Who is that ? " asked Walter earnestly, as the old woman 
 stretched her tawny neck after the rider. 
 
 " An old friend, sir," replied the Egyptian drily. " I have not 
 seen him these fourteen years ; but it is not Bess Airlie who is 
 apt to forgit friend or foe. Well, sir, shall I tell your honor's 
 good luck ? " (here she turned to the corporal, who sat erect 
 on his saddle, with his hand on his holster) " the color of the 
 lady's hair and " 
 
 "Hold your tongue, you limb of Satan !" interrupted the 
 corporal fiercely, as if his whole tide of thought, so lately fa- 
 vorable to the soothsayer, had undergone a deadly reversion. 
 " Please your honor, it's getting late, we had better be jog- 
 ging '" 
 
 " You are right," said Walter, spurring his jaded horse ; and, 
 nodding his adieu to the gipsy, he was soon out of sight of the 
 encampment. 
 
 " Sir," said the corporal, joining his master, " that is a man 
 as I have seed afore ; I knowed his ugly face again in a crack 
 'tis the man what came to Grassdale after Mr. Aram, and we 
 saw afterwards the night we chanced on Sir Peter Thingume- 
 bob.'
 
 270 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Bunting," said Walter, in a low voice, " /too have been 
 trying to recall the face of that man, and I too am persuaded 
 I have seen it before. A fearful suspicion, amounting almost 
 to conviction, creeps over me, that the hour in which I last 
 saw it was one when my life was in peril. In a word. I do be- 
 lieve that I beheld that face bending over me on the night 
 when I lay under the hedge, and so narrowly escaped murder ! 
 If I am right, it was, however, the mildest of the ruffians ; the 
 one who counselled his comrades against despatching me." 
 
 The corporal shuddered. 
 
 "Pray sir," said he, after a moment's pause, "do see if your 
 pistols are primed : so so. 'Tis not out o' nature that the 
 man may have some 'complices hereabout, and may think to 
 waylay us. The old gipsy, too, what a face she had ! Depend 
 on it, they are two of a trade augh ! bother ! waugh ! " 
 
 And the corporal grunted his most significant grunt. 
 
 " It is not at all unlikely, Bunting ; and as we are now not far 
 from Knaresbro', it will be prudent to ride on as fast as our 
 horses will allow us. Keep up alongside." 
 
 "Certainly, I'll purtect your honor," said the corporal, get- 
 ting on that side where, the hedge being thinnest, an ambush 
 was less likely to be laid. " I care more for your honor's 
 safety than my own, or what a brute I should be augh ! 
 
 The master and man trotted on for some little distance, 
 when they perceived a dark object moving along by the grass 
 on the side of the road. The corporal's hair bristled ; he ut- 
 tered an oath, which he mistook for a prayer. Walter felt his 
 breath grow a little thick as he watched the motions of the 
 object so imperfectly beheld ; presently, however, it grew into 
 a man on horseback, trotting very slowly along the grass ; and 
 as they now neared him, they recognized the rider they had just 
 seen, whom they might have imagined, from the pace at which 
 he left them before, to have been considerably ahead of them. 
 
 The horseman turned round as he saw them. 
 
 " Pray, gentlemen," said he, in a tone of great and evident 
 anxiety, " how far is it to Knaresbro' ? " 
 
 " Don't answer him, your honor." whispered the corporal. 
 
 "Probably," replied Walter, unheeding this advice, " you 
 know this road better than we do. It cannot, however, be 
 above three or four miles hence." 
 
 " Thank you, sir ; it is long since I have been in these parts. 
 I used to know the country, but they have made new roads 
 and strange enclosures, and I now scarcely recognize anything 
 familiar. Curse on this brute ! curse on it, I say !" repeated
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 27! 
 
 the horseman through his ground teeth, in a tone of angry 
 vehemence : " I never wanted to ride so quick before, and the 
 beast has fallen as lame as a tree. This comes of trying to go 
 faster than other folks. Sir, are you a father ?" 
 
 This abrupt question, which was uttered in a sharp, strained 
 voice, a little startled Walter. He replied shortly in the nega- 
 tive, and was about to spur onward, when the horseman con- 
 tinued and there was something in his voice and manner that 
 compelled attention : 
 
 " And I am in doubt whether I have a child or not. By 
 G ! it is a bitter gnawing state of mind. I may reach Knares- 
 bro' to find my only daughter dead, sir ! dead ! " 
 
 Despite Walter's suspicions of the speaker, he could not but 
 feel a thrill of sympathy at the visible distress with which these 
 words were said. 
 
 " I hope not," said he involuntarily. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," replied the horseman, trying ineffectually 
 to spur on his steed, which almost came down at the effort to 
 proceed. " I have ridden thirty miles acoss the country at full 
 speed, for they had no post-horses at the d d place where I 
 hired this brute. This was the only creature I could get for 
 love or money ; and now the devil only knows how important 
 every moment may be. While I speak, my child may breathe 
 her last ! " And the man brought his clenched fist on the 
 shoulder of his horse in mingled spite and rage. 
 
 "All sham, your honor," whispered the corporal. 
 
 "Sir," cried the horseman, now raising his voice, "I need 
 not have asked if you had been a father ; if you had, you would 
 have had compassion on me ere this ; you would have lent me 
 your own horse." 
 
 " The impudent rogue ! " muttered the corporal. 
 
 " Sir," replied Walter, " it is not to the tale of every stranger 
 that a man gives belief." 
 
 " Belief ! ah, well, well, 'tis no matter," said the horseman 
 sullenly. " There was a time, man, when I would have forced 
 what I now solicit ; but my heart's gone. Ride on, sir ride 
 on and the curse of " 
 
 " If," interrupted Walter irresolutely, " if I could believe 
 your statement : but no. Mark me, sir : I have reasons 
 fearful reasons, for imagining you mean this but as a snare ! " 
 
 " Ha ! " said the horseman deliberately, " have we met be- 
 fore ? " 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " And you have had cause to complain of me ? It may be it
 
 272 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 may be : but were the grave before me, and if one lie would 
 smite me into it, I solemnly swear that I now utter but the 
 naked truth." 
 
 " It would be folly to trust him, Bunting?" said Walter, 
 turning round to his attendant. 
 
 " Folly ! sheer madness bother ! " 
 
 " If you are the man I take you for," said Walter, " you once 
 raised your voice against the murder, though you assisted in 
 the robbery of a traveller : that traveller was myself. I will 
 remember the mercy I will forget the outrage ; and I will not 
 believe that you have devised this tale as a snare. Take my 
 horse, sir ; I will trust you." 
 
 Houseman, for it was he, flung himself instantly from his 
 saddle. "I don't ask God to bless you; a blessing in my 
 mouth would be worse than a curse. But you will not repent 
 this : you will not repent it !" 
 
 Houseman said these few words with a palpable emotion : 
 and it was more striking on account of the evident coarseness 
 and hardened brutality of his nature. In a moment more he 
 had mounted Walter's horse, and turning ere he sped on, in- 
 quired at what place at Knaresborough the horse should be 
 sent. Walter directed him to the principal inn ; and House- 
 man, waving his hand, and striking his spurs into the animal, 
 wearied as it was, shot out of sight in a moment. 
 
 *' Well, if ever I seed the like ! " quoth the corporal. " Lira, 
 lira, la, la, la ! lira, lara, la, la, la ! augh ! waugh ! bother!'' 
 
 " So my good nature does not please you, Bunting ! " 
 
 " Oh, sir, it does not signify : we shall have our throats cut 
 that's all." 
 
 ' What, you don't believe the story ? " 
 
 ' I ? Bless your honor, / am no fool." 
 
 ' Bunting ! " 
 Sir." 
 
 You forget yourself." 
 Augh ! " 
 So you don't think I should have lent the horse ! " 
 
 " Sartainly not." 
 
 " On occasions like these, every man ought to take care of 
 himself ? Prudence before generosity? " 
 
 " Of a sartainty, sir ! " 
 
 " Dismount, then, I want my horse. You may shift with 
 the lame one." 
 
 " Augh, sir, baugh ? " 
 
 " Rascal, dismount, I say ! " said Walter angrily : for the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 273 
 
 corporal was one of those men who aim at governing their 
 masters ; and his selfishness now irritated Walter as much as 
 his impertinent tone of superior wisdom. 
 
 The corporal hesitated. He thought an ambuscade by the 
 road of certain occurrence ; and he was weighing the danger 
 of riding a lame horse against his master's displeasure. Walter, 
 perceiving he demurred, was seized with so violent a resent- 
 ment that he dashed up to the corporal, and grasping him by 
 the collar, swung him, heavy as he was, being wholly unpre- 
 pared for such force, to the ground. 
 
 Without deigning to look at his condition, Walter mounted 
 the sound horse, and throwing the bridle of the lame one over a 
 bough, left the corporal to follow at his leisure. 
 
 There is not, perhaps, a more sore state of mind than that 
 which we experience when we have committed an act we 
 meant to be generous, and fear to be foolish. 
 
 "Certainly," said Walter, soliloquizing, "certainly the man 
 ^ a rascal ; yet he was evidently sincere in his emotion. Cer- 
 tainly he was one of the men who robbed me ; yet, if so, he 
 was also the one who interceded for my life. If I should now 
 have given strength to a villain ; if I should have assisted him 
 to an outrage against myself ! What more probable ? Yet on 
 the other hand, if his story be true ; if his child be dying, 
 and if, through my means, he obtain a last interview with her ! 
 " Well, well, let me hope so ! " 
 
 Here he was joined by the corporal, who, angry as he was, 
 judged it prudent to smother his rage for another opportunity; 
 and by favoring his master with his company, to procure himself 
 an ally immediately at hand, should his suspicions prove true. 
 But for once his knowledge of the world deceived him ; no 
 sign of living creature broke the loneliness of the way. By 
 and by the lights of the town gleamed upon them ; and on 
 reaching the inn, Walter found his horse had been already 
 sent there, and, covered with dust and foam, was submitting 
 itself to the tutelary hands of the hostler.
 
 374 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WALTER'S REFLECTIONS. MINE HOST. A GENTLE CHARAC- 
 TER AND A GREEN OLD AGE. THE GARDEN, AND THAT 
 WHICH IT TEACHETH. A DIALOGUE WHEREIN NEW HINTS 
 TOWARDS THE WISHED-FOR DISCOVERY ARE SUGGESTED. 
 THE CURATE. A VISIT TO A SPOT OF DEEP INTEREST 
 TO THE ADVENTURER. 
 
 " I made a posy while the day ran by, 
 
 Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie 
 
 My life within this band." GEORGE HERBERT. 
 
 "... The time approaches. 
 
 That will with due precision make us know 
 What " Macbeth. 
 
 THE next morning Walter rose early, and descending into 
 the court-yard of the inn he there met with the landlord, who 
 a hoe in his hand was just about to enter a little gate that 
 led into the garden. He held the gate open for Walter. 
 
 " It is a fine morning, sir ; would you like to look into the 
 garden ? " said mine host, with an inviting smile. 
 
 Walter accepted the offer, and found himself in a large and 
 well-stocked garden, laid out with much neatness and some 
 taste : the landlord halted by a parterre which required his 
 attention, and Walter walked on in solitary reflection. 
 
 The morning was serene and clear, but the frost mingled the 
 freshness with an " eager and nipping air "; and Walter uncon- 
 sciously quickened his step as he paced to and fro the straight 
 walk that bisected the garden, with his eyes on the ground, 
 and his hat over his brows. 
 
 Now then he had reached the place where the last trace of 
 his father seemed to have vanished ; in how wayward and 
 strange a manner ! If no further clue could be here discovered 
 by the inquiry he purposed, at this spot would terminate his 
 researches and his hopes. But the young heart of the traveller, 
 was buoyed up with expectation. Looking back to the events 
 of the last few weeks, he thought he recognized the finger of 
 Destiny guiding him from step to step, and now resting on the 
 scene to which it had brought his feet. How singularly com- 
 plete had been the train of circumstance, which, linking things 
 seemingly most trifling, most dissimilar, had lengthened into 
 one continuous chain of evidence ! the trivial incident that led 
 him to the saddler's shop ; the accident that brought the whip
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 275 
 
 that had been his father's to his eye ; the account from Court- 
 land, which had conducted him to this remote part of the 
 country ; and now the narrative of Elmore leading him to the 
 spot, at which all inquiry seemed as yet to pause ! Had he 
 been led hither only to hear repeated that strange tale of 
 sudden and wanton disappearance ; to find an abrupt wall, a 
 blank and impenetrable barrier to a course hitherto so continu- 
 ously guided on ? Had he been the sport of Fate, and not its 
 instrument ? No ; he was filled with a serious and profound 
 conviction, that a discovery which he of all men was best entitled 
 by the unalienable claims of blood and birth to achieve was 
 reserved for him, and that this grand dream of childhood was 
 now about to be embodied and attained. He could not but be 
 sensible, too, that as he had proceeded on his high enterprise, his 
 character had acquired a weight and a thoughtful seriousness, 
 which was more fitted to the nature of that enterprise than akin 
 to his earlier temper. This consciousness swelled his bosom 
 with a profound and steady hope. When Fate selects her 
 human agents, her dark and mysterious spirit is at work within 
 them ; she moulds their hearts, she exalts their energies, she 
 shapes them to the part she has allotted them, and renders the 
 mortal instrument worthy of the solemn end. 
 
 Thus chewing the cud of his involved and deep reflections, 
 the young adventurer paused at last opposite his host, who was 
 still bending over his pleasant task, and every now and then, 
 excited by the exercise and the fresh morning air, breaking into 
 snatches of some old rustic song. The contrast in mood 
 between himself and this 
 
 " Unvex'd loiterer by the world's green way," 
 
 struck forcibly upon him. Mine host, too, was one whose 
 appearance was better suited to his occupation than his pro- 
 fession. He might have told some three-and-sixty years, but 
 it was a comely and green old age ; his cheek was firm and 
 ruddy, not with nightly cups, but the fresh witness of the 
 morning breezes it was wont to court ; his frame was robust, 
 not corpulent ; and his long gray hair, which fell almost to 
 his shoulders, his clear blue eyes, and a pleasant curve in a 
 mouth characterized by habitual good-humor, completed a 
 portrait that even many a dull observer would have paused to 
 gaze upon. And, indeed, the good man enjoyed a certain 
 kind of reputation for his comely looks and cheerful manner. 
 His picture had even been taken by a young artist in the 
 neighborhood ; nay, the likeness had been multiplied into
 
 276 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 engravings, somewhat rude and somewhat unfaithful, which 
 might be seen occupying no unconspicuous nor dusty corner in 
 in the principal printshopof the town : nor was mine host's char- 
 acter a contradiction to his looks. He had seen enough of life 
 to be intelligent, and had judged it rightly enough to be kind. 
 He had passed that line so nicely given to man's codes in 
 those admirable pages which first added delicacy of tact to 
 the strong sense of English composition. "We have just 
 religion enough," it is said somewhere in The Spectator, "to 
 make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another." 
 Our good landlord, peace be with his ashes ! had never halted 
 at this limit. The country innkeeper might have furnished 
 Goldsmith with a counterpart to his country curate ; his house 
 was equally hospitable to the poor his heart equally tender, 
 in a nature wiser than experience, to error, and equally open, 
 
 in its warm simplicity, to distress. Peace be with thee, ! 
 
 Our grandsire was thy patron yet a patron thou didst 
 not want. Merit in thy capacity is seldom bare of reward. 
 The public want no indicators to a house like thine. And 
 who requires a third person to tell him how to appreciate the 
 value of good nature and good cheer? 
 
 As Walter stood and contemplated the old man bending 
 over the sweet fresh earth (and then, glancing round, saw the 
 quiet garden stretching away on either side with its boundaries 
 lost among the thick evergreen), something of that grateful 
 and moralizing stillness with which some country scene gener- 
 ally inspires us, when we awake to its consciousness from the 
 troubled dream of dark and unquiet thought, stole over his 
 mind; and certain old lines which his uncle, who loved the 
 soft and rustic morality that pervades the ancient race of 
 English minstrels, had taught him, when a boy, came pleas' 
 antly into his recollection : 
 
 " With all, as in some rare limned book, we see 
 Here painted lectures of God's sacred will. 
 The daisy teacheth lowliness of mind ; 
 The camomile, we should be patient still ; 
 The rue, our hate of vice's poison ill ; 
 The woodbine, that we should our friendship hold ; 
 Our hope the savory in the bitterest cold."* 
 
 The old man stopped from his work, as the musing figure of 
 his guest darkened the prospect before him, and said: 
 
 "A pleasant time, sir, for the gardener ! " 
 
 " Ay, is it so ? You must miss the fruits and flowers of 
 summer," 
 
 * Henry Feacham.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 277 
 
 "Well, sir, but we are now paying back the garden for the 
 good things it has given us. It is like taking care of a friend 
 in old age, who has been kind to us when he was young." 
 
 Walter smiled at the quaint amiability of the idea. 
 
 "Tis a winning thing, sir, a garden ! It brings us an object 
 every day ; and that's what I think a man ought to have if he 
 wishes to lead a happy life." 
 
 u It is true," said Walter ; and mine host was encouraged to 
 continue by the attention and affable countenance of the stran- 
 ger, tor he was a physiognomist in his way. 
 
 " And then, sir, we have no disappointment in these objects ; 
 the soil is not ungrateful as they say men are though I have 
 not often found them so, by the by. What we sow we reap. 
 I have an old book, sir, lying in my little parlor, all about fish- 
 ing, and full of so many pretty sayings about a country life, and 
 meditation, and so forth that it does one as much good as a 
 sermon to look into it. But to my mind, all those sayings are 
 more applicable to a gardener's life than a fisherman's." 
 
 " It is a less cruel life, certainly," said Walter. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and then the scenes one makes one's self, the 
 flowers one plants with one's own hand, one enjoys more than 
 all the beauties which don't owe us anything : at least so it 
 seems to me. I have always been thankful to the accident that 
 made me take to gardening." 
 
 "And what was that?" 
 
 " Why, sir, you must know there was a great scholar, though 
 he was but a youth then, living in this town some years ago, 
 and he was very curious in plants, and flowers, and such like. 
 I have heard the parson say he knew more of those innocent 
 matters than any man in this county. At that time I was not 
 in so flourishing a way of business as I am at present. I kept 
 a little inn in the outskirts of the town ; and having formerly 
 
 been a gamekeeper of my Lord 's, I was in the habit of 
 
 eking out my little profits by accompanying gentlemen in fish- 
 ing or snipe-shooting. So one day, sir, I went out fishing with 
 a strange gentleman from London, and, in a very quiet retired 
 spot some miles off, he stopped and plucked some herbs that 
 seemed tome common enough, but which he declared were most 
 curious and rare things, and he carried them carefully away. 
 I heard afterwards he was a great herbalist, I think they call it, 
 but he was a very poor fisher. Well, sir, I thought the next 
 morning of Mr. Aram, our great scholar and botanist, and fan- 
 cied it would please him to know of these bits of grass : so I 
 went and called upon him, and begged leave to go and show
 
 278 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the spot to him. So we walked there ; and certainly, sir, of all 
 the men that ever I saw, I never met one that wound round 
 your heart like this same Eugene Aram. He was then ex- 
 ceedingly poor, but he never complained ; and was much too 
 proud for any one to dare to offer him relief. He lived quite 
 alone, and usually avoided every one in his walks ; but, sir, 
 there was something so engaging and patient in his manner, 
 and his voice, and his pale, mild countenance, which, young 
 as he was then, for he was not a year or two above twenty, was 
 marked with sadness and melancholy, that it quite went to 
 your heart when you met him or spoke to him. Well, sir, we 
 walked to the place, and very much delighted he seemed with 
 the green things I showed him ; and as I was always of a com- 
 municative temper rather a gossip, sir, my neighbors say I 
 made him smile now and then by my remarks. He seemed 
 pleased with me, and talked to me going home about flowers, 
 and gardening, and such like ; and sure it was better than a 
 book to hear him. And after that, when we came across one 
 another, he would not shun me as he did others, but let me 
 stop and talk to him ; and then I asked his advice about a wee 
 farm I thought of taking, and he told me many curious things 
 which, sure enough, I found quite true, and brought me in 
 afterwards a deal of money. But we talked much about gar- 
 dening, for I loved to hear him talk on those matters ; and so, 
 sir, I was struck by all he said, and could not rest till I took to 
 gardening myself, and ever since I have gone on, more pleased 
 with it every day of my life. Indeed, sir, I think these harm- 
 less pursuits make a man's heart better and kinder to his fellow- 
 creatures; and I always take more pleasure in reading the Bible, 
 specially the New Testament, after having spent the day in the 
 garden. Ah, well, I should like to know what has become of that 
 poor gentleman." 
 
 " I can relieve your honest heart about him. Mr. Aram is 
 
 living in , well off in the world, and universally liked; 
 
 though he still keeps to his old habits of reserve." 
 
 " Ay, indeed, sir ! I have not heard anything that pleased 
 me more this many a day." 
 
 " Pray," said Walter, after a moment's pause, " do you re- 
 member the circumstance of a Mr. Clarke appearing in this 
 town, and leaving it in a very abrupt and mysterious man- 
 ner ? " 
 
 "Do I mind it, sir? Yes, indeed. It made a great noise 
 in Knaresbro' there were many suspicions of foul play about 
 it. For my part, I, too, had my thoughts, but that's neithei
 
 ARAJL 79 
 
 here nor there", and the old man recommenced weeding with 
 great diligence. 
 
 " My friend," said Walter, mastering his emotion, " you 
 would serve me more deeply than I can express, if you would 
 give me any information, any conjecture respecting this this 
 Mr. Clarke. I have come hither, solely to make inquiry after 
 his fate : in a word, he is or was a near relative of mine ! " 
 
 The old man looked wistfully in Walter's face. " Indeed," 
 said he slowly, " you are welcome, sir, to all I know ; but that 
 is very little, or nothing rather. But will you turn up this 
 walk, sir ? it's more retired. Did you ever hear of one Rich- 
 ard Houseman ? " 
 
 " Houseman ! yes. He knew my poor I mean he knew 
 Clarke : he said Clarke was in his debt when he left the 
 town so suddenly." 
 
 The old man shook his head mysteriously, and looked 
 round. " I will tell you," said he, laying his hand on Walter's 
 arm, and speaking in his ear ; " I would not accuse any one 
 wrongfully, but I have my doubts that Houseman murdered 
 him." 
 
 " Great God ! " murmured Walter, clinging to a post for sup- 
 port. " Go on heed me not heed me not for mercy's sake 
 go on." 
 
 "Nay, I know nothing certain nothing certain, believe 
 me," said the old man, shocked at the effect his words had pro- 
 duced : " it may be better than I think for, and my reasons 
 are not very strong, but you shall hear them. Mr. Clarke, you 
 know, came to this town to receive a legacy you know the 
 particulars ? " 
 
 Walter impatiently nodded assent. 
 
 " Well, though he seemed in poor health, he was a lively, 
 careless man, who liked any company who would sit and tell 
 stories, and drink o 1 nights ; not a silly man exactly, but a 
 weak one. Now of all the idle persons of this town, Richard 
 Houseman was the most inclined to this way of life. He had 
 been a soldier had wandered a good deal about the world 
 was a bold, talking, reckless fellow of a character thoroughly 
 profligate ; and there were many stories afloat about him, 
 though none were clearly made out. In short, he was suspect- 
 ed of having occasionally taken to the high road ; and a 
 stranger, who stopped once at my little inn, assured me private- 
 ly that, though he could not positively swear to his person, he 
 felt convinced that he had been stopped a year before on the 
 London road by Houseman. Notwithstanding all this, as
 
 2&0 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Houseman had some respectable connections in the town- 
 among his relations, by the by, was Mr. Aram as he was a 
 thoroughly boon companion a good shot a bold rider ex- 
 cellent at a song, and very cheerful and merry, he was not 
 without as much company as he pleased ; and the first night 
 he and Mr. Clarke came together, they grew mighty intimate ; 
 indeed it seemed as if they had met before. On the night 
 Mr. Clarke disappeared, I had been on an excursion with some 
 gentlemen ; and in consequence of the snow which had been 
 heavy during the latter part of the day, I did not return to 
 Knaresbro' till past midnight. In walking through the town, 
 I perceived two men engaged in earnest conversation : one of 
 them, I am sure, was Clarke ; the other was wrapped up in a 
 great-coat, with the cape over his face ; but the watchman had 
 met the same man alone at an earlier hour, and, putting aside 
 the cape, perceived that it was Houseman. No one else was 
 seen with Clarke after that hour." 
 
 "But was not Houseman examined?" 
 
 "Slightly; and deposed that he had been spending the 
 night with Eugene Aram ; that on leaving Aram's house, he 
 met Clarke, and wondering that he, the latter, an invalid, 
 should be out at so late an hour, he walked some way with 
 him, in order to learn the cause ; but that Clarke seemed con- 
 fused, and was reserved, and on his guard, and at last wished 
 him good-by abruptly, and turned away. That he, House- 
 man, had no doubt he left the town that night, with the inten- 
 tion of defrauding his creditors, and making off with some 
 jewels he had borrowed from Mr. Elmore." 
 
 "But, Aram was this suspicious, nay, abandoned charac- 
 ter this Houseman intimate with Aram?" 
 
 " Not at all ; but being distantly related, and Houseman 
 being a familiar, pushing sort of a fellow, Aram could not, per- 
 haps, always shake him off ; and Aram allowed that House- 
 man had spent the evening with him." 
 
 "And no suspicion rested on Aram ?" 
 
 The host turned round in amazement. " Heavens above, 
 no ! One might as well suspect the lamb of eating the wolf ! " 
 
 But not thus thought Walter Lester : the wild words occa- 
 sionly uttered by the student his lone habits his frequent 
 starts and colloquy with self, all of which had, even from the 
 first, it has been seen, excited Walter's suspicion of former 
 guilt, that had murdered the mind's wholesome sleep, now 
 rushed with tenfold force upon his memory. 
 
 "But no other circumstance transpired? Is this your
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 281 
 
 whole ground for suspicion ; the mere circumstance of House- 
 man's being last seen with Clarke?" 
 
 "Consider also the dissolute and bold character of House- 
 man. Clarke evidently had his jewels and money with him 
 they were not left in the house. What a temptation to one 
 who was more than suspected of having in the course of his 
 life taken to plunder ! Houseman shortly afterwards left the 
 country. He has never returned to the town since, though his 
 daughter lives here with his wife's mother, and has occasionally 
 gone up to town to see him." 
 
 "And Aram he also left Knaresbro* soon after this mys- 
 terious event?" 
 
 " Yes ! an old aunt at York, who had never assisted him 
 during her life, died and bequeathed him a legacy, about a 
 month afterwards. On receiving it, he naturally went to Lon- 
 don the best place for such clever scholars." 
 
 "Ha ! But are you sure that the aunt died? that the legacy 
 was left ? Might this be no tale to give an excuse to the spend- 
 ing of money otherwise acquired ? " 
 
 Mine host looked almost with anger on Walter. 
 " It is clear," said he, " you know nothing of Eugene Aram, 
 or you would not speak thus. But I can satisfy your doubts 
 on this head. I knew the old lady well, and my wife was at 
 York when she died. Besides, every one here knows some- 
 thing of the will, for it was rather an eccentric one." 
 
 Walter paused irresolutely. " Will you accompany me," he 
 asked, "to the house in which Mr. Clarke lodged, and, in- 
 deed, to any other place where it may be prudent to institute 
 inquiry? " 
 
 "Certainly, sir, with the biggest pleasure," said mine host; 
 " but you must first try my dame's butter and eggs. It is time 
 to breakfast." 
 
 We may suppose that Walter's simple meal was soon over ; 
 and growing impatient and restless to commence his inquiries, 
 he descended from his solitary apartment to the little back- 
 room behind the bar, in which he had, on the night before, 
 seen mine host and his better half at supper. It was a snug, 
 small, wainscoted room ; fishing-rods were neatly arranged 
 against the wall, which was also decorated by a portrait of the 
 landlord himself, two old Dutch pictures of fruit and game, a 
 long, quaint-fashioned fowling-piece, and, opposite the fire- 
 place, a noble stag's head and antlers. On the window-seat 
 lay the Izaak Walton to which the old man had referred ; the 
 Family Bible, with its green baize cover, and the frequent
 
 2%2 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 marks peeping out from its venerable pages ; and, close nest- 
 ing to it, recalling that beautiful sentence, " Suffer the little 
 children to come unto me, and forbid them not," several of 
 those little volumes with gay binding, and marvellous contents 
 of fay and giant, which delight the hearth-spelled urchin, and 
 which were " the source of golden hours " to the old man's 
 grandchildren, in their respite from "learning's little tene- 
 ments," 
 
 " Where sits the dame, disguised in look profound, 
 And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around,"* 
 
 Mine host was still employed by a huge brown loaf and some 
 baked pike ; and mine hostess, a quiet and serene old lady, was 
 alternately regaling herself and a large brindled cat from a 
 plate of " toasten cheer." 
 
 While the old man was hastily concluding his repast, a little 
 knock at the door was heard, and presently an elderly gentle- 
 man in black put his head into the room, and, perceiving the 
 stranger, would have drawn back ; but both landlady and land- 
 lord, bustling up, entreated him to enter by the appellation of 
 Mr. Summers. And then, as the gentleman smilingly yielded 
 to the invitation, the landlady turning to Walter said : " Our 
 clergyman, sir : and though I say it afore his face, there is not 
 a man who, if Christian vartues were considered, ought so soon 
 to be a bishop." 
 
 " Hush ! my good lady," said Mr. Summers, laughing as he 
 bowed to Walter. "You see, sir, that it is no trifling advan- 
 tage to a Knaresbro' reputation to have our hostess's good 
 word. But, indeed," turning to the landlady, and assuming a 
 grave and impressive air, " I have little mind for jesting now. 
 You know poor Jane Houseman, a mild, quiet, blue-eyed 
 creature, she died at daybreak this morning! Her father 
 had come from London expressly to see her : she died in his 
 arms, and, I hear, he is almost in a state of frenzy." 
 
 The host and hostess signified their commiseration. " Poor 
 little girl ! " said the latter, wiping her eyes ; " hers was a hard 
 fate, and she felt it, child as she was. Without the care of a 
 mother and such a father ! Yet he was fond of her." 
 
 " My reason for calling on you was this," renewed the cler- 
 gyman, addressing the host : " you knew Houseman formerly ; 
 me he always shunned, and, I fancy, ridiculed. He is in dis- 
 tress now, and all that is forgotten. Will you seek him, and 
 inquire if anything in my power can afford him consolation? 
 
 * Shenstone's Schwlmistrets.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 283 
 
 He may be poor: /can pay for the poor child's burial. I 
 loved her ; she was the best girl at Mrs. Summers's school. 
 
 " Certainly, sir, I will seek him," said the landlord, hesitating ; 
 and then, drawing the clergyman aside, he informed him in a 
 whisper of his engagement with Walter, and with the present 
 pursuit and meditated inquiry of his guest ; not forgetting to 
 insinuate his suspicion of the guilt of the man whom he was 
 now called upon to compassionate. 
 
 The clergyman mused a little ; and then, approaching Wal- 
 ter, offered his services in the stead of the publican in so frank 
 and cordial a manner that Walter at once accepted them. 
 
 " Let us come now, then," said the good curate for he was 
 but the curate seeing Walter's impatience ; "and first we will 
 go to the house in which Clarke lodged ; I know it well." 
 
 The two gentlemen now commenced their expedition. Sum- 
 mers was no contemptible antiquary; and he sought to beguile 
 the nervous impatience of his companion by dilating on the at- 
 tractions of the ancient and memorable town to which his pur- 
 pose had brought him. 
 
 " Remarkable," said the curate, "alike in history and tradi- 
 tion : look yonder" (pointing above, as an opening in the road 
 gave to view the frowning and beetled ruins of the shattered 
 castle) ; " you would be at some loss to recognize now the 
 truth of old Leland's description of that once stout and gallant 
 bulwark of the North, when he ' numbrid n or 12 towres in 
 the walles of the castel, and one very fayre beside in the sec- 
 ond area.' In that castle, the four knightly murderers of the 
 haughty Becket (the Wolsey of his age) remained for a whole 
 year, defying the weak justice of the times. There, too, the 
 unfortunate Richard the Second the Stuart of the Planta- 
 genets passed some portion of his bitter imprisonment. And 
 there, after the battle of Marston Moor, waved the banners of 
 the loyalists against the soldiers of Lilburne. It was made 
 yet more touchingly memorable at that time, as you may have 
 heard, by an instance of filial piety. The town was greatly 
 straitened for want of provisions ; a youth, whose father was 
 in the garrison, was accustomed nightly to get into the deep 
 dry moat, climb up the glacis, and put provisions through a 
 hole, where the father stood ready to receive them. He was 
 perceived at length ; the soldiers fired on him. He was taken 
 prisoner and sentenced to be hanged in sight of the besieged, 
 in order to strike terror into those who might be similarly dis- 
 posed to render assistance to the garrison. Fortunately, how- 
 ever, this disgrace was spared the memory of Lilburne and the
 
 284 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 republican arms. With great difficulty, a certain lady obtained 
 his respite ; and after the conquest of the place, and the de- 
 parture of the troops, the adventurous son was released." 
 
 " A fit subject for your local poets," said Walter, whom stories 
 of this sort, from the nature of his own enterprise, especially 
 affected. 
 
 "Yes ; but we boast but few minstrels since the young Aram 
 left us. The castle then, once the residence of John of Gaunt, 
 was dismantled and destroyed. Many of the houses we shall 
 pass have been built from its massive ruins. It is singular, by 
 the way, that it was twice captured by men of the name of Lil- 
 burn, or Lillburne ; once in the reign of Edward II., once as 
 I have related. On looking over historical records, we are sur- 
 prised to find how often certain names have been fatal to cer- 
 tain spots ; and this reminds me, by the way, that we boast the 
 origin of the English sibyl, the venerable Mother Shipton. 
 The wild rock, at whose foot she is said to have been born, is 
 worthy of the tradition." 
 
 " You spoke just now," said Walter, who had not very 
 patiently suffered the curate thus to ride his hobby, " of Eugene 
 Aram ; you knew him well?" 
 
 " Nay : he suffered not any to do that ! He was a remark- 
 able youth. 1 have noted him from his childhood upward, 
 long before he came to Knaresbro', till on leaving this place, 
 fourteen years back, I lost sight of him. Strange, musing, 
 solitary from a boy : but what accomplishment of learning he 
 had reached ! Never did I see one whom Nature so emphati- 
 cally marked to be GREAT. I often wonder that his name has 
 not long ere this been more universally noised abroad, whatever 
 he attempted was stamped with such signal success. I have 
 by me some scattered pieces of his poetry when a boy : they 
 were given me by his poor father, long since dead ; and are full 
 of a dim, shadowy anticipation of future fame. Perhaps, yet, 
 before he dies, he is still young, the presentiment will be 
 realized. You, too, know him, then ? " 
 
 " Yes ! I have known him. Stay dare I ask you a question, 
 a fearful question ? Did suspicion ever, in your mind, in the 
 mind of any one, rest on Aram, as concerned in the mysterious 
 disappearance of my of Clarke? His acquaintance with 
 Houseman who was suspected ; Houseman's visit to Aram that 
 night ; his previous poverty so extreme, if I hear rightly ; his 
 after riches though they perhaps may be satisfactorily ac- 
 counted for ; his leaving this town so shortly after the dis- 
 appearance I refer to, these alone might not create suspicion
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 285 
 
 in me, but I have seen the man in moments of revery and 
 abstraction ; I have listened to strange and broken words ; I 
 have noted a sudden, keen, and angry susceptibility to any 
 unmeant appeal to a less peaceful or less innocent remem- 
 brance. And there seems to me inexplicably to hang over his 
 heart some gloomy recollection, which I cannot divest myself 
 from imagining to be that of guilt." 
 
 Walter spoke quickly, and in great though half-suppressed 
 excitement ; the more kindled from observing that, as he spoke, 
 Summers changed countenance, and listened as with painful 
 and uneasy attention. 
 
 " I will tell you," said the curate, after a short pause (lower- 
 ing his voice) " I will tell you : Aram did undergo examina- 
 tion ; I was present at it : but from his character, and the 
 respect universally felt for him, the examination was close and 
 secret. He was not, mark me, suspected of the murder of the 
 imfortunate Clarke, nor was any suspicion of murder generally 
 entertained until all means of discovering Clarke were found 
 wholly unavailing ; but of sharing with Houseman some part 
 of the jewels with which Clarke was known to have left the 
 town. This suspicion of robbery could not, however, be 
 brought home, even to Houseman, and Aram was satisfactorily 
 acquitted from the imputation. But in the minds of some 
 present at that examination, a doubt lingered, and this doubt 
 certainly deeply wounded a man so proud and susceptible. 
 This, I believe, was the real reason of his quitting Knaresbro ? 
 almost immediately after that examination. And some of us, 
 who felt for him, and were convinced of his innocence, per- 
 suaded the others to hush up the circumstance of. his examina- 
 tion, nor has it generally transpired, even to this day, when the 
 whole business is well-nigh forgot. But as to his subsequent 
 improvement in circumstances, there is no doubt of his aunt's 
 having left him a legacy sufficient to account for it." 
 
 Walter bowed his head, and felt his suspicions waver, when 
 the curate renewed : 
 
 "Yet it is but fair to tell you, who seem so deeply interested 
 in the fate of Clarke, that since that period rumors have 
 reached my ear that the woman at whose house Aram lodged 
 has from time to time dropped words that require explana- 
 tion ; hints that she could tell a tale that she knows more 
 than men will readily believe nay, once she is even reported 
 to have said that th.e life of Eugene Aram was in her power." 
 
 " Father of mercy ! and did Inquiry sleep on words so call' 
 ing for its liveliest examination ? "
 
 286 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Not wholly. When the words were reported to me, I went 
 to the house, but found the woman, whose habits and character 
 are low and worthless, was abrupt and insolent in her manner; 
 and after in vain- endeavoring to call forth some explanation 
 of the words she was said to have uttered, I left the house fully 
 persuaded that she had only given vent to a meaningless boast, 
 and that the idle words of a disorderly gossip could not be 
 taken as evidence against a man of the blameless character 
 and austere habits of Aram. Since, however, you have now 
 reawakened investigation, we will visit her before you leave 
 the town ; and it may be as well, too, that Houseman should 
 undergo a further investigation before we suffer him to depart." 
 
 " I thank you ! I thank you ! I will not let slip one thread 
 of this dark clue ! " 
 
 " And now," said the curate, pointing to a decent house, 
 "we have reached the lodging Clarke occupied in the town ! " 
 
 An old man of respectable appearance opened the door, and 
 welcomed the curate and his companion with an air of cordial 
 respect, which attested the well-deserved popularity of the 
 former. 
 
 "We have come," said the curate, "to ask you some ques- 
 tions respecting Daniel Clarke, whom you remember as your 
 lodger. This gentleman is a relation of his, and interested 
 deeply in his fate ! " 
 
 " What, sir ! " quoth the old man ; " and have you, his rela- 
 tion, never heard of Mr. Clarke since he left the town ? 
 Strange ! this room, this very room, was the one Mr. Clarke 
 occupied, and next to this (here opening a door) was his 
 bedchamber ! " 
 
 It was not without powerful emotion that Walter found him- 
 self thus within the apartment of his lost father. What a pain- 
 ful, what a gloomy, yet sacred interest, everything around 
 instantly assumed ! The old-fashioned and heavy chairs the 
 brown wainscot walls the little cupboard recessed as it Were 
 to the right of the fireplace, and piled with morsels of Indian 
 china and long taper wine-glasses the small window-panes set 
 deep in the wall, giving a dim view of a bleak and melancholy 
 looking garden in the rear yea, the very floor he trod the 
 very table on which he leaned the very hearth, dull and fire- 
 less as it was, opposite his gaze all took a familiar meaning in 
 his eye, and breathed a household voice into his ear. And 
 when he entered the inner room, how, even to suffocation, were 
 those strange, half-sad, yet not all bitter emotions increased. 
 There was the bed on which his father had rested on the night
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 287 
 
 before what ? perhaps his murder ! The bed, probably a relic 
 from the castle, when its antique furniture was set up to public 
 sale, was hung with faded tapestry, and above its dark and pol- 
 ished summit were hearselike and heavy trappings. Old com- 
 modes of rudely carved oak, a discolored glass in a Japan 
 frame, a ponderous armchair of Elizabethan fashion, and cov- 
 ered with the same tapestry as the bed, altogether gave that 
 uneasy and sepulchral impression to the mind so commonly 
 produced by the relics of a mouldering and forgotten antiquity. 
 
 "It looks cheerless, sir," said the owner : " but then we have 
 not had any regular lodger for years; it is just the same as 
 when Mr. Clarke lived here. But bless you, sir, he made the 
 dull rooms look gay enough. He was a blithesome gentleman. 
 He and his friends, Mr. Houseman especially, used to make the 
 walls ring again. when they were over their. cups ! " 
 
 " It might have been better for Mr. Clarke," said the curate, 
 " had he chosen his comrades with more discretion. House- 
 man was not a creditable, perhaps not a safe, companion." 
 , " That was no business of mine then," quoth the lodging- 
 letter ; "but it might be now, since I have been a married 
 man ! " 
 
 The curate smiled. " Perhaps you, Mr. Moor, bore a part 
 in those revels ? " 
 
 " Why, indeed, Mr. Clarke would occasionally make me take 
 a glass or so, sir." 
 
 "And you must then have heard the conversations that took 
 place between Houseman and him ? Did Mr. Clarke ever, in 
 those conversations, intimate an intention of leaving the town 
 soon ? And where, if so, did he talk of going ? " 
 
 " Oh ! first to London. I have often heard him talk of 
 going to London, and then taking a trip to see some relations 
 of his in a distant part of the country. I remember his caress- 
 ing a little boy of my brother's : you know Jack, sir, not a little 
 boy now, almost as tall as this gentleman. Ah," said he with a 
 sort of sigh, " ah ! I have a boy at home about this age, when 
 shall I see him again ? " 
 
 " When indeed !" thought Walter, turning away his face at 
 this anecdote, to him so naturally affecting. 
 
 " And the night that Clarke left you, were you aware of his 
 absence ?" 
 
 "No! he went to his room at his usual hour, which was 
 late, and the next morning I found his bed had not been slept 
 in, and that he was gone gone with all his jewels, money, and 
 valuables; heavy luggage he had none. He was a cunning
 
 288 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 gentleman ; he never loved paying a bill. He was greatly in 
 debt in different parts of the town, though he had not been 
 here long. He ordered everything and paid for nothing." 
 
 Walter groaned. It was his father's character exactly ; 
 partly it might be from dishonest principles superadded to the 
 earlier feelings of his nature ; but partly also from that tempera- 
 ment, at once careless and procrastinating, whicl\ more often 
 than vice, loses men the advantage of reputation. 
 
 " Then in your own mind, and from your knowledge of 
 him," renewed the curate, "you would suppose that Clarke's 
 disappearance was intentional : that, though nothing has since 
 been heard of him, none of the blacker rumors afloat were well 
 founded? " 
 
 " I confess, sir, begging this gentleman's pardon, who you 
 say is a relation, I confess I see no reason to think other- 
 wise." 
 
 " Was Mr. Aram, Eugene Aram, ever a guest of Clarke's ? 
 Did you ever see them together ? " 
 
 " Never at this house. I fancy Houseman once presented 
 Mr. Aram to Clarke ; and that they may have met and con- 
 versed some two or three times not more, I believe ; they were 
 scarcely congenial spirits, sir." 
 
 Walter, having now recovered his self-possession, entered 
 into the conversation ; and endeavored, by as minute an ex- 
 amination as his ingenuity could suggest, to obtain some addi- 
 tional light upon the mysterious subject so deeply at his heart. 
 Nothing, however, of any effectual import was obtained from 
 the good man of the house. He had evidently persuaded him- 
 self that Clarke's disappearance was easily accounted for, and 
 would scarcely lend attention to any other suggestion than 
 that of Clarke's dishonesty. Nor did his recollection of the 
 meetings between Houseman and Clarke furnish him with any- 
 thing worthy of narration. With a spirit somewhat damped 
 and disappointed, Walter, accompanied by the curate, recom- 
 menced his expedition.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 289 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 GRIEF IN A RUFFIAN. THE CHAMBER OF EARLY DEATH. A 
 HOMELY YET MOMENTOUS CONFESSION. THE EARTH'S SE- 
 CRETS. THE CAVERN. THE ACCUSATION. 
 
 " All is not well, 
 I d'oubt some foul play. 
 * * * * * 
 
 Foul deeds will rise, 
 Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes." Hamlet. 
 
 As they passed through the street, they perceived three or 
 four persons standing round the open door of a house of ordi- 
 nary description, the windows of which were partially closed. 
 
 " It is the house," said the curate, " in which Houseman's 
 daughter died poor poor child ! Yet why mourn for the 
 young! Better that the light cloud should fade away into 
 heaven with the morning breath, than travel through the weary 
 day to gather in darkness and end in storm." 
 
 " Ah, sir ! " said an old man, leaning on his stick, and lifting 
 his hat in obeisance to the curate, " the father is within, and 
 takes on bitterly. He drives them all away from the room, and 
 sits moaning by the bedside, as if he was a-going out of his 
 mind. Won't your reverence go in to him a bit ? " 
 
 The curate looked at Walter inquiringly. " Perhaps," said 
 the latter, " you had better go in : I will wait without." 
 
 While the curate hesitated, they heard a voice in the passage, 
 and presently Houseman was seen at the far end, driving some 
 women before him with vehement gesticulations. 
 
 "I tell you, ye hell-hags ! " shrieked his harsh and now strain- 
 ing voice, "that ye suffered her to die. Why did ye not send 
 to London for physicians ? Am I not rich enough to buy my 
 
 child's life at any price ? By the living ! I would have 
 
 turned your very bodies into gold to have saved her. But she's 
 DEAD ! and I out of my sight out of my way ! " And with 
 his hands clenched, his brows knit, and his head uncovered, 
 Houseman sallied forth from the door, and Walter recognized 
 the traveller of the preceding night. He stopped abruptly as 
 he saw the little knot without, and scowled round at each of 
 them with a malignant and ferocious aspect. " Very well it's 
 very well, neighbors ! " said he at length, with a fierce laugh : 
 "this is kind ! You have come to welcome Richard Houseman 
 home, have ye ? Good, good ! Not to gloat at his distress ?
 
 290 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Lord ! no. Ye have no idle curiosity no prying, searching, 
 gossiping devil within ye, that makes ye love to flock, and gape, 
 and chatter, when poor, men suffer ! this is all pure compassion , 
 and Houseman, the good, gentle, peaceful, honest Houseman, 
 you feel for him, I know you do ! Hark ye : begone away 
 march tramp or Ha, ha! there they go there they go !" 
 laughing wildly again as the frightened neighbors shrunk from 
 the spot, leaving only Walter and the clergyman with the child- 
 less man. 
 
 " Be comforted, Houseman ! " said Summers soothingly : 
 " it is a dreadful affliction that you have sustained. I knew 
 your daughter well : you may have heard her speak of me. 
 Let us in, and try what heavenly comfort there is in prayer.'.' 
 
 " Prayer ! pooh ' I am Richard Houseman ! " 
 
 "Lives there one man for whom prayer is unavailing?" 
 
 "Out, canter, out! My pretty Jane! and she laid her 
 head on my bosom, and looked up in my face, and so 
 died!" 
 
 " Come," said the curate, placing his hand on Houseman's 
 arm, "come." 
 
 Before he could proceed, Houseman, who was muttering to 
 himself, shook him off roughly, and hurried away up the street ; 
 but after he. .had gone a few paces, he turned back, and, 
 approaching the curate, said, in a more collected tone: "I 
 pray you, sir, since you are a clergyman (I recollect your face, 
 and I recollect Jane said you had been good to her) I pray 
 you go, and say a few words over her : but stay don't bring 
 in my name you understand. I don't wish God to recollect 
 that there lives such a man as he who now addresses you. 
 Halloo ! (shouting to the women), my hat, and stick too. Fal 
 lal la ! fal la ! why should these things make us play the mad- 
 man ? It is a fine day, sir : we shall have a late winter. Curse 
 the b ! how long she is. Yet the hat was left below. But 
 when a death is in the house, sir, it throws things into con- 
 fusion : don't you find it so?" 
 
 Here, one of the women, pale, trembling, and tearful, brought 
 the ruffian his hat ; and, placing it deliberately on his head, 
 and bowing with a dreadful and convulsive attempt to smile, 
 he walked slowly away, and disappeared. 
 
 " What strange mummers grief makes ! " said the curate. 
 " It is an appalling spectacle when it thus wrings out feeling 
 from a man of that mould ! But, pardon me, my young friend ; 
 let me tarry here for a moment." 
 
 " I will enter the house with you," said Walter. And the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 29! 
 
 two men walked in, and in a few moments they stood within 
 the chamber of death. 
 
 The face of the deceased had not yet suffered the last wither- 
 ing change. Her young countenance was hushed and serene ; 
 and, but for the fixedness of the smile, you might have thought 
 the lips moved. So delicate, fair, and gentle were the features, 
 that it was scarcely possible to believe such a scion could spring 
 from such a stock ; and it seemed no longer wonderful that a 
 tiling so young, so innocent, so lovely, and so early blighted, 
 should have touched that reckless and dark nature which rejected 
 all other invasion of the softer emotions. The curate wiped 
 his eyes, and kneeling down prayed, if not for the dead (who, 
 as our Church teaches, are beyond human intercession) per- 
 haps for the father she had left on earth, more to be pitied of 
 the two I Nor to Walter was the scene without something more 
 impressive and thrilling than its mere pathos alone. He, now 
 standing beside the corpse of Houseman's child, was son to 
 the man of whose murder Houseman had been suspected. The 
 childless and the fatherless I might there be no retribution 
 here ? 
 
 When the curate's prayer was over, and he and Walter 
 escaped from the incoherent blessings and complaints of the 
 women of the house, they, wi:h difficulty resisting the impres- 
 sion the scene had left upon their minds, once more resumed 
 their errand. 
 
 " This is no time," said Walter musingly, " for an examin- 
 ation of Houseman ; yet it must not be forgotten." 
 
 The curate did not reply for some moments ; and then, as 
 an answer to the remark, observed that the conversation they 
 anticipated with Aram's former hostess might throw some light 
 on their researches. They now proceeded to another part of 
 the town, and arrived at a lonely and desolate-looking house, 
 which seemed to wear in its very appearance something strange, 
 sad, and ominous. Some houses have an expression, as it 
 were, in their outward aspect, that sinks unaccountably into the 
 heart a dim, oppressive eloquence, which dispirits and affects. 
 You say, some story must be attached to those walls ; some 
 legendary interest, of a darker nature, ought to be associated 
 with the mute stone and mortar: you feel a mingled awe and 
 cariosity creep over you as you gaze. Such was the descrip- 
 tion of the house that the young adventurer now surveyed. It 
 was of antique architecture, not uncommon in old towns: 
 gable-ends rose from the roof; dull, small, latticed panes were 
 sunk deep in the gray, discolored wall ; the pale, in part, was
 
 292 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 broken and jagged ; and rank weeds sprang up in the neglected 
 garden, through which they walked towards the porch. The 
 door was open ; they entered, and found an old woman of 
 coarse appearance sitting by the fireside, and gazing on space 
 with that vacant stare which so often characterizes the repose 
 and relaxation of the uneducated poor. Walter felt an in- 
 voluntary thrill of dislike come over him, as he looked at the 
 solitary inmate of the solitary house. 
 
 " Heyday, sir !" said she in a grating voice; "and what 
 now ! Oh ! Mr. Summers, is it you ? You're welcome, sir. 
 I wishes I could offer you a glass of summut, but the bottle's 
 dry he ! he ! " pointing with a revolting grin to an empty 
 bottle that stood on a niche within the hearth. " I don't know 
 how it is, sir, but I never wants to eat ; but ah ! 'tis the liquor 
 that does un good ! " 
 
 "You have lived a long time in this house ?" said the curate. 
 
 "A long time some thirty years an' more." 
 
 "You remember your lodger, Mr. Aram ?" 
 
 "A well yes !-" 
 
 " An excellent man " 
 
 " Humph." 
 
 " A most admirable man ! " 
 
 "A-humph! he! humph! that's neither here nor there." 
 
 "Why, you don't seem to think as all the rest of the world 
 does with regard to him?" 
 
 " I knows what I knows." 
 
 "Ah ! by-the-by, you have some cock-and-a-bull story about 
 him, I fancy, but you never could explain yourself ; it is merely 
 for the love of seeming wise that you invented it ; eh, Goody ?" 
 
 The old woman shook her head, and crossing her hands on 
 her knee, replied with peculiar emphasis, but in a very low and 
 whispered voice, "I could hang him !" 
 
 " Pooh ! " 
 
 "Tell you I could!" 
 
 " Well, let's have the story then ! " 
 
 " No, no ! I have not told it to ne'er a one yet ; and I 
 won't for nothing. What will you give me ? Make it worth 
 my while ? " 
 
 "Tell us all, honestly, fairly, and fully, and you shall have 
 five golden guineas. There, Goody." 
 
 Roused by this promise, the dame looked up with more of 
 energy than she had yet shown, and muttered to herself, rocking 
 her chair to and fro, "Aha ! why not ? no fear now both gone 
 can't now murder the poor old cretur, as the wretch once
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 293 
 
 threatened. Five golden guineas five, did you say, sir, 
 five?" 
 
 "Ay, and perhaps our bounty may not stop there," said the 
 curate. 
 
 Still the old woman hesitated, and still she muttered to her- 
 self; but, after some further prelude, and some further entice- 
 ment from the curate, the which we spare our reader, she came 
 at length to the following narration : 
 
 "It was on the 7th of February, in the year '44; yes, '44, 
 about six o'clock in the evening, for I was a-washing in the 
 kitchen, when Mr. Aram called to me, an' desired of me to 
 make a fire upstairs, which I did : he then. walked out. Some 
 hours afterwards, it might be two in the morning, I was lying 
 awake, for I was mighty bad with the toothache, when I heard 
 a noise below, and two or three voices. On this, I was greatly 
 afeard, and got o' bed, and, opening the door, I saw Mr. 
 Houseman and Mr. Clarke coming upstairs to Mr. Aram's 
 room, and Mr. Aram followed them. They shut the door, and 
 stayed there, it might be an hour. Well, I could not a-think 
 what could make so shy an' resaryed a gentleman as Mr. Aram 
 admit these 'ere wild madcaps like at that hour; an' I lay 
 awake a-thinking and a-thinking, till I heard the door open 
 agin, an' I went to listen at the keyhole, an' Mr. Clarke said :. 
 'It will soon be morning, and we must get off." They then all 
 three left the house ; but I could not sleep, an' I got up afore 
 five o'clock, and about that hour Mr. Aram an' Mr. Houseman 
 returned, and they both glowered at me, as if they did not like 
 to find me a-stirring ; an' Mr. Aram went into his room, and 
 Houseman turned and frowned at me as black as night. Lord 
 have mercy on me ! I see him now ! An' I was sadly feared, 
 an' I listened at the keyhole, an' I heard Houseman say : ' If 
 the woman comes in, she'll tell.' 'What can she tell ?' said 
 Mr. Aram: 'poor, simple thing, she knows nothing.' With 
 that, Housema'n said, says he: 'If she tells that I am here, it 
 will be enough ; but however,' with a shocking oath, 'we'll 
 take an opportunity to shoot her.' 
 
 "On that I was so frighted that I went away back to my 
 own room, and did not stir till they had a-gone out, and 
 then " 
 
 "What time was that ?" 
 
 "About seven o'clock. Well, you put me out ! where was 
 I? Well, I went into Mr. Aram's room, an' I seed they had 
 been burning a fire, an' that all the ashes were taken out o' 
 the grate ; so I went an' looked at the rubbish behind the
 
 294 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 house, and there sure enough I seed the ashes, and among 'em 
 several bits o" cloth and linen which seemed to belong to 
 wearing apparel ; and there, too, was a handkerchief which I 
 had obsarved Houseman wear (for it was a very curious hand- 
 kerchief, all spotted) rnany's the time, and there was blood on 
 it, 'bout the size of a shilling. An' afterwards I seed House- 
 man, an' I showed him the handkerchief; and I said to him, 
 'What has come of Clarke?' an' he frowned, and, looking at 
 me, said, ' Hark'ye, I know not what you mean : but, as sure 
 as the devil keeps watch for souls, I will shoot you through 
 the head if you ever let that d d tongue of yours let slip a 
 single word about Clarke, or me, or Mr. Aram ; so look to 
 yourself ! ' 
 
 "An" I was all scared, and trimbled from limb to limb ; an' 
 for two whole yearn afterwards (long arter Aram and House- 
 man were both gone) I niver could so much as open my lips 
 on the matter; and afore he went, Mr. Aram would sometimes 
 look at me, not sternly-like as the villain Houseman, but as if 
 he would read to the bottom of my heart. Oh ! I was as if 
 you had taken a mountain off o' me, when he an' Houseman 
 left the town ; for sure as the sun shines I believes, from what 
 I have now said, that they two murdered Clarke on that same 
 February night. An' now, Mr. Summers, I feels more easy 
 than I has felt for many a long day ; an* if I have not told it 
 afore, it is because I thought of Houseman's frown, and his 
 horrid words ; but summut of it would ooze out of my tongue 
 now an' then, for it's a hard thing, sir, to know a secret o' that 
 sort and be quiet and still about it ; and, indeed, I was not 
 the same cretur when I knew it as I was afore, for it made me 
 take to anything rather than thinking ; and that's the reason, 
 sir, I lost the good crakter I used to have." 
 
 Such, somewhat abridged from its " says he " and " says I " 
 its involutions and its tautologies, was the story which Walter 
 held his breath to hear. But events thicken, and the maze is 
 nearly thridden. 
 
 " Not a moment now should be lost," said the curate, as they 
 left the house. " Let us at once proceed to a very able magis- 
 trate, to whom I can introduce you, and who lives a little way 
 out of the town." 
 
 " As you will," said Walter, in an altered and hollow voice. 
 "I am as a man standing on an eminence, who views the 
 whole scene he is to travel over, stretched before him ; but is 
 dizzy and bewildered by the height which he has reached. I 
 know I feel that I am on the brink of fearful and dread dis-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 295 
 
 coveries ; pray God that But heed me not, sir ; heed me 
 not let us on on ! " 
 
 It was now approaching towards the evening ; and as they 
 walked on, having left the town, the sun poured his last beams 
 on a group of persons that appeared hastily collecting and 
 gathering round a spot, well known in the neighborhood of 
 Knaresborough, called Thistle Hill. 
 
 " Let us avoid the crowd," said the curate. " Yet what, I 
 wonder, can be its cause?" While he spoke, two peasants 
 hurried by towards the throng. 
 
 " What is the meaning of the crowd yonder ? " asked the 
 curate. 
 
 " I don't know exactly, your honor ; but I hears as how Jem 
 Ninnings, digging for stone for the limekiln, have dug out a big 
 wooden chest." 
 
 A shout from the group broke in on the peasant's explana- 
 tiona sudden simultaneous shout, but not of joy ; something 
 of dismay and horror seemed to breathe in the sound. 
 
 Walter looked at the curate : an impulse a sudden instinct, 
 seemed to attract them involuntarily to the spot whence that 
 sound arose ; they quickened their pace they made their way 
 through the throng. A deep chest, that had been violently 
 forced, stood before them : its contents had been dragged to 
 day, and now lay on the sward, a bleached and mouldering 
 skeleton ! Several of the bones were loose, and detached from 
 the body. A general hubbub of voices from the spectators in- 
 quiry, guess, fear, wonder rang confusedly round. 
 
 "Yes ! " said one old man with gray hair, leaning on a pick- 
 axe ; " it is now about fourteen years since the Jew peddler 
 disappeared ; these are probably his bones ; he was supposed 
 to have been murdered ! " 
 
 " Nay ! " screeched a woman, drawing back a child who, all 
 unalarmed, was about to touch the ghastly relics. " Nay, the 
 peddler was heard of afterwards ! I'll tell ye, ye may be sure 
 these are the bones of Clarke Daniel Clarke whom the 
 country was so stirred about, when we were young ! " 
 
 " Right, dame, right ! It is Clarke's skeleton," was the 
 simultaneous cry. And Walter, pressing forward, stood over 
 the bones, and waved his hand, as to guard them from farther 
 insult. His sudden appearance his tall stature his wild 
 gesture the horror the paleness the grief of his counte- 
 nance struck and appalled all present. He remained speech- 
 less, and a sudden silence succeeded the late clamor. 
 
 " And what do you here, fools ? " said a voice abruptly.
 
 296 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 The spectators turned a new comer had been added to the 
 throng; it was Richard Houseman. His dress loose and dis- 
 arranged his flushed cheeks and rolling eyes betrayed the 
 source of consolation to which he had flown from his domes- 
 tic affliction. " What do ye here ? " said he, reeling forward. 
 " Ha ! human bones ! and whose may they be, think ye ?" 
 
 " They are Clarke's !" said the woman, who had first given 
 rise to that supposition. " Yes, we think they are Daniel 
 Clarke's he who disappeared some years ago ! " cried two or 
 three voices in concert. 
 
 "Clarke's?" repeated Houseman, stooping down and pick- 
 ing up a thigh-bone, which lay at a little distance from the rest; 
 " Clarke's ? ha ! ha ! they are no more Clarke's than mine ! " 
 
 " Behold ! " shouted Walter, in a voice that rang from cliff 
 to plain, and springing forward, he seized Houseman with 
 a giant's grasp, " behold the murderer ! " 
 
 As if the avenging voice of Heaven had spoken, a thrilling, 
 an electric conviction darted through the crowd. Each of the 
 elder spectators remembered at once the person of Houseman, 
 and the suspicion that had attached to his name. 
 
 " Seize him ! seize him ! " burst forth from twenty voices. 
 " Houseman is the murderer ! " 
 
 " Murderer ! " faltered Houseman, trembling in the iron 
 hands of Walter " murderer of whom ? I tell ye these are 
 not Clarke's bones ! " 
 
 " Where then do they lie ? " cried his arrestor. 
 
 Pale confused conscience-stricken the bewilderment of 
 intoxication mingling with that of fear, Houseman turned a 
 ghastly look around him, and, shrinking from the eyes of all, 
 reading in the eyes of all his condemnation, he gasped out, 
 "Search St. Robert's Cave, in the turn at the entrance !" 
 
 "Away!" rang the deep voice of Walter, on the instant, 
 " away ! to the Cave ! to the Cave ! " 
 
 On the banks of the river Nid, whose waters keep an ever- 
 lasting murmur to the crags and trees that overhang them, is a 
 wild and dreary cavern, hollowed from a rock, which, accord- 
 ing to tradition, was formerly the hermitage of one of those 
 early enthusiasts who made their solitude in the sternest re- 
 cesses of earth, and from the austerest thoughts, and the 
 bitterest penance, wrought their joyless offerings to the great 
 Spirit of the lovely world. To this desolate spot, called, from 
 the name of its once-celebrated eremite, St. Robert's Cave, 
 the crowd now swept, increasing its numbers as it advanced. 
 
 The old man who had discovered the unknown remains, which
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 297 
 
 Were gathered up and made a part of the procession, led the 
 way ; Houseman, placed between two strong and active men, 
 went next ; and Walter followed behind, fixing his eyes mutely 
 upon the ruffian. The curate had had the precaution to send on 
 before for torches, for the wintry evening now darkened round 
 them, and the light ftom the torch-bearers, who met them at 
 the cavern, cast forth its red and lurid flare at the mouth of 
 the chasm. One of these torches Walter himself seized, and 
 his was the first step that entered the gloomy passage. 
 
 At this place and time, Houseman, who till then, throughout 
 their short journey, had seemed to have recovered a sort of 
 dogged self-possession, recoiled, and the big drops of fear or 
 agony fell fast from his brow. He was dragged forward forci- 
 bly into the cavern ; and now as the space filled, and the 
 torches flickered against the grim walls, glaring on faces which 
 caught, from the deep and thrilling contagion of a common 
 sentiment, one common expression, it was not well possible 
 for the wildest imagination to conceive a scene better fitted 
 for the unhallowed burial-place of the murdered dead. 
 
 The eyes of all now turned upon Houseman ; and he, after 
 twice vainly endeavoring to speak, for the words died inarticu- 
 late and choked within him, advancing a few steps, pointed 
 towards a spot on which, the next moment, fell the concentrated 
 light of every torch. An indescribable and universal murmur, 
 and then a breathless silence, ensued. On the spot which 
 Houseman had indicated, with the head placed to the right, 
 lay what once had been a human body ! 
 
 "Can you swear," said the priest, solemnly, as he turned to 
 Houseman, "that these are the bones of Clarke?" 
 
 "Before God, I can swear it ! " replied Houseman, at length 
 finding voice. 
 
 " MY FATHER ! " broke from Walter's lips, as he sank upon 
 his knees ; and that exclamation completed the awe and horror 
 which prevailed in the breasts of all present. Stung by the 
 sense of the danger he had drawn upon himself, and despair 
 and excitement restoring, in some measure, not only his natural 
 hardihood but his natural astuteness, Houseman here master- 
 ing his emotions, and making that effort which he was after- 
 wards enabled to follow up with an advantage to himself, of which 
 he could not then have dreamed Houseman, I say, cried aloud: 
 
 " But I did not do the deed : / am not the murderer." 
 
 " Speak out ! whom do you accuse? " said the curate. 
 
 Drawing his breath hard, and setting his teeth, as with some 
 steeled determination, Houseman replied :
 
 5Q8 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "The murderer is Eugene Aram ! " 
 
 "Aram!" shouted Walter, starting to his feet: "0 God, 
 thy hand hath directed me hither !" And suddenly mid at 
 once sense left him, and he fell, as if a shot had pierced 
 through his heart, beside the remains of that father whom he 
 had thus mysteriously discovered. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 01 avru revx^i avrjp a/l/lu nana 
 
 'II tie Kami /JcwA/} T /3ov'AvaavTi MiKicrtf, 
 
 IlESIOD. 
 
 Surely the man that plotteth ill against; his neighbor perpetrateth ill 
 against himself, and the evil design is most evil to him that deviseth it. 
 
 ftl A "P'TTi'T? T 
 
 LHArJ.Jri.K. 1. 
 
 GRASSDALE. THE MORNING .OF THE MARRIAGE. THE CRONE'S 
 
 GOSSIP. THE BRIDE AT HER TOILET. THE ARRIVAL. 
 
 " Jam veniet virgo, jam dicetur H.ymenoeus, 
 Hymen, O Hymensee ] Hymen ades, O Hymenaee!"* 
 CATULLUS : Carmen N-uptiale. 
 
 IT was now the morning in which Eugene Aram was to be 
 married to Madeline Lester. The student's house had been 
 set in order for the arrival of the bride, and though it was yet 
 early morn, two old women whom his domestic (now not the 
 only one, for a buxom lass of eighteen had been transplanted 
 from Lester's household to meet the additional cares that the 
 change of circumstances brought to Aram's) had invited to as- 
 sist her in arranging what was already arranged, were bustling 
 about the lower apartments, and making matters as they call 
 it "tidy." 
 
 " Them flowers look but poor things after all," muttered an 
 old crone whom our readers will recognize as Dame Darkmans, 
 placing a bowl of exotics on the table. " They does not look 
 nigh s.o cheerful as them as grows in the open air." 
 
 *'Now!shall the Virgin arrive ; now shall be sung the Hymeneal Hymen Hymenaeus! 
 Be present, O Hymen Hymenaeus !
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Tush ! Goody Parkmans," said tlie second gossip. " They 
 be much prettier and finer to my mind ; and so said Miss Nelly, 
 when she plucked them last night and sent me down with 
 them. They says there is not a blade o' grass that the master 
 does not know. He must be a good man to love the things of 
 the field so." 
 
 "Ho !" said Dame Darkmans, " ho ! when Joe Wrench was 
 hanged for shooting the lord's keeper, and he mounted the 
 scaffold wid a nosegay in his hand, he said, in a peevish voice, 
 says he : ' Why does not they give me a tarnation ? I always 
 loved them sort o' flowers ; I wore them when I went a courting 
 Bess Lucas ; an' I would like to die with one in my hand ! ' 
 So a man may like flowers and be but a hempen dog after all ! " 
 
 "Now don't you, Goody ; be still, can't you ! what a tale for 
 a marriage day ! " 
 
 " Tally vally," returned the grim hag ; " many a blessing 
 carries a curse in its arms, as the new moon carries the old. 
 This won't be one of your happy weddings, I tell ye." 
 
 "And why d* ye say that ? " 
 
 " Did you ever see a man with a look like that make a happy 
 husband ? No, no ; can ye fancy the merry laugh o' childer in 
 this house, or a babe on the father's knee, or the happy, still 
 smile on the mother's winsome face, some few year hence ? No, 
 Madge ! the de'il has set his black claw on the man's brow." 
 
 " Hush ! hush, Goody Darkmans, he may hear o' ye," said 
 the second gossip ; who, having now done all that re- 
 mained to do, had seated herself down by the window ; while 
 the more ominous crone, leaning over Aram's oak chair, uttered 
 from thence her sibyl bodings. 
 
 "No," replied Mother Darkmans, " I seed him go out an 
 hour agone, when the sun was just on the rise ; and I said, 
 when I seed, him stroam into the wood yonder, and the ould 
 leaves splashed in the damp under his feet ; and his hat was 
 aboon his brows, and his lips went so ; I said, says I, 'tis not 
 the man that will make a hearth bright, that would walk thus 
 on his marriage day. But I knows what I knows ; and I minds 
 what I seed last night." 
 
 " Why, what did you see last night ? " asked the listener, 
 with a trembling voice : for Mother Darkmans was a great 
 teller of ghost and witch tales, and a certain ineffable awe of 
 her dark gipsy features and malignant words had circulated 
 pretty largely throughout the village. 
 
 " Why, I sat up here with the ould deaf woman, and we wen* 
 a-drinking the health of the man and his wife that is to be, and
 
 300 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 it was nigh twelve o' the clock ere I minded it was time to go 
 home. Well, so I puts on my cloak, and the moon was up, an' 
 I goes along by the wood, and up by Fairleigh Field, an' I was 
 singing the ballad on Joe Wrench's hanging, for the spirats 
 had made me gamesome, when I sees somemut dark creep, 
 creep, but iver so fast, arter me over the field, and making right 
 ahead to the village. And I stands still, an' I was not a bit 
 afeard ; but sure I thought it was no living cretur, at the first 
 sight. And so it comes up faster and faster, and then I sees 
 it was not one thing, but a many, many things, and they dark- 
 ened the whole field afore me. And what d'ye think they 
 was ? a whole body o' gray rats, thousands and thousands on 
 'em, and they were making away from the outbuildings here. 
 For sure they knew the witch things, that an ill-luck sat on 
 the spot. And so I stood aside by the tree, an" I laughed to 
 look on the ugsome creturs, as they swept close by me, tramp, 
 tramp ; an' they never heeded me a jot ; but some on 'em 
 looked aslant at me with their glittering eyes, and showed their 
 white teeth, as if they grinned, and were saying to me, ' Ha, ha ! 
 Goody Darkmans, the house that we leave is a falling house ; 
 for the devil will have his own.' " 
 
 In some parts of the country, and especially in that where 
 our scene is laid, no omen is more superstitiously believed evil 
 than the departure of these loathsome animals from their ac- 
 customed habitation ; the instinct which is supposed to make 
 them desert an unsafe tenement is supposed also to make them 
 predict, in desertion, ill fortune to the possessor. But while 
 the ears of the listening gossip were still tingling with this nar- 
 ration, the dark figure of the student passed the window, and 
 the old women starting up, appeared in all the bustle of prepara- 
 tion, as Aram now entered the apartment. 
 
 " A happy day, your honor a happy good-morning," said 
 both the crones in a breath ; but the blessing of the worst- 
 natured was vented in so harsh a croak, that Aram turned round 
 as if struck by the sound ; and still more disliking the well- 
 remembered aspect of the person from whom it came, waved 
 his hand impatiently, and bade them begone. 
 
 " A-whish a-whish ! " muttered Dame Darkmans, " to 
 spake so to the poor ; but the rats never lie, the bonny 
 things ! " 
 
 Aram threw himself into his chair, and remained for some 
 moments absorbed in a revery, which did not bear the 
 aspect of gloom. Then, walking once or twice to and fro the 
 apartment, he stopped opposite the chimney-piece, over which
 
 EUGENE 
 
 were slung the firearms, which he never omitted to keep 
 charged and primed. 
 
 "Humph !" he said, half aloud, "ye have been but idle 
 servants ; and now ye are but little likely ever to requite the 
 care I have bestowed upon you." 
 
 With that, a faint smile crossed his features, and turning 
 away he ascended the stairs that led to the lofty chamber in 
 which he had been so often wont to outwatch the stars, 
 
 " The souls of systems, and the lords of life, 
 Through their wide empires." 
 
 Before we follow him to his high and lonely retreat we will 
 bring the reader to the manor-house, where all was already 
 gladness and quiet but deep joy. 
 
 It wanted about three hours to that fixed for the marriage ; 
 and Aram was not expected at the manor-house till an hour 
 before the celebration of the event. Nevertheless, the bells 
 were already ringing loudly and blithely ; and the near vicinity 
 of the church to the house brought that sound, so inexpressibly 
 buoyant and cheering, to the ears of the bride, with a noisy 
 merriment that seemed like the hearty voice of an old-fashioned 
 friend who seeks in his greeting rather cordiality than discre- 
 tion. Before her glass stood the beautiful, the virgin, the 
 glorious form of Madeline Lester; and Ellinor, with trem- 
 bling hands (and a voice between a laugh and a cry), was braid- 
 ing up her sister's rich hair, and uttering her hopes, her wishes, 
 her congratulations. The small lattice was open, and the air 
 came rather chillingly to the bride's bosom. 
 
 " It is a gloomy morning, dearest Nell," said she, shivering; 
 " the winter seems about to begin at last." 
 
 " Stay, I will shut the window ; the sun is struggling with 
 the clouds at present, but I am sure it will clear up by and by. 
 You don't you don't leave us the word must out till 
 evening." 
 
 " Don't cry ! " said Madeline, half weeping herself ; and sit- 
 ting down she drew Ellinor to her; and the two sisters, who 
 had never been parted since birth, exchanged tears that were 
 natural, though scarcely the unmixed tears of grief. 
 
 " And what pleasant evenings we shall have," said Madeline, 
 holding her sister's hands, "in the Christmas time! You will 
 be staying with us, you" know ; and that pretty old room in the 
 north of the house Eugene has already ordered to be fitted up 
 for you. Well, and my dear father, and dear Walter, who will 
 be returned long ere then, will walk over to see us, and praise
 
 362 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 my housekeeping, and so forth. And then, after dinner, we 
 will draw near the fire, I next to Eugene, and my father, our 
 guest, on the other side of me, with his long gray hair and his 
 good fine face, with a tear of kind feeling in his eye ; you know- 
 that look he has whenever he is affected ? And at a little dis- 
 tance on the other side of the hearth will be you ; and Walter 
 I suppose we must make room for him. And Eugene, who will 
 be then the liveliest of you all, shall read to us with his soft 
 clear voice, or tell us all about the birds and flowers, and 
 strange things in other countries. And then after supper we 
 will walk half-way home across that beautiful valley beau- 
 tiful even .in winter with my father and. Walter, and count 
 the stars, and take new lessons in astronomy, and hear tales 
 about the astrologers and the alchyrrvists, with their fine old 
 dreams. Ah ! it will be such a happy Christmas, Ellinor ! And 
 then, vyhen spring comes, some fine morning finer than this 
 when the birds are about, and the leaves getting green, and the 
 flowers springing up every day, I shall be called in to help 
 your toilet, as you have helped mine, and to go with you to 
 church, though not, alas ! as your bridesmaid. Air! whom 
 shall we have for that duty ?" 
 
 " Pshaw .' " said Ellinor, smiling through her tears. 
 
 While the sisters were thus engaged, and Madeline was trying, 
 .with her innocent kindness of heart, to exhilarate the spirits, 
 so naturally depressed, of her doting sister, the sound of car- 
 riage-wheels was heard in the distance nearer, nearer ; now the 
 sound stopped, as at the gate ; now fast, faster, fast as the 
 postilions could ply whip, and the horses tear along, while the 
 groups in the churchyard ran forth to gaze, and the bells rang 
 merrily all the while, two chaises whirled by Madeline's win- 
 dow, and stopped at the porch of the house: the sisters had 
 flown in surprise to the casement. 
 
 " It is it is good God! it is Walter," cried Ellinor; "but 
 how pale he looks ! " 
 
 "And who are those strange men with him?" faltered Mad- 
 eline, alarmed, though she knew not why.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 303 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE STUDENT ALONE IN HIS CHAMBER. THE INTERRUPTION. 
 FAITHFUL LOVE. 
 
 " Nequicquam thalamo graves 
 Hastas 
 
 Vitabis, strepitumque, et celerem sequi 
 Ajacem." HORAT., Od. xv., lib. i.* 
 
 : 
 
 ALONE in his favorite chamber, the instruments of science 
 around him, and books, some of astronomical research, some 
 of less lofty but yet abstruser lore, scattered on the tables, 
 Eugene Aram indulged the last meditation he believed likely 
 to absorb his thoughts before that great change of life which 
 was to bless solitude with a companion. 
 
 " Yes," said he, pacing the apartment with folded arms, 
 " yes, all is safe ! He will not again return ; the dead sleeps 
 now without a witness. I may lay this working brain upon 
 the bosom that loves me, and not start at night and think that 
 the soft hand around my neck is the hangman's gripe. Back 
 to thyself, henceforth and forever, my busy heart ! Let not thy 
 secret stir from its gloomy depth ! the seal is on the tomb ; 
 henceforth be the spectre laid. Yes, I must smooth my 
 brow, and teach my lip restraint, and smile and talk like other 
 men. I have taken to my hearth a watch, tender, faithful, 
 anxious but a watch. Farewell the unguarded hour! the 
 soul's relief in speech- the dark and broken, yet how grateful ! 
 confidence with self farewell ! And come, thou veil ! . subtle, 
 close, unvarying, the everlasting curse of entire hypocrisy, 
 that under thee, as night, the vexed world within may sleep, 
 and stir not ! and all, in truth concealment, may seem re- 
 pose !" 
 
 As he uttered these thoughts, the student paused and looked 
 on the extended landscape that lay below. A heavy, chill, and 
 comfortless mist sat saddening over the earth. Not a leaf 
 stirred on the autumnal trees, but the moist damps fell slowly 
 and with a mournful murmur upon the unwaving grass. The 
 outline of the morning sun was visible, but it gave forth no 
 lustre : a ring of watery and dark vapor girded the melancholy 
 orb. Far at the entrance of the valley the wild fern showed 
 red and faded, and the first march of the deadly winter was al- 
 
 * In vain within your nuptial chamberwfll you shun the deadly spears; the hostile shout, 
 and Ajax eager in pursuit.
 
 364 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 ready heralded by that drear and silent desolation which era* 
 dies the winds and storms. But amidst this cheerless scene, the 
 distant note of the merry marriage-bell floated by, like the 
 good spirit of the wilderness, and the student rather paused to 
 hearken to the note than to survey the scene. 
 
 " My marriage-bell ! " said he ; " could I two short years 
 back have dreamed of this ? My marriage-bell ! How fondly 
 my poor mother, when first she learned pride for her young 
 scholar, would predict this day, and blend its festivities with 
 the honor and the wealth her son was to acquire ! Alas ! can 
 we have no science to count the stars and forebode the black 
 eclipse of the future ? But peace ! peace ! peace ! I am, I will, 
 I shall be, happy now ! Memory, I defy thee ! " 
 
 He uttered the last words in a deep and intense tone, and 
 turning away as the joyful peal again broke distinctly on his ear : 
 
 " My marriage-bell ! Oh, Madeline ! how wondrously be- 
 loved : how unspeakably dear thou art to me ! What hast thou 
 conquered ? how many reasons for resolve ; how vast an army 
 in the Past has thy bright and tender purity overthrown ! But 
 thou, no, never shalt thou repent ! " And for several minutes 
 the sole thought of the soliloquist was love. But scarce con- 
 sciously to himself, a spirit not, to all seeming, befitted to that 
 bridal-day, vague, restless, impressed with the dark and flut- 
 tering shadow of coming change, had taken possession of his 
 breast, and did not long yield the mastery to any brighter and 
 more serene emotion. 
 
 "And why ? " he said, as this spirit regained its empire over 
 him, and he paused before the " starred tubes " of his beloved 
 science " and why this chill, this shiver, in the midst of hope? 
 Can the mere breath of the seasons, the weight or lightness of 
 the atmosphere, the outward gloom or smile of the brute mass 
 called Nature, affect us thus ? Out on this empty science, this 
 vain knowledge, this little lore, if we are so fooled by the vile 
 clay and the common air from our one great empire self ! 
 Great God ! hast thou made us in mercy or in disdain ? Placed 
 in this narrow world, darkness and cloud around us, no fixed 
 rule for men, creeds, morals, changing in every clime, and 
 growing like herbs upon the mere soil, we struggle to dispel 
 the shadows ; we grope around ; from our own heart and our 
 sharp and hard endurance we strike our only light, for what? 
 to show us what dupes we are ! creatures of accident, tools of 
 circumstance, blind instruments of the scorner Fate ; the very 
 mind, the very reason, a bound slave to the desires, the weak- 
 ness of the clay ; affected by a cloud, dulled by the damps of
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 305 
 
 the foul marsh ; stricken from power to weakness, from sense 
 to madness, to gaping idiocy, or delirious raving, by a putrid 
 exhalation ! a rheum, a chill, and Caesar trembles ! the world's 
 gods, that slay or enlighten millions poor puppets to the same 
 rank imp which calls up the fungus or breeds the worm, pah ! 
 How little worth is it in this life to be wise ! Strange, strange, 
 how my heart sinks. Well, the better sign, the better sign ! 
 in danger it never sank." 
 
 Absorbed in these reflections, Aram had not for some 
 minutes noticed the sudden ceasing of the bell ; but now, as 
 he again paused from his irregular and abrupt pacings along 
 the chamber, the silence struck him, and looking forth, and 
 striving again to catch the note, he saw a little group of men, 
 among whom he marked the erect and comely form of Row- 
 land Lester, approaching towards the house. 
 
 " What ! " he thought, " do they come for me ? Is it so late ? 
 Have I played the laggard ? Nay, it yet wants near an hour 
 to the time they expected me. Well, some kindness, some 
 attention from my good father-in-law ; I must thank him for 
 it. What ? my hand trembles ; how weak are these poor 
 nerves ; I must rest and recall my mind to itself ! " 
 
 And, indeed, whether or not from the novelty and importance 
 of the event he was about to celebrate, or from some presenti- 
 ment, occasioned, as he would fain believe, by the mournful 
 and sudden change in the atmosphere, an embarrassment, a 
 wavering, a fear, very unwonted to the calm and stately self- 
 possession of Eugene Aram, made itself painfully felt through- 
 out his frame. He sank down in his chair and strove to rec- 
 ollect himself-' it was an effort in which he had just succeeded 
 when a loud knocking was heard at the outer door it swung 
 open several voices were heard. Aram sprang up, pale, 
 breathless, his lips apart. 
 
 " Great God ! " he exclaimed, clasping his hands. " Mur- 
 derer ! Was that the word I heard shouted forth ? The 
 voice, too, is Walter Lester's. Has he returned ? can he have 
 learned ? " 
 
 To rush to the door, to throw across it a long heavy iron 
 bar, which would resist assaults of no common strength, was 
 his first impulse. Thus enabled him to gain time for reflection, 
 his active and alarmed mind ran over the whole field of ex- 
 pedient and conjecture. Again, " Murderer ! " " Stay me not," 
 cried Walter from below ; " my hand shall seize the murderer ! " 
 
 Guess was now over ; danger and death were marching 
 on him. Escape, how! whither? The height forbade the
 
 306 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 thought of flight from the casement! the door? he heard 
 loud steps already hurrying up the stairs, his hands clutched 
 convulsively at his breast, where his fire-arms were generally 
 concealed ; they were left below. He glanced one lightning 
 glance round the room ; no weapon of any kind was at hand* 
 His brain reeled for a moment, his breath gasped, a mortal 
 sickness passed over his heart, and then the MIND triumphed 
 over all. He drew up to his full height, folded his arms dogr 
 gedly on his breast, and muttering, " The accuser comes, I 
 have it still to refute the charge": he stood prepared to meet, 
 nor despairing to evade, the worst. 
 
 As waters close over the object which divided them, all these 
 thoughts, these fears, and this resolution, had been but the 
 work, the agitation, and the succeeding calm of the moment ; 
 that moment was past. 
 
 " Admit us ! " cried the voice of Walter Lester, knocking 
 fiercely at the door. 
 
 " Not so fervently, boy," said Lester, laying his hand on his 
 nephew's shoulder ; " your tale is yet to be proved I believe 
 it not : treat him as innocent, I pray I command, till you 
 have shown him guilty." 
 
 " Away, uncle !" said the fiery Walter ; " he is my father's 
 murderer. God hath given justice to my hands." These 
 words, uttered in a lower key than before, were but indistinctly 
 heard by Aram through the massy door. 
 
 " Open, or we force our entrance ! " shouted Walter again ; 
 and Aram, speaking for the first time, replied in a clear and 
 sonorous voice, so that an angel, had one spoken, could not 
 have more deeply impressed the heart of Rowland Lester 
 with a conviction of the student's innocence : 
 
 " Who knocks so rudely ? what means this violence ? I 
 open my doors to my friends. Is it a friend who asks it?" 
 
 "/ ask it," said Rowland Lester, in a trembling and agitated 
 voice. "There seems some dreadful mistake: come forth, 
 Eugene, and rectify it by a word." 
 
 " Is it you, Rowland Lester? It is enough. I was but with 
 my books, and had secured myself from instrusion. Enter." 
 
 The bar was withdrawn, the door was burst open, and even 
 Walter Lester even the officers of justice with him drew 
 back for a moment, as they beheld the lofty brow, the majestic 
 presence, the features so unutterably calm, of Eugene Aram. 
 
 "What want you, sir? " said he, unmoved and unfaltering, 
 though in the officers of justice he recognized faces he had known 
 before, and in that distant town in which all that he dreaded
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 307 
 
 in the past lay treasured up. At the sound of his voice, the 
 spell that for an instant had arrested the step of the avenging 
 son melted away. 
 
 "Seize him!" he cried to the officers; "you see your 
 prisoner." 
 
 " Hold ! " cried Aram, drawing back ; "by what authority 
 is this outrage ? for what am I arrested ? " 
 
 " Behold," said Walter, speaking through his teeth " behold 
 our warrant ! You are accused of murder ! Know you the 
 name of Richard Houseman ? Pause consider, or that of 
 Daniel Clarke ? " 
 
 Slowly Aram lifted his eyes from the warrant, and it might be 
 seen that his face was a shade more pale, though his look did 
 not quail, or his nerves tremble. Slowly he turned his gaze 
 upon Walter, and then, after one moment's survey, dropped it 
 once more on the. paper. 
 
 "The name of Houseman is not unfamiliar to me," said he 
 calmly, but with effort. 
 
 "And knew you Daniel Clarke ? " 
 
 "What mean these questions?" said Aram, losing temper, 
 and stamping violently on the ground ; " is it thus that a man, 
 free and guiltless, is to be questioned at the behest, or rather 
 outrage, of every lawless boy ? Lead me to some authority 
 meet for me to answer; for you, boy, my answer is contempt." 
 
 " Big words shall not save thee, murderer !" cried Walter, 
 breaking from his uncle, who in vain endeavored to hold him ; 
 and laying his powerful grasp upon Aram's shoulder. Livid was 
 the glare that shot from the student's eye upon his assailer ; 
 and so fearfully did his features work and change with the 
 passions within him, that even Walter felt a strange shudder 
 thrill through his frame. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Aram, at last, mastering his emotions, 
 and resuming some portion of the remarkable dignity that char- 
 acterized his usual bearing, as he turned towards the officers 
 of justice, " I call upon you to discharge your duty ; if this be 
 a rightful warrant, I amyvur prisoner, but I am not this man's. 
 I command your protection from him ! " 
 
 Walter had already released his gripe, and said, in a muttered 
 voice : 
 
 " My passion misled me ; violence is unworthy, my solemn 
 
 cause. God and Justice not these hands^are my avengers." 
 
 Your avengers ! " said Aram ; " what dark words are these ? 
 
 This warrant accuses me of the murder of one Daniel Clarke: 
 
 what is he to thee?"
 
 38 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Mark me, man ! " said Walter, fixing his eyes on Aram's 
 countenance. " The name of Daniel Clarke was a feigned 
 name ; the real name was Geoffrey Lester : that murdered 
 Lester was my father, and the brother of him whose daughter, 
 had I not come to-day, you would have called your wife ! " 
 
 Aram felt, while these words were uttered, that the eyes of 
 all in the room were on him ; and perhaps that knowledge 
 enabled him not to reveal by outward sign what must have 
 passed within during the awful trial of that moment. 
 
 -" Jt is a dreadful tale," he said. " if true ; dreadful to me, so 
 nearly allied to that family. But as yet I grapple with 
 shadows." 
 
 " What ! does not your conscience now convict you ? " cried 
 Walter, staggered by the calmness of the prisoner. But here 
 Lester, who could no longer contain himself, interposed : he 
 put by his nephew, and, rushing to Aram, fell, weeping, upon 
 his neck. 
 
 " I do not accuse thee, Eugene my son my son I feel 
 I know thou art innocent of this monstrous crime : some horrid 
 delusion darkens that poor boy's sight. You you who 
 would walk aside to save a worm !" and. the poor old man, 
 overcome with his emotions, could literally say no more. 
 
 Aram looked down on Lester with a compassionate expres- 
 sion, and soothing him with kind words, and promises that all 
 would be explained, gently moved from his hold, and, anxious 
 to terminate the scene, silently motioned the officers to pro- 
 ceed. Struck with the calmness and dignity of his manner, 
 and fully impressed by it with the notion of his innocence, the 
 officers treated him with a marked respect ; they did not even 
 walk by his side, but suffered him to follow their steps. As 
 they descended the stairs, Aram turned round to Walter, with 
 a bitter and reproachful countenance : 
 
 "And so, young man, your malice against me has reached 
 even to this ! Will nothing but my life content you ? " 
 
 " Is the desire of execution on my father's murderer but the 
 wish of malice?" retorted Walter, though his heart yet well- 
 nigh misgave him as to the grounds on which his suspicion 
 rested. 
 
 Aram smiled, as half in scorn, half through incredulity, and, 
 shaking his. head gently, moved on without farther words. 
 
 The three old women, who had remained in listening aston- 
 ishment at the foot of the stairs, gave way as the men de- 
 scended ; but the one who so long had been Aram's solitary 
 domestic, and who, from her deafness, was still benighted and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. $6<) 
 
 uncomprehending as to the cause of his seizure, though from 
 that very reason her alarm was the greater and more acute, 
 she impatiently thrusting away the officers, and mumbling 
 some unintelligible anathema as she did so flung herself at 
 the feet of a master whose quiet habits and constant kindness 
 had endeared him to her humble and faithful heart, and 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "What are they doing? Have they the heart to ill-use you ? 
 O master^ God bless you ! God shield you ! I shall never 
 see you, who was my only friend who was every one's 
 friend any more ! " 
 
 Aram drew himself from her, and said with a quivering lip 
 to Rowland Lester : 
 
 " If her fears are true if if I never more return hither, see 
 that her old age does not starve does not want." 
 
 Lester could not speak for sobbing, but the request was 
 remembered. And now Aram, turning aside his proud head to 
 conceal his emotion, beheld open the door of the room so 
 trimly prepared for Madeline's reception ; the flowers smiled 
 upon him from their stands. " Lead on, gentlemen," he said 
 quickly. And so Eugene Aram passed his threshold ! 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! " muttered the old hag, whose predictions in the 
 morning had been so ominous. " Ho, ho ! you'll believe Goody 
 Darkmans another time ! Providence respects the sayings of 
 the ould. 'Twas not for nothing the rats grinned at me last 
 night. But let's in and have a warm glass. He ! he ! there will 
 be all the strong liquors for us now ; the Lord is merciful to 
 the poor ! " 
 
 As the little group proceeded through the valley, the officers 
 first, Aram and Lester side by side, Walter with his hand on 
 his pistol and his eye on the prisoner, a little behind Lester 
 endeavored to cheer the prisoner's spirits and his own, by in- 
 sisting on the madness of the charge, and the certainty of 
 instant acquittal from the magistrate to whom they were bound, 
 and who was esteemed the one both most acute and most just 
 in the county. Aram interrupted him somewhat abruptly : 
 
 " My friend, enough of this presently. But Madeline what 
 knows she as yet ? " 
 
 "Nothing: of course, we kept " 
 
 " Exactly exactly : you have done wisely. Why need she 
 learn anything as yet? Say an arrest for debt a mistake an 
 absence but of a day or so at most ; you understand ? " 
 
 " Yes. Will you not see her, Eugene, before you go, and say 
 this yourself? "
 
 310 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " I ! O God ! I ! to whom this day was No, no ; save 
 me, I implore you, from the agony of such a contrast an in- 
 terview so mournful and unavailing. No, we must not meet ! 
 But whither go we now ? Not not, surely, through all the idle 
 gossips of the village the crowd already excited to gape, and 
 stare, and speculate on the " 
 
 " No," interrupted Lester ; " the carriages await us at the 
 farther end of the valley. I thought of that for the rash boy 
 behind seems to have changed his nature. I loved Heaven 
 knows how I loved my brother ! but before I would let suspi- 
 cion thus blind reason, I would suffer inquiry to sleep forever 
 on his fate." 
 
 "Your nephew," said Aram, "has ever wronged me. But 
 waste not words on him : let us think only of Madeline. Will 
 you go back at once to her, tell her a tale to lull her apprehen- 
 sions, and then follow us with haste ? I am alone among 
 enemies till you come." 
 
 Lester was about to answer, when, at a turn in the road which 
 brought the carriage within view, they perceived two figures in 
 white hastening towards them ; and ere Aram was prepared 
 for the surprise, Madeline had sunk, pale, trembling, and all 
 breathless, on his breast. 
 
 " I could not keep her back," said Ellinor apologetically, to 
 her father. 
 
 " Back ! and why? Am I not in my proper place?" cried 
 Madeline, lifting her face from Aram's breast ; and then, as her 
 eyes circled the group, and rested on Aram's countenance, now 
 no longer calm, but full of woe of passion of disappointed 
 love of anticipated despair she rose, and gradually recoiling 
 with a fear which struck dumb her voice, thrice attempted to 
 speak, and thrice failed. 
 
 "But what what is what means this? " exclaimed Ellinor. 
 " Why do you weep, father ? Why does Eugene turn away his 
 face ? You answer not. Speak, for God's sake ! These 
 strangers what are they ? And you, Walter, you why are 
 you so pale ? Why do you thus knit your brows and fold 
 your arms ! You you will tell me the meaning of this 
 dreadful silence this scene ! Speak, cousin dear cousin, 
 speak ! " 
 
 " Speak ! " cried Madeline, finding voice at length, but in the 
 sharp and straining tone of wild terror, in which they recog- 
 nized no note of the natural music. That single word sounded 
 rather as a shriek than an adjuration ; and so piercingly it ran 
 through the hearts of all present, that the very officers, hardened
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 311 
 
 as their trade had made them, felt as if they would rather have 
 faced death than answered that command. 
 
 A dead, long, dreary pause, and Aram broke it. " Madeline 
 Lester," said he, " prove yourself worthy of the hour of trial. 
 Exert yourself ; arouse your heart ; be prepared ! You are 
 the betrothed of one, whose soul never quailed before man's 
 angry word. Remember that, and fear not ! " 
 
 " I will not 1 will not, Eugene ! Speak only speak ! " 
 
 ''You have loved me in good report; trust me now in ill. 
 They accuse me of crime a heinous crime ! At first, I would 
 not have told you the real charge ; pardon me, I wronged you : 
 now, know all ! They accuse me, I say, of crime. Of what 
 crime ? you ask. Ay, I scarce know, so vague is the charge 
 so fierce the accuser ; but, prepare, Madeline it is of murder ! " 
 
 Raised as her spirits had been by the haughty and earnest 
 tone of Aram's exhortation, Madeline now, though she turned 
 deadly pale though the earth swam round and round yet 
 repressed the shriek upon her lips, as those horrid words shot 
 into her soul. 
 
 " You ! murder ! you ! And who dares accuse you ? " 
 
 "Behold him your cousin ! " 
 
 Ellinor heard, turned, fixed her eyes on Walter's sullen brow 
 and motionless attitude, and fell senseless to the earth. Not 
 thus : Madeline. As there is an exhaustion that forbids, not 
 invites repose, so, when the mind is thoroughly on the rack, 
 the common relief to anguish is not allowed ; the senses are 
 too sharply strung, thus happily to collapse into forgetfulness ; 
 the dreadful inspiration that agony kindles supports nature 
 while it consumes it. Madeline passed, without a downward 
 glance, by the lifeless body of her sister; and walking with a 
 steady step to Walter, she laid her hand upon his arm, and fix- 
 ing on his countenance that soft, clear eye, which was now lit 
 with a searching and preternatural glare, and seemed to pierce 
 into his soul, she said : 
 
 " Walter ! do I hear aright ? Am I awake ? Is it you who 
 accuse Eugene Aram ? your Madeline's betrothed husband, 
 Madeline, whom you once loved ? Of what ? of crimes which 
 death alone can punish. Away ! it is not you I know it is 
 not. Say that I am mistaken that I am mad, if you will. 
 Come, Walter, relieve me : let me not abhor the very air you 
 breathe ! " 
 
 " Will no one have mercy on me ?" cried Walter, rent to the 
 heart, and covering his face with his hands. In the fire and 
 heat of vengeance, he had not recked of this. He had only
 
 312 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 thought of justice to a father punishment to a villain rescue 
 for a credulous girl. The woe the horror he was about to 
 inflict on all he most loved ; tfiisha.d not struck upon him with 
 a due force till now ! 
 
 " Mercy you talk of mercy ! I knew it could not be true ! " 
 said Madeline, trying to pluck her cousin's hand from his face : 
 " you could not have dreamed of wrong to Eugene and and 
 upon this day. Say we have erred, or that you have erred, and 
 we will forgive and bless you even now ! " 
 
 Aram had not interfered in this scene. He kept his eyes 
 fixed on the cousins, not uninterested to see what effect Made- 
 line's touching words might produce on his accuser : meanwhile, 
 she continued : " Speak to me, Walter dear Walter, speak to 
 me ! Are you, my cousin, my playfellow--are you the one to 
 blight our hopes to dash our joys to bring dread and terror 
 into a home so lately all peace and sunshine your own home 
 your childhood's home ? What have you done ? what have 
 you dared to do ? Accuse him /of what? Murder ! speak, 
 speak. Murder, ha ! ha ! murder ! nay, not so ! you would 
 not venture to come here you would not let me take your 
 hand you would not look us, your uncle, your more than 
 sisters, in the face, if you could nurse in your heart this lie 
 this black, horrid lie ! " 
 
 Walter withdrew his hands, and, as he turned his face, 
 said : 
 
 " Let him prove his innocence pray God he do ! I am not 
 his accuser, Madeline. His accusers are the bones of my dead 
 father ! Save these, Heaven alone, and the revealing earth, 
 are witness against him ! " 
 
 " Your father ! " said Madeline, staggering back "my lost 
 uncle ? Nay, now I know, indeed, what a shadow has ap- 
 palled us all ! Did you know my uncle, Eugene ? Did you 
 ever see Geoffrey Lester?" 
 
 " Never, as I believe, so help mt God ! " said Aram, laying 
 his hand on his heart. " But this is idle now," as, recollecting 
 himself, he felt that the case had gone forth from Walter's 
 hands, and that appeal to him had become vain. 
 
 "Leave us now, dearest Madeline ; my beloved wife that 
 shall be, that is ! I go to disprove these charges ; perhaps 
 I shall return to-night. Delay not my acquittal, even from 
 doubt a boy's doubt. Come, sirs." 
 
 "O Eugene! Eugene !" cried Madeline, throwing herself 
 on her knees before him "do not order me to leave you 
 now now, in the hour of dread I will not. Nay, look not
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 313 
 
 so! I swear I will not ! Father, dear father, come, and plead 
 for me ; say I shall go with you. I ask nothing more. Do 
 not fear for my nerves cowardice is gone. I will not shame 
 you, I will not play the woman. I know what is due to one 
 who loves him try me, only try me. You weep, father, you 
 shake your head. But you, Eugene you have not the heart to 
 deny me ? Think think if I stayed here to count the mo- 
 ments till you return, my very senses would leave me. What 
 do I ask ? but to go with you, to be the first to hail your 
 triumph ! Had this happened two hours hence, you could not 
 have said me nay ; I should have claimed the right to be with 
 you ; I now but implore the blessing. You relent you re- 
 lent I see it ! " 
 
 "O Heaven ! " exclaimed Aram, rising, and clasping her to 
 his breast, and wildly kissing her face, but with cold and 
 trembling lips, "this is, indeed, a bitter hour ; let me not 
 sink beneath it. Yes, Madeline, ask your father if he con- 
 sents ; I hail your strengthening presence as that of an angel. 
 I will not be the one to sever you from my side." 
 
 "You are right, Eugene," said Lester, who was supporting 
 Ellinor, not yet recovered, "let her go with us; it is but 
 common kindness, and common mercy." 
 
 Madeline uttered a cry of joy (joy even at such a moment!), 
 and clung fast to Eugene's arm, as if for assurance that they 
 were not indeed to be separated. 
 
 By this time some of Lester's servants, who had from a dis- 
 tance followed their young mistresses, reached the spot. To 
 their care Lester gave the still scarce reviving Ellinor ; and 
 then, turning round with a severe countenance to Walter, 
 said : " Come, sir, your rashness has done sufficient wrong for 
 the present ; come now and see how soon your suspicions will 
 end in shame." 
 
 "' Justice, and blood for blood ! " said Walter sternly ; but 
 his heart felt as if it were broken. His venerable uncle's 
 tears Madeline's look of horror, as she turned from him El- 
 linor, all lifeless, and he not daring to approach her this was 
 his work ! He pulled his hat over his eyes, and hastened into 
 the carriage alone. Lester, Madeline, and Aram followed in 
 the other vehicle ; and the two officers contented themselves 
 with mounting the box, certain that the prisoner would attempt 
 no escape.
 
 314 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE JUSTICE. THE DEPARTURE. THE EQUANIMITY OF THE 
 CORPORAL IN BEARING THE MISFORTUNES OF OTHER PEO- 
 PLE.- THE EXAMINATION ; ITS RESULT. ARAM'S CONDUCT 
 IN PRISON. THE ELASTICITY OF OUR HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 A VISIT FROM THE EARL. WALTER'S DETERMINATION. 
 
 MADELINE. 
 
 " Bear me to prison, where I am committed." Measure for Measure. 
 
 ON arriving at Sir *s, a disappointment, for which, had 
 
 they previously conversed with the officers, they might have 
 been prepared, awaited them. The fact was that the justice 
 had only endorsed the warrant sent from Yorkshire ; and after 
 a very short colloquy, in which he expressed his regret at the 
 circumstance, his conviction that the charge would be dis- 
 proved, and a few other courteous commonplaces, he gave 
 Aram to understand that the matter now did not rest with 
 him, but that it was to Yorkshire that the officers were bound, 
 and before Mr. Thornton, a magistrate of that county, that 
 the examination was to take place. "All I can do," said the 
 magistrate, " I have already done ; but I wished for an oppor- 
 tunity of informing you of it. I have written to my brother 
 justice at full length respecting your high character, and treat- 
 ing the habits and rectitude of your life alone as a sufficient 
 refutation of so monstrous a charge." 
 
 For the first time a visible embarrassment came over the 
 firm nerves of the prisoner : he seemed to look with great un- 
 easiness at the prospect of this long and dreary journey, and 
 for such an end. Perhaps, the very notion of returning as a 
 suspected criminal to that part of the country where a portion 
 of his youth had been passed was sufficient to disquiet and 
 deject him. All this while his poor Madeline seemed actuated 
 by a spirit beyond herself ; she would n6t be separated from 
 his side she held his hand in hers she whispered comfort 
 and courage at the very moment when her own heart most 
 sank. The magistrate wiped his eyes when he saw a creature 
 so young, so beautiful, in circumstances so fearful, and bearing 
 up with an energy so little to be expected from her years and 
 delicate appearance. Aram said but little ; he covered his 
 face with his right hand for a few moments, as if to hide a 
 passing emotion, a sudden weakness. When he removed it,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 315 
 
 all vestige of color had died away ; his face was pale as that 
 of one who had risen from the grave ; but it was settled and 
 composed. 
 
 " It is a hard pang, sir," said he with a faint smile ; "so 
 many miles so many days so long a deferment of know- 
 ing the best or preparing to meet the worst. But, be 
 it so ! I thank you, sir, I thank you all Lester, Madeline, 
 for your kindness ; you two must now leave me ; the 
 brand is on my name the suspected man is no fit object for 
 love or friendship ! Farewell ! " 
 
 " We go with you ! " said Madeline firmly, and in a very low 
 voice. 
 
 Aram's eyes sparkled, but he waved his hand impatiently. 
 
 " We go with you, my friend ! " repeated Lester. 
 
 And so, indeed, not to dwell long on a painful scene, it was 
 finally settled. Lester and his two daughters that evening fol- 
 lowed Aram to the dark and fatal bourne to which he was 
 bound. 
 
 It was in vain that Walter, seizing his uncle's hands, whis- 
 pered : 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, do not be rash in your friendship ! 
 You have not yet learned all. I tell you, that there can be no 
 doubt of his guilt ! Remember, it is a brother for whom you 
 mourn ! Will you countenance his murderer ?" 
 
 Lester, despite himself, was struck by the earnestness with 
 which his nephew spoke, but the impression died away as the 
 words ceased : so strong and deep had been the fascination 
 which Eugene Aram had exercised over the hearts of all once 
 drawn within the near circle of his attraction, that had the 
 charge of murder been made against himself, Lester could not 
 have repelled it with a more entire conviction of the innocence 
 of the accused. Still, however, the deep sincerity of his 
 nephew's manner in some measure served to soften his re- 
 sentment towards him. 
 
 " No, no, boy ! " said he, drawing away his hand ; " Rowland 
 Lester is not the one to desert a friend in the day of darkness 
 and che hour of need. Be. silent, I say ! My brother, my poor 
 brother, you tell me, has been murdered. I will see justice done 
 to him : but, Aram ! Fie ! fie ! it is a name that would whisper 
 falsehood to the loudest accusation. Go, Walter ! go ! I do not 
 blame you ! you may be right a murdered father is a dread 
 and awful memory to a son ! What wonder that the thought 
 warps your judgment? But go! Eugene was to me both a 
 guide and a blessing ; a father in wisdom, a son in love. I
 
 316 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 cannot look on his accuser's face without anguish. Go ! we 
 shall meet again. How ! Go ! " 
 
 " Enough, sir ! " said Walter, partly in anger, partly in sor- 
 row ; " Time shall be the judge between us all ! " 
 
 With those words he turned from the house, and proceeded 
 on foot towards a cottage half-way between Grassdale and the 
 magistrate's house, at which, previous to his return to the for- 
 mer place, he had prudently left the corporal not willing to 
 trust to that person's discretion, as to the tales and scandal that 
 he might propagate throughout the village, on a matter so 
 painful and so dark. 
 
 Let the world wag as it will, there are some tempers which 
 its vicissitudes never reach. Nothing makes a picture of distress 
 more sad than the portrait of some individual sitting indiffer- 
 ently looking on in the background. This was a secret Hogarth 
 knew well. Mark his deathbed scenes : Poverty and Vice 
 worked up into horror and the physicians in the corner wrang- 
 ling for the fee ! or the child playing with the coffin or 
 the nurse filching what fortune, harsh, yet less harsh than hu- 
 manity, might have left. In the melancholy depth of humor 
 that steeps both our fancy and our heart in the immortal ro- 
 mance of Cervantes (for, how profoundly melancholy is it to be 
 compelled by one gallant folly to laugh at all that is gentle, and 
 brave 'and wise, and generous ! ), nothing grates on us more 
 than when last scene of all the poor knight lies dead, his 
 exploits forever over forever dumb his eloquent discourses : 
 that when, I. say, we are told that, despite of his grief, even lit- 
 tle Sancho did not eat or drink the less : these touches open 
 to us the real world, it is true ; but it is not the best part of it. 
 Certain it was that when Walter, full of contending emotions at 
 all he had witnessed, harassed, tortured, yet also elevated, by 
 his feelings stopped opposite the cottage door, and saw there 
 the corporal, sitting comfortably in the porch his vile modicum 
 Sabini before him his pipe in his mouth and a complacent 
 expression of satisfaction diffusing itself over features which 
 shrewdness and selfishness had marked for their own, -certain 
 it was that, at this sight, Walter experienced a more displeas- 
 ing revulsion of feeling a more entire conviction of sadness 
 a more consummate disgust of this weary world and the motley 
 masquers that walk therein, than all the tragic scenes he had 
 just witnessed had produced within him. 
 
 " And well, sir," said the corporal, slowly rising, " how did 
 it go off ? Wasn't the villain bash'd to the dust ? You've 
 nabbed him safe, I hooe ? "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 317 
 
 '* Silence ! " said Walter sternly ; " prepare for our depart- 
 ure. The chaise will be here forthwith ; we return to York- 
 shire this day. Ask me no more now." 
 
 " A well baugh ! " said the corporal. 
 
 There was a long silence. Walter walked to and fro the road 
 before the cottage. The chaise arrived ; the luggage was put in. 
 Walter's foot was on the step ; but before the corporal mounted 
 the rumbling dickey, that invaluable domestic hemmed thrice. 
 
 "And had you time, sir, to think of poor Jacob, and slip in a 
 word to your uncle about the bit tato ground ? " 
 
 We pass over the space of time, short in fact, long in 
 suffering, that elapsed, till the prisoner and his companions 
 reached Knaresbro'. Aram's conduct during this time was 
 not only calm but cheerful. The stoical doctrines he had af- 
 fected through life, he on this trying interval called into re- 
 remarkable exertion. He it was who now supported the 
 spirits of his mistress and his friend ; and though he no 
 longer pretended to be sanguine of acquittal though again 
 and again he urged upon them the gloomy fact first, how im- 
 probable it was that this course had been entered into against 
 him without strong presumption of guilt ; and secondly, how 
 little less improbable it was, that at that distance of time he 
 should be able to procure evidence, or remember circum- 
 stances, sufficient on the instant to set aside such presumption 
 he yet dwelt partly on the hope of ultimate proof of his inno- 
 cence, and still more strongly on the firmness of his own mind 
 to bear, without shrinking, even the hardest fate. 
 
 " Do not," he said to Lester, " do not look on these trials of 
 life only with the eyes of the world. Reflect how poor and 
 minute a segment, in the vast circle of eternity, existence is at 
 the best. Its sorrow and its shame are but moments. Always 
 in my brightest and youngest hours I have wrapped my heart 
 in the contemplation of an august futurity : 
 
 ' The soul, secure in its existence, smiles 
 At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.' 
 
 Were it not for Madeline's dear sake, I should long since have 
 been over-weary of the world. As it is, the sooner, even by a 
 violent and unjust fate, we leave a path begirt with snares be- 
 low and tempests above, the happier for that soul which looks 
 to its lot in this earth as the least part of its appointed doom." 
 In discourses like this, which the nature of his eloquence 
 was peculiarly calculated to render solemn and impressive, 
 Aram strove to prepare his friends for the worst, and perhaps
 
 318 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 to cheat, or to steel, himself. Ever as he spoke thus, Lester 
 or Ellinor broke on him with impatient remonstrance ; but 
 Madeline, as if imbued with a deeper and more mournful pene- 
 tration into the future, listened in tearless and breathless atten- 
 tion. She gazed upon him with a look that shared the thought 
 he expressed, though it read not (yet she dreamed so) the 
 heart from which it came. In the words of that beautiful 
 poet, to whose true nature, so full of unuttered tenderness so 
 fraught with the rich nobility of love we have begun slowly 
 to awaken 
 
 " Her lip was silent, scarcely beat her heart, 
 Her eyes alone proclaim'd ' we will not part ! ' 
 Thy ' hope' may perish, or thy friends may flee, 
 Farewell to life but not adieu to thee ! " * 
 
 They arrived at noon at the house of Mr. Thornton, and 
 Aram underwent his examination. Though he denied most of 
 the particulars in Houseman's evidence, and expressly the 
 charge of murder, his commitment was made out ; and that 
 day he was removed by the officers (Barker and Moor, who 
 had arrested him at Grassdale) to York Castle, to await his 
 trial at the assizes. 
 
 The sensation which this extraordinary event created 
 throughout the country was wholly unequalled. Not only in 
 Yorkshire, and the county in which he had of late resided, 
 where his personal habits were known, but even in the metrop- 
 olis, and amongst men of all classes in England, it appears to 
 have caused one mingled feeling of astonishment, horror, and 
 incredulity, which in our times has had no parallel in any crimi- 
 nal prosecution. The peculiar attributes of the prisoner his 
 genius his learning his moral life the interest that by 
 students had been for years attached to his name his approach- 
 ing marriage the length of time that had elapsed since the 
 crime had been committed the singular and abrupt manner, 
 the wild and legendary spot, in which the skeleton of the lost 
 man had been discovered the imperfect rumors the dark and 
 suspicious evidence, all combined to make a tale of such 
 marvellous incident, and breeding such endless conjecture, that 
 we cannot wonder to find it afterwards received a place, not 
 only in the temporary chronicles, but even in the permanent 
 histories of the period. 
 
 Previous to Walter's departure from Knaresbro' to Grass- 
 dale, and immediately subsequent to the discovery at St. 
 Robert's Cave, the coroner's inquest had been held upon the 
 
 * " Lara."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 319 
 
 bones so mysteriously and suddenly brought to light. Upon 
 the witness of the old woman at whose house Aram had lodged, 
 and upon that of Houseman, aided by some circumstantial 
 and less weighty evidence, had been issued that warrant on 
 which we have seen the prisoner apprehended. 
 
 With most men there was an intimate and indignant persua- 
 sion of Aram's innocence ; and at this day, in the county where 
 he last resided, there still lingers the same belief. Firm as his 
 Gospel faith, that conviction rested in the mind of the worthy 
 Lester ; and he sought, by every means he could devise, to 
 soothe and cheer the confinement of his friend. In prison, 
 however (indeed after his examination- -after Aram had made 
 himself thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstantial evi- 
 dence which identified Clarke with Geoffrey Lester, a story 
 that till then he had persuaded himself wholly to disbelieve), 
 a change which, in the presence of Madeline or her father, he 
 vainly attempted wholly to conceal, and to which, when alone, 
 he surrendered himself with a gloomy abstraction came over 
 his mood, and dashed him from the lofty height of philosophy 
 from which he had before looked down on the peril and the 
 ills below. 
 
 Sometimes he would gaze on Lester with a strange and 
 glassy eye, and mutter inaudibly to himself, as if unaware of the 
 old man's presence ; at others, he would shrink from Lester's 
 proffered hand, and start abruptly from his professions of un- 
 altered, unalterable regard ; sometimes he would sit silently, 
 and, with a changeless and stony countenance, look upon 
 Madeline as she now spoke in that exalted tone of consolation 
 which had passed away from himself ; and when she had 
 done, instead of replying to her speech, he would say 
 abruptly, " Ay, at the worst you love me, then love me bet- 
 ter than any one on earth ; say that, Madeline, again say 
 that ! " 
 
 And Madeline's trembling lips obeyed the demand. 
 
 " Yes," he would renew, " this man, whom they accuse me 
 of murdering, this, your uncle, him you never saw since you 
 were an infant, a mere infant ; him you could not love ! What 
 was he to you ? yet it is dreadful to think of dreadful, 
 dreadful ! " and then again his voice ceased ; but his lips moved 
 convulsively, and his eyes seemed to speak meanings that 
 defied words. These alterations in his bearing, which belied 
 his steady and resolute character, astonished and dejected both 
 Madeline and her father. Sometimes they thought that his 
 situation had shaken his reason, or that the horrible suspicion
 
 320 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 of having murdered the uncle of his intended wife made him 
 look upon themselves with a secret shudder, and that they 
 were mingled up in his mind by no unnatural, though unjust 
 confusion, with the causes of his present awful and uncertain 
 state. With the generality of the world, these two tender 
 friends believed Houseman the sole and real murderer, and 
 fancied his charge against Aram was but the last expedient of 
 a villain to ward punishment from himself, by imputing crime 
 to another. Naturally, then, they frequently sought to turn 
 the conversation upon Houseman, and on the different circum- 
 stances that had brought him acquainted with Aram ; but on 
 this ground the prisoner seemed morbidly sensitive, and averse 
 to detailed discussion. His narration, however, such as it was, 
 threw much light upon certain matters on which Madeline and 
 Lester were before anxious and inquisitive. 
 
 " Houseman is, in all ways," said he, with great and bitter 
 vehemence, " unredeemed, and beyond the calculations of an 
 ordinary wickedness ; we knew each other from our relation- 
 ship, but seldom met, and still more rarely held long inter- 
 course together. After we separated, when I left Knaresbro', 
 we did not meet for years. He sought me at Grassdale ; he 
 was poor and implored assistance ; I gave him all within my 
 power ; he sought me again, nay, more than once again, and 
 finding me justly averse to yielding to his extortionate de- 
 mands, he then broached the purpose he has now effected ; he 
 threatened you hear me you understand he threatened me 
 with this charge the murder of Daniel Clarke ; by that name 
 alone- I knew the deceased. The menace, and the known vil- 
 lainy of the man, agitated me beyond expression. What was 
 I? a being who lived without the world who knew not its 
 ways who desired only rest ! The menace haunted me 
 almost maddened ! Your nephew has told you, you say, of 
 broken words, of escaping emotions, which he has noted, even 
 to suspicion, in me ; you now behold the cause ! Was it not 
 sufficient ! My life, nay more, my fame, my marriage, Made- 
 line's peace of mind all depended on the uncertain fury or 
 craft of a wretch like this ! The idea was with me night and 
 day ; to avoid it I resolved on a sacrifice ; you may blame me, 
 I was weak, yet I thought then not unwise ; to avoid it, I say, 
 I offered to bribe this man to leave the country. I sold my 
 pittance to oblige him to it. I bound him thereto by the strong- 
 est ties. Nay, so disinterestedly, so truly did I love Made- 
 line, that I would not wed while I thought this danger could 
 burst upon me. I believed that, before my marriage day,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 321 
 
 Houseman had left the country. It was not so ; Fate ordered 
 otherwise. It seems that Houseman came to Knaresbro', to 
 see his daughter ; that suspicion, by a sudden train of events, 
 fell on him perhaps justly ; to screen himself he has sacri- 
 ficed me. The tale seems plausible ; perhaps the accuser may 
 triumph. But, Madeline, you now may account for much that 
 may have perplexed you before. Let me remember ay ay 
 I have dropped mysterious words have I not? have I not? 
 owning that danger was around me owning that a wild and 
 terrific secret was heavy at my breast ; nay, once walking with 
 you the evening before before the fatal day, I said that we 
 must prepare to seek some yet more secluded spot, some deeper 
 retirement ; for despite my precautions, despite the supposed 
 absence of Houseman from the country itself, a fevered and 
 restless presentiment would at some times intrude itself on me. 
 All this is now accounted for, is it not, Madeline ? Speak, 
 speak ! " 
 
 " All, love, all ! Why do you look on me with that search- 
 ing eye, that frowning brow ? " 
 
 " Did I ? No, no, I have no frown for you ; but peace, I am 
 not what I ought to be through this ordeal." 
 
 The above narration of Aram's did indeed account to 
 Madeline for much that had till then remained unexplained : 
 the appearance of Houseman at Grassdale, the meeting 
 between him and Aram on the evening she walked with the 
 latter, and questioned him of his ill-boding visitor ; the frequent 
 abstraction and muttered hints of her lover ; and, as he had 
 said, his last declaration of the possible necessity of leaving 
 Grassdale. Nor was it improbable, though it was rather in 
 accordance with the unworldly habits than with the haughty 
 character of Aram, that he should seek, circumstanced as he 
 was, to silence even the false accuser of a plausible tale, that 
 might well strike horror and bewilderment into a man much 
 more, to all seeming, fitted to grapple with the hard and coarse 
 realities of life, than the moody and secluded scholar. Be that 
 as it may, though Lester deplored, he did not blame that cir- 
 cumstance, which after all had not transpired, nor seemed 
 likely to transpire ; and he attributed the prisoner's aversion 
 to enter farther on the matter to the natural dislike of so proud 
 a man to refer to his own weakness, and to dwell upon the 
 manner in which, in spite of that weakness, he had been duped. 
 This story Lester retailed to Walter, and it contributed to 
 throw a damp and uncertainty over those mixed and unquiet 
 feelings with which the latter waited for the coming trial.
 
 $22 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 There were many moments when the young man was tempted 
 to regret that Aram had not escaped a trial which, if he were 
 proved guilty, would forever blast the happiness of his family ; 
 and which might, notwithstanding such a verdict, leave on 
 Walter's own mind an impression of the prisoner's innocence ; 
 and an uneasy consciousness that he, through his investigations, 
 had brought him to that doom. 
 
 Walter remained in Yorkshire, seeing little of his family, 
 of none indeed but Lester ; it was not to be expected that 
 Madeline would see him, and once only he caught the tearful 
 eyes of Ellinor as she retreated from the room he entered, and 
 those eyes beamed kindness and pity, but something also of 
 reproach. 
 
 Time passed slowly and witheringly on : a man of the name 
 of Terry having been included in the suspicion, and indeed 
 committed, it appeared that the prosecutor could not procure 
 witnesses by the customary time, and the trial was postponed 
 till the next assizes. As this man was, however, never brought 
 up to trial, and appears no more, we have said nothing of him 
 in our narrative, until he thus became the instrument of a 
 delay in the fate of Eugene Aram. Time passed on winter, 
 spring, were gone, and the glory and gloss of summer were now 
 lavished over the happy earth. In some measure the usual 
 calmness of his demeanor had returned to Aram ; he had 
 mastered those moody fits we have referred to, which had so 
 afflicted his affectionate visitors ; and he now seemed to pre- 
 pare and buoy himself up against that awful ordeal of life and 
 death which he was about soon to pass. Yet he the hermit 
 of Nature, who 
 
 " Each little herb 
 
 That grows on mountain bleak, or tangled forest, 
 Had learnt to name " * 
 
 he could not feel, even through the bars and checks of a 
 prison, the soft summer air, " the witchery of the soft blue 
 sky " ; he could not see the leaves bud forth, and mellow into 
 their darker verdure ; he could not hear the songs of the 
 many-voiced birds, or listen to the dancing rain, calling up 
 beauty where it fell ; or mark at night, through his high and 
 narrow casement, the stars aloof, and the sweet moon pouring 
 in her light, like God's pardon, even through the dungeon- 
 gloom and the desolate scenes where Mortality struggles with 
 Despair ; he could not catch, obstructed as they were, these 
 the benigner influences of earth, and not sicken and pant for 
 
 * " Remorse," by S. T. Coleridge.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 323 
 
 his old and full communion with their ministry and presence. 
 Sometimes all around him was forgotten, the harsh cell, the 
 cheerless solitude, the approaching trial, the boding fear, the 
 darkened hope, even the spectre of a troubled and fierce 
 remembrance, all was forgotten, and his spirit was abroad, 
 and his step upon the mountain top once more. 
 
 In our estimate of the ills of life we never sufficiently take 
 into our consideration the wonderful elasticity of our moral 
 frame, the unlocked for, the startling facility with which the 
 human mind accommodates itself to all change of circum- 
 stance, making an object and even a joy from the hardest and 
 seemingly the least redeemed conditions of fate. The man 
 who watched the spider in his cell may have taken, at least, as 
 much interest in the watch, as when engaged in the most 
 ardent and ambitious objects of his former life. Let any man 
 look over his past career, let him recall not moments, not hours 
 of agony, for to them Custom lends not her blessed magic ; 
 but let him single out some lengthened period of physical or 
 moral endurance : in hastily reverting to it, it may seem at 
 first, I grant, altogether wretched ; a series of days marked 
 with the black stone the clouds without a star : but let him 
 look more closely, it was not so during the time of suffering : 
 a thousand little things, in the bustle of life dormant and 
 unheeded, then started forth into notice, and became to him 
 objects of interest or diversion ; the dreary present, once made 
 familiar, glided away from him, not less than if it had been 
 all happiness ; his mind dwelt not on the dull intervals, but 
 the stepping-stone it had created and placed at each ; and, by 
 that moral dreaming which for ever goes on within man's 
 secret heart, he lived as little in the immediate world before 
 him, as in the most sanguine period of his youth, or the most 
 scheming of his maturity. 
 
 So wonderful in equalizing all states and all times in the 
 varying tide of life are these two rulers yet levellers of man- 
 kind, Hope and Custom, that the very idea of an eternal 
 punishment includes that of an utter alteration of the whole 
 mechanism of the soul in its human state ; and no effort of an 
 imagination, assisted by past experience, can conceive a state 
 of torture which Custom can never blunt, and from which the 
 chainless and immaterial spirit can never be beguiled into even 
 a momentary escape. 
 
 Among the very few persons admitted to Aram's solitude 
 
 was Lord . That nobleman was staying, on a visit, with 
 
 a relation of his in the neighborhood, and he seized, with an
 
 324 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 excited and mournful avidity, the opportunity thus afforded 
 him of seeing once more a character that had so often forced 
 itself on his speculation and surprise. He came to offer, not 
 condolence, but respect ; services, at such a moment, no indi- 
 vidual could render: he gave, however, what was within his 
 power advice, and pointed out to Aram the best counsel to 
 engage, and the best method of previous inquiry into particu- 
 lars yet unexplored. He was astonished to find Aram indif- 
 ferent on these points, so important. The prisoner, it would 
 seem, had even then resolved on being his own counsel, and 
 conducting his own cause ; the event proved that he did not 
 rely in vain on the power of his own eloquence and sagacity, 
 though he might on their result. As to the rest, he spoke with 
 impatience, and the petulance of a wronged man. "For the 
 idle rumors of the world, I do not care," said he; "let them 
 condemn or acquit me as they will : for my life, I might be 
 willing, indeed, that it were spared, I trust it may be ; if not, 
 I can stand face to face with Death. I have now looked on 
 him within these walls long enough to have grown familiar 
 with his terrors. But enough of me. Tell me, my lord, some- 
 thing of the world without : I have grown eager about it at 
 last. I have been now so condemned to feed upon myself, 
 that I have become surfeited with the diet"; and it was with 
 great difficulty that the earl drew Aram back to speak of him- 
 self : he did so, even when compelled to it. with so much 
 qualification and reserve, mixed with some evident anger at 
 the thought of being sifted and examined, that his visitor was 
 forced finally to drop the subject ; and not liking, indeed not 
 able, at such a time, to converse on more indifferent themes, 
 the last interview he ever had with Aram terminated much 
 more abruptly than he had meant it. His opinion of the 
 prisoner was not, however, shaken in the least. I have seen a 
 letter of his to a celebrated personage of the day, in which, 
 mentioning this interview, he concludes with saying : " In 
 short, there is so much real dignity about the man, that ad- 
 verse circumstances increase it tenfold. Of his innocence I 
 have not the remotest doubt ; but if he persist in being his 
 own counsel, I tremble for the result : you know, in such 
 cases, how much more valuable is practice than genius. But 
 the judge, you will say, is, in criminal causes, the prisoner's 
 counsel ; God grant he may here prove a successful one ! I 
 repeat, were Aram condemned by five hundred juries, I could 
 not believe him guilty. No, the very essence of all human 
 probabilities is against it."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 325 
 
 The earl afterward saw and conversed with Walter. He 
 was much struck with the conduct of the young Lester, and 
 much impressed with compassion for a situation so harassing 
 and unhappy. 
 
 "Whatever be the result of the trial," said Walter, "I shall 
 leave the country the moment it is finally over. If the prisoner 
 be condemned, there is no hearth for me in my uncle's home ; 
 if not, my suspicions may still remain, and the sight of each 
 other be an equal bane to the accused and to myself. A vol- 
 untary exile, and a life that may lead to forgetfulness, are all 
 that I covet. I now find in my own person," he added, with a 
 faint smile, " how deeply Shakespeare had read the mysteries of 
 men's conduct. Hamlet, we are told, was naturally full of fire 
 and action. One dark discovery quells his spirit, unstrings his 
 heart, and stales to him forever the uses of the world. I now 
 comprehend the change. It is bodied forth even in the hum- 
 blest individual, who is met by a similar fate even in myself." 
 
 " Ay," said the earl, " I do indeed remember you a wild, im- 
 petuous, headstrong youth. I scarcely recognize your very 
 appearance. The elastic spring has left your step there seems 
 a fixed furrow in your brow. These clouds of life are indeed 
 no summer vapor, darkening one moment and gone the next. 
 But, my young friend, let us hope the best. I firmly believe in 
 Aram's innocence firmly ! more rootedly than I can express. 
 The real criminal will appear on the trial. All bitterness be- 
 tween you and Aram must cease at his acquittal ; you will be 
 anxious to repair to him the injustice of a natural suspicion : 
 and he seems not one who could long retain malice. All will 
 be well, believe me." 
 
 " God grant it ! " said Walter, sighing deeply. 
 
 " But at the worst," continued the earl, pressing his hand in 
 parting, " if you should persist in your resolution to leave the 
 country, write to me, and I can furnish you with an honorable 
 and stirring occasion for doing so. Farewell ! " 
 
 While time was thus advancing towards the fatal day, it was 
 graving deep ravages within the pure breast of Madeline Lester. 
 She had borne up, as we have seen, for some time, against the 
 sudden blow that had shivered her young hopes, and separated 
 her by so awful a chasm from the side of Aram ; but as week 
 after week, month after month rolled on, and he still lay in 
 prison, and the horrible suspense of ignominy and death still 
 hung over her, then gradually her courage began to fail, and 
 her heart to sink. Of all the conditions to which the heart is 
 subject, suspense is the one that most gnaws and cankers into,
 
 326 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the frame. One little month of that suspense, when it involves 
 death, we are told, in a very remarkable work lately published 
 by an eye-witness,* is sufficient to plow fixed lines and furrows 
 in the face of a convict of five-and-twenty sufficient to dash 
 the brown hair with gray, and to bleach the gray to white. 
 And this suspense suspense of this nature for more than 
 eight whole months, had Madeline to endure ! 
 
 About the end of the second month, the effect upon her 
 health grew visible. Her color, naturally delicate as the hues 
 of the pink shell or the youngest rose, faded into one marble 
 whiteness, which again, as time proceeded, flushed into that 
 red and preternatural hectic which, once settled, rarely yields 
 its place but to the colors of the grave. Her form shrank from 
 its rounded and noble proportions. Deep hollows traced them- 
 selves beneath eyes which yet grew even more lovely as they 
 grew less serenely bright. The blessed sleep sunk not upon 
 her brain with its wonted and healing dews. Perturbed dreams, 
 that towards dawn succeeded the long and weary vigil of the 
 night, shook her frame even more than the anguish of the day. 
 In these dreams one frightful vision a crowd a scaffold 
 and the pale majestic face of her lover, darkened by unutterable 
 pangs of pride and sorrow, were forever present before her. 
 Till now she and Ellinor had always shared the same bed : 
 this Madeline would no longer suffer. In vain Ellinor wept 
 and pleaded. " No," said Madeline, with a hollow voice : " at 
 night I see him. My soul is alone with his ; but but," and 
 she burst into an agony of tears " the most dreadful thought 
 is this, I cannot master my dreams. And sometimes I start 
 and wake, and find that in sleep I have believed him guilty. 
 Nay, O God ! that his lips have proclaimed the guilt ! And 
 shall any living being shall any but God, who reads not words 
 but hearts, hear this hideous falsehood this ghastly mockery 
 of the lying sleep? No, I must be alone! The very stars 
 should not hear what is forced from me in the madness of my 
 dreams." 
 
 But not in vain, or not excluded from her, was that elastic 
 and consoling spirit of which I have before spoken. As Aram 
 recovered the tenor of his self possession, a more quiet and peace- 
 ful calm diffused itself over the mind of Madeline. Her high 
 and starry nature could comprehend those sublime inspirations 
 of comfort, which lift us from the lowest abyss of this world, 
 to the contemplation of all that the yearning visions of man- 
 kind have painted in another. She would sit, rapt and ab- 
 
 * See Mr. Wakefield's work On the Punishment of Death.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 327 
 
 sorbed, for hours together, till these contemplations assumed 
 the color of a gentle and soft insanity. " Come, dearest Mad- 
 eline," Ellinor would say, " come, you have thought enough ; 
 my poor father asks to see you." 
 
 " Hush ! " Madeline answered. "Hush, I have been walk- 
 ing with Eugene in heaven : and oh ! there are green woods, 
 and lulling waters above, as there are on earth, and we see the 
 stars quite near, and I cannot tell you how happy their smile 
 makes those who look upon them. And Eugene never starts 
 there, nor frowns, nor walks aside, nor looks on me with an 
 estranged and chilling look ; but his face is as calm and 
 bright as the face of an angel ; and his voice ! it thrills 
 amidst all the music which plays there night and day softer 
 than their softest note. And we are married, Ellinor, at last. 
 We were married in heaven, and all the angels came to the 
 marriage ! I am now so happy that we were not wed before ! 
 What ! are you weeping, Ellinor? Ah, we never weep in 
 heaven ! but we will all go there again all of us, hand in 
 hand ! " 
 
 These affecting hallucinations terrified them, lest they should 
 settle into a confirmed loss of reason ; but perhaps without 
 cause. They never lasted long, and never occurred but after 
 moods of abstraction of unusual duration. To her they prob- 
 ably supplied what sleep does to others a relaxation and re- 
 freshment an escape from the consciousness of life. And, 
 indeed, it might always be noted, that after such harmless ab- 
 errations of the mind, Madeline seemed more collected and 
 patient in thought, and, for the moment, even stronger in frame 
 than before. Yet the body evidently pined and languished, 
 and each week made palpable decay in her vital powers. 
 
 Every time Aram saw her, he was startled at the alteration ; 
 and kissing her cheek, her lips, her temples, in an agony of 
 grief, wondered that to him alone it was forbidden to weep. 
 Yet after all, when she was gone, and he again alone, he could 
 not but think death likely to prove to her the most happy of 
 earthly boons. He was not sanguine of acquittal ; and even in 
 acquittal, a voice at his heart suggested insuperable barriers to 
 their union, which had not existed when it was first anticipated. 
 
 " Yes, let her die," he would say, "let her die ; she at least 
 is certain of heaven ! " But the human infirmity clung around 
 him, and notwithstanding this seeming resolution in her absence, 
 he did not mourn the less, he was not stung the less, when he 
 saw her again, and beheld a new character from the hand of 
 death graven upon her form. No ; we may triumph over all
 
 328 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 weakness, but that of the affections ! Perhaps in this dreary 
 and haggard interval of time, these two persons loved each 
 other more purely, more strongly, more enthusiastically, than 
 they had ever done at any former period of their eventful his- 
 tory. Over the hardest stone, as over the softest turf, the green 
 moss will force its verdure and sustain its life ! 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EVENING BEFORE THE TRIAL. THE COUSINS. THE CHANGE 
 IN MADELINE. THE FAMILY OF GRASSDALE MEET ONCE MORE 
 BENEATH ONE ROOF. 
 
 " Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows, 
 For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears, 
 Divides one thing entire to many objects. 
 ****** 
 
 " Hope is a flatterer, 
 A parasite, a keeper back of death ; 
 Who gently would dissolve the bands of death 
 Which false Hope lingers in extremity?" Richard II. 
 
 IT was the evening before the trial. Lester and his daugh- 
 ters lodged at a retired and solitary house in the suburbs of the 
 town of York ; and thither, from the village some miles dis- 
 tant, in which he had chosen his own retreat, Walter now pro- 
 ceeded across fields laden with the ripening corn. The 
 last and the richest month of summer had commenced ; but 
 the harvest was not yet begun, and deep and golden showed 
 the vegetation of life, bedded among the dark verdure of the 
 hedge-rows and the "merrie woods!" The evening was 
 serene and lulled ; at a distance arose the spires and chimneys 
 of the town , but no sound from the busy hum of men reached the 
 ear. Nothing perhaps gives a more entire idea of stillness than 
 the sight of those abodes where " noise dwelleth," but where you 
 cannot now hear even its murmurs. The stillness of a city is 
 far more impressive than that of Nature ; for the mind instantly 
 compares the present silence with the wonted uproar. The 
 harvest-moon rose slowly from a copse of gloomy firs, and in- 
 fused its own unspeakable magic into the hush and transpar^ 
 ency of the night. As Walter walked slowly on, the sound of 
 voices from some rustic party going homeward broke jocundly 
 on the silence, and when he paused for a moment at the stile, 
 from which he first caught a glimpse of Lester's house, he saw,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 3*9 
 
 winding along the green hedge-row, some village pair, the 
 "lover and the maid," who could meet only at such hours, and 
 to whom such hours were therefore especially dear. It was 
 altogether a scene of pure and true pastoral character, and 
 there was all around a semblance of tranquillity, of happiness, 
 which suits with the poetical and the scriptural paintings of a 
 pastoral life ; and which perhaps, in a new and fertile country, 
 may still find a realization. From this scene, from these 
 thoughts, the young loiterer turned with a sigh towards the 
 solitary house in which this night could awaken none but the 
 most anxious feelings, and that moon could beam only on the 
 most troubled hearts. 
 
 " Terra salutiferas herbas, eademque nocentes 
 Nutrit ; et urticae proxima saepe rosa est." * 
 
 He now walked more quickly on, as if stung by his reflec- 
 tions, and avoiding the path which led to the front of the house, 
 gained a little garden at the rear ; and opening a gate that ad' 
 mitted to a narrow and shaded walk, over which the linden and 
 nut trees made a sort of continuous and natural arbor, the moon, 
 piercing at broken intervals through the boughs, rested on the 
 form of Ellinor Lester. 
 
 " This is most kind, most like my own sweet cousin," said 
 Walter, approaching ; " I cannot say how fearful I was, lest you 
 should not meet me after all." 
 
 " Indeed, Walter," replied Ellinor, " I found some difficulty 
 in concealing your note, which was given me in Madeline's 
 presence ; and still more in stealing out unobserved by her, for 
 she has been, as you may well conceive, unusually restless the 
 whole of this agonizing day. Ah, Walter, would to God you 
 had never left us ! " 
 
 "Rather say," rejoined Walter, "would that this unhappy 
 man, against whom my father's ashes still seem to me to cry 
 aloud, had never come into our peaceful and happy valley ! 
 Then you would not have reproached me, that I have sought 
 justice on a suspected murderer; nor J have longed for death 
 rather than, in that justice, have inflicted such distress and 
 horror on those whom I love the best ! " 
 
 " What, Walter, you yet believe you are yet convinced that 
 Eugene Aram is the real criminal ?" 
 
 " Let to-morrow show," answered Walter. " But poor, poor 
 Madeline ! How does she bear up against this long suspense ? 
 You know I have not seen her for months." 
 
 * The same earth produces health-bearing and deadly plants ; and ofttimes the rose 
 grows nearest to the nettle.
 
 330 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Oh ! Walter," said Ellinor, weeping bitterly ; " you would 
 not know her, so dreadfully is she altered. I fear" (here sobs 
 ckoked the sister's voice, so as to leave it scarcely audible) 
 "that she is not many weeks for this world ! " 
 
 " Just Heaven ! is it so ? " exclaimed Walter, so shocked, 
 that the tree against which he leant scarcely preserved him from 
 falling to the ground, as the thousand remembrances of his first 
 love rushed upon his heart. " And Providence singled me out 
 of the whole world, to strike this blow ! " 
 
 Despite her own grief, Ellinor was touched and smitten by 
 the violent emotion of her cousin ; and the two young persons, 
 lovers, though love was at this time the least perceptible feeling 
 of their breast, mingled their emotions, and sought, at least, to 
 console and cheer each other. 
 
 " It may yet be better than our fears," said Ellinor sooth- 
 ingly. " Eugene may be found guiltless, and in that joy we 
 may forget all the past." 
 
 Walter shook his head despondingly. "Your heart, Ellinor, 
 was always kind to me. You now are the only one to do me 
 justice, and to see how utterly reproachless I am for all the 
 misery the crime of another occasions. But my uncle him, 
 too, I have not seen for some time : is he well? " 
 
 "Yes, Walter, yes," said Ellinor, kindly disguising the real 
 truth, how much her father's vigorous frame had been bowed 
 by his state of mind. "And I, you see," added she, with a 
 faint attempt to smile, " I am, in health at least, the same as 
 when, this time last year, we were all happy and full of hope." 
 
 Walter looked hard upon that face, once so vivid with the 
 rich color and the buoyant and arch expression of liveliness 
 and youth, now pale, subdued, and worn by the traces of con- 
 stant tears ; and, pressing his hand convulsively on his heart, 
 turned away. 
 
 " But can I not see my uncle ? " said he, after a pause. 
 
 " He is not at home : he has gone to the Castle," replied 
 Ellinor. 
 
 " I shall meet him, then, on his way home," returned Walter. 
 "But, Ellinor, there is surely no truth in a vague rumor 
 which I heard in the town, that Madeline intends to be present 
 at the trial to-morrow?" 
 
 "Indeed, I fear that she will. Both my father and myself 
 have sought strongly and urgently to dissuade her, but in vain. 
 You know, with all that gentleness, how resolute she is when 
 her mind is once determined on any object." 
 
 "But if the verdict should be against the prisoner, in her
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 331 
 
 State of health consider how terrible would be the shock ! Nay, 
 even the joy of acquittal might be equally dangerous ; for 
 Heaven's sake, do not suffer her." 
 
 "What is to be done, Walter?" said Ellinor, wringing her 
 hands. " We cannot help it. My father has, at last, forbid 
 me to contradict the wish. Contradiction, the physician him- 
 self says, might be as fatal as concession can be. And my 
 father adds, in a stern, calm voice, which it breaks my heart 
 to hear, ' Be still, Ellinor. If the innocent is to perish, the 
 sooner she joins him the better. I would then have all my 
 ties on the other side the grave ! ' ' 
 
 " How that strange man seems to have fascinated you all ! " 
 said Walter bitterly. 
 
 Ellinor did not answer : over her the fascination had never 
 been to an equal degree with the rest of her family. 
 
 " Ellinor ! " said Walter, who had been walking for the last 
 few moments to and fro with the rapid strides of a man debat- 
 ing with himself, and who now suddenly paused, and laid his 
 hand on his cousin's arm "Ellinor ! I am resolved. I aiust, 
 for the quiet of my soul, I must see Madeline this night, and 
 win her forgiveness for all I have been made the unintentional 
 agent of Providence to bring upon her. The peace of my 
 future life may depend on this single interview. What if 
 Aram be condemned ? and in short, it is no matter I must 
 see her." 
 
 "She would not hear of it, I fear," said Ellinor in alarm, 
 " Indeed, you cannot ; you do not know her state of mind." 
 
 " Ellinor ! " said Walter doggedly, "I am resolved." AndsO 
 saying, he moved towards the house. 
 
 "Well, then," said Ellinor, whose nerves had been greatly 
 shattered by the scenes and sorrow of the last several months ; 
 " if it must be so, wait at least till I have gone in, and consulted 
 or prepared her." 
 
 " As you will, my gentlest, kindest cousin ; I know you* 
 prudence and affection. I leave you to obtain me this inter- 
 view ; you 'can, and will, I am convinced." 
 
 " Do not be sanguine, Walter. I can only promise to use 
 my best endeavors," answered Ellinor, blushing as he kissed 
 her hand ; and, hurrying up the walk, she disappeared within 
 the house. 
 
 Walter walked for some moments about the alley in which 
 Ellinor had left him : but, growing impatient, he at length 
 wound through the overhanging trees, and the house stood 
 immediately before him, the moonlight shining full on the
 
 332 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 window-panes, and sleeping in quiet shadow over the green 
 turf in front. He aproached yet nearer, and through one of 
 the windows, by a single light in the room, he saw Ellinor lean- 
 ing over a couch, on which a form reclined, that his heart, 
 rather than his sight, told him was his once-adored Madeline. 
 He stopped, and his breath heaved thick ; he thought of their 
 common home at Grassdale, of the old manor-house, of the 
 little parlor, with the woodbine at its casement, of the group 
 within, once so happy and light-hearted, of which he had 
 formerly made the one most buoyant, and not least loved. And 
 now this strange, this desolate house, himself estranged 'from 
 all once regarding him (and those broken-hearted), this night 
 ushering what a morrow ! He groaned almost aloud, and re- 
 treated once more into the shadow of the trees. In a few 
 minutes the door at the right of the building opened, and 
 Ellinor came forth with a quick step. 
 
 " Come in, dear Walter," said she ; " Madeline has consented 
 to see you : nay, when I told her you were here, and desired 
 an interview, she paused but for one instant, and then begged 
 me to admit you." 
 
 " God bless her !" said poor Walter, drawing his hand across 
 his eyes, and following Ellinor to the door. 
 
 " You will find her greatly changed ! " whispered Ellinor, as 
 they gained the outer hall ; "be prepared !" 
 
 Waller did not reply, save by an expressive gesture ; and 
 Ellinor led him into a room, which communicated by one of 
 those glass doors often to be seen in the old-fashioned houses 
 of country towns, with the one in which he had previously 
 seen Madeline. With a noiseless step, and almost holding his 
 breath, he followed his fair guide through this apartment, and 
 he now stood by the couch on which Madeline still reclined. 
 She held out her hand to him he pressed it to his lips, with- 
 out daring to look her in the face ; and after a moment's pause 
 she said : 
 
 "So, you wished to see me, Walter ! It is an anxious night 
 this for all of us ! " 
 
 "For all!" repeated Walter emphatically; "and for me 
 not the least ! " 
 
 "We have known some sad days since we last met ! " renewed 
 Madeline : and there was another and an embarrassed pause. 
 
 " Madeline dearest Madeline ! " said Walter, and at length 
 dropping on his knee ; " you, whom while I was yet a boy, I 
 so fondly, passionately, loved ; you who yet are who, while 
 I live, ever will be, so inexpressibly dear to me say but
 
 ARAlVt. 333 
 
 word to me in this uncertain and dreadful epoch of our fate 
 say but one word to me say you feel you are conscious that 
 throughout these terrible events / have not been to blame 
 / have riot willingly brought this affliction upon our house 
 least of all upon that heart which my own would have forfeited 
 its best blood to preserve from the slightest evil ; or, if you 
 will not do me this justice, say at least that you forgive me ! " 
 
 "I forgive you, Walter! I do you justice, my cousin!" 
 replied Madeline, with energy, and raising herself on her arm. 
 " It is long since I have felt how unreasonable it was to throw 
 any blame upon you the mere and passive instrument of fate. 
 If I have forborne to see you, it was not from an angry feeling, 
 but from a reluctant weakness. God bless and preserve you, 
 my dear cousin ! I know that your own heart has bled as pro- 
 fusely as ours ; and it was but this day that I told my father, if 
 we never met again, to express to you some kind message as a 
 last memorial from me. Don't weep, Walter ! It is a fearful 
 thing to see men weep ! It is only once that I have seen him 
 weep, that was long, long ago ! He has no tears in the hour of 
 dread and danger. But no matter: this is a bad world, Walter, 
 and I am tired of it. Are not you ? Why do you look so at me, 
 Ellinor ? I am not mad ! Has she told you that I am, Wal- 
 ter ? Don't believe her ! Look at me ! I am calm and col- 
 lected ! Yet to-morrow is O God ! O God ! if if ! " 
 
 Madeline covered her face with her hands, and became sud- 
 denly silent, though only for a short time ; when she again lifted 
 up her eyes, they encountered those of Walter ; as through 
 those blinding and agonized tears, which are wrung from the 
 grief of manhood, he gazed upon that face on which nothing 
 of herself, save the divine and unearthly expression which had 
 always characterized her loveliness, was left. 
 
 " Yes, Walter, I am wearing fast away fast beyond the power 
 of chance ! Thank God, who tempers the wind to the shorn 
 lamb, if the worst happen, we cannot be divided long. Ere 
 another Sabbath has passed, I may be with him in Paradise. 
 What cause shall we then have for regret ?" 
 
 Ellinor flung herself on her sister's neck, sobbing violently. 
 " Yes, we shall regret you are not with us, Ellinor ; but you 
 will also soon grow tired of the world ; it is a sad place it is 
 a wicked place it is full of snares and pit-falls. In our walk 
 to-day lies our destruction for to-morrow! You will find this 
 soon, Ellinor ! And you, and my father, and Walter, too, shall 
 join us ! Hark ! the clock strikes ! By this time to-morrow 
 night, what triumph ! or to me at least (sinking her voice into
 
 334 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 a whisper, that thrilled through the very bones of her listeners), 
 what peace ! " 
 
 Happily for all parties, this distressing scene was here inter- 
 rupted. Lester entered the room with the heavy step into 
 which his once elastic and cheerful tread had subsided. 
 
 " Ha, Walter ! " said he, irresolutely glancing over the group ; 
 but Madeline had already sprung from her seat. 
 
 " You have seen him ! you have seen him ! And how does 
 he how does he look ? But that I know ; I know his brave 
 heart does not sink. And what message does he send to me ? 
 And and tell me all, my father ; quick, quick !" 
 
 " Dear, miserable child ! and miserable old man ! " muttered 
 Lester, folding her in his arms ; " but we ought to take cour- 
 age and comfort from him, Madeline. A hero, on the eve of 
 battle, could not be more firm even more cheerful. He 
 smiled often his old smile ; and he only left tears and anxiety to 
 us. But of you, Madeline, we spoke mostly: he would scarcely 
 let me say a word on anything else. Oh, what a kind heart ! 
 what a noble spirit ! And perhaps a chance to-morrow may 
 quench both. But, God ! be just, and let the avenging light- 
 ping fall on the real criminal, and not blast the innocent man ! " 
 
 " Amen ! " said Madeline deeply. 
 
 "Amen ! " repeated Walter, laying his hand on his heart. 
 
 " Let us pray ! " exclaimed Lester, animated by a sudden im- 
 pulse, and falling on his knees. The whole group followed his 
 example ; and Lester, in a trembling and impassioned voice, 
 poured forth an extempore prayer, that justice might fall only 
 where it was due. Never did that majestic and pausing moon, 
 which filled the lowly room as with the presence of a spirit, 
 witness a more impressive adjuration, or an audience more ab- 
 sorbed and rapt. Full streamed its holy rays upon the now 
 snowy locks and upward countenance of Lester, making his 
 venerable person more striking from the contrast it afforded to 
 the dark and sunburnt cheek, the energetic features, and 
 chivalricand earnest head of the young man beside him. Just 
 in the shadow, the raven locks of Ellinor were bowed over her 
 clasped hands, nothing of her face visible ; the graceful neck 
 and heaving breast alone distinguished from the shadow ; 
 and, hushed in a deathlike and solemn repose, the parted lips 
 moving inaudibly ; the eye fixed on vacancy ; the wan, trans- 
 parent hands, crossed upon her bosom ; the light shone with a 
 more softened and tender ray upon the faded but all-angelic 
 form and countenance of her, for whom Heaven was already 
 preparing its eternal recompense for the ills of Earth !
 
 fcUGENE ARAM. 33$ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TRIAL. 
 " Equal to either fortune " Speech of Eugene Aram. 
 
 A THOUGHT comes over us, sometimes, in our career of 
 pleasure, or the troubled exultation of our ambitious pursuits : 
 a thought comes over us, like a cloud, that around us and 
 about us Death Shame Crime Despair, are busy at their 
 work. I have read somewhere of an enchanted land, where 
 the inmates walked along voluptuous gardens, and built pal- 
 aces, and heard music, and made merry : while around, 
 and within, the land, were deep caverns, where the gnomes and 
 the fiends dwelt : and eyer and anon their groans and laughter, 
 and the sounds of their unutterable toils, or ghastly revels, 
 travelled to the upper air, mixing in an awful strangeness with 
 the summer festivity and buoyant occupation of those above. 
 And this is the picture of human life ! These reflections of 
 the maddening disparities of the world are dark, but salutary: 
 
 " They wrap our thoughts at banquets in the shroud"; * 
 
 but we are seldom sadder without being also wiser men ! 
 
 The third of August, 1759, rose bright, calm, and clear; it 
 was the morning of the trial ; and when Ellinor stole into her 
 sister's room, she found Madeline sitting before the glass, and 
 braiding her rich locks with an evident attention and care. 
 
 " I wish," said she, " that you had pleased me by dressing 
 as for a holiday. See, I am going to wear the dress I was to 
 have been married in." 
 
 Ellinor shuddered ; for what is more appalling than to find 
 the signs of gayety accompanying the reality of anguish ! 
 
 "Yes," continued Madeline, with a smile of inexpressible 
 sweetness, "a little reflection will convince you that this day 
 ought not to be one of mourning. It was the suspense that has 
 so worn out our hearts. If he is acquitted, as we all believe 
 and trust, think how appropriate will be the" outward seeming 
 of our joy ! If not, why I shall go before him to our marriage 
 home, and in marriage garments. Ay," she added, after a 
 moment's pause, and with a much more grave, settled, and 
 intense expression of voice and countenance "ay; do you 
 remember how Eugene once told us, that if we went at noon- 
 
 * Young.
 
 336 EUGENE ARAM.. 
 
 day to the bottom of a deep pit,* we should be able to see the 
 stars, which on the level ground are invisible ? Even so, 
 from the depths of grief worn, wretched, seared, and dying 
 the blessed apparitions and tokens of heaven make themselves 
 visible to our eyes. And I know I have seen I feel here," 
 pressing her hand on her heart, " that my course is run ; a few- 
 sands only are left in the glass. Let us waste them bravely. 
 Stay, Ellinor ! You see these poor withered rose-leaves : Eu- 
 gene gave them to me the day before before that fixed for 
 our marriage. I shall wear them to-day, as I would have worn 
 them on the wedding-day. When he gathered the poor flower, 
 how fresh it was ; and I kissed off the dew : now see it ! But 
 come, come ; this is trifling : we must not be late. Help me, 
 Nell, help me : come, bustle, quick, quick ! Nay, be not so 
 slovenly ; I told you I would be dressed with care to-day." 
 
 And when Madeline was dressed, though the robe sat loose 
 and in large folds over her shrunken form, yet, as she stood 
 erect, and looked with a smile that saddened Ellinor more than 
 tears at her image in the glass, perhaps her beauty never 
 seemed of a more striking and lofty character, she looked, in- 
 deed, a bride, but the bride of no earthly nuptials. Presently 
 they heard an irresolute and trembling step at the door, and 
 Lester knocking, asked if they were prepared. 
 
 " Come in, father," said Madeline, in a calm and even cheer- 
 ful voice ; and the old man entered. 
 
 He cast a silent glance over Madeline's white dress, and 
 then at his own, which was deep mourning : the glance said 
 volumes, and its meaning was not marred by words from any 
 one of the three. 
 
 " Yes, father," said Madeline, breaking the pause, " we are 
 all ready. Is the carriage here ? " 
 
 " It is at the door, my child." 
 
 " Come, then, Ellinor, come ! " and leaning on her arm, 
 Madeline walked towards the door. When she got to the 
 threshold, she paused, and looked round the room. 
 
 " What is it you want ? " asked Ellinor. 
 
 " I was but bidding all here farewell," repled Madeline, in a 
 soft and touching voice. " And now before we leave the house, 
 father, sister, one word with you ; you have ever been very, 
 very kind to me, and most of all in this bitter trial, when I 
 must have taxed your patience sadly for I know all is not 
 right here (touching her forehead), I cannot go forth this day 
 
 * The remark is in Aristotle. Buffon quotes it, with his usual adroit felicity, in, I think, 
 the first volume of his great work.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 337 
 
 without thanking you. Ellinor, my dearest friend my fond' 
 est sister my playmate in gladness my comforter in grief- 
 my nurse in sickness, since we were little children, we have 
 talked together, and laughed together, and wept together, and 
 though we knew all the thoughts of each other, we have never 
 known one thought that we would have concealed from God ! 
 and now we are going to part ! do not stop me, it must be so, 
 I know it. But, after a little while may you be happy again ; 
 not so buoyant as you have been that can never be, but still 
 happy ! You are formed for love and home, and for those ties 
 you once thought would be mine. God grant that / may have 
 suffered for us both, and that when we meet hereafter you may 
 tell me you have been happy here ! " 
 
 " But you, father," added Madeline, tearing herself from the 
 neck of her weeping sister, and sinking on her knees before 
 Lester, who leaned against the wall convulsed with his emotions, 
 and covering his face with his hands " but you, what can I 
 say to you ? You, who have never, no, not in my first child- 
 hood, said one harsh word to me who have sunk all a father's 
 authority in a father's love, how can I say all that I feel for 
 you ? the grateful, overflowing (painful, yet oh, how sweet ! ) 
 remembrances which crowd around and suffocate me now ? 
 The time will come when Ellinor and Ellinor's children must 
 be all in all to you when of your poor Madeline nothing will 
 be left but a memory ; but they, they will watch on you and 
 tend you, and protect your gray hairs from sorrow, as I might 
 once have hoped I also was fated to do." 
 
 " My child ! my child ! you break my heart ! " faltered forth 
 at last the poor old man, who till now had in vain endeavored 
 to speak. 
 
 " Give me your blessing, dear father," said Madeline, herselt 
 overcome by her feelings. Put your hand on my head and 
 bless me and say, that if I have ever unconsciously given you 
 a moment's pain, I am forgiven ! " 
 
 " Forgiven ! " repeated Lester, raising his daughter with 
 weak and trembling arms, as his tears fell fast upon her cheek: 
 " never did I feel what an angel had sat beside my hearth till 
 now ! But be comforted be cheered. What, if heaven had 
 reserved its crowning mercy till this day, and Eugene be 
 amongst us, free, acquitted, triumphant before the night ! " 
 
 " Ha ! " said Madeline, as if suddenly roused by the thought 
 into new life: "ha! let us hasten to find your words true. 
 Yes ! yes ! if it should be so if it should. And," added she 
 in a hollow voice (the enthusiasm checked), " if it were not for
 
 338 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 my dreams, I might believe it would be so : but come I am 
 ready now ! " 
 
 The carriage went slowly through the crowd that the fame 
 of the approaching trial had gathered along the streets, but the 
 blinds were drawn down, and the father and daughter escaped 
 that worst of tortures, the curious gaze of strangers on distress. 
 Places had been kept for them in court, and as they left the 
 carriage and entered the fatal spot, the venerable figure of 
 Lester, and the trembling and veiled forms that clung to him, 
 arrested all eyes. They at length gained their seats, and it 
 was not long before a bustle in the court drew off attention 
 from them. A buzz, a murmur, a movement, a dread pause ! 
 Houseman was first arraigned on his former indictment, ac- 
 quitted, and admitted evidence against Aram, who was there- 
 upon arraigned. The prisoner stood at the bar ! Madeline 
 gasped for breath, and clung, with a convulsive motion, to her 
 sister's arm. But presently, with a long sigh, she recovered 
 her self-possession, and sat quiet and silent, fixing her eyes 
 upon Aram's countenance ; and the aspect of that countenance 
 was well calculated to sustain her courage, and to mingle a sort 
 of exulting pride with all the strained and fearful acuteness of 
 her sympathy. Something, indeed, of what he had suffered 
 was visible in the prisoner's features ; the lines around the 
 mouth, in which mental anxiety generally most deeply writes 
 its traces, were grown marked and furrowed ; gray hairs were 
 here and there scattered amongst the rich and long luxuriance 
 of the dark brown locks, and as, before his imprisonment, he 
 had seemed considerably younger than he was, so now time 
 had atoned for its past delay, and he might have appeared to 
 have told more years than had really gone over his head ; but 
 the remarkable light and beauty of his eye was undimmed as 
 ever, and still the broad expanse of his forehead retained its 
 unwrinkled surface and striking expression of calmness and 
 majesty. High, self-collected, serene, and undaunted, he looked 
 upon the crowd, the scene, the judge, before and around him ; 
 and, even on those who believed him guilty, that involuntary 
 and irresistible respect which moral firmness always produces 
 on the mind, forced an unwilling interest in his fate, and even 
 a reluctant hope of his acquittal. 
 
 Houseman was called upon. No one could regard his face 
 without a certain mistrust and inward shudder. In men prone 
 to cruelty, it has generally been remarked that there is an ani- 
 mal expression strongly prevalent in the countenance. The 
 murderer and the lustful man are often alike in the physical
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 339 
 
 structure. The bull-throat, the thick lips, the receding fore- 
 head, the fierce, restless eye, which some one or other says re- 
 minds you of the buffalo in the instant before he becomes dan- 
 gerous, are the outward tokens of the natural animal unsoftened, 
 unenlightened, unredeemed, consulting only the immediate 
 desires of his nature, whatever be the passion (lust or revenge) 
 to which they prompt. And this animal expression, the wit- 
 ness of his character, was especially stamped upon Houseman's 
 rugged and harsh features ; rendered, if possible, still more 
 remarkable at that time by a mixture of sullenness and timid- 
 ity. The conviction that his own life was saved could not 
 prevent remorse at his treachery in accusing his comrade a 
 confused principle of honor of which villains are the most sus- 
 ceptible when every other honest sentiment has deserted them. 
 
 With a low, choked, and sometimes a faltering tone, House- 
 man deposed, that, in the night between the 7th and 8th of 
 January, 1744-5, some time before eleven o'clock, he went to 
 Aram's house ; that they conversed on different matters ; that 
 he stayed there about an hour ; that some three hours after- 
 wards he passed, in company with Clarke, by Aram's house, and 
 Aram was outside the door, as if he were about to return home ; 
 that Aram invited them both to come in ; that they did so ; 
 that Clarke, who intended to leave the town before daybreak, 
 in order, it was acknowledged, to make secretly away with cer- 
 tain property in his possession, was about to quit the house, 
 when Aram proposed to accompany him out of the town ; that 
 he (Aram) and Houseman then went forth with Clarke ; that' 
 when they came into the field where St. Robert's Cave is, 
 Aram and Clarke went into it, over the hedge, and when they 
 came within six or eight yards of the cave, he saw them quar- 
 relling ; that he saw Aram strike Clarke several times, upon 
 which Clarke fell, and he never saw him rise again ; that he 
 saw no instrument Aram had, and knew not that he had any ; 
 that upon this, without any interposition or alarm, he left them 
 and returned home ; that the next morning he went to Aram's 
 house, and asked what business he had with Clarke last night, 
 and what he had done with him ? Aram replied not to this 
 question ; but threatened him, if he spoke of his being in 
 Clarke's company that night ; vowing revenge, either by him- 
 self or some other person, if he mentioned anything relating to 
 the affair. This was the sum of Houseman's evidence. 
 
 A Mr. Beckwith was next called, who deposed that Aram's 
 garden had been searched, owing to a vague suspicion that he 
 might have been an accomplice in the frauds of Clarke ; that
 
 340 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 some parts of clothing, and also some pieces of cambric which 
 he had sold to Clarke a little while before, were found there. 
 
 The third witness was the watchman, Thomas Barnet, who 
 deposed, that before midnight (it might be a little after eleven) 
 he saw a person come out from Aram's house, who had a wide 
 coat on, with the cape about his head, and seemed to shun 
 him ; whereupon he went up to him, and put by the cape of 
 his great-coat, and perceived it to be Richard Houseman. He 
 contented himself with wishing him good-night. 
 
 The officers who executed the warrant then gave their evi- 
 dence as to the arrest, and dwelt on some expressions dropped 
 by Aram before he arrived at Knaresborough, which, however, 
 were felt to be wholly unimportant. 
 
 After this evidence there was a short pause : and then a 
 shiver, that recoil and tremor which men feel at any exposi- 
 tion of the relics of the dead, ran through the court ; for the 
 next witness was mute it was the skull of the deceased ! On 
 the left side there was a fracture, that from the nature of it 
 seemed as it could only have been made by the stroke of some 
 blunt instrument. The piece was broken, and could not be 
 replaced but from within. 
 
 The surgeon, Mr. Locock, who produced it, gave it as his 
 opinion that no such breach could proceed from natural decay 
 that it was not a recent fracture, by the instrument with which 
 it was dug up, but seemed to be of many years' standing. 
 
 This made the chief part of the evidence against Aram ; the 
 minor points we have omitted, and also such as, like that of 
 Aram's hostess, would merely have repeated what the reader 
 knew before. 
 
 And now closed the criminatory evidence and now the 
 prisoner was asked the thrilling and awful question, " What he 
 had to say in his own behalf?" Till now, Aram had not 
 changed his posture or his countenance ; his dark and piercing 
 eye had for one instant fixed on each witness that appeared 
 against him, and then dropped its gaze upon the ground. But 
 at this moment, a faint hectic flushed his cheek, and he seemed 
 to gather and knit himself up for defence. He glanced round 
 the court as if to see what had been the impression created 
 against him. His eye rested on the gray locks of Rowland 
 Lester, who, looking down, had covered his face with his hands. 
 But beside that venerable form was the still and marble face 
 of Madeline ; and even at that distance from him, Aram per- 
 ceived how intent was the hushed suspense of her emotions. 
 But when she caught his eye that eye which, even at such a
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 341 
 
 moment, beamed unutterable love, pity, regret for her a wild, 
 a convulsive smile of encouragement, of anticipated triumph, 
 booke the repose of her colorless features, and suddenly dying 
 away, left her lips apart, in that expression which the great 
 masters of old, faithful to nature, give alike to the struggle of 
 hope and the pause of terror. 
 
 " My lord," began Aram, in that remarkable defence still 
 extant, and still considered as wholly unequalled from the lips 
 of one defending his own cause : " My lord, I know not whether 
 it is of right, or through some indulgence of your lordship, that 
 I am allowed the liberty at this bar, and at this time, to attempt 
 a defence ; incapable and un instructed as I am to speak. Since, 
 while I see so many eyes upon me, so numerous and awful a 
 concourse, fixed with attention, and filled with I know not what 
 expectancy, I labor, not with guilt, my lord, but with perplexity. 
 For, having never seen a court but this, being wholly unac- 
 quainted with law, the customs of the bar, and all judiciary 
 proceedings, I fear I shall be so little capable of speaking with 
 propriety, that it might reasonably be expected to exceed my 
 hope, should I be able to speak at all. 
 
 " I have heard, my lord, the indictment read, wherein I find 
 myself charged with the highest of human crimes. You will 
 grant me, then, your patience, if I, single and unskilful, desti- 
 tute of friends, and unassisted by counsel, attempt something, 
 perhaps, like argument, in my defence. What I have to say 
 will be but short, and that brevity may be the best part of it. 
 
 " My lord, the tenor of my life contradicts this indictment. 
 Who can look back over what is known of my former years, and 
 charge me with one vice one offence ? No ! I concerted 
 not schemes of fraud projected no violence injured no man's 
 property or person. My days were honestly laborious my 
 nights intensely studious. This egotism is not presumptuous 
 is not unreasonable. What man, after a temperate use of life, 
 a series of thinking and acting regularly, without one single 
 deviation from a sober and even tenorof conduct, ever plunged 
 into the depth of crime precipitately, and at once ? Mankind 
 are not instantaneously corrupted. Villany is always progres- 
 sive. We decline from right not suddenly, but step after step. 
 
 " If my life in general contradicts the indictment, my health, 
 at that time in particular, contradicts it more. A little time 
 before, I had been confined to my bed I had suffered under 
 a long and severe disorder. The distemper left me but slowly, 
 and in part. So far from being well at the time I was charged 
 with this fact, I never, to this day, perfectly recovered. Could
 
 342 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 n person in this condition execute violence against another? 
 I, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage no 
 ability to accomplish no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such 
 a fact, without interest, without power, without motives, 
 without means ! 
 
 " My lord, Clarke disappeared ; true : but is that a proof of 
 his death ? The fallibility of all conclusions of such a sort, 
 from such a circumstance, is too obvious to require instances. 
 One instance is before you : this very castle affords it. 
 
 " In June, 1757, William Thompson, amidst all the vigilance 
 of this place, in open daylight, and double-ironed, made his 
 escape, notwithstanding an immediate inquiry set on foot ; 
 notwithstanding all advertisements, all search, he was never 
 seen or heard of since. If this man escaped unseen, through 
 all these difficulties, how easy for Clarke, whom no difficulties 
 opposed ! Yet what would be thought of a prosecution com- 
 menced against any one seen last with Thompson ? 
 
 " These bones are discovered ! Where ? Of all places in 
 the world, can we think of any one, except, indeed, the church- 
 yard, where there is so great a certainty of finding human 
 bones, as a hermitage ? In time past the hermitage was a place, 
 not only of religious retirement, but of burial. And it has 
 scarce, or never, been heard of, but that every cell now known 
 contains or contained these relics of humanity ; some mutilated 
 some entire ! Give me leave to remind your lordship, that 
 here sat SOLITARY SANCTITY, and here the hermit and the 
 anchorite hoped that repose for their bones when dead, they 
 here enjoyed when living. I glance over a few of the many 
 evidences that these cells were used as repositories of the dead, 
 and enumerate a few of the many caves similar in origin to St. 
 Robert's, in which human bones have been found." Here the 
 prisoner instanced, with remarkable felicity, several places in 
 which bones had been found, under circumstances, and in spots, 
 analogous to those in point.* And the reader, who will re- 
 member that it is the great principle of the law, that no man 
 can be condemned for murder, unless the remains of the de- 
 ceased be found, will perceive at once how important this point 
 was to the prisoner's defence. After concluding his instances 
 with two facts, of skeletons found in fields in the vicinity of 
 Knaresbro', he burst forth : 
 
 " Is, then, the invention of those bones forgotten or industri 
 ously concealed, that the discovery of these in question may 
 appear the more extraordinary ? Extraordinary yet how 
 
 * See his published defence.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 343 
 
 common an event ! Every place conceals such remains. In 
 fields in hills in highway sides on wastes on commons, 
 lie frequent and unsuspected bones. And mark no example, 
 perhaps, occurs of more than one skeleton being found in one 
 cell. Here you find but one, agreeable to the peculiarity of 
 every known cell in Britain. Had two skeletons been dis- 
 covered, then alone might the fact have seemed suspicious and 
 uncommon. What ! Have we forgotten how difficult, as in 
 the case of Perkin Warbec, and Lambert Symnell, it has been 
 sometimes to identify the living ; and shall we now assign 
 personality to bones bones which may belong to either sex ? 
 How know you that this is even the skeleton of a man ? But 
 another skeleton was discovered by some laborer? Was not 
 that skeleton averred to be Clarke's, full as confidently as this ? 
 
 " My lord, my lord must some of the living be made answer- 
 able for all the bones that earth has concealed, and chance 
 exposed ? The skull that has been produced has been declared 
 fractured. But who can surely tell whether it was the cause 
 or the consequence of death? In May, 1732, the remains of 
 William Lord Archbishop of this province were taken up by 
 permission in their cathedral ; the bones of the skull were 
 found broken, as these are : yet he died by no violence ! by 
 no blow that could have caused that fracture. Let it be con- 
 sidered how easily the fracture on the skull produced is 
 accounted for. At the dissolution of religious houses, the 
 ravages of the times affected both the living and the dead. In 
 search after imaginary treasures, coffins were broken, graves 
 and vaults dug open, monuments ransacked, shrines demolished ; 
 Parliament itself was called in to restrain these violations. 
 And now, are the depredations, the iniquities of those times to 
 be visited on this ? But here, above all, was a castle vigorously 
 besieged ; every spot around was the scene of a sally, a con- 
 flict, a flight, a pursuit. Where the slaughtered fell, there were 
 they buried. What place is not burial earth in war ? How 
 many bones must still remain in the vicinity of that siege, for 
 futurity to discover ! Can you, then, with so many probable 
 circumstances, choose the one least probable ? Can you impute 
 to the living what zeal in its fury may have done ; what nature 
 may have taken off and piety interred ; or what war alone may 
 have destroyed, alone deposited? 
 
 "And now, glance over the circumstantial evidence how 
 weak how frail ! I almost scorn to allude to it. I will not 
 condescend to dwell upon it. The witness of one man, 
 arraigned himself ! Is there no chance, that, to save his own
 
 344 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 life, he might conspire against mine? no chance, that he might 
 have committed this murder, */ murder hath indeed been done? 
 that conscience betrayed to his first exclamation ? that craft 
 suggested his throwing that guilt on me, to the knowledge of 
 which he had unwittingly confessed? He declares that he saw 
 me strike Clarke that he saw him fall ; yet he utters no cry, 
 no reproof. He calls for no aid ; he returns quietly home ; he 
 declares that he knows not what became of the body, yet he 
 tells where the body is laid. He declares that he went straight 
 home, and alone ; yet the woman with whom I lodged deposes 
 that Houseman and I returned to my house in company 
 together ; what evidence is this ? and from whom does it 
 come? ask yourselves. As for the rest of the evidence, what 
 does it amount to? The watchman sees Houseman leave my 
 house at night. What more probable but what less connected 
 wiih the murder, real or supposed, of Clarke ? Some pieces of 
 clothing are found buried in my garden ; but how can it be 
 shown that they belonged to Clarke ? Who can swear to who 
 can prove anything so vague? And if found there, even if 
 belonging to Clarke, what proof that they were there deposited 
 by me? How likely that the real criminal may, in the dead of 
 night, have preferred any spot, rather than that round his own 
 home, to conceal the evidence of his crime? 
 
 " How impotent such evidence as this ! and how poor, how 
 precarious, even the strongest of mere circumstantial evidence 
 invariably is ! Let it rise to probability, to the strongest 
 degree of probability ; it is but probability still. Recollect the 
 case of the two Harrisons, recorded by Dr. Howell ; both suf- 
 fered on circumstantial evidence on account of the disappear- 
 ance of a man who, like Clarke, contracted debts, borrowed 
 money, and went off unseen. And this man returned several 
 years after their execution. Why remind you of Jacques du 
 Moulin, in the reign of Charles the Second ? why of the un- 
 happy Coleman, convicted, though afterwards found innocent, 
 and whose children perished for want, because the world be- 
 lieved the father guilty ? Why should I mention the perjury 
 of Smith, who, admitted king's evidence, screened himself by 
 accusing Fainloth and Lovedayof the murder of Dunn ? The 
 first was executed, the second was about to share the same 
 fate, when the perjury of Smith was incontrovertibly proved. 
 
 "And now, my lord, having endeavored to show that the 
 whole of this charge is altogether repugnant to every part of 
 my life ; that it is inconsistent with my condition of health 
 about that time ; that no rational inference of the death of a
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 345 
 
 person can be drawn from his disappearance ; that hermitages 
 were the constant repositories of the bones of the recluse ; 
 that th ^ proofs of these are well authenticated ; that the revo- 
 lution in religion, or the fortunes of war, have mangled or 
 buried the dead ; that the strongest circumstantial evidence is 
 often lamentably fallacious ; that in my case, that evidence, so 
 far from being strong, is weak, disconnected, contradictory, 
 what remains ? A conclusion, perhaps, no less reasonably than 
 impatiently wished for. I, at last, after nearly a year's confine- 
 ment, equal to either fortune, intrust myself to the candor, the 
 justice, the humanity of your lordship, and to yours, my coun- 
 trymen, gentlemen of the jury." 
 
 The prisoner ceased ; and the painful and choking sensa- 
 tions of sympathy, compassion, regret, admiration, all uniting, 
 all mellowing into one fearful hope for his acquittal, made 
 themselves felt through the crowded court. 
 
 In two persons only an uneasy sentiment remained a senti- 
 ment that the prisoner had not completed that which they 
 would have asked from him. The one was Lester ; he had 
 expected a more warm, a more earnest, though, perhaps, a less 
 ingenious and artful defence. He had expected Aram to dwell 
 far more on the improbable and contradictory evidence of 
 Houseman ; and above all, to have explained away all that was 
 still left unaccounted for in his acquaintance with Clarke (as 
 we will still called the deceased), and the allegation that he 
 had gone out with him on the fatal night of the disappearance 
 of the latter. At every word of the prisoner's defence, he had 
 waited almost breathlessly, in the hope that the next sentence 
 would begin an explanation or a denial on this point ; and 
 when Aram ceased, a chill, a depression, a disappointment, re- 
 mained vaguely on his mind. Yet so lightly and so haughtily 
 had Aram approached and glanced over the immediate evi- 
 dence of the witnesses against him, that his silence here might 
 have been but the natural result of a disdain that belonged es- 
 sentially to his calm and proud character. The other person 
 we referred to, and whom his defence had not impressed with a 
 belief in its truth, equal to an admiration for its skill, was one far 
 more important in deciding the prisoner's fate it was the judge ! 
 
 But Madeline alas! alas! how sanguine is a woman's heart, 
 when the innocence, the fate of the one she loves is concerned ! 
 a radiant flush broke over a face so colorless before ; and with 
 a joyous look, a kindled eye, a lofty brow, she turned to Ellinor, 
 pressed her hand in silence, and once more gave up her whole 
 soul to the dread procedure of the court.
 
 346 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 The judge now began. It is greatly to be regretted that we 
 have no minute and detailed memorial of the trial, except only 
 the prisoner's defence. The summing up of the judge was of 
 considered at that time scarcely less remarkable than the speech 
 of the prisoner. He stated the evidence with peculiar care and 
 at great length to the jury. He observed how the testimony of 
 the other deponents confirmed that of Houseman ; and then, 
 touching on the contradictory parts of the latter, he made them 
 understand how natural, how inevitable, was some such contradic- 
 tion in a witness who had not only to give evidence against an- 
 other, but to refrain from criminating himself. There could be 
 no doubt but that Houseman was an accomplice in the crime ; 
 and all therefore that seemed improbable in his giving no alarm 
 when the deed was done, etc., etc., was easily rendered natural 
 and reconcilable with the other parts of his evidence. Comment- 
 ing then on the defence of the prisoner (who, as if disdaining to 
 rely on aught save his own genius or his own innocence, had 
 called no witnesses, as he had employed no counsel), and 
 eulogizing its eloquence and art, till he destroyed their effect, by 
 guarding the jury against that impression which eloquence and 
 art produce in defiance of simple fact, he contended that Aram 
 had yet alleged nothing to invalidate the positive evidence 
 against him. 
 
 I have often heard, from men accustomed to courts of law, that 
 nothing is more marvellous than the sudden change in the mind 
 of a jury, which the summing up of the judge can produce ; and 
 in the present instance it was like magic. That fatal look of a 
 common intelligence, of a common assent, was exchanged 
 among the doomers of the prisoner's life and death as the judge 
 concluded. 
 
 They found the prisoner guilty. 
 
 ******** 
 
 The judge drew on the black cap. 
 
 * * * * * * * * 
 
 Aram received his sentence in profound composure. Before 
 he left the bar, he drew himself up to his full height, and looked 
 slowly around the court with that thrilling and almost sublime 
 unmovedness of aspect, which belonged to him alone of all men, 
 and which was rendered yet more impressive by a smile slight 
 but eloquent beyond all words of a soul collected in itself : no 
 forced and convulsive effort vainly masking the terror or the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 347 
 
 pang ; no mockery of self that would mimic contempt for 
 others, but more in majesty than bitterness ; rather as daring 
 fate than defying the judgment of others ; rather as if he 
 wrapped himself in the independence of a quiet, than the 
 disdain of a despairing, heart ! 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DEATH. THE PRISON. AN INTERVIEW. ITS RESULT. 
 
 "... Lay her i' the earth ; 
 And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
 May violets spring. 
 * * * * 
 
 See in my heart there was a kind of fighting 
 That would not let me sleep." Hamlet. 
 
 " BEAR with me a little longer," said Madeline ; " I shall be 
 well, quite well presently." 
 
 Ellinor let down the carriage window to admit the air ; and 
 she took the occasion to tell the coachman to drive faster. 
 There was that change in Madeline's voice which alarmed her. 
 
 " How noble was his look ! you saw him smile ! " continued 
 Madeline, talking to herself : " And they will murder him after 
 all. Let me see ; this day week, ay, ere this day week, we 
 shall meet again." 
 
 " Faster ; for God's sake, Ellinor, tell them to drive faster ! " 
 cried Lester, as he felt the form that leaned on his bosom wax 
 heavier and heavier. They sped on ; the house was in sight ; 
 that lonely and cheerless house ; not their sweet home at 
 Grassdale, with the ivy round its porch, and the quiet church 
 behind ! The sun was setting slowly, and Ellinor drew the 
 blind to shade the glare from her sister's eye. 
 
 Madeline felt the kindness, and smiled. Ellinor wiped her 
 eyes, and tried to smile again. The carriage stopped, and 
 Madeline was lifted out ; she stood, supported by her father 
 and Ellinor, for a moment on the threshold. She looked on 
 the golden sun and the gentle earth, and the little motes 
 dancing in the western ray ; all was steeped in quiet, and full 
 of the peace and tranquillity of the pastoral life ! " No, no," 
 she muttered, grasping her father's hand. " How is this? this 
 is not his hand ! Ah, no, no ; I am not with him ! Father," 
 she added, in a louder and deeper voice, rising from his breast,
 
 348 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and standing alone and unaided, "father, bury this little 
 packet with me, they are his letters ; do not break the seal, 
 and and tell him that I never felt how deeply I loved him 
 till all the world had deserted him ! " 
 
 She uttered a faint cry of pain, and fell at once to the 
 ground ; she lived a few hours longer, but never made speech 
 or sign, or evinced token of life but its breath, which died at 
 last gradually imperceptibly away. 
 
 On the following evening Walter obtained entrance to Aram's 
 cell : that morning the prisoner had seen Lester ; that morning 
 he had heard of Madeline's death. He had shed no tear ; he 
 had, in the affecting language of Scripture, " turned his face 
 to the wall "; none had seen his emotions ; yet Lester felt in 
 that bitter interview that his daughter was duly mourned. 
 
 Aram did not lift his eyes when Walter was admitted, and 
 the young man stood almost at his knee before he perceived 
 him. Aram then looked up, and they gazed on each other for 
 a moment, but without speaking, till Walter said in a hollow 
 voice : 
 
 " Eugene Aram ! " 
 
 "Ay!" 
 
 " Madeline Lester is no more." 
 
 " I have heard it ! I am reconciled. Better now than later." 
 
 " Aram !" said Walter, in a tone trembling with emotion, 
 and passionately clasping his hands, " I entreat, I implore you, 
 at this awful time, if it be within your power, to lift from my 
 heart a load that weighs it to the dust, that, if left there, will 
 make me through life a crushed and miserable man : I implore 
 you, in the name of common humanity, by your hopes of 
 heaven, to remove it ! The time now has irrevocably passed, 
 when your denial or your confession could alter your doom ; 
 your days are numbered ; there is no hope of reprieve : I 
 implore you, then, if you were led I will not ask how, or 
 wherefore to the execution of the crime for the charge of 
 which you die, to say, to whisper to me but one word of con- 
 fession, and I, the sole child of the murdered man, will forgive 
 you from the bottom of my soul." 
 
 Walter paused, unable to proceed. 
 
 Aram's brow worked ; he turned aside ; he made no answer ; 
 his head dropped on his bosom, and his eyes were unmovedly 
 fixed on the earth. 
 
 " Reflect," continued Walter, recovering himself, " reflect ! 
 I have been the involuntary instrument in bringing you to this 
 awful fate, in destroying the happiness of my own house,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 349 
 
 in in in breaking the heart of the woman whom I adored 
 even as a boy. If you be innocent, what a dreadful remem- 
 brance is left to me ! Be merciful, Aram ! be merciful : and 
 if this deed was done by your hand, say to me but one word 
 to remove the terrible uncertainty that now harrows up my 
 being. What now is earth, is man, is opinion, to you ? God 
 only now can judge you. The eye of God reads your heart 
 while I speak ; and, in the awful hour when eternity opens to 
 you, if the guilt has been indeed committed, think, oh, think 
 how much lighter will be your offence if, by vanquishing the 
 stubborn heart, you can relieve a human being from a doubt 
 that otherwise will make the curse the horror of an existence. 
 Aram, Aram, if the father's death came from you, shall the 
 life of the son be made a burthen to him through you also ? " 
 
 " What would you have of me ? speak ! " said Aram, but 
 without lifting his face from his breast. 
 
 " Much of your nature belies this crime. You are wise, 
 calm, beneficent to the distressed. Revenge, passion, nay, 
 the sharp pangs of hunger, may have urged you to one criminal 
 deed : but your soul is not wholly hardened : nay, I think I 
 can so far trust you, that if at this dread moment the clay of 
 Madeline Lester scarce yet cold, woe busy and softening at 
 your breast, and the son of the murdered dead before you ; 
 if at this moment you can lay your hand on your heart, and 
 say, ' Before God, and at peril of my soul, I am innocent of 
 this deed,' I will depart, I will believe you, and bear, as bear 
 I may, the reflection, that I have been one of the unconscious 
 agents in condemning to a fearful death an innocent man ! If 
 innocent in this how good, how perfect, in all else ! But, if 
 you cannot at so dark a crisis take that oath, then ! oh then ! 
 be just be generous, even in guilt, and let me not be haunted 
 throughout life by the spectre of a ghastly and restless doubt ! 
 Speak ! oh, speak ! " 
 
 Well, well may we judge how crushing must have been that 
 doubt in the breast of one naturally bold and fiery, when it 
 thus humbled the very son of the murdered man to forget 
 wrath and vengeance, and descend to prayer! But Walter had 
 heard the defence of Aram ; he had marked his mien ; not 
 once in that trial had he taken his eyes from the prisoner, and 
 he had felt, like a bolt of ice through his heart, that the 
 sentence passed on the accused, his judgment could not have 
 passed ! How dreadful must, then, have been the state of his 
 mind when, repairing to Lester's house, he found it the house 
 of death the pure, the beautiful spirit gone the father
 
 350 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 mourning for his child, and not to be comforted and Ellinor? 
 No ! scenes like these, thoughts like these, pluck the pride 
 from a man's heart ! 
 
 " Walter Lester ! " said Aram, after a pause ; but raising his 
 head with dignity, though on the features there was but one 
 expression woe, unutterable woe; "Walter Lester, I had 
 thought to quit life with my tale untold ; but you have not ap- 
 pealed to me in vain ! I tear the self from my heart ! I re- 
 nounce the last haughty dream in which I wrapt myself from 
 the ills around me. You shall learn all and judge accordingly. 
 But to your ear the tale can scarce be told : the son cannot 
 hear in silence that which, unless I too unjustly, too wholly 
 condemn myself, I must say of the dead ! But time," con- 
 tinued Aram mutteringly, and with his eyes on vacancy, "time 
 does not press too fast. Better let the hand speak than the 
 tongue : yes ; the day of execution is ay, ay two days yet 
 to it to-morrow ? no ! Young man," he said abruptly, turn- 
 ing to Walter, " on the day after to-morrow, about seven in the 
 evening the eve before that morn fated to be my last come 
 to me. At that time I will place in your hands a paper con- 
 taining the whole history that connects myself with your father. 
 On the word of a man on the brink of another world, no truth 
 that imports your interest therein shall be omitted. But read 
 it not till I am no more ; and when read, confide the tale to 
 none till Lester's gray hairs have gone to the grave. This 
 swear ! 'tis an oath difficult perhaps to keep, but ' 
 
 " As my Redeemer lives, I will swear to both conditions ! " 
 cried Walter, with a solemn fervor. " But tell me now, at 
 least" 
 
 "Ask me no more ! " interrupted Aram, in his turn. " The 
 time is near when you will know all ! Tarry that time, and 
 leave me ! Yes, leave me now at once leave me / " 
 
 To dwell lingeringly over those passages which excite pain 
 without satisfying curiosity is scarcely the duty of the drama, 
 or of that province even nobler than the drama ; for it requires 
 minuter care indulges in more complete description yields 
 to more elaborate investigation of motives commands a 
 greater variety of chords in the human heart to which, with 
 poor and feeble power for so high, yet so ill-appreciated a task 
 we now, not irreverently if rashly, aspire ! 
 
 We glance not around us at the chamber of death at the 
 broken heart of Lester at the twofold agony of his surviving 
 child the agony which mourns and yet seeks to console 
 another the mixed emotions of Walter, in which an unsleeping
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 351 
 
 eagerness to learn the fearful all formed the main part the 
 solitary cell and solitary heart of the convicted we glance not 
 at these ; we pass at once to the evening in which Aram 
 again saw Walter Lester, and for the last time. 
 
 " You are come, punctual to the hour," said he, in a low, 
 clear voice : " I have not forgotten my word ; the fulfilment 
 of that promise has been a victory over myself which no man 
 can appreciate : but I owed it to you. I have discharged the 
 debt. Enough ! I have done more than I at first purposed. 
 I have extended my narration, but superficially in some parts, 
 over my life ; that rolixity, perhaps, I owed to myself. Re- 
 member your promise : this seal is not broken till the pulse is 
 stilled in the hand which now gives you these papers ! " 
 
 Walter renewed his oath, and Aram, pausing for a moment, 
 continued in an altered and softening voice : 
 
 "Be kind to Lester : soothe, console him; never by a hint 
 let him think otherwise of me than he does. For his sake more 
 than mine I ask this. Venerable, kind old man ! the warmth 
 cf human affection has rarely glowed for me. To the few who 
 loved me, how deeply I have repaid the love ! But these are 
 not words to pass between you and me. Farewell ! Yet, be- 
 fore we part, say this much : whatever I have revealed in this 
 confession whatever has been my wrong to you, or whatever 
 (a less offence) the language I have now, justifying myself, used 
 to to your father say, that you grant me that pardon which 
 one man may grant another." 
 
 " Fully, cordially," said Walter. 
 
 <4 In the day that for you brings the death that to-morrow 
 awaits me," said Aram in a deep tone, " be that forgiveness 
 accorded to yourself ! Farewell. In that untried variety of 
 being which spreads beyond us, who knows but, that in our 
 several progress from grade to grade, and world to world, our 
 souls, though in far distant ages, may meet again ! one dim 
 and shadowy memory of this hour the link between us : fare- 
 well farewell ! " 
 
 For the reader's interest we think it be'tter (and certainly it 
 is more immediately in the due course of narrative, if not of 
 actual events) to lay at once before him the confession that 
 Aram placed in Walter's hands, without waiting till that time 
 when Walter himself broke the zeal of a confession, not of 
 deeds alone, but of thoughts how wild and entangled of feel- 
 ings how strange and dark of a starred soul that had wandered 
 from how proud an orbit, to what perturbed and unholy regions 
 of night and chaos ! For me, I have not sought to derive the
 
 352 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 reader's interest from the vulgar sources that such a tale might 
 have afforded; I have suffered him, almost from the beginning, 
 to pierce into Aram's secret ; and I have prepared him for that 
 guilt, with which other narrators of this story might have only 
 sought to surprise. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CONFESSION ; AND THE FATE. 
 
 " In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire 
 With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales 
 Of woeful ages long ago betid : 
 And ere thou bid good-night, to quit their grief, 
 Tell them the lamentable fall of me." Richard II. 
 
 " I WAS born at Ramsgill, a little village in Netherdale. My 
 family had originally been of some rank ; they were formerly 
 lords of the town of Aram, on the southern banks of the Tees. 
 But time had humbled these pretensions- to consideration ; 
 though they were still fondly cherished by the inheritors of an 
 ancient name, and idle but haughty recollections. My father 
 resided on a small farm, and was especially skilful in horticul- 
 ture, a taste I derived from him. When I was about thirteen, 
 the deep and intense passion that has made the demon of my 
 life first stirred palpably within me. I had always been, from my 
 cradle, of a solitary disposition, and inclined torevery and mus- 
 ing ; these traits of character heralded the love that now 
 seized me the love of knowledge. Opportunity or accident 
 first directed my attention to the abstruser sciences. I pored 
 my soul over that noble study, which is the best foundation of 
 all true discovery ; and the success I met with soon turned my 
 pursuits into more alluring channels. History, poetry, the 
 mastery of the past, and the spell that admits us into the vis- 
 ionary world, took the place which lines and numbers had done 
 before. I became gradually more and more rapt and solitary 
 in my habits ; knowledge assumed a yet more lovely and be- 
 witching character, and every day the passion to attain it in- 
 creased upon me ; I do not I have not now the heart to do 
 it enlarge upon what I acquired without assistance, and with 
 labor sweet in proportion to its intensity.* The world, the 
 
 * We learn from a letter of Eugene Aram's, now extant, that his method of acquiring 
 the learned languages was to linger over five lines at a time, and never to quit a passage 
 till he thought ne had comprehended its meaning.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 353 
 
 creation, all things that lived, moved, and were, became to me 
 objects contributing to one passionate, and, I fancied, one ex- 
 alted end. I suffered the lowlier pleasures of life, and the 
 charms of its more common ties, to glide away from me un- 
 tasted and unfelt. As you read, in the East, of men remaining 
 motionless for days together, with their eyes fixed upon the 
 heavens, my mind, absorbed in the contemplation of the things 
 above its reach, had no sight of what passed around. My pa- 
 rents died, and I was an orphan. I had no home and no wealth ; 
 but wherever the field contained a flower, or the heavens a star, 
 there was matter of thought, and food for delight, to me. I 
 wandered alone for months together, seldom sleeping but in 
 the open air, and shunning the human form as that part of 
 God's works from which I could learn the least. I came to 
 Knaresbro' : the beauty of the country, a facility in acquiring 
 books from a neighboring library that was open to me, made 
 me resolve to settle there. And now, new desires opened upon 
 me with new stores : I became haunted with the ambition to 
 enlighten and instruct my race. At first, I had loved knowl- 
 edge solely for itself : I now saw afar an object grander than 
 knowledge. To what end, said I, are these labors ? Why do 
 I feed a lamp which consumes itself in a desert place ? Why 
 do I heap up riches, without asking who shall gather them ? 
 I was restless and discontented. What could I do? I was 
 friendless ; I was strange to my kind ; I saw my desires 
 checked when their aim was at the highest ; all that was aspir- 
 ing in my hopes, and ardent in my nature, was cramped and 
 chilled. I exhausted the learning within my reach. Where, 
 with my appetite excited, not slaked, was I, destitute and pen- 
 niless, to search for more ? My abilities, by bowing them to 
 the lowliest tasks, but kept me from famine was this to be my 
 lot forever ? And all the while I was thus grinding down my 
 soul in order to satisfy the vile physical wants, what golden 
 hours, what glorious advantages, what openings into new 
 heavens of science, what chances of illuminating mankind were 
 forever lost to me ! Sometimes, when the young, to whom I 
 taught some homely elements of knowledge, came around me ; 
 when they looked me in the face with their laughing eyes ; 
 when, for they all loved me, they told me their little pleasures 
 and their petty sorrows, I have wished that I could have gone 
 back again into childhood, and, becoming as one of them, 
 enter into that heaven of quiet which was denied me now. Yet 
 it was more often with an indignant than a sorrowful spirit that 
 1 looked upon my lot. For, there lay my life imprisoned in
 
 354 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 penury as in the walls of a gaol ; Heaven smiled and earth 
 blossomed around, but how scale the stern barriers? how- 
 steal through the inexorable gate? True, that by bodily labor 
 I could give food to the body to starve by such labor the 
 craving wants of the mind. Beg I could not. When ever 
 lived the real student, the true minister and priest of Knowl- 
 edge, who was not filled with the lofty sense of the dignity of 
 his calling ? Was I to show the sores of my pride, and strip 
 my heart from its clothing, and ask the dull fools of wealth 
 not to let a scholar starve ? No ! -he whom the vilest poverty 
 ever stooped to this, may be the quack, but never the true dis- 
 ciple, of Learning. What did I then ? I devoted the mean- 
 est part of my knowledge to the procuring the bare means of 
 life, and the knowledge that pierced to the depths of earth, 
 and numbered the stars of heaven why, that was valueless 
 in the market ! 
 
 " In Knaresbro', at this time, I met a distant relation, Rich- 
 ard Houseman. Sometimes in our walks we encountered each 
 other ; for he sought me, and I could not always avoid him. 
 He was a man like myself, born to poverty, yet he had always en- 
 joyed what to him was wealth. This seemed a mystery to me ; 
 and when we met, we sometimes conversed upon it. ' You are 
 poor, with all your wisdom,' said he. ' I know nothing ; but 
 I am never poor. Why is this ? The world is my treasury. I 
 live upon my kind. Society is my foe. Laws order me to 
 starve ; but self-preservation is an instinct more sacred than 
 society, and more imperious than laws.' 
 
 " The audacity of his discourse revolted me. At first I 
 turned away in disgust ; then I stood and heard to ponder 
 and inquire. Nothing so tasks the man of books as his first 
 blundering guess at the problems of a guilty heart ! House- 
 man had been a soldier ; he had seen the greatest part of 
 Europe ; he possessed a strong, shrewd sense ; he was a vil- 
 lain, but a villain bold, adroit, and not then thoroughly un- 
 redeemed. Trouble seized me as I heard him, and the shadow 
 of his life stretched farther and darker over the wilderness of 
 mine. When Houseman asked me, 'What law befriended the 
 man without money ? to what end I had cultivated my 
 mind? or what good the voice of knowledge could effect while 
 Poverty forbade it to be heard?' the answer died upon my 
 lips. Then I sought to escape from these terrible doubts. I 
 plunged again into my books. I called upon my intellect to 
 defend, and my intellect betrayed me. For suddenly as I 
 pored over my scanty books, a gigantic discovery in science
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 355 
 
 gleamed across me. I saw the means of effecting a vast bene- 
 fit to truth and to man of adding a new conquest to that only 
 empire which no fate can overthrow, and no time wear away. 
 And in this discovery I was stopped by the total inadequacy of 
 my means. The books and implements I required were not 
 within my reach ; a handful of gold would buy them ; I had 
 not wherewithal to buy bread for the morrow's meal ! In my 
 solitude and misery this discovery haunted me like a visible 
 form ; it smiled upon me a fiend that took the aspect of 
 beauty ; it wooed me to its charms that it might lure my soul 
 into its fangs. I heard it murmur, 'One bold deed and I am 
 thine ! Wilt thou lie down in the ditch and die the dog's death, 
 or hazard thy life for the means that may serve and illumine 
 the world ? Shrinkest thou from men's laws, though the laws 
 bid thee rot on their outskirts ? Is it not for the service of man 
 that thou shouldst for once break the law on behalf of that 
 knowledge from which all laws take their source? If thou 
 wrongest the one, thou shalt repay it in boons to the million. 
 For the ill of an hour thou shalt give a blessing to ages ! So 
 spoke to me the tempter. And one day, when the tempter 
 spoke loudest, Houseman met me, accompanied by a stranger 
 who had just visited our town, for what purpose you know al- 
 ready. His name supposed name was Clarke. Man, I am 
 about to speak plainly of that stranger his character and his 
 fate. And yet yet you are his son ! I would fain soften the 
 coloring ; but I speak truth of. myself, and I must not, unless 
 I would blacken my name yet deeper than it deserves, varnish 
 truth when I speak of others. Houseman joined, and presented 
 to me this person. From the first I felt a dislike of the 
 stranger, which indeed it was easy to account for. He was of 
 a careless and somewhat insolent manner. His countenance 
 was impressed with the lines and character of a thousand vices ; 
 you read in the brow and eye the history of a sordid yet reck- 
 less life. His conversation was repellent to me beyond ex- 
 pression. He uttered the meanest sentiments, and he chuckled 
 over them as the maxims of a superior sagacity ; he avowed 
 himself a knave upon system, and upon the lowest scale. To 
 over-reach, to deceive, to elude, to shuffle, to fawn, and to lie, 
 were the arts to which he confessed with so naked and cold a 
 grossness that one perceived that in the long habits of debase- 
 ment he was unconscious of what was not debased. Houseman 
 seemed to draw him out : Clarke told us anecdotes of his ras- 
 cality, and the distresses to which it had brought him : and he 
 finished by saying: 'Yet you see me now almost rich, and
 
 356 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 wholly contented. I have always been the luckiest of 
 beings : no matter what ill chances to-day, good turns 
 up to-morrow. I confess that I bring on myself the 
 ill, and Providence sends me the good.' We met ac- 
 cidentally more than once, and his conversation was 
 always of the same strain his luck and his rascality : he had 
 no other theme, and no other boast. And did not this aid the 
 voice of the tempter ? Was it not an ordination that called 
 upon men to take Fortune in their own hands, when Fate 
 lavished her rewards on this low and creeping thing, that could 
 only enter even Vice by its sewers and alleys ? Was it worth 
 while to be virtuous, and look on, while the bad seized upon 
 the feast of life? This man was but moved by the basest 
 passions, the pettiest desires : he gratified them, and Fate 
 smiled upon his daring. I, who had shut out from my heart 
 the poor temptations of sense I, who fed only the most glo- 
 rious visions, the most august desires I, denied myself their 
 fruition, trembling and spell-bound in the cerements of human 
 laws, without hope, without reward losing the very powers of 
 virtue because I would not stray into crime ! 
 
 " These thoughts fell on me darkly and rapidly ; but they 
 led as yet to no result. I saw nothing beyond them. I suf- 
 fered my indignation to gnaw my heart ; and preserved the 
 same calm and serene demeanor which had grown with my 
 growth of mind. Strange that while I upbraided Fate, 
 I did not cease to love mankind. I coveted what ? 
 the power to serve them. I had been kind and loving 
 to all things from a boy ; there was not a dumb animal that 
 would not single me from a crowd as its protector,* and yet I 
 was doomed but I must not forestall the dread catastrophe of 
 my life. In returning at night to my own home, from my 
 long and solitary walks, I often passed the house in whicn 
 Clarke lodged ; and sometimes I met him reeling by the door, 
 insulting all who passed ; and yet their resentment was absorbed 
 in their disgust. ' And this loathsome and grovelling thing,' said 
 I inly, ' squanders on low excesses, wastes upon outrages to 
 society, that with which I could make my soul as a burning 
 lamp, that should shed a light over the world ! ' 
 
 " There was that in the man's vices which revolted me far 
 
 * All the authentic anecdotes of Aram corroborate the fact of his natural gentleness to 
 all things. A clergyman (the Rev. Mr. Hinton) said that he used frequently to observe 
 Aram, when walking in the garden, stoop down to remove a snail or worm from the path, to 
 prevent its being destroyed. Mr. Hinton ingeniously conjectured that Aram wished to 
 atone for his crime by showing mercy to every animal and insect ; but the fact is, that there 
 are several anecdotes to show that he was equally humane before the crime was committed. 
 Such are the strange contradictions of the human heart.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 357 
 
 more than the villany of Houseman. The latter had possessed 
 few advantages of education ; he descended to no minutiae of 
 sin; he was a plain, blunt, coarse wretch, and his sense threw 
 somethingjespectable around hisvices. But in Clarke you saw 
 the traces of happier opportunities ; of better education ; it 
 was in him not the coarseness of manner that displeased, it was 
 the lowness of sentiment that sickened me. Had Houseman 
 money in his purse, he would have paid a debt and relieved a 
 friend from mere indifference ; not so the other. Had Clarke 
 been overflowing with wealth, he would have slipped from a 
 creditor and duped a friend ; there was a pitiful cunning in his 
 nature, which made him regard the lowest meanness as the 
 subtlest wit. His mind, too, was not only degraded, but bro- 
 ken by his habits of life ; he had the laugh of the idiot at his 
 own debasement. Houseman was young ; he might amend ; 
 but Clarke had gray hairs and dim eyes ; was old in constitu- 
 tion, if not years ; and everything in him was hopeless and 
 confirmed ; the leprosy was in the system. Time, in this, has 
 made Houseman what Clarke was then. 
 
 "One day, in passing through the street, though it was broad 
 noon, I encountered Clarke in a state of intoxication, and talk- 
 ing to a crowd he had collected about him. I sought to pass 
 in an opposite direction ; he would not suffer me ; he, whom I 
 sickened to touch, to see, threw himself in my way, and affected 
 gibe and insult, nay, even threat. But when he came near, he 
 shrank before the mere glance of my eye, and I passed on, un- 
 heeding him. The insult galled me ; he had taunted my pov- 
 erty poverty was a favorite jest with him ; it galled me : an- 
 ger ? revenge ? no ! those passions I had never felt for any man. 
 I could not rouse them for the first time at such a cause ; yet 
 I was lowered in my own eyes, I was stung. Poverty ! he taunt 
 me ! I wandered from the town, and paused by the winding 
 and shagged banks of the river. It was a gloomy winter's day, 
 the waters rolled on black and sullen, and the dry leaves rustled 
 desolately beneath my feet. Who shall tell us that outward na- 
 ture has no effect upon our mood ? All around seemed to frown 
 upon my lot. I read in the face of heaven and earth a confir- 
 mation of the curse which man hath set upon poverty. I leaned 
 against a tree that overhung the waters, and suffered my thoughts 
 to glide on in the bitter silence of their course. I heard my 
 name uttered I felt a hand on my arm, I turned, and House- 
 man was by my side. 
 
 ' What ! moralizing ?' said he, with his rude smile. 
 
 " I did not answer him.
 
 358 KV0ENE ARAM. 
 
 " ' Look,' said he, pointing to the waters, ' where yonder fish 
 lies waiting his prey, that prey his kind. Come, you have 
 read Nature, is it not so universally ? ' 
 
 " Still I did not answer him. 
 
 " ' They who do not as the rest,' he renewed, ' fulfil not the 
 object of their existence ; they seek to be wiser than their tribe, 
 and are fools for their pains. Is it not so ? I am a plain man 
 and would learn.' 
 
 " Still I did not answer. 
 
 " ' You are silent,' said he : ' do I offend you ? ' 
 "No!' 
 
 ' ' Now, then,' he continued, ' strange as it may seem, we, so 
 different in mind, are at this moment alike in fortunes. I have 
 not a guinea in the wide world ; you, perhaps, are equally des^ 
 titute. But mark the difference. I, the ignorant man, ere 
 three days have passed, will have filled my purse ; you, the 
 wise man, will be still as poor. Come, cast away your wisdom, 
 and do as I do.' 
 
 "'How?' 
 
 ' Take from the superfluities of others what your necessities 
 carve. My horse, my pistol, a ready hand, a stout heart, these 
 are to me what coffers are to others. There is the chance of 
 detection and of death ; I allow it; but is not this chance 
 better than some certainties?' 
 
 " The tempter with the glorious face and the demon fangs 
 rose again before me and spoke in the Robber's voice. 
 
 " 'Will you share the danger and the booty?' renewed House- 
 man in a low voice. 
 
 ' ' Speak out,' said I ; 'explain your purpose ! ' 
 
 " Houseman's looks brightened. 
 
 '"Listen ! ' said he ; 'Clarke, despite his present wealth law- 
 fully gained, is about to purloin more ; he has converted his 
 legacy into jewels; he has borrowed other jewels on false pre- 
 tences ; he intends to make these also his own, and to leave 
 the town in the dead of night ; he has confided to me his pur- 
 pose, and asked my aid. He and I, be it known to you, were 
 friends of old ; we have shared together other dangers and 
 other spoils. Now do you guess my meaning ? Let us ease 
 him of his burden ! I offer to you the half ; share the enter- 
 prise and its fruits.' 
 
 " I rose, I walked away, I pressed my hands on my heart. 
 Houseman saw the conflict ; he followed me ; he named the 
 value of the prize he proposed to gain ; that which he called 
 my share placed all my wishes within my reach ! Leisure,
 
 KUCtHE ARAM. 359 
 
 independence, knowledge. The sublime discovery the pos- 
 session of the glorious Fiend. All, all within my grasp- and by 
 a single deed no frauds oft repeated no sinslongcontinued 
 a single deed ! I breathed heavily but the weight still lay 
 upon my heart. I shut my eyes and shuddered the mortal 
 shuddered, but still the demon smiled. 
 
 " ' Give me your hand,' said Houseman. 
 
 " ' No, no,' I said, breaking away from him. ' I must pause 
 I must consider I do not yet refuse, but I will not now decide.' 
 
 " Houseman pressed, but I persevered in my determination ; 
 he would have threatened me, but my nature was haughtier 
 than his, and I subdued him. It was agreed that he should seek 
 me that night and learn my choice ; the next night was the one 
 on which the robbery was to be committed. We parted ; I re- 
 turned an altered man to my home. Fate had woven her mesh 
 around me ; a new incident had occurred which strengthened 
 the web : there was a poor girl whom I had been accustomed 
 to see in my walks. She supported her family by her dexterity 
 in making lace, a quiet, patient-looking, gentle creature. 
 Clarke had, a few days since, under pretence of purchasing lace, 
 decoyed her to his house (when all but himself were from 
 home), where he used the most brutal violence towards her. 
 The extreme poverty of the parents had enabled him easily to 
 persuade them to hush up the matter, but something of the 
 story got abroad ; the poor girl was marked out for that gossip 
 and scandal which among the very lowest classes are as coarse 
 in the expression as malignant in the sentiment ; and in the 
 paroxysm of shame and despair, the unfortunate girl had that 
 day destroyed herself. This melancholy event wrung forth 
 from the parents the real story : the event and the story reached 
 my ears in the very hour in which my mind was wavering to 
 and fro. * And it is to such uses,' said the Tempter, ' that this 
 man puts his gold ! ' 
 
 " Houseman came, punctual to our dark appointment. I 
 gave him my hand in silence. The tragic end of his victim, 
 and the indignation it caused, made Clarke yet more eager to 
 leave the town. He had settled with Houseman that he would 
 abscond that very night, not wait for the next, as at first he had 
 intended. His jewels and property were put in a small com- 
 pass. He had arranged that he would, towards midnight or 
 later, quit his lodging ; and about a mile from the town, House- 
 man had engaged to have a chaise in readiness. For this ser- 
 vice Clarke had promised Houseman a reward, with which the 
 latter appeared contented. It was agreed that I should meet
 
 360 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Houseman and Clarke at a certain spot in their way from the 
 town. Houseman appeared at first fearful, lest 1 should relent 
 and waver in my purpose. It is never so with men whose 
 thoughts are deep and strong. To resolve was the arduous 
 step once resolved, and I cast not a look behind. Houseman 
 left me for the present. I could not rest in my chamber. I 
 went forth and walked about the town : the night deepened 
 I saw the lights in each house withdrawn, one by one, and at 
 length all was hushed : Silence and Sleep kept court over the 
 abodes of men. Nature never seemed to me to make so dread 
 a pause. 
 
 "The moon came out, but with a pale and sickly counte- 
 nance. It was winter ; the snow, which had been falling towards 
 eve, lay deep upon the ground ; and the frost seemed to lock 
 the universal nature into the same dread tranquillity which had 
 taken possession of my soul. 
 
 " Houseman was to have come to me at midnight, just be- 
 fore Clarke left his house, but it was nearly two hours after 
 that time ere he arrived. I was then walking to and fro before 
 my own door ; I saw that he was not alone, but with Clarke. 
 'Ha!' said he, 'this is fortunate; I see you are just going 
 home. You were engaged, I recollect, at some distance from 
 the town, and have, I suppose, just returned. Will you admit 
 Mr. Clarke and myself for a short time ? for to tell you the 
 truth,' said he, in a lower voice ' the watchman is about, and 
 we must not be seen by him ! I have told Clarke that he may 
 trust you, we are relatives ! ' 
 
 " Clarke, who seemed strangely credulous and indifferent, 
 considering the character of his associate, but those whom 
 Fate destroys she first blinds, made the same request in a 
 careless tone, assigning the same cause. Unwillingly, I opened 
 the door and admitted them. We went up to my chamber. 
 Clarke spoke with the utmost unconcern of the fraud he pur- 
 posed, and, with a heartlessness that made my veins boil, of 
 the poor wretch his brutality had destroyed. They stayed for 
 nearly an hour, for the watchman remained some time in that 
 beat and then Houseman asked me to accompany them a lit- 
 tle way out of the town. Clarke seconded the request. We 
 walked forth : the rest why need I tell ? I cannot- O God, 
 I cannot ! Houseman lied in the court. I did not strike the 
 blow I never designed a murder. Crime enough in a rob- 
 ber's deed ! He fell he grasped my hand, raised not to 
 strike but to shield him ! Never more has the right hand 
 cursed by that dying clasp been given in pledge of human faith
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 361 
 
 and friendship. But the deedwns done, and the robber's com- 
 rade, in the eyes of man and law, was the murderer's accom- 
 plice. 
 
 " Houseman divided the booty : my share he buried in the 
 earth, leaving me to withdraw it when I chose. There, per- 
 haps, it lies still. I never touched what I had murdered my 
 07t>n life to gain. His share, by the aid of a gipsy hag with 
 whom he had dealings, Houseman removed to London. And 
 now, mark what poor strugglers we are in the eternal web of 
 destiny ! Three days after that deed, a relation who neglected 
 me in life died, and left me wealth ! wealth at least to me ! 
 Wealth, greater than that for which I had . . . . ! The 
 news fell on me as a thunderbolt. Had I waited but three 
 little days ! Just Heaven ! when they told me, I thought I 
 heard the devils laugh out at the fool who had boasted wis- 
 dom ! Had I waited but three days, three little days ! 
 Had but a dream been sent me, had but my heart cried 
 within me ' Thou hast suffered long, tarry yet ! ' ' No, 
 it was for this, for the guilt and its penance, for the wasted 
 life and the shameful death with all my thirst for good, 
 my dreams of glory that I was born, that I was marked from 
 my first sleep in the cradle ! 
 
 "The disappearance of Clarke of course created great excite- 
 ment ; those whom he had over-reached had naturally an inter- 
 est in discovering him. Some vague surmises that he might 
 have been made away with were rumored abroad. Houseman 
 and I, owing to some concurrence of circumstance, were 
 examined, not that suspicion attached to me before or after 
 the examination. That ceremony ended in nothing. House- 
 man did not betray himself ; and I, who from a boy had mas- 
 tered my passions, could master also the nerves by which 
 passions are betrayed : but I read in the face of the woman 
 with whom I lodged that I was suspected. Houseman told me 
 that she had openly expressed her suspicion to him ; nay, he 
 entertained some design against her life, which he naturally 
 
 * Aram has hitherto been suffered to tell his own tale without comment or interruption. 
 The chain of reasonings, the metaphysical labyrinth of defence and motive,_ which he 
 wrought around his guilt, it was, in justice to him, necessary to give at length, in order to 
 throw a clearer light on his character and lighten, perhaps, in some measure, the colors 
 of his crime. No moral can be more impressive than that which teaches how man can en- 
 tangle himself in his own sophisms that moral is better, viewed aright, than volumes of 
 homilies. But here I must paus-e for one moment, to bid the reader remark, that that 
 event which confirmed Aram in the bewildering doctrines of his pernicious fatalism, ought 
 rather to inculcate the divine virtue the foundation of all virtues, Heathen or Christian 
 that which Epictetus made clear, and Christ sacred FORTITUDE. The reader will note, 
 that the answer to the reasonings that probably convinced the mind of Aram, and blinded 
 him to his crime, may be found in the change of feelings by which the crime was followed. 
 I must apologize for this interruption; it seemed to me advisable in this place.
 
 362 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 abandoned on quitting the town. This he did soon afterwards. 
 I did not linger long behind him. I received my legacy, and de- 
 parted on foot to Scotland. And now I was above want was 
 I 'at rest? Not yet. 1 felt urged on to wander; Cain's curse 
 descends to Cain's children. I travelled for some considerable 
 time, I saw men and cities, and I opened a new volume in my 
 kind. It was strange ; but before the deed, I was as a child in 
 the ways of the world, and a child, despite my knowledge, 
 might have duped me. The moment after it, a light broke 
 upon me ; it seemed as if my eyes were touched with a charm, 
 and rendered capable of piercing the hearts of men ! Yes, it 
 was a charm, a new charm it was SUSPICION ! I now prac- 
 tised myself in the use of arms, they made my sole compan- 
 ions. Peaceful as I seemed to the world, I felt there was that 
 eternally within me with which the world was at war. 
 
 " And what became of the superb ambition which had 
 undone me ? Where vanished that Grand Discovery which was 
 to benefit the world ? The ambition died in remorse, and the 
 vessel that should have borne me to the far Land of Science 
 lay rotting piecemeal on a sea of blood. The Past destroyed 
 my old heritage in the Future. The consciousness that at any 
 hour, in the possession of honors, by the hearth of love, I 
 might be dragged forth and proclaimed a murderer ; that I 
 held my life, my reputation, at the breath of accident ; that in 
 the moment I least dreamed of, the earth might yield its dead, 
 and the gibbet demand its victim, this could I feel all 
 this and not see a spectre in the place of science ? a spectre 
 that walked by my side, that slept in my bed, that rose from 
 my books, that glided between me and the stars of heaven, that 
 stole along the flowers, and withered their sweet breath ; that 
 whispered in my ear, ' Toil, fool, and be wise ; the gift of wis- 
 dom is to place us above the reach of fortune, but thou art her 
 veriest minion ! ' Yes ; I paused at last from my wanderings, 
 and surrounded myself with books, and knowledge became 
 once more (o me what it had been, a thirst, but not what it had 
 been, a reward. I occupied my thoughts, I laid up new 
 hoards within my mind, I looked around, and I saw few whose 
 stores were like my own, --but gone for ever the sublime de- 
 sire of applying wisdom to the service of mankind ! Mankind 
 had grown my foes. I looked upon them with other eyes. I 
 knew that I carried within me that secret which, if bared to 
 day, would make them loathe and hate me, yea, though I 
 coined my future life into one series of benefits to them and 
 their posterity ! Was not this thought enough to quell my ardor
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 363 
 
 to chill activity into rest ? The brighter the honors I might 
 win the greater services I might bestow on the world, the more 
 dread and fearful might be my fall at last ! I might be but 
 piling up the scaffold from which I was to be hurled ! Pos- 
 sessed by these thoughts, a new view of human affairs suc- 
 ceeded to my old aspirings : the moment a man feels that an 
 object has ceased to charm, his reasonings reconcile himself to 
 his loss. 'Why,' said I, ' why flatter myself that I can serve, 
 that I can enlighten mankind ? Are we fully sure that indi- 
 vidual wisdom has ever, in reality, done so ? Are we really 
 better because Newton lived, and happier because Bacon 
 thought ? ' These freezing reflections pleased the present state 
 of my mind more than the warm and yearning enthusiasm it 
 had formerly nourished. Mere worldly ambition from a boy I 
 had disdained ; the true worth of sceptres and crowns, the 
 disquietude of power, the humiliations of vanity, had never 
 been disguised from my sight. Intellectual ambition had in- 
 spired me. I now regarded it equally as a delusion. I cov- 
 eted light solely for my own soul to bathe in. 
 
 " Rest now became to me the sole to kalon, the sole charm of 
 existence. I grew enamoured of the doctrine of those old mys- 
 tics who have placed happiness only in an even and balanced 
 quietude. And where but in utter loneliness was that quietude 
 to be enjoyed ? I no longer wondered that men in former 
 times, when consumed by the recollection of some haunting 
 guilt, fled to the desert and became hermits. Tranquillity and 
 solitude are the only soothers of a memory deeply troubled ; 
 light griefs fly to the crowd, fierce thoughts must battle them- 
 selves to rest. Many years had flown, and I had made my 
 home in many places. All that was turbulent, if not all that 
 was unquiet, in my recollections, had died away. Time had 
 lulled me into a sense of security. I breathed more freely. I 
 sometimes stole from the past. Since I had quitted Knares- 
 bro' chance had often thrown it in my power to serve my 
 brethren not by wisdom, but by charity or courage by indi- 
 vidual acts that it soothed me to remember. If the grand aim 
 of enlightening a world was gone, if to so enlarged a benevo- 
 lence had succeeded apathy or despair, still the man, the hu- 
 man man, clung to my heart ; still was I as prone to pity, as 
 prompt to defend, as glad to cheer whenever the vicissitudes of 
 life afforded me the occasion, and to poverty, most of all, my 
 hand never closed. For oh ! what a terrible devil creeps into 
 that man's soul who sees famine at his door ! One tender act, 
 and how many black designs, struggling into life within, you
 
 364 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 may crush forever ! He who deems the world his foe, con- 
 vince him that he has one friend, and it is like snatching a 
 dagger from his hand ! 
 
 " I came to a beautiful and remote part of the country. 
 Walter Lester, I came to Grassdale ! the enchanting scenery 
 around, the sequestered and deep retirement of the place, ar- 
 rested me at once. 'And among these valleys,' I said, ' will I 
 linger out the rest of my life, and among these quiet graves 
 shall mine be dug, and my secret shall die with me ! ' 
 
 " I rented the lonely house in which I dwelt when you first 
 knew me ; thither I transported my books and instruments of 
 science, and a deep quiet, almost amounting to content, fell 
 like a sweet sleep upon my soul ! 
 
 " In this state of mind, the most free from memory that I 
 had known for twelve years, I first saw Madeline Lester. Even 
 with that first time a sudden and heavenly light seemed to 
 dawn upon me. Her face its still, its serene, its touching 
 beauty shone down on my desolation like a dream of mercy 
 like a hope of pardon. My heart warmed as I beheld it, my 
 pulse woke from its even slowness. I was young once more. 
 Young ! the youth, the freshness, the ardor not of the frame 
 only, but of the soul. But I then only saw, or spoke to her 
 scarce knew her not loved her nor was it often that we met. 
 The south wind stirred the dark waters of my mind, but it 
 passed, and all became hushed again. It was not for two years 
 from the time we first saw each other that accident brought 
 us closely together. I pass over the rest. We loved ! Yet, 
 oh what struggles were mine during the progress of that love ! 
 How unnatural did it seem to me to yield to a passion that 
 united me with my kind ; and as I loved her more, how far 
 more torturing grew my fear of the future ! That which had 
 almost slept before awoke again to terrible life. The soil that 
 covered the past might be riven, the dead awake, and that 
 ghastly chasm separate me forever from HER? What a doom, 
 too, might I bring upon that breast which had begun so con- 
 fidingly to love me ! Often often I resolved to fly to for- 
 sake her to seek some desert spot in the distant parts of the 
 world, and never to be betrayed again into human emotions ! 
 But as the bird flutters in the net, as the hare doubles from its 
 pursuers, I did but wrestle, I did but trifle, with an irresistible 
 doom. Mark how strange are the coincidences of Fate Fate 
 that gives us warnings, and takes away the power to obey 
 them the idle prophetess, the juggling fiend ! On the same 
 evening that brought me acquainted with Madeline Lester,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 365 
 
 Houseman, led by schemes of fraud and violence into that 
 part of the country, discovered and sought me ! Imagine my 
 feelings, when in the hush of night I opened the door of my 
 lonely home to his summons, and by the light of that moon 
 which had witnessed so never-to-be-forgotten a companionship 
 between us, beheld my accomplice in murder after the lapse of 
 so many years. Time and a course of vice had changed, and 
 hardened, and lowered his nature : and in the power, at the 
 will of that nature, I beheld myself abruptly placed. He 
 passed that night under my roof. He was poor. I gave him 
 what was in my hands. He promised to leave that part of 
 England to seek me no more. 
 
 " The next day I could not bear my own thoughts ; the re- 
 vulsion was too sudden, too full of turbulent, fierce, torturing 
 emotions ; I fled for a short relief to the house to which 
 Madeline's father had invited me. But in vain I sought, by 
 wine, by converse, by human voices, human kindness, to fly 
 the ghost that had been raised from the grave of time. I soon 
 returned to my own thoughts. I resolved to wrap myself once 
 more in the solitude of my heart. But let me not repeat what 
 I have said before, somewhat prematurely, in my narrative. I 
 resolved I struggled in vain : Fate had ordained that the 
 sweet life of Madeline Lester should wither beneath the poison 
 tree of mine. Houseman sought me again ; and now came on 
 the humbling part of crime, its low calculations, its poor 
 defence, its paltry trickery, its mean hypocrisy ! They made 
 my chiefest penance ! I was to evade, to beguile, to buy into 
 silence this rude and despised ruffian. No matter now to 
 repeat how this task was fulfilled : I surrendered nearly my all 
 on the condition of his leaving England forever : not till I 
 thought that condition already fulfilled, till the day had passed 
 on which he should have left England, did I consent to allow 
 Madeline's fate to be irrevocably woven with mine. 
 
 " How often, when the soul sins, are her loftiest feelings 
 punished through her lowest ! To me, lone, rapt, forever on 
 the wing to unearthly speculation, galling and humbling was it, 
 indeed, to be suddenly called from the eminence of thought, 
 to barter, in pounds and pence, for life, and with one like House- 
 man ! These are the curses that deepen the tragedy of life, 
 by grinding down our pride. But I wander back to what I 
 have before said. I was to marry Madeline ; I was once more 
 poor, but want did not rise before me ; I had succeeded in 
 obtaining the promise of a competence from one whom you 
 know. For that which I had once sought to force from my
 
 366 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 kind, I asked now, not with the spirit of the beggar, but of the 
 just claimant, and in that spirit it was granted. And now I was 
 really happy ; Houseman 1 believed removed forever from my 
 path ; Madeline was about to be mine ; I surrendered myself 
 to love, and, blind and deluded, I wandered on, and awoke on 
 the brink of that precipice into which I am about to plunge, 
 You know the rest. But oh ! what now was my horror ! It 
 had not been a mere worthless, isolated unit in creation that I 
 had seen blotted out of the sum of life. The murder done in 
 my presence, and of which Law would deem me the accom- 
 plice, had been done upon the brother of him whose child was 
 my betrothed ! Mysterious avenger, relentless Fate ! How, 
 when I deemed myself the farthest from her, had I been sink- 
 ing into her grasp ! How incalculable, how measureless, how 
 viewless the consequences of one crime, even when we think 
 we have weighed them all with scales that would have turned 
 with a hair's weight ! Hear me as the voice of a man who is 
 on the brink of a world, the awful nature of which reason can- 
 not pierce hear me ! when your heart tempts to some wan- 
 dering from the line allotted to the rest of men, and whispers, 
 'This may be crime in others, but is not so in thee ; or, it is 
 but one misdeed, it shall entail no other,' tremble ; cling fast, 
 fast to the path you are lured to leave. Remember me ! 
 
 " But in this state of mind I was yet forced to play the hypo- 
 crite. Had I been alone in the world, had Madeline and 
 Lester not been to me what they were, I might have disproved 
 the charge of fellowship in murder ; I might have wrung from 
 the pale lips of Houseman the actual truth ; but though I 
 might clear myself as the murderer, I must condemn myself as 
 the robber, and in avowal of that lesser guilt, though I might 
 have lessened the abhorrence of others, I should have inflicted 
 a blow, worse than that of my death itself, on the hearts of 
 those who deemed me sinless as themselves. Their eyes were 
 on me ; their lives were set on my complete acquittal, less even 
 of life than honor ; my struggle against truth was less for my- 
 self than them. My defence fulfilled its end : Madeline died 
 without distrusting the innocence of him she loved. Lester, 
 unless you betray me, will die in the same belief. In truth, 
 since the arts of hypocrisy have been commenced, the pride of 
 consistency would have made it sweet to me to leave the world 
 in a like error, or at least in doubt. For you I conquer that 
 desire, the proud man's last frailty. And now my tale is done. 
 From what passes at this instant within my heart, I lift not the 
 veil ! Whether beneath be despair, or hope, or fiery emotions,
 
 ARAM. 367 
 
 .or one settled and ominous calm, matters not. My last hours 
 shall not belie my life : on the verge of death I will not play 
 the dastard, and tremble at the Dim Unknown. Perhaps I am 
 not without hope that the Great and Unseen Spirit, whose 
 emanation within me I have nursed and worshipped, though 
 erringly and in vain, may see in his fallen creature one bewil- 
 dered by his reason rather than yielding to his vices. The 
 guide I received from heaven betrayed me, and I was lost ; 
 but I have not plunged wittingly from crime to crime. 
 Against one guilty deed, some good, and much suffering, may 
 be set ; and dim and afar off from my allotted bourn, I may 
 behold in her glorious home the face of her who taught me 
 to love, and who, even there, could scarce be blessed without 
 shedding the light of her divine forgiveness upon me. 
 Enough ! ere you break this seal, my doom rests not with man 
 nor earth. The burning desires I have known the resplen- 
 dent visions I have nursed the sublime aspirings that have 
 lifted me so often from sense and clay these tell me, that, 
 whether for good or ill, I am the thing of an Immortality, and 
 the creature of a God ! As men of the old wisdom drew their 
 garments around their face, and sat down collectedly to die, 
 I wrap myself in the settled resignation of a soul firm to 
 the last, and taking not from man's vengeance even the 
 method of its dismissal. The courses of my life I swayed 
 with my own hand ; from my own hand shall come the man- 
 ner and moment of my death ! 'EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "August, I759-" 
 
 On the day after that evening in which Aram bad given the 
 above confession to Walter Lester on the day of execution, 
 when they entered the condemned cell, they found the prisoner 
 lying on the bed ; and when they approached to take off the 
 irons, they found that he neither stirred nor answered to their 
 call. They attempted to raise him, and he then uttered some 
 words in a faint voice. They perceived that he was covered 
 with blood. He had opened his veins in two places in the 
 arm with a sharp instrument which he had contrived to conceal. 
 A surgeon was instantly sent for, and by the customary appli- 
 cations the prisoner in some measure was brought to himself. 
 Resolved not to defraud the law of its victim, they bore him, 
 though he appeared unconscious of all around, to the fatal 
 spot. But when he arrived at that dread place, his sense sud- 
 denly seemed to return. He looked hastily round the throng 
 that swayed and murmured below, and a faint flush rose to his 
 cheek ; he cast his eyes impatiently above, and breathed hard
 
 EUGENE ARAM\ 
 
 and convulsively. The dire preparations were made, com- 
 pleted ; but the prisoner drew back for an instant was it' 
 from mortal fear ? He motioned to the clergyman to approach, 
 as if about to whisper some last request in his ear. The 
 clergyman bowed his head there was a minute's awful pause 
 Aram seemed to struggle as for words, when, suddenly 
 throwing himself back, a bright triumphant smile flashed over 
 his whole face. With that smile the haughty spirit passed 
 away, and the law's last indignity was wreaked upon a breath- 
 less corpse ! 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. AND LAST. 
 
 THE TRAVELLER'S RETURN. THE COUNTRY VILLAGE ONCE 
 
 MORE VISITED. ITS INHABITANTS. THE REMEMBERED 
 
 BROOK. THE DESERTED MANOR-HOUSE. THE CHURCH- 
 YARD. THE TRAVELLER RESUMES HIS JOURNEY. THE 
 
 COUNTRY TOWN. A MEETING OF TWO LOVERS AFTER LONG 
 ABSENCE AND MUCH SORROW. CONCLUSION. 
 
 " The lopped tree in time may grow again, 
 
 Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower ; 
 The sorriest wight may find release from pain, 
 The dryest soil suck in some moistening shower : 
 Time goes by turns, and chances change by course 
 From foul to fair. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 
 
 SOMETIMES, towards the end of a gloomy day, the sun, before 
 but dimly visible, breaks suddenly out, and where before you 
 had noticed only the sterner outline of the mountains, you turn 
 with relief to the lowlier features of the vale. So in this 
 record of crime and sorrow, the ray that breaks forth at the 
 close brings into gentle light the shapes which the earlier dark- 
 ness had obscured. 
 
 It was some years after the date of the last event we have re- 
 corded, and it was a fine warm noon in the happy month of 
 May, when a horseman rode slowly through the long, straggling 
 village of Grassdale. He was a man, though in the prime of 
 youth (for he might yet want some two years of thirty), who 
 bore the steady and earnest air of one who had wrestled the 
 world ; his eye keen but tranquil ; his sunburnt though hand- 
 some features, which thought, or care, had despoiled of the 
 roundness of their early contour, leaving the cheek somewhat 
 sunken, and the lines somewhat marked, were characterized by 
 a grave and at that moment by a melancholy and soft expres-
 
 ARAM. 369 
 
 sion ; and now, as his horse proceeded slowly through the green 
 lane, which at every vista gave glimpses of rich verdant valleys, 
 the sparkling river, or the orchard ripe with the fragrant blos- 
 soms of spring, his head drooped upon his breast, and the tears 
 started to his eyes. The dress of the horseman was of foreign 
 fashion, and at that day, when the garb still denoted the calling, 
 sufficiently military to show the profession he had belonged to. 
 And well did the garb become the short, dark moustache, the 
 sinewy chest, the length of limb, of the young horseman : rec- 
 ommendations, the two latter, not despised in the court of the 
 great Frederic of Prussia, in whose service he had borne arms. 
 He had commenced his career in that battle terminating in the 
 signal defeat of the bold Daun, when the fortunes of that gal- 
 lant general paled at last before the star of the greatest of 
 modern kings. The peace of 1763 had left Prussia in the 
 quiet enjoyment of the glory she had obtained, and the young 
 Englishman took the advantage it afforded him of seeing, as a 
 traveller, not despoiler, the rest of Europe. 
 
 The adventure and the excitement of travel pleased, and left 
 him even now uncertain whether or not his present return to 
 England would be for long. He had not been a week returned, 
 and to this part of his native country he had hastened at once. 
 
 He checked his horse as he now passed the memorable sign 
 that yet swung before the door of Peter Dealtry ; and there, 
 under the shade of the broad tree, now budding into all its ten- 
 derest verdure, a pedestrian wayfarer sat enjoying the rest and 
 coolness of his shelter. Our horseman cast a look at the open 
 door, across which, in the bustle of housewifery, female forms 
 now and then glanced and vanished, and presently he saw 
 Peter himself saunter forth to chat with the traveller beneath his 
 tree. And Peter Dealtry was the same as ever, only he seemed 
 perhaps shorter and thinner than of old, as if Time did not so 
 much break as gradually wear away mine host's slender person. 
 
 The horseman gazed for a moment, but observing Peter retrun 
 the gaze, he turned aside his head, and putting his horse into a 
 canter, soon passed out of cognizance of The Spotted Dog. 
 
 He now came in sight of the neat white cottage of the old 
 corporal ; and there, leaning over the pale, a crutch under one 
 arm, and his friendly pipe in one corner of his shrewd mouth, 
 was the corporal himself. Perched upon the railing in a semi- 
 doze, the ears down, the eyes closed, sat a large brown cat : 
 poor Jacobina, it was not thyself ! death spares neither cat nor 
 king ; but thy virtues lived in thy grandchild ; and thy grand- 
 child (as age brings dotage) was toved even more than thee
 
 370 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 by the worthy corporal. Long may thy race flourish ! for at 
 this day it is not extinct. Nature rarely inflicts barrenness on 
 the feline tribe ; they are essentially made for love, and love's 
 soft cares ; and a cat's lineage outlives the lineage of kaisars ! 
 
 At the sound of hoofs, the corporal turned his head, and he 
 looked long and wistfully at the horseman, as, relaxing his 
 iiorse's pace into a walk, our traveller rode slowly on. 
 
 " 'Fore George," muttered the corporal, " a fine man a very 
 fine man, 'bout my inches augh ! " 
 
 A smile, but a very faint smile, crossed the lip of the horse- 
 man, as he gazed on the figure of the stalwart corporal. 
 
 " He eyes me hard," thought he, " yet he does not seem to 
 remember me. I must be greatly changed. 'Tis fortunate, 
 however, that I am not recognized : fain, indeed, at this time, 
 would I come and go unnoticed and alone." 
 
 The horseman fell into a revery, which was broken by the 
 murmur of the sunny rivulet, fretting over each little obstacle 
 it met, the happy and spoiled child of Nature ! That mur- 
 mur rang on the horseman's ear like a voice from his boyhood ; 
 how familiar was it, how dear ! No haunting tone of music 
 ever recalled so rushing a host of memories and associations, 
 as that simple, restless, everlasting sound ! Everlasting ! all 
 had changed, the trees had sprung up or decayed some cot- 
 tages around were ruins, some new and unfamiliar ones sup- 
 plied their place ; and, on the stranger himself on all those 
 whom the sound recalled to his heart Time had been, indeed, 
 at work ; but, with the same exulting bound and happy voice, 
 that little brook leaped along its way. Ages hence, may the 
 course be as glad, and the murmur as full of mirth ! They 
 are blessed things, those remote and unchanging streams ! they 
 fill us with the same love as if they were living creatures ! 
 and in a green corner of the world there is one, that, for my 
 part, I never see without forgetting myself to tears tears that 
 I would not lose for a king's ransom, tears that no other sight 
 or sound could call from their source ; tears of what affection, 
 what soft regret ; tears through the soft mists of which I be- 
 hold what I have lost on earth and hope to regain in heaven ! 
 
 The traveller, after a brief pause, continued his road ; and 
 now he came full upon the old manor-house. The weeds were 
 grown up in the garden, the mossed paling was broken in 
 many places, the house itself was shut up, and the sun glanced 
 on the deep-sunk casements, without finding its way into the 
 desolate interior. High above the old hospitable gate hung a 
 board, announcing that the house was for sale, and referring
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 372 
 
 the curious or the speculating to the attorney of the neighbor- 
 ing town. The horseman sighed heavily, and muttered to 
 himself ; then, turning up the road that led to the back 
 entrance, he came into the court-yard, and, leading his horse 
 into an empty stable, he proceeded on foot through the dis- 
 mantled premises, pausing with every moment, and holding a 
 sad and ever-changing commune with himself. An old woman, 
 a stranger to him, was the sole inmate of the house ; and, 
 imagining he came to buy, or, at least, examine, she conducted 
 him through the house, pointing out its advantages, and Lament- 
 ing its dilapidated state. Our traveller scarcely heard her ; 
 but when he came to one room, which he would not enter till 
 the last (it was the little parlor in which the once happy 
 family had been wont to sit), he sank down in the chair that 
 had been Lester's honored seat, and, covering his face with 
 his hands, did not move or look up for several moments. The 
 old woman gazed at him with surprise, "Perhaps, sir, you 
 knew the family? they were greatly beloved." 
 
 The traveller did not answer ; but when he rose, he muttered 
 to himself, " No ; the experiment is made in vain ! Never, 
 never could I live here again ; it must be 'so the house of my 
 forefathers must pass into a stranger's hands." With this 
 reflection he hurried from the house, and re-entering the garden, 
 turned through a little gate that swung half open on its shat- 
 tered hinges, and led into the green and quiet sanctuaries of 
 the dead. The same touching character of deep and undis- 
 turbed repose that hallows the country churchyard, and that 
 one more than most, yet brooded there, as when, years ago, it 
 woke his young mind to reflection, then unmingled with regret. 
 
 He passed over the rude mounds of earth that covered the 
 deceased poor, and paused at a tomb of higher, though but of 
 simple pretensions ; it was not yet discolored by the dews and 
 seasons, and the short inscription traced upon it was strikingly 
 legible in comparison with those around : 
 
 ROWLAND LESTER, 
 
 Obiit 1760, set. 64. 
 
 Blessed are they that mourn, for they 
 shall be comforted. 
 
 By that tomb the traveller remained in undisturbed contem- 
 plation for some time ; and when he turned, all the swarthy 
 color had died from his cheek, his eyes were dim, and the
 
 372 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 wonted pride of a young man's step and a soldier's bearing 
 was gone from his mien. 
 
 As he looked up, his eye caught afar, embedded among the 
 soft verdure of the spring, one lone and gray house, from whose 
 chimney there rose no smoke sad, inhospitable, dismantled as 
 that beside which he now stood ; as if the curse which had 
 fallen on the inmates of either mansion still clung to either 
 roof. One hasty glance only the traveller gave to the solitary 
 and distant abode, and then started and quickened his pace. 
 
 On re-entering the stables, the traveller found the corporal 
 examining his horse from head to foot with great care and 
 attention. 
 
 "Good hoofs, too, humph!" quoth the corporal, as he 
 released the front leg ; and, turning round, saw, with some 
 little confusion, the owner of the steed he had been honor- 
 ing with so minute a survey. "Oh, augh ! looking at the 
 beastie, sir, lest it might have a cast shoe. Thought your 
 honor might want some intelligent person to show you the 
 premises, if so be you have come to buy ; nothing but an old 
 'oman there ; dare ay your honor does not like old 'omen 
 augh ! " 
 
 " The owner is not in these parts ? " said the horseman. 
 
 " No, overseas, sir ; a fine young gentleman, but hasty ; and 
 and but Lord bless me ! sure no, it can't be yes, now you 
 turn it is it is my young master ! " So saying, the corporal, 
 roused into affection, hobbled up to the wanderer, and seized 
 and kissed his hand. " Ah, sir, we shall be glad, indeed, to 
 see you back after such doings. But's all forgotten now, and 
 gone by augh ! Poor Miss Ellinor, how happy she'll be to 
 see your honor. Ah ! how she be changed, surely ! " 
 
 "Changed ; ay, I make no doubt ! What ? does she look in 
 weak health? " 
 
 "No ; as to that, your honor, she be winsome enough still," 
 quoth the corporal, smacking his lips ; "I seed her the week 
 
 afore last, when I went over to , for I suppose you knows 
 
 as she lives there, all alone like, in a small house, with a green 
 rail afore it, and a brass knocker on the door at top of the 
 
 town, with a fine view of the hills in front ? Well, sir, I 
 
 seed her, and mighty handsome she looked, though a little 
 thinner than she was ; but, for all that, she be greatly changed." 
 
 " How ! for the worse ? " 
 
 " For the worse, indeed," answered the corporal, assuming 
 an air of melancholy and grave significance ; " she be grown 
 so religious, sir, think of that augh bother whaugh ! "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 373 
 
 " Is that all ? " said Walter, relieved, and with a slight smile. 
 "And she lives alone?" 
 
 " Quite, poor young lady, as if she had made up her mind 
 to be an old maid ; though I know as how she refused Squire 
 Knyvett of the Grange, waiting for your honor's return, 
 mayhap ! " 
 
 " Lead out the horse, Bunting ; but stay, I am sorry to see 
 you with a crutch ; what's the cause ? no accident, I 
 trust?" 
 
 " Merely rheumatics will attack the youngest of us ; never 
 been quite myself since I went a-travelling with your honor 
 augh ! without going to Lunnun arter all. But I shall be 
 stronger next year, I dare to say ! " 
 
 " I hope you will. Bunting. And Miss Lester lives alone, 
 you say ? " 
 
 " Ay ; and for all she be so religious, the poor about do 
 bless her very footsteps. She does a power of good ; she gave 
 me half a guinea last Tuesday fortnight ; an excellent young 
 lady, so sensible like ! " 
 
 "Thank you ; I can tighten the girths ! so ! there, Bunt- 
 ing, there's something for old companionship's sake." 
 
 " Thank your honor ; you be too good, always was baugh ! 
 But I hopes your honor be a-coming to live here now ; 'twill 
 make things smile again ! " 
 
 " No, Bunting, I fear not," said Walter, spurring through 
 the gates of the yard. "Good-day." 
 
 " Augh, then," cried the corporal, hobbling breathlessly 
 after him. " if so be as I sha'n't see your honor again, at which 
 I am extramely consarned, will your honor recollecc your prom- 
 ise, touching the 'tato ground ? The steward, Master Bailey, 
 'od rot him ! has clean forgot it augh ! " 
 
 "The same old man, Bunting, eh ? Well, make your mind 
 easy ; it shall be done." 
 
 " Lord bless your honor's good heart ; thank ye; and and," 
 laying his hand on the bridle " your honor did say the bit cot 
 should be rent free ? You see, your honor," quoth the corporal, 
 drawing up with a grave smile, " I may marry some day or 
 other, and have a large family ; and the rent won't sit so easy 
 then augh ! " 
 
 " Let go the rein, Bunting and consider your house rent- 
 free." 
 
 " And your honor and " 
 
 But Walter was already in a brisk trot ; and the remaining 
 petitions of the corporal died in empty air.
 
 374 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "A good day's work, too," muttered Jacob, hobbling home- 
 ward. " What a green un 'tis, still ! Never be a man of the 
 world augh ! " 
 
 For two hours Walter did not relax the rapidity of his pace ; 
 and when he did so at the descent of a steep hill, a small coun- 
 try town lay before him, the sun glittering on its single spire, 
 and lighting up the long, clean, centre street, with the good old- 
 fashioned garden stretching behind each house, and detached 
 cottages around, peeping forth here and there from the blos- 
 soms and verdure of the young May. He rode into the yard 
 of the principal inn, and putting up his horse, inquired, in a 
 tone that he persuaded himself was the tone of indifference, for 
 Miss Lester's house. 
 
 "John," said the landlady (landlord there was none), sum- 
 moning a little boy of about ten years old "run on" and show 
 this gentleman the good lady's house : and stay his honor 
 will excuse you a moment just take up the nosegay you cut 
 for her this morning: she loves flowers. Ah! sir, an excellent 
 young lady is Miss Lester," continued the hostess, as the boy 
 ran back for the nosegay; "so charitable, so kind, so meek to 
 all. Adversity, they say, softens some characters ; but she 
 must always have been good. Well, God bless her ! and that 
 every one must say. My boy John, sir, he is not eleven yet, 
 come next August a 'cute boy, calls her the good lady ; we 
 now always call her so here. Come, John, that's right. You 
 stay to dine here, sir? Shall I put down a chicken ?" 
 
 At the farther extremity of the town stood Miss Lester's 
 dwelling. It was the house in which her father had spent his 
 last days ; and there she had continued to reside, when left by 
 his death to a small competence, which Walter, then abroad, 
 had persuaded her (for her pride was of the right kind) to suf- 
 fer him, though but slightly, to increase. It was a detached 
 and small building, standing a little from the road ; and Wal- 
 ter paused for some moments at the garden-gate, and gazed 
 round him before he followed his young guide, who, tripping 
 lightly up the gravel-walk to the door, rang the bell, and in- 
 quired if Miss Lester was within ? 
 
 Walter was left for some moments alone in a little parlor : 
 he required those moments to recover himself from the past 
 that rushed sweepingly over him. And was it yes, it was 
 Ellinor that now stood before him ! Changed she was, indeed ; 
 the slight girl had budded into woman ; changed she was, indeed ; 
 the bound had forever left that step, once so elastic with hope ; 
 the vivacity of the quick, dark eye was soft and quiet ; the rich
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 375 
 
 color had given place to a hue fainter, though not less lovely. 
 But to repeat in verse what is poorly bodied forth in prose : 
 
 " And years had past, and thus they met again ; 
 The wind had swept along the flower since then ; 
 O'er her fair cheek a paler lustre spread, 
 As if the white rose triumph'd o'er the red. 
 No more she walk'd exulting on the air ; 
 Light though her step, there was a languor there ; 
 No more her spirit bursting from its bound, 
 She stood, like Hebe, scattering smiles around." 
 
 " Ellinor?" said Walter mournfully, " thank God ! we meet 
 at last." 
 
 "That voice that face my cousin my dear, dear Walter ! " 
 
 All reserve, all consciousness, fled in the delight of that mo- 
 ment ; and Ellinor leaned her head upon his shoulder, and 
 scarcely felt the kiss that he pressed upon her lips. 
 
 " And so long absent ! " said Ellinor reproachfully. 
 
 " But did you not tell me that the blow that had fallen on 
 our house had stricken from you all thoughts of love had di- 
 vided us forever ? And what, Ellinor, was England or home 
 without you ?" 
 
 "Ah]" said Ellinor, recovering herself, and a deep pale- 
 ness succeeding to the warm and delighted flush, that had been, 
 conjured to her cheek, " do not revive the past ; I have sought 
 for years long, solitary, desolate years to escape from its 
 dark recollections ! " 
 
 "You speak wisely, dearest Ellinor ; let us assist each other 
 in doing so. We are alone in the world let us unite our lots. 
 Never, through all I have seen and felt, in the starry night- 
 watch of camps in the blaze of courts by the sunny groves 
 of Italy in the deep forests of the Hartz never have I for- 
 gotten you, my sweet and dear cousin. Your image has linked 
 itself indissolubly with all 1 conceived of home and happi- 
 ness, and a tranquil and peaceful future ; and now I return, 
 and see you, and find you changed, but oh, how lovely ! Ah, 
 let us not part again ! A consoler, a guide, a soother, father, 
 brother, husband, all this my heart whispers I could be to you!" 
 
 Ellinor turned away her face, but her heart was very full. 
 The solitary years that had passed over her since they last 
 met rose up before her. The only living image that had 
 mingled through those years with the dreams of the departed, 
 was his who now knelt at her feet ; her sole friend her sole 
 relative her first her last love ! Of all the world, he was 
 the only one with whom she could recur to the past; on whom
 
 3?6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 she might repose her bruised, but still unconquered affections. 
 And Walter knew by that blush that sigh that -tear, that he 
 was remembered that he was beloved that his cousin was 
 his own at last ! 
 
 " But before you end," said my friend, to whom I showed 
 the above pages, originally concluding my tale with the last 
 sentence, "you must, it is a comfortable and orthodox old 
 fashion, tell us a little about the fate of the other persons 
 to whom you have introduced us : the wretch Houseman ? " 
 
 ''True; in the mysterious course of mortal affairs, the 
 greater villain had escaped, the more generous fallen. But 
 though Houseman died without violence died in his bed, as 
 honest men die we can scarcely' believe that his life was not 
 punishment enough. He lived in strict seclusion the seclu- 
 sion of poverty and maintained himself by dressing flax. His 
 life was several times attempted by the mob, for he was an 
 object of universal execration and horror ; and even ten years 
 afterwards, when he died, his body was buried in secret at 
 the dead of night, for the hatred of the world survived him ! " 
 
 " And the corporal, did he marry in his old age ? " 
 
 " History telleth of one Jacob Bunting, whose wife, several 
 years younger than himself, played him certain sorry pranks 
 with a rakish squire in the neighborhood : the said Jacob 
 knowing nothing thereof, but furnishing great oblectation unto 
 his neighbors by boasting that he turned an excellent penny 
 by selling poultry to his honor above market prices, ' For 
 Bessy, my girl, I'm a man of the world augh ? ' ' 
 
 " Contented ! a suitable fate for the old dog. But Peter 
 Dealtry ? " 
 
 "Of Peter Dealtry know we nothing more, save that we have 
 seen at Grassdale churchyard a small tombstone inscribed to 
 his memory, with the following sacred posy thereto appended : 
 
 ' We flourish, saith the holy text, 
 One hour, and are cut down the next : 
 I was like grass but yesterday, 
 But Death has mowed me into hay.' " * 
 
 "And his namesake, Sir Peter Grindlescrew Hales?" 
 
 " Went through a long life, honored and respected, but met 
 with domestic misfortunes in old age. His eldest son married 
 a servant-maid, and his youngest daughter 
 
 " Eloped with the groom ? " 
 
 " By no means : with a young spendthrift the very picture 
 
 * Verbatim.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 377 
 
 of what Sir Peter was in his youth. They were both struck 
 out of their father's will, and Sir Peter died in the arms of his 
 eight remaining children, seven of whom never forgave his 
 memory for not being the eighth, viz., chief heir." 
 
 "And his contemporary, John Courtland, the non hypo- 
 chondriac ?" 
 
 " Died of sudden suffocation, as he was crossing Hounslow 
 Heath." 
 
 "But Lord ?" 
 
 " Lived to a great age ; his last days, owing to growing 
 infirmities, were spent out of the world ; every one pitied 
 htm, it was the happiest time of his life ! " 
 
 " Dame Darkmans ? " 
 
 "Was found dead in her bed ; from over-fatigue it was sup- 
 posed, in making merry at the funeral of a young girl on the 
 previous day." 
 
 "Well ! hem, and so Walter and his cousin are really mar- 
 ried ! And did they never return to the old manor-house ? " 
 
 " No ; the memory that is allied only to melancholy grows 
 sweet with years, and hallows the spot which it haunts ; not so 
 the memory allied to dread, terror, and something too of 
 shame. Walter sold the property with some pangs of natural 
 regret ; after his marriage with Ellinor he returned abroad for 
 some time, but finally settling in England, engaged in active 
 life, and left to his posterity a name they still honor ; and to 
 his country, the memory of some services that will not lightly 
 pass away. 
 
 " But one dread and gloomy remembrance never forsook his 
 mind, and exercised the most powerful influence over the ac- 
 tions and motives of his life. In every emergency, in every 
 temptation, there rose to his eyes the fate of him so gifted, so 
 noble in much, so formed for greatness in all things, blasted 
 by one crime a crime, the offspring of bewildered reason- 
 ings all the while speculating upon virtue. And that fate, 
 revealing the darker secrets of our kind, in which the true 
 science of morals is chiefly found, taught him the twofold les- 
 son, caution for himself, and charity for others. He knew 
 henceforth that even the criminal is not all evil ; the angel 
 within us is not easily expelled ; it survives sin, ay, and many 
 sins, and leaves us sometimes in amaze and marvel at the good 
 that lingers round the heart even of the hardiest offender. 
 
 " And Ellinor clung with more than revived affection to one 
 with whose lot she was now allied. Walter was her last tie 
 upon earth, and in him she learned, day by day, more lavishly
 
 37<> EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 to treasure up her heart. Adversity and trial had ennobled the 
 character of both ; and she who had so long seen in her cousin 
 all she could love, beheld now in her husband all that she could 
 venerate and admire. A certain religious fervor, in which, 
 after the calamities of her family, she had indulged, continued 
 with her to the last ; but (softened by human ties, and the re- 
 ciprocation of earthly duties and affections), it was fortunately 
 preserved either from the undue enthusiasm, or the undue 
 austerity, into which it would otherwise, in all likelihood, have 
 merged. What remained, however, uniting her most cheerful 
 ! thoughts with something serious, and the happiest moments of 
 the present with the dim and solemn forecast of the future, 
 elevated her nature, not depressed, and made itself visible 
 rather in tender than in sombre hues. And it was sweet, when 
 the thought of Madeline and her father came across her, to re- 
 cur at once for consolation to that heaven in which she be- 
 lieved their tears were dried, and their past sorrows but a for- 
 gotten dream ! There is, indeed, a time of life when these 
 reflections make our chief, though a melancholy pleasure. As 
 we grow older, and sometimes a hope, and sometimes a friend, 
 vanishes from our path, the thought of an immortality will 
 press itself forcibly upon us ! and there, by little and little, as 
 the ant piles grain after grain, the garners of a future suste- 
 nance, we learn to carry our hopes, and harvest, as it were, our 
 wishes. 
 
 " Our cousins, then, were happy. Happy, for they loved one 
 another entirely ; and on those who do so love, I sometimes 
 think that, barring physical pain and extreme poverty, the ills 
 of life fall with but idle malice. Yes, they were happy in spite 
 of the past and in defiance of the future." 
 
 " I am satisfied, then," said my friend, " and your tale is 
 fairly done ! " 
 
 And now, reader, farewell ! If sometimes, as thou hast gone 
 with me to this, our parting spot, thou hast suffered thy com- 
 panion to win the mastery over thine interest, to flash now on 
 thy convictions, to touch now thy heart, to guide thy hope, to 
 excite thy terror, to gain, it may be, to the sources of thy 
 tears then is there a tie between thee and me which cannot 
 readily be broken ! And when thou nearest the malice that 
 wrongs affect the candor which should judge, shall he not find 
 in thy sympathies the defence, or in thy charity the indul* 
 gence, of a friend ? 
 
 THE END.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 In the preface to this novel it was stated that the original intention of its Author was 
 to compose, upon the facts of Aram's gloomy history, a tragedy instead of a romance. It 
 
 agedy 
 
 some respects, materially from that of the tale, although the whole of what is now pre- 
 sented to the reader must be considered merely as a copy from the first hasty sketch of an 
 uncompleted design. 
 November^ 1833. 
 
 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 A TRAGEDY. 
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. 
 
 Aram's Apartment Books, Maps, and Scientific Instruments scattered around, in every- 
 thing else the appearance of the greatest poverty. 
 
 1st Creditor (behind the scenes). I must be paid. Three moons have 
 
 flitted since 
 You pledged your word to me. 
 
 zd Cred. And me ! 
 
 3</ Cred. And me ! 
 
 Aram (entering). Away, I tell ye ! Will ye rend my garb? 
 Away ! to-morrow. Gentle sirs, to-morrow. 
 
 1st Cred. This is your constant word. 
 
 2d Cred. We'll wait no more. 
 
 Aram. Ye'll wait no more ? Enough ! be seated, sirs. 
 Pray ye, be seated. Well ! with searching eyes 
 Ye do survey these walls ! Contain they aught 
 Nay, take your leisure to annul your claims ? 
 
 ( Turning to 1st Cred.} See, sir, yon books they're yours, if you but tea? 
 That fragment of spoiled paper be not backward, 
 I give them with good will. This one is Greek ; 
 A golden work sweet sir a golden work ; 
 It teaches us to bear what I have borne ! 
 And to forbear men's ills, as you have done. 
 
 1st Cred. You mock me. Well 
 
 Aram. Mock ! mock ! Alas ! my friend, 
 
 Do rags indulge in jesting ? Fie, sir, fie ! 
 
 (Turning to id Cred.} You will not wrong me so? On your receipt 
 Take this round orb ; it miniatures the world, 
 And in its study I forgot the world ! 
 
 379
 
 380 EUGENE ARAM I 
 
 Take this, yon table ; a poor scholar's fare 
 
 Needs no such proud support ; yon bed, too ! (Sleep 
 
 Is Night's sweet angel, leading fallen Man 
 
 Thro' yielding airs to Youth's lost paradise ; 
 
 But Sleep and I have quarrell'd) take it, sir ! 
 
 zd Cred. (muttering to the others'). Come, we must leave him to the law, 
 
 or famine. 
 You see his goods were costly at a groat ! 
 
 ist Cred. Well, henceforth I will grow more wise ! 'Tis said 
 Learning is better than a house or lands. 
 Let me be modest ! Learning shall go free ; 
 Give me security in house and lands. 
 
 3</ Cred. (lingering after the other two depart, offers a piece of money to 
 
 Aram). There, man ; I came to menace you with law 
 And gaols. You're poorer than I thought you ! there 
 
 Aram (looking at the money). What ! and a beggar, too ! 'Tis mighty 
 
 well. 
 
 Good sir, I'm grateful I will not refuse you ; 
 'Twill win back Plato from the crabbed hands 
 Of him who lends on all things. Thank you, sir ; 
 Plato and I will thank you. 
 
 3</ Cred. Crazed, poor scholar I 
 
 I'll take my little one from school this day ! 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 Aram. Rogues thrive in ease ; and fools grow rich with toil ; 
 Wealth's wanton eye on Wisdom coldly dwells, 
 And turns to dote upon the green youth, Folly 
 
 life, vile life, with what soul-lavish love 
 
 We cling to thee when all thy charms are fled 
 
 Yea, the more foul thy withering aspect grows 
 
 The steadier burns our passion to possess thee. 
 
 To die : ay, there's the cure the plashing stream 
 
 That girds these walls the drug of the dank weeds 
 
 That rot the air below ; these hoard the balm 
 
 For broken, pining, and indignant hearts. 
 
 But the witch Hope forbids me to be wise ; 
 
 And, when I turn to these, Woe's only friends [Pointing to his books. 
 
 And with their weird and eloquent voices, soothe 
 
 The lulled Babel of the world within, 
 
 1 can but dream that my vex'd years at last 
 Shall find the quiet of a hermit's cell, 
 
 And far from men's rude malice or low scorn, 
 
 Beneatli the loved gaze of the lambent stars ; 
 
 And with the hollow rocks, and sparry caves, 
 
 And mystic waves, and music-murmuring winds 
 
 My oracles and co-mates watch my life 
 
 Glide down the stream of knowledge, and behold 
 
 Its waters with a musing stillness glass 
 
 The smiles of Nature and the eves of Heaven !
 
 A TRAGEDY. 381 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 Inter BOTELER slowly watching him ; as he remains silent and in thought, BOTELER 
 touches htm on the shoulder. 
 
 Bottler. How now ! what ! gloomy ? and the day so bright ! 
 Why, the old dog that guards the court below 
 Hath crept out from his wooden den, and shakes 
 His gray hide in the fresh and merry air ; 
 Tuning his sullen and suspicious bark 
 Into a whine of welcome as I pass'd. 
 Come, rouse thee, Aram ; let us forth. 
 
 Aram. Nay, friend, 
 
 My spirit lackeys not the moody skies, 
 Nor changes bright or darkling with their change. 
 Farewell, good neighbor ; I must work this day ; 
 Behold my tools and scholars toil alone ! 
 
 Bottler. Tush ! a few minutes wasted upon me 
 May well be spared from this long summer day. 
 Hast heard the news ? Monson ? thou know'st the man ? 
 
 Aram. I do remember. He -was poor. I knew him. 
 
 Bottler. But he is poor no more. The all-changing wheel 
 Roll'd round, and scatter'd riches on his hearth. 
 A distant kinsman, while he lived, a niggard, 
 Generous in death hath left his grateful heir . 
 In our good neighbor. Why, you seem not glad ; 
 Does it not please you ? 
 
 Aram. Yes. 
 
 Boteler. And so it should ; 
 
 'Tis a poor fool, but honest. Had dame Fate 
 Done this for you for me 'tis true our brains 
 Had taught us belter how to spend the dross ; 
 But earth hath worse men than our neighbor. 
 
 Aram. Ay, 
 
 " Worse men ! " it may be so ! 
 
 Boteler. Would I were rich ! 
 
 What loyal service, what complacent friendship, 
 What gracious love upon the lips of Beauty, 
 Bloom into life beneath the beams of gold. 
 Venus and Bacchus, the bright Care-dispellers, 
 Are never seen but in the train of Fortune. 
 Would I were rich ! 
 
 Aram. Shame on thy low ambition ! 
 
 Would /were rich, too, but for other aims. 
 Oh ! what a glorious and time-hallow'd world 
 Would I invoke around me : and wall in 
 A haunted solitude with those bright souls, 
 That, with a still and warning aspect, gaze 
 Upon us from the hallowing sh-oud of books ! 
 By Heaven, there should not be a seer who left 
 The world one doctrine, but I'd task his lore. 
 And commune with his spirit ! All the truths 
 Of all the tongues of earth I'd have them all, 
 Had I the golden spell to raise their ghosts ! 
 I'd build me domes, too ; from whose giddy height
 
 382 EUGENE ARAM : 
 
 My soul would watch the night stars, and unsphere 
 
 The destinies of man, or track the ways 
 
 Of God from world to world ; pursue the winds, 
 
 The clouds that womb the thunder to their home ; 
 
 Invoke and conquer Nature share her throne 
 
 On earth, and ocean, and the chainless air ; 
 
 And on the Titan fabrics of old truths 
 
 Raise the bold spirit to a height with heaven ! 
 
 Would would my life might boast one year of wealth 
 
 Though death should bound it ! 
 
 Bottler. Thou may'st have thy wish ! 
 
 Aram (rapt, and abstractedly). Who spoke ? Methought I heard m> 
 
 genius say 
 My evil genius ' Thou may'st have thy wish ! " 
 
 Boteler. Thou heard'st aright ! Monson this eve will pass 
 By Nid's swift wave ; he bears his gold with him ; 
 The spot is lone untenanted remote ; 
 And, if thou hast but courage, one bold deed, 
 And one short moment thou art poor no more ! 
 
 Aram (after a pause, turning his eyes slowly on Boteler). Boteler, was 
 that thy voice ? 
 
 Boteler. How couldst thou doubt it ? 
 
 Aram. Methought its tone seemed changed ; and now methinks, 
 Now, that I look upon thy face, my eyes 
 Discover not its old familiar aspect. 
 Thou'rt very sure thy name is Boteler ? 
 
 Boteler. Pshaw, 
 
 Thou'rt dreaming still : awake, and let thy mind 
 And heart drink all I breathe into thy ear. 
 I know thee, Aram, for a man humane, 
 Gentle, and musing ; but withal of stuff 
 That might have made a warrior ; and desires, 
 Though of a subtler nature than my own, 
 As high, and hard to limit. Care and want 
 Have made thee what they made thy friend long since. 
 And when I wound my heart to a resolve, 
 Dangerous, but fraught with profit, I did fix 
 On thee as one whom Fate and Nature made 
 A worlhy partner in the nameless deed. 
 
 Aram. Go on. I pray thee pause not. 
 
 Boteler. There remain 
 
 Few words to body forth my full design. 
 Know that at my advice this eve the gull'd 
 And credulous fool of Fortune quits his home. 
 Say but one word, and thou shalt share with me 
 The gold he bears about him. 
 
 Aram. At what price ? 
 
 Boteler. A little courage. 
 
 Aram. And my soul ! No more* 
 
 I see your project 
 
 Boteler. And^embrace it? 
 
 Aram. Lo ! 
 
 How many deathful, dread, and ghastly snares 
 Encompass him whom the stark hunger gnaws,
 
 A TRAGEDY. 383 
 
 And the grim demon Penury shuts from out 
 
 The golden Eden of his bright desires ! 
 
 To-day, I thought to slay myself, and die. 
 
 No single hope once won ! and now I hear 
 
 Dark words of blood, and quail not, nor recoil. 
 
 'Tis but a death in either case, or mine 
 
 Or that poor dotard's ! And the guilt the guilt, 
 
 Why, what is guilt ? A word ! We are the tools, 
 
 From birth to death, of destiny ; and shaped, 
 
 For sin or virtue, by the iron forge 
 
 Of the unseen, but unresisted, hands 
 
 Of Fate, the august compeller of the world. 
 
 Boteler (aside). It works. Behold the devil at all hearts J 
 I am a soldier, and inured to blood ; 
 But he hath lived with moralists forsooth. 
 And yet one word to tempt him, and one sting 
 Of the food-craving clay, and the meek sage 
 Grasps at the crime be shuddered at before. 
 
 Aram (abruptly). Thou hast broke thy fast this morning. 
 
 Bottler. Ay, in truth. 
 
 Aram. But /have not since yestermorn, and ask'd 
 In the belief that certain thoughts unwont 
 To blacken the still mirror of my mind 
 Might be the phantoms of the sickening flesh 
 And the faint nature. I was wrong ; since you 
 Shaie the same thoughts, nor suffer the same ills. 
 
 Boteler. Indeed, I knew not this. Come to my roof : 
 'Tis poor, but not so bare as to deny 
 A soldier's viands to a scholar's wants. 
 Come, and we'll talk this over. I perceive 
 That your bold heart already is prepared, 
 And the details alone remain. Come, friend, 
 Lean upon me, for you seem weak ; the air 
 Will breathe this languor into health. 
 
 Aram. Your hearth 
 
 Is widow'd, we shall be alone ? 
 
 Bate let . Alone. 
 
 Aram. Come, then, the private way. We'll shun the crowd. 
 I do not love the insolent eyes of men. 
 
 ***** 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 (Night a wild and gloomy Forest the River at a Distance.) 
 Enter ARAM slowly. 
 
 Aram. Were it but done, methinks 'twould scarce bequeath 
 Much food for that dull hypocrite Remorse. 
 Tis a fool less on earth ! a clod a grain 
 From the o'er-rich creation ; be it so. 
 But I, in one brief year, could give to men 
 More solid, glorious, undecaying good 
 Than his whole life could purchase : yet without 
 The pitiful and niggard dross he wastes,
 
 384 EUGENE ARAM : 
 
 And / for lacking starve, my power is nought, 
 
 And the whole good undone ! Where, then, the crime, 
 
 Though by dread means, to compass that bright end? 
 
 And yet and yet I falter, and my flesh 
 
 Creeps, and the horror cf a ghastly thought 
 
 Makes stiff my hand, my blood is cold, my knees 
 
 Do smite each other and throughout my frame 
 
 Stern manhood melts away. Blow forth, sweet air, 
 
 Brace the mute nerves, release the gathering ice 
 
 That curdles up my veins, call forth the soul, 
 
 That, with a steady and unfailing front, 
 
 Hath looked on want, and woe, and early death 
 
 And walk'd with thee, sweet air, upon thy course 
 
 Away from earth through the rejoicing heaven ! 
 
 Who moves there ? Speak ! who art thou ? 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 Enter BOTELER. 
 
 Boteler. Murdoch Boteler ! 
 
 Hast thou forestall'd me ? Come, this bodeth well : 
 It proves thy courage, Aram. 
 
 Aram. Rather say 
 
 The restless fever that doth spur us on 
 From a dark thought unto a darker deed. 
 
 Boteler. He should have come ere this. 
 
 Aram. I pray thee, Boteler s 
 
 Is it not told of some great painter whom 
 Rome bore, and earth yet worships that he slew 
 A man a brother man and without ire, 
 But with cool heart and hand, that he might fix 
 His gaze upon the wretch's dying pangs ; 
 And by them learn what mortal throes to paint 
 On the wrung features of a suffering God ? 
 
 Boteler. Ay : I have heard the tale. 
 
 Aram. And he ishonor'd. 
 
 Men vaunt his glory, but forget his guilt. 
 They see the triumph ; nor, with wolfish tongues, 
 Feed on the deed from which the triumph grew. 
 Is it not so ? 
 
 Boteler. Thou triflest : this is no hour 
 For the light legends of a gossip's lore 
 
 Aram. Peace, man ! I did but question of the fact. 
 Enough. I marvel why our victim lingers? 
 
 Boteler. Hush ! dost thou hear no footstep? Ha, he comes ! 
 I see him by yon pine-tree. Look, he smiles ; 
 Smiles as he walks, and sings 
 
 Aram. Alas ! poor fool ! 
 
 So sport we all, while over us the pall 
 Hangs, and Fate's viewless hands prepare our shroud. 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 
 Writer MONSON 
 
 Monson, Ye have not waited, sirs ?
 
 A TRAGEDY. 385 
 
 Bottler. Nay, name it not. 
 
 Monsoti. The nights are long and bright : an hour the less 
 Makes little discount from the time. 
 
 Aram. An hour I 
 
 What deeds an hour may witness ! 
 
 Monson. It is true. 
 
 ( To Bottler.} Doth he upbraid ? he has a gloomy brow : 
 I like him not. 
 
 Boteler. The husk hides goodly fruit. 
 
 'Tis a deep scholar, Monson ; and the gloom 
 Is not of malice, toil of learned thought. 
 
 Monson . Say'st thou ? I love a scholar. Let us on : 
 We will not travel far to-n ght ? 
 
 Aram. Not far I 
 
 Boteler. Why. as our limbs avail ; thou hast the gold ? 
 
 Monson. Ay, and my wife suspects not. [Laughing. 
 
 Boteler. Come, that's well. 
 
 I'm an old soldier, Monson, and I love 
 This baffling of the Church's cankering ties. 
 We'll find thee other wives, my friend ! Who holds 
 The golden lure shall have no lack of loves. 
 
 Monson. Ha ! ha ! both wise and merry. (To Aram.) Come, sir, on- 
 
 Aram. I follow. 
 
 (Aside.) Can men sin thus in a dream ? 
 * * * # * 
 
 SCENE VII. 
 
 Scene changes to a different part of the Forest a Cave, overhung with firs and other 
 trees the Moon is at her full, but Clouds are rolling swiftly over her disc ARAM 
 rushes from the Cavern. 
 
 Aram. 'Tis done ! 'tis done 'tis done ! 
 
 A life is gone 
 
 Out of a crowded world ! / struck no more ! 
 Oh, God ! I did not slay him ! 'twas not // 
 
 Enter BOTELER more slowly from the Cave, and looking round. 
 
 BoteUr. Why didst thou leave me ere our task was o'er ? 
 
 Aram. Was he not dead, then ? Did he breathe again ? 
 Or cry, " Help, help?" /did not strike the blow ! 
 
 Boteler. Dead ! and no witness, save the blinded bat ! 
 But the gold, Aram ! thou didst leave the gold ? 
 
 Aram. The gold ! I had forgot. Thou hast the gold. 
 Come, let us share, and part 
 
 Boteler. Not here ; the spot 
 
 Is open, and the rolling moon may light 
 Some wanderer's footsteps hither. To the deeps 
 Which the stars pierce not of the inmo-t wooH 
 We will withdraw and share and weave our plans, 
 So that the world may know not of this deed. 
 
 Aram. Thou sayest well ! I did not strike the blow I 
 How red the moon looks ! le'. us hide from her !
 
 386 EUGENE ARAM : 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 (Time, Ten Years after the date of the first Act.) 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Peasants dancing A beautiful Wood Scene A Cottage in the front. 
 
 MADELINE LAMBOURN MICHAEL. 
 
 (LAMBOURN comes forward.) 
 
 COME, my sweet Madeline, though our fate denies 
 The pomp by which the great and wealthy mark 
 The white days of their lot, at least thy sire 
 Can light with joyous faces and glad hearts 
 The annual morn which brought so fair a boon, 
 And blest his rude hearth with a child like thee. 
 
 Madeline. My father, my dear father, since that morn 
 The sun hath call'd from out the depth of time 
 The shapes of twenty summers ; and no hour 
 That did not own to Heaven thy love thy care ! 
 
 Lambourn. Thou hast repaid me ; and mine eyes o'erflow 
 With tears that tell thy virtues, my sweet child ; 
 For ever from thy cradle thou wert fill'd 
 With meek and gentle thought ; tliy step was soft 
 And thy voice tender ; and within thine eyes, 
 And on thy cloudless brow, lay deeply glass'd 
 The quiet and the beauty of thy soul. 
 As thou didst grow in years, the love and power 
 Of nature wax'd upon thee ; thou wouldst pore 
 On the sweet stillness of the summer hills, 
 Or the hushed face of waters, as a book 
 Where God had written beauty ; and in turn 
 Books grew to thee, as Nature's page had grown, 
 And study and lone musing nursed thy youth ; 
 Yet wert thou ever woman in thy mood, 
 And soft, though serious ; nor in abstract thought 
 Lost household zeal, or the meek cares of love. 
 Bless thee, my child. Thou look'st around for one 
 To chase the/a&r rose from that pure cheek, 
 And the vague sadness from those loving eyes. 
 Nay, turn not, Madeline, for I know, in truth, 
 No man to whom I would so freely give 
 Thy hand as his no man so full of wisdom, 
 And yet so gentle in his bearing of it ; 
 No man so kindly in his thoughts of others 
 So rigid of all virtues in himself ; 
 As this same learned wonder, Eugene Aram. 
 
 Madeline. In sooth his name sounds lovelier for thy praise. 
 Would he were by to hear it ! for methinks 
 His nature given too much to saddening thought, 
 And words like thine would cheer it. Oft he starts 
 And mutters to himself, and folds his arms, 
 And traces with keen eyes the empty air ; 
 Then shakes his head, and smiles no happy smile !
 
 A TRAGEDY. 387 
 
 Lambourn. It is the way with students, for they live 
 In an ideal world, and people this 
 With shadows thrown from fairy forms afar. 
 Fear not ! ihy love, like some fair morn of May, 
 Shall chase the dreams in clothing earth with beauty. 
 But the noon wanes, and yet he does not come. 
 Neighbors, has one amongst you seen this day 
 The scholar Aram ? 
 
 Michael. By the hoary oak 
 
 That overhangs the brook, I mark'd this morn 
 A bending figure, motionless and lonely. 
 I near'd it, but it heard it saw me not ; 
 It spoke I listen'd and it said, "Ye leaves 
 That from the old and changeful branches fall 
 Upon the waters, and are borne away, 
 Whither none know, ye are men's worthless lives ; 
 Nor boots it whether ye drop off by time, 
 Or the rude anger of some violent wind 
 Scatter ye ere your hour. Amidst the mass 
 Of your green life, who misses one lost leaf ? " 
 He said no more ; then I did come beside 
 The speaker : it was Aram. 
 
 Madeline (aside). Moody ever ! 
 
 And yet he says, he loves me and is happy ! 
 
 Michael. But he seem'd gall'd and sore at my approach ; 
 And when I told him I was hither bound, 
 And ask'd if aught I should convey from him, 
 He frown'd, and coldly turning on his heel, 
 Answer'd that "he should meet me." I was pain'd 
 To think that I had vex'd so good a man. 
 
 1st Neighbor. Ay, he is good as wise. All men love Aram. 
 
 zd Neighbor. And with what justice ! My old dame's complaint 
 Had baffled all the leeches ; but his art, 
 From a few simple herbs, distill'd a spirit 
 Has made her young again. 
 
 3<f Neighbor. By his advice, 
 
 And foresight of the seasons, I did till 
 My land, and now my granaries scarce can hold 
 Their golden wealth ; while those who mock'd his words 
 Can scarcely from hard earlh and treacherous air 
 Win aught to keep the wolf from off their door. 
 
 Michael. And while he stoops to what poor men should know, 
 They say that in the deep and secret lore 
 That scholars mostly prize he hath no peer. 
 Old men, who pale and care-begone have lived 
 A life amidst their books, will, at his name, 
 Lift up tlteir hands and cry, " The wondrous man ! " 
 
 Lambourn. His birthplace must thank Fortune for the fame 
 That he one day will win it. 
 
 Michael. Dost thou know 
 
 Whence Aram came, ere to these hamlet scenes 
 Ten summers since he wander'd ? 
 
 Lambourn. Michael, no! 
 
 'Twas from some distant nook of our fair isle.
 
 388 EUGENE ARAM : 
 
 But he so sadly flies from what hath chanced 
 In his more youthful life, and there would seem 
 So much of winter in those April days, 
 That I have shunn'd vain question of the past. 
 Thus much I learn : he hath no kin alive; 
 No parent to exult in such a son. 
 
 Michael. Poor soul ! You spake of sadness. Know you why 
 So good a man is sorrowful ? 
 
 Lambourn. Methinks 
 
 lie hath been tried not lightly by the sharp 
 And everlasting curse to learning doom'd 
 That which poor labor bears without a sigh, 
 But whose mere breath can wither genius Want ! 
 Want the harsh, hoary beldame the obscene 
 Witch that hath power o'er brave men's thews and nerves, 
 And lifts the mind from out itself. 
 
 Michael. Why think you 
 
 That he hath been thus cross'd ? His means appear 
 Enough, at least for his subdued desires. 
 
 Lambourn. I'll tell thee wherefore. Do but speak of want, 
 And lo ! he winces, and his nether lip 
 Quivers impatient, and he sighs, and frowns, 
 And mutters " Hunger is a fearful thing ; 
 And it is terrible that man's high soul 
 Should be made barren in its purest aims 
 By the mere lack of the earth's yellow clay." 
 Then will he pause and pause and come at last 
 And put some petty moneys in my hand, 
 And cry, " Go, feed the wretch ; he must not starve, 
 Or he will sin. Men's throats are scarcely safe, 
 While hunger prowls beside them ! " 
 
 Michael. The kind man ! 
 
 But this comes only from a gentle heart, 
 Not from a tried one. 
 
 Lambourn. Nay, not wholly so ; 
 
 For I have heard him, as he turned away, 
 Mutter, in stifled tones, " No man can tell 
 What want is in his brother man, unless 
 Want's self hath taught him, as the fiend taught me ! " 
 
 Michael. And hath he ne'er enlarged upon these words, 
 Nor lit them into clearer knowledge by 
 A more pronounced detail ? 
 
 Lambourn. No ; nor have I 
 
 Much sought to question. In my younger days 
 I pass'd much time amid the scholar race, 
 The learned lamps which light the unpitying world 
 By their own self-consuming. They are proud 
 A proud and jealous tribe and proud men loathe 
 To speak of former sufferings : most of all 
 Want's suffering, in the which the bitterest sting 
 Is in the humiliation ; therefore I 
 Cover the past with silence. But whate'er 
 His origin or early fate, there lives 
 None whom I hold more dearly, or to whom
 
 A TRAGEDY. 389 
 
 My hopes so well could trust my Madeline's lot. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 The Crowd at the back of the Stage gives way ARAM s]owly enters The neighbors gree* 
 him with respect, several appear to thank him for various benefits or charities. He re- 
 turns the greeting in dumb show, with great appearance of modesty. 
 
 Aram. Nay, nay, good neighbors, ye do make me blush 
 To think that 10 so large a store of praise 
 There goes so poor desert. My Madeline ! Sweet, 
 I see thee, and all brightens ! 
 
 Lambourn. You are late 
 
 But not less welcome. On my daughter's birth-day 
 You scarce should be the last to wish her joy. 
 
 Aram. Joy joy ! Is life so poor and harsh a boon 
 That we should hail each year that wears its gloss 
 And glory into winter? Shall we crown 
 With roses Time's bald temples, and rejoice 
 For what ? that we are hastening to the grave ? 
 No, no ! I cannot look on thy young brow, 
 Beautiful Madeline ! nor, upon the day 
 Which makes thee one year nearer unto Heaven, 
 Feel sad for Earth, whose very soul thou art ; 
 Or art, at least, to me ? for wert thou not. 
 Earth would be dead and wither'd as the clay 
 Of her own offspring when the breath departs. 
 
 Lambourn. I scarce had thought a scholar's dusty tomes 
 Could teach his lips the golden ways to woo. 
 Howbeit, in all times, man never learns 
 To love, nor learns to flatter. 
 
 Well, my friends, 
 
 Will ye within ? our simple fare invites. 
 Aram, when thou hast made thy peace with Madeline, 
 We shall oe glad to welcome thee. (70 Michael.} This love 
 Is a most rigid faster, and would come 
 To a quick ending in an epicure. 
 
 [Exeunt LAMBOURN, the Neighbors, etc. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 MADELINE and ARAM. 
 
 Aram. Alone with thee ! Peace comes to earth again, 
 Beloved ! would our life could, like a brook 
 Watering a desert, glide unseen away, 
 Murmuring our own heart's music, which is love. 
 And glassing only Heaven, which is love's life ! 
 I am not made to live among mankind ; 
 They stir dark memory from unwilling sleep, 
 And but no matter. Madeline, it is s' range 
 That one like thee, for whom, methinks, fair Love 
 Should wear its bravest and most gallant garb, 
 Should e'er have cast her heart's rich freight upon 
 A thing like me, not fashion'd in the mould 
 Which wins a maiden's eye, austere of life,
 
 390 EUGENE ARAM ; 
 
 And grave and sad of bearing, and so long 
 Inured to solitude, as to have grown 
 A man that hath the shape, but not the soul, 
 Of the world's inmates. 
 
 Madeline. 'Tis for that I loved. 
 
 The world I love not therefore I love thee ! 
 Come, shall I tell thee, 'tis an oft-told tale, 
 Yet never wearies, by what bright degrees 
 Thy empire rose, till it o'erspread my soul, 
 And made my all of being love ? Thou know'st 
 When first thou earnest into these lone retreats, 
 My years yet dwelt in childhood ; but my thoughts 
 Went deeper than my playmates'. Books I loved, 
 But not the books that woo a woman's heart ; 
 I loved not tales of war and stern emprise, 
 And man let loose on man dark deeds, of which 
 The name was glory, but the nature crime, 
 Nor themes of vulgar love of maidens' hearts 
 Won by small worth, set off by gaudy show ; 
 Those tales which win the wilder heart, in me 
 Did move some anger and a world of scorn. 
 AH that I dream'd of sympathy was given 
 Unto the lords of Mind the victor chiefs 
 Of Wisdom or of Wisdom's music Song ; 
 And as I read of them, I dream'd, and drew 
 In my soul's colors, shapes my soul might love, 
 And, loving, worship, they were like 10 thee ! 
 Thou earnest unknown and lonely, and around 
 Thy coming, and thy bearing, and thy mood 
 Hung mystery, and, in guessing at its clue, 
 Mystery grew interest, and the interest love ! 
 
 Aram (aside). O woman ! how from that which she should shun. 
 Does the poor trifler draw what charms her most ! 
 
 Madeline. Then, as time won thee frequent to our hearth, 
 Thou fiom thy learning's height didst stoop to teach me 
 Nature's more gentle secrets the sweet lore 
 Of the green herb and the bee-worshipp'd flower ; 
 And when the night did o'er this nether earth 
 Distil meek quiet, and the heart of Heaven 
 With love grew breathless, thou wert wont to raise 
 My wild thoughts to the weird and solemn stars ; 
 Tell of each orb the courses and the name ; 
 And of the winds, the clouds, th' invisible air, 
 Make eloquent discourse ; until methought 
 No human life, but some diviner spirit, 
 Alone could preach such truths of things divine. 
 And so and so 
 
 Aram. From heaven we turn'd to earth, 
 
 And Thought did father Passion ? Gentlest love ! 
 If thou couldst know how hard it is for one 
 Who takes such feeble pleasure in this earth 
 To worship aught earth born, thou'dst learn how wild 
 The wonder of my passion and thy power. 
 But ere three days are past th uu wilt be mine !
 
 A TRAGEDY. 3QI 
 
 And mine for ever ! Oh, delicious thought ! 
 
 How glorious were the future, could I shut 
 
 The past the past from Ha ! what stirred ? didst hear, 
 
 Madeline, didst hear ? 
 
 Madeline. Hear what ? the very air 
 
 Lies quiet as an infant in its sleep. 
 
 Aram (looking round). Methought I heard 
 
 Madeline. What, love ? 
 
 Aram. It was a cheat 
 
 Of these poor fools, the senses. Come, thy hand ; 
 I love to feel thy touch, thou art so pure 
 So soft so sacred in thy loveliness, 
 That I feel safe with thee ! Great God himself 
 Would shun to launch upon the brow of guilt 
 His bolt while thou wert by ! 
 
 Madeline. Alas, alas ! 
 
 Why dost thou talk of guilt ? 
 
 Aram. Did I, sweet love, 
 
 Did I say guilt ? it is an ugly word. 
 Why, sweet, indeed did I say guilt, my Madeline? 
 
 Madeline. In truth you did. Your hand is dry the pulse 
 Beats quick and fever'd : you consume too much 
 Of life in thought you over-rack the nerves 
 And thus a shadow bids them quail and tremble ; 
 But when I queen it, Eugene, o'er your home, 
 I'll see this fault amended. 
 
 Aram. Ay, 
 
 In sooth thou shalt. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 Enter MICHAEL. 
 
 Michael. Friend Lambourn sends his greeting, 
 And prays you to his simple banquet. 
 
 Madeline. Come ! 
 
 H is raciest wine will in my father's cup 
 Seem dim till you can pledge him. Eugene, come. 
 
 Aram. And if I linger o'er the draught, sweet loye, 
 Thou'lt know I do but linger o'er the wish 
 For thee, which sheds its blessing on the bowl. 
 
 SCENE. 
 
 Sunset a Wood-scene a Cottage at a distance in the foreground a Woodman felling 
 
 wood. 
 
 Enter ARAM. 
 
 Wise men have praised the peasant's thoughtless lot. 
 And learned pride hath envi--d humble toil : 
 If they were right, why, let us burn our books, 
 And sit us down, and play the fool with Time, 
 Mocking the prophet Wisdom's grave decrees,
 
 39 2 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 And walling this trite PRESENT with dark clouds, 
 Till night becomes our nature, and the ray 
 Ev'n of the stars but meteors that withdraw 
 The wandering spirit from the sluggish rest 
 Which makes its proper bliss. I will accost 
 This denizen of toil, who, with hard hands, 
 Prolongs from day to day unthinking life, 
 And ask if he be happy. Friend, good eve. 
 
 Woodman, 'Tis the great scholar ! Worthy sir, good eve. 
 
 Aram. Thou seem'st o'erworn : through this long summer day 
 Hast thou been laboring in the lonely glen ? 
 
 Woodman. Ay, save one hour at noon. 'Tis weary work ; 
 But men like me, good sir, must not repine 
 At work which feeds the craving mouths at home. 
 
 Aram. Then thou art happy, friend, and with content 
 Thy life hath made a compact. Is it so ? 
 
 Woodman. Why, as to that, sir, I must surely feel 
 Some pangs when I behold the ease with which 
 The wealthy live ; while I, through heat and cold, 
 Can scarcely conquer Famine. 
 
 In this scene Boteler (the Houseman of the novel) is again introduced.
 
 A'- 111 ;'"! 1 """""! 
 
 A 001 002419 8