£s \ I'l E> RARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS U86e v. I ERNEST VANE BY ALEXANDER BAILLIE COCHRANE, M.P. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1849. LONDON: HARRISON AND SON, PRINTERS, ST. martin's lane. /./ TO THE HONOURABLE GEOKGE PERCY SYDNEY SMYTHE, THESE VOLUMES ARE DEDICATED By ALEXANDER BAILLIE COCHRANE, IN THE PRESUMPTUOUS HOPE THAT THEIR TWO NAMES V MAY BE ASSOCIATED IN LITERATURE, AS THEY HAVE BEEN IN LONG AND UNINTERRUPTED FRIENDSHIP. ERNEST VANE CHAPTER I. It was a cold March evening, the lamps in Sackville Street were lit, and cast a flickering pale uncertain light through the drops of rain which plunged from the roofs of the houses upon the pavement; the shrill clear horns of the guards, were heard above the tramp of the horses, and the swift rattle, of the wheels of the mail coaches as they rolled along Piccadilly. The shutters of most of the houses were closed, but from the principal floor of an hotel, situated near the VOL. i. b Z ERNEST VANE. corner of Sackville Street and Vere Street, bright rays of fire-light were gleaming, occasionally the curtains were partially drawn aside, and a small fair head might be seen looking anxiously up and down the street, as though expecting some imme- diate arrival; but all the passengers bent on busi- ness or pleasure hurried by, only one or two occasionally casting a hurried glance at the win- dow, when the head was quickly withdrawn. At last the patience of the fair occupant must have been quite exhausted, for she rang the bell almost impatiently, waited at the door until it was answered, and then asked the servant who ap- peared whether Mr. Leslie had put off the dinner hour. The servant answered in the negative. " Did he not say at what time he should re- turn ?" the young lady asked. " He told me to have his things to dress at the usual time/' was the reply. The lady took up a book and began to read, but her eye had scarcely skimmed down the first ERNEST VANE. page, when a heavy footstep was heard upon the stair, she started from her seat, letting her book and work both fall to the ground, and ran up to the door exclaiming " My dearest father." The person who entered the room was the type of a class with which most men in the course of their lives become familiar. He had thick-set, and lumbering limbs, but large as he was, the head still seemed out of pro- portion to his body; it hung a little on one side, as though borne dow T n by its own weight. The hair was short and grizzly ; and there was a heaviness in the glance which at first sight con- veyed the notion of an over-loaded brain, but a close observer might have detected a quick cun- ning glance in the little grey twinkling eye which glistened beneath the pent house of overhanging eye-brow; the lines of the face were strongly marked, indicating habits of deep and patient thought ; and from the compressed upper lip, it might be judged that the practice of self-command B 2 4 ERNEST VANE. was habitual to him; and, indeed, among no class is self-command and control of feature so re- quisite as in that class which this man repre- sented — the monied interest, — where the betrayal of emotion is at times not less to be dreaded than the loss of a galleon, or the failure of some gigantic speculation ; but if, in all phy- sical characteristics, Mr. Leslie aptly illustrated the man of the counting-house, of shrewd guesses and practical dealings, it was impossible not at the same time to perceive from his appearance that he was a man of great consideration in the society which he frequented. His dress had an attention bestowed upon it rarely found among those whose time is occupied in business ; he was scrupulously neat, and if he erred it was almost on the side of a certain dandyism, there was a peculiar pretension to an accuracy of fit and tie, which was slightly out of character and keeping with the stern con- centrated look which we have described. Talleyrand has said that to study a man, you ERNEST VANE. O must notice not the countenance but the voice ; hut there is frequently as much character in a man's footsteps as in either his countenance or his voice; and an attentive practised ear might have traced the whole of Mr. Leslie's life in the heavy measured pace with which he ascended the creaking stair, and the methodical manner with which he rubbed his feet for the second time on the mat, he having already performed that ope- ration at the street door. When he entered the room the sternness of his countenance was only the expression of the moment, for so soon as the exclamation, " My dearest father" met his ear, the thoughtful frown disappeared to give place to a kind warm smile, and his face broke into the perfect beauty of a father's love. " My darling Ida, I am, I fear, very late, and have kept you waiting," and as he clasped her slight waist with one arm, with the other he parted the delicate silken hair which fell from her tem- ples, and kissed her forehead with tenderness. D ERNEST VANE. It was meet that the stern man should love the fair child, that the oak should sustain the tendril, for although not of singular beauty, of that marked loveliness which men, amid the traffic, the amusement, and the occupation of life, stop to look at, her^s was a face that grew upon you as you gazed ; there is a physical beauty which strikes you at first sight, which you turn round to admire, and then turn away to forget ; for the mind, the soul, is too frequently wanting there. There are other countenances, and Ida^s was one of these, in which the first impres- sion affects the mind and the heart; and it is not until after you have pondered on the sweet- ness of expression, that you remember how soft is the bloom on the cheek ; how love-moulded the lip, how blue and gentle the eye. There was nothing striking in J da as to height or figure, but there was that which at once rendered her remarkable ; — for, alas, it is too rare — a look of such confiding innocence, that the worst nature ERNEST VANE. / must have become purified as it gazed upon her countenance, a holiness of thought which might be read in the clear pale brow, and the delicate flush that mantled her cheek. " Bring dinner," said Mr. Leslie to the servant, who had followed him into the room ; but the usual harsh stern tone was now softened by affec- tion, and while the dinner was preparing, the father took the daughter on his knee, and the bright tresses of her fair head fell over his iron-grey temples. Youth and Age blending together ; the Past and the Future embracing each other. It was evident, even to Ida^s unpractised eye, that her father had a secret on his mind ; he was quite oppressed with it; it was choaking in his throat; but it was equally evident that, for the moment, he had determined not to touch upon the subject that was nearest to his heart. Once or twice he hemmed, as if about to say something, but so soon as Ida looked up to his face, he spoke on some indifferent subject; and yet a conscious sa- ERNEST VANE, tisfaction glowed on his countenance, as his lips half opened for the intended disclosure, as though he liked to play with his own anxiety to reveal it. Every now and then he cast a furtive side- glance at the cheek which was reposing against his heart, to read whether she suspected his possession of a secret, but he could see nothing in those features save confiding truth and love. Ida, unused to London, might have been disturbed at her father's protracted absence ; but now that he was returned to her, that she was relieved from her depression and loneliness, curiosity possessed a very small fraction of her thoughts ; at that moment it was indeed true that ignorance was bliss to her. The dinner passed almost in silence, for Mr. Leslie was much absorbed in his thoughts, and yet there was a light merry tone in his voice, when he asked his child to drink wine with him as though the subject of his meditation was not disagreeable to him, and his face beamed with ERNEST VAXE. 9 benevolence which might well be termed expan- sive when he threw himself back in his chair after dinner, and unbuttoned a button of his waistcoat. The dinner finished, he turned his chair towards the fire, desired Ida to draw hers near to him, and filled his glass to the brim. His eye wandered round the room, and at last rested on a newspaper which was lying on the sofa. " Have you read the paper to-day, my darling ?" "I took it up for a moment," Ida replied; " and was just commencing one of those long, long articles, which I cannot imagine how people have the patience to write, for I never have the patience to read them through; when, to my astonishment, who do you think was announced ? I was so surprised, for I did not think that we knew any one in London." " And who was it, my dear child \" "Why, Lord Linton." " In spite of the effort which Mr. Leslie made to appear calm, a slight flush overspread his 10 ERNEST VANE. countenance, and there was something approach- ing to a look of triumph in his glance as he re- peated the name. " Lord Linton ! did he give any reason for call- ing, Ida?" " Yes, papa ; he said that he had heard of your arrival in town, that you had been at school together, and he was anxious to renew your acquaintance — indeed, he was so kind, papa, about you. I was astonished at seeing him, and I don't remember one-half that he said, but he talked a great deal about the government, foreign embassies, operas, balls. I am afraid he must have found me very stupid." " But what did he say about me ? Did he mention why I had come to town ? or did he ask you the reason of our visit ?" asked Mr. Leslie, somewhat impatiently. "No 3" replied Ida; "he seemed to take it quite as a matter of course ; by-the-bye he did say something about an estate. Ah, now ERNEST VANE. 11 I remember, I am quite sure you have some secret you are keeping froui me, tell it me/' and she coaxed him so fondly, he was amply re- paid for his discretion. " Precisely as I imagined," muttered Mr. Leslie. "A man has only to become rich for his friends to find him out ; I rejoice at the probable cause of Lord Linton's visit, for your sake, my darling Ida, not for my own." And again the grey-haired old man passed his arm round his child's waist, and drew her towards him. " And now Ida, my love, can your little head guess why I asked you if you had read the Morn- ing Post?" " Indeed, no, Papa, what can the Morning Post have to do with me, with your secret or Lord Linton?" " Everything, my pet," answered Mr. Leslie, " everything, take up the paper and look at the first column." 12 ERNEST VANE. "There is nothing particular," she said. "Oh, yes, now I see there is an immense advertisement about the sale of the Marquis of Rochdale's estate. What a description — forests, lakes, broken wood- lands, princely possession, feudal castle, baronial rights, medieeval architecture, — what a beautiful place it must be!— This is all that I see, Papa." As the father listened he placed the glass half emptied on the table; he took the paper from his daughter's hand, turned his chair slightly round, and then drew her from her seat to his knee, and she seemed to comprehend, that something more than a mere secret, a mystery of her future exis- tence was about to be revealed to her; for she was silent, and did not caress him as she was wont to do at other times, but looked anxiously into his countenance as it were to read the tale that was written there. u Ida, my own sweet child, come to my arms," said the agitated old man. " I will tell you the secret, all the time of dinner I was longing to dis- ERNEST VANE. 13 close it to you: this magnificent place, this Castle Melwood of which you have just been reading so glowing a description is your own." "Mine, what do you mean dearest Papa? 5 ' " I mean precisely what I say/ 5 repeated Mr. Leslie, in a somewhat harder tone, for his mercan- tile and matter-of-fact mind grew impatient if he was not immediately understood. " Yes, Ida, after a life of toil and self-denial, I have been able to realize sufficient to purchase Castle Melwood, and what Lord Linton's visit has to do with the matter is simply this : that even from my little knowledge of the world, I shrewdly suspect that had he not heard some rumour of this purchase, we should not to-day have been honoured by the presence of the cabinet minister, ex-ambassador, ex- governor, grand cross of ever so many orders, and God knows what else!' 5 "Oh, no, my dearest Papa, you are quite wrong, 55 resumed Ida, for with all the generous enthusiasm of youth, she thought at the moment 14 ERNEST VANE. less of her new possession, than of Lord Linton, who had appeared so kind to her, being attacked, and his motives misinterpreted. " No, I assure you, that is impossible, for he talked so much about you, and with real affection. One can always tell when a person speaks from the heart, don't you think so, Papa?" (poor innocent Ida, thinking she could judge Lord Linton's character from his manner.) " Don't say anything against Lord Lin- ton, for I was quite delighted with him, so different to all the people I have been accustomed to meet at Liverpool. I can assure you that he amused me excessively." " You are an enthusiastic little pet," said Mr. Leslie, pressing Ida still closer to him, " but what do you think of my new purchase ?" "I am so taken by surprise," replied Ida, "that I scarcely know what to think about it, I cannot collect my mind at all. Imagine Castle Melwood, so grand and magnificent, which belonged to the Marquis of Rochdale, now being ours ! It will take ERNEST VANE. 15 me some time to accustom myself to the change of position, and then are you not afraid, Papa, that the people in the neighbourhood who have been accustomed to such a great family as Lord Roch- dale's, will think it odd ? will " a I know what you are about to say, Ida/' in- terrupted Mr. Leslie, impatiently, for nothing is more annoying than to find our own lurking doubts and mistrusts confirmed by another, u you are about to suggest the possibility of our not being received with cordiality by the neighbour- hood; I suspected as much. Now let me set your mind at rest on this point, and I do not wish to have the subject alluded to again; what I have attained to has been the result of untiring in- dustry, and let me also add of honourable dealing." He raised his head in conscious pride as he con- tinued, "yes, Ida, I have never been guilty of one act, never entertained one thought, which I should scruple to avow; I know not what my Lord Roch- dale, Lord Linton, or Lord anybody's opinions 16 ERNEST VANE. of me may be, but of this I am sure, they shall not despise a man who has risen from the people, yes, from that people to whose energy, to whose probity, to whose gallantry, we owe the great- ness this country has attained to; the people, not a sublime abstraction, as some have called them, but a people by whose bone and sinew our empire is preserved." And his cheek glowed, and his nostrils dilated, and his whole presence was that of a man im- pressed with a great conviction. But still the severity of his voice when he first commenced, proved that his mind was not quite at rest upon that point. Ida was silent, for she feared that she had unin- tentionally offended him, and the long lash fell over the blue down-cast eye, as though she dreaded to meet his anger. It was but momentary. Mr. Leslie was proud of his own eloquence, and entirely convinced by his own warmth; besides he was too full of his ERNEST VANE. 17 new acquisition to entertain long any other feeling but that of enjoyment; he took a roll of papers from his pocket, which contained plans of the different parts of the castle, admirably executed, and each fresh exclamation of delight from Ida, added to his happiness. u It is very late, my darling," he said at last; c; you will have time enough during the next few days to think over the alterations we are to make, and the flower-gardens which are to be laid out. We must remain in town for a week; and all my time will be occupied in con- cluding my arrangements. They would have taken much longer, but this purchase has been discussed for some time past, although it was only definitively concluded to-day ; and now you must go to bed, my child. Bless me! it is twelve o'clock!" he continued, starting from his seat, " we shall go on gossipping all night. God bless you, Ida, my love! Sleep well, and be happy \" VOL. I. C 18 ERNEST VANE. She was happy, as she murmured, in return, a blessing on her father. Their rooms were next door to each other ; the blue spring, and the dusky autumn of life were soon fast asleep under the same roof; the soft- featured, child-like simplicity of earliest youth, and the stern, wrinkled, material experience of the world's wrestler ; the balmy breath of inno- cence, and the hoarse slumber of the heavy sleeper; there they lay; and yet, different as they were, to each there was the same kind thought, the same ties of heart and affection, the clear bright waters of hope flowed through the rugged and time-worn channels, and through the soft and pleasant meads. She was dreaming of the hap- piness in store for her father; he of the blessings which Providence would shower on his child. Those hearts, divided by darkness and space, were united in Love. ERNEST VANE. 19 CHAPTER II. The week passed most rapidly. Mr. Leslie was occupied nearly the whole day in making those numerous arrangements which were the necessary consequence of such a purchase. He was now rarely out of temper ; his whole mind was wrapt up in his new acquisition; and in his desire to make Ida happy. The gentle and happy girl implored him not to take so much trouble about her; but all her entreaties were unavailing, his generosity was unbounded. Every clay he re- turned with fresh purchases, which he assured her c 2 20 ERNEST VANE. were indispensable to her new position ; a looker- on might have been amused at his frequently misplaced efforts to please, but could not, at the same time, fail to love such unselfishness. If avarice grows with what it feeds on, so does generosity. Perhaps of all enjoyments in life, there is none like that of giving; and if those who hug themselves on their accumulations, who glory in the consciousness of having so much store of wealth amassed for their own selfish ob- jects, whose hearts are possessed with projects of future aggrandizement, whose conversation is perpetually of balances, of dividends, and specu- lations — could but know the pleasure of giving from their abundance, they would be able to appreciate the still greater happiness of those who give from their poverty. Mr. Leslie, although educated in the hard-featured school of political economy, had never embraced its cold, callous doctrines; that which had preserved his freshness and kindness of heart was his love for ERNEST VANE. 21 his child ; it was this attraction which had ani- mated all his exertions, and he thought that he only cared for wealth, in order to promote her happiness. As for Ida herself, she was fully interested in all those imaginations with which the heart of a young girl placed in such a situation is naturally filled ; she amused herself with copying the draw- ings of Castle Melwood, and designing new plans; she drove in the park with a cousin of her father's who resided in the vicinity of the Regent's Park, and owned a very cumbersome, vulgarly embla- zoned carriage, drawn by two heavy, long-tailed, underbred horses, loaded with richly embossed harness. Here she gazed with wonder on the pomp, parade, and refinement of the great city, and remarked everything, without noticing the attention which she herself attracted, and little imagining that people were smiling at the con- trast which her fair, fresh, graceful features pre- sented to the good-natured, vulgar, ruddy, 22 ERNEST VANE. strongly-developed^ countenance of her magnifi- cent cicerone. She was ignorant of her own beauty — vanity had not taken root in her heart ; it was happiness enough for her to watch the dazzling crowd ; the rapid movement, the ever-varying forms of the world's kaleidoscope ; she did not care much for her change of position, although Lord Linton, who was a man of fifty, and of ambition vast as his own ruined estates, in the constant visits which he paid to Sackville Street, endeavoured to impress it upon her mind; while he was describing the magnificence of the halls and galleries, the varied beauties of the wild and broken chace which extended for miles round Castle Melwood, she was thinking of the pony which Mr. Leslie had purchased for her, with what glee she would gallop over fern and brake, and how enjoyable the wide stillness of the extensive park would be after the confinement of Liverpool. Do what you would, it would have been very ERNEST VANE. 23 difficult to spoil Ida ; there are some people, in whose hearts all thoughts work for good, who purify every thing which runs through their minds, and who have only so much of human weaknesses, ambitions, and vanities, that they are charitable towards those in whom these feelings are more developed, and that they learn to love them, even in their errors. Of Mr. Leslie it is not necessary to say much ; his history may be imagined from what has preceded ; it was one of those histories so honour- able to our country, to our national institutions^ as well as to the individual; of something less than obscure parents, by indefatigable toil, by strict and honourable dealing, he had accumu- lated, through a long course of patient industry, something more than a million sterling — he was essentially the man of the people. It may be guessed, from the few features of his character that we have already described, that he was plain-spoken, single-hearted, generous, 2<4 ERNEST VANE. abounding in charity, but somewhat vain, and at times tyrannical; easily irritated, but soon appeased; impatient of contradiction; a mix- ture of good and evil, which might be con- sidered almost strange, if all characters were not composed of good and evil, and if every single quality of human nature had not its opposite, into which it frequently merges, and which leads men into such apparent inconsistencies. We to© well know that every single virtue has its corres- ponding vice running parallel with it, and dis- puting every inch of the way — generosity and prodigality — the love of justice, the anxiety for revenge — the spirit of liberty, the dogmas of license — laudable ambition, and the anxiety to drag down others to our own level — the boldness of truth, the presumption of ignorance — the love of the virtuous, and selfish censoriousness — the charity that suffers all things, and the weakness that betrays us into the follies we censure in others. Who can venture to say where the ERNEST VANE. * 25 light meets the darkness, and under which head his own peculiar qualities should be classed ? So if Mr. Leslie was full of apparent contra- dictions, he was like many other people; but in no feature of his character was this contradiction more apparent than in the rough-and-ready accent with which he was wont to address most people^ and the gentle inflection of his voice when he spoke to Ida. Up to fifty-eight, his character and disposition had remained much the same ; he was now on the eve of changing his whole habits of life, and we shall see whether, after that age, the character alters with circumstances. Meanwhile, great preparations were making for their reception at Castle Melwood. It is melan- choly that it should be so., but thus it ever is ; the same trumpet which announces the decease of one sovereign, proclaims the advent of another; a new house is built up from the ruins of an old one. The same day great families decay, and new families arise. The same bells which 26 ERNEST VANE. chime for the new birth, toll for the new made grave. Castle Melwood was really a very fine pos- session; it stood at the end of a long range of hills which formed the boundary between two counties, covered with ancestral oaks, which had attained their maturity, but had not yet fallen into decay; from the terraces of the castle itself, the eye swept over an immense extent of woodland and pasture, intersected by those pleasant streams, each of which pos- sesses its separate interest, and a store of associations bright as the ripples upon its sur- face, and fleeting as its bubbles. On one side, at four miles 5 distance, the sea broke upon the shore, and the white sails might be seen gliding noiselessly and pleasantly along, like the visions of a youthful heart; at the very foot of the castle, the village of Melwood was situated; one of those comfortable, nay almost luxurious English villages, which so astonish foreigners, ERNEST VANE. 27 and even give our own statistical tourists very- erroneous notions as to the universal prosperity of our rural population; the cottages were dotted about, not built in formal streets, and each cottage had its plot of ground before it, laid out in tasteful flower-gardens, and its allotment of land at the back. The estate which combined not less than forty thousand acres, in a ring fence, had been long neglected; the late possessor had lived half his life in Italy, was an admirable connoiseur in all fine arts, and while talking of economy had managed to ruin himself by his extravagance, and his ill-selected purchases: to do him full justice, for a long time he laid out as much as he could upon his estate; but a statue or a picture would at any time tempt him. His first inten- tions were always generous, but his after- thoughts always selfish. But he had this merit ; so soon as he was fully persuaded of the fact that he could no longer discharge the obligations of a 28 ERNEST VANE. landed proprietor, he determined to sell the estate; perhaps, to tell the truth, he was not sorry of an excuse for living entirely abroad. Mr. Leslie, who had long been seeking for such an investment, saw the advertisement, and hearing from a friend that it really was an eligible purchase, lost not a moment in coming to a conclusion. With the rapid energy of a man of decision, he went immediately across the country to see it; was delighted at its appearance; it did not prove quite so good an investment as he was led to believe; but that did not matter: the latent germ of ambition had taken root in his mind; at any sacrifice he determined to possess the ancient property of the House of Rochdale; but excited and anxious as he was, no one could detect his feelings through the habitual coldness of his features. He managed entirely to outwit Lord Rochdale's agents, and after much discus- sion and affected coyness, he bought the estate a great bargain. ERNEST VANE. 29 Whoever had the good fortune to possess Castle Melwood was almost a sovereign prince ; at any rate, he was monarch of all he surveyed, and that was a good deal of arable and pasture land; with jurisdiction over upwards of twenty parishes. The only exception to this monopoly was a small estate of about two thousand a year, situated about a mile from the castle and nearer the sea, which belonged to Mr. Ernest Vane. This estate had been in former days a source of much annoyance to the late Marquis; he would have given any price for it, but, unfortunately, it was priceless, that is, it was strictly entailed. There had always existed a very hostile feeling between the Marquis and the late Mr. Vane, who had died in the preceding year, leaving two children, Ernest, and his sister, Algitha. Lord Rochdale's feelings, with respect to the former proprietor of this property were precisely those of Haman, when he saw Mordecai sitting at the gate; SO ERNEST VANE. and it must be owned that the late Mr. Vane's manners were not prepossessing; he interfered in everything, and as he resided constantly on the spot, whereas the Marquis was generally ab- sent, he really did end in usurping the whole authority of the neighbourhood. These were but trifles, but these trifles make up the sum of human existence: give me the trifles of life in my favour, and you shall have the great events. At last, by untiring energy and attention, Mr. Vane's little Monaco, quite eclipsed in influence the neighbouring sovereignty. The elder Mr. Vane was a very mean man, wise as a serpent, and not quite as harmless as a dove; he had never lost an opportunity of benefiting himself or his estate, and when the opportunity was not forth- coming, he created it. If it was a meeting of road trustees, he would vote all the money for his own district. In vain Lord Rochdale's agents squabbled and rebelled, if they became very ERNEST VANE. 31 troublesome, then Mr. Vane invited them to dinner. In addition to all this, Mr. Vane was an orator, a county orator; a most terrible infliction to civilised society, a plague beneath which even Pharaotr's heart must have broken. But such a man is the vital principle of country life, and so Mr. Vane presided at all dinners, and got them up on every conceivable occasion; for His Majesty's accession, His Majesty's corona- tion, His Majesty's birthday. No matter what the event, it was celebrated by a dinner, in order that Mr. Vane might have the fun of presiding. He proposed and seconded candidates at the county town, sat in the carriage of the new-made member at the chairing, cheered with stentorian lungs, and could talk at any length about the rights of the people, Runnymede, and the development of the national mind; but all this imposed wonderfully upon the little commu- nity; and then it must be owned, that to the extent 32 ERNEST VANE. of his means he was hospitable; when the hounds met in his neighbourhood, breakfast was always prepared for the whole field; while the old castle looked frowning on the vale, stern, gloomy, histo- rical, and north tower, western tower, eastern tower, round tower, clock tower, were all shut up and desolate, Wimbourne looked gay, sunny, and joy- ous ; it was a small house embowered in flowers and evergreens, with a rippling stream gurgling at the foot of a succession of terraces: Byron prays for "A home in some vast wilderness, With some fair spirit for my minister." But he would probably have preferred this seclusion, although it had no pretension what- ever to the character of wilderness; and assu- redly all doubt would have been removed from his mind could he once have caught a glimpse of the fair spirit who ministered there so grace- fully and gently. She was, may be, two years older than Ida, ERNEST VANE. S3 equal in beauty, but of a beauty widely diffe- rent. If Ida might have been compared to a Claude in her warm, sunny, basking loveliness, Algitha might have been represented by the works of Salvator Rosa, in his boldest touches, his most startling imaginings. She was taller than Ida — altogether more striking. She had a wilful and wayward manner, which could not fail to captivate even those whom at first it might have annoyed ; strong and impetuous in the ex- pression of her feelings ; sometimes even irritable and excitable ; but however foolishly she might act or talk, it was quite impossible not to forgive her immediately. She was so frank in her regrets after any of her little sallies of impatience, that her very faults endeared her to every one. She had a truly wild gipsey countenance, with long black hair, so long that it was only with great ingenuity and repeated coils it could be at all kept in anything like order. Her face was an oval, with a small rounded dimpling chin, and a VOL. I. D 34 ERNEST VANE. ruddy, petulant upper lip, which betokened at once defiance and passion ; but her brow was so pure, the eye so steady and clear, that it was not possible to mistake the truth of her character. A child might have read her nature, and almost envied its earnestness and simplicity ; but an ex- perienced judge of the heart and countenance would have perceived a danger lurking there, as the mariner in the gorgeous, glorious streaks of a brilliant morning sky, foretels the proximity of peril. It was quite evident that if she ever loved, it would not be with the cold caution of our northern character, but with the passionate ear- nestness of the warm Italian — with the recklessness of those who care only for the enjoyment of the present hour, and allow the future to take care of itself. Her father, like most fathers, was perfectly ignorant of his child's disposition ; he saw her flashing before him with all the brilliancy of youth, calling forth bursts of admiration from the plain- spoken men by whom he was surrounded, and ERNEST VANE. 35 whose admiration was not always expressed with excessive delicacy ; he told every one with an oath that he loved her, that meant, that he loved her as he would a favourite horse or hound, as some- thing necessary to his existence, as adding some- what to his importance, as a medium of indirect flattery towards himself, and an ornament to his house and to his table. It was not so with her brother Ernest, who was the very opposite to his father in almost every respect; not ill-disposed towards those English sports which give a manliness to the charac- ter, — teach habits of self-reliance, and which in their indirect effect have no slight and unim- portant influence on the stability of our national institutions ; he pursued them with pleasure, but with moderation, for his heart was elsewhere. He was, indeed, what some might call a dreamer, and a visionary, but what he himself dignified by the name of poet, and he was right, for although the verses which he wrote were not always smooth D 2 36 ERNEST VANE. and harmonious, his was pre-eminently a poetic and impressionable temperament. He had been educated at a private tutor's in the neighbourhood of Stoneyhurst; and the society into which he had been thrown so early had left a deep impres- sion on his mind. Whatever the errors of system and opinion prevalent there, they were combined with an earnestness which could not fail to touch a heart instinctively prone to the beautiful and the mysterious. He had reflected very deeply for his age, and this threw a shade of melancholy, a pale cast of thought over his countenance. He was at this time very young in years, but old, not in experience of life, but in expe- rience of the mind. Without mixing much in the world, he had an intimate acquaintance with the motives which influence men who are associated in great business, and could have ana^ lysed character and unravelled the hidden im- pulses of actions as well as most of those who had long taken an active part in the ERNEST VANE. 37 bustling drama of life : just as Lord Howe's famous manoeuvre on the first of June was invented by a clergyman who had never seen the sea. Misunderstood by his father, unappre- ciated by his neighbours, all his affections had been turned back on his own heart ; and instead of a man of taste and refinement, it is very pos- sible that he might have become a decided misan- thrope, had it not been for the society of Algitha, whom he loved with extravagant tenderness, and who in return delighted to hang on his words, and did not flinch from receiving his advice, for even when adverse to her, it was always expressed with a winning tenderness of manner. He was one of those single-hearted men who, in the midst of the turmoil and excitement of life, the world cannot stop to appreciate : just as in the tumult of the battle, the most heroic in- stances of self-devotion may pass unnoticed. But there is not one of us who at some time or in some manner has not imagined some ideal charac- OO ERNEST VANE. ter, to whom we attribute all those qualities which we most admire and affect, and these qualities Ernest possessed. This is the imagination of great- ness, which is common to all, and is the evidence of the Godhead within us ; later in life, sad to say, these imaginations, so vague, so indefinite, it is true, but once so glorious and absorbing, are despised and rejected like the playthings of youth, or the ashes of the wood that warmed us. The heart is then covered with the wrecks of broken feelings, as the glittering sands are after a storm hidden by the long brown strips of rugged sea-weed; but the wreck serves to prove that a gallant vessel once floated there, and the sand exists, athough concealed from view. The fair child's dream may never be realised, but it never wholly perishes ; it will be recalled in mo- ments of sickness and depression, when the glory of this world is passing away, and a greater is bursting on the view; the pleasant fields and pleasant voices of childhood return to the memory ERNEST VANE. 39 when the frame is purified by suffering and dis- ease; the heart beomes young again as it ap- proaches to heaven. Oh, then, be kind to the young, for the word said to the child is remem- bered in old age. Ernest Vane aptly impersonated this idea which so many entertain ; but, at the same time, it would be doing him an injustice to delineate him as an hero of romance, that staple com- modity of every novel. He was anything but that; he was only what many men are, full of hopes, and affections unemployed; but unem- ployed affections lead to thought, and thought in- duces poetry. But Ernest had faults, — a spirit impatient and intolerant of the world's claims and the world's will ; a haughty irritability, which not unfrequently broke out at inappro- priate moments ; a sense of superiority, which too often betrayed itself to others. His coun- tenance, as countenances ever will, caught some- thing from the superiority of mind, that most 40 ERNEST VANE. enviable of all aristocracies. The course of the veins in the temples might be traced through the thin transparent skin ; his eyes were blue, clear and limpid as an Athenian sky; the nostril was thin, — sure indication of purity of blood; the mouth small, melancholy, and full of expression. The whole countenance was one which interested you at once. The people in the whole country round respected him. When he was walking or riding with Algitha, if he had been the Marquis of Rochdale and proprietor of Castle Melwood, he could not have been treated with greater defe- rence ; and many did not scruple to express the wish that those estates belonged to him. If they had consulted Ernest, he would have told them that he was quite happy without them. ERNEST VANE. 41 CHAPTER III. It was the morning that the new arrivals were expected, and it dawned auspiciously The castle looked magnificent. All the shutters were removed from the windows ; the sun seemed to rejoice at having something new to shine on> for it blazed on the bright sheets of glass in all its glory. Algitha had been idling her whole morning in the garden, and was now painting in her boudoir, when Ernest entered. " Well ! Have you heard anything of the Les- lies, Ernest }" she asked. 42 ERNEST VANE. " Only that they are certain to arrive this evening, and the poor people are quite mad on the subject. They seem to think that the golden age has returned to earth. I never saw a vil- lage so excited. They have been pillaging our garden of all the best flowers, and as for the shrub- beries about the castle, there is not a plant left in them. You will never recognise your favourite walks again ; the laurels are cut down to the very roots, and they have not taken the trouble to pull the flowers, but actually torn them from their beds. It is so like the multitude, who will always attempt to improve upon nature, and think the flowers look better in triumphal arches and gar- lands, than in their natural beds. However, it shows a hospitable kind feeling — an anxiety to please." " An anxiety to please themselves," interrupted Algitha ; " for it is not possible to believe that the people care in the least degree for persons whom they have never seen, or for a family with whom ERNEST VANE. 43 they have not the remotest association, and whose name they never heard mentioned until a fortnight since ; for my part, I think it shows a mean slavish feeling, and I should hate, if I were coming to a new place, to think that the people were acting such a part." a No, you would not, Algitha, I will answer for it ; and as for their motives, we have no business to discuss them, if their practice tends to the hap- piness of others. If I were in Mr. Leslie's place, I should feel very uncomfortable arriving at a new estate to succeed an old family, and to commence a fresh circle of ideas and acquaintances, and ac- quaintances too, who have all the associations with the old family, and are always drawing unfavour- able comparisons ; for this must more especially be the case when the new proprietor has not moved in the same station of society as the person he succeeds ; and also owes his position to his own exertions instead of inheriting it, for say what you will, be assured, that in this country there is 44 ERNEST VANE. a great, inherent love, I will not say for old family and illustration, for that seems to me to have gone out of fashion sadly, but an inherent love of rank and its possessors. I think that, under the cir- cumstances, Algitha, we should do all in our power to bid the new arrivals welcome." " You are quite right, Ernest, of course," re- plied Algitha; "but I cannot help regretting that we have to go through all the forms of society with people whom I do not in the least care about, and who only interest me as being the owners of the castle. If it were Lord Rochdale coming down, that would be a different thing altogether ; there is something owing to his famil)', which these people by the bye seem to forget. We live so near the castle, that we shall be forced to meet the Leslies as often as they choose to ask us; and I always observe it is never the real old families, but always the parvenus who give themselves airs. There really is no one else for them to ask except ourselves. To be sure they ERNEST VANE. 45 may invite the Patons, but then I am certain that no Christian family will ever receive them a second time, when once they have heard that melancholy instrument which Mr. Paton never fails to carry about in his pocket, and which he calls a flute ; and then Mrs. Paton^s voice ! They really are only bearable in winter, when they both have colds, and neither have any breath to expend on music. Then there are the Caulflelds ; but, they live fourteen miles off, and are such a fearfully united family; three red-haired sisters, who never will accept an invitation unless they are all invited together ; wear each other's hair in lockets, sing together, and always out of tune; dress alike ; blue sashes, with waists up to their arms. What an infliction ! Then there is, let me think," — for she saw that Ernest, in spite of his efforts to keep his countenance, could not avoid laughing. "And there is Lady Roshville, who wears those hideous turbans, and gowns furbe- lowed up to the waist; and waddles along to 46 ERNEST VANE. her carriage with a footman at each arm. Oh, what a set ! I am sure, Ernest, that if these people bore me, from what you tell me you hear of Miss Leslie, they will drive her to despair." "You are very censorious to-day, Algitha," said Ernest, laughing. " I don't know whether I am censorious, but I am very idle, and as anxious as any of the chil- dren to see the new family arrive, Ernest. I wish to admire the triumphal arches, for which our garden has been sacrificed." So they strolled down the main road, which was dignified by the name of street. They heard the band practising in a neighbouring barn, and marvelled at the huge parallelograms which the children denominated arches. New sand was laid on the road to the castle ; the charity-school chil- dren were decked out for the occasion — those perennial frontispieces to all country festivities — the vignettes of human nature ; and above all, there was the steward, marshalling his tenant force, and ERNEST VANE. 47 assuming the most important airs. In short, that vague hope of a good time coming; that hope which is the last blessing man clings to ; which breathes comfort to the seaman, when his vessel has struck the hidden shoal; which calls up visions of love and home to the lonely sentinel on his duty; which even trifles with the gamester, and with the deserted and abandoned — that vague and undefined hope of the future gave an air of enjoyment to the whole scene. It was late, and the enthusiasm of the villagers was beginning to wear itself out, when a carriage was seen descending the hill. Immediately the huge ensign floated from the flag-tower of the castle ; the band prepared their instruments for a dreadful salutation, the steward and his subordi- nates galloped backwards and forwards, as though the fate of the nation depended on their equestrian exertions. Not that there was anything whatever to do, but every one felt it necessary to do something. Ernest and Algitha stood by smiling, but not un- 48 ERXKST VANE. kindly, at the ill-directed energies of the mob, who, like the Israelites of old, will never be free. The carriage whirled round the corner rapidly, as carriages do whirl when the post-boys are duly impressed with the importance of their freight, with a wheel over and a jerk which tries the ma- terial of the best London workmanship, as well as the principle of the centrifugal force. It was at that moment that Ernest caught a glimpse of the countenance, which he felt was the first that ever realized his poetic imaginings ; and truly if beau- tiful at any time, it was doubly so now, under the excitement of the moment. Ida's head was bent forward, absorbed in the novelty, and to her un- practised eyes, the magnificence of the scene ; the germs of a new life, new ambitions, new hopes, new associations, were budding in her heart, and as she gained the spot where Ernest was stand- ing, and caught his glance when he bowed respect- fully to her, a deeper glow suffused her cheeks. She turned quickly round to her father, who had ERNEST VAXE. 49 taken her hand in his own, " Did you see that beautiful girl, papa, and the gentleman that was with her ; who could it be ?" " Some village apothecary, I dare say," he re- plied quickly, for his mind was absorbed in his own greatness. For the moment he had forgotten his origin. As soon as we accustom ourselves to any change in life, the force of volition is so great it is far from being an uncommon occurrence for a man to acquire with a change of posi- tion, those particular qualities which are pecu- liar to the new condition. Place a man in a responsible situation, in a place of authority, and it is remarkable how soon the practice of com- mand will become habitual to him. If the world very commonly estimates us by the value we set on ourselves, we, on the other hand are equally prepared to bestow an undue value on the opinion of the world. Mr. Leslie acquired confidence in himself and in his position, because VOL. I. E 50 ERNEST VANE. he felt that the people around were prepared to recognise it; when he heard the cheers, and passed under the triumphal arches, he felt an ex- altation which he would scarcely have admitted possible even a few hours' previously, and when the people crowded round the carriage with their adulatory addresses, that pride, the greatest of which a man is susceptible, broke forth in every lineament, of him who had risen from that same people, and now stood above them as their lord and master. ERNEST VANE. 51 CHAPTER IV. M. Guizot, whose least sentence is in gene- ral a theme on which the lightest heart may moralize, who possesses the very admirable fa- culty of conveying a great truth in a few words, and of expressing mere ideas, common to many people, but which so few have the power of framing into sentences, has given us matter for deep reflection in the following passage : — " On contemple avec anxiete les agitations et les chances exterieures de la vie humaine que sera it ce si on e 2 52 ERNEST VANE. assistait aux agitations, aux chances interieures de Fame humaine." In the practical business of life the least detail that affects the great end which every man has in view, is ably balanced, and long considered ; ar- rangements must be made, the whole plan of life mapped out, and if one of these arrangements fail, it is considered a grievance, and is matter of serious regret; but of the heart and its varied im- pressions, its quick sensibilities, its emotions, its progress, how few take them into account or study their causes and effects. The chances to which the human mind is subject rarely enter into the scheme of any man's contemplations, or form a chapter in his anxieties. When Mr. Leslie purchased this great castle, he really was not influenced by any vain-glorious, or purse-proud feeling ; he fully believed that his only object was to place his daughter in a situation she would adorn, and worthy of those qualities which he knew she possessed ; he thought he was acting ERNEST VANE. 53 under the influence of kind and generous motives, whereas he was at heart an ambitious man; not that he despised his origin, — we have seen that in one sense he was rather proud of it ; he would have been the very last man to despise or neg- lect the friend of his youth and adversity, but very early in life his mind entertained the hope of becoming one day the owner of some magnificent estate. He had steadily kept that object in view, never allowing himself to be drawn aside for one moment by any passions, distractions, or extra- vagances ; to die a great proprietor was the goal he ran for ; the attainment of this object was to be the test of his ability. In this he resembled Warren Hastings, who as Mr. Macauley says in his admirable review of his life : u On one bright summer day when a boy, lying on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the domain of his house to join the Isis, there, at three score and ten years later, he told the tale, bore in his mind a scheme 54 ERNEST VANE. which, through all the changes of his eventful career, he never abandoned; he would recover the estate which belonged to his father — he would be Hastings, of Daylesford." Soon after he had launched into business, Mr. Leslie had an engagement with one of the great proprietors who live in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, Sir William Slaney. In this mansion the youth, who was there rather by sufferance than as an inherent part of the society, was struck by the kind and generous hospitality which he wit- nessed, and by the considerate courtesy of his host. At the table he heard a great political question dis- cussed by two of the leading statesmen of the day ; the subject was the relative importance of the the landed and commercial interests. " Com- merce," said one of those eminent men, " is assuming, and must continue to assume every day an ever increasing importance; the progress of civilization evidently tends in that direction; it is but a just return for the immense services ERNEST VANE. 55 which commerce has formerly rendered to civili- zation. The commercial and landed interests are too nearly allied for us to discuss their relative importance, for commerce was the foundation of landed property. Remember it was commerce that taught Europe to shake off the barbarism of the middle ages; the annual caravans imported the first seeds of knowledge and politeness into the cities and camps of the desert. Letters and commerce are twin sisters; the mightiest remains of antiquity are those of the great commercial cities. Fallen Tyre, ruined Carthage, mouldering Venice, bear their silent testimony to the genius of commerce." As he spoke, those that listened felt themselves convinced by the eloquence of the voice and the earnestness of the manner, for eloquence is the child of feeling, and the mother of conviction. The guests rose from table, and by most of them the words that they had heard were soon forgotten. Some went to the glorious bounding 56 ERNEST VANE. chase, others to the well-stocked preserves; a few to the choice and admirably selected library. None thought of the conversation of the morning save this young man ; but he went forth alone and solitary, and sat himself down on a rising eminence that overlooked the great commercial capital of the world— a city, which a century and half since was a mere village ; but whose customs now exceed in amount the revenue of the whole nation in the reign of James II. The young man sat absorbed in his thoughts, the dis- tance between himself and the busy crowd was too great for him to hear its noise and its mur- murs. The sound of the anvil in the vast work- shop did not reach him, but the evidences of its greatness, of its wondrous prosperity floated be- fore him silent and beautiful ; for far and wide on the Mersey the white sails dipped, filled and rose on the swelling surface of the waters, purpled in the extreme distance. From the same har- bour they plumed their flight to distant lands, ERNEST VANE. 57 literally, not figuratively, wide as the poles as- sunder, to the bright Azores, to the Frozen Arctic ; to the Spice Islands of the East, to the new world of the West, and yet their destiny, their mission was the same; it was written in one word, and in golden letters — It was Commerce! Commerce ; — and how much did that one word comprise ! How vast the theme — how in- finite the conception ! It comprised patient in- dustry, undeviating honour — a courage that braved the fearful Alacranes, the pulsations of the vast Atlantic, the treacherous currents of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the roar of the monsoon. Science, with her magnetic wand, had been worshipped, and not in vain; and the same bark that bore the fortunes of the craftsman and the artisan carried the simple-minded minister of God on his mission of Christianity. Moreover, and almost, as it were, at the young man's feet, stretched out the long avenues of the vast palaces of our merchant princes ; a thousand chimnies 58 ERNEST VANE. rose before him, not like the columns of a ruined Rome, monuments of the Past, of a greatness that had been and was no more, but the lofty pro- claimers of a magnificent Present; and then, when he looked nearer, immediately around him was the verdant undulating Park, with glittering silvery threads of water flowing through its tran- quil expanse : on one side the extensive meads bounded the horizon ; on the other, a vast forest of ancient oaks stretched down to the sea. " All this," thought he, u a great, master mind, a statesman pre-eminent in ability, of singular elo- quence, and formerly a great Pro-consul, tells me has sprung from that commerce, in the vast chain of which I form a humble link. This noble Catholic house, older than the oak on whose gnarled root I am sitting, may too, at one time, if this theory be correct, have owed its greatness to that same commerce ; and how shall I refuse to attach faith to an opinion to the truth of which all nature bears testimony, and which glorifies my ERNEST VANE. 59 daily and hourly occupation ? This very oak," and he cast his eyes above at the gigantic branches that overshadowed him, — " this very oak, which is now the glory of the demesne, may one day form the ribs of the argosy which shall bear my freight; and this acorn, which so aptly represents my own condition, — so small, so insignificant at present, but perhaps possess- ing the germs of future strength and greatness, — may some time, if properly nurtured and culti- vated, become a parent stem. Yes, I too may be powerful and found a house, and future gene- rations may look back to me, as the possessor of this proud inheritance looks back to his unble- mished ancestry." And the young man, the almost boy, bowed his head in his hands; the clouds were blown across the blue sky, but he saw not the shadows ; and the hound and the rider bounded through the copse below him, but he heard not the huntsman or the horn : for ambition had taken root in his 60 ERNEST VANE. mind, and grew there apace. Hours elapsed in contemplation — not without its charm ; and hopes, bright as flowers that blossom near foun- tains, sprang up in his heart, and he believed it was virtuous to wish to be great. When he rose from his seat, the shades of evening were falling rapidly around him, but in his imagination he saw a brighter day dawning. " Yes," he exclaimed, and now not inwardly, but aloud, — * I will be great: I feel the impulse, and will follow it; I hear the voice, and will obey it." And they met again that day at the luxu- rious banquet ; and the guests spoke of the famous run, — of the admirable sport in the pre- serves, — of the topics of the day. He alone was silent; and they thought him sad. They had changed in nothing; they were the same noble- minded, honourable, generous English gentlemen, but they could not read the mind of that boy; they could not enter into the imagination of the young and sanguine, and understand the reverie of the ERNEST VANE. 61 ardent and hopeful; for they had all that they could desire, nothing to long for, nothing to labour for. Little did they think that this youth was far happier in his world of dreams and active re- solution, than they in the greatness of their pos- sessions; little did they imagine that the secret of enjoyment is mental occupation, as the secret of leisure is labour. He did not express his thoughts (for all resolu- lution to be valuable must be secret, or it wastes itself in words), — and he was wise; for had he told them what he felt, they could not have compre- hended it ; they never could have understood how one conversation, one day^s reflection, could change the whole character of a man, could develope latent faculties and qualities, which but for that conver- sation might have remained hid and concealed for ever. And yet so it was. The young man who had breakfasted with them that morning, and he who now sat at dinner, were wholly different. A new world had burst upon him ; the whole ob- 62 ERNEST VANE. jects of life bore another appearance. And is it strange that a random word should change the whole current of the human heart ? We readily grant that the slightest incident may influence a whole life, but will not admit that a word, a thought, a solitary half hour, may affect the des- tiny of the mind within us. But in this instance it certainly was so. The youth returned to the counting-house, in heart a new man ; his companions perceived a difference in his manner, but ascribed it to some one of those material ills to which nature is prone ; they could imagine no other cause; but he never forgot one word of that day's conversation ; he felt that he should be great, and the feeling in part accom- plished its own end ; in the dock — in the warehouse — on the deck of the merchantman — there he toiled, ambition ever by his side. His strong will over- came all the difficulties thrown in his way ; from that hour he had no doubt, no hesitation, no mis- givings, his resolution ennobled his career; when ERNEST VANE. 63 the old and well-loved minister died, from whose lips those words had fallen, he went into mourning as though for a friend of his youth; and made a pilgrimage to a midland county to weep over the great man's grave, and place a garland on it, so true is it, that the thoughts of a man live after him ;- that the great word he has once spoken never dies. Industry met with its due reward ; it is true at moments he was disheartened ; when he looked from the windows of the counting-house on that park, where his passion for greatness had first dawned upon him, he would, for a moment, indulge in those reveries, so charming in them- selves, but alas, so fatal to active exertion, with- out which all reveries are vain ; and then, when he was recalled to himself, and saw the musty papers, the voluminous ledgers, the vulgar ma- terial by which he was surrounded, his heart sank within him, and he almost doubted whether it was of such elements that greatness was com- 64 ERNEST VANE. posed ; but when he took up the paper, and saw in it the names of those, who like himself, had risen from small beginnings, and were now the world's rulers — he felt himself strengthened, and his heart became renewed. Some years after he married a young and beau- tiful woman — his wife died in her first confine- ment. Kis object in life remained the same, but now he deceived himself into the belief that he laboured for love of his child, Ida; as she grew in vears as in loveliness, it was his happiness to dream of her as the possessor of all that can gra- tify the taste, and ennoble the character ; rough and rude as his speech sometimes was, his sense of refinement was admirable ; he used to turn with disgust from the wealthy vulgar plebeian children of his employers, and Ida would scarcely endure them even as playmates ; thus he worked on, yet he might have long laboured unsuccessfully in his pursuit of wealth, and only attained it in an extreme old age, but for a fortunate accident. ERNEST VANE. 65 It was the moment when the mania for specu- lation raged, and his employers embarked in these treacherous ventures with desperate energy. They were under the influence of a man, like Mr. Leslie, sprung from the people, who rose ra- pidly to the heights of fortune ; and represented his native town in Parliament. So eminent was he, that flattery could scarcely find language sufficiently exuberant to express its homage. Higher and higher still he rose, until some few men shaded their eyes as they gazed, and ex- claimed, too high ! Before him the proudest lord bowed ; to him the ranks of a jealous aristocracy were opened; men in their avarice, crass ignorance, and stolidity, placed their wealth at his disposal. Testimonials and monuments were voted him for having — made their fortunes. They raised Baal on high, and prostrated them- selves before the idol. Well might the language of Tacitus have been applied to them, "At Roiriae ruere in servitum Consules^ Patres, Eques, VOL. I. F 66 ERNEST VANE. quanto quis illustrior tanto magis festinans;" great ladies, merchants, princes, were not behind hand in the race of adulation, and pre-eminent among them all were Mr. Leslie's employers. At the very- moment that they fondly imagined that the triumph was achieved, that, at last the object of their lives was attained, at that instant the bubble burst, and that firm, which was the type of strength, and emi- nent for its integrity, became ruined and bankrupt. Then was the cry raised against those who had deluded the public, by the public who had deluded themselves ; the directors of some of the schemes were not treated much better than Secretary Cragges, Aislabie, and Sunderland, in the days of the South Sea bubble; those who had been the first to " share the triumph, and partake the gale" of their good fortune, were now the first to leave them to battle with the storm ; the smallest error was magnified by the indignant public into a capital crime, who never thought fit to ask themselves the question whe- ERNEST VANE. 67 ther, if they had continued in the same career of fortune and prosperity, they would have been equally censorious ; suddenly, one of those fits of epidemic morality, so common in Eng- land, raged like a fever. Those who had most implicated themselves in these transactions, shouted the loudest for a victim — and they found one in the man whom we have described. Mr. Leslie, with admirable caution, had never entered into any of these speculations; at the time that the firm, in which he was then senior clerk, broke, he was in possession of a small sum of ready money, and by biding his time, and taking advantage of circumstances, he managed to pur- chase the greater part of the business ; so the man grew into the greatness that the boy had dreamt of; although the fulfilment had not, it is true, that charm which imagination and distance had lent to it, when was imagination ever realised, for * Every touch that wooes its stay, Has brushed its brightest hue away." F 2 68 ERNEST VANE. But he achieved success; no man was more honored on Exchange : for none were there more anxious enquiries whenever he was absent from a a slight indisposition; he occupied the place which the ruined speculator had left vacant ; but he did not seek for adulation, and he prided himself that his earnings were comparatively- slow and certain, and that he never embarked in a speculation of a doubtful character. When Castle Melwood first appeared in the market, Mr. Leslie had not quite sufficient to complete the purchase, and his power of doing so depended on the arrival of three ships then due from the Philippines ; with anxious sleepless nights he awaited them, and at last, one morning, he saw the proud lofty sails of a ship of heavy- burden, and that vessel bore his colours, he rushed to the quay, jumped into a boat, clam- bered up the ship's sides, and trod the deck like a conqueror in his triumph, and conquest indeed it was — for he had conquered — his passions ; the ERNEST VANE. 69 natural indolence, to which all men are prone, his appetites, the vanities of his youth ; and now he stood there rewarded, the monarch of that peopled deck ; within two days the remaining vessels arrived, laden with the riches of the East, and a week after, the negotiations for Castle Melwood commenced, with what result we are already acquainted. Mr. Leslie possessed one merit to which we have not alluded, but without mentioning which this notice of his life would be indeed imperfect. The more rapid growth of his fortune was re- tarded by his benevolence. It was not alone at Liverpool that he practised this great virtue, but to Manchester, and Birmingham, and Bolton, that his charities extended. If all men acted in the spirit of Mr. Leslie, there would not be the same outcry against the manufacturers. We should not have to complain that wherever the money- system takes root, there the people are too fre- quently plunged into unutterable misery. We 70 ERNEST VANE. should not have so frequently to lament that the growth of wealth is associated with the growth of disease, of poverty, and ignorance; and Southey would not have raised his voice to curse in undying language the foundations of manufacturing cities, as vast emporiums of vice and misery. It is not the factories that are in themselves pernicious, for they represent the industry of the country, and all industry is ennobling. It is not the mere circumstance of men toiling at the loom instead of guiding the plough that neces- sarily produces evil, but it is that the minds that direct these vast fabrics think more of gold and less of the people who produce it; they do not, it is true, enunciate the damnable doctrine that capital is to be more highly cared for than the souls of men ; but too many of the master manufacturers practically regard the human sinews as a mere portion of that vast machine which produces their wealth and greatness, little heeding that it is at the ERNEST VANE. 71 same time producing a hideous mass of wretched- ness and depravity. But, above all, nos nos clico aperte desumus. If the legislature had performed its duty from the first, we should not have had to lament that the splendid structure of our manu- facturing greatness is erected in a foul atmo- sphere, and fanned with the breath of corruption. We should not have to speak of children, hump- backed, crooked, deformed, of pale and earthy complexions, whose hearts are a perfect grave- yard of sin and decay. We should not have to speak of abominable dens, which defy all descrip- tion, where the mother alone remains to brave its horrors for her children's sake; of cellars from which human shadows, ghastly skeletons, called indeed by the endearing names of fathers and brothers, but bearing scarcely the semblance of men, emerge, to seek some consolation in the neighbouring pot-house ; where, if there be a church, the smallest pittance is bestowed on the house of God, — so it stands, bleak, cold, inhos- 72 ERNEST VANE. pitable, like the hearts that reared it ; but where close to it rises the gin-palace embellished by every art, to render it worthy of the name. We should not be called upon to assert that there are in this country children who have never heard of the name of God, of whom it has been said in touching language, that the day arrives an hour earlier than to other children, and the night an hour later; who die from premature old age, ruined alike physically and mentally. Premature in all things, even in loathsome depravity, in which they obtain an infantine maturity. This is no exaggeration of the state of our /population in many of our manufacturing towns ; but we repeat, it is not the task that is in fault, it is the task-master. There are, thank God, some Tare instances of manufacturing communities, where the master and his servants are associated together by the ties of love as well as of interest^ There are men who, like Mr. Leslie, devote their energies and their purses for the benefit of their ERNEST VANE. 73 dependents ; who, while they are storing up wealth, are garnering up a still more valuable and abundant harvest of grateful feelings; who erect the church near the workshops, and provide for the human family, in all its dignity and require- ments ; who are living testimonies that the pur- suit of fortune is not incompatible with the pur- suit of great and benevolent objects ; that a man may obtain the triumphs of wealth without going to his grave unwept, save by the tears of joy, and unsung, save by the paeans of the broken- hearted and the destitute. It was a proud moment for Mr. Leslie when he stood on the terrace that first night after Ida had retired to rest; he now felt that come what might, he was lord of that vast domain. It could not be said that he had done nothing in his generation. The ancient possessions of the house of Rochdale belonged to him, the man of the people. Their title-deeds were now his ; he was the living testimony to 74 ERNEST VANE. the majesty of commerce ; the man whose name would go down to posterity as the founder of a new house. He gazed upon the dark masses of wood, slightly shadowed forth in the stillness of moonlight ; he listened to the night wind as it whistled languidly around the flag-tower ; and piercing as it were, the thin veil which curtained the distance, he pictured the home of his youth's toil, and compared it with his present repose ; and ever as he pondered over the past, and anticipated the future, feelings to which he was wholly un- accustomed, vague and strange as dreams flitted across his mind ; his warmest wish was satisfied; he had attained everything ; he was happy to his heart's content. Ah, was it so ? He looked upwards, and he gazed on the star-spangled sky; he looked below the ter- race, and he saw nature in her repose, where the very leaves were nursed to sleep. He had never watched the stars as he stood in the docks, where the only mysteries brought home to his ERNEST VANE. 75 mind were the mysteries of trade, the mysteries of the ledger, and the counting-house ; the rattle of bales and casks had hitherto pleased him better than the voice of nature and the songs of birds ; but now, as he listened to the waves when they broke upon the shingles, and saw the light of the pale moon streaming over the vale, the sense of the Infinite grew upon him, and he then for the first time felt that the wind that had filled his sails had blown from heaven, and that the star which had guided him in his course was the star of mercy and of love. 76 ERNEST VANE. CHAPTER V. Some days elapsed before Mr. Leslie and Ida had exhausted their curiosity; every part of the castle was visited and re-visited, and that was no easy work. Then the furniture of the principal state-rooms was to be arranged., and for this pur- pose Morant came from town, and gave the be- nefit of his admirable taste. Libraries, boudoirs, galleries, everything had to be furnished anew. Ida was never tired of admiring the prospect from the drawing-room window, for she loved nature with the freshness of a child. Mr. Leslie often ERNEST VANE. 77 surprised her in some enthusiastic burst of admi- ration. He would then join in her expressions of delight; but they were not, it must be owned, quite so pure and simple, for he seldom failed to conclude with the reflection, that it had all been purchased by his own industry. It was a pile of which, indeed, the oldest Nor- man family might have been proud ; as the last evidently was, to judge by the various escutcheons emblazoned round the roof of the banqueting- hall, where the royal arms of France and England were quartered with those of the House of Roch- dale. There was everything to denote that the former owners belonged to an ancient and princely race. The massive entrance gates were crowned with crests, and the haughty motto Sumus. Upon the peristyles and round the arches the garter was engraved. The outer hall was an armoury, where corslets, helmets, coats-of- mail, told many tales of Palestine and France. In the inner hall were statues of knights in 78 ERNEST VANE. armour, and around them the painted glass cast a rich and varied light. There were stately galle- ries^ where still hung against the walls the portraits of the ancestors of the old family, renowned in the annals of chivalry. The history of that great house might be read in those pictures. The war- rior of the crusade, with the red cross on his shoulder, one hand resting on the Bible, and with the other grasping the hilt of his sword, in the act of drawing it for the Mother Church; a paint- ing that could not, indeed, boast of the least perspective in the drawing, but, withal, ap- pealing to the imagination, and recalling the past. Then there was the lady wife, in a dress plain and homely as her features, but kneeling at an altar, around which were supposed to be grouped several children, all in the same simple costume, with their little hands joined in prayer ; a picture worthy of the knight who died for the cross. Then came the hard features of a cavalier, who ERNEST VANE. 79 had been the friend of old John of Gaunt — a fact which was celebrated in a few doggrel lines in the corner of the picture. He was dressed in a steel inlaid corslet and curious chain armour, and looked every inch a knight ; nor was the courtier of the age of the first gentleman in Europe, the first Charles, wanting. He had fallen at Naseby, "where none died that day with greater glory; yet many died, and there was much glory ;" for in the House of Rochdale loyalty was a religion; to its members the great Stuart had ever been the sainted martyr king. The members of that family had not imbibed those lessons of wretched philosophy which would degrade the sovereign into a chief magistrate, and would strip him of all that mysterious divinity which dignifies the act of submission, while it consecrates the first principle of all government : later still the pencil of Lely and the bright colours of Kneller had transmitted to canvass the charms of those high- born illustrious dames, whose beauty had con- 80 ERNEST VANE. veyed so great lustre to the court of Charles the Second, and to possess whose love a monarch might well consent to sacrifice a throne. Then ranged, in due order, were the laced and decorated coats introduced by the House of Hanover, worn by gentlemen with manners as starched as their neckcloths, and backs as straight as their swords. The series was carried down to the present time; for Reynolds and Gains- borough, Lawrence and Grant lent their aid to immortalize various branches of the family renowned in the senate and the field ; in whose pictures the genius of art seems to have been inspired by the objects which they touched. Ida passed all her mornings in these galleries, imagining the castle in those glorious days when it was inhabited by the living representatives of these pictures, when the knight and the lady sat at the head of the board, and the retainers below the salt; when there were warders on the tower, and a portcullis was of some use. After ERNEST VANE. 81 the castle, from its topmost turret to its lowest cellar, had been ten times ransacked, the wide chase, the well-ordered farm, the chestnut rides had to be explored. Mr. Leslie joined heartily in all his daughter's amusements : if ever a feeling of constraint, the painful sense of a false position crossed his mind, it soon passed away, for each day he received fresh food for his vanity. Every one seemed to rejoice in doing him honour, and welcoming him into the country. As for Ida, from the first moment, the villagers delighted in her. They were instantly won by the sweetness of her voice, her gentle smile, her winning acknow- ledgments ; it was a great pleasure to her to enter the cottages of the poor, and listen to the tales of their sorrows and their joys. She had been accustomed to do this in her own vicinity at Liverpool, and she was not likely to lose the habit at Castle Melwood, where the people were so immediately dependent upon her. The country air did everything for the fair VOL. i. G 82 ERNEST VANE. child; it seemed to brighten her heart, and to throw a glow, not only over the cheek, but over the mind. People who are lords of themselves, and have nothing to detain them at home, have little notion how much the health is promoted by change, and how soon the young wither from the mere fact of remaining in the same spot, when poverty, or any other cause, prevents them moving about the world. Ida doated upon her father; there was something very touching and graceful in the affection with which she greeted him whenever they had been separated by a temporary absence; it was only to be equalled by the depth of feeling which the old man showed in return. There is no love sweeter and holier than that of a father for a daughter — none in which confi- dence grows up more luxuriantly. Mr. Leslie had never chilled Ida's affections, never checked her joyous spirits : the consequence was, that her heart was centred in him, and he was now ERNEST VANE. S3 reaping the reward of all his self-denial and anxiety. It so happened that they had been some ten days at the castle before, in their daily rides, they passed by Wimbourne. It was a beautiful evening, the air light and transparent as a bridal veil. The morning had been warmer than usual at that season of the year; it was the 1st of May. Ida noted the day in her heart; and what is there, after a warm morn- ing, more delicious than to ride slowly through some of those green lanes which are the distinc- tion and the glory of our land, to mark the showers of light falling on copse and hill-side, or gushing forth from the sun's setting glory in one unbroken flow, as from a golden fountain, on the bright windows and the burnished house-tops ? A love of nature is the love of all that is most beautiful, and the love of the most beautiful is the love of all that is holiest. Ida was a true lover of nature. G 2 84 ERNEST VANE. At a turning of the road, the grounds of Wim- bourne, with its low and picturesque cottage, burst upon them. They had passed that road on their arrival, without having been particularly- struck with the beauty of the spot, for when the mind is occupied, outward objects lose their signification. " What a lovely place, papa!" she said. " By-the-bye, Ida," exclaimed Mr. Leslie, starting in his saddle, ". how negligent of me ! I have been ten days here, and I have never called on Mr. Vane. He has a moderate estate," he continued, with something of bitterness in his manner; "I" (and he laid a great stress upon the monosyllable, and spoke it out like a real landed proprietor, who dated from the Conquest) — " I surround him on every side. It is rather a disadvantage to the estate of Melwood not pos- sessing Wimbourne ; but it cannot be helped : we will call there now, Ida, and ask them to the castle for to-morrow." ERNEST VANE. 85 "Yes, that will be very agreeable, papa/* replied Ida. " I am sure they must be worth making friends with, all the cottagers speak of them in such kind terms. Shall we canter on, papa?" They had passed through the lodge- gate and were riding on the turf. The well-shaped pony, which she had christened Rainbow, arched its neck, shook its long shaggy mane, and was about to caracole its acquiescence in the proposition, when they saw Algitha and her brother walking slowly down one of the back avenues to meet them. The salutation on the part of Ernest was rather formal : he had all the sensitiveness of the poetic character; and imagined slights where none were intended. It was a great fault, and in the present instance entirely misled his judgment; for Mr. Leslie was very proud to become acquainted with him ; and if he had delayed calling upon him, this delay arose from the most excusable negligence. Ernest, however, accepted the invitation, and 86 ERNEST VANE. Ida sprang from her pony, gave it to the groom, and walked on with Algitha. We will not speak of those sympathies which writers so much delight to dwell on ; of affec- tions which are the staple commodity of all melo- dramas, where we find daughters, who have never seen their fathers, rushing into their arms at the close of the scene, having discovered the rela- tionship by some electric spark. Ida and Algitha did not pledge themselves, like some young ladies, to eternal friendship at their first interview; on the contrary, their conversation was very com- mon-place, for Algitha wished to hear some- thing of that London life which she had never seen ; and, to her imagination, Ida's short re- sidence there constituted her quite a London lady. After they had discussed the ordinary topics of the day, they began to arrange plans for riding parties ; and gradually Algitha, who had in the first instance been somewhat disposed to re- gard her new companion with awe, as the great ERNEST VANE. 87 heiress of the county, laughed as loudly as she was wont to do in those sparkling, reckless moods, which Ernest sometimes endeavoured to restrain, although in such matters his advice was very little attended to. Ernest and Mr. Leslie were soon great friends. Ernest's quick apprehension taught him the pre- cise feelings with which Mr. Leslie must have found himself thrown into so novel a situation, and, with the courtesy of a thorough gentleman, expressed by his manner, countenance, and look, that respect which he would not otherwise have thought it necessary to show. Mr. Leslie was secretly greatly pleased at his deferential attitude, and his gratification assumed the shape, as grati- fied vanity frequently does, among men unaccus- tomed to society, of most exuberant hospitality. " I hope, Mr. Vane, that to-morrow's visit will only be the commencement of an intimacy from which I anticipate the greatest pleasure : we are such near neighbours, that we ought to see a good 88 ERNEST VANE. deal of each other: you will find us naturally quite in a state of disorder. The first few days of a new house are always disagreeable." " Especially in so large and magnificent a place as Castle Melwood," remarked Ernest. 1 Mr. Leslie turned quickly round; there was something in the tone of voice with which this was said, which he did not quite like ; but Ernest's look was so quiet, that he was at once re-assured. How certain is it, that in the merest trifles, the suspicious temper finds food for it to feed on. When they parted, Mr. Leslie was delighted with his young friend, and Ida talked of Algitha in the most enthusiastic terms. Mr. Leslie was proud to find, that the man who, notwithstanding his small rental, he could not avoid appreciating as the representative of a verv old, and formerly an ennobled house, had received him not only with courtesy, but even with something approach- ing to deference. Ida was happy to find such a companion as Algitha, full of wild spirits and ERNEST VANE. OiJ excitement, which she communicated to every one she came near. " You scarcely spoke to Miss Vane, papa ; but you would, I am sure, have been charmed with her; and yet I ought to hope not," said she, tossing her little head to shake back the mutinous curls which the light wind blew in her face, "for she is quite a contrast to me." " And what do you think of Mr. Vane, Ida ? " " You know, papa, you were talking to him the whole time ; but from what his sister told me of him, he must be a person to admire. She says he is the most unselfish of all human beings, kind and generous to every one around him. I told you, papa, what they say of him in the village : well, this has all been confirmed by what Miss Vane tells me. Then he writes beautiful poetry : he looks like a poet, does he not, papa I" u Why, my little Ida, you are becoming as en- thusiastic as any poet," and he patted the glowing cheek as it was turning from him: he saw the 90 ERNEST VANE. deepened colour, but understood it not: strange, these monied mercantile men, so well skilled in reading in the human countenance all symptoms of rise and fall of prices, the slightest indications of variations in the rates of exchange, know not the signs of the heart's pulses, the tints of the affections: so the hardy mariner, who is ever watching for the least indication of an approach- ing storm, or a treacherous current, observes not the wondrous beauty of the starry night, hears not the murmur of heaven's love in the spice- scented breeze, marks not the glory of the crested waves as they foam like molten gold in the vessel's wake on the Eastern seas. Mr. Leslie and his daughter felt happier that evening than they had done on any day since their arrival. All adventitious excitements pall so soon — the habits so quickly adapt themselves to any change in our lives, that Mr. Leslie in the short space of ten days had become quite accus- tomed to his new position, and began to feel the ERNEST VANE. 91 loss of his daily occupation. As for Ida, she had missed that first necessity of all young hearts, the necessity of some one to confide in : her father she doated on; but there are slight influences of the heart's finest touches which a woman will never confide except to one of her own sex, or when she murmurs them forth on her knees; and if men would but understand this, and respect the indi- viduality of the woman's soul, there would be more happiness in social life ; there would at the same time be much less nonsense talked about overflowing confidences. A woman who has no thought to conceal, has none worth concealing, or worth knowing; has no secret feelings enshrined in the holiest of the holiest recesses of her heart, none of those delicate emotions which, like light, surround the whole character, but cannot be weighed or analyzed ; has no treasure of the mind worthy of being cherished. There is a life within us which all persons, except the rudest and most uncultivated^ must respect; there are prayers which 92 ERNEST VANE. we are told to offer up in secret — oratories into which no footstep except the boldest will intrude. Thus Ida thought, and looked forward to the society of a friend into whose heart she could pour the history of all her hopes, and who would be prepared to sympathise with her every wish. ERNEST VANE. 93 CHAPTER VI. And Ernest — is it too much to say, that when he retired to his room to read that evening, his interest was in some degree engaged in Ida ? Were not the very circumstances of the case such as to lay, in his imagination, the foundations of a romance? how often in those solitary rides and walks which he used to take, had he not pictured some one fair form, who would arise to interrupt, but not to disturb the repose of his life! He had often looked up to the huge castle, and marvelled who would next inhabit it. As a 94 ERNEST VANE. boy, he used to wander through the echoing galleries, and weave romantic tales as he gazed on the pictures of the stern warriors and stately dames whom we have described. The courts, grass-grown, and damp with age and neglect, were his favourite resorts when he wished to meditate on the past; the green slopes and fir shades he sought when he dreamed pleasantly of the future. Latterly, these favourite haunts had been closed against him ; first, by the busy meddling men of business, when it was deter- mined to sell the castle ; and latterly, by Mr. Leslie's own arrival ; now he was to revisit those spots, and the vision which he had conjured up began to be realised to him, and to assume an actual form. It would have been the same thing if, instead of a being glowing with worth and beauty, Ida had not been pre-eminently distinguished by these qualities. There are certain frames of mind in which a person is predisposed to feel interested ERNEST VANE. 95 in some one — almost in any one ; it is a want in the human heart, le besoin d' aimer, which re- quires to be satisfied : as Madame de Genlis says, "j'aime, parceque jeFaime; parceque c'est lui, et que c'est moi." A natural poet discovers poetry in objects, which to another person would appear absolutely uninteresting; just as a superior artist perceives beauties in a landscape, which is dull to the inexperienced eye. It frequently happens that much of the -worth and beauty which we attribute to any object is in our own imagination. It so chanced that in the present instance all Ernest's expectations had been more than fulfilled; but Ida personally had no place in his reverie; his imagination had been almost as much excited even before seeing her, as now when he leant his head on his hand and wrote some stanzas that night; if he was in love with anything, it was with his own thoughts. The window was open, and, fatigued with that hardest of all labours, composition, he 96 ERNEST VANE. looked out on the night. In the distance the castle loomed with stern and haughty front ; there were but three of the battlements of the loftiest towers distinctly visible against a streak of moon- light. Black masses of cloud buried the rest of the pile in darkness. He pondered on the various scenes through which that castle had passed ; he thought of the different faiths which had been preached within its walls; of the nights which had swept over, and the mornings which had broken upon it, and to which this night and the next morning were to add another unit. And when he, who in his boldness and hope looked forward to some forty or fifty years of life, had passed away, there would still be the castle, scarcely blacker than it was at present, not even shorn of a battlement. " Oh mystery of mysteries !" he exclaimed, " for what purpose am I created, if so soon to perish ? Do what I will, I cannot get rid of this startling fact that I am alone ; that no one can share in ERNEST VANE. 97 my spirit, or partake my eternity: let me fashion my heart as I will, let me link myself with the past, by wandering and dreaming amid the walls of that old castle, let me bind myself to the present by every tie of love, kindred, or ambition, to the future, by laying the foundations of great monuments, or of the still nobler structure of good works, yet still I am alone ; and as the waters of a river, even while you are dipping a cup into it, rush in and fill up the vacant space, so shall my place be filled up before I am scarcely dead. Why then was I created?" He forgot in that moment, and oh, how often do we all forget it ! that there is something still greater than, and beyond our own existence — that is the human family; that our existence is not limited to ourselves ; that men are linked to each other by ties that do not require personal inter- course, and that survive them after death; that tradition binds man to man, and generation to generation ; that but for this obligation, which no VOL. I. H 98 ERNEST VANE. one can shake off, it might indeed be all the same a hundred years hence, as we hear it so often said. But this it is that is the distinctive quality in the career of man. The next day, early in the afternoon, Ernest and his sister arrived at the castle. The moment that he entered the hall he was struck with the change that a few weeks had effected. He scarcely recognised the place where he used to meditate in perfect solitude ; the whole pile had been decorated with all the lavish luxury of modern refinement. Mr. Leslie had apologised for the rough manner in which he should have to receive him. The apology was not only unneces- sary, but wholly misplaced. Not even the Mar- quis of Rochdale himself could have had a more stately troop of servants — a more pompous array of the appurtenances of wealth. At any other time this would have disturbed Ernest, who had a dislike to all show of pretension ; but his atten- tion was at that moment entirely absorbed by ERNEST VANE. 99 Mr. Leslie and Ida, who came to the door to greet him and his sister. Miss Leslie wore a high dress, loose from the shoulders to the waist, which was beautifully small and rounded, according to our accepted notions of the perfection of the female form — in which opinion the ancients materially differed from us. Her pleasure at seeing Algitha gave an addi- tional attraction of animation to her countenance. She held out her hand to Ernest with a frank and cordial manner, which relieved him from all embarrassment. Within the short space of time which had elapsed since his arrival at Castle Melwood, Mr. Leslie had caught the proprietorial habit, and lost no time in dragging his guest about into every room, and pointing out all the improvements which had been made in the interior of the castle. He then parcelled out the three next days to visit the different points of view in the park, to settle what trees should be cut down, where fresh plant- h 2 100 ERNEST VANE. ings ought to be laid out, or paths made. It was agreeable to Mr. Leslie to find some one who he thought would sympathise so entirely with him. And this Ernest did to perfection. He did not naturally take a very great interest in agricultural matters ; but that desire to please, which was the chief feature in his character, enabled him to enter into the feelings of any person with whom he was accidentally thrown. In some people this is an affected habit, easily seen through ; in him it was the outpouring of the heart, and for the time he put himself into the state of mind which he expressed. It must be admitted that his power of self-denial was seldom put to so severe a test as it was on the present occasion, for his great desire was to have joined Ida and his sister; and even his patience could scarcely stand Mr. Leslie's very long stories and lectures on political economy, which were received with such invariable approbation on the 'Change ERNEST VANE. 101 at Liverpool, where they were as well known as the clock, that he imagined that every one must be equally interested in their recital. The dinner-hour came at last. Mr. Leslie wisely sat in a small suite of rooms; but even these were full of those portraits and historical family incidents which were the ornaments of the castle, but were fast becoming a subject of annoyance to Mr. Leslie. He almost regretted having ever pur- chased them with the place, and would gladly have packed them up, had he had anything to substitute in their place ; but, alas ! the pedigree of the Leslies furnished no mailed warriors or silken courtiers. He had but two family pictures r the one represented an old and rather unpleasant- looking man, with a tie-wig, straight-cut coat, a very tight and starched white neckcloth, coarse stockings, and Brobdignag shoe-buckles ; the other, a prim lady, shuffling out of existence,, sallow and shrivelled, with exceeding long ruffles and thick silk dress, which stood out as a defence 102 ERNEST VANE. against the approaches of that rude world, in de- fiance of which the thin blue lips were puckered up in virtuous indignation. They were Mr. Leslie's father and mother, people — as he used to say — excellent in their way, and admira- ble in their generation, but of quite a dif- ferent, obsolete age ; just as his grandchildren would some day term his age an obsolete one. The strangest thing, in looking at such pictures, is to reflect that the originals were one day young, and perhaps beautiful. The dinner was not very lively — Algitha's spirits were oppressed by the magnificence which sur- rounded her; the plate had been the present of some corporation, on the occasion of Mr. Leslie having completed the third year of his mayoralty; the arms of the family were sprinkled all over it; three bees, with an anvil for the crest, and labore for a motto. It was massive in its proportions, but wanting in the grace of London workmanship. The dinner was of course excellent, for none un- ERNEST VANE. 103 derstand the art of living better than the Liver- pool merchants. "Papa," said Ida, "Algitha tells me that she is very fond of riding: you will lend her your favourite pony, will you not? I want to show her all the new walks you propose making; the points of view — and here she slightly coloured, remember- ing how new she was to the place — she knows better than I do." "Certainly, my darling," replied Mr. Leslie. 66 1 had arranged to take Mr. Vane the identical round to-morrow, so that we may all go together. I did not think that Miss Algitha would have liked such an exploring and dilatory ride." " I should like it beyond anything," said Algi- tha — "I have not ridden for so lono; — Ernest was not able to find me a horse he liked. I think it will be much more agreeable to make a party to- gether, than to go on different expeditions, if Miss Leslie is of the same opinion." "'Indeed I am," was IoVs reply; "but on one 104 ERNEST VANE. condition/' she continued, smiling, " that you do not call me Miss Leslie — it sounds so very formal : if you do, I shall have to call you Miss Vane: perhaps I ought to have done so, but I am very ignorant of etiquette." A kind merry look conveyed the required as- surance, and by the time the party broke up, Ida and Algitha were as confidential as if thev had known one another from childhood. It seemed strange to Ernest to be sleeping within those old walls, every corner of which was associated in his mind with some trick of a wild and fanciful, albeit generally a melancholy youth; melancholy — not always of an unpleasing descrip- tion—is as natural to some dispositions as gaiety is to others. There is an opera called a The Val d'Andore:" throughout the whole of it there is not one air which it would be easy for the most rotentive memory to recall; and yet so strange a strain of sorrow runs through it, that it leaves a sad impression, although the listener ERNEST VANE. 105 finds it difficult to define the cause; thus the overture of some men's lives is solemn and deep-toned, and the whole of their exist- ence partakes of the same peculiarity. Do what they will, they cannot escape from these sensa- tions: be it fatality, or explain it by what term you may, the feeling exists at the last as it did at the first. Such was Ernest's character; faulty in some respects, weak in others ; its principal feature was the grave view which he took on most sub- jects ; the sense of obligation, so unusual in a man of his age, which had grown up with him. It was the result of an education far different to that to which most men are subjected ; for in his daily intercourse with those teachers of the supe- rior accomplishments which are found at Stoney- hurst, he had learnt to reflect deeply on matters of primary importance, but which only re- ceive secondary consideration in most of our public seminaries. He was attached to the me- 106 ERNEST VANE. mory of that faith for which so many of his ancestors had fallen. The Church, to his mind, involved a meaning of far graver import than that which is in general assigned to it in England. Without presumption or intolerance, he loved to see those fortunes, which men are apt to squander in selfish objects, bestowed on the Church. He gloried in her glory, felt strengthened in her strength. These convictions, boldly expressed, whenever boldness was essential, obtained him great influence among those whom he was accus- tomed to mix with ; for, laugh as we may, in idle moments, at the enthusiastic, is it not ever the case " that the history of the enthusiastic is the history of the successful?" His was, therefore, a character, as has been already observed, not much to be understood in what is called the world. Not that the people who compose that society winch has assumed that title to itself are disposed to ridicule such enthu- siasm or despise its objects, but simply they live ERNEST VANE. 107 on from year to year, and then again from year to year, in one circle of feelings and emotions, from which it is difficult to emancipate themselves ; there is an immense difference of disposition of views and of opinions between the very same description of men educated in London or in the country ; and it cannot be otherwise, for one half of the London opinions are taken second-hand ; it is the shortest, easiest, and least offensive way of forming judgment on all things human or divine. Sensitiveness is the first feature of our natural character ; it will be found in all societies, but per- haps nowhere more developed than in London ; it leads at once to much that is good, and to a great deal that is evil. If it could be shaken off, and people were prepared to act more indepen- dently of each other's opinions, we should have much fewer vices, but at the same time much fewer virtues to record. Such is Ernest in the country — the man of 108 ERNEST VANE. retirement. Let us glance for a moment at one who will play an important part in this work ; a man of the same age, but a man of the world. ERNEST VANE. 109 CHAPTER VII. A party is assembled at Long's. The room is hung with portraits of men of the past and the present day — small ill-executed engravings ; still, such as they are, they are memo- rials of those who used to dine together, and whose festivities were sometimes prolonged until far into the night : these were, however, in the good old times : in that room there are records of great feats performed, by some gentlemen of three, four, or five-bottle reputation : all this has changed now; but there is not on that 110 ERNEST VANE. account less kind feeling, less warmth of friend- ship, less earnestness, as that room can still testify. cf How long are we to wait dinner for these fellows?" asked Mauley, . who had just entered the Guards. His observation was a general one, but responded to by Welby — a tall, aristocratic young man, who was wiling away the time by looking out of the window with intense interest at a scuffle which was taking place between a police- man and a barrel-organ boy. " You had better order dinner at once, my dear Fred.," was the reply ; " I know it is of no use waiting for Percy. I saw him and Graham riding through the Apsley-house Gate, just as I drove by: it is a confounded shame of fellows being so unpunctual ; but it is always the same thing with Percy and Graham." "What a capital fellow Graham is !" continued Mauley. " I never knew him until last year, when I was elected: he looks a good deal worn, though, ERNEST VANE. Ill for his age. Do you know how old he is, Welby?" "Why, I am sorry to say I do/' was the answer; "for I was the same year at college: only, I scarcely knew him at all. I was at Oriel, and he was at Christ Church, and at that time the Christ Church men were famous for keeping up the old absurd etiquettes. But he was very popular. Let me see : it was at the time poor Belmont died ; so he must be about two-and- thirty. By Jove! what a sensation that death made ? I shall never forget it. I was riding down the High Street when we met the poor fellow's body 5 but all this is history to you, my dear Mauley. Ah ! I only wish I was your age. But let me see : I was talking of Graham. Well, do you know, you spoke of Graham's melancholy. There was something or another very odd happened after that accident, in connexion with Belmont's sister, but I never could get at the rights of the story; but 112 ERNEST VANE. Dudley, whom you never knew, for he died long before your time, at Smyrna, married Miss Belmont, and I think Graham fell in love with her; that is as much as I know about it. Mrs. Dudley died twelve months after her marriage. I know that Graham was with her when she died; and if ever Dudley's name is mentioned, he grows deadly pale. Lord Va- vasour, who was there at the time, is the only man who knows the real facts of the case, and you never can get him to talk on the sub- ject." " What a beautiful speech Vavasour made the other night !" said Fitzroy : " were you there, Welby ?> " No, I could not get in. I went down to the Lords ; but it was impossible to find standing- room. I never saw such a crush in my life. It was very good, was it ?" " Wonderful ! the finest thing I ever heard. I think, next to Brougham, he is the best speaker ERNEST VANE. 113 in the Lords. When does he sail for St. Peters- burgh ?" u He is not going to St. Petersburgh, after all/' replied Welby, who appeared to be quite aufait at all the gossip, political or social, of London : " he is going to a much nicer place — Constanti- nople. There ! what do you think of that ? — is not that lack ? I wish to goodness he would take me as secretary. I declare I would go/' "I should think so," muttered Fitzroy ; "but vou will have to wait a Ions; time first." Dinner was announced, and the small party sat down. After the shortest space of time — that is, after Fitzroy had filled three or four bumpers of Champagne, Percy and Graham entered, and were received with a burst of en- thusiasm. "It would serve you quite right if you found everything cold, Graham/' exclaimed Welby, " for I called out to you as loud as I could roar, just as you and Percy were sauntering through the Park, VOL. I. i 114 ERNEST VANE. and peeping into every carriage that passed with a pretty brunette in it." " That's more in your line than mine," said Lord Graham, with a melancholy smile. Yes, he had changed. His whole appearance was that of a man on whose heart a great mystery — a heavy secret — is pressing. It was not the change merely from twenty to thirty- two, although such a lapse of time, something even in the his- tory of a nation, is everything in the life of a man ; a change from the joyous, elastic, bounding im- pulse of youth, to the collected, cautious, matured middle age ; from happy ignorance to mournful knowledge ; from the romance of life to its mate- rial necessities ; a change from hope to disappoint- ment ; from the infinity of love to finite affection. And alas, this progress of age ! it is the only evil which increases upon us, even while we are lament- ing it. Time brings a cure to almost every mis- fortune ; to severed hopes ; to blighted affections ; to social bereavement ; but the evil of age and ERNEST "VANE. 115 the nearer approach to the grave is hour by hour aggravated; imperceptibly, indeed; but then at times it bursts upon us with all its load of misery, just as a traveller along a road, leaving a loved home, sometimes forgets the distance he has tra- velled^ until at intervals the milestone prevents the possibility of all self-deception. But if this be so painful a transition for men, what must it be for women ? where the loss of youth is the loss too often of all that makes youth so beautiful and enviable ; who consider the bloom on the cheek and the light on the countenance as beyond all price. Surely, unless the woman is sustained by noble pursuits ; unless she has occupations and interests beyond the circle of every-day life, the progress of age in her is death by slow tortures ; it is the approach of night without its loveliness ; without the harmony of its planetary system, or the glory of its myriad lights ; of night, shrouded in worse than Stygian or Cimmerian darkness. To a man of the quick imagination of Cecil I 2 116 ERNEST VANE. Graham, this change alone would have sufficed to have made him unhappy ; but we too well know that there were other causes for that melancholy which stamped his countenance. Some, perhaps, who have hitherto followed his career in a work entitled "Lucille Belmont," may marvel that he ever survived the events which were recorded in those volumes. But, alas ! such people are ill-read in the history of the heart; they have not learnt how much sorrow the human frame can bear, and survive. Cecil Graham was broken by the blow : three months he remained at Venice, without the power of being removed, and during that time Vavasour had attended him with all the affection and consideration of a parent, whose place he had truly supplied ; for when Cecil was able to bear the shock of the intelli- gence, he was told that Lord Graham was dead. There is happily a point in mental suffering which cannot be increased, just as surgeons tell us, that after a certain amount of torture, the ERNEST VANE. 117 human frame is incapable of suffering pain; and Cecil had attained this point. His whole character changed after these events; from the gay lively boy, the soul of all parties, he be- came grave and broken-spirited, and, most strange, that irresolute character was converted into an indomitable self-will, which almost amounted to obstinacy. He retained, however, the same affectionate warmth of character which endeared him to a large circle of friends. He rushed into political life, and, by excess of study, endeavoured to occupy a mind which was always devouring itself. His success was very great in the career on which he entered ; he successively became under-secretary for the Home Department, vice- president of the Board of Trade, and was highly esteemed by all parties. Such was Lord Graham at thirty-two; an object of interest to all into whose society he was thrown, and who had every- thing to make life enjoyable, if he could have quaffed from' the stream of oblivion. 118 ERNEST VANE. There was still another place vacant. ie Who the deuce is coming here, Welby }" cried Manley. " Luttrell, to be sure/ 5 was Percy's exclamation. George Percy, the beloved of all, with his ready wit, his retentive memory, and his abundant read- ing. Brilliant, above all, where none were want- ing in brilliancy, possessing that most enviable of all qualities, a perfect readiness, a power of calling up any faculty of the mind whenever it was required. Quick in his temper, but so easily convinced of error, that every slight cause of difference only ended in endearing him still more deeply to the circle of his friends. He was one of those favoured beings whose society, after having been long enjoyed, becomes indispensable ; whose appearance is the signal for a burst of en- thusiasm, and whose absence is a prolonged regret. And there was one of that party, who joined it that day for the last time, whom it would be ERNEST VANE. 119 unmeet not to record here — as he is recorded in the most solemn recesses of the hearts of those who loved; that is, in the hearts of those who knew him. There are losses in life which can never be replaced, voids which can never be filled up. When he died, it was the first blank in that happy circle, and the one most sensibly felt : others followed ; but the repeated action of grief is like the Medusa's head, only, it turns the heart, and not the body, to stone. There is no death like the first : it is like the first touch of frost, which tells us that the summer is gone, and that there is a certain winter approaching. It awakens us to the full apprehension of that change which all men believe in, but which so few attempt to realize. The vacant space left at the table is powerful to affect the feelings as that skeleton which the ancients sometimes placed at the end of the ban- quet, to remind them that life was short, and to incite them to dissipation. On this occasion he, we speak of, was the animating spirit of the scene; 120 ERNEST VANE. on the eve of starting on those travels from which he was never to return; full of gallant daring, of boyish excitement, and yet within two months the tomb was to close over it all. Oh, my friend! Brave, generous, and brilliant, upon the table before me is the book you gave me with the pencilled notes, in which I trace that imagination which led you to a brighter clime, and a death such as genius loves to die. Here are the last records of that friendship, which, com- mencing amid the joyous follies of life, has been consecrated to me by the thousand memories of an imperishable affection. But not unblessed was thy fate ; it was thine to perish, but ever to be remembered, as when we last saw thee, with all the glory of youth upon thy brow; to perish in a sdime warm and genial as thine own heart, in that sacred soil where faith appeals to the soul, through the direct influence of that nature which has been consecrated by the presence of the living God; to sleep, a son of the Church, in the ERNEST VANE. 121 bosom of the land where the foundations of the Church were first laid — in that East, to which we turn with bended knee and lowly reverence. At that moment Luttrell entered. As a man whose destiny is mixed up with our story, it may be permitted us to describe him. He was the only son of Lord Linton, whom we have men- tioned as Mr, Leslie's friend. He might have been six-and-twenty, but scarcely looked so much : he was tall, and of a light and graceful carriage ; his hair clustered round his forehead, and fell in silken curls to his neck, so delicate and finely formed, that none could, for a moment, have imagined that his heart was not cast in the same mould of purity and refinement ; — but it was far otherwise. From the age of eighteen, dissipa- tion of the most reckless and abandoned kind had destroyed the energies of his mind, shattered his health, and weakened every principle ; and it was not merely the late hours, the reeking at- mosphere of the dens of low grovelling vice, the 122 ERNEST VANE. society of the profane, coarse woman, with the gloss of sin on her forehead ; it was not this alone that had ruined his heart, for, strange to say, scenes which, if a woman once for a moment glanced at, her soul and mind would be for ever polluted, a man sometimes can pass through, and yet remain almost pure. As was beautifully said of Mr. Fox, by Sir James Mackintosh, after the wildest life, " He died with the heart of a new- born child." In the language of Horace Wal- pole, some men's hearts, like a chapel in a palace, remain unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly. It is not gross dissipation which is the most dangerous; the man of taste, the gentleman, will soon be revolted at it, and be ashamed of a career in which he degrades himself. The dissipation most fatal in its consequences, is that which refines the mind, which suffocates under rose leaves, which fills the atmosphere with the most delicious odours, which treads lightly on the softest D'Aubusson, which is covered with the ERNEST VANE. 123 richest and most luxurious silks, the very harmony of which is seductive, and which reposes on the softest pillows, which appeals tc the imagination in the most winning accents, and to the senses by all that can soften and subdue them ; this is the dissipation under which the hearths best purposes, under which the noblest energies give way; it is the light touch, and not the rude grasp that thrills to the bone ; it is the one soft, sad word, that is remembered when loud and bold expressions of passion are forgotten. There are some who, after long nights of revelling, will feel their man- hood debased, and when they pass a church-portal enter in and weep between the porch and the altar. There are some who can even at last tear themselves away from the voice of the Syren, and will, after their Capuan existence, learn to ap- preciate virtue and innocence ; there are very few who embark into the two existences, who are at once grossly abandoned and refinedly dissipated, and repent of neither; but Luttrell dashed at once 124 ERNEST VANE. into both careers, and in both was greatly success- ful; that is, among the daring spirits who cast aside all laws human and divine, he stood pre- eminent : you could not but marvel at the auda- city of the man, who could so openly repudiate all the obligations of life, and the faith that pro- claimed them ; and yet, to look at his high, clear, well-shaped forehead, his still limpid blue eye, his easy undisturbed demeanour as he rode down Rotten Row, and nodded and smiled to his nume- rous acquaintances, no one would have believed how his nights had been passed, the brutal language he had listened to, or the fumes of corruption, moral and physical, which he had been inhaling ; still less would they have believed that after being the witness of scenes calculated to freeze up all the warm currents of the heart, he could, in the early morning, go from these orgies to a house in which art had exhausted all its refinements, to make it the abode of love, if not of happiness. ERNEST VANE. 125 The inmate of it was young and fair : she was the daughter of a Tyrolese gentleman, in whose house Luttrell was one night during his travels driven to ask shelter. To repay all this kindness by the seduction of the gentleman's daughter, was with Luttrell a matter of course ; but he did not perform this feat in a common, vulgar way. He was no ordinary seducer. He induced her to run away with him, by the old hacknied story of a solemn promise to marry her. He brought her to England, and the worst which the old father imagined for some time was, that she had run away to be married; for in that part of the country they are very simple, and not well read in the customs of modern refinement. It would have been well if the old man had remained in ignorance of the real state of the case ; but, as it happened, some kind friend told him the truth. He doated upon his daughter Marie: he used, in her long absence, to sit in the garden, and watch a glass hive which she formerly delighted in, 126 ERNEST VANE. when the Pic of the Gschaid Mountain glowed in the sunset, or stood, white, solemn, and mysterious, like the guardian of the valley, in the blue twilight. The old officer — for he had served long and gal- lantly in the wars, and had been a friend of Hofer's — thought of the Marie who loved to attend his steps, and who believed at that time that nothing was more beautiful than her native valley, that no architecture was half so graceful as that of her village church, no fete so joyous as that fete-day when she used, with her band of kirtled and hooded friends, to stroll forth amid the glens and passes, picking the blushing wild flowers, and sometimes wandering even to the very edge of the eternal snow. Those were happy days for her and her father, until this handsome young Englishman arrived, and then the spots which pleased her once, pleased her no more. So, when the old man heard the truth, he died — to die of a broken heart is not so uncommon an event as people imagine. ERNEST VANE. 127 It was towards this child, the daughter who forsook her father's gods, that Luttrell daily bent his steps. Does it stamp London society with opprobrium to say that this man was much liked ? Not so, for the young are not generally censorious; nor ought they to be so, of the intimate life of a man, unless he violates the world's principles of honour and faith, unless he offends against the police of society, they know nothing, and trouble them- selves very little how he passes his time : besides, if men were to set themselves up as censors, they could not pass their judgments with any degree of security; for two men shall live precisely in the same society, and lead precisely the same kind of life, with very different results : the one man's heart may be utterly depraved ; the other may be constantly fighting against the bondage that op- presses him. Moreover, Luttrell was most fasci- nating, with a very excellent ready wit, and a winning voice, and although he had read little or 128 ERNEST VANE. nothing, yet as his attention was always on the alert, he picked up a great deal of information, of one kind or another. He had recently exchanged from the Guards for a company in some regiment of the line, for his extravagance had quite ruined Lord Linton, and he had solemnly told him that this was the very last effort he would make to save him ; that he was to join his regiment, quartered at Bangor, im- mediately, and break off all his London habits. —Marie came under the head of a London habit. Luttrell took his place at the table with the careless air of a man on whom outward objects have very little effect ; and yet, as he addressed each one in turn, nothing could exceed the grace of his manner, or the sincerity which he threw into his voice. ee You are always so confoundedly punctual, my dear fellows. As for Percy, you have quite bit him : he used to keep me company : now I have ERNEST VANE. 129 to dine like a solitaire. What soups are there, MacArthur ?" (i Potage a la Palastine and bisque," was the head- waiter's reply. " That won't do, Luttrell," cried Percy : " if you come so fashionably late, you shall live on entrees." " Well, I can do without soup, or fish, or piece de resistance," said Luttrell, with the most perfect nonchalance. " Only give me plenty of wine. I have given up eating now; all I like is, long, long glasses of champagne." And he drank them off one after the other, scarcely touching any food. He had attained that state when the digestion is utterly ruined, and the spirits can only be sustained by wine and excite- ment : eating oppressed him. After a few minutes his wit began to scintillate. ei Now Luttrell is becoming like himself," cried Percy ; and he prepared himself for the smart repartee, the glittering antithesis, and admirable VOL. 1. K ISO ERNEST VANE. paradox. Luttrell had just sufficient power to draw out George Percy. "Yes," said Welby, "he was quite hipped when first he came in. What was it about, Luttrell?" "I know," cried out another; "he lost heavily at the Berkeley last night. Was not that it, Luttrell?*' " Not at all," was the reply. " You would be hipped too if you were in my situation. Fancy having to leave London to-morrow afternoon, to be quartered at such an infernal place as Bangor, after having enjoyed oneself in the Guards for seven years. Some one will pick up my body floating down the Menai Straits ; for I am sure that I shall never be able to sustain life there for more than a month ; and then I expect I shall not have any more leave for another six months. Altogether, I think it is a most towering shame. ■ I wish I were a gentleman at large, Lodged and fed at public charge," ERNEST VANE. 131 instead of having to wear the cursed livery that I am buttoned up in all day long." "Well, there is a good time coming, my dear Luttrell," exclaimed Welby ; a it is no use in kicking against the pricks ; take it coolly." Welby was of a happy, joyous disposition. If doing kind offices for others can make a man happy, Welby should have been very much so indeed : his whole life was a succession of acts of goodness, tolera- tion, and forbearance. Graham left early. His departure was the signal for expressions of kindness and interest,, which in his presence none of these young men ventured to utter ; but once out of the room, they ran round the circle; the terms "good fellow," " honourable," " high-minded," fell from every lip. Oh ! how little did they imagine that he left to engage in toil, only self-imposed, to ward off the gloomy feelings which oppressed him ; that he left the room to pray in silence and solitude ; that in all this boon companionship, this brotherhood, his k 2 132 ERNEST VA\E. heart felt alone ; that they, although so endeared to him, were only second in his affections to a love which even had increased with the loss of the object ; that the idea which he had cherished was enshrined in the holiest of holies of his heart ; that now, when the human form had passed away, he felt that he must pray for it in spirit, and he did so until his mind had become subdued by his misfortunes, and through sorrow he had learnt the practice of virtue. We have followed Cecil Graham to his retire- , ment: we should, perhaps, better trace the charac- ters of others if we accompanied them also to their homes. u Dis moi qui tu hautes, et je te dirai qui tu es," is the well-known French proverb ; but you may better tell what a man is by his conduct in solitude : is he oppressed by it, or does he reflect upon the past, on the time lost, on the opportunities idly squandered ? does he rush into distractions to relieve his mind from the burden which he feels himself unable to bear? What ERNEST VANE. 133 Luttrell did, we at least know ; for even on his reckless, hardened heart the events of that night are recorded in indelible letters. 134 ERNEST VANE. CHAPTER VIII. They had all loft him : two by two they strolled off, and he stood in Albemarle Street alone ; but they had not parted without kind words and pro- testations of affection, promises of correspondence, so soon to be broken, of remembrance, so transient in their fulfilment. He knew this, for he was a keen reader of the human heart ; but he knew at the same time that on the present occasion all these promises of friendship were dictated by the kindest feelings — and even he was touched by them. He had excused himself from joining any of their ERNEST VANE. 135 plans for the evening, for he had to perform the saddest obligation that had ever yet been thrust upon him — to take leave of Marie, and, above all, to bid her take leave of that luxury and refine- ment which had dignified her existence, and con- cealed its guilt, by plating sin with gold. Up to this last day, without allowing his manner to manifest the least anxiety, he had been wrestling with the necessities of his position : like a strong swimmer, in his supreme agony, he had resorted to every means to obtain money, so as to enable him to continue this career but for a few weeks longer, but all his efforts were vain. He imagined that his anxiety to continue his present mode of life was occasioned by his love for Marie ; but it was not so : he did feel in some degree for her, but not a tithe of what he should have done : true, he could not bear to leave her; she was to him — an article of luxury from which he dreaded to part; nor could he endure the idea of relinquishing all the pleasures, 136 ERNEST VANE. the extravagancies, the sybarite luxury of his present existence, for a barrack yard. The so- ciety of Marie, with her long black hair and her soft smile and gentle voice, for the rude, boisterous merriment of a marching regiment. Up to that morning he had hoped, as condemned criminals ever hope, that something would have occurred to have averted tins terrible necessity ; but no ; the world rolls on, in its routine manner, never diverted from its course by wishes, regrets, or protestations, and that morning he had received a notice from the Horse Guards, reprimanding him severely for not having conformed to the rules of the service, and commanding him to join his regiment within thirty-six hours. Against this order there was no appeal. He went to Lord Linton, and told him it was his intention to sell out. A scene of the utmost violence ensued, after which, from the sheer im- possibility of existing without his profession, Lut- trell had to give way. He did so with unseemly ERNEST VANE. 137 expressions in his father's presence, which broke into fierce imprecations the moment Lord Linton had left the room ; but there was no help for it : he determined to enjoy himself that evening at least, whatever might happen the next morn- ing, and not to say farewell to Marie until the evening. We have seen how entirely his hopes of distraction had failed, that his low spirits were at once remarked; but his friends did not know the cause, and therefore could not esti- mate the amount of his suffering. They knew little of Marie : . his possession of such a treasure was spoken of, but nothing more. She had been seen occasionally, at the opera or the French play, when every one turned round to admire the beautiful girl, and to envy the man who accompanied her; but to none but one or two most favoured of his boon companions was the mystery that shrouded her existence revealed. This arose from no feeling of jealousy on the part of Luttrell ; but it gratified his vanity to be 138 ERNEST VANE. the subject of vague gossip and conversation ; like many men who are to be met with in London. If Luttrell had been offered the choice of the reputation of possessing the entire affection of a loving innocent, and beautiful woman, without there being the least foundation for such a re- port, or of having such a heart devoted to him without the world's knowing it, he would have chosen the first. Marie was just what he de- sired : if he had been asked which had been the pleasantest moment of his life, he would have said the first night he took Marie to the opera, when every opera-glass was turned to- wards the box in which she sat, when he heard the bitter accent of mortified disparage- ment, and the loud expressed praise as she passed through the crush-room : his cup was brimfull that evening, for he returned to the lobby, and men as they hurried by exclaimed, "By Jove, Luttrell, you are a lucky fellow at everything in the ring ; what a beautiful woman ! ERXEST VANE. 139 Where the deuce does she spring from r" These were the sentences which greeted his ears, which he treasured in his heart, and on his deathbed he will probably hear them again. It was to Marie he was now forced to go. He would willingly have avoided the distressing task, but it was impossible. She lived not far from Albemarle Street, in Piccadilly : he had a latch- key, and he opened the door silently. No one, whose experience has not taught them to how great an excess the luxury of the Sybarite life is carried on the continent, could have imagined the taste and elegance of this house, or rather apart- ment, for the lower part of the house was not used. The ante-room that led to the drawing-room was surrounded by gilt brackets, on which the most perfect specimens of Sevres porcelain, and grace- fully modelled antique vases, and small glisten- ing cameos were placed. Portions of Marie's own workmanship vied in colour with the flowers which, at this season of the year, filled 140 ERNEST VANE. the fire-place, and every available nook in the room. The drawing-room was redolent of perfume; the carpet, of the softest material, was again par- tially covered by Smyrna rugs, of the richest and most extravagant texture. Ormolu, glass, and ala- baster, loaded every table, made of marqueterie, and inlaid with old Sevres; and on the walls, which were lined with blue silk and gold, were suspended by gold cords, the most admirable productions of Lemoine, Watteau, and, Boucher. There might be seen those beautiful creations of the age of Louis XV.: the little marchioness, with her vermilion mouth, so small, so pouting, so self-willed, the hair drawn back from her forehead, the dazzling whiteness of which was set off by the powder ; with the patch on the cheek, the curious appen- dage of the beauties of that day — there she was represented reclining on a sofa of curious work- manship, holding in her hand, w r hite and delicate as a snowdrop, the wild violet, the emblem of ERNEST VANE. 141 love in idleness; while her feet, encased in the small satin shoes, with high red heels, reposed listlessly on a Persian cushion. There were other pictures more glowing in their beauty : — "Young nymphs, beautiful and fair, Maidens, with their golden hair." The dressing-closet, with its rich . silver orna- ments, and toilet - covers decorated with the richest lace, was worthy of the furniture of the other rooms. Even the very glass was framed with silver, moulded into a graceful and classical shape. All this had been furnished at an ex- pense of some thousands by Luttrell; thousands which he had raised at a most enormous rate of interest, and which was now all to pass from him. He lit the branches which were standing on the velvet, golden-fringed mantel-piece, and looked round the room — it was death to leave all this : no, he would not go. He buried his head in his hands: the excitement of the day was too much 142 ERNEST VANE. for a frame which was naturally delicate, and he fell into a sullen sleep, from which he was awakened by a cry. It was the voice of Marie; and she was mur- muring his name in her slumber. He left the lights burning, and with the taper in his hand, rose from his seat. If Marie had uttered his name, she had fallen to sleep again. He drew aside the graceful lace curtain which was drawn around the bed, and the light streamed upon her coun- tenance: she had been assuredly disturbed, for low sounds, like the spirits of a dream, floated round her lips. Her black hair fell over the pillow, and one white sculptured arm was lying languidly outside the snowy linen. The lovely countenance of the poor child — for she was only nineteen — was partially hid by the shadow of the curtain. Luttrell gazed on her long and anxiously. Should he disturb that repose, soft and gentle as of innocence ? But for him, she was innocent: he thought of what she had been, and of what he ERNEST VANE. 143 had made her; of the contrast between her present dainty refinements, and the pallid misery which he knew was in store for her; and as he turned round, his eye caught the light glimmering in a small oratory which she had fitted up, and where every morning she w T as wont to kneel before a cross that stood there on a slight altar. Strange contrast — a cross in the chamber of guilt! to the unmerciful, to those who do not consider that deceived hearts may be most guileless; that this child knew only that she loved, and believed not that love w T as sin; such contrast is inexplicable. When Luttrell had gazed upon her for a long time he retraced his steps, and returned again to his own room. The remem- brance of the past swept across his brow, and left a damp upon it, like the moisture which hangs over graves. At that moment he would have given all he had in the world, or rather all he had once possessed, to have recalled the last year — to have restored Marie to the home she 144 ERNEST VANE. loved — to her mountains and her valley; the hardness of his heart was deserting him: the courage, or rather the bold depravity, which had sustained him hitherto, was bending like a reed beneath the storm; it was almost involuntarily, and in a voice of desperation, that he came back to her room and pronounced her name. The heart is never deceived : sleep as we may, affection is ever on the watch. Marie rose in her bed, and with her hair falling over her deli- cate and rounded shoulders, her eyes fixed with earnestness on Alfred's countenance, exclaimed — " Alfred, how late you are ! Why do you awake me?" He put down the light, and placed his arm round her neck ; he touched her cheek with his pale cold lips. u Oh !" said she, almost shrinking from the touch, "your lips are like ice, and your hand — so cold!" and she pressed it to her lips, as if to restore its natural warmth. ERNEST VANE. 145 There was a pause. "I know what it is/* she exclaimed wildly, with one hand pushing back the curls which fell over her forehead, and with the other pressing his hand convulsively — " I know what it is, Alfred ; you have been playing again, and have lost heavily/ 5 " No, Marie/' he replied, with a melancholy smile, " I have just come from dinner." "Oh, now I see it all, then/' she cried, with that intonation of a mental agony which even severe physical pain cannot always call forth. " Now I see it all. You have been dining — you have involved yourself in a quarrel — you are to fight — you have come to say good-bye to me. Is this it, Alfred ?" "No, again, Marie," he answered, with the same painful harassing smile settled on his face. " I dined with a party of the kindest friends." His accent at first mocked the words ; but it soft- ened as he continued — " I believe they really are VOL. I. L 146 ERNEST VANE. all kind friends — at least they tell me so: at all events, they were not likely people to quarrel with me." And he continued, after a pause, e( Why do you imagine anything evil, Marie ?" " Alfred," said the poor girl, "your question proves that you have never loved deeply, or you would know well that there is a wonderful power in the heart to read the text of affection ; that she who loves can tell instinctively the state of another's heart in which her own is centred. I know, Alfred, that it is difficult to judge by your countenance. You have the very great power of concealing all you feel ; but latterly, in spite of all your efforts, I have seen a change fall upon you : you have not been able entirely to hide from me those lines of sorrow and pain which I see drawn on your countenance; you cannot tell how agitated you look even at this moment. You will call me superstitious, Alfred ; but I have a presentiment that something evil is going to happen to me, for just now I was dreaming of my ERNEST VANE. 147 home — that dear home ; " and she turned toward the bed-side, where a picture of the valley of the Ampezzo, and her loved Tyrolese home, was hanging. " I was picturing all those happy days which I passed there — how I used to wander about with Agathe — dear Agathe, who died — how I cried over her grave! — for we resembled each other like sisters, and loved with sister's love. And then I imagined that I was sitting with her in that beautiful garden. It seemed to be spring-time, and we were playing with the Marguerites. Dis moi, dis moi, s'il m'aime ? — Un peu ! beaucoup ! passionnement ! pas de tout! Ah, yes;" and the tears fell down the poor girPs cheek. " So it is, Alfred, un peu, un peu, et pas de tout : but then, again, I dreamed of your arrival at our village — of the second night you passed at Santa Croce, when, you remember, we stood on the balcony, and watched the shadows which the clouds cast on the giant hills — so cold, and glistening in the moonshine, when the village spire pointing to L 2 J 48 ERNEST VANE. heaven, like a finger of solemn warning, in the pale night. You remember then I told you, Alfred, I preferred that church, that humble spire, to all the gorgeous cathedrals I had read of; and my native cottage to the palace in the great city, of which I had been told. I said, I knew that it was thought by some people a great proof of affection, to leave the bustle, and pomp, and splendour of life, for peace and tranquil affection ; but for me, the sacrifice would be to leave my cottage for the excitement and grandeur of life, for the society of the great — that I never could do this. But then I had not known you long, Alfred — yet one truth, at least, I did say, that I wished to die very young; and if I had died, Alfred, I should not have suffered the misery I sometimes now feel. I should not have shuddered at the last scene of this night's dream. Bend down your head while I whisper it. I imagined myself sitting in the centre of a churchyard, with three graves, freshly filled, lying before me ; and when I read ERNEST VANE. 14D the inscriptions, I saw, first, Agathe, then my beloved father, and last of all, my own. But there was another unfinished grave, Alfred, which two men were digging, while a third was carving the monument. He seemed at that moment to be inscribing the name, and I deciphered the word < ALFRED ;' and an < L-U-T. . .' It was the crown- ing horror of my dream; and it was then that I disturbed you by calling your name. But I was so weak from fear, that I fell asleep again imme- diately. Was it not terrible, Alfred ? Speak to me ! |» He did not respond to the appeal : his eyes were fixed on the wall, with an expression of agony ; and when he passed his hand across his forehead, he withdrew it — damp, nay, even drip- ping : the iron had entered into his soul — such glorious youth and such abject sin were united in his person. Marie sank back on her pillow; but her hand still clasped his, and she pressed it convulsively 150 ERNEST VANE. to her lips. It needed no word to assure her of the truth of her omen : there was a mystery impending over her fate, and she felt it to he fatal to her happiness. *' Marie," said Alfred, after a long pause, Ci l had not intended to have spoken to you until the morning. In the morning, light gives strength to hear evil, and this is a fearful one. I will press you to my heart this night, and in the morning tell you all." " No, no," she muttered, " I shall not be able to sleep: tell me now." "Well, then," and he gasped convulsively, " there is no use deceiving you : in truth the de- ception cannot continue any longer; every moment brings the fatal moment nearer to us. Marie, we are to part." When he had uttered the words, he would have died to recall them ; for if he had shot her through the heart, she could not have leaped more convul- sively m her bed : she became pale as the sheet ERNEST VANE. 151 that covered her : the hand that held his own re- leased its hold^and fell languid and death-like: she might have been dead, but for the gasping in her throat, and the convulsive twinges in her coun- tenance. Luttrell buried his head in his hands; and he, the betrayer, for a few brief moments was revolted at his own selfish vanity, which could only be gratified by the ruin of another. As he looked around him, and reflected on the extravagance which he had lavished on her who loved him, he began to think now much he had lost and sacrificed by his blind and cruel selfishness but for this he might have still lingered on some months in town, and, as he would term it, 'have still been happy. She recovered slowly from her trance, and look- ing steadily on his countenance, said, " You are ruined, Alfred!" " Utterly," was his reply. A ray of light and hope shot across her coun- tenance. 152 ERNEST VANE. " I see it all 5 Alfred," she exclaimed : " you are ruined for my happiness — to promote all my wishes — and you think that I have not strength of mind enough to share your misfortunes. Oh, how little you know me ! Sell everything, Alfred, and I will live with you, even as your servant. 1 liked all this luxury because I thought it pleased you, but for no other reason. In the humblest, simplest cottage I should be happy, perhaps — but it sounds ungrateful to say so — even happier than here; for you know, Alfred, how simply I lived in the Tyrol, and how few my wants are. Well, then, if you are unfortunate, let us take a cottage in some quiet place; we can live for so little there, and, loving each other as we do — " She started, and stopped ; for there was a curious expression in his eye, as she described the plea- sures of tranquil life, of two beings with their hearts and hopes intertwined, going through life together. A cold sneer settled on his face : that was not what he wanted — he revolted at the very ERNEST VANE. 153 idea: how much she had misunderstood him; — he live in a retired spot, in domestic happiness ! If the agony of separation was painful to him, the picture she drew of happiness was scarcely less so. Two passions were at war in his breast — love and vanity; but the latter was the most powerful of the two. Hitherto they had been reconcileable ; but now they were opposed to each other, and the latter would assuredly be the victor. And then, and not until then, the truth dawned upon her, that there was something beyond her knowledge in that man's heart — there was a chap- ter she had never read. " You are talking nonsense now, Marie. I don't want to say anything to annoy you at such a moment, but it is sheer nonsense." We have all felt at times how distressing is the effect of a cold ironical remark when applied to warm and enthusiastic feelings — how entirely it turns back the current of the heart, and checks its expression : the effect produced fre- 154 ERNEST VANE. quently far exceeds the cause : it conveys an uncomfortable sensation, from which it is impos- sible to escape. Such was the case in the present instance; the young girl felt from that moment that there was no hope for her ; not from the force of circumstances ; not in consequence of the reasons which Luttrell had adduced, but from the look which his countenance wore ; there are glances which the heart never mistakes, and never forgets. In the lapse of a few seconds she seemed to have lived through years of expe- rience. Luttrell had not feeling enough to under- stand her silence ; he imagined her calm when she was only heart-broken. " Well, Marie," he said, " I did not intend to speak unkindly to you, and as we are to part so soon, I should be sorry not to part good friends. The truth is, my child, I am compelled to join my regiment to-morrow ; there is no possibility of delay, unless I sacrifice my profession, (his pro- fession ! what, in God^s name, was to be her pro- ERNEST VANE. ] -55 fession now ?) and this I will not, and cannot do. No ; these things cannot be avoided, and you must bear up against it, my dear girl." (He spoke very calmly; now the man of the world had driven out the man of imagination.) "You will have all the furniture which is here, and I can afford you one hundred a-year. This will make you quite comfortable, and " Her eyes were still fixed on his, large, sad, solemn, but not tearful. She seemed to understand him ; yet her look was unmeaning. It was a dangerous crisis, and, by God's mercy, the man seemed to feel it, for suddenly he exclaimed, as he saw her eye still fixed on his — " And if you are really a good girl, I will write to you twice a week, and you shall write to me." Then, indeed, she raised her head, and the tears flowed forth abundantly ; and again she snatched that hand which had first encircled her waist, and her kisses and tears mingled together. 156 ERNEST VANE. "Thank — thank you, dear Alfred/' she mur- mured ; " you are kind, and I am unworthy/'' Unworthy, i)oor child ! we may exclaim, and what is he who made thee so ? He who never reflected on the glory of creation as it glowed on thy brow ; on thy sweet innocence ; on those virtues which led to thy sin, as men rush to danger from abundance of courage ; who would not cherish thee, my sweet, broken-hearted child, and restore thee to the home thou lovest so well! Unworthy! would that I were worthy to pray for thee; for thy affections though troubled now, were at one time crystal in their purity. Yes, I would die for thee ; whereas men shall now revile and persecute thee; — oh, my God ! ERNEST VANE. 157 CHAPTER IX. There are two descriptions of mental suffering — the suffering of the heart's best affections, which is purifying, blessed, and holy: and the suffering of pride and vanity, which is mean, humiliating, and degrading. The first, however agonizing and painful, has nothing humiliating in it : on the contrary, the intensity of grief elevates the character which is borne down under the pressure of much sorrow; the dull become eloquent, and the most matter- of-fact imaginative. We continue lamenting, as 158 ERNEST VANE. though to mourn were a religious obligation — as though tears were the waters of salvation. And the tears do flow then abundantly and un- checked. The soul is open to all the sweetest im- pressions ; the heart is full of commiseration, of love, and of pity; all the misfortunes which surround us are cherished by our own, as be- longing to the same family-circle of affliction. But if, on the contrary, we suffer from wounded pride and vanity, then the heart is full of bitter- ness, of concentrated passions. Here there is nothing to dignify and to help us : fear for the future, regret for the past, hate for all around ; these are the constituent elements of this grief: the very life and youth within us becomes hateful ; for it is life without the power of enjoyment; like that hell, which fills the heart of the old and vicious, when they retain the recollections of lust and passion in a decayed and withered frame. Of these two different descriptions of suffer- ings the examples are before us. Marie felt only ERNEST VANE. 159 for Alfred. She had erred, it is true, but so entirely through the confidence of her affection, that she could scarcely be judged harshly ; she loved Alfred with the warmth of a young and ardent imagination ; that imagination which had grown up in dangerous solitude, beneath the in- fluence of a golden sun and a nature of marvellous attraction, where every night is a romance of beauty^ and the child's heart is full of love from its birth. Now the pale reality broke upon her ; but she felt that her love had been a generous love — so she wept. Women are so unselfish, that the very recollec- tion of the immensity of their sacrifice for one they have loved comforts them. Luttrell had left the room when she appeared slightly tranquillised. He did not understand that she was only worn out; but this comfort arising from the sense of self-sacrifice did not last long ; after a little time, as she lay there, the night of the soul, black, me- lancholy, and profound, fell upon her, so that she 160 ERNEST VANE. could not even calculate or recall the magnitude of her grief. It was but slowly, like the progress of decay : her memories withered, like autumn leaves, discoloured as the newly dead, arose in her heart — the enchanting visions of a future, now, alas! never to be hers, which yet but two hours since she imagined that she possessed had fled from her. Then passed by decked in garlands and wreaths the hours of passionate enjoyments ; but as they passed, she perceived that the flowers of which the garlands were composed had faded away. Her grief forgot nothing ; the very echoes of joyous sound, the perfume of the smallest • flower, the lightest whisper of earliest love — everything swept across her heart. She seemed to see the mother, who had pressed her to her bosom; the father, whose aged steps she had tended ; the friend, on whose confidence she had reposed. Luttrell had left the taper in her room ; but it was gradually dying away. Of a sudden ERNEST VANE. 161 she heard the house-door close — he had gone; and at the same moment the light went out, and she was in total darkness : but the darkness of mid- night hours was not so intense as the darkness which fell upon her soul. But at least the dark- ness concealed the bitter mockery of damask lace, silver service and gilt mirrors. It seemed as though she could give free course to her grief, when she was left, like the lost one of old, in a solitude of terror. And Luttrell, why had he left the house at that hour, and without bidding her farewell ? He was not so utterly heartless as not to feel most acutely the state to which he had reduced poor Marie. The agony that wrung his heart compelled him to leave the bed-room. He sat for some time in one of those costly chairs with which the rooms were crowded, when a sudden idea struck him : he had his mother's minia- ture set in diamonds ; he could dispose of this : it was of immense value : he would go at once to a VOL. I. m 162 ERNEST VANE. Jew, with whom he had many similar transac- tions, obtain a sum of money, and give it to Marie on the morrow, as the last proof of his regard. There was no time for delay, for the orders from the Horse Guards were imperative; besides, he knew that there were writs out against him, and that it would be very dangerous for him to leave the house in the morning. He went to the drawer, and took the mi- niature, which was packed with the care be- stowed on a sacred object : it was his mother at three-and-twenty, from whom he had inherited all her charms of grace and feature — but, alas! not her innocence. It was set in a valuable case, and encircled by diamonds of the purest water, which had been presented to her at one of the courts to which Lord Linton had been accredited. At the back of it was some of her hair. Alfred had not looked at it lately. He did not dare pollute that holy relic by touching it. Oh, marvel of nature ! when the world's opi- ERNEST VANE. 163 nion — when love in fairy guise — when the sense of honour — above all, when the voice of God appeals in vain to the heart of man, a mother's whisper is heard, and not in vain; and it falls on the heart like summer dew. For this man, so diseased in mind, so world-worn, wept ! yes, he wept as he looked on his mother's picture: the smile seemed so holy; and the voice, like the features, must have been so sweet and delicate ; so ably was it drawn, it seemed to exhale the excellence of the spirit which it represented. For a moment Alfred j:>aused. Could he part with this last legacy of his mother? could he sell those jewels which had become consecrated by the circumstance that they had been possessed by her, and which had encircled her portrait ? He hesi- tated: he had almost resolved on replacing it whence he had taken it, when he heard the faint sobs of Marie in the other room, and that decided him. He put the miniature carefully in the box, placed it next his heart, threw a cloak around m 2 164 ERNEST VANE. him, and with his hat slouching over his eyes, so as best to conceal his countenance, he issued from that house, to return to it but once again. ERNEST VANE. 165 CHAPTER X. It was a dark night: the carts laden with provi- sions from the country were beginning to rattle along Piccadilly, on their way to Covent Garden ; breaking on the solitude and the slumber of the city, by their heavy lumbering roll. Commerce and speculation never sleep. Luttrell drew his cloak closely round him. for the night air was cold: besides, any pressure gives a man confidence when he is wretched and alone. Thus is it men, in thought or guilt, fold their arms or clasp their hands. He walked down Piccadilly, passed J 66 ERNEST VANE. the narrow passage into Leicester Square, tra- versed that wretched district, and found himself in Cranbourne Alley. The passion, the excite- ment of the great city, seemed to be exhausted. The only persons he had met, were two men straggling homeward, with dubious steps, and sundry deviations from the straight road, and a woman in squalid and miserable garb, who was talking at the corner of Sackville Street to a man of somewhat better appearance, who appeared to be wrangling with her; the man was almost silent, while the woman's impre- cations were fearful. When Luttrell arrived at the door of the money- lender's house, it occurred to him, for the first time, that he would have difficulty in arousing him at such an unusual hour : but when once a man is resolved on an object, all difficulties vanish ; and Luttrell knocked loudly at the door of the miserable building. Cranbourne Alley has now been pulled down, and replaced by a handsome ERNEST VANE. 167 street. At this period it was particularly frequented by Jews, broken usurers, porters, hell-keepers, and other equally respectable members of society. But low as they were in point of class, some of these men could command thousands of ready money ; and they merely assumed the air of poverty, and resided in that wretched locality to screen them- selves from too curious observation. The elite of the roues were well acquainted with them, and negotiated with them in person. But in general they lent their money, — in some cases other people's money, the savings of servants, and even the accumulations of titled persons (who loved usury, and wished to combine it with respecta- bility), through the medium of attorneys. Michel, to whom Luttrell was about to apply, was the best of the class in that neighbourhood, which, certainly, was not giving him very high praise. He had a daughter, black-eyed, and with all the characteristics of her race, who was an occa- sional attraction to Luttrell and others. The old 10*8 ERNEST VANE. man found her very useful in many ways. She kept men in good humour- laughed them out of their interests in the little back-parlour, which looked into a drying-yard, and was redolent of smoke; this back parlour was not a very un- common lounge for the middle class of vulgar men about town, young medical students who indulge in clever practical jokes as you walk through the hospitals, the shopmen of the best tradesmen, the lower order of clerks in all pro- fessions ; — they thought it an excellent lark to go and chat with Sarah, and make the house a divan. There was some jealousy even about her favour and good will, which she turned to admirable account. After knocking a considerable time, and swear- ing almost as loudly, Luttrell caught a glimpse of a light, and heard the shuffling of feet in slippers : presently the handle was turned, and the door opened to the extent of the guard-chain. " Who's that ?" asked a voice, which Luttrell recognised as Sarah's. ERXEST VANE. J 69 " Luttrell : you know me, Sarah," he answered, very rapidly : " come, don't be all night opening the door. I have something very particular to show the old man, and can't stand here; besides, it's devilish cold." " I dare say it is," replied Sarah, e: and it's, as you say, devilish cold to call me out of my warm bed. You don't think the old man is going to get up in the middle of the night, for you or any one?" " Come, will you open the door ? or I will knock up the whole street:" and, true to . his word, Luttrell gave a thundering rap at the door ; but Sarah still kept the chain fastened, and did not seem at all inclined to undo it. u Come, my gentleman, I shall have to take you to the station-house, if you make this row at night," said a policeman, coming up : " you see, sir, as how you have disturbed all the street." It was quite true, for there were two or three heads put out of windows enveloped in the 170 ERNEST VANE. strangest head-dresses, who vented their impre- cations on Luttrell. " I say, young chap," exclaimed one, " I shall give you in charge to that 'ere policeman. Dang it, have you nothing better to do than to alarm a whole town at this time of morning ? Come, policeman, do your duty ; knab him. I gives him in charge. Do you hear ?" But the policeman did not hear ; for the sim- plest of all reasons, that Luttrell had slipped a sovereign into his hand. After a mild remon- strance, and praying Luttrell to go home quietly, A No. 1 walked on. * So you won't take him in charge," cried the choleric gentleman, who had expressed himself so amiably towards Luttrell: "very well, then, I will report you, policeman. I will write to the Commissioners to-morrow morning. It is a cursed shame. As for the house, I will have it indicted as a disorderly house, which it certainly is. You have not heard the last of this: no, that you have ERNEST VANE. ] 71 not," he roared, at the top of his voice, for the policeman was almost out of hearing, walking away with the measured step of most perfect indifference. "Come," said Luttrell, "you hear what a cursed row you are causing, Sarah. Open the door, there's a good girl, and here's a sugar-plum for you," and he threw a couple of sovereigns on the floor. It was an irresistible appeal, and the door was opened, and carefully closed after Luttrell had entered. The woman was really handsome ; but she was dressed in a dirty white wrapper; an India silk handkerchief was fastened round her head. There was something haughty in the eye, and the dark shade of the upper lip. You could not mistake her blood ; the most casual observer would have discovered her to be of the lofty, exclusive, and chosen race. Luttrell was shown into the little back-parlour we have spoken of : the tallow candle, left flaring 172 ERNEST VANE. on the table, while Sarah went for the old man, threw a sad light over the sordid, smoke- stained room. On a shelf were heaps of papers, ranged in something like order, and Luttrell saw his own name scrawled on the back of a bundle of old letters. The furniture was composed of wretched materials; a horse-hair sofa, half-a- dozen chairs, and a large square table, covered by a cloth which had once been blue, but the colour was disguised by grease and porter-stains. Luttrell shuddered at the contrast between the apartment he had left and this reeking abode — between Marie and Sarah. It was some time before Michel would make his appearance ; and before he did so, Luttrell could hear him cursing and growling as he stum- bled down the crazy stairs, in spite of the exhort- ations to caution which Sarah gave him. He was a man well stricken in years : he had thrown a loose kind of slate-coloured easy coat over his shoulders ; his shrivelled feet were lost ERNEST VANE. 173 in a pair of clingy yellow slippers ; the face was thin, cunning, and cautious ; the hair very scant and gray; and he wore a short beard, to avoid the trouble of shaving. It was evident that even vhe rest of his face was only washed on festal days. The hands resembled meagre, skinny, dried pieces of parchment, the nails were colourless, and twisted like claws. His neck was lean, so that you might almost trace his words in his throat. His whole costume consisted of this loose coat and a pair of ragged trousers : altogether, he was about the last person you would have given the credit of possessing a spare five pounds, and yet he was a man who commanded thousands. " Very pretty, very pretty, Mr. Luttrell ; you young gentlemen it seems cannot be fast enough for the age," he exclaimed, as he entered the room, " bringing the police about my door, damaging my respectability. Come, never mind, sit down ; what is it you want ? A few pounds to have a throw to-night ?" 174 ERNEST VANE. "I will tell you what I require at once, old Michel/' said Luttrell, "to save all your con- founded twaddle, and send you back to bed. Look here, I want money for this setting;" and he put the paper containing the miniature into Michel's hand. The old man leisurely and deli- berately undid the covers : when he touched the miniature, Luttrell's face grew deadly pale, for it was the first time a profane finger had come near it. Even at that moment, he was disposed to recede. Michel's eyes brightened when he beheld the brilliants. In one short moment he had calcu- lated their value, and the amount of his profit. ie Come now, be quick," said Luttrell, impa- tiently. " What will you give ?" Michel named a sum one-third of their value. "You are a rascal, Michel 1" exclaimed Lut- trell, really incensed. " You are a rascal to offer me such a sum. You know their value, you old hypocrite." ERNEST VANE. 175 " And I know the value of money to you, Mr. Luttrell. You require the money, I suppose, to- night ?" 66 Of course I do; what the deuce else should I come here for ?" "Now be quiet, be quiet, Mr. Luttrell, don't get in a passion," said Michel, retreating from him, for Luttrell appeared disposed to snatch the miniature from his hand, " we will talk the little matter over. If I say a larger sum, will you take half the money now, and the rest in a bill ?" " You are a fool, Michel, an old fool," was the civil rejoinder; ei I want the money now, I tell you, at this very moment: what's the use of your bill to me ?" Luttrell had entirely forgotten his position, but the old man did not; his eyes glistened, and his hand trembled as he replied, " I don't know, Mr. Luttrell, what use my bill may be to you, but I only hope it will be of greater value than your last bill was to me; — here 176 ERNEST VANE. it is/ 5 and after sorting for a few moments among the papers which bore Luttrell' s name, he showed it to him dishonoured. "Well, these things will happen, old fellow," said Luttrell. " I know they will happen among you sparkling young noblemen," said Michel : all the men who dealt with him were noblemen until they levanted ; then they were perjurers and swindlers. " I only wished to show you, Mr. Luttrell, that you ought to be civil to me : but to come to the point." " Exactly what I wish," said Luttrell. " Pshaw ! I want to be off; this room makes me sick." If Luttrell had observed Michel's face, he would have been careful not to have offended him ; but he was thinking of everything else, and treated him as a money-lender; he did not observe that Michel still kept the old bill in his hand. " It's not the first time, Mr. Luttrell, I have been honoured with ladies' society here, and ladies just as pretty as this, and they were not sickened at ERNEST VANE. 177 my room/' As he spoke, he turned the portrait round in a disparaging manner. ee Look here, Michel/' said Luttrell : " as for giving me the money, that you will do as you like about ; but, by God, if you speak in a disparaging manner of that lady, I will throttle you, you old scoundrel." Michel trembled and appeared to be looking down at the floor: but he was only looking under his eyes at Luttrell with irreconcileable hatred. " Well, it must be so, Mr. Luttrell, said Michel, after a pause; you have such a winning way with you, it is quite impossible to disappoint you. I will give you a hundred more than we said, and we will close the bargain." " After all, you are a good fellow," answered Alfred, somewhat softened ; " but pray be quick, for I am in a terrible hurry." "I will go and procure the money at once," said the old scoundrel, and he left the room. He had taken the diamonds with him, and lain VOL. I. K 178 ERNEST VANE. the miniature on the tahle. Alfred took it up, and again he repented him of the deed : there was something revolting in the notion of selling the setting of his mother's picture on such a night, in such a cause, and to such a man. He took the miniature up, and again he placed it next his heart: if his mother could have seen the action, how- ever guilty he might have been in other respects, she would have forgiven him for this action: at that moment Michel returned with the gold. It was a large sum, and it looked larger: he never kept notes ; it was a rule of caution with him, for notes might be traced; but there was the gold, in two bags, and Luttrell signed a receipt. " Sarah, show the young nobleman the door," exclaimed Michel, as Luttrell was leaving ; "there, take care, my dear sir: one step, then straight on — there are no more steps, only a mat at the door: don't tumble over it, my dear sir — good night, good night;" and Michel and Sarah retired. ERNEST VANE. 179 CHAPTER XL He had done the deed; the door was locked; the step he had taken was irrevocable; it was a satisfaction to feel the money in his pocket. He prided himself on having performed a very un- selfish action. We will not take the trouble to analyse whether or not it was entirely so — let him have the credit of it ; like all men who endeavour to evade very painful feelings by action, they came upon him again with unconstrained force now that the action was over, and he knew the pre- cise limit of benefit which he could confer on n 2 180 ERNEST VANE. Marie. After all, lie had received but a small sum, and it was not the least of his disagreeable feelings to know that Michel had most grievously cheated him in the transaction : " however, it's one consolation, thought Luttrell, to know that I have done him in that bill affair. He will see deuced little of that money, I can tell him." Whether Michel would have seen it under any circumstances, is a matter not worth discussing now. While Luttrell was engrossed in these medita- tions he was standing at the end of the alley where it joins Leicester Square. The fact is, that his nerves were entirely unstrung, and he dreaded a renewal of the scene with Marie. The bravest men are cowards in these matters ; and there is nothing which a man of the world dislikes so much as a scene. To have avoided this, he would have suffered a good deal; for, let us do him justice, to have provided suitably for Marie, Luttrell was capable of making some slight efforts ERNEST VANE. 181 of self-denial ; at least he thought so at this mo- ment ; but men differ so much as to what self- denial is. He at one time would have considered it an effort to put down his cab, or parted with a favourite horse. He did not understand that there is no self-denial worth speaking of, so long as a man possesses the luxuries, the comforts, or even the necessaries of life ; unless it be that un- ostentatious self-denial which is practised in the daily intercourse of life; the self-denial of temper, of taste, of affection, which prevents the expres- sion of the one, circumscribes the fancies of the second, and, most difficult of all, limits the demon- strations of the last. Luttrell would have thought any one mad who spoke to him in this strain. As he was leaning against the lamp-post in this most unenviable frame of mind, he heard a door open and close, and, to his great astonishment, he saw a figure glide from the house he had just left, cross the alley, and disappear through the narrow lane which joined it. At first he thought that he 182 ERNEST VANE. could distinguish Michel's face ; but he soon per- suaded himself that this must be a mistake : what could Michel be doing out at this time of night ? No ; it must have been one of Sarah's numerous suitors, and he thought no more about the matter. He sauntered along so slowly that an hour must have elapsed from the time he left Cranbourne Alley until he arrived at his house. The street was as still as when he had left it : the wind was cold, and a few heavy drops of rain splashed on the pavement, foreboding a storm ; but for this rain he would probably have stopped some time longer to strengthen his nerves before meeting Marie; but the coming storm compelled him to decide quickly. The latch-key was in the door, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He started round: his first impulse was to strike out with all his force, and he obeyed it; the blow fell heavily on a man's cheek. " Come, I say my hearty," exclaimed the man, ERNEST VANE. 183 who Luttrell could see by the lamp-light was strong and heavily framed ; " I say, my cove, you have given me a nice black eve in return for the gentlest tap that ever an hocifer applied to a gem- man's shoulder." "Who the devil are you, and what do you want?" {i I have only a little bit of paper, which you must satisfy, or walk off with me; unless such a knob chooses to wait for his carriage." It was true enough, it was a bailiff. Luttrell knew too well to resist : he apologised to the man, putting a couple of sovereigns in his hand, and induced him to walk in to talk the matter over. His heart sickened at the prospect before him. "You knobs has such a way with you," said the bailiff, pacified ; * you thinks no more of knocking down a bailiff as tho 5 he warn't a Chris- tian, and a public fictionary. Howsumever, if you has a glass of summut, I will step in and see 184 ERNEST VANE. what can be done ; but you don't get away, you promise me that/ 5 "I do/ 5 said Luttrell, "upon my honour." " Then we will be on what the Frenchified fel- lows calls patrol/ 5 answered the really good- natured fellow. When they entered the dining-room, Luttrell lit a candle. The man looked round, astonished at the elegance of the furniture : he involuntarily took off his hat, smoothed down his hair : " I begs pardon, my lord/ 5 said he, with infinitely increased respect, " but this is summut like." Luttrell had steeled his mind too much, but his cheek was very pale. " Sit down, my man/' he said. " Now, what is the amount of the debt, and at whose suit ?" " The debt is a mere trifle for sich as you," he replied, drawing forth the scrap of paper ; " it is 400/., at the suit of Adam Michel." " Of who ?" almost shrieked Luttrell, all his self-possession vanishing. ERNEST VANE. 185 " Adam Michel, my lord/' repeated the man, pushing his chair away, for he evidently expected another ebullition of temper: "you sees as how that Michel has had the thing ready for some time. Well, he calls on me just now, and wakes missus, and says he must see me ; tells me he wil give me five pound if I will get up and knab a gemman before he gets home. I takes the five pound, runs hard, as you see, just gets here before you, and does my duty, as how you per- ceive, in a civil, agreeable manner."' " Monstrous blackguard !" ejaculated Luttrell. u Blackguard ! Civil words, my lord,' 5 said- the bailiff. " I am no blackguard : just an honest Imperative." " No, my good fellow/ 5 replied Luttrell, in a broken-hearted voice, u 'Iwas speaking of Michel, not of you." " All right, my lord ! Blackguard that old Jew as much as you like ; I will join chorus." Four hundred pounds. Michel had given him 186 ERNEST VANE. four hundred and fifty. There was no option ; he must give it, or be shut up. In this moment of doubt and tribulation, he really had consideration for poor Marie; he thought whether she would not suffer more from his absence, without taking leave of her, than by the loss of the money ; and for once he judged rightly. So, with a heavy, broken heart, he took out the rouleaus of gold, and placed them in the man's hand. Even the man was touched by the expression of grief, and endeavoured to console him. " Never mind, sir, there be ups and downs in life ; sometimes we he's on the ground-floor, sometimes in the sky-parlour. Take it easy ; after all, you have a mountain of gold in this room. All this 'ere must have cost a power of money." Luttrell, with a sigh, remembered how much it had cost him : he waved his hand impatiently, as the man seemed still disposed to linger in the room, so he buttoned up the pockets ERNEST VANE. 187 which contained the gold, scraped his feet, and retired. Then Luttrell sat down. After all, he had but fifty pounds left for poor Marie; and he had sold his mother's legacy, and been effectually out- witted by that cunning old man. What curses he heaped upon him ! If he had him there at that moment, he certainly would have choked him. Indeed, he was on the very eve of going off to his house with the most revengeful pur- pose, when a sudden faintness seized him ; he flung himself on the sofa, and slept. At that moment, Marie had risen from her bed, and was kneeling in her oratory before the cross, which we have described as being of simple wood ; but she remembered that the cross was made of wood — the cross that saved the world. So two men of nearly the same age 3 both in early youth, both, from their birth, of the higher class of society, with the same care bestowed upon their education, both of whom had possessed a 188 ERNEST VANE. mother's love, whose cradles had been equally che- rished by affection, and who had been fostered by kind and gentle words; two men, Ernest Yane and Alfred Luttrell, have been presented to the reader ; by what strange accident does it chance that these two men, so similar in the habits of their early life, should grow up so different in their tendencies ? and, stranger accident still, that so opposite in character, with pursuits so greatly at variance, with opinions so diverse, they should find their interests, their careers, clash together ? We might marvel at the incident, if it were not ever thus; that summer and winter, night and morning, are ever succeeding each other; that there are two principles rooted in the world, which are sown and reaped at the same time ; the principle of good, and the principle of evil — Ormusd and Ahriman — the power of light, and the power of darkness. ERNEST VANE. 189 CHAPTER XII. The days flew by at Castle Melwood, as happy days ever will, with inconceivable rapidity ; every morning, some party of pleasure was arranged. Both Mr. Leslie and Ernest Vane were respect- ively pleased that Ida and Algitha had found com- panions suited to them; the friendship of those two was, as friendships ever are between young- ladies of the same age, quite enthusiastic. In about three weeks, a stranger would have believed that they had known each other for as many years. They had no secrets from each other ; or 190 ERNEST VANE. rather, they had no secrets to tell. Only those vague imaginings, those fallacious but graceful hopes of young girls,, which are cherished in secret, and only communicated to some particular one. And yet Algitha's wayward temper was a source of occasional disappointment to Ida, and of real concern to Ernest; her will was so strong, that no restraint could check its expression, or advice control her. It was sufficient for her to wish a thing, to be unhappy if she did not attain it. It is true that it was quite impossible to be long angry with her, she was so pleasingly mischievous —her passionate eagerness was so gracefully ex- pressed; but this made the matter worse; for once compelled to laugh at her waywardness, all control was at an end. Ernest sometimes lost his temper; but this only gave occasion for a burst of laughter, in which he was compelled to join. Yet there were occasions in which he really grew very grave, and spoke harshly to Algitha: her eyes would then fill with ERNEST VANE. 191 tears, and she would throw her arms round his neck, embracing him affectionately. On both sides, these little episodes in the joyous tenor of their lives, were soon forgotten ; in short, she led as happy a life as a young girl well can ; and to lead a happy life is generally considered a matter of principal moment. She was just the same age as Marie. Ernest had commenced at first by declining these repeated invitations to the castle. If he had been asked why he did so, he would have found it very difficult to explain his reasons. Probably there was something in the feeling that he was unable to return Mr. Leslie^s civility, by inviting him, in his turn, to Wimbourne. He saw the absurdity of asking a man residing in a large castle, and surrounded with all the appurte- nances of wealth, to a small cottage, situated three, or four miles distant. It was therefore only when he found that Algitha so greatly missed Ida^s society, and really became moping and unhappy, 192 ERNEST VANE. that he reproached himself with his seclusion, and yielded to the courtesy which was shown him. There might have been another secret reason for his change of purpose; but he did not dare own this to himself. His thoughts were constantly fixed on Ida: but with all his poetry, Ernest Vane was a man of consideration ; like all men who reflect much, he was a quick judge of character ; and he could detect in Mr. Leslie's nature that ambition, that latent vanity, which he felt would t^irow great obstacles in the way of a happy union between the families, even if Ida's affec- tions w r ere enlisted in his favour. Under these circumstances, he resolved to avoid the tempta- tion, the painful occupation of his heart, and the consequent disappointment, to which he knew lie should be exposing himself ; and yet, in spite of this determination, he found himself unhappy and melancholy whenever a day passed without his having seen Ida. He used to walk out on the terrace in the even- ERNEST VANE. 193 ing, and look at the sun as it set, red and glaring, behind the oak-covered hill; there he loved to meditate on every word that had fallen from her lips, and give full rein to that most dangerous of all gifts — Imagination. He possessed all the feelings, all the anxieties, all the refinements of passion, even before he knew that he was at all in love. He endeavoured to guard himself, for some time, against that confidential intercourse ; those silent looks, those indirect avowals, which are, in general, the elements out of which love is composed. His love continued, as it commenced, for some time, to be entirely a work of the imagination: the atmosphere which he breathed, the bright sun, the season of the year, all fed it. If he mounted his horse and gallopped far away from the castle, and in an opposite direction, still in his imagina- tion he saw Ida; and in the murmurs of the twilight he heard her voice. Every reader will, from the first, have exclaimed, "we know the whole tale: Ernest Vane must fall in love with VOL. I. O ]94 ERNEST VANE. Ida \" Yes ! and every one who, in real life, had seen them together, would have said the same; it was well that it should be so ; for love, like the garland of flowers which beauty wears, adorns even the most lovely. It calls forth the energies of the manly, as the spring produces a fresh, growth of green hopes. Is it not, therefore, a certain result, that if the young and beautiful and nobly endowed meet, their hearts must beat in sympathy ? And so the reader is right that Ernest Vane did love Ida: not that in voice, look, or gesture, he betrayed his feelings, but she became an inseparable part of his mind: wherever he went, her image filled a space in his heart. In the silence of the night, he thought he could hear her voice repeating all that she had said in. the course of the day ; on his knees, and in his prayers, his thoughts, when he blessed all who were dear to him, reverted to her. If he had painted the Madonna, he would have conveyed ERNEST VANE. 195 the features of Ida to the canvass. Such was his love ; the love of the enthusiast nurtured in soli- tude. Taught in early life to sound the depths of the mystery of the human heart, and the infinite beauty of God's works, it was a love which, in the world, many would have despised ; for it in no way esteemed or calculated the immense heri- tage which the possession of Ida's affection would bestow upon him. He loved as the few do, and as the few only will understand. It was his greatest enjoyment, after having been a short time in her society, to retire to some shady spot, from which he could catch a distant glimpse of the castle, and there to pass away hours in the' vainest, but most joyous day-dreams. Then it was that it could be fairly said that he loved her : had she been present, and he con- fessing his affection for her, it could not have been uttered in tenderer tones ; happy moments, when for the first time, all that his youth had imagined was being fulfilled — when the boy first hopes, o 2 196 ERNEST VANE. ignorantly indeed, but gracefully hopes, in some retired spot, where no rude footsteps shall pene- trate, to meet a fairy form, and take it home to his bosom : such hopes are too often realized in a form quite unworthy of the dreamer; but even then he endows it with the Promethean spark from his own heart, and to him it becomes fraught with beauty. Ernest possessed this in- comparable blessing of fresh feelings associated with manhood — rare instance of the imaginations of earliest youth, accomplished when the feel- ings and passions are strongest. Oh ! if those who call it pleasure to drink deep into the dis- sipation of the night — to cherish affections, of which they are themselves ashamed — to conceal themselves under a cloak, even in darkness — if they did but know, before it is too late, what are the joys possessed by a pure~and simple heart, how beautiful are the feet of virtue, and how in- finite in its capacity for love is the human soul, which has not been desolated by the hurricane ERXEST VANE. 197 of passion, they would envy those who have learnt to cleanse their way, and have preserved their purity of feeling. For then concealment does not indicate the presence of shame, and the highest confidences — the confidences of the soul are interchanged never to be broken. Then the heart becomes susceptible of the highest refinement, and with the love of a fellow-creature — the love of nature — the love of virtue, ay, even the love of God grows within us — every love except that of the world ; when a virtuous affection fills the mind, then the pleasures of the world, its low ambition, its grovelling pursuits, affect it not, and men marvel how they ever cared for those pleasures which once engrossed all their existence. They begin to think that a new world is opened to them — that to them, and to them alone, a reve- lation has been made ; they then believe that the language of the poet, which was ever on their lips, and which they once considered extravagant 198 ERNEST VANE. and wild, now so ill expresses their feelings, that it is unworthy to be quoted by them. A pure affection is the surest guarantee of high moral im- provement. A heart which the voice of the preacher caimot reach, which the fears, the anxie- ties of life cannot turn from evil to good, is sub- dued by the murmur of affection, and Mammon kneels before the shrine of the beautiful and innocent. Is not this easy of explanation ? Do we not see constantly that the people who are in the habit of associating together, catch the same manners, the same views, almost even the same expression of countenance? Why not, then, the same admiration for the excellent and vir- tuous ? Surely, if the evil can contaminate, the virtuous is powerful to bless ; if hate can distort, love can transfigure and beautify ! Oh ! supreme moments ! when all our pre- ceding life seems to have been enveloped in darkness, and God says, " Let it be light," and ERNEST VANE. 199 it is light, and at the word, the great design of life is displayed before us, and we begin to com- prehend the power of eternity in the possession of affections, which we feel are infinite in their capacity. 200 ERNEST VANE. CHAPTER XIII. There was a very favourite spot where Ernest used to retire to meditate — it was a summer- house, at the end of one of those long, dark beech avenues, which are the glory of our old English residences ; formal, if you will ; but still the very formality, the measured distances between the trees, leads to reflection, and to measured feelings. On one side of this avenue, the bank sloped down into the bed of a stream called the Alder, and was covered with rhododendrons and laurels, and light and graceful plants ; the summer-house itself overlooked, what in the neighbourhood ERNEST VANE. 201 passed for a waterfall, but what an artist would scarcely have recognised as worthy of so dig- nified a name; although, at all events, he could not have denied that thewater there formed a very pretty feature in the landscape, and, in a warm summer's evening, its gentle murmuring was, perhaps, more seductive than the roar and wild lashings of hoarser and more pretending cascades. This stream was not wide; and the opposite bank, which was steep and rocky, was crowned by the very small remains of an old abbey, knocked to pieces in the time of that arch-destroyer, Cromwell, the minister (not the Usurper). It was a very sequestered place, where the wild flowers clustered round the moss-grown rocks, where the eglantine and violet grew undisturbed. If man, in his hours of depression and seclusion, loves to wander amid ruins, and to sit in the noonday heat under the shelter of the fretted aisle, or broken column, Nature, too, in her 202 ERNEST VANE. perfection of youth and loveliness, beautifies such seclusion with every luxuriant grace. She twines her green and purple tendrils around the confused masses of marble, which testify at once to the capacity of man, who could chisel with such grace, and to the power of God, who can destroy the greatest works that man erects ; yes ! it is in retirement that what men call nature, that is, when the outward and visible sign of Heaven's infinite and marvellous goodness, speaks to the soul. It is on a twilight eve, when one by one the stars peep forth like islands of light in a sea of purple, or when the east blushes at the hour of rest, and the approaching night appears in her dark mantle, spangled with fire- flies, and the stream ripples eddies, and froths, as it has eddied and frothed from earliest time, and will continue to do so until it leaps into eternity ; it is then that religion grows within the heart, and that even he who has hitherto believed, learns more ERNEST VANE. 203 deeply to feel that which he believes ; and then indulging in imagination, let us add to all this harmony, grace, and mysterious beauty, the memory of the voice of love — the remembrance of never-to-be-forgotten words, — the pressure of a hand, the half confession of a new faith, let us picture the young, poetic, and imaginative in such a glorious solitude, when he is alone, and yet not so, for overleaping all time and space, there is another heart that responds to his : for moun- tains may separate them, seas roll between them, but hearts united beat in sympathy for each other, through all the material obstacles which nature places in their way. Is it not at such a moment that revelations are made to men ? — and one such revelation changes the whole current of a life. Are there any who have not passed through such moments of happiness ? If so, they are to be pitied, for they have allowed their youth to creep by without its greatest blessing ; they have wandered through 204 ERNEST VANE. the land of flowers and beauty, without picking the one, or worshipping the other; they have seen the crystal streams gushing near them, and have not stooped to drink of the waters, the very remembrance of which would have cooled their parched lips through the burden and heat of the day : like ignorant travellers, full of ma- terialistic thoughts, calculating the distances, endeavouring in their selfishness to avert future evils and difficulties, which, after all, they may, perhaps, never be called upon to combat, they have walked on, blind to all the charms which surrounded them — to the glory of the heavens, and the glory of the earth; and when it is too late, when they have reached the eminence, and the next step, the first in life's descent, is to hide it from their view — oh ! then, what would they not give to tread the same road again, and to recover some of those flowers, which they perceive others cherishing in their bosom, albeit they fade and wither too soon. ERNEST VANE. 205 CHAPTER XIV. Ernest was a great reader : the summer-house alluded to in the last chapter was furnished with every variety of books ; but his principal study was works of the imagination. Algitha, wild as she was, frequently shared this solitude with him, and was happy in it; at any rate, she seldom dis- turbed him ; with all her fanciful tricks, she greatly admired her brother. His chivalrous man- ner, the eloquence with which he at all times expressed himself, his enthusiasm for nature, attracted her sympathy. She frequently sat there 206 ERNEST VANE. for hours while he read to her, or they sketched some of the beautiful points of view which the winding stream presented. These were very- simple amusements, it is true, perhaps for that very reason, they bore repeating so often. Ernest was deeply touched by her affection, and by her entire submission to his will, when- ever it was seriously expressed. He trembled for her in the world; for he could not disguise from himself, that with an imagination so ardent, and a will so resolute, that none but himself could con- troul it — with affections so warm, that, like the sun's rays, they clarified and illuminated every object that came within their focus, her career was full of perils. He would have been happy if any eligible families had resided in the neighbourhood, so as to have initiated her into society; but there were none but coarse country squires, and from an intercourse with these, his refinement shrank. He even preferred living in this constant state of ap- prehensive affection, to endeavouring to promote ERNEST VANE. 207 such an acquaintance. Meanwhile, he tried all he could to train her mind to something like serious consideration, and to teach her young heart. He would with this view invite her to the summer- house, and indirectly put in her way books calcu- lated to instruct her in the great truth, that the purpose of life is neither pleasure nor regret, but discipline, and above all discipline, the disci- pline of self-denial. He would walk with her up the glen, and recite her some verses, in a cadence not less silvery than that of the waters bubbling near, calculated to rouse the drooping energies, and inspire a perishing heart. Carried away by his enthusiasm, he would continue, not perceiving that she had slipped away, and then turn round, and see her far down in the copse, with her bonnet off, scrambling from rock to rock in eager search after the wild rose. One .day, in the summer-house, all the win- dows were open, for the air was mild and 208 ERNEST VANE. balmy as that of southern Italy. Ernest was in a reverie, with his eyes eagerly fixed on the cas- tle, the turrets of which were distinctly visible through the broken ground above the glen : Algitha was sketching the abbey, a sketch which she had attempted fifty times before, but which it so happened was never quite completed : she was far too impatient for an artist. She had made many ineffectual efforts to represent a monk, seated on one of the blocks of granite ; but he was as resolute not to be painted ; and the result was one of those bursts of impatience which used to make Ernest start from his seat and implore her mercy. On the present occasion, the brush was thrown clown, with even more than usual energy ; but Ernest made no remark. Was he asleep ? Algitha looked round quite surprised at his un- wonted silence. No — he was not asleep ; but his cheek rested on his hand, and his eyes were steadily fixed in the direction of the castle. The pen had fallen from his fingers, blotting ERNEST VANE. 209 the paper on which he had been writing : what- ever his thoughts, they were evidently of intensity sufficient to pierce through the atmosphere and discover a vision beyond. That melancholy and thoughtful eye, that modelled mouth, now slightly compressed, as if to restrain the flood of feelings which had risen to his lips, the rich hair which floated over the delicately -shaped forehead, and that hand, almost faulty from its feminine pro- portions : he was in that deep study of thought which a painter would have loved to paint, and a poet to describe — although both would have failed to do so adequately. Algitha herself was touched by its singular beauty ; for the inspiration derived from some hidden influence was glowing in each lineament. For a long time she remained silently gazing upon it — at last, her natural disposition had its sway, and she rose, and stole behind him, and with a pen slightly touched his lips. What a dream she had disturbed — those dreams afterwards so fondly remembered and cherished ! VOL. I. P 210 ERNEST VANE. Ernest started from his seat. u What is it ? " he said ; and then immediately recollecting where his thoughts had been, and in whose pre- sence he was, the deep colour flew to his cheek, and he walked with hasty steps to the window. u Ah, ah ! v said Algitha ; " you will meditate in that way when I am near you : by-the-bye, I dare say that is the way you pass all your time when you deceive me by telling me that you are coming here to read. Now I know what you are about; and your chair, always placed opposite this window : yes, Ernest, I begin to see it all — there is no use denying it — I declare you are in love — in love with Ida. Capital — is it not ? ex- cellent fun !" "Algitha!" said Ernest. " No, no," continued the laughing, bright-eyed girl, " I won't have any fine speeches. I have found something out — there is no use deny- ing it : no, you shall not do so, Ernest ; " and she put her hand over hi« lips as he was about to ERNEST VANE. 211 speak. " I will tell Ida all this when I see her in the afternoon." " No, Algitha, I beseech you, dear/' said he, in an almost imploring tone. " Well, then, you shall tell me the truth. I will not speak to her if you tell me everything : but no half-confidences : if I find out I am not treated with perfect confidence, our compact is broken. And then — " and she continued with a more serious accent, as though a sudden thought seemed to strike her, (i why should it not be so ? Now I come to think of it, what could be more natural and agreeable to every one, supposing Ida loved you ? It would be the happiest marriage possible. You have family, which Mr. Leslie would give half his fortune to possess ; and he has more money than any one can possibly require ; whereas you have scarcely anything. And then I will tell you something : when I was riding with him and Ida last Saturday, I was quite surprised at the number of questions he asked me about the extent of p 2 212 KRXEST VANE. your property here, and in what directions it ex- tended, and many other things. Among the rest, whether it was as strictly entailed as people gener- ally said. I assured him on all these points, and he appeared rather dissatified with my replies. Now, if Ida married you, this property would belong to the family ; and although it is small, I am quite sure that the possession of it would gratify him more than anything else, as it is all that is required to make Castle Mel wood quite complete. Well, it is really quite wonderful my having discovered all this," she said, after a pause, " and now I don't laugh at all, Ernest;" and she endeavoured to compose her face into something like a sedate expression. She had touched a chord which vibrated through his whole frame — in her reckless manner she had made suggestions which gave a reality to his dreams that they had never before possessed. The thought had once or twice presented itself to his mind; but he had always banished it from ERNEST VANE. 213 him : but now, he felt that his secret was known ; and although it had lost some of its charm by- being discovered, still it was happiness to have one in whom he could confide ; and, moreover, why should he deny an affection of which he had reason to be proud ? "Darling Algitha," said he, as he took her hand affectionately, " you have discovered my secret; but pray do not mention it lightly, and, oh, above all, let me entreat of you never to breathe a word to — to Ida. I can assure you that it would lead to my misery, and that would make you very unhappy, would it not, Algitha ? As for what you say of the possibility of such an event, I dare not imagine it — I cannot blind my- self to Mr. Leslie's character — to his natural am- bition ; to his pride in an only daughter, and to the anxiety of men of the highest rank, into what- ever society she may be thrown, to seize so rich a prize, even if she did not possess all those quali- ties of mind, and that touching beauty which has 214 ERNEST VANE. won me. We are very happy now, dear Algitha : let us remain so. Any foolish remark, any idle jest, might lead to incalculable mischief. Do not precipitate events. As it is, I have nothing to re- proach myself with. You observe how often I have denied myself the happiness of accompanying you on your excursions on some pretence or another : well, then, let us go on in the same way. You are very happy now. Why do anything to break the charm ? So you must promise me, Algitha, my own sister, to be silent." The keenness of woman's perception is remark- able. Algitha saw how to reconcile her brother's real happiness and her own anxiety for the accom- plishment of her projects, with his scruples which he called conscientious, but to which she would have applied the term Quixotic. " Well," she said, u Ernest, I will keep your secret, but only on one condition, that you do not avoid Ida as you have been doing lately. Very likely you are right in your idea that the marriage never can take place ; ERNEST VANE. 215 but that is no reason why all the pleasure we might enjoy now should be spoilt by your very absurd notions ; for they really are so, dear Ernest, only adapted to the year one, so en- tirely antiquated. We won't, then, talk about this any more; but do not let it interfere with our amusements. As for Ida, I can safely say, that she is not in the least in love with you. This may not be flattering to your vanity, but it is the truth, and so you can set your conscience quite at rest." Oh! Algitha! are you quite sure that you are speaking the truth ? Ernest, if not in any way convinced, was, for the moment, willing to be satisfied : he had received a great shock from the circumstance of that affec- tion which he had so fondly cherished having become known to another. When an affection is pure and ardent, the first effect of such a discovery is to make a man ridicule himself; and if, in addi- tion, an ironical voice sustains this feeling, the na- 216 ERNEST VANE. tural result is, for the moment, an entire revulsion of the heart. Algitha had gained her point, and without giving her brother time to repent his promise, she pledged him immediately to many plans, which, in a more composed frame of mind, he would assuredly have declined ; but Ernest, like all men of refined and classic intellects, was easily led by a woman. " Here is a capital idea, Ernest," exclaimed Algitha, in a voice of delight: "you have always refused to ask the Leslies to come and stay with us, for reasons which I really appreciate, for I agree with you there would be something ridiculous in inviting the owner of such a castle to drive down three miles and dine at our cottage; but there is no reason whatever why we should not enjoy a kind of picnic here ; dine early, and then they could drive back after dinner. I am sure that Ida would delight in this. You know, although we nave been there so often, that they have only ERNEST VANE. 217 seen the waterfall once, and that from the other side of the river ; they have actually never been in- side the summer-house. Now, I see you are going to object, Ernest ; but you should remem- ber that you have promised to be obedient to me, and it would be really so delightful ! Then, if we liked it, we could renew the party. Now you agree to this, Ernest ?" « Why,—" "No, no, Ernest, this is too bad. You shall not start difficulties, and imagine the possibility of evil, when there is nothing but enjoyment in store for us ; and then, remember, that in ten days I am to go to the Maxwells at Beaumaris, where I shall be bored to death. Oh, how sorry I shall be to leave you all, even for a month ! so you must let me enjoy myself as much as I please now." " You are a selfish girl," said Ernest, smiling, " to think so much of your own enjoyment ; but I do remember that you are to leave us, dear Algitha, 218 ERNEST VANE. and, therefore, you shall be entire mistress here while you remain/' "That is delightful, kind, dear Ernest;" and without another word, she started off to write to Ida. ERNEST VANE. 219 CHAPTER XV. Ernest was reading aloud to Ida and Algitha: " It comes, the beautiful and free, The crown of all humanity, In silence and alone, To seek the elected one. It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep Are life's oblivion, the soul's sleep, And kisses the closed eyes Of him who slumbering lies. No one is so accursed by fate, No one so utterly desolate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own." " These are beautiful lines," exclaimed Ida. 220 ERNEST VANE. " They are, indeed," replied Ernest, not without hesitation, " an eloquent description of love. "The crown of all humanity" is a singularly happy simile: they are written by Longfellow." The party were sitting, not in the summer- house, but on a bank, which lay below it. Like all people who will a thing forcibly, Algitha had succeeded in her plan, and it was now being carried into execution. It was yet early in the day, and although only in the month of May, they sought some shade from the sun which poured from the bright clear heaven. The group was one happily so often seen ; for, in general, those who form them are susceptible of all those influences of the flower-bearing earth, and the blue atmosphere of heaven, which are accessible alike to the poor and to the wealthy. If society, with its ranks, its privileges, its class appurtenances, separates interest from interest, and man from ERNEST VANE. 221 man, in the midst of the wondrous harmony of the summer night there is equality of enjoyment. The silken lovers, who speak in low whispers, breath- ing confidence, or sit in silent expansion of heart, with eyes half closed with inward felicity, are not more blessed by the mysterious light, the pene- trating subtle odour of wild flowers at evening, by that breeze which is soft as the breath of angels' love, have hearts not more deeply fraught with beauty, gratitude and hope, than the russet and homely pair, whom they pass by, seated on the mossy bank close to the bubbling stream ; for these, too, also possess the abundant gifts of gra- titude for the past, of love for the present, and hope for the future. And this group — from the description of which we have digressed — was a happy one ; for it was youthful, kind-hearted, and full of affectionate and loving thoughts, which, although unex- pressed, still coloured all the conversation, and beautified every idea, as the perfume of flowers, 222 ERNEST VANE. even when they are compressed and concealed, impregnate the atmosphere. And then, although they did say, " what an enjoyable day \" u what a pity it should pass so quickly \" iC when shall we meet so happily ?" they still felt that they had many such days of enjoyment in store for them, and that they should often meet happily, so Ernest read, and Algitha, with a heap of bright leaves, and brighter flowers by her side, wove coronals for her hair, or tied long chains of blos- soms together, which she threw to Ida. Ida sat there, affecting to work, but ever and anon looking stealthily into Ernest's face, when, with a deeper pathos and warmer enthusiasm, he read some passage which he felt expressed that secret of his heart, he imagined to be so well con- cealed; then, with downcast eyes and a warmer glow on her cheek, she would listen with sup- pressed breath, and the light summer-dress rose and fell with the heart that beat beneath it. Once, when Ernest, forgetful of everything but the magic ERNEST VANE. of the words he was reading, and the love which fired him, looked towards her, their eyes met, and her soft cheek was suffused with a warm tint, rich as the glow of an Athenian sunset. They sat there for hours ; and those hours passed but too quickly — for such is the penalty of happi- ness, that the more perfect it is in its character, the more rapid it is in its transit. It is thus that the logician arrives at the fact, that the greatest happiness is in anticipation ; for, no sooner is the object of our search attained, than the contem- plation of its loss presents itself to us. Men deceive themselves so lamentably with respect to time : it is not to be counted by hours and minutes, but by the variety and duration of sen- sations : for instance, five minutes of acute pain assumes the shape of hours ; and, to all intents and purposes, they become so. Tell the child of anguish and privation that life is short, and she will reply to you that the hours linger in their path ; that from morning to night, and night to 224 ERNEST VANE. morning, appears a hopeless eternity. Tell the child of light and love that life is a long space, and she will talk of a dream, soft and roseate as a summer's blossom, and not less fleeting. It is a melancholy fact, that youth, full of health, sur- rounded by love, and honour, and troops of friends, passes like a meteor, and that ever as we descend from the eminence the movement in- creases in rapidity, and the objects we are passing become daily more indistinct. They sat there for hours. Not a sound, except the unceasing murmuring of the stream, the slight rustling of the leaves when a timid fawn, more venturous than the herd, who had left the green pasture for the shady underwood, gazed on the party who had invaded its retreat. The birds, flitting from branch to bush, would hop near them to pick up some of the fragments of the slight repast. Sometimes a few dead leaves, those terrible monitors, which not winter's frost could entirely shake off, fell around them, ERNEST VANE. 225 pushed from the twigs by the new buds — sad em- blems of all human life and decay — youth driving age before it. All around them was the universal harmony of May. The buzzing of myriads of insects ; the humming of the bee ; the burst of nature in its glorious growth, almost palpable to the senses ; in the midst of which we feel it were sufficient happiness to dream away existence. " Did you ever write poetry, Mr. Vane ? " asked Ida, in a timid voice. Ernest was about to answer with one of those denials to which no one attaches faith, but which are ever on the lips of men who respect their feel- ings, and the sanctity of their innermost thoughts, when Algitha interrupted him. " He will deny it, Ida, of course ; but I can assure you he does. Let me see ;" and she sought for some time in her basket, until she found a scrap of poetry she had picked up on some occa- sion, and which Ernest had intended to have thrown away. VOL. I. Q 226 ERNEST VANE. " Algitha," said Ernest, with a warning manner. But nothing could stop the giddy girl ; she began to read the verses in a mocking voice. "Well," said Ernest, "if they are to be read, at least let me do them what justice I can, for this is not fair." And he repeated the flowing lines with earnestness. Perhaps, for the moment, there is no greater passion than a man possesses for the production of his intellect, for it is fre- quently the child of toil and mental suffering. Love is a plant by jealous fancy sown, Which is most delicate when fullest blown. The bud waves gaily when the zephyrs sigh, But once expanded, then the leaves will die : The harp, full strung, awakes the richest sound, Yet the strained chord oft breaks in the rebound. The notes are sweetest when the lyre is strung By some light finger; if the hand is flung Too boldly o'er the chords, it makes us start ; But softer strains will penetrate the heart. Love is a plant matured by hope and fear, And lovers' quarrels but the more endear. But when the young, warm heart begins to swell, Alas, how slight a word will break the spell ; ERNEST VANE. 227 One frigid glance, some little idle jest, Although the lips belie the swelling breast — Some measured tone, some long forgotten strain, 'Will send the heart's blood flying to the brain. The false Italian wove the chamber scene, And Leonatus doubted Imogene: One muttered speech, one whisper half expressed, And foul suspicion filled Othello's breast ; He wanted Faith, and when bis heart was tried, He doubted once, and Desdemona died.* Oh, grant us Faith ! for hard it is to trace The minds of others, in life's rapid race; Much in this world must linger unexplained : Love is not always false, or passion feigned. To change the heart the slightest signs have power, — A word, a glance, a picture, or a flower. Full many a heart prejudging has been lost, And want of Faith has left it tempest tossed : 'Tis ours to trust, believe a Power above, And place our Faith where we have placed our love. He had forgotten the work was his own, and when he had finished, exclaimed, u Oh yes, it is faith which we require \" Ida^s head had sunk upon her bosom, and her arms hung listlessly by her side, even Algitha was silent, for there is something in the language * From "Meditations of other Days.'' q2 228 ERNEST VANE. of the heart that commands respect, and overrules all ridicule. " Yes, it is faith," he continued, " that is want- ing to our happiness. Faith in the excellence of others, in our own faculties, in the providence which regulates the future. It is want of faith which prevents men proclaiming great truths in the face of day, and leaving behind them the imperishable monuments of great works. How many men pass all their lives in doubts ! They have not made up their minds upon the intentions of existence before it lias almost swept by them ! They go on ever stumbling, because they cannot decide from what stream they will drink; they doubt the truth and affection, which might have crowned their existence with happiness and glory ; like a dream that has been dreamt, as unreal and impalpable, so their lives pass. They doubt the efficacy of great and good works, so they do not perform them ; of great and good words, so they never proclaim them. It is through faith, and ERNEST VANE. 229 through faith alone, that a man leaves the region of good intentions to be up and doing, that he learns to "Trust no future, however pleasant, To let the dead bury the dead. To act, ' act' in the living present, Heart within and God overhead." All this a man does through faith. " I do not/ 5 he continued, checking himself, u speak of that great faith before which every head is bowed, and every knee is bent, but of faith in the daily transactions of life, in the manly duty, in those constant obli- gations which the world never sees ; but which are frequently so difficult of fulfilment. This is the faith which I allude to, and that which men re- quire to possess, before they can hope to be great — faith in themselves." And as he spoke, his whole presence indicated a spirit capable of great things ; of the practice of the philosophy he was advocating. He stopped, and as the voice died away, the 230 ERNEST VANE. flow of the bubbling water, the rustling of the branches, and the fall of the dead leaves again recalled the group to the place where they were sitting. It is a glorious thing to bring such a light to the eyes of one we love, as Ernest called up Ida's. As Stirling has beautifully written, — '* There is one thing does all eclipse, And this shall be my prize, To see my thoughts move ruby lips, And light up glorious eyes." But the day was flitting by. The golden bright- ness grew paler and paler, and the purple and orange of twilight usurped its place, the evening air grew cooler, and it was not without many regrets that the party prepared to break up. Then there was the last question, always answered by Time, " When shall we meet again here ?" " I am afraid not so soon as we expected," said Ernest, " for we heard to-day from Lady Mary Maxwell, and she expects Algitha at Beaumaris ERNEST VANE. 231 next week. I am to take her and leave her there. When she returns the weather will be still warmer, and we shall be able to renew these picnics; meanwhile, we will write our names and the date on the bark of the tree." He took out a pen-knife, and they each in turn scrawled their initials. They grew upon that tree long after, when one of those who wrote it that day had passed away. " Have we no other vacant day before Algitha goes ?" said Ida. " Let me see ; to-morrow we are to ride to Cawthorn, the next day you come to us, to meet those country neighbours whom Algitha so much objects to. We will not have a picnic with them. I am sure we shall not feel so happy and at our ease." " No, no, by no means," exclaimed Algitha. " Well, all we can do is to remember the spot we have selected, and show our gratitude by returning here on the first opportunity," said Ernest. " Now let us build up a little monu- 232 ERNEST VANE. ment of turf and leaves, to commemorate the occasion." And like children they rooted up the violets, the blue-bell and wild heather, and the most luxu- riant mosses, which they shaped into a small mound, and then strewed upon it the blossom of the acacia, the rhododendron, and the wild rose. ERNEST VANE. 233 CHAPTER XVI. The morning of Algitha's departure arrived. Formerly, she had looked forward rather with pleasure to this annual visit, for, compared with the village of Melwood, Beaumaris was quite a metropolis, and the neighbouring Bangor the scene of the wildest festivity; for there were county balls, race balls, regatta balls, stewards' balls, lady patroness's balls, in fact, balls in every variety of shape : and ever with the same eternal jingling band. Algitha was very fond of admiration and she obtained it there, to her heart's content. 234 ERNEST VANE. The Maxwells were delighted and proud to have her with them, for wherever she went, a buzz of ap- probation welcomed her. Ernest, who had passed one season with her, remembered this, and was not wholly without alarm for Algitha's disposi- tion. He knew that a love of admiration is the most dangerous quality which a woman can pos- sess ; and that the utmost virtue, the strictest principle, are frequently but feeble barriers against the omnipotent power of vanity. But then, like all persons who are full of affection for another, Ernest was inconsistent; after having frequently deeply considered, for hours together, the peril to which his darling sister was likely to be exposed, if all her fool- ish, girlish, wishes were immediately gratified, he was the first to go out of the way to antici- pate them, and thus at parting from her at Beau- maris, he turned towards her fondly, and told her that he hoped she would amuse herself as much as possible, while only a few moments be- ERNEST VANE. 235 fore, he had, in his own heart, regretted the list of gaieties which Lady Mary had enumerated in her last letter. Algitha had not parted from Ida without many regrets, and innumerable pledges of constant correspondence ; they were only to be separated by ninety miles ; but ninety miles to friends who part for the first time, appears an immense distance; besides it does place as effectual a barrier to meeting as ten times the space. Ernest thought that the journey had never ap- peared so long ; at any other time Algitha would have asked him the reason of his distraction ; but it was a proof that his feelings had grown deeper with time, for they imposed silence upon her, for she did not make any remark as he looked over the vessel's side absorbed in reverie, to the track of the water, and beyond the track of the water to the hills and woodland which separated him from all that he loved. To some people, Beaumaris is a very favourite 236 ERNEST VANE. resort; to us, it has always seemed the most sluggish of watering-places ; the tide in the straits rises and falls languidly ; it is dull and uninterest- ing ; there is wanting the freshness of the avpa ttovtlcls avpa, i( the breeze, the sea breeze." At low-water, the long brown-ribbed sand-banks appear above the level of the murky waves, at once the warning and the peril of the pleasure yachts of the district. To the left, the black Ormes Head, a rock as infamous as ever were the Acroceraunian of old, " et infames scopulse Acro- ceraunia" looks down in majesty on the wrecks which have sunk in homage at its base. In the far distance, hill upon hill, Pelion on Ossa, mist-crowned and robed in clouds, loom like the spectres of the mist. To the right, the black castle of Penhryn recalls the olden fabulous legends of the marble halls of the Preadamite sultans. In the narrow valley which separates the isle of Anglesey from the mainland, and where the hoarse tide rushes through the straits, the small ERNEST VANE. 237 town of Bangor, with its ancient cathedral, sleeps in not unpicturesque indolence ; the features of the whole landscape are bold, mysterious, and almost solemn : but it is a scenery which rather oppresses than gratifies, and notwithstanding the pleasant villas which are thickly scattered in the neighbourhood of Beaumaris, the Isle of Anglesey is a spot which requires all the hospitality for which the neighbourhood is famous, to render it agreeable. At the period we are describing, the prowess of this subscription band which we have already alluded to, was tested to the utmost ; for a new regiment had arrived at Bangor, and every one thought it necessary to decorate their drawing-rooms with as many epaulettes and sword-knots as could be spared from the very arduous service on which the regiment was engaged. Lady Mary Maxwell had not been backward on the occasion ; her house was small, it is true. Mr. Maxwell^ a very worthy, portly, 238 ERNEST VANE. consequential whist-player, with a competence, a lover of the good old times, hated to be put out of the way as he absurdly termed it, when the apart- ment he dignified by the name of his library, was turned topsy turvy for the reception of the various fashions of cloaks deposited there on the occasion of great soirees ; but, " Quid volo valde volo, " was Lady Mary's motto, and all these difficulties disappeared before her voluminous energy. She had a daughter to introduce into the world, as much like the mother as youth can resemble age. The mother thought it a compliment when visitors told her this ; but like the answer of the oracle to Maxentius " Ulo die hostem Romanorum esse periturum," the compliment admitted of two interpretations : of course Lady Mary accepted the most favourable one. Mr. Maxwell, whose father had been a tenant farmer, paid great respect to her, because she was an earl's daughter. He Avas never tired of the subject of her family, and apparently the artists of the day had become ERNEST VANE. 239 inspired by the beauty of its scions; for Mr* Maxwell had managed to collect at least two dozen of the portraits of the various members of her Ladyship's illustrious house, which orna- mented his library. There was the present earl in his robes ; the present earl when yet a com- moner and member for the county ; his uncle, a knight of the Bath; the countess, his mother ; the family of nine honourable gentlemen and right honourable ladies in every variety of attitude, and most admirable, where all were admirable, three of Lady Mary herself. Lady Mary availed herself of every occasion of alluding to " my brother, the present earl/' and "my father, the late earl"; and, strange to say, it was a subject the neighbours rather liked : they put on faces of real concern, as they asked, for instance, " I hope the earl is recovering from his severe attack ;" and when she replied, " I am sorry to say he does not write me good accounts of himself to-day": she 2i0 ERNEST VANE. would follow it up with a long passage from his letter. As for a new regiment arriving in the neighbourhood, and Lady Mary not giving a ball, it was quite out of the question, and to use her own phrase, Algitha had the singular good fortune to arrive in time for it ; but this piece of good luck Algitha was to pay for by many bitter tears : like many other accidents of for- tune, there was a second side to shield. For- tune too frequently resembles the opal, that precious stone which has been called at the same time la pierre d'Esperance et la pierre de Malheur. Providence, which the ancients worshipped as Fate, and which we are so apt to designate as Fortune ! — the wish that there may be some such a thing as chance in the affairs of this world, being father to the belief that it really exists. So, to cast from ourselves the blame of the consequences of our weaknesses, we are anxious to believe in a fatalitv which is to bear ERNEST VANE. 241 the burthen of all our errors. Who is there that shall dare to apply the term fortunate to any of the events which are passing around us ? Can we pretend to say what may he the ultimate con- sequence of any action ? Is there any event so insignificant that it does not form part of that long chain of circumstances, ties, and incidents, which bind all human societies together; which unite the grave with the cradle, the past with the present? Oh, often Algitha thought of this in after-life; with bitter tears she recalled that hour when she was told that this ball was a fortunate event for her. Often, through the long night, while others slept, has she cursed the hour which brought her under that roof, which she entered with smiles, and left in silent heart-brokenness. When it was too late, Ernest might well ask himself, " Were these people precisely those best calculated to guide the steps of youth and beauty in the first intercourse with lifer" There are tempers so cold and clay- VOL. I. R 242 ERNEST VANE. bound, that in sunshine, in storm, in all the variety of seasons, they are equally inanimate and dull ; and on these the varieties, the colour- ing, the poetry of life have no effect; like the reeds by the sluggish river side, they have no blossoms that can wither, no leaves doomed to perish by the world's premature frost; but the delicate^ the graceful, the flower-bearing plants, must be fostered by a different hand, cherished with more affectionate care, and guarded from the world's contagion. Such a plant was Algitha. Alas in the world, as in the prairies of the west, it too frequently happens that flowers of deep warm colour seem most to love the sandy soil ! In truth, and in bitterness we may exclaim, Wherewithal shall a young heart cleanse its way, amid the difficulties which beset it ! We bring up the young girl in what are called strong moral principles; she is taught that vice is hideous, and that the paths of virtue are pleasantness; she is told that the passions must be subdued ; ERNEST VANE* 243 that in social life, in the domestic circle, in the daily and hourly affection, in occupation she must seek for the sources of happiness ; that the practice of religion elevates and beautifies the heart, as it did the glorious abbeys of old; and then, having taught the delicate and affectionate these "great truths; at an age when the mind is most susceptible of every sweet influence, and the heart clings to every object of love, she is cast into the world, where every scene, every room, every amusement — nay, even every occupation, necessarily induces a train of thought which saps at the root of all the precepts that have been so sedulously inculcated; and then, when her senses have been excited, when the dazzling lights, the harmony of the gay melody, the subtle perfume of the choicest plants, the atmosphere of love which pervades our town palaces, have bewildered her imagination, we marvel greatly if she returns home, in heart somewhat changed; and if in her dreams, r 2 211 ERNEST VANE. thoughts, not without their beauty — for all that surrounds the young and happy must be beau- tiful — but thoughts, altogether unjblest, visit her late-sought pillow ! Our whole theory of education is based on one set of ideas, to which our practice is entirely opposed ; and, if the poor girl, in the fulness of her imagination, winders -into error, then those who, for their own selfish vanity, pushed her into temptation, rise in indig- nation against her, and cast her forth upon the world, to seek for manna in that wilderness which encompasses her on all sides. Luttrell had arrived at Bangor about a fortnight previously to Algitha's visit to Beaumaris. To say that he did not at all regret Marie, would be unjust. We have before remarked that he regretted her as a man regrets any object of luxury; he had accustomed himself to her society, and then he had at Bangor no occupation except to meditate over the past. He was not at all a man to be satisfied with the conquests of a ERNEST VANE. 245 county town. When the other young officers were joking each other about the pastry-cook's daughter, with her long shining corkscrew ringlets, and her full-blown healthy waxen-doll counte- nance, he sat by in silent contempt, and with a suppressed sneer on his face; of course, his good looks, the vague rumours which had preceded him of his vagabond existence, and of what is called great success with women, constituted him an object of universal attention, and he certainly was not very popular with his brother officers. u Don't think much of him, after all," said Melville, in the smoking-room, after mess, the first day of Luttrell's arrival. "Gives himself confounded airs," responded Martial Grey. " These London fellows swagger so cursedly," said Henry Marvel, who himself made a point of stalking down the street, with his hat on one side of his head, staring impertinently at every respectable person he passed, and if possible 246 ERNEST VANE. frightening them off the pavement. But in fact, it was generally agreed, from the major (who was a bluff, iron-grey headed man, and what they called a jolly fellow,) downwards, that Luttrell was a man to be shunned. As for Luttrell, he was perfectly indifferent to all their opinions, as he possessed a supreme contempt for the whole corps. He had a horse there, and took long rides in the country; in fact, it was meeting him in one of his solitary excursions, that first gave Lady Mary Maxwell the anxiety to make his acquaintance, and through him, the acquaintance of all his brother officers. In a word, after the first fortnight, he was fast becoming thoroughly ennuyed with his life. Ennuyed, blaze, words so commonly used, and yet so forcible in their expression, for a man to say he is blaze, what is it but to say that he has not only lost all interest in himself, but even all interest in others. That he has not only lost all hope and confidence in his own destiny, ERNEST VANE. 247 but possesses no love, no interest in the destiny of any who surround him. Some use the phrase from mere affectation, for it is the cheapest of all sentiments which a man can assume, that of pre- tending to an entire pre-occupation of ntind, a solitary growth, a supreme contempt for every- thing and every one; hut with many it is really the voice of one crying in the wilderness ; it is the voice of the wanderer who has fallen exhausted in a rugged solitude ; who cannot believe that there are fresh green spots beyond his horizon, or that there is any heart which he can venture to press in confidence to his own. Such was the condition of Luttrell : he had no resources in himself. The memory of his past life was not calculated to afford even to his mind the most agreeable recollections. As for Marie, he tried to drive her from his recollection ; for the last letter which he received from her gave him a most painful account of her condition : all the fur- niture in the apartment had been seized for rent^ 24$ ERNEST VANE. and she herself was forced to take shelter in a wretched lodging, where the pittance which he doled forth was just able to maintain her. The letters would have broken some men's hearts, but Luttrell's was of much harder stuff. " I am very young, mon bien aime, she wrote, to sink under the weight of mental misery. Youth is strong, we are told, but if you knew the poignant anguish I am suffering, you would doubt even my youth resisting its devastating effects. " Oh! the bitter loneliness of the desolate soul — I remember one day in the Tyrol, that wander- ing about with some of my friends, I lost my way among the mountains, and night came on, and the stern cold glaciers stood all around me in their spectre garments, and the solitude felt almost pal- pable to sense, and touched my heart with a frozen hand ; well so I feel now. The solitude of this chamber oppresses me so that I sometimes cry aloud, and then the woman of the house, who is so ERNEST VANE. 249 rough and uncouth, comes up and speaks to me with harshness; and I have no friend in London, as you know, for you never would allow me to have any. I do not blame you, Alfred, at least I never blamed you then, for you told me that you were jealous of the least feeling of my soul; but now I am very dreary without a friend, and I know not which way to turn for help and hope. If I should be able to reach the Tyrol, I might kneel day and night at my father's grave, and pray God to Oh, no! I dare never to pray God again; — you know the gold cross I wear, which my good pastor gave me. He told me when in trouble and affliction to press it to my heart and I should be comforted. In my prosperity I never wore it, but I do press it to my bosom now, and I endea- vour to believe myself comforted. But, Alfred, do not mistake me, I do not regret the luxury in which I have lived, I never cared for it ; and, perhaps, you were right when you said that I did not sufficiently appreciate it. In this room there 250 ERNEST VANE. is no comfort, all the furniture is of the scantiest and commonest material. The windows look into a cold, damp, unhealthy court ; but it is not on account of this change that I repine. No, I would welcome privation, I would sleep or stand all night at your door, if privation and suffering could ever unite me again to you ; for, think how great must have been that love for which I sacri- ficed my home, my father, and my God." His answer ran something in this strain : — "You must not think me so hard-hearted as I appear. Believe me that I am quite unhappy about you, my dearest Marie. What villains those were to seize all the furniture; and excuse me for saying it, that you were very slow not to have sold some of it first. I have no doubt it was that scoundrel Dawley, he is the only fellow capable of such brutality. You know my position, how terribly I am situated;" in giving you 100/. a-year, I am doing all in my power for you. You re- member I advised your not leaving the Tyrol, as ERNEST VANE. 251 it is I really don't know what to say. I send you a cheque for 201., it is the last twenty pounds I have in the world at present," (that was true), "but even postage is expensive, and so much writing is a luxury we must deny ourselves for the present, in the exhausted state of my finances." Such was the man whom Lady Mary when she accidentally met one day, pronounced the hand- somest man she had ever seen; and who, as Lord Linton's son, would be such an excellent match for her daughter. Poor Lady Mary, little did she imagine the wide gulph which separated Luttrell from the early graces of her Mary ! That the world in which he believed, no more resembled the world which she beheld than a sun-lit scene resembles the same spot when shrouded in midnight. Luttrell moved through society with his hand like the condemned in the Hall of Eblis, ever on his heart, which was in flames. Inflamed with 252 ERNEST VANE. vanity, with base passions, and foul purposes, and suffering from a sort of impenitent remorse, but he bore the agony with unblenched cheek, with composed look — no contraction of muscle betrayed his pain ; a Borgia could not have vied with him in his audacity and courage; like the master spirit of evil, he would have boldly pro- nounced the words, " better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven." And he it was whom Lady Mary imagined was overpowered by the beauty of her daughter, at the very moment when he was almost wholly unconscious of her presence in the carriage. ERNEST VANE. 253 CHAPTER XVII. The ball commenced : and as it continued, grave doubts crossed poor Lady Mary's mind, whether she had not made a great mistake in inviting Algitha to Beaumaris. Luttrell^ who in spite of the odium with which he was regarded by his brother officers, was at once pronounced the handsomest man in the room, never left Algitha's side, and the giddy happy girl was delighted at the distinction he conferred. She was simply dressed; but it was the simplicity the truly beau- tiful would have preferred, to the most abundant 254 ERNEST VANE. ornaments. The natural flowers of which her bouquet was composed, were appropriately worn by her, who was emphatically a child of nature. It might have been said that her toilet had not been superintended by a superior hand, for the hair was unrestrained by all those ties and ligatures, which Mariton and his disciples are so partial to. But, if there was little artistic skill displayed, the curls were not less silken and luxu- riant, or their wave less worthy of the pencil of a Titian. The long dark locks fell over her snowy shoulders far down to her waist : it formed a pretty frame for the graceful picture, whose deli- cate colouring, and beautiful features, surpassed the productions of that fancy which sometimes outworks nature: and then there were charms which no artist can supply; made up of smiles and dimples, and arch expressions, the witcheries of the young and beautiful. Luttrell was quite startled when he entered the room ; he had gone to the ball from a listless idle ERNEST VANE. 255 feeling, but with very little expectation" of deriving much amusement from it. Something had been told him of a very beautiful niece of Lady Mary's, who was seen standing on the deck of the much- admired i£ Fire-Queen" yacht, as she swept by Bangor. But it had escaped his recollection ; and now he saw one of those forms, which men delight in picturing to their imagination; and which the coldest artist could not model from with unshaken nerve. To his practised eye, one glance told the whole story of her childlike innocence ; soft as the bloom on her cheek, her ignorance of the world, her quick spirit, her pardonable vanity, her love of admiration, ay! and above all else, her admiration for himself. It was apparent the moment he approached her, for she was too un- skilled in the world, and the world's practises, to conceal it. She was prepared to fall in love with him. She had within the last two days heard Lady Mary and her daughters talk of nothing but the handsome Mr. Luttrell. 256 ERNEST VANE. London she had only once or twice merely passed through, and therefore the accounts of its society were to her like the tales of the Arabian Nights, and its ministers were mavellous to her as the fabled genii. Designing as Luttrell was, it would have been unjust to have denied him the merit, and, in some, it really is a merit, of a per- fect manner; he was graceful in the least of his actions, apparently entirely unaffected, deferen- tial in his address to ladies, and assuming a mo- desty of demeanour, which strangely belied his heart. He was, in fact, singularly prepossessing. To see him listening to the woman he loved, or affected to love, you might almost have marvelled how any one could be found to resist him. Algitha, in her ignorance, had expected to see him covered with chains, and all those variety of decorations, which the weakest of the inferior class style of dandies, are apt to purchase ; and she saw a person dressed in the strictest simpli- citv; remarkable in nothing, except the elegance ERNEST VANE. 257 of the manner of the wearer. She had pictured, (for what young girl is there who does not picture to her excited fancy, the appearance of any man, into whose society she is to be thrown, and whom she has heard much commented on), she had pictured him with a bold, swaggering, and affected air, and she was struck, on the contrary, by his retiring manner; his self-possession and perfect calmness were tempered and relieved by a voice of peculiar softness and unusual deli- cacy. He danced once with her, in conformity with the usage of county balls, and then pro- posed that they should sit still and make their remarks. If he had said, and be remarked, he would have been nearer the truth; and when the remark is occasioned by admiration and envy, who is there who does not like it? It was quite impossible for Algitha not to see that her partner and herself excited those emo- tions in the crowd by whom they were sur- rounded. She looked occasionally at Luttrell to VOL. I. S 258 ERNEST VANE. observe whether he was affected by the rapid under glances which were cast at him, and the whis- pers, not always of the softest voices, which he overheard: but never did man sitting on a throne seem more indifferent to homage. To him, all these people were so entirely beneath his notice that he did not give himself the least trouble to think of them ; nor would he have walked across the room to ensure all their good opinions. To his fancy they were a mere set of automatons, whose movements interested him about as little as the contortions of as many marionettes. All he thought of was Algitha : there was a naivete about her that delighted him ; and which refreshed his parched heart. A full-blown girl, blushing like a peony, ap- proached the spot where Algitha and Luttrell were seated ; she was dressed in the most extravagant style of Caernarvon fashion, precisely after a pic- ture in La Belle Assemblee, or Le Petit Courrier des Dames, with short, compact, thick -set ringlets, ERNEST VANE. 259 made closer by some oily process, and her face glowed with animation : she bore a bouquet, which it would have broken Jullien's heart to see, so inartistically arranged were the flowers — it was Mary Maxwell; she ran, or rather scrambled up to Algitha, exclaiming in a loud voice, — " Why, my dear, you don't dance at all ?" That terrible word u dear/' when used by women, is like the bugle call of truce : it indi- cates past hatred, present alliance, and the proba- bility of future hostility. Algitha looked confused; and so beautiful in her confusion, that Luttrell would not interfere to rescue her from her tormentor. Young ladies of Miss Maxwell's stamp, can never disguise their petty larceny feelings. These were written, at this instant, in her countenance. She would now have committed a decalogue of crime to be revenged on Algitha. And for what cause? For the greatest that some women can give s 2 260 ERNEST VANE. another, for being younger, softer, and of a more excellent beauty. If Mary Maxwell had been really plain, and knew it, she would perhaps have sympathized with Algitha, and loved her: for extremes meet, and they who are once fully con- vinced that they have no power to inspire love, are frequently attracted towards those who are more favoured. At any rate, the same envy and hatred would not have gnawed her heart, for it is an invariable rule, that all rivalry, of whatever nature it may be, the rivalry of rank, of wealth, of beauty, or of intellect, is ever greatest when the two parties are nearest to each other in the social scale. The man of moderate income does not trouble 'himself about the millionaire ; he is too infinitely above him ; he keeps all his envy and hatred for the person of slightly better fortune and appearance in the world. Nothing can exceed the jealousy of the woman of the world, of five-and-forty, for the companion of thirty-seven but she pardons the bloom and success of twenty. ERNEST VANE. 261 The aspirant for office, and 1,200/. per annum, calumniates, vilifies, and inwardly curses the young lord of the Treasury, who has been pre- ferred to him ; but he will appreciate the ap- pointments to the higher offices in the govern- ment. Miss Mary Maxwell, until this year, had been recognised as the beauty, the bouncing, bold, good- natured, vulgar, soldier-loving, beauty of the dis- trict ; what subalterns call a " devilish fine girl." Algitha was highly esteemed the last year, but since then she had developed into far more admi- rable loveliness; and Mary could not disguise from herself, the wide gulph which now separated her from her cousin. She could not avoid over-hearing all the remarks which were made as Algitha passed by with Luttrell : for if society abuses in secret, it only the more loudly praises beauty in the pre- sence of others. And black hatred entered into this young girPs heart: not all the vulgar compli- ments of the dancing men, and country beaux, the 262 ERNEST VANE. epauletted heroes, could satisfy her: for she saw that their eyes were ever wandering to the spot where the two were sitting, and she felt how supe- rior Luttrell was to those men who surrounded her: and, therefore, it may readily be believed, that it was from no feeling of affection for Algi- tha, from no interest in her amusement, that he made the above-mentioned observation, " My dear, you don't dance at all ?" Who would believe it? that this question, so simple, so uninteresting, if it did not positively decide, assuredly precipitated Algitha's fate. In the midst of her cousin's confusion, Miss Max- well, continued, " Let me introduce Mr. Melvill to you." It was strategy worthy of Radetzky, a diplo- matic move that Talleyrand might have envied. By this she achieved two ends. She separated Algitha from Luttrell ; and as she would then be left quite alone ; Luttrell, she thought, could not do less than ask her to dance. ERNEST VANE. 263 Mr. Melvill bowed, and smiled with a smile which only rendered his countenance still more insipid. He dangled his red sash with one hand, and inserted his middle finger between the buttons of his tight-fitting coat, as he asked Algitha to dance, after the most approved manner of young officers in marching regiments. For the first time, Luttrell's features were slightly disturbed. This young officer was one of those who most hated him, because he most deeply felt Luttrell's superiority. So Luttrell, without apparently moving his lips, leaned to- wards Algitha, and she heard the words, "Say no." Was it vanity, or anxiety to show her power over Luttrell, or a spirit of independence, such as is sometimes for a moment exerted by most cha- racters, however weak, only to ensure them here- after a more hopeless bondage ; but she turned round, and a smile of triumph illuminated her face as she rose and took Mr. Mevill's arm. 26-4 ERNEST VANE. Luttrell uttered not a word ; but if she could have seen that countenance, she would have trembled for the future, and guarded herself from its consequences. No Stygian Lake was blacker than that man's heart at that moment. He had been slighted in favour of a man whom he utterly despised; a fool, whom he could wither with a word, had been preferred to him, even after he had pronounced the word of injunc- tion; still ever master of that proud art of concealing his thoughts, after the first second he betrayed no emotion. He did not follow Algitha's movements, but he knew that she was casting furtive glances at him.; and, as a foul and stagnant pool can reflect a sun-gleam, a smile shone on his heart; once their eyes met, and she grew pale as the white camelias in her hair, and then he knew that girl was in his power ; up to that time it had been a matter of perfect indifference to him whether or not he succeeded in obtaining her affections, but now ERNEST VANE. 265 he resolved to conquer her pride and trample her under foot. For a short time, Mary Maxwell stood near him, in the hope that he would ask her to dance ; but, as it was evident that he had quite forgotten her existence, it was fortunate for her amour pro- pre that some one came up to relieve her from her awkward position. Was Luttrell in love with Algitha ? Love ! we will not so desecrate the word : for love is self-denying and long- suffering, and, like charity, it sanctifies and purifies the heart. Love ! No, he could never love anything but himself; a Maillard in fiendish cruelty, he experienced en- joyment in adding fresh victims to his list, the Vampire of human innocence, the Satyr of human nature ; and yet in outward form so excellent, in exterior so like the noblest of God*s creatures. Luttrell never for one moment lost sight of Algitha, yet so guarded was he in his manner, that she could not detect his observation. She felt her- 266 ERNEST VANE. self perfectly wretched ; her vanity was wounded ; she overheard a voice say, " He soon got tired of her;" and she imagined that the allusion was directed to her, as, in truth, it was. Mary Max- well, as she passed, gave her a look of triumph ; and as the poor girl sat silent in the corner, some rude hand struck a few leaves from her perishing camelias. For the first time the vanity of human wishes filled her heart, when she felt that the pleasure of the evening had been as short lived as the flower. But she was in error again. It was the very close of the ball: she had retired to a small conservatory ; she turned sud- denly round, and Luttrell stood by her, appa- rently on the point of taking his departure. She could not refrain from saying, or rather whispering, for her heart rose to her throat and checked her, "I thought you were going away without saying good bye to me, Mr. Luttrell." He knew human nature well; he saw in a ERNEST VANE. 267 glance how far he could trample on her; that indifference towards a woman is a weapon which can only be made available in certain positions ; he feared lest she might resent any fresh proof of coldness, or that the reflection of the night might banish him from her mind. She was so unskilled in life as really to imagine that he wished to shun her. It was time for him to admit that he had been offended. u I might quote a French proverb, Miss Vane, to prove that I should rather be justified in applying this observation to your conduct; but I refrain from attacking you for your unkindness to me. I am, as you know, quite a stranger here, and my evening would have been more agreeably passed if you had not left me when you did." Algitha stammered out some insignificant ex- cuse. It was not Luttrell's object to commence a dis- cussion, at such a moment, and in such a place ; so he interrupted her at once. 268 ERNEST VANE. "My friends are waiting for me, Miss Vane; but an instant. Give me that flower ;" and he pointed to one of the dying camelias. She hesitated. His eye glistened ; his manner grew cold and threatening. " There, then ;" and she put it into his hand. He raised it to his lips, with that grace which feeling should alone give, but which, alas! art can imitate. " Good night [" he said earnestly. " I hear that you are coming to Bangor to the cathedral for morning service on Sunday. I will be there." One glance, and he had gone, — timidly and anxiously, she looked round: the rooms were vacant. She fled to her bedroom, and locked the door. Now for the first time to this young heart a mystery had been revealed — a new world had been opened to her, which contained a treasure of which she had never known the existence; and ERNEST VANE. 269 this treasure, of boundless price, she was about to bestow on a stranger. Like the Peruvians, who, ignorant of the value of their 'gold and jewels, yielded them all to the first spoiler who planted his foot in the new world, in the innocence of her soul she gave her heart to Luttrell, and she prayed for him that night. Could a passion thus spring- ing from a holy origin, rush into error ? Alas ! whose life is there which does not commence with prayer, with bended knees, and clasped, suppli- cating hands ? How many fountains, at their source, clear and sparkling as Artesia's, soon flow through decayed soils and catch the world's pollution ! — and where is the prophet's voice to proclaim what soul shall live, and what soul shall perish ? 270 ERNEST VANE CHAPTER XVIII. The Sunday to which Luttrell had alluded was the next day but one. Algitha did not fail to attend the service at the cathedral : Lady Mary and her cousin declined accompanying her, but her uncle took charge of her. Since Friday, neither the mother nor the daughter had spoken much to Algitha about the ball : the truth was, that the result of the night's festivity had bitterly annoyed them both— her cousin's vanity had been rudely mortified, and the mother sympathized with her daughter. Algitha had not observed this estrange- ERNEST VANE. 271 merit — her whole mind had been occupied by one idea : like Aaron's rod, it swallowed up all others. She had recalled every word Luttrell had said to her — the deep passion which he threw into his voice — the smile which he cast over the frozen surface of his heart, and which, like winter's sun, brought forth fruit to perish in the frost. Now suddenly, and as she fondly imagined by some providential agency, the dream of her youth was realized. As a traveller, who, after having pursued a long monotonous journey, suddenly, at a turn of the road, finds himself in presence of a magnificent prospect, where all the hues of heaven, and earth's brightest colours, combine to bewilder his senses, and falls down in admiration at the glory of God's works, and lingers in the enchanted spot in an ecstasy of feeling — so felt Algitha; for she too had travelled through the monotony of life ; and now the heaven of passion in its brilliant array — its startling magnificence — its w r ondrous contrasts, 272 ERNEST VANE. was revealed to her ; and yet no shadow of im- purity dimmed the brightness of her feeling. It might be supposed that, from the seeming rash- ness of her conduct, she was one of those on whom the virgin^s zone sat lightly, but this was far from bein°; the case ; yet there are minds which, from a long course of mental preparation — from having dwelt in imagination on an object of affection — are Avon at the first moment : it is their ideal which they are in love with — it is merely the transfer of the idolatry from the ideal to the living object. Algitha had been brought up with strong religious principles : until this day she had never entered a church except to pray and to pour forth her soul; but now there was one other god in her heart, besides that God whose worship she was about to celebrate. When she first entered the cathedral she did not dare look around her, as the voice of truth fell on her ear, she could no longer deceive her- self into a belief that it was a fit and proper ERNEST VANE. 273 place for her, while love was throbbing in her bosom. The swelling organ, the fretted roof, the solemn arch, the silent aisle, the dim reli- gious light, the rays of prismatic colours which poured from the painted windows, from the vaulted dome to the base of each sculptured column : all these appealed to her heart, and devo- tion came upon her thirsty soul like heaven's dew. She fell upon her knees, and buried her head in her hands, but she could not pray ; she must look round once, but once, for she felt his presence, and she did look round: then her eye met his. He had just entered, and that one look was the first toward evil: from that first look there was no retreating; fearful and solemn words of warning were spoken and she heard them not. Tones of mercy in soft and beautiful melody gushed from choir to aisle, but they swept by her ear unnoticed and unrespected ; the crown- ing goodness of love was preached, but she only caught the word and not the spirit of the VOL. I. T 274 ERNEST YANE. preacher; and, when he talked of that love that passeth knowledge, her heart turned to- wards Luttrell, while he, the betrayer, was standing there perfectly indifferent to the ruin he was working, to the havoc he was creating, to the contest which was working in that poor child's mind, to the glorious light that was de- serting her. He now knew that she loved him; but if she misapprehended the meaning of the word love, as it was expounded that day, he did not less glaringly mistake the nature of the love that possessed her. But he did not prize her affections, even now when he knew they were entirely his own ; he could not appre- ciate a woman's first love, which freshens the heart of the young and unworldly; he could not understand that the passage from the pre- sent to a future life is not less supreme than is the transition in a young girl's heart from indifference to love, from ignorance of her ERNEST VANE. 275 own feelings to the knowledge of her heart's secret. When the service was ended, Luttrell ap- proached Mr. Maxwell and Algitha; the former had some communication to make to the bishop, and left them for a few minutes. Algitha and Luttrell walked on together. Every eye was fixed upon them, for they were both remarkable for their appearance, but Algitha was wholly indifferent to the observa- tion she attracted; when a passion has taken deep root in the heart, it loses all that nervous sensitiveness which first characterizes it; the earliest blossoms are easily shaken in the breeze, but the later bud is hardier: it is worthy of remembrance, that an absorbing passion sees nothing, hears nothing, save through the medium of the object that is loved, and heeds nothing except as it affects that object. Thus Algitha saw not the curious glances, the hurried steps anxious to pass her, and then the head quickly t2 276 ERNEST VANS'. turned to catch a glimpse of her countenance; but this soon annoyed Luttrell, for although such curiosity rather flattered his vanity, it in- terfered with his projects ; when he saw that a lane to the right would take them to the land- ing-place, where the boat was waiting, he said, " This way, this way ! we shall avoid these vulgar people who keep staring at us." — Algitha con- sented. She grew pale — she could scarcely breathe — she was now alone with him, the blue sky over head : the scent of the hawthorn and sweet briar almost oppressed her, the echo of their own foot-steps fell with such distinctness on her ear, that she started at the sound ; she waited for the word of affection which she knew would be pronounced. But there was something in this half revelation which excited him ; he saw her torture, and he felt that no word could increase his power, but it might diminish it. ERNEST VANE. 277 At the end of the lane the main street joined it again. Luttrell was not aware of this circum- stance, or he would not have allowed such moments to slip by (as he would have termed it) unimproved; he almost cursed himself as he heard the sound of Mr. Maxwell's voice. It was Algitha who spoke now. She re- membered the scene of the Friday night, and from his silence thought that Luttrell was still offended. " Have you forgiven me, Mr. Luttrell ?" she said in a low plaintive voice. " Not quite/ 1 he replied ; " but I will do so on one condition." " What is it ?" " That you swear, never again to do anything I tell you not to do : that no one shall henceforth influence your conduct but myself. Swear they shall not." " No, they shall not." And the No that she uttered was not less emphatic than the No that he had whispered the 278 ERNEST VANE. night of the ball, when she proposed to dance -with another. Its import was not less grave, and its consequences were not less painful. ERNEST VANE. 279: CHAPTER XIX. It is a beautiful evening in the later Spring : somewhat sad— for it is twilight, and the decline of day, like the decline of life, is ever sad — albeit sometimes beautiful — it is such an evening as makes the unbeliever proclaim a faith, from the marvellous evidence of a first Great Cause, in the harmony which subsists between the susceptibility of the mind and external objects; between the glory of nature and the sense of love which that glory awakens. The air is soft as the breath of an innocent child, and balmy as the sigh of love. 280 ERNEST VANE, And deeper and deeper blushes the sky, like the young bride in her pride, as the night creeps on apace. The scene is the same we have before described: beneath the shady arbour, and above the waterfall, where the branches bend into the waters as though to kiss their shadows, and the wild flowers exhale their last perfume, ever the sweetest — like the memory of a last kiss. Some days have elapsed since we were seated in this spot ; and showers have fallen, and washed away the small monument of violets, mosses, and pur- ple blossoms, which had been so carefully erected : the names, lightly cut in the bark of the trees, are even now of deeper hue; alas! some day to be- come illegible. Not three, but two, are now sitting there; the third is absent, and these two sit silent — for a great word has been spoken, never to be recalled. The mysterious essence of a second self has pene- trated into either heart. They both look into the western sky, as though they would read the ERNEST VANE. 281 future which lies beneath its orange and its pur- ple tints; and a smile which gives to each face the glory as of angels, breaks over their countenances, so blissful seems the future, so infinite in its capacity for enjoyment. The young girl — for it is Ida — has taken Ernest's hand in hers, which she presses to her lips, and on that hand tears distilled from the fulness of a happy heart are falling; and to the oft-repeated question, "You do love me, then, Ida?" the only answer is still a warmer kiss impressed upon that hand. Beyond these words there were no professions, no revelations, no confidences; her silent kisses expressed it all : they were pledges of the hopes and anxieties of the past, the belief in the future, the truth of the present. It needed no language to assure Ernest that all he had suffered was now rewarded. That his self-denial was appre- ciated, that at last his dreams of a happiness in life, such as poets dream off in the golden days of youth were to receive their accomplishment ; in 282 ERNEST VANE. such happiness it is no idle imagery to say that; hours pass like moments. Certainly one houi had elapsed since they had sat there, and yet Ernest still heard ringing through his brain the soft low Yes with which Ida had owned her affec- tion. It was a long time ere he had dared to dis- close to her all he felt. He had seen day after day pass at the castle, and concealed the thought that was ever on his lips. It was not until he heard from Mr. Leslie, that he was compelled very shortly to go to London, that he summoned courage to make an avowal, which left him no alternative between happiness and misery. He, too, had been much struck by the circum- stance of Mr. Leslie leaving him so much alone with Ida, and the respect with which he appeared to regard him. That day he had ridden down with Ida and her father to Winbourne, Mr. Leslie being anxious to see Ernests agent respecting a farm which he wished him to value for him. He told him that he should be busy until very late, and ERNEST VANE. 283 Ernest then proposed to Ida to re-visit the scene of their last meeting. They walked to that spot as two beings with separate existences; but ere many minutes had elapsed, like two streams their hearts mingled together, pure as crystal, and sparkling with hope. The spirit of love that haunts the spring, the forest and the moss seat, stood beside them, and united their hands; and so they sat, gazing first into the light of heaven, which in the sweet selfishness of a new affection they accepted as a glorious omen ; and then into the light of each other's eyes. They believed at that moment that the firmament glowed, and the trees bore their bloom, and the violets scented the air for them alone. They heard a voice calling to them. " We must go/' said Ernest, mechanically, but he trembled, his cheek glowed, and his heart beat rapidly. "My father! Will he not be angry!" ex- claimed Ida. 284 ERNEST VANE. "No, no," replied Ernest, "he cannot be angry; we have done no wrong: who shall stand between us and our affections? No, Ida, he cannot, he will not, deny you to me. He doats on you ; he will not refuse you anything, if in- deed you really love me." " Can you doubt it, Ernest, now ?" H You will speak to him/' she continued, after a pause, for they were approaching Mr. Leslie. u Yes, I will. I will call to-morrow ;" and till then, " It was but a moment ; he put his arm round her waist ; he drew her near to him ; their lips clung together, as he prayed God to bless her, and to testify to his truth. Mr. Leslie had been waiting for some time; the horses were saddled. For the first time he addressed Ida in a voice almost of anger at her delay. Ernest's heart leaped to his lips as he shook Mr. Leslie's hand, and bade him good evening. He ERNEST VANE. 285 returned to the spot where that pledge had been given, which bound henceforth two souls together^ and wrapped two existences in a mystic union. He endeavoured to recall the events of the last hour, but they evaded him like the shapes of those beautiful dreams which cross the brain, but leave the memory trackless. It was a relief for him to be alone, after the deep interest he had passed through, and the moments of new revela^ tion that had been made to him, he seated himself on the bank where she had sat, and kissed the letters on the tree which her hand had traced, although the shades of evening had veiled the landscape, and the murmurs of the waters only indicated the river's flow: he almost thought that he beheld the same golden light they had gazed on together, and that even through twilight and distance he could trace the outlines of the castle turrets and its towers bleached by time. He rose from his seat and trod the ground in a state of exultation that vainly struggled for expression^ 286 ERNEST VANE. however great the intellect, and wondrous the acquirements, it is not until a man has learnt to love and found that love returned, that he feels himself to be God created, and comprehends an eternity of bliss: like coral islands in the blue seas of the West, which grow beneath the waters, and whose roots are interlaced together, although to the seaman's gaze they stand single and wide apart : so hearts may be indissolubly united, even although the ties that bind them may never ap- pear above the surface of the world; and then love, like the coral reef, wards off the violence of the world's tempests; it breaks the force of its passions, let the wind blow as it listeth without ; let the waves of human strife, and the waste of human vanities dash against the rampart of affection, they only break into showers and fall in spray. Without all is hopeless, dark, and desolate and the wind is never weary; within there is a harbour of blue water, tran- quil and transparent as those seas of silver which ERNEST VANE. 287 the traveller in the desert sees stretching before his horizon. The mists of evening gradually rose from the deep ravine, and dispersed in the blue ether; and then a milder light broke on the valley, like a .smile on the face of a sleeper ; it represented the calmness which Ernest prayed for, after the excite- ment of passion should have passed by — the beauty of repose, after the bustle and turmoil of life. A beautiful evening is like a glorious old age, that dies away with the light of a thousand bright and sparkling actions to illuminate, and the eternal beauty of faith to consecrate it. It was on this same night another scene was passing at Beaumaris. The star-gleams were not less beautiful as reflected in the waters of the Menai Channel; than they were, when broken 288 ERNEST VANE. and spray-driven in the falls of the Alder. The waving line of the distant mountains broke the expanse of the heavens; the intervening space between them and the old tower of Beau- maris seemed contracted by a thin line of purple distance ; almost at the foot of these towers, the ripples murmured among the pebbles, and broke upon the shore ; the voices of the fishermen in the distance tending their nets, but slightly disturbed the profound repose. The lights of the town are one by one extinguished; but what can take a maiden through a wicket-gate to one ' of these towers at this late mysterious hour? She is young and beautiful as this May-night; and, as she folds her cloak around her, it must be for concealment, not for dread of the cold, for never was spring-breeze balmier. She starts and trem- bles as the night-wind lifts her curl, and lets it fall again upon her cheek, which is alternately flushed and pale; and on a green spot on the ancient ramparts a man is standing, concealed ERNEST VANE. 289 from any curious gaze by two broken shattered walls — him the maiden joins. It is Algitha; — need we add that the man is Luttrell ! a You are late, my darling," said he, in a low affectionate, deep voice : to have heard him you would have believed that he possessed a heart. e: I am frightened, Alfred, indeed I am ; I regret almost what I have done : let me return." " Of course ; go." " Yes, but you will be angry, Alfred ; you won't love me ; you will never speak ; never write to me again ; you know what I have gone through for you this last fortnight ; you know how wretched I have been; how all my relations here have turned against me. I have felt so much alone, Alfred, and I could scarcely write, even to my brother, with this secret preying upon my heart : all this must prove to you how much I love you — why ask for any other proof ? " "Tush! — women are always like that; they VOL. I. U 290 ERNEST VANE. don't mind what they ask a man to sacrifice for them ; and then, when it comes to the point, they talk stuff, of virtue, honour, and any other verbiage. I am sure if you have been an- noyed this last week or two, I have passed through an Iliad of misery, bored with those cursed relations of yours. 1 ' " I am sure I felt for you, and was grateful, Alfred." " Felt for me, I dare say you did ; that's all very well, but why, the devil, did you suppose I subjected myself to this annoyance, except for you?" " I know that," she timidly replied. " Well then, prove that you love me." She was standing leaning against one of those old walls which were crumbling away ; her face, even by that light, and in its paleness, was exquisitely lovely : some would have preferred that passionate pallor to the flush of excitement. Luttrell had taken one. hand in his, and with ERNEST VANE. 291 the other one drew her cloak tighter round her form ; she looked upon the glory of the night, which fell in showers of light around her, but she saw it not, — her whole heart was centred in him. a Can you doubt me, Algithar" continued Lut- trell, now in a low, soft, and trembling voice, which vibrated through her frame. " Doubt you, Alfred \ v she replied ; " I would doubt the truth of the whole world before I could doubt you !" tt Can you believe, Algitha, that I would do you a wrong ? — that if I ask you to express your love for me I am not prepared to lay my whole life at your feet ? Byron tells us that — Man's love is to man's life a thing of nought ; but I tell you that my love for you absorbs every ambition and passion of my frame; there is no sacrifice I am not prepared to make for you, — there is no test which my affection will not bear. u 2 292 ERNEST VANE. But, even if it were wrong to love me now," and here the tempter sank his voice to a still lower whisper which the heart drinks in so earnestly, and which thrills through all its fibres, " but even if it were wrong, can there be a finer thing than a woman making a sacrifice for the object of her hearths attachment; can there be a nobler offer- ing to love ? " " Oh, Alfred, spare me \" she murmured, for her head had fallen on his bosom. (i Have you not read," he continued, " of women giving up fame, renown, family, fortune, all that they possess, for the men that they love?" The " Yes " was scarcely intelligible. " And would Algitha do less than this, for the man that loves her?" She did not answer this time — but even as a child believes in its mother's love, she believed in that man's truth. She looked around — the wide waters were like a sea of silver rippling ERNEST VANE. 293 upon the shore : the sky was star-spangled, the moon in the fulness of her beauty. Oh, how could the voice of the. tempter be heard in that glorious night ! — even he, who feared not man or God, was awed by the solemnity of the hour, or why did he speak in a whisper ! — for he knew not that there was any reason to fear a surprise. But at that moment, when he believed that his triumph was secured, a deep sound, muffled and rendered more mysterious by the distance, was borne by them on the breeze — it was the cathedral bell striking: midnight. Wonderful power of association! — that bell recalled to Algitha the church to whose service it was dedicated, and the faith to which that church was consecrated : it recalled the infinite love of those who had prayed for her and with her in childhood. She raised her eyes — and as they met Luttrell's gaze, she observed a certain peculiarity of expression which made her recoil in fear ; a dark cloud must have been blown vol.. i. u 3 294 ERNEST VANE. across his countenance or his mind, for the features were gloomy and overspread : for the moment, his fascination had deserted him, and she was free. " Alfred/' she said, " let us go." "Yes!" he exclaimed, speaking through his teeth, " I thought it would be so. Go you shall ; but as you are unmerciful to me, so you may expect no mercy from me. You have trifled with me — you have only met me here to-night to ridicule me." " Alfred ! — you are unjust !" " Then prove I am not so, by remaining," was his reply. She was about to answer, when they heard a light footstep on the rampart below them. It was impossible for any one to have entered the ruins at that time of night without passing through the wicket, and the only person who had a key of the wicket was Mr. Maxwell. Algitha held her breath, trembling as she was for fear ; ERNEST VANE. 295 Luttrell crept forward to the verge of the parapet : as he approached the angle of the wall he thought that he could perceive a figure retreating by the same path he had entered with Algitha. It might have been imagination ; but he did not feel satis- fied altogether that it was so, and he went on a little further, and when he turned again to speak to Algitha, she had vanished. He rushed down the steep descent into the narrow walk which led to the house, and had just time to see her passing through the gate we have described. The victim had escaped the mesh ! — and he stood in the solitude and the night alone. He paced up and down the ruins which so aptly represented his own heart — at one time so glorious in their perfection, but now abandoned and desolate. There is no greater misery than for such a man to be alone : he who loves solitude is never wholly lost. For him who ventures to meditate on the past there is some hope for the future. And what were Luttrell's 296 ERNEST VANE. thoughts as he stood on that green sward — on the spot where Algitha pledged her love to him ? Was it a feeling of gratitude that he had been prevented injuring the innocent and lovely ? — did one ray of contrition break on the darkness of his heart? No! — the only feeling he was sus- ceptible of was that of outraged vanity : that he should have been foiled in his object was his deepest regret. For him the heavens possessed no glory ; nature no beauty ; night no voice : all his senses had by slow degrees become absorbed in his passions, and he had no feeling except for self. Like those fabled Cayanean rocks, which are supposed to float in beautiful and fantastic shapes upon the surface of the water, misleading the unwary mariner by the forms which they assume, so Luttrell was current-driven through the world, but ever, by his grace of form and deceptive appearance, he deluded the ignorant and simple- minded — or apter still to compare him to a ERNEST VANE. 297 wreck which bears the appearance of a gallant trustworthy ship, but is nevertheless doomed to destruction; gradually sinking, even in an un- ruffled sea, and under a sparkling sky, and threatening to engulph in its vortex all who may be attracted towards it. END OF VOLUME I. LONDON : HARRISON AND SON, PRINTERS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE. POPULAR NEW NOVELS, JUST PUBLISHED BY MR. COLBURN. i. THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW. By Mrs. TROLLOPE. 3 Vols. II. THE FORTUNES OF WOMAN. Edited by Miss LAMONT. 3 Vols. III. THE KING AND THE COUNTESS. By S. W. FULLOM, Esa. 3 Vols. VALERIE. By CAPTAIN MARRY AT. 2 Vols. V. BRITISH HOMES, AND FOREIGN WANDERINGS. By LADY LISTER KAYE. 2 Vols. VI. M R D A U N T HALL. By the Author of " Angela," " Emilia Wyndham," &c. Second Edition. 2 Vols. Also, in the Press, THE MAID OF ORLEANS. By the Author of " Whitefriars," " Owen Tudor," &c. 3 Vols. LATELY PUBLISHED, A SECOND EDITION OF LUCILLE BELMONT. IN THREE VOLS. " Amongst many other persons, we have heard this work attributed to Mr. Baillie Cochrane, M.P. Our astonishment is that the author of so successful a novel has not distinctly avowed himself. We were among the first, if not the first, of public journalists, to direct attention to this admirable romance, and we rejoice to see the good opinion we expressed upon its merits confirmed by the general voice. The reader of 'Lucille Belmont' will rise* from the perusal delighted with an eloquent history of human feelings, charmingly epitomized in a most romantic tale of love. The novel abounds, too, in graphic descrip- tions of high and official society, in vigorous sketches of distinguished statesmen, and in life-like portraits of eminent persons in the world of fashion, politics, and literary eminence, whom our readers would recognize at first sight." — Morning Post. " It is generally understood that the author of this work is a well- known member of the House of Commons ; and, judging from internal evidence we should say that he has seen a great deal of the varied life he portrays. We find ourselves in London, Venice, and Florence in succession, mingling with the leading notabilities of all sorts, — wits, beauties, dandies, statesmen, orators, lawyers," &c. — Examiner. "This work will be extensively read and not soon forgotten. The author manifests a singularly intimate acquaintance with good society, but he exhibits other and far higher qualities. In his sketches of living character he is most happy. Not to speak of the leading poli- tical characters, some of the most conspicuous in society are admirably drawn. Lady Alverston, Lady Woburn, Vavasour, Cranley, Broad- land, and others, as individuals, and Sir Henry Lovel and Mrs. Saville as representatives of classes, are particularly happy." — Morning Chronicle. HENRY COLBURX, PUBLISHER, 13, Great Maelborol'gh Street.