CHAPTER VII.
MADELINE, HER HOPES.—A MILD AUTUMN CHARACTERISED. —A LANDSCAPE.—A RETURN
'Tis late, and cold—stir up the fire,
Sit close, and draw the table nigher;
Be merry and drink wine that's old,
A hearty medicine 'gainst a cold,
Welcome—welcome shall fly round!
—Beaumont and Fletcher: Song in the Lover's Progress.
As when the Great Poet,—
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn; while, in his flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
He sang of chaos, and eternal night:—
As when, revisiting the "Holy Light, offspring of heaven first-born," the sense of freshness and glory breaks upon him, and kindles into the solemn joyfulness of adjuring song: so rises the mind from the contemplation of the gloom and guilt of life, "the utter and the middle darkness," to some pure and bright redemption of our nature—some creature of "the starry threshold," "the regions mild of calm and serene air." Never was a nature more beautiful and soft than that of Madeline Lester—never a nature more inclined to live "above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, which men call earth"—to commune with its own high and chaste creations of thought—to make a world out of the emotions which this world knows not— a paradise, which sin, and suspicion, and fear, had never yet invaded— where God might recognise no evil, and Angels forebode no change.
Aram's return was now daily, nay, even hourly expected. Nothing disturbed the soft, though thoughtful serenity, with which his betrothed relied upon the future. Aram's letters had been more deeply impressed with the evidence of love, than even his spoken vows: those letters had diffused not so much an agitated joy, as a full and mellow light of happiness over her heart. Every thing, even Nature, seemed inclined to smile with approbation on her hopes. The autumn had never, in the memory of man, worn so lovely a garment: the balmy and freshening warmth, which sometimes characterises that period of the year, was not broken, as yet, by the chilling winds, or the sullen mists, which speak to us so mournfully of the change that is creeping over the beautiful world. The summer visitants among the feathered tribe yet lingered in flocks, showing no intention of departure; and their song—but above all, the song of the sky-lark—which, to the old English poet, was what the nightingale is to the Eastern—seemed even to grow more cheerful as the sun shortened his daily task;—the very mulberry-tree, and the rich boughs of the horse chesnut, retained something of their verdure; and the thousand glories of the woodland around Grassdale were still chequered with the golden hues that herald, but beautify Decay. Still, no news had been received of Walter: and this was the only source of anxiety that troubled the domestic happiness of the Manor-house. But the Squire continued to remember, that in youth he himself had been but a negligent correspondent; and the anxiety he felt, assumed rather the character of anger at Walter's forgetfulness, than of fear for his safety. There were moments when Ellinor silently mourned and pined; but she loved her sister not less even than her cousin; and in the prospect of Madeline's happiness, did not too often question the future respecting her own.
One evening, the sisters were sitting at their work by the window of the little parlour, and talking over various matters of which the Great World, strange as it may seem, never made a part.
They conversed in a low tone, for Lester sat by the hearth in which a wood fire had been just kindled, and appeared to have fallen into an afternoon slumber. The sun was sinking to repose, and the whole landscape lay before them bathed in light, till a cloud passing overhead, darkened the heavens just immediately above them, and one of those beautiful sun showers, that rather characterize the spring than autumn, began to fall; the rain was rather sharp, and descended with a pleasant and freshening noise through the boughs, all shining in the sun light; it did not, however, last long, and presently there sprang up the glorious rainbow, and the voices of the birds, which a minute before were mute, burst into a general chorus, the last hymn of the declining day. The sparkling drops fell fast and gratefully from the trees, and over the whole scene there breathed an inexpressible sense of gladness—
"The odour and the harmony of eve."
"How beautiful!" said Ellinor, pausing from her work—"Ah, see the squirrel, is that our pet one? he is coming close to the window, poor fellow! Stay, I will get him some bread."
"Hush!" said Madeline, half rising, and turning quite pale, "Do you hear a step without?"
"Only the dripping of the boughs," answered Ellinor.
"No—no—it is he—it is he!" cried Madeline, the blood rushing back vividly to her cheeks, "I know his step!"
And—yes—winding round the house till he stood opposite the window, the sisters now beheld Eugene Aram; the diamond rain glittered on the locks of his long hair; his cheeks were flushed by exercise, or more probably the joy of return; a smile, in which there was no shade or sadness, played over his features, which caught also a fictitious semblance of gladness from the rays of the setting sun which fell full upon them.
"My Madeline, my love, my Madeline!" broke from his lips.
"You are returned—thank God—thank God—safe—well?"
"And happy!" added Aram, with a deep meaning in the tone of his voice.
"Hey day, hey day!" cried the Squire, starting up, "what's this? bless me, Eugene!—wet through too, seemingly! Nell, run and open the door— more wood on the fire—the pheasants for supper—and stay, girl, stay— there's the key of the cellar—the twenty-one port—you know it. Ah! ah! God willing, Eugene Aram shall not complain of his welcome back to Grassdale!"
CHAPTER VIII.
AFFECTION: ITS GODLIKE NATURE.—THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN ARAM AND MADELINE.—THE FATALIST FORGETS FATE
Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts.
—Two Gentlemen of Verona.
If there be any thing thoroughly lovely in the human heart, it is Affection! All that makes hope elevated, or fear generous, belongs to the capacity of loving. For my own part, I do not wonder, in looking over the thousand creeds and sects of men, that so many religionists have traced their theology,—that so many moralists have wrought their system from— Love. The errors thus originated have something in them that charms us even while we smile at the theology, or while we neglect the system. What a beautiful fabric would be human nature—what a divine guide would be human reason—if Love were indeed the stratum of the one, and the inspiration of the other! What a world of reasonings, not immediately obvious, did the sage of old open to our inquiry, when he said the pathetic was the truest part of the sublime. Aristides, the painter, created a picture in which an infant is represented sucking a mother wounded to the death, who, even in that agony, strives to prevent the child from injuring itself by imbibing the blood mingled with the milk. How many emotions, that might have made us permanently wiser and better, have we lost in losing that picture!
Certainly, Love assumes a more touching and earnest semblance, when we find it in some retired and sequestered hollow of the world; when it is not mixed up with the daily frivolities and petty emotions of which a life passed in cities is so necessarily composed: we cannot but believe it a deeper and a more absorbing passion: perhaps we are not always right in the belief.
Had one of that order of angels to whom a knowledge of the future, or the seraphic penetration into the hidden heart of man is forbidden, stayed his wings over the lovely valley in which the main scene of our history has been cast, no spectacle might have seemed to him more appropriate to that lovely spot, or more elevated in the character of its tenderness above the fierce and short-lived passions of the ordinary world, than the love that existed between Madeline and her betrothed. Their natures seemed so suited to each other! the solemn and undiurnal mood of the one was reflected back in hues so gentle, and yet so faithful, from the purer, but scarce less thoughtful character of the other! Their sympathies ran through the same channel, and mingled in a common fount; and whatever was dark and troubled in the breast of Aram, was now suffered not to appear. Since his return, his mood was brighter and more tranquil; and he seemed better fitted to appreciate and respond to the peculiar tenderness of Madeline's affection. There are some stars which, viewed by the naked eye, seem one, but in reality are two separate orbs revolving round each other, and drinking, each from each, a separate yet united existence: such stars seemed a type of them.
Had anything been wanting to complete Madeline's happiness, the change in Aram supplied the want. The sudden starts, the abrupt changes of mood and countenance, that had formerly characterized him, were now scarcely, if ever, visible. He seemed to have resigned himself with confidence to the prospects of the future, and to have forsworn the haggard recollections of the past; he moved, and looked, and smiled like other men; he was alive to the little circumstances around him, and no longer absorbed in the contemplation of a separate and strange existence within himself. Some scattered fragments of his poetry bear the date of this time: they are chiefly addressed to Madeline, and, amidst the vows of love, a spirit, sometimes of a wild and bursting—sometimes of a profound and collected happiness, are visible. There is great beauty in many of these fragments, and they bear a stronger impress of heart—they breathe more of nature and truth, than the poetry that belongs of right to that time.
And thus day rolled on day, till it was now the eve before their bridals. Aram had deemed it prudent to tell Lester, that he had sold his annuity, and that he had applied to the Earl for the pension which we have seen he had been promised. As to his supposed relation—the illness he had created he suffered now to cease; and indeed the approaching ceremony gave him a graceful excuse for turning the conversation away form any topics that did not relate to Madeline, or to that event.
It was the eve before their marriage; Aram and Madeline were walking along the valley that led to the house of the former.
"How fortunate it is!" said Madeline, "that our future residence will be so near my father's. I cannot tell you with what delight he looks forward to the pleasant circle we shall make. Indeed, I think he would scarce have consented to our wedding, if it had separated us from him."
Aram stopped, and plucked a flower.
"Ah! indeed, indeed, Madeline! Yet in the course of the various changes of life, how more than probable it is that we shall be divided from him— that we shall leave this spot."
"It is possible, certainly; but not probable, is it, Eugene?"
"Would it grieve thee irremediably, dearest, were it so?" rejoined Aram, evasively.
"Irremediably! What could grieve me irremediably, that did not happen to you?"
"Should, then, circumstances occur to induce us to leave this part of the country, for one yet more remote, you could submit cheerfully to the change?"
"I should weep for my father—I should weep for Ellinor; but—"
"But what?"
"I should comfort myself in thinking that you would then be yet more to me than ever!"
"Dearest!"
"But why do you speak thus; only to try me? Ah! that is needless."
"No, my Madeline; I have no doubt of your affection. When you loved such as me, I knew at once how blind, how devoted must be that love. You were not won through the usual avenues to a woman's heart; neither wit nor gaiety, nor youth nor beauty, did you behold in me. Whatever attracted you towards me, that which must have been sufficiently powerful to make you overlook these ordinary allurements, will be also sufficiently enduring to resist all ordinary changes. But listen, Madeline. Do not yet ask me wherefore; but I fear, that a certain fatality will constrain us to leave this spot, very shortly after our wedding."
"How disappointed my poor father will be!" said Madeline, sighing.
"Do not, on any account, mention this conversation to him, or to Ellinor; 'sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'"
Madeline wondered, but said no more. There was a pause for some minutes.
"Do you remember," observed Madeline, "that it was about here we met that strange man whom you had formerly known?"
"Ha! was it?—Here, was it?"
"What has become of him?"
"He is abroad, I hope," said Aram, calmly. "Yes, let me think; by this time he must be in France. Dearest, let us rest here on this dry mossy bank for a little while;" and Aram drew his arm round her waist, and, his countenance brightening as if with some thought of increasing joy, he poured out anew those protestations of love, and those anticipations of the future, which befitted the eve of a morrow so full of auspicious promise.
The heaven of their fate seemed calm and glowing, and Aram did not dream that the one small cloud of fear which was set within it, and which he alone beheld afar, and unprophetic of the storm, was charged with the thunderbolt of a doom, he had protracted, not escaped.
CHAPTER IX.
WALTER AND THE CORPORAL ON THE ROAD.—THE EVENING SETS IN.— THE GIPSEY TENTS.—ADVENTURE WITH THE HORSEMAN.—THE CORPORAL DISCOMFITED, AND THE ARRIVAL AT KNARESBOROUGH
Long had he wandered, when from far he sees
A ruddy flame that gleamed betwixt the trees.
Sir Gawaine prays him tell
Where lies the road to princely Corduel.
—The Knight of the Sword.
"Well, Bunting, we are not far from our night's resting-place," said Walter, pointing to a milestone on the road.
"The poor beast will be glad when we gets there, your honour," answered the Corporal, wiping his brows.
"Which beast, Bunting?"
"Augh!—now your honour's severe! I am glad to see you so merry."
Walter sighed heavily; there sat no mirth at his heart at that moment.
"Pray Sir," said the Corporal after a pause, "if not too bold, has your honour heard how they be doing at Grassdale?"
"No, Bunting; I have not held any correspondence with my uncle since our departure. Once I wrote to him on setting off to Yorkshire, but I could give him no direction to write to me again. The fact is, that I have been so sanguine in this search, and from day to day I have been so led on in tracing a clue, which I fear is now broken, that I have constantly put off writing till I could communicate that certain intelligence which I flattered myself I should be able ere this to procure. However, if we are unsuccessful at Knaresbro' I shall write from that place a detailed account of our proceedings."
"And I hopes you will say as how I have given your honour satisfaction."
"Depend upon that."
"Thank you Sir, thank you humbly; I would not like the Squire to think I'm ungrateful!—augh,—and mayhap I may have more cause to be grateful by and by, whenever the Squire, God bless him, in consideration of your honour's good offices, should let me have the bit cottage rent free."
"A man of the world, Bunting; a man of the world!"
"Your honour's mighty obleeging," said the Corporal, putting his hand to his hat; "I wonders," renewed he, after a short pause, "I wonders how poor neighbour Dealtry is. He was a sufferer last year; I should like to know how Peter be getting on—'tis a good creature."
Somewhat surprised at this sudden sympathy on the part of the Corporal, for it was seldom that Bunting expressed kindness for any one, Walter replied,—
"When I write, Bunting, I will not fail to inquire how Peter Dealtry is;- -does your kind heart suggest any other message to him?"
"Only to ask arter Jacobina, poor thing; she might get herself into trouble if little Peter fell sick and neglected her like—augh. And I hopes as how Peter airs the bit cottage now and then; but the Squire, God bless him, will see to that, and the tato garden, I'm sure."
"You may rely on that, Bunting," said Walter sinking into a reverie, from which he was shortly roused by the Corporal.
"I'spose Miss Madeline be married afore now, your honour: well, pray Heaven she be happy with that ere larned man!"
Walter's heart beat faster for a moment at this sudden remark, but he was pleased to find that the time when the thought of Madeline's marriage was accompanied with painful emotion was entirely gone by; the reflection however induced a new train of idea, and without replying to the Corporal, he sank into a deeper meditation than before.
The shrewd Bunting saw that it was not a favourable moment for renewing the conversation; he therefore suffered his horse to fall back, and taking a quid from his tobacco-box, was soon as well entertained as his master. In this manner they rode on for about a couple of miles, the evening growing darker as they proceeded, when a green opening in the road brought them within view of a gipsy's encampment; the scene was so sudden and so picturesque, that it aroused the young traveller from his reverie, and as his tired horse walked slowly on, the bridle about its neck, he looked with an earnest eye on the vagrant settlement beside his path. The moon had just risen above a dark copse in the rear, and cast a broad, deep shadow along the green, without lessening the vivid effect of the fires which glowed and sparkled in the darker recess of the waste land, as the gloomy forms of the Egyptians were seen dimly cowering round the blaze. A scene of this sort is perhaps one of the most striking that the green lanes of Old England afford,—to me it has always an irresistible attraction, partly from its own claims, partly from those of association. When I was a mere boy, and bent on a solitary excursion over parts of England and Scotland, I saw something of that wild people,— though not perhaps so much as the ingenious George Hanger, to whose memoirs the reader may be referred, for some rather amusing pages on gipsy life. As Walter was still eyeing the encampment, he in return had not escaped the glance of an old crone, who came running hastily up to him, and begged permission to tell his fortune and to have her hand crossed with silver.
Very few men under thirty ever sincerely refuse an offer of this sort. Nobody believes in these predictions, yet every one likes hearing them: and Walter, after faintly refusing the proposal twice, consented the third time; and drawing up his horse submitted his hand to the old lady. In the mean while, one of the younger urchins who had accompanied her had run to the encampments for a light, and now stood behind the old woman's shoulder, rearing on high a pine brand, which cast over the little group a red and weird-like glow.
The reader must not imagine we are now about to call his credulity in aid to eke out any interest he may feel in our story; the old crone was but a vulgar gipsy, and she predicted to Walter the same fortune she always predicted to those who paid a shilling for the prophecy—an heiress with blue eyes—seven children—troubles about the epoch of forty-three, happily soon over—and a healthy old age with an easy death. Though Walter was not impressed with any reverential awe for these vaticinations, he yet could not refrain from inquiring, whether the journey on which he was at present bent was likely to prove successful in its object.
"'Tis an ill night," said the old woman, lifting up her wild face and elfin locks with a mysterious air—"'Tis an ill night for them as seeks, and for them as asks.—He's about—"
"He—who?"
"No matter!—you may be successful, young Sir, yet wish you had not been so. The moon thus, and the wind there—promise that you will get your desires, and find them crosses."
The Corporal had listened very attentively to these predictions, and was now about to thrust forth his own hand to the soothsayer, when from a cross road to the right came the sound of hoofs, and presently a horseman at full trot pulled up beside them.
"Hark ye, old she Devil, or you, Sirs—is this the road to Knaresbro'?"
The Gipsy drew back, and gazed on the countenance of the rider, on which the red glare of the pine-brand shone full.
"To Knaresbro', Richard, the dare-devil? Ay, and what does the ramping bird want in the ould nest? Welcome back to Yorkshire, Richard, my ben cove!"
"Ha!" said the rider, shading his eyes with his hand, as he returned the gaze of the Gipsy—"is it you, Bess Airlie: your welcome is like the owl's, and reads the wrong way. But I must not stop. This takes to Knaresbro' then?"
"Straight as a dying man's curse to hell," replied the crone, in that metaphorical style in which all her tribe love to speak, and of which their proper language is indeed almost wholly composed.
The horseman answered not, but spurred on.
"Who is that?" asked Walter earnestly, as the old woman stretched her tawny neck after the rider.
"An ould friend, Sir," replied the Egyptian, drily. "I have not seen him these fourteen years; but it is not Bess Airlie who is apt to forgit friend or foe. Well, Sir, shall I tell your honour's good luck?"—(Here she turned to the Corporal, who sat erect on his saddle with his hand on his holster)—"the colour of the lady's hair—and—"
"Hold your tongue, you limb of Satan!" interrupted the Corporal fiercely, as if his whole tide of thought, so lately favourable to the Soothsayer, had undergone a deadly reversion. "Please your honour, it's getting late, we had better be jogging!"
"You are right," said Walter spurring his jaded horse, and nodding his adieu to the Gipsy,—he was soon out of sight of the encampment.
"Sir," said the Corporal joining his master, "that is a man as I have seed afore; I knowed his ugly face again in a crack—'tis the man what came to Grassdale arter Mr. Aram, and we saw arterwards the night we chanced on Sir Peter Thingumybob."
"Bunting," said Walter, in a low voice, "I too have been trying to recal the face of that man, and I too am persuaded I have seen it before. A fearful suspicion, amounting almost to conviction, creeps over me, that the hour in which I last saw it was one when my life was in peril. In a word, I do believe that I beheld that face bending over me on the night when I lay under the hedge, and so nearly escaped murder! If I am right, it was, however, the mildest of the ruffians; the one who counselled his comrades against despatching me."
The Corporal shuddered.
"Pray, Sir!" said he, after a moment's pause, "do see if your pistols are primed—so—so. 'Tis not out o' nature that the man may have some 'complices hereabout, and may think to way-lay us. The old Gipsy, too, what a face she had! depend on it, they are two of a trade—augh!— bother!—whaugh!"
And the Corporal grunted his most significant grunt.
"It is not at all unlikely, Bunting; and as we are now not far from Knaresbro', it will be prudent to ride on as fast as our horses will allow us. Keep up alongside."
"Certainly—I'll purtect your honour," said the Corporal, getting on that side where the hedge being thinnest, an ambush was less likely to be laid. "I care more for your honour's safety than my own, or what a brute I should be—augh!"
The master and man had trotted on for some little distance, when they perceived a dark object moving along by the grass on the side of the road. The Corporal's hair bristled—he uttered an oath, which by him was always intended for a prayer. Walter felt his breath grow a little thick as he watched the motions of the object so imperfectly beheld; presently, however, it grew into a man on horseback, trotting very slowly along the grass; and as they now neared him, they recognised the rider they had just seen, whom they might have imagined, from the pace at which he left them before, to have been considerably a-head of them.
The horseman turned round as he saw them.
"Pray, gentlemen," said he, in a tone of great and evident anxiety, "how far is it to Knaresbro'?"
"Don't answer him, your honour!" whispered the Corporal.
"Probably," replied Walter, unheeding this advice, "you know this road better than we do. It cannot however be above three or four miles hence."
"Thank you, Sir,—it is long since I have been in these parts. I used to know the country, but they have made new roads and strange enclosures, and I now scarcely recognise any thing familiar. Curse on this brute! curse on it, I say!" repeated the horseman through his ground teeth in a tone of angry vehemence, "I never wanted to ride so quick before, and the beast has fallen as lame as a tree. This comes of trying to go faster than other folks.—Sir, are you a father?"
This abrupt question, which was uttered in a sharp, strained voice, a little startled Walter. He replied shortly in the negative, and was about to spur onward, when the horseman continued—and there was something in his voice and manner that compelled attention: "And I am in doubt whether I have a child or not.—By G—! it is a bitter gnawing state of mind.—I may reach Knaresbro' to find my only daughter dead, Sir!—dead!"
Despite of Walter's suspicions of the speaker, he could not but feel a thrill of sympathy at the visible distress