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Confession; Or, The Blind Heart. A Domestic Story

by William Gilmore Simms · English · Gutenberg #6059 · 799,123 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Confession; Or, The Blind Heart. A Domestic Story

Author: William Gilmore Simms


        
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6059]
                Most recently updated: March 16, 2018

Language: English

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[Illustration: Confession]

CONFESSION

or,

THE BLIND HEART

A Domestic Story

By W. Gilmore Simms



  Wagner. But of the world-the heart, the mind of man,
          How happy could we know!

  Faust.              What can we know?
          Who dares bestow the infant his true name?
          The few who felt and knew, but blindly gave
          Their knowledge to the multitude--they fell!
          Incapable to keep their full hearts in,
          They, from the first of immemorial time,
          Were crucified or burnt.
                           Goethe's Faust, MS. Version.





CHAPTER I.

CONFESSION, OR THE BLIND HEART.


  “Who dares bestow the infant his true name?
  The few who felt and knew, but blindly gave
  Their knowledge to the multitude--they fell
  Incapable to keep their full hearts in,
  They, from the first of immemorial time,
  Were crucified or burnt.”--Goethe's “Faust.”


The pains and penalties of folly are not necessarily death. They were
in old times, perhaps, according to the text, and he who kept not to
himself the secrets of his silly heart was surely crucified or burnt.
Though lacking in penalties extreme like these, the present is not
without its own. All times, indeed, have their penalties for folly, much
more certainly than for crime; and this fact furnishes one of the most
human arguments in favor of the doctrine of rewards and punishments in
the future state. But these penalties are not always mortifications and
trials of the flesh. There are punishments of the soul; the spirit; the
sensibilities; the intellect--which are most usually the consequences of
one's own folly. There is a perversity of mood which is the worst of
all such penalties. There are tortures which the foolish heart equally
inflicts and endures. The passions riot on their own nature; and,
feeding as they do upon that bosom from which they spring, and in which
they flourish, may, not inaptly, be likened to that unnatural brood
which gnaws into the heart of the mother-bird, and sustains its
existence at the expense of hers. Meetly governed from the beginning,
they are dutiful agents that bless themselves in their own obedience;
but, pampered to excess, they are tyrants that never do justice, until
at last, when they fitly conclude the work of destruction by their own.

The narrative which follows is intended to illustrate these opinions. It
is the story of a blind heart--nay, of blind hearts--blind through their
own perversity--blind to their own interests--their own joys, hopes,
and proper sources of delight. In narrating my own fortunes, I depict
theirs; and the old leaven of wilfulness, which belongs to our nature,
has, in greater or less degree, a place in every human bosom.

I was the only one surviving of several sons. My parents died while I
was yet an infant. I never knew them. I was left to the doubtful charge
of relatives, who might as well have been strangers; and, from their
treatment, I learned to doubt and to distrust among the first fatal
lessons of my youth. I felt myself unloved--nay, as I fancied, disliked
and despised. I was not merely an orphan. I was poor, and was felt as
burdensome by those connections whom a dread of public opinion, rather
than a sense of duty and affection, persuaded to take me to their homes.
Here, then, when little more than three years old, I found myself--a
lonely brat, whom servants might flout at pleasure, and whom superiors
only regarded with a frown. I was just old enough to remember that I had
once experienced very different treatment. I had felt the caresses of a
fond mother--I had heard the cheering accents of a generous and a gentle
father. The one had soothed my griefs and encouraged my hopes--the other
had stimulated my energies and prompted my desires. Let no one
fancy that, because I was a child, these lessons were premature. All
education, to be valuable, must begin with the child's first efforts at
discrimination. Suddenly, both of these fond parents disappeared, and I
was just young enough to wonder why.

The change in my fortunes first touched my sensibilities, which it
finally excited until they became diseased. Neglected if not scorned,
I habitually looked to encounter nothing but neglect or scorn. The sure
result of this condition of mind was a look and feeling, on my part, of
habitual defiance. I grew up with the mood of one who goes forth with a
moral certainty that he must meet and provide against an enemy. But I am
now premature.

The uncle and aunt with whom I found shelter were what is called in
ordinary parlance, very good people. They attended the most
popular church with most popular punctuality. They prayed with
unction--subscribed to all the charities which had publicity and a
fashionable list to recommend them--helped to send missionaries to
Calcutta, Bombay, Owyhee, and other outlandish regions--paid their
debts when they became due with commendable readiness--and were, in all
out-of-door respects, the very sort of people who might congratulate
themselves, and thank God that they were very far superior to their
neighbors. My uncle had morning prayers at home, and my aunt thumbed
Hannah More in the evening; though it must be admitted that the former
could not always forbear, coming from church on the sabbath, to inquire
into the last news of the Liverpool cotton market, and my aunt never
failed, when they reached home, on the same blessed day, to make the
house ring with another sort of eloquence than that to which she had
listened with such sanctimonious devotion from the lips of the preacher.
There were some other little offsets against the perfectly evangelical
character of their religion. One of these--the first that attracted my
infant consideration--was naturally one which more directly concerned
myself. I soon discovered that, while I was sent to an ordinary charity
school of the country, in threadbare breeches, made of the meanest
material--their own son--a gentle and good, but puny boy, whom their
indulgence injured, and, perhaps, finally destroyed--was despatched to
a fashionable institution which taught all sorts of ologies--dressed in
such choice broadcloth and costly habiliments, as to make him an object
of envy and even odium among all his less fortunate school-fellows.

Poor little Edgar! His own good heart and correct natural understanding
showed him the equal folly of that treatment to which he was subjected,
and the injustice and unkindness which distinguished mine. He strove to
make amends, so far as I was concerned, for the error of his parents. He
was my playmate whenever he was permitted, but even this permission was
qualified by some remark, some direction or counsel, from one or other
of his parents, which was intended to let him know, and make me feel,
that there was a monstrous difference between us.

The servants discovered this difference as quickly as did the objects
of it; and though we were precisely of one age, and I was rather the
largest of the two, yet, in addressing us, they paid him the deference
which should only be shown to superior age, and treated me with the
contumely only due to inferior merit. It was “Master Edgar,” when he was
spoken to--and “you,” when I was the object of attention.

I do not speak of these things as of substantial evils affecting my
condition. Perhaps, in one or more respects, they were benefits.
They taught me humility in the first place, and made that humility
independence, by showing me that the lesson was bestowed in wantonness,
and not with the purpose of improvement. And, in proportion as my
physical nature suffered their neglect, it acquired strength by the very
roughening to which that neglect exposed it. In this I possessed a vast
advantage over my little companion. His frame, naturally feeble, sunk
under the oppressive tenderness to which the constant care of a vain
father, a doting mother, and sycophantic friends and servants, subjected
it. The attrition of boy with boy, in the half-manly sports of schoolboy
life--its very strifes and scuffles--would have brought his blood into
adequate circulation, and hardened his bones, and given elasticity to
his sinews. But from all these influences, he was carefully preserved
and protected. He was not allowed to run, for fear of being too much
heated. He could not jump, lest he might break a blood-vessel. In the
ball play he might get an eye knocked out; and even tops and marbles
were forbidden, lest he should soil his hands and wear out the knees
of his green breeches. If he indulged in these sports it was only by
stealth, and at the fearful cost of a falsehood on every such occasion.
When will parents learn that entirely to crush and keep down the proper
nature of the young, is to produce inevitable perversity, and stimulate
the boyish ingenuity to crime?

With me the case was very different. If cuffing and kicking could have
killed, I should have died many sudden and severe deaths in the rough
school to which I was sent. If eyes were likely to be lost in the
campus, corded balls of India-rubber, or still harder ones of wood,
impelled by shinny (goff) sticks, would have obliterated all of mine
though they had been numerous as those of Argus. My limbs and eyes
escaped all injury; my frame grew tall and vigorous in consequence of
neglect, even as the forest-tree, left to the conflict of all the winds
of heaven; while my poor little friend, Edgar, grew daily more and more
diminutive, just as some plant, which nursing and tendance within doors
deprive of the wholesome sunshine and generous breezes of the sky.
The paleness of his cheek increased, the languor of his frame, the
meagerness of his form, the inability of his nature! He was pining
rapidly away, in spite of that excessive care, which, perhaps, had been
in the first instance, the unhappy source of all his feebleness.

He died--and I became an object of greater dislike than ever to
his parents. They could not but contrast my strength, with his
feebleness--my improvement with his decline--and when they remembered
how little had been their regard for me and how much for him--without
ascribing the difference of result to the true cause--they repined at
the ways of Providence, and threw upon me the reproach of it. They gave
me less heed and fewer smiles than ever. If I improved at school, it was
well, perhaps; but they never inquired, and I could not help fancying
that it was with a positive expression of vexation, that my aunt heard,
on one occasion, from my teacher, in the presence of some guests, that I
was likely to be an honor to the family.

“An honor to the family, indeed!” This was the clear expression in
that Christian lady's eyes, as I saw them sink immediately after in a
scornful examination of my rugged frame and coarse garments.

The family had its own sources of honor, was the calm opinion of both
my patrons, as they turned their eyes upon their only remaining child--a
little girl about five years old, who was playing around them on the
carpet. This opinion was also mine, even then: and my eyes followed
theirs in the same direction. Julia Clifford was one of the sweetest
little fairies in the world. Tender-hearted, and just, and generous,
like the dear little brother, whom she had only known to lose, she
was yet as playful as a kitten. I was twice her age--just ten--at this
period; and a sort of instinct led me to adopt the little creature, in
place of poor Edgar, in the friendship of my boyish heart. I drew her
in her little wagon--carried her over the brooklet--constructed her tiny
playthings--and in consideration of my usefulness, in most generally
keeping her in the best of humors, her mother was not unwilling that I
should be her frequent playmate. Nay, at such times she could spare a
gentle word even to me, as one throws a bone to the dog, who has jumped
a pole, or plunged into the water, or worried some other dog, for his
amusement. At no other period did my worthy aunt vouchsafe me such
unlooked-for consideration.

But Julia Clifford was not my only friend. I had made another
shortly before the death of Edgar; though, passingly it may be said,
friendship-making was no easy business with a nature such as mine had
now become. The inevitable result of such treatment as that to which my
early years had been subjected, was fully realized. I was suspicious
to the last degree of all new faces--jealous of the regards of the
old; devoting myself where my affections were set and requiring
devotion--rigid, exclusive devotion--from their object in return. There
was a terrible earnestness in all my moods which made my very love a
thing to be feared. I was no trifler--I could not suffer to be trifled
with--and the ordinary friendships of man or boy can not long endure the
exactions of such a disposition. The penalties are usually thought to
be--and are--infinitely beyond the rewards and benefits.

My intimacies with William Edgerton were first formed under
circumstances which, of all others, are most likely to establish them on
a firm basis in our days of boyhood. He came to my rescue one evening,
when, returning from school, I was beset by three other boys, who
had resolved on drubbing me. My haughty deportment had vexed their
self-esteem, and, as the same cause had left me with few sympathies, it
was taken for granted that the unfairness of their assault would provoke
no censure. They were mistaken. In the moment of my greatest difficulty,
William Edgerton dashed in among them. My exigency rendered his
assistance a very singular benefit. My nose was already broken--one of
my eyes sealed up for a week's holyday; and I was suffering from small
annoyances, of hip, heart, leg, and thigh, occasioned by the repeated
cuffs, and the reckless kicks, which I was momently receiving from three
points of the compass. It is true that my enemies had their hurts to
complain of also; but the odds were too greatly against me for any
conduct or strength of mine to neutralize or overcome; and it was only
by Edgerton's interposition that I was saved from utter defeat and much
worse usage. The beating I had already suffered. I was sore from head to
foot for a week after; and my only consolation was that my enemies left
the ground in a condition, if anything, something worse than my own.

But I had gained a friend, and that was a sweet recompense, sweeter to
me, by far, than it is found or felt by schoolboys usually. None could
know or comprehend the force of my attachment--my dependence upon
the attachment of which I felt assured!--none but those who, with an
earnest, impetuous nature like my own--doomed to denial from the first,
and treated with injustice and unkindness--has felt the pang of a worse
privation from the beginning;--the privation of that sustenance, which
is the “very be all and end all” of its desire and its life--and
the denial of which chills and repels its fervor--throws it back in
despondency upon itself--fills it with suspicion, and racks it with a
never-ceasing conflict between its apprehension and its hopes.

Edgerton supplied a vacuum which my bosom had long felt. He was,
however, very unlike, in most respects, to myself. He was rather
phlegmatic than ardent--slow in his fancies, and shy in his associations
from very fastidiousness. He was too much governed by nice tastes, to be
an active or performing youth; and too much restrained by them also, to
be a popular one. This, perhaps, was the secret influence which
brought us together. A mutual sense of isolation--no matter from what
cause--awakened the sympathies between us. Our ties were formed, on my
part, simply because I was assured that I should have no rival; and on
his, possibly, because he perceived in my haughty reserve of character,
a sufficient security that his fastidious sensibilities would not be
likely to suffer outrage at my hands. In every other respect our moods
and tempers were utterly unlike. I thought him dull, very frequently,
when he was only balancing between jealous and sensitive tastes;--and
ignorant of the actual, when, in fact, his ignorance simply arose from
the decided preference which he gave to the foreign and abstract. He was
contemplative--an idealist; I was impetuous and devoted to the real
and living world around me, in which I was disposed to mingle with an
eagerness which might have been fatal; but for that restraint to which
my own distrust of all things and persons habitually subjected me.



CHAPTER II.

BOY PASSIONS--A PROFESSION CHOSEN.


Between William Edgerton and Julia Clifford my young life and best
affections were divided, entirely, if not equally. I lived for no
other--I cared to seek, to know, no other--and yet I often shrunk from
both. Even at that boyish period, while the heavier cares and the more
painful vexations of life were wanting to our annoyance, I had those
of that gnawing nature which seemed to be born of the tree whose evil
growth “brought death into the world and all our wo.” The pang of a
nameless jealousy--a sleepless distrust--rose unbidden to my heart at
seasons, when, in truth, there was no obvious cause. When Julia was
most gentle--when William was most generous--even then, I had learned to
repulse them with an indifference which I did not feel--a rudeness which
brought to my heart a pain even greater than that which my wantonness
inflicted upon theirs. I knew, even then, that I was perverse, unjust;
and that there was a littleness in the vexatious mood in which I
indulged, that was unjust to my own feelings, and unbecoming in a manly
nature. But even though I felt all this, as thoroughly as I could ever
feel it under any situation, I still could not succeed in overcoming
tha' insane will which drove me to its indulgence.

Vainly have I striven to account for the blindness of heart--for such
it is, in all such cases--which possessed me. Was there anything in
my secret nature, born at my birth and growing with my growth--which
impelled me to this willfulness. I can scarcely believe so; but, after
serious reflection, am compelled to think that it was the strict result
of moods growing out of the particular treatment to which I had been
subjected. It does not seem unnatural that an ardent temper of mind,
willing to confide, looking to love and affection for the only aliment
which it most and chiefly desires, and repelled in this search, frowned
on by its superiors as if it were something base, will, in time, grow to
be habitually wilful, even as the treatment which has schooled it. Had I
been governed and guided by justice, I am sure that I should never have
been unjust.

My waywardness in childhood did not often amount to rudeness, and never,
I may safely say, where Julia was concerned. In her case, it was simply
the exercise of a sullenness that repelled her approaches, even as
its own approaches had been repelled by others. At such periods I went
apart, communing, sternly with myself, refusing the sympathy that I most
yearned after, and resolving not to be comforted. Let me do the dear
child the justice to say that the only effect which this conduct had
upon her, was to increase her anxieties to soothe the repulsive spirit
which should have offended her. Perhaps, to provoke this anxiety in one
it loves, is the chief desire of such a spirit. It loves to behold the
persevering devotion, which it yet perversely toils to discourage. It
smiles within, with a bitter triumph, as it contemplates its own power,
to impart the same sorrow which a similar perversity has already made it
feel.

But, without seeking further to analyze and account for such a spirit,
it is quite sufficient if I have described it. Perhaps, there are other
hearts equally froward and wayward with my own. I know not if my story
will amend--perhaps it may not even instruct or inform them--I feel
that no story, however truthful, could have disarmed the humor of that
particular mood of mind which shows itself in the blindness of the heart
under which it was my lot to labor. I did not want knowledge of my own
perversity. I knew--I felt it--as clearly as if I had seen it written
in characters of light, on the walls of my chamber. But, until it had
exhausted itself and passed away by its own processes, no effort of
mine could have overcome or banished it. I stalked apart, under
its influence, a gloomy savage--scornful and sad--stern, yet
suffering--denying myself equally, in the perverse and wanton denial to
which I condemned all others.

Perhaps something of this temper is derived from the yearnings of the
mental nature. It may belong somewhat to the natural direction of a
mind having a decided tendency to imaginative pursuits. There is a dim,
vague, indefinite struggle, for ever going on in the nature of such a
person, after an existence and relations very foreign to the world in
which it lives; and equally far from, and hostile to that condition
in which it thrives. The vague discontent of such a mind is one of the
causes of its activity; and how far it may be stimulated into diseased
intensity by injudicious treatment, is a question of large importance
for the consideration of philosophers. The imaginative nature is one
singularly sensitive in its conditions; quick, jealous, watchful,
earnest, stirring, and perpetually breaking down the ordinary barriers
of the actual, in its struggles to ascertain the extent of the possible.
The tyranny which drives it from the ordinary resources and enjoyments
of the young, by throwing it more completely on its own, impels into
desperate activity that daring of the imaginative mood, which, at no
time, is wanting in courage and audacity. My mind was one singularly
imaginative in its structure; and my ardent temperament contributed
largely to its activity. Solitude, into which I was forced by the
repulsive and unkind treatment of my relatives, was also favorable to
the exercise of this influence; and my heart may be said to have taken,
in turn, every color and aspect which informed my eyes. It was a blind
heart for this very reason, in respect to all those things for which it
should have had a color of its own. Books and the woods--the voice of
waters and of song--the dim mysteries of poetry, and the whispers of
lonely forest-walks, which beguiled me into myself, and more remotely
from my fellows, were all, so far as my social relations were concerned,
evil influences! Influences which were only in part overcome by the
communion of such gentle beings as William Edgerton and Julia Clifford.

With these friends, and these only, I grew up. As my years advanced, my
intimacy with the former increased, and with the latter diminished. But
this diminution of intimacy did not lessen the kindness of her feelings,
or the ordinary devotedness of mine. She was still--when the perversity
of heart made me not blind--the sweet creature to whom the task of
ministering was a pleasure infinitely beyond any other which I knew.
But, as she grew up to girlhood, other prospects opened upon her eyes,
and other purposes upon those of her parents. At twelve she was carried
by maternal vanity into company--sent to the dancing school--provided
with teachers in music and painting, and made to understand--so far as
the actions, looks, and words of all around could teach--that she
was the cynosure of all eyes, to whom the whole world was bound in
deference.

Fortunately, in the case of Julia, the usual effects of maternal folly
and indiscretion did not ensue. Nature interposed to protect her, and
saved her in spite of them all. She was still the meek, modest
child, solicitous of the happiness of all around her--unobtrusive,
unassuming--kind to her inferiors, respectful to superiors, and
courteous to, and considerate of all other persons. Her advancing years,
which rendered these new acquisitions and accomplishments desirable, if
not necessary, at the same time prompted her foolish mother to another
step which betrayed the humiliating regard which she entertained for me.
When I was seventeen, Julia was twelve, and when neither she nor myself
had a solitary thought of love, the over considerate mother began to
think, on this subject, for us both. The result of her cogitations
determined her that it was no longer fitting that Julia should be my
companion. Our rambles in the woods together were forbidden; and Julia
was gravely informed that I was a poor youth, though her cousin--an
orphan whom her father's charity supported, and whom the public charity
schooled. The poor child artlessly told me all this, in a vain effort
to procure from me an explanation of the mystery (which her mother had
either failed or neglected to explain) by which such circumstances were
made to account for the new commands which had been given her. Well
might she, in her simplicity of heart, wonder why it was, that because I
was poor, she should be familiar with me no longer.

The circumstance opened my eyes to the fact that Julia was a tall
girl, growing fast, already in her teens, and likely, under the
rapidly-maturing influence of our summer sun, to be soon a woman. But
just then--just when she first tasked me to solve the mystery of her
mother's strange requisitions, I did not think of this. I was too much
filled with indignation--the mortified self-esteem was too actively
working in my bosom to suffer me to think of anything but the indignity
with which I was treated. A brief portion of the dialogue between the
child and my self, will give some glimpses of the blind heart by which I
was afflicted.

“Oh, you do not understand it, Julia. You do not know, then, that you
are the daughter of a rich merchant--the only daughter--that you have
servants to wait on you, and a carriage at command--that you can wear
fine silks, and have all things that money can buy, and a rich man's
daughter desire. You don't know these things, Julia, eh?”

“Yes, Edward, I hear you say so now, and I hear mamma often say the same
things; but still I don't see--”

“You don't see why that should make a difference between yourself and
your poor cousin, eh? Well, but it does; and though you don't see it
now, yet it will not be very long before you will see, and understand
it, and act upon it, too, as promptly as the wisest among them. Don't
you know that I am the object of your father's charity--that his bounty
feeds me--and that it would not be seemly that the world should behold
me on a familiar footing of equality or intimacy with the daughter of
my benefactor--my patron--without whom I should probably starve, or be a
common beggar upon the highway?”

“But father would not suffer that, Edward.”

“Oh, no! no!--he would not suffer it, Julia, simply because his own
pride and name would feel the shame and disgrace of such a thing. But
though he would keep me from beggary and the highway, Julia, neither
he nor your mother would spend a sixpence or make an effort to save my
feelings from pain and misery. They protect me from the scorn of others,
but they use me for their own.”

The girl hung her head in silence.

“And you, too,” I added--“the time will come when you too, Julia,
will shrink as promptly as themselves from being seen with your poor
relation. You--”

“No! no! Edward--how can you think of such a thing?” she replied with
girlish chiding.

“Think it!--I know it! The time will soon be here. But--obey your
mother, Julia. Go! leave me now. Begin, once the lesson which, before
many days, you will find it very easy to learn.”

This was all very manly, so I fancied at the time; and then blind with
the perverse heart which boiled within me, I felt not the wantonness of
my mood, and heeded not the bitter pain which I occasioned to her gentle
bosom. Her little hand grasped mine, her warm tears fell upon it; but
I flung away from her grasp, and left her to those childish meditations
which I had made sufficiently mournful.

Subsequent reflection, while it showed me the brutality of my conduct to
Julia, opened my eyes to the true meaning of her mother's interdiction;
and increased the pang of those bitter feelings, which my conscious
dependence had awakened in my breast, it was necessary that this
dependence should be lessened; that, as I was now approaching manhood, I
should cast about for the future, and adopt wisely and at once the
means of my support hereafter. It was necessary that I should begin the
business of life. On this head I had already reflected somewhat, and my
thoughts had taken their direction from more than one conference which I
had had with William Edgerton. His father was an eminent lawyer, and the
law had been adopted for his profession also. I determined to make it
mine; and to speak on this subject to my uncle. This I did. I chose an
afternoon, the very week in which my conversation had taken place with
Julia, and, while the dinner things were undergoing removal, with some
formality requested a private interview with him. He looked round at me
with a raised brow of inquiry--nodded his head--and shortly after rose
from the table. My aunt stared with an air of supercilious wonder; while
poor Julia, timid and trembling, barely ventured to give me a single
look, which said--and that was enough for me--“I wish I dared say more.”

My conference with my uncle was not of long duration. I told him it was
my purpose--my desire--to begin as soon as possible to do something for
myself. His answer signified that such was his opinion also. So far we
were agreed; but when I told him that it was my wish to study the law,
he answered with sufficient, and as I thought, scornful abruptness:--

“The law, indeed! What puts the law into your head? What preparations
have you made to study the law? You know nothing of languages which
every lawyer should know--Latin--”

I interrupted him to say that I had some slight knowledge of
Latin--sufficient, I fancied, for all legal purposes.

“Ah! indeed! where did you get it?”

“A friend lent me a grammar and dictionary, and I studied myself.”

“Oh, you are ambitious; but you deceive yourself. You were never made
for a lawyer. Besides, how are you to live while prosecuting your
studies? No, no! I have been thinking of something for you, Edward--and,
just now, it happens fortunately that old Squire Farmer, the bricklayer,
wants some apprentices--”

I could scarcely listen thus far.

“I thank you, sir, but I have no disposition to be a bricklayer.”

“You must do something for yourself. You can not expect to eat the bread
of idleness. I have done, and will do for you what I can--whatever is
necessary;--but I have my own family to provide for. I can not rob my
own child---”

“Nor do I expect it, Mr. Clifford,” I replied hastily, and with some
indignation. “It is my wish, sir, to draw as little as possible from
your income and resources. I would not rob Julia Clifford of a single
dollar. Nay, sir, I trust before many years to be able to refund you
every copper which has been spent upon me from the moment I entered your
household.”

He said hastily:--

“I wish nothing of that, Edward;--but the law is a study of years, and
is expensive and unpromising in every respect. Your clothes already call
for a considerable sum, and such a profession requires, more than almost
any other, that a student should be well dressed.”

“I promise you, sir, that my dress shall be such as shall not trespass
upon your income. I shall be governed by as much economy--”

He interrupted me to say, that

“His duty required that his brother's son should be dressed as well as
his associates.”

I replied, with tolerable composure:--

“I do not think, sir, that bricklaying will admit of very genteel
clothing, nor do I think that the vocation will suit me. I have
flattered myself, sir, that my talents--”

“Oh, you have talents, then, have you? Well, it is fortunate that the
discovery has been made in season.”

I bore with this, though my cheek was burning, and said--with an effort
to preserve my voice and temper, in which, though the difficulty was
great, I was tolerably successful--

“You have misunderstood me in some things, Mr. Clifford; and I will try
now to explain myself clearly in others. Having resolved, sir, that the
law shall be my profession---”

“Ha! resolved, say you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, go on--go on!”

“Having resolved to pursue the study of law, and seeing that I am
burdensome and expensive to you--believing, too, that I can relieve you
of the burden--I have simply requested permission of you to make the
attempt.”

“Why, how do you propose to do so?--how can you support yourself--that
is relieve me of the burden of your expenses--and study the law at the
same time?”

“Such things have been done, sir; and can be done again. I flatter
myself I can do it. Industry will enable me to do so. I propose to apply
for a clerkship in a mercantile establishment which I know stands in
need of assistance, and while there will pursue my studies in such
intervals of leisure as the business will afford me.”

“You seem to have the matter ready cut and dry. Why do you come to me,
then? Remember, I can make no advances.”

“I need none, sir. My simple object with you, sir, was to declare my
intention, and to request that I may be permitted to refer to you the
merchants to whom I mean to apply, for a knowledge of my character and
attainments.”

“Oh, certainly, you may--for the character;--but as to the
attainments”--with a sneering smile--“of them I can say nothing, and,
perhaps, the less said the better. I've no doubt you'll do well enough
with the merchants. It does not need much genius or attainment for such
situations. But, if you'll take my counsel, you'll go to the bricklayer.
We want bricklayers sadly. To be a tolerable lawyer, parts are
necessary; and God knows the country is over-stocked with hosts of
lawyers already, whose only parts lie in their impudence. Better think a
little while longer. Speak to old Farmer yourself.”

I smiled bitterly--thanked him for his counsel, which was only a studied
form of insult, and turned away from him without further speech, and
with a proud swelling of indignation at my heart. Thus our conference
ended. A week after, I was ensconced behind the counter of a wholesale
dealer, and my hands at night were already busy in turning over the
heavy folios of Chitty and Blackstone.



CHAPTER III.

ADMITTED AMONG THE LAWYERS


Behold me, then, merchandising by day, and conning by night the
intricate mysteries of law. Books for the latter purpose were furnished
by my old friend, William Edgerton, from his father's library. He
himself was a student, beginning about the same time with myself; though
with the superior privilege of devoting himself exclusively to this
study. But if he had more time, I was more indefatigable. My pride was
roused, and emulation soon enabled me to supply the want of leisure. My
nights were surrendered, almost wholly, to my new pursuit. I toiled with
all the earnestness which distinguished my temperament, stimulated to
a yet higher degree by those feelings of pride and pique, which were
resolved to convince my skeptical uncle that I was not entirely without
those talents, the assertion of which had so promptly provoked his
sneer. Besides, I had already learned that no such scheme as mine could
be successfully prosecuted, unless by a stern resolution; and this
implied the constant presence of a close, undeviating method in my
studies. I tasked myself accordingly to read--understandingly, if
possible--so many pages every night, making my notes, queries, doubts,
&c., EN PASSANT. In order to do this, I prescribed to myself a rule,
to pass directly from the toils of the day and the store to my chamber,
suffering no stoppage by the way, and studiously denying myself the
dangerous fascinations of that society which was everywhere at command,
in the persons of young men about my own age and condition. The
intensity of my character, and the suspiciousness which it induced,
helped me in this determination. Perhaps, there is no greater danger to
a young man's habits of study and business, than a chat at the street
corner, with a merry and thoughtless group. A single half hour consumed
in this manner, is almost always fatal to the remaining hours of the
day. It breaks into the circle, and impairs the method without which
the passage of the sun becomes a very weary and always an unprofitable
progress. If you would be a student or anything, you must plunge
headlong into it at the beginning--bury yourself in your business, and
work your way out of your toils, by sheer, dogged industry.

My labors were so far successful that I could prosecute my studies with
independence. I had left the dwelling of my uncle the moment I took
employment in the mercantile house. My salary, though small, was ample;
with my habits, it was particularly so. I had few of those vices in
which young men are apt to indulge, and which, when they become habits,
cease unhappily to be regarded as vices. I used tobacco in no shape,
and no ardent spirits. I needed no stimulants, and, by the way,
true industry never does. It is only indolence that needs drink; and
indolence does need it; and the sooner drunkenness kills indolence by
the use of drink, the better for society. The only objection to liquors
as an agent for ridding the community of a nuisance, is, that it is
rather too slow, and too offensive in its detailed operations; arsenic
would be far less offensive, more summary, and is far more certain.
You would seek vainly to cure drunkenness, unless you first cure the
idleness which is its root and strength, and, while they last, its
permanent support. But my object is not homily.

If I was free from vices such as these, however, I had vices of my own,
which were only less odious as they were less obvious. That vexing,
self-tormenting spirit of which I have spoken as the evil genius that
dogged my footsteps--that moral perverseness which I have described as
the “blind heart”--still afflicted me, though in a far less degree now
than when I was the inmate of my uncle's dwelling, and exposed to all
the caprices of himself, his wife and servants. I kept on good terms
with my employers, for the very natural reason that they saw me attend
to my business and theirs, with a hearty cheerfulness that went to work
promptly in whatever was to be done, and executed its tasks with
steady fortitude, neatness, and rapidity. But, even with them, I had my
sulks--my humors--my stubborn fits of sullenness, that seemed anxious to
provoke opposition, and awaken wrath. These, however, they considerately
forgave in consideration of my real usefulness: and as they perceived
that whatever might have been the unpleasantness occasioned by these
specimens of spleen, they were never suffered to interfere with or
retard the operations of business. “It's an ugly way he's got,” was,
probably, the utmost extent of what either of the partners said, and of
what is commonly said on such occasions by most persons, who do not care
to trouble themselves with a too close inquiry.

Well, at twenty-one, William Edgerton and myself were admitted to the
practice of the law, and that too with considerable credit to ourselves.
I had long since been carried by my friend into his family circle; and
Mr. Edgerton, his father, had been pleased to distinguish me with sundry
attentions, which were only grateful to me in consequence of the unusual
deference with which his manner evinced his regard. His gentle inquiries
and persuasive suggestions beguiled me into more freedom of speech than
I had ever before been accustomed to; and his judicious management of my
troubled spirit, for a time, stifled its contradictions, and suppressed
its habitual tendencies. But it was with some jealousy, and an erectness
of manner which was surely ungracious, though, perhaps, not offensive,
that I endured and replied to his inquiries into my personal condition,
my resources, and the nature of that dependence which I bore to the
family of my uncle. When he learned--which he did not from me--in what
manner I had pursued my studies--after what toils of the day, and
at what late hours of the night--when he found from a close private
examination, which he had given me, before my admission, that my
knowledge of the law was quite as good as the greater number of those
who apply for admission--he was pleased to express his astonishment at
my perseverance, and delight at my success. When, too, in addition to
this, he discovered, upon a minute inquiry from my employers and others,
that I was abstemious, and indulged in no excesses of any kind, his
interest in me increased, as I thought, who had been accustomed to
nothing of the sort, beyond all reasonable measure-and I soon had
occasion to perceive that it was no idle curiosity that prompted his
consideration and inquiry.

Without my knowledge, he paid a visit to my uncle. This gentleman, I may
be permitted here to say, had been quite as much surprised as anybody
else, at my determined prosecution of my studies in spite of the
difficulties by which I was surrounded. That I was pursuing them, while
in the mercantile establishment to which I had gone, he did not believe;
and very frequently when I was at his house--for I visited the family,
and sometimes, though unfrequently, dined with them on a sabbath--he
jeered me on my progress--the “wonderful progress,” as he was pleased
to term it--which he felt sure I was making with my Coke and Blackstone,
while baling blankets, or bundling up plains and kerseys. This I bore
patiently, sustained as I was by the proud, indomitable spirit within
me, which assured me of the ultimate triumph which I felt positive would
ensue. I enjoyed his surprise--a surprise that looked something like
consternation--when the very day of my admission to the bar, and after
that event, I encountered him in the street, and in answer to his usual
sarcastic inquiry:--

“Well, Edward, how does the law come on? How is Sir William Blackstone,
Sir Edward Coke, and the rest of the white heads?”

I simply put the parchment into his hands which declared my formal
introduction to those venerable gentry.

“Why, you don't mean? Is it possible? So you really are admitted--a
lawyer, eh?”

“You see, sir--and that, too, without any Greek.”

“Well, and what good is it to do you? To have a profession, Edward, is
one thing; to get business, another!”

“Yes, sir--but I take it, the profession must be had first. One step
is gained. That much is sure. The other, I trust, will follow in due
season.”

“True, but I still think that the bricklayer would make the more money.”

“Were money-making, sir, the only object of life, perhaps, then, that
would be the most desirable business; but--”

“Oh, I forgot--the talents, the talents are to be considered.”

And after the utterance of this sneer, our dialogue as may be supposed,
did not much longer continue.

I did not know of the contemplated visit of Mr. Edgerton to my worthy
uncle, nor of its purpose, or I should, most assuredly, have put my veto
upon the measure with all the tenacity of a resentful spirit; but this
gentleman, who was a man of nice sensibility as well as strong good
sense, readily comprehended a portion of my secret history from what
was known to him. He easily conceived that my uncle was somewhat of
a niggard from the manner in which I had employed myself during my
preparation for the bar. He thought, however, that my uncle, though
unwilling to expend money in the prosecution of a scheme which he did
not approve--now that the scheme was so far successful as to afford
every promise of a reasonable harvest, could not do less than come
forward to the assistance of one who had shown such a determined
disposition to assist himself.

He was mistaken. He little knew the man. His interview with my uncle was
a short one. The parties were already acquainted, though not intimately.
They knew each other as persons of standing in the same community, and
this made the opening of Mr. Edgerton's business easy. I state the tenor
of the interview as it came to my knowledge afterward.

“Mr. Clifford,” he said, “you have a nephew--a young gentleman, who has
been recently admitted to the bar--Mr. Edward Clifford.”

The reply, with a look of wonder was necessarily affirmative.

“I have had much pleasure,” continued the other, “in knowing him for
some time. He is an intimate of my eldest son, and from what has met my
eyes, sir, I should say, you are fortunate in having a nephew of so much
promise.”

“Why, yes, sir, I believe he is a clever youth enough,” was the costive
answer.

“He is more than that, sir. I regard him, indeed, as a most astonishing
young man. The very manner in which he has pursued his studies while
engaged in the harassing labors of a large wholesale business house of
this city--alone establishes this fact.”

The cheeks of my uncle reddened. The last sentence of Mr. Edgerton
was unfortunate for his object. It conveyed a tacit reproof, which the
niggardly conscience of Mr. Clifford readily appropriated and, perhaps,
anticipated. He dreaded lest Mr. Edgerton knew all.

“You are probably aware, Mr. Edgcrton,” he replied with equal hesitancy
and haste--“you have heard that Edward Clifford is an orphan--that he
has nothing, and it was therefore necessary that he should learn to
employ himself; though it was against my wish, sir, that he went into a
mercantile house.”

There was something suppressed in this--a mean evasion--for he could
not easily have told Mr. Edgcrton, without a blush, that, instead of the
mercantile establishment, he would have made me a bricklayer's hodman.
But this, it seems, Edgerton had found out for himself. His reply,
however, was calculated to soothe the jealous apprehensions of Mr.
Clifford. He had an object in view, which he thought too important to
risk for the small pleasure of a passing sarcasm.

“Perhaps, it has happened for the best, Mr. Clifford. You were right in
requiring the young man to do for himself. Were I worth millions, sir, I
should still prefer that my son should learn that lesson--that he should
work out his own deliverance with the sweat of his own brow.”

“I agree with you, sir, perfectly,” replied the other, with increased
complacency. “A boy learns to value his money as he should, only when he
has earned it for himself.”

“Ah! it is not for this object simply,” replied Mr. Edgerton, “that I
would have him acquire habits of industry; it is for the moral results
which such habits produce--the firmness, character, consistency--the
strength and independence--temperance, justice--all of which arise, and
almost only, from obedience to this law. But it is clear that one can
not do everything by himself, and this young man, though he has gone on
in a manner that might shame the best of us, is still not so thoroughly
independent as he fancies himself. It will be some time before he will
be able to realize anything from his profession, and he will need some
small assistance in the meantime.”

“I can not help him,” exclaimed Mr. Clifford, abruptly--“I have not the
means to spare. My own family need everything that I can give. He has
himself only to blame. He chose his profession for himself. I warned him
against it. He needn't send to me.”

“Do not mistake me, Mr. Clifford,” said Mr. Edgerton, calmly. “Your
nephew knows nothing of my present visit. I would be loath that he
should know. It was the singular independence of his mind that led me
to the conviction, that he would sooner die than ask assistance from
anybody, that persuaded me to suggest to you in what manner you might
afford him an almost necessary help, without offending his sensibility.”

“Humph!” exclaimed the other, while a sneer mantled upon his lips. “You
are very considerate, Mr. Edgerton; but the same sensibilities might
prompt him to reject the assistance when tendered.”

“No, sir,” replied Edgerton, mildly--“I think I could manage that.”

“I am sorry, sir, that I can not second your wishes in any material
respect,” was the answer of my uncle;--“but I will see Edward, and let
him know that my house is open to him as it was from, the time he
was four years old; and he shall have a seat at my table until he can
establish himself more to his satisfaction; but money, sir, in truth, I
have not a cent to spare. My own necessities--”

“Enough, sir,” said Mr. Edgerton, mildly; “I take it for granted, Mr.
Clifford, that if you could contribute to the success of your brother's
son, you certainly would neither refuse nor refrain to do so.”

“Oh, surely--certainly not,” replied the other, hastily. “Anything
that I could do--anything in reason, sir, I should be very happy to do,
but--”

And then followed the usual rigmarole about “his own family,” and
“hard times,” and “diminished resources,” and all those stereotype
commonplaces which are for ever on the lips of stereotype insincere
people. Mr. Clifford did not perceive the dry and somewhat scornful
innuendo, which lay at the bottom of Mr. Edgerton's seemingly innocent
assumption; and the latter took his leave, vexed with himself at
having made the unsuccessful application--but still more angry with the
meanness of character which he had encountered in my uncle.



CHAPTER IV.

“She still soothed The mock of others.”


It is not improbable that, after a few hours given to calm reflection,
my uncle perceived how obnoxious he might be made to public censure for
his narrow treatment of my claims; and the next day he sent for me in
order to tender me the freedom of his house--a tender which he had made
the day before to Mr. Edgerton in my behalf. But his offer had been
already anticipated by that excellent friend that very day. Coming warm
and fresh from his interview with my uncle, he called upon me, and in a
very plain, direct, business-like, but yet kind and considerate manner,
informed me that he stood very much in need of an assistant who would
prepare his papers--did me the honor to say that he fancied I would suit
him better than anybody else he knew, and offered me six hundred dollars
for my labors in that capacity for the first year of my service. My
engagement to him, he said at the same time, did not imply such entire
employment as would incapacitate me for the execution of any business
which might be intrusted to my hands individually. I was permitted the
use of a desk in his office, and was also permitted to hang out my own
banner from his window I readily persuaded myself that I could be
of service to Mr. Edgerton--such service as would, perhaps, leave
my obligation a light one--and promptly acceded to his offer. He had
scarcely departed when a servant brought a note from Mr. Clifford. Even
while meditating what he fancied was a favor, he could not forbear the
usual sneer. The following was his communication:

“DEAR EDWARD: If you can spare a moment from your numerous clients, and
are not in a great hurry to make your deposites, you will suffer me to
see you at the office before two o'clock. Yours affectionately, J. B.
CLIFFORD.”

“Very affectionately!”! exclaimed. It might be nothing more than a
pleasantry which he intended by the offensive passages in his note; but
the whole tenor of his character and conduct forbade this conviction.

“No! no!” I muttered to myself, as the doubt suggested itself to my
mind; “no! no! it is the old insolence--the insolence of pride, of
conscious wealth--of power, as he thinks, to crush! But he is mistaken.
He shall find defiance. Let him but repeat those sarcasms and that sneer
which are but too frequent on his lips when he speaks to me, and I will
answer him, for the first time, by a narration which shall sting him to
the very soul, if he has one!”

This resolution was scarcely made when the image of Julia Clifford--the
sweet child--a child now no longer-the sweet woman--interposed, and
my temper was subdued of its resolve, though its bitterness remained
unqualified.

And what of Julia Clifford? I have said but little of her for some
time past, but she has not been forgotten. Far from it. She was still
sufficiently the attraction that drew me to the dwelling of my
selfish uncle. In the three years that I had been at the mercantile
establishment, her progress, in mind and person, had been equally
ravishing and rapid. She was no more the child, but the blooming
girl--the delicate blossom swelling to the bud--the bud bursting into
the flower--but the bloom, and the beauty, and the innocence--the rich
tenderness, and the dewy sweet, still remained the same through all the
stages of her progress from the infant to the woman. Wealth, and the
arrogant example of those about her, had failed to change the naturally
true and pure simplicity of her character. She was not to be beguiled by
the one, nor misguided by the other, from the exquisite heart which was
still worthy of Eden. When I was admitted to the bar at twenty-one, she
was sixteen--the age in our southern country when a maiden looks her
loveliest. But I had scarcely felt the changes in the last three years
which had been going on in her. I beheld beauties added to beauties,
charms to charms; and she seemed every day to be the possessor of fresh
graces newly dropped from heaven; but there was no change. Increased
perfection does not imply change, nor does it suffer it.

It was my custom, as the condescending wish of my uncle expressed, that
I should take my Sunday dinner with his family. I complied with this
request, and it was no hard matter to do so. But it was a sense of
delight, not of duty, that made me comply; and, but for Julia, I feel
certain that I should never have darkened the doors, which opened to
admit me only through a sense of duty. But the attraction--scarcely
known to myself--drew me with singular punctuality; and I associated the
privilege which had been accorded me with another. I escorted the ladies
to church; sometimes, too, when the business of my employers permitted,
I spent an evening during the week with the family; and beholding Julia
I was not over-anxious to perceive the indifference with which I was
treated by all others.

But let me retrace my steps. I subdued my choler so far as to go, with a
tolerable appearance of calmness if not humility, to the interview which
my uncle had been pleased to solicit. I need not repeat in detail what
passed between us. It amounted simply to a supercilious offer, on his
part, of lodging and board, until I should be sufficiently independent
to open the oyster for myself. I thanked him with respect and civility,
but, to his surprise, declined to accept his offer.

“Why, what do you propose to do?” he demanded.

“Do what I have been doing for the three past years; work for myself,
and pay my board from the proceeds of my own labor.”

“What, you go back to the merchants, do you? You are wiser than I
thought. The law would not give you your bread here for twenty years in
this city.”

“You are mistaken, uncle,” I said, good humoredly--“it is from the law
that I propose to get my bread.”

“Indeed!--You are even more sanguine than I thought you. But, pray, upon
what do you base your expectations?--the talents, I suppose.”

I felt the rankling of this well-known and offensive sneer, but replied
simply to the point:--

“No, sir, upon assurances which you will probably think far more worthy
of respect. I have already been employed by Mr. Edgerton as an attorney,
at a salary of six hundred dollars.”

“Ah, indeed! Well, you are a fortunate fellow, I must say, to get such a
helping hand at the outset. But you may want some small amount to begin
with--you can not draw upon Mr. Edgerton before services are rendered,
and if fifty or a hundred dollars, Edward--”

“I thank you, sir;--so far from wanting money, I should be almost able
to lend some. I have saved some two hundred from my mercantile salary.”

I enjoyed the ghastly grin which rose to his features. It was evident
that he was not pleased that I should be independent. He had set out
with the conviction, when my father died, that my support and education
would devolve upon him, and though they did not, yet it was plain enough
to me that he was not unwilling that such should be the impression of
the community. I had disarmed him entirely by the simplest process, and,
mortified at being disappointed, he was disposed to hate the youth
who had baffled him. It was the strangest thing in the world that such
should be the feeling of any man, and that, too, in reference to so near
a relation; but the case is nevertheless true. I saw it in his looks
that moment--I felt it in his accents. I KNEW that such was the real
feeling in his soul. There are motives which grow from vanities, piques,
rivalries, and the miserable ostentations of a small spirit, which act
more terribly upon the passions of man, than even the desire of gain or
the love of woman. The heart of Mr. Clifford, was, after its particular
fashion, a blind heart, like my own.

“Well, I am glad you are so well off. You will dine with us on Sunday, I
suppose?”

My affirmative was a matter of course; and, on Sunday, the evident
gratification of Julia when she saw me, amply atoned for all her
father's asperities and injustice. She had heard of my success--and
though in a sneer from the lips of her father it was not the less
productive of an evident delight to her. She met me with the expression
of this delight upon all her features.

“I am so glad, so very glad, and so surprised, too, Cousin Edward, at
your success. And yet you kept it all to yourself. You might have told
ME, at least, that you were studying law. Why was it that I was never
allowed to know of your intention?”

“Your father knew it, Julia.”

“Yes, so he says now. He says you told him something about it when you
first went into a store; but he did not think you in earnest.”

“Not in earnest! He little knew me, Julia.”

“But your telling him, Edward, was not telling me. Why did you not tell
me?”

“You might not have kept my secret, Julia. You know what naughty things
are said of your sex, touching your inability to keep a secret.”

“Naughty things, indeed--naughty and untrue! I'm sure, I should have
kept your secret, if you desired it. But why should it be a secret?”

“Why, indeed!” I muttered, as the shadow of my perverseness passed
deeply over my heart. “Why, unless to protect myself from the sneers
which would stifle my ambition, and the sarcasm which would have stung
my heart.”

“But you have no fear of these from me, Cousin Edward,” she said gently,
and with dewy eyes, while her fingers slightly pressed upon my wrist.

“I know not that, Cousin Julia, I somehow suspect everything and
everybody now. I feel very lonely in the world--as if there was a
destiny at work to make my whole life one long conflict, which I must
carry on without sympathy or succor.”

“Oh, these are only notions, Edward.”

“Notions!” I exclaimed, giving her a bitter smile as I spoke, while my
thoughts reverted to the three years of unremitting and almost uncheered
labor through which I had passed.

“Yes, notions only, Cousin Edward. You are full of such notions. You
every now and then start up with a new one; and it makes you gloomy and
discontented--”

“I make no complaints, Julia.”

“No, that is the worst of it. You make no complaints, I think, because
you do not wish to be cured of them. You prefer nursing your supposed
cause of grief, with a sort of solitary pleasure--the gratification of a
haughty spirit, that is too proud to seek for solace, and to find it.”

Julia had in truth touched upon the true nature of my misanthropy--of
that self vexing and self-torturing spirit which too effectually blinds
the heart.

“But could I find it, Julia?” I asked, looking into her eyes with an
expression which I began to feel was something very new to mine.

“Perhaps--I think--you could,” was the half-tremulous answer, as she
beheld the peculiar expression of my glance. The entrance of Mrs.
Clifford, was, perhaps, for the first time, rather a relief to us both.

“And so you are a lawyer, Edward? Well, who would have thought of it? It
must be a very easy thing to be made a lawyer.”

Julia looked at me with eyes that reddened with vexation. I felt my
gorge rising; but when I reflected upon the ignorance, and the unworthy
nature of the speaker, I overcame the disposition to retort, and
smilingly replied:--

“It's not such hard work as bricklaying, certainly.”

“Ah,” she answered, “if it were only half so profitable. But Mr.
Clifford says that a lawyer now is only another name for a beggar--a
sort of genteel beggar. The town's overrun with them--half of them live
upon their friends.”

“I trust I shall not add to the number of this class, Mrs. Clifford.”

“Oh, no! I know YOU never will, Cousin Edward,” exclaimed Julia, with a
flush upon her cheeks at her own temerity.

“Really, Julia,” said her mother, “you are very confident. How do you
know anything about it?”

The sharp glances of rebuke which accompanied this speech daunted the
damsel for a moment, and her eyes were suddenly cast in confusion upon
the ground; but she raised them with boldness a moment after, as she
replied:--

“We have every assurance, mother, for what I say, in the fact that
Cousin Edward has been supporting himself at another business, while
actually pursuing the study of law for these three years; and that very
pride about which father spoke today, is another assurance--”

“Bless my stars, child, you have grown very pert on a sudden, to talk
about guaranties and assurances, just as if you was a lawyer yourself.
The next thing we hear, I suppose, will be that instead of being busy
over the 'Seven Champions' and the last fashions, you, too, will be
turning over the leaves of big law-books, and carrying on such studies
in secret to surprise a body, as if there was any merit or good in doing
such things secretly.”

Julia felt that she had only made bad worse, and she hung her head in
silence. For my part, though I suppressed my choler, the pang was only
the more keenly felt for the effort to hide it. In my secret soul, I
asked, “Will the day never come when I, too, will be able to strike and
sting?” I blushed an instant after, at the small and mean appetite
for revenge that such an inquiry implied. But I came to the support of
Julia.

“Let me say, Mrs. Clifford, that I think--nay, I know--that Julia is
right in her conjecture. The guaranty which I have given to my friends,
by the pride and industry which I have shown, should be sufficient to
convince them what my conduct shall be hereafter. I know that I shall
never trespass upon their feelings or their pockets. They shall neither
blush for nor lose by their relationship with Edward Clifford.”

“Well said! well spoken! with good emphasis and proper action. Forrest
himself could scarce have done it better!”

Such was the exclamation of Mr. Clifford, who entered the room at this
moment. His mock applause was accompanied by a clamorous clapping of his
hands. I felt my cheeks burn, and my blood boil. The truth is, I was
not free from the consciousness that I had suffered some of the
grandiloquent to appear in my manner while speaking the sentence which
had provoked the ridicule of my uncle. The sarcasm acquired increase of
sting in consequence of its being partially well-merited. I replied with
some little show of temper, which the imploring glances of Julia did
not altogether persuade me to suppress. The “blind heart” was
growing stronger within me, from the increasing conviction of my own
independence. In this sort of mimic warfare the day passed off as usual.
I attended the family to church in the afternoon, took tea, and
spent the evening with them--content to suffer the “stings and
arrows”--however outrageous, of my exemplary and Christian aunt and
uncle, if permitted to enjoy the presence and occasional smiles of the
true angel, whose influence could still temper my feelings into a humane
and patient toleration of influences which they yet burned to trample
under foot.



CHAPTER V.

DEBUT.


A brief interval now passed over, after my connection begun with
Mr. Edgerton, in which time the world went on with me more smoothly,
perhaps, than ever. My patron--for so this gentleman deserves to
be called--was as indulgent as I could wish. He soon discerned
the weaknesses in my character, and with the judgment of an old
practitioner, he knew how to subdue and soften, without seeming to
perceive them. I need not say that I was as diligent and industrious,
and not less studious, while in his employ, than I had been in that of
my mercantile acquaintance. The entire toils of the desk soon fell upon
my shoulders, and I acquired the reputation among my small circle of
acquaintance, of being a very good attorney for a young beginner. It
is true, I was greatly helped by the continued perusal of an admirable
collection of old precedents, which a long period of extensive practice
had accumulated in the collection of my friend. But to be an attorney,
simply, was not the bound of my ambition. I fancied that the forum was,
before all others, my true field of exertion. The ardency of my temper,
the fluency of my speech, the promptness of my thought, and the warmth
of my imagination, all conspired in impressing on me the belief that I
was particularly fitted for the arena of public disputation. This, I may
add, was the opinion of Mr. Edgerton also; and I soon sought an occasion
for the display of my powers.

It was the custom at our bar--and a custom full of danger--for young
beginners to take their cases from the criminal docket. Their “'prentice
han',” was usually exercised on some wretch from the stews, just as
the young surgeon is permitted to hack the carcass of a tenant of the
“Paupers' Field,” the better to prepare him for practice on living and
more worthy victims. Was there a rascal so notoriously given over to the
gallows that no hope could possibly be entertained of his extrication
from the toils of the evidence, and the deliberations of a jury, he was
considered fair game for the young lawyers, who, on such cases, gathered
about him with all the ghostly and keen propensities of vultures about
the body of the horse cast out upon the commons.

The custom was evil, and is now, I believe, abandoned. It led to much
irreverence among thoughtless young men--to an equal disregard of that
solemnity which should naturally attach to the court of justice, and to
the life of the prisoner arraigned before it. A thoughtless levity too
frequently filled the mind of the young lawyer and his hearers, when it
was known that the poor wretch on trial was simply regarded as an agent,
through whose miserable necessity, the beginner was to try his strength
and show his skill in the art of speech-making. It was my fortune,
acting rather in compliance with the custom than my own preference, to
select one of these victims and occasions for my debut. I could have
done otherwise. Mr. Edgerton freely tendered to me any one of several
cases of his own, on the civil docket, in which to make my appearance;
but I was unwilling to try my hand upon a case in which the penalty of
ill success might be a serious loss to my friend's client, and might
operate to the injury of his business; and, another reason for my
preference was to be found--though not expressed by me--in the secret
belief which I entertained that I was peculiarly gifted with the art of
appealing to the passions, and the sensibilities of my audience.

Having made my determination, I proceeded to prepare myself by a due
consideration of the case at large; the history of the transaction,
which involved the life of my client--(the allegation was for
murder)--and of the testimony of the witnesses so far as it had been
suggested in the EXPARTE examination before the grand jury. I reviewed
the several leading principles on the subject of the crime; its
character, the sort of evidence essential to conviction, and certainly,
to do myself all justice, as effectually prepared myself for the duties
of the trial as probably any young man of the time and community was
likely to have done. The case, I need not add, was hopelessly against
me; the testimony conclusive; and I had nothing to do but to weigh its
character with keen examination, pick out and expose its defects and
inconsistencies, and suggest as plausible a presumption in favor of
the accused, as could be reasonably made out from the possibilities
and doubts by which all human occurrences are necessarily attended.
Something, too, might be done by judicious appeals to the principle of
mercy, assuming for the jury a discretion on this subject which, by the
way, they have no right to exercise.

I was joined in the case by my friend, young Edgerton. So far our boyish
fortunes had run together, and he was not unwilling, though against his
father's counsel, to take the same occasion with me for entering the
world in company. The term began; the case was one of the last on the
criminal docket, and the five days which preceded that assigned for
the trial, were days, I am constrained to confess, of a thrilling and
terrible agitation to my mind. I can scarcely now recall the feelings
of that week without undergoing a partial return of the same painful
sensations. My soul was striving as with itself, and seeking an outlet
for escape. I panted, as if for breath--my tongue was parched--my lips
clammy--my voice, in the language of the poet, clove to the roof of my
throat. Altogether, I have never felt such emotions either before or
since.

I will not undertake to analyze them, or account for those conflicting
sensations which make us shrink, with something like terror, from
the very object which we desire. At length the day came, and the man;
attended by his father, William Edgerton, and myself, took our places,
and stood prepared for the issue. I looked round me with a dizzy feeling
of uncertainty. Objects appeared to swim and tremble before my sight. My
eyes were of as little service to me then as if they had been gazing to
blindness upon the sun. Everything was confused and imperfect. I could
see that the courthouse was filled to overflowing, and this increased my
feebleness. The case was one that had occasioned considerable excitement
in the community, It was one of no ordinary atrocity. This was a
sufficient reason why the audience should be large. There was yet
another. There were two new debutants. In a community where popular
eloquence is, of all others, perhaps the most desirable talent, this
circumstance was well calculated to bring many listeners. Besides,
something was expected from both Edgerton and myself. We had not reached
our present position without making for ourselves a little circle, in
which we had friends to approve and exult, and enemies to depreciate,
and condemn.

The proceedings were at length opened by the attorney-general, the
witnesses examined, and turned over to us for cross-examination. This
part of the duty was performed by my associate. The business fairly
begun, my distraction was lessened. My mind, driven to a point, made a
decisive stand; and the sound of Edgerton's voice, as he proposed his
questions, served still more to dissipate my confusion. I furnished
him with sundry questions, and our examination was admitted to be quite
searching and acute. My friend went through his part of the labor with
singular coolness. He was in little or no respect excited. He, perhaps,
was deficient in enthusiasm. If there was no faltering in what he said,
there was no fine phrensy. His remarks and utterance were subdued to
the plainest demands of the subject. They were shrewd and sensible, not
particularly ingenious, nor yet deficient in the proper analysis of the
evidence. He acquitted himself creditably.

It was my part to reply to the prosecuting attorney; but when I rose,
I was completely confounded. Never shall I forget the pang of that
impotence which seemed to overspread my frame, and to paralyze every
faculty of thought and speech. I was the victim to my own ardor. A
terrible reaction of mind had taken place, and I was prostrated. The
desire to achieve greatness--the belief that it was expected from
me--the consciousness that hundreds of eyes were then looking into mine
with hungering expectation, overwhelmed me! I felt that I could freely
have yielded myself for burial beneath the floor on which I stood.
My cheeks were burning, yet my hands were cold as ice, and my knees
tottered as with an ague. I strove to speak, however; the eyes of the
judge met mine, and they looked the language of encouragement--of pity.
But this expression only increased my confusion. I stammered out nothing
but broken syllables and incoherent sentences. What I was saying, I know
not--how long I presented this melancholy spectacle of imbecility to the
eyes of my audience, I know not. It may have been a few minutes only.
To me it seemed an age; and I was just endued with a sufficient power
of reflection to ask myself whether I had not better sit down at once in
irreversible despair, when my wandering and hitherto vacant eyes caught
a glance-a single glance--of a face opposite.

It was that of my uncle! He was perched on one of the loftiest benches,
conspicuous among the crowd--his eyes keenly fixed upon mine, and
his features actually brightened by a smile of triumphant malice and
exultation.

That glance restored me. That single smile brought me strength. I was
timid, and weak, and impotent no longer. Under the presence of habitual
scorn, my habitual pride and independence returned to me. The tremors
left my limbs. The clammy huskiness which had loaded my tongue, and made
it cleave to the roof of my mouth, instantly departed; and my whole mind
returned to my control as if beneath the command of some almighty voice.
I now saw the judge distinctly--I could see the distinct features
of every juryman; and with the pride of my restored consciousness, I
retorted the smile upon my uncle's face with one of contempt, which was
not without its bitterness.

Then I spoke, and spoke with an intenseness, a directness of purpose
and aim--a stern deliberateness--a fire and a feeling--which certainly
electrified my hearers with surprise, if with no more elevated emotions.
That one look of hostility had done more for my mind than could have
been effected in my behalf by all the kind looks and encouraging voices
of all the friends in creation.

After a brief exordium, containing some general proposition on the
subject of human testimony, which meant no more than to suggest the
propriety of giving to the prisoner the benefit of what was doubtful and
obscure in the testimony which had been taken against him--I
proceeded to compare and contrast its several parts. There were some
inconsistencies in the evidence which enable me to make something of a
case. The character of the witnesses was something more than doubtful
and that, too, helped, in a slight degree, my argument. This was rapid,
direct, closely wound together, and proved--such was the opinion freely
expressed by others, afterward--that I had the capacity for consecutive
arrangement of facts and inferences in a very remarkable degree. I
closed with an appeal in favor of that erring nature, which, even in
our own cases, led us hourly to the commission of sins and errors; and
which, where the individual was poor, wretched, and a stranger, under
the evil influences of destitution, vicious associations, and a lot in
life, which, of necessity, must be low, might well persuade us to look
with an eye of qualified rebuke upon his offences.

This was, of course, no argument, and was only to be considered the
natural close of my labors. Before I was half through I saw my uncle
rise from his seat, and hastily leave the court-room; and then I knew
that I was successful--that I had triumphed, through that stimulating
influence of his hate, over my own fears and feebleness. I felt sure
that the speech must be grateful to the rest of my hearers, which HE
could not stay to hear; and in this conviction, the tone of my spirits
became elevated--the thoughts gushed from me like rain, in a natural
and unrestrainable torrent of language--my voice was clear and full, far
more so than I had ever thought it could be made--and my action far more
animated, perhaps, than either good taste or the occasion justified. The
criminal was not acquitted; but both William Edgerton and myself were
judged to have been eminently successful.

The result of my debut, in other respects, was flattering far beyond
my expectations. Business poured in upon me. My old employers,
the merchants, were particularly encouraging and friendly. They
congratulated me warmly on my success, assured me that they had always
thought I was better calculated for the law than trade; and ended by
putting into my hands all their accounts that needed a legal agency for
collection. Mr. Edgerton was loud in his approbation, and that very week
saw his son and myself united in co-partnership, with the prospect of
an early withdrawal of the father from business in my favor. Indeed,
the latter gave us to understand that his only purpose now was to see
us fairly under way, with a sufficient knowledge of the practice, and
assured of the confident of his own friends, in order to give his years
and enfeebled health a respite from the toils of the profession.

My worthy uncle, true to himself, played a very different part from
these gentlemen. He hung back, forbore all words on the subject of my
debut, and of the promising auspices under which my career was begun,
and actually placed certain matters of legal business into the hands
of another lawyer. Of this, he himself gave me the first information in
very nearly this language:--

“I have just had to sue Yardle & Fellows, and a few others, Edward, and
I thought of employing you, but you are young, and there may be some
legal difficulties in the way:--but when you get older, and arrive at
some experience, we will see what can be done for you.”

“You are perfectly right, sir,” was my only answer, but the smile upon
my lips said everything. I saw, then, that HE COULD NOT SMILE. He was
now exchanging the feeling of scorn which he formerly entertained for
one of a darker quality. Hate was the necessary feeling which followed
the conviction of his having done me wilful injustice--not to speak of
the duties left undone, which were equally his shame.

There were several things to mortify him in my progress. His sagacity as
a man of the world stood rebuked--his conduct as a gentleman--his blood
as a relation, who had not striven for the welfare and good report of
his kin, and who had suffered unworthy prejudices, the result of equal
avarice and arrogance, to operate against him.

There is nothing which a base spirit remembers with so much malignant
tenacity as your success in his despite. Even in the small matter just
referred to, the appropriation of his law business, the observant fates
gave me my revenge. By a singular coincidence of events, the very firm
against which he had brought action the day before were clients of
Mr. Edgerton. That gentleman was taken with a serious illness at the
approach of the next court, and the business of their defence devolved
upon his son and myself; and finally, when it was disposed of, which
did not happen till near the close of that year, it so happened that I
argued the case; and was successful.

Mr Clifford was baffled, and you may judge the feeling with which he now
regarded me. He had long since ceased to jest with me and at my expense.
He was now very respectful, and I could see that his dislike grew
daily in strict degree with his deference. But the deportment of
Mr. Clifford--springing as it did from that devil, which each man is
supposed to carry at times in his bosom, and of whose presence in mine
at seasons I was far from unaware--gave me less annoyance than that of
another of his household. Julia, too, had put on an aspect which, if
not that of coldness, was at least, that of a very marked reserve. I
ascribed this to the influence of her parents--perhaps, to her own
sense of what was due to their obvious desires--to her own feeling of
indifference--to any and every cause but the right one.

There were other circumstances to alarm me, in connection with this
maiden. She was, as I have said, singularly beautiful; and, as I
thought, until now, singularly meek and considerate. Her charms, about
which there could be no two opinions, readily secured her numerous
admirers, and when these were strengthened by the supposed fortune of
which she was to be the heiress, the suitors were, some of them, almost
as pressing, after the fashion of the world in which we lived, as those
of Penelope. I now no longer secured her exclusive regard at the
evening fireside or in our way to church. There were gallants on either
hand--gay, dashing lads, with big whiskers, long locks, and smart
ratans, upon whom madame, our lady-mother, looked with far more
complacency than upon me. The course of Julia, herself, was, however,
unexceptionable. She was singularly cautious in her deportment, and, if
reserved to me the most jealous scrutiny--after due reflection--never
enabled me to discover that she was more lavish of her regards to any
other. But the discovery of her position led me to another discovery
which the reader will wonder, as I did myself, that I had not made
before. This was the momentous discovery that my heart was irretrievably
lost to her--that I loved her with all the intensity of a first passion,
which, like every other passion in my heart, was absorbing during its
prevalence. I could name my feelings to myself only when I perceived
that such feelings were entertained by others;--only when I found that
the prize, which I desired beyond all others, was likely to be borne
away by strangers, did I know how much it was desirable to myself.

The discovery of this affection instantly produced its natural effects
as well upon my deportment as upon my feelings; and that sleepless
spirit of suspicion and doubt--that true creature and consequence of the
habitual distrust which my treatment from boyhood had instilled into my
mind--at once rose to strength and authority within me, and swayed me
even as the blasts of November sway the bald tops of the slender trees
which the gusts have already denuded of all foliage. The change in
Julia's deportment, of which I have already spoken, increased the
febrile fears and suspicions which filled my soul and overcame my
judgment. She too--so I fancied--had learned to despise and dislike me,
under the goading influences of her father's malice and her mother's
silly prejudices. I jumped to the conclusion instantly, that I was bound
to my self to assert my superiority, my pride and independence, in such
a manner, as most effectually to satisfy all parties that their hate or
love was equally a matter of indifference.

You may judge what my behavior was after this. For a time, at least, it
was sufficiently unbecoming. The deportment of Julia grew more reserved
than ever, and her looks more grave. There was a sadness evidently
mingled with this gravity which, amid all the blindness of my heart,
I could not help but see. She became sadder and thinner every day; and
there was a wo-begone listlessness about her looks and movements which
began to give me pain and apprehension. I discovered, too after a while,
that some apprehensions had also crept into the minds of her parents in
respect to her health. Their looks were frequently addressed to her in
evident anxiety. They restrained her exercises, watched the weather when
she proposed to go abroad, strode in every way to keep her from fatigue
and exposure; and, altogether, exhibited a degree of solicitude which at
length had the effect of arousing mine.

Involuntarily, I approached her with more tenderness than my vexing
spirit had recently permitted me to show; but I recoiled from the
effects of my own attentions. I was vexed to perceive that my approaches
occasioned a start, a flutter--a shrinking inward--as if my advance had
been obtrusive, and my attempts at familiarity offensive.

I was then little schooled in the intricacies of the female heart. I
little conjectured the origin of that seemingly paradoxical movement of
the mind, which, in the case of one, sensitive and exquisitely delicate,
prompts to flight from the very pursuit which it would yet invite; which
dreads to be suspected of the secret which it yet most loves to cherish,
and seeks to protect, by concealment, the feelings which it may not
defend; even as the bird hides the little fledglings of its care from
the hunter, whom it dare not attack.

Stupid, and worse than stupid, my blind heart saw nothing of this, and
perverted what it saw. I construed the conduct of Julia into matter of
offence, to be taken in high dudgeon and resolutely resented; and I
drew myself up stiffly when she appeared, and by excess of ceremonious
politeness only, avoided the reproach of brutality. Yet, even at such
moments, I could see that there was a dewy reproach in her eyes, which
should have humbled me, and made me penitent. But the effects of fifteen
years of injudicious management were not to be dissipated in a few
days even by the Ithuriel spells of love. My sense of independence
and self-resource had been stimulated to a diseased excess, until,
constantly on the QUI VIVE, it became dogged and inflexible. It was a
work of time to soften me and make me relent; and the labor then was one
of my own secret thoughts, and unbiased private decision. The attempt to
persuade or reason me into a conviction was sure to be a failure.

Months passed in this manner without effecting any serious change in
Julia, or in bringing us a step nearer to one another. Meanwhile, the
sphere of my observation and importance increased, as the circle of my
acquaintance became extended. I was regarded as a rising young man,
and one likely to be successful ultimately in my profession. The social
privileges of my friends, the Edgertons, necessarily became mine; and it
soon occurred that I encountered my uncle and his family in circles
in which it was somewhat a matter of pride with him to be permitted to
move. This, as it increased my importance in his sight, did not diminish
his pains. But he treated me now with constant deference, though with
the same unvarying coldness. When in the presence of others, he warmed a
little. I was then “his nephew;” and he would affect to speak with great
familiarity on the subject of my business, my interests, the last
case in which I was engaged, and so forth--the object of which was to
persuade third persons that our relations were precisely as they should
be, and as people would naturally suppose them.

At all these places and periods, when it was my lot to meet with Julia,
she was most usually the belle of the night. A dozen attendants followed
in her train, solicitous of all her smiles, and only studious how to
afford her pleasure. I, only, stood aloof--I, who loved her with a more
intense fervor than all, simply because I had none, or few besides to
love. The heart which has been evermore denied, will always burn with
this intensity. Its passion, once enkindled, will be the all-absorbing
flame. Devoted itself, it exacts the most religious devotion; and,
unless it receives it, recoils upon its own resources, and shrouds
itself in gloom, simply to hide its sufferings from detection.

I affected that indifference to the charms of this maiden, which no one
of human sensibilities could have felt. Opinions might have differed
in respect to her beauty; but there could be none on the score of her
virtues and her amiability, and almost as few on the possessions of her
mind. Julia Clifford, though singularly unobtrusive in society, very
soon convinced all around her that she had an excellent understanding,
which study had improved, and grace had adorned by all the most
appropriate modes of cultivation. Her steps were always followed by a
crowd--her seat invariably encircled by a group to itself. I looked on
at a distance, wrapped up in the impenetrable folds of a pride, whose
sleeves were momently plucked, as I watched, by the nervous fingers of
jealousy and suspicion. Sometimes I caught a timid glance of her eye,
addressed to the spot where I stood, full of inquiry, and, as I could
not but believe, of apprehension;--and yet, at such moments; I turned
perversely from the spot, nor suffered myself to steal another look at
one, all of whose triumphs seemed made at my expense.

On one of these occasions we met--our eyes and hands, accidentally; and,
though I, myself, could not help starting back with a cold chill at
my heart, I yet fancied there was something monstrous insulting in the
evident recoil of her person from the contact with mine, at the
same moment. I was about to turn hurriedly away with a slight bow of
acknowledgment, when the touching tenderness of her glance, so full of
sweetness and sadness, made me shrink with shame from such a rudeness.
Besides, she was so pale, so thin, and really looked so unwell, that my
conscience, in spite of that blind heart whose perversity would still
have kept me to my first intention, rebuked me, and drove me to my duty.
I approached--I spoke to her--and my words, though few, under the better
impulses of the moment, were gentle and solicitous, as they should have
been. My tones, too, were softened:--wilfully as I still felt, I could
not forbear the exercise of that better ministry of the affections
which was disposed to make amends for previous misconduct. I do not know
exactly what I said--I probably did nothing more than utter the ordinary
phrases of social compliment;--but everything was obliterated from my
mind in an instant, by the startling directness of what was said by
her. Looking at me with a degree of intentness by which, alone, she
was, perhaps, able to preserve her seeming calmness, she replied by an
inquiry as remote from what my observation called for as possible, yet
how applicable to me and my conduct!

“Why do you treat me thus, Edward? Why do you neglect me as you do--as
if I were a stranger, or, at least, not a friend? What have I done to
merit this usage from one who---”

She did not finish the sentence, but her reproachful eyes, full of a
dewy suffusion that seemed very much like tears, appeared to conclude it
thus--

“One who--used to love me!”

So different was this speech from any that I looked for--so different
from what the usage of our conventional world would have seemed to
justify--so strange for one so timid, so silent usually on the subject
of her own griefs, as Julia Clifford--that I was absolutely confounded.
Where had she got this courage? By what strong feeling had it been
stimulated? Had I been at that time as well acquainted with the sex as
I have grown since, I must have seen that nothing but a deep interest in
my conduct and regard, could possibly have prompted the spirit of one so
gentle and shrinking, to the utterance of so searching an appeal. And
in what way could I answer it? How could I excuse myself? What say, to
justify that cold, rude indifference to a relative, and one who had ever
been gentle and kind and true to me. I had really nothing to complain
of. The vexing jealousies of my own suspicious heart had alone
informed it to its perversion; and there I stood--dumb, confused,
stupid-speaking, when I did speak, some incoherent, meaningless
sentences, which could no more have been understood by her than they can
now be remembered by me. I recovered myself, however, sufficiently soon
to say, before we were separated by the movements of the crowd:--

“I will come to you to-morrow, Julia. Will you suffer me to see you in
the morning, say at twelve?”

“Yes, come!” was all her answer; and the next moment the harsh accents
of her ever-watchful mother warned us to risk no more.



CHAPTER VI.

DENIAL AND DEFEAT.


My sleep that night was anything but satisfactory. I had feverish
dreams, unquiet slumbers, and woke at morning with an excruciating
headache. I was in no mood for an explanation such as my promise
necessarily implied, but I prepared my toilet with particular
care--spent two hours at my office in a vain endeavor to divert myself,
by a resort to business, from the conflicting and annoying sensations
which afflicted me, and then proceeded to the dwelling of my uncle.

I was fortunate in seeing Julia without the presence of her mother. That
good lady had become too fashionable to suffer herself to be seen at so
early an hour. Her vanity, in this respect, baffled her vigilance, for
she had her own apprehensions on the score of my influence upon her
daughter. Julia was scarcely so composed in the morning as she had
appeared on the preceding night. I was now fully conscious of a flutter
in her manner, a flush upon her face, an ill-suppressed apprehension in
her eyes, which betokened strong emotions actively at work. But my own
agitation did not suffer me to know the full extent of hers. For the
first time, on her appearance, did I ask myself the question--“For what
did I seek this interview?” What had I to say--what near? How explain my
conduct--my coldness? On what imaginary and unsubstantial premises base
the neglect in my deportment, amounting to rudeness, of which she had
sufficient reason and a just right to complain? When I came to review
my causes of vexation, how trivial did they seem. The reserve which had
irritated me, on her part, now that I analyzed its sources, seemed a
very natural reserve, such as was only maidenly and becoming. I now
recollected that she was no longer a child--no longer the lively little
fairy whom I could dandle on my knee and fling upon my shoulder,
without a scruple or complaint. I stood like a trembling culprit in
her presence. I was eloquent only through the force of a stricken
conscience.

“Julia!” I exclaimed when we met, “I have come to make atonement. I feel
how rude I have been, but that was only because I was very wretched.”

“Wretched, Edward!” she exclaimed with some surprise. “What should make
you wretched?”

“You--you have made me wretched.”

“Me!” Her surprise naturally increased

“Yes, you, dear Julia, and you only.”

I took her hand in mine. Mine was burning--hers was colder than the
icicles. Need I say more to those who comprehend the mysteries of
the youthful heart. Need I say that the tongue once loosed, and the
declaration of the soul must follow in a rush from the lips. I told her
how much I loved her;--how unhappy it made me to think that others
might bear away the prize; that, in this way, my rudeness arose from my
wretchedness, and my wretchedness only from my love. I did not speak in
vain. She confessed an equal feeling, and we were suffered a brief hour
of unmitigated happiness together.

Surely there is no joy like that which the heart feels in the first
moment when it gives utterance to its own, and hears the avowed passion
of the desired object:--a pure flame, the child of sentiment, just
blushing with the hues of passion, just budding with the breath and
bloom of life. No sin has touched the sentiment;--no gross smokes have
risen to involve and obscure the flame; the altar is tended by pure
hands; white spirits; and there is no reptile beneath the fresh
blossoming flowers which are laid thereon. The grosser passions sleep,
like the fumes at the shrine of Apollo, beneath the spell of that
master passion in whose presence they can only maintain a subordinate
existence. I loved; I had told my love;--and I was loved in return. I
trembled with the deep intoxication of that bewildering moment; and how
I found my way back to my office--whom I saw on the way, or to whom I
spoke, I know not. I loved;--I was beloved. He only can conceive the
delirium of this sweet knowledge who has passed a life like mine--who
has felt the frowns and the scorn, and the contempt of those who should
have nurtured him with smiles--whose soul, ardent and sensitive, has
been made to recoil cheerlessly back on itself--denied the sunshine of
the affections, and almost forbade to hope. Suddenly, when I believed
myself most destitute, I had awakened to fortune--to the realization
of desires which were beyond my fondest dreams. I, whom no affection
hitherto had blessed, had, in a moment, acquired that which seemed to
me to comprise all others, and for which all others might have been
profitably thrown away.

I fancied now that henceforth my sky was to be without a cloud. I did
not--nor did Julia imagine for a moment that any opposition to our love
could arise from her parents. What reason now could they have to oppose
it? There was no inequality in our social positions. My blood had taken
its rise from the same fountains with her own. In the world's estimation
my rank was quite as respectable as that of any in my uncle's circle,
and, for my condition, my resources, though small, were improving daily,
and I had already attained such a place among my professional brethren,
as to leave it no longer doubtful that it must continue to improve.
My income, with economy--such economy as two simple, single-minded
creatures, like Julia and myself, were willing to employ--would already
yield us a decent support. In short, the idea of my uncle's opposition
to the match never once entered my head. Yet he did oppose it. I was
confounded with his blunt, and almost rugged refusal.

“Why, sir, what are your objections?”

He answered with sufficient coolness.

“I am sorry to refuse you, Edward, but I have already formed other
arrangements for my daughter. I have designed her for another.”

“Indeed, sir--may I ask with whom?”

“Young Roberts--his father and myself have had the matter for some time
in deliberation. But do not speak of it, Edward--my confidence in you,
alone, induces me to state this fact.”

“I am very much obliged to you, sir;--but you do not surely mean to
force young Roberts upon Julia, if she is unwilling?”

“Ah, she will not be unwilling. She's a dutiful child, who will readily
recognise the desires of her parents as the truest wisdom.”

“But, Mr. Clifford--you forget that Julia has already admitted to me a
preference--”

“So you tell me, Edward, and it is with regret that I feel myself
compelled to say that I wholly disapprove of your seeking my daughter's
consent, before you first thought proper to obtain mine. This seems to
me very muck like an abuse of confidence.”

“Really, sir, you surprise me more than ever. Now that you force me to
speak, let me say that, regarding myself as of blood scarcely inferior
to that of my cousin, I can not see how the privilege of which I availed
myself in proposing for her hand, can be construed into a breach of
confidence. I trust, sir, that you have not contemplated your brother's
son in any degrading or unbecoming attitude.”

“No, no, surely not, Edward; but mere equality of birth does not
constitute a just claim, by itself, to the affections of a lady.”

“I trust the equality of birth, sir, is not impaired on my part by
misconduct--by a want of industry, capacity--by inequalities in other
respects--”

“And talents!”

He finished the sentence with the ancient sneer. But I was now a man--a
strong one, and, at this moment particularly a stern one.

“Stop, sir,” I retorted; “there must be an end to this. Whether you
accede to my application or not, sir, there is nothing to justify you
in an attempt to goad and mortify my feelings. I have proffered to you
a respectful application for the hand of of your daughter, and though I
were poorer, and humbler, and less worthy in all respects than I am, I
should still be entitled to respectful treatment. At another time, with
my sensibilities less deeply interested than they are, I should probably
submit, as I have already frequently submitted, to the unkind and
ungenerous sarcasms in which you have permitted yourself to indulge at
my expense. But my regard for your daughter alone would prompt me to
resent and repel them now. The object of my interview with you is quite
too sacred--too solemnly invested--to suffer me to stand silently under
the scornful usage even of her father.”

All this may have been deserved by Mr. Clifford, but it was scarcely
discreet in me. It gave him the opportunity which, I do not doubt, he
desired--the occasion which he had in view. It afforded him an excuse
for anger, for a regular outbreak between us, which, in some sort,
yielded him that justification for his refusal, without which he would
have found it a very difficult matter to account for or excuse. We
parted in mutual anger, the effect of which was to close his doors
against me, and exclude me from all opportunities of interview with
Julia, unless by stealth. Even then, these opportunities were secured
by my artifice, without her privity. As dutiful as fond, she urged
me against them; and, resolute to “honor her father and mother” in
obedience to those holy laws without a compliance with which there is
little hope and no happiness, she informed me with many tears that
she was now forbidden to see me, and would therefore avoid every
premeditated arrangement for our meeting. I did not do justice to her
character, but reproached her with coldness--with a want of affection,
sensibility, and feeling.

“Do not say so, Edward--do not--do not! I cold--I insensible--I wanting
in affection for you! How, how can you think so?” And she threw herself
on my bosom and sobbed until I began to fancy that convulsions would
follow.

We separated, finally, with assurances of mutual fidelity--assurances
which, I knew, from the exclusiveness of all my feelings, my
concentrative singleness of character, and entire dependence upon the
beloved object of those affections which were now the sole solace of
my heart, would not be difficult for me to keep. But I doubted HER
strength--HER resolution--against the pressing solicitations of parents
whom she had never been accustomed to withstand. But she quieted me
with that singular earnestness of look and manner which had once before
impressed me previous to our mutual explanation. Like vulgar thinkers
generally, I was apt to confound weakness of frame and delicacy of
organization with a want of courage and moral resources of strength and
consolation.

“Fear nothing for my truth, Edward. Though, in obedience to my parents,
I shall not marry against their will, be sure I shall never marry
against my own.”

“Ah, Julia, you think so, but--”

“I know so, Edward. Believe nothing that you hear against me or of
me, which is unfavorable to my fidelity, until you hear it from my own
lips.”

“But you will meet me again--soon?”

“No, no, do not ask it, Edward. We must not meet in this manner. It is
not right. It is criminal.”

I had soon another proof of the decisive manner in which my uncle seemed
disposed to carry on the war between us. Erring, like the greater
number of our young men, in their ambitious desire to enter public
life prematurely, I was easily persuaded to become a candidate for the
general assembly. I was now just twenty-five--at a time when young
men are not yet released from the bias of early associations, and the
unavoidable influence of guides, who are generally blind guides. Until
thirty, there are few men who think independently; and, until this habit
is acquired--which, in too many cases, never is acquired--the individual
is sadly out of place in the halls of legislation. It is this premature
disposition to enter into public life, which is the sole origin of
the numberless mistakes and miserable inconsistencies into which our
statesmen fall; which cling to their progress for ever after, preventing
their performances, and baffling them in all their hopes to secure the
confidence of the people. They are broken-down political hacks in the
prime of life, and just at the time when they should be first entering
upon the duties of the public man. Seduced, like the rest, as well by my
own vanity as the suggestions of favoring friends, I permitted my
name to be announced, and engaged actively in the canvass. Perhaps the
feverish state of my mind, in consequence of my relations with Julia
Clifford and her parents, made me more willing to adopt a measure,
about which, at any other time, I should have been singularly slow and
cautious. As a man of proud, reserved, and suspicious temper, I had
little or no confidence in my own strength with the people; and defeat
would be more mortifying than success grateful to a person of my
pride. I fancied, however, that popular life would somewhat subdue
the consuming passions which were rioting within my bosom; and I threw
myself into the thick of the struggle with all the ardor of a sanguine
temperament.

To my surprise and increased vexation, I found my worthy uncle striving
in every possible way, without actually declaring his purpose, in
opposing my efforts and prospects. It is true he did not utter my name;
but he had formed a complete ticket, in which my name was not; and
he was toiling with all the industry of a thoroughgoing partisan in
promoting its success. The cup which he had commended to my lips was
overrunning with the gall of bitterness. Hostility to me seemed really
to have been a sort of monomania with him from the first. How else was
this canton procedure to be accounted for? how, even with this belief,
could it be excused? His conduct was certainly one of those mysteries of
idiosyncracy upon which the moral philosopher may speculate to doomsday
without being a jot the wiser.

If his desire was to baffle me, he was successful. I was defeated, after
a close struggle, by a meagre majority of seven votes in some seventeen
hundred; and the night after the election was declared, he gave a ball
in honor of the successful candidates, in which his house was filled to
overflowing. I passed the dwelling about midnight. Music rang from the
illuminated parlor. The merry dance proceeded. All was life, gayety, and
rich profusion. And Julia! even then she might have been whirling in
the capricious movements of the dance with my happy rival--she as
happy--unconscious of him who glided like some angry spectre beneath her
windows, and almost within hearing of her thoughtless voice.

Such were my gloomy thoughts--such the dark and dismal subjects of my
lonely meditations. I did the poor girl wrong. That night she neither
sung nor danced; and when I saw her again, I was shocked at the visible
alteration for the worse which her appearance exhibited She was now
grown thin, almost to meagreness; her cheeks were very wan, her lips
whitened, and her beauty greatly faded in consequence of her suffering
health.

Yet, will it be believed that, in that interview, though such was her
obvious condition, my perverse spirit found the language of complaint
and suspicion more easy than that of devotion and tenderness. I know
that it would be easy, and feel that it would be natural, to account for
and to excuse this brutality, by a reference to those provocations which
I had received from her father. A warm temper, ardent and glowing, it is
very safe to imagine, must reasonably become soured and perverse by bad
treatment and continual injury. But this for me was no excuse. Julia
was a victim also of the same treatment, and in far greater degree than
myself, as she was far less able to endure it. Mine, however, was the
perverseness of impetuous blood--unrestrained, unchecked--having a
fearful will, an impetuous energy, and, gradually, with success and
power, swelling to the assertion of its own unqualified dominion--the
despotism of the blind heart.

Julia bore my reproaches until I was ashamed of them. Her submission
stung me, and I loved then too ardently not to arrive in time at
justice, and to make atonement. Would I had made it sooner! When I had
finished all my reproaches and complainings, she answered all by telling
me that the affair with young Roberts had been just closed, and she
hoped finally, by her unqualified rejection of his suit, even though
backed by all her father's solicitations, complaints, nay, threats and
anger. How ungenerous and unmanly, after this statement had been made,
appeared all the bitter eludings in which I had indulged! I need not say
what efforts I made to atone for my precipitation and injustice; and
how easily I found forgiveness from one who knew not how to harbor
unkindness--and if she even had the feeling in her bosom, entertained it
as one entertains his deadliest foe, and expelled it as soon as its real
character was discovered.



CHAPTER VII.

TEMPTATION.


Thus stood the affair between my fair cousin and myself--a condition of
things seriously and equally affecting her health and my temper--when
an explosion took place, of a nature calculated to humble my uncle and
myself, if not in equal degree, or to the same attitude, at least to a
most mortifying extent in both cases. I have not stated before--indeed,
it was not until the affair which I am now about to relate had actually
exploded, that I was made acquainted with any of the facts which
produced it--that, prior to my father's death, there had been some large
business connections between himself and my uncle. In those days secret
connections in business, however dangerous they might be in social,
and more than equivocal in moral respects, were considered among the
legitimate practices of tradesmen. What was the particular sort of
relations existing between my father and uncle, I am not now prepared to
state, nor is it absolutely necessary to my narrative. It is enough for
me to say that an exposure of them took place, in part, in consequence
of some discovering made by my father's unsatisfied creditors, by which
the obscure transactions of thirty years were brought to light, or
required to be brought to light; and in the development of which, the
fair business fame of my uncle was likely to be involved in a very
serious degree--not to speak of the inevitable effects upon his
resources of a discovery and proof of fraudulent concealment. The
reputation of my father must have suffered seriously, had it not been
generally known that he left nothing--a fact beyond dispute from the
history of my own career, in which neither goods nor chattels, lands nor
money, were suffered to enure to my advantage.

The business was brought to me. The merchant who brought it, and who
had been busy for some years in tracing out the testimony, so far as it
could be procured, gave me to understand that he had determined to place
it in my hands for two reasons: firstly, to enable me to release
the memory of my father from the imputation--under any circumstances
discreditable--of bankruptcy, by compelling my uncle to disgorge the
sums which he had appropriated, and which, as was alleged, would satisfy
all my father's creditors; and, secondly, to give me an opportunity of
revenging my own wrongs upon one, of whose course of conduct toward me
the populace had already seen enough, during the last election, to have
a tolerably correct idea.

I examined the papers, thanked my client for his friendly intentions,
but declined taking charge of the case for two other reasons. My
relations to the dead and to the living were either of them sufficient
reasons for this determination. I communicated the grounds of action,
in a respectful letter, to my uncle, and soon discovered, by the alarm
which he displayed in consequence, that the cause of the complaint was
in all probability good. The case belonged to the equity jurisdiction,
and the relator soon filed his bill.

My uncle's tribulation may be conjectured from the fact that he called
upon me, and seemed anxious enough to bury the hatchet. He wished me to
take part in the proceedings--insisted, somewhat earnestly, and strove
very hard to impress me with the conviction that my father's memory
demanded that I should devote myself to the task of meeting and
confounding the creditor who thus, as it were, had set to work to rake
up the ashes of the dead; but I answered all this very briefly and very
dryly:--

“If my father has participated in this fraud, he has reaped none of its
pleasant fruits. He lived poor, and died poor. The public know that;
and it will be difficult to persuade them, with a due knowledge of
these facts, that he deliberately perpetrated such unprofitable villany.
Besides, sir, you do not seem to remember that, if the claim of Banks,
Tressell, & Sons, is good, it relieves my father's memory of the only
imputation that now lies against it--that of being a bankrupt.”

“Ay!” he cried hoarsely, “but it makes me one--me, your uncle.”

“And what reason, sir, have I to remember or to heed this relationship?”
 I demanded sternly, with a glance beneath which he quailed.

“True, true, Edward, your reproach is a just one. I have not been
the friend I should have been; but--let us be friends, now, and
hereafter--we must be friends. Mrs. Clifford is very anxious that it
should be so--and--and--Edward,” solemnly, “you must help me out of this
business. You must, by Heaven, you must--if you would not have me blow
my brains out!”

The man was giving true utterance to his misery--the fruit of those
pregnant fears which filled his mind.

“I would do for you, sir, whatever is proper for me to do, but can not
meddle in this unless you are prepared to make restitution, which I
should judge to be your best course.”

“How can you advise me to beggar my child? This claim, if recognised,
will sweep everything. The interest alone is a fortune. I can not think
of allowing it. I would rather die!”

“This is mere madness, Mr. Clifford; your death would not lessen the
difficulty. Hear me, sir, and face the matter manfully. You must do
justice. If what I understand be true, you have most unfortunately
suffered yourself to be blinded to the dishonor of the act which you
have committed; you have appropriated wealth which did not belong to
you, and, in thus doing, you have subjected the memory of my father to
the reproach of injustice which he did not deserve. I will not add the
reproach which I might with justice add, that, in thus wronging the
father's memory, and making it cover your own improper gains, you have
suffered his son to want those necessaries of education and sustenance,
which--”

“Say no more, Edward, and it shall all be amended. Listen to me now; but
stay--close that door for a moment--there!--Now, look you.”

And, having taken these precautionary steps, the infatuated man
proceeded to admit the dishonest practices of which he had been guilty.
His object in making the confession, however, was not that he might make
reparation. Far from it. It was rather to save from the clutch of his
creditors, from the grasp of justice, his ill-gotten possessions. I have
no patience in revealing the schemes by which this was to be effected;
but, as a preliminary, I was to be made the proprietor of one half of
the sum in question, and the possessor of his daughter's hand; in return
for which I was simply to share with him in the performance of certain
secret acts, which, without rendering his virtue any more conspicuous,
would have most effectually eradicated all of mine.

“I have listened to you, Mr. Clifford, and with great difficulty. I now
distinctly decline your proposals. Not even the bribe, so precious in my
sight, as that which you have tendered in the person of your daughter,
has power to tempt me into hesitation. I will have nothing to do with
you in this matter. Restore the property to your creditors.”

“But, Edward, you have not heard;--your share alone will be twenty odd
thousand dollars, without naming the interest!”

“Mr. Clifford, I am sorry for you. Doubly sorry that you persist in
seeing this thing in an improper light. Even were I disposed to
second your designs, it is scarcely possible, sir, that you could be
extricated. The discovery of those papers, and the extreme probability
that Hansford, the partner of the English firm of Davis, Pierce, &
Hansford, is surviving, and can be found, makes the probabilities
strongly against you. My advice to you, is, that you make a merit of
necessity;--that you endeavor to effect a compromise before the affair
has gone too far. The creditors will make some concessions sooner than
trust the uncertainties of a legal investigation, and whether you lose
or gain, a legal investigation is what you should particularly desire to
avoid. If you will adopt this counsel, I will act for you with Banks &
Tressel: and if you will give me carte blanche, I think I can persuade
them to a private arrangement by which they will receive the principal
in liquidation of all demands. This may be considered a very fair basis
for an arrangement, since the results of the speculation could only
accrue from the business capacities of the speculator, and did not
belong to a fund which the proprietor had resolved not to appropriate,
and which must therefore, have been entirely unproductive. I do not
promise you that they will accept, but it is not improbable. They are
men of business--they need, at this moment, particularly, an active
capital; and have had too much knowledge of the doubts and delays
attending a prolonged suit in equity, not to listen to a proposition
which yields them the entire principal of their claim.”

I need not repeat the arguments and entreaties by which I succeeded
in persuading my uncle to accede to the only arrangement which could
possibly have rescued him from the public exposure which was impending;
but he did consent, and, armed with his credentials, I proceeded to the
office of Banks & Tressell, without loss of time.

Though resolved, if I could effect the matter, that my uncle should
liquidate their claim to the uttermost farthing which they required, it
was my duty to make the best bargain which I could, in reference to his
unfortunate family. Accordingly, without suffering them to know that
I had carte blanche, I simply communicated to them my wish to have the
matter arranged without public investigation--that I was persuaded
from a hasty review which I had given to the case, that there were good
grounds for action;--but, at the same time, I dwelt upon the casualties
of such a course--the possibility that the chief living witness--if he
were living--might not be found, or might not survive long enough--as he
was reputed to be very old--for the purposes of examination before the
commission;--the long delays which belonged to a litigated suit, in
which the details of a mixed foreign and domestic business of so many
years was to be raked up, reviewed and explained; and the further
chances, in the event of final success, of the property of the debtor
being so covered, concealed, or made away with, as to baffle at last all
the industry and labors of the creditor.

The merchants were men of good sense, and estimated the proverb--“a bird
in hand is worth two in the bush”--at its true value. It did not require
much argument to persuade them to receive a sum of over forty thousand
dollars, and give a full discharge to the defendant; and I flattered
myself that the matter was all satisfactorily arranged, and had just
taken a seat at my table to write to Mr. Clifford to this effect, when,
to my horror, I receive a note from that gentleman, informing me of his
resolve to join issue with the claimants, and “maintain his RIGHTS(?) to
the last moment.” He thanked me, in very cold consequential style,
for my “FRIENDLY efforts”--the words italicised, as I have now written
it;--but conduced with informing me that he had taken the opinion of
older counsel, which, though it might be less correct than mine, was,
perhaps, more full of promise for his interests.

This note justified me in calling upon the unfortunate gentleman. It is
true I had not committed him to Banks & Tressell--the suggestions which
I had made for the arrangement were all proposed as a something which I
might be able to bring about in a future conference with him--but I was
too anxious to save him from his lamentable folly--from that miserable
love of money, which, overreaching itself in its blindness, as does
every passion--was not only about to deliver him to shame but to
destitution also.

I found him in Mrs. Clifford's presence. That simple and silly woman
had evidently been made privy to the whole transaction, so far as my
arguments had been connected with it;--for ALL the truth is not often to
be got out of the man who means or has perpetrated a dishonesty. She
had been alarmed at the immense loss of money, and consequently of
importance, with which the family was threatened; and without looking
into, or being able to comprehend the facts as they stood, she had taken
around against any measure which should involve such a sacrifice. Her
influence over the weak man beside her, was never so clear to me as now;
and in learning to despise his character more than ever, I discovered,
at the same time, the true source of many of his errors and much of his
misconduct. She did not often suffer him to reply for himself--yielded
me the ultimatum from her own lips; and condescended to assure me that
she could only ascribe the advice which I had given to her husband, to
the hostile disposition which I had always entertained for herself and
family. That I was “a wolf in sheep's clothing, SHE had long since been
able to see, though all others unhappily seemed blind.”

Here she scowled at her husband, who contented himself with walking to
and fro, playing with his coatskirts, and feeling, no doubt, a portion
of the shame which his miserable bondage to this silly woman necessarily
incurred.

“Mr. Clifford has got a lawyer who can do for him what it seems you can
not,” was her additional observation. “He promises to get him to dry
land, and save him without so much as wetting his shoes, though his
own blood relations, who are thought so smart, can not, it appears, do
anything.”

Of course I could have nothing to say to the worthy lady, but my
expostulations were freely urged to Mr. Clifford.

“You, at least,” said I, “should know the risks which you incur by this
obstinacy. Mrs. Clifford can not be expected to know; and I now warn
you, sir, that the case of Banks & Tressell is a very strong one, very
well arranged, and so admirably hung together, in its several links of
testimony, that even the absence of old Hansford (the chief witness),
should his answers never be obtained, would scarcely impair the
integrity of the evidence. In a purely moral point of view, nothing can
be more complete than it is now.”

“Well, and who would it convict, Mr. Edward Clifford?” exclaimed the
inveterate lady, anticipating her husband's answer with accustomed
interference; “who would it convict, if not your own father? It was as
much his business as my husband's; and if there's any shame, I'm sure
his memory and his son will have to bear their share of it; and this
makes it so much more wonderful to me that you should take sides against
Mr. Clifford, instead of standing up in his defence.”

“I would save him, madam, if you and he would let me,” I exclaimed
with some indignation. “Your reference to my father's share in this
transaction does not affect me, as it is very evident that you are not
altogether acquainted with the true part which he had in it. He had all
the risk, all the loss, all the blame--and your husband all the profit,
all the importance. He lived poor, and died so; without a knowledge of
those profitable results to his brother of which the latter has made his
own avails by leaving my father's memory to aspersion which he did not
deserve, and his son to destitution and reproach which he merited as
little. My father's memory is liable to no reproach when every creditor
knows that he died in a state of poverty, in which his only son has
ever lived. Neither he nor I ever shared any of the pleasant fruits, for
which we are yet to be made accountable.”

“And whose fault was it that you didn't get your share I'm sure Mr.
Clifford made you as handsome an offer yesterday as any man could
desire. Didn't he offer you half? But I suppose nothing short of the
whole would satisfy so ambitious a person.”

“Neither the half nor the whole will serve me, madam, in such a
business. My respect for your husband and his family would, of itself,
have been sufficient to prevent my acceptance of his offer.”

“But there was Julia, too, Edward!” said Mr. Clifford, approaching me
with a most insinuating smile.

“It is not yet too late,” said Mrs. Clifford, unbending a little. “Take
the offer of Mr. Clifford, Edward, and be one of us; and then this ugly
business--”

“Yes, my dear Edward, even now, though I have spoken with young Perkins
about the affair, and he tells me there's nothing so much to be afraid
of, yet, for the look of the thing, I'd rather that you should be seen
acting in the business. As it's so well known that your father had
nothing, and you nothing, it'll then be easy for the people to believe
that nothing was the gain of any of us; and--and--”

“Young Perkins may think and say what he pleases, and you are yourself
capable of judging how much respect you may pay to his opinion. Mine,
however, remains unchanged. You will have to pay this money--nay, this
necessity will not come alone. The development of all the particulars
connected with the transaction will disgrace you for ever, and drive you
from the community. Even were I to take part with you, I do not see that
it would change the aspect of affairs. So far from your sharing with me
the reputation of being profitless in the affair, the public would more
naturally suspect that I had shared with you--now, if not before--and
the whole amount involved would not seduce me to incur this imputation.”

“But my daughter--Julia--”

“Do not speak of her in this connection, I implore you, Mr. Clifford.
Let her name remain pure, uncontaminated by any considerations, whether
of mere gain or of the fraud which the gain is supposed to involve.
Freely would I give the sum in question, were it mine, and all the
wealth besides that I ever expect to acquire, to make Julia Clifford my
wife;--but I can not suffer myself, in such a case as this, to accept
her as a bribe, and to sanction crime. Nay, I am sure that she too would
be the first to object.”

“And so you really refuse? Well, the world's coming to a pretty pass.
But I told Mr. Clifford, months ago, that you had quite forgot yourself,
ever since you had grown so great with the Edgertons, and the Blakes,
and Fortescues, and all them high-headed people. But I'm sure, Mr.
Edward Clifford, my daughter needn't go a-begging to any man; and as for
this business, whatever you may say against young Perkins, I'll take
his opinion of the law against that of any other young lawyer in the
country. He's as good as the best, I'm thinking.”

“Your opinion is your own, Mrs. Clifford, but I beg to set you right on
the subject of mine. I did not say anything against Mr. Perkins.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon; I'm sure you did. You said he was nothing of a
lawyer, and something more.”

Was there ever a more perverse and evil and silly woman! I contented
myself with assuring her that she was mistaken and had very much
misunderstood me--took pains to repeat what I had really said, and then
cut short an interview that had been painful and humbling to me on many
grounds. I left the happy pair tête-à-tête, in their princely parlor
together, little fancying that there was another argument which had been
prepared to overthrow my feeble virtue. But all this had been arranged
by the small cunning of this really witless couple. I was left to find
my way down stairs as I might; and just when I was about to leave the
dwelling--vexed to the heart at the desperate stolidity of the miserable
man, whom avarice and weakness were about to expose to a loss which
might be averted in part, and an exposure to infamy which might wholly
be avoided--I was encountered by the attenuated form and wan countenance
of his suffering but still lovely daughter.



CHAPTER VIII.

LOVE FINDS NO SMOOTH WATER IN THE SEA OF LAW


“Julia!” I exclaimed, with a start which betrayed, I am sure, quite
as much surprise as pleasure. My mood was singularly inflexible. My
character was not easily shaken, and, once wrought upon by any leading
influence, my mind preserved the tone which it acquired beneath it, long
after the cause of provocation had been withdrawn. This earnestness of
character--amounting to intensity--gave me an habitual sternness of
look and expression, and I found it hard to acquire, of a sudden,
that command of muscle which would permit me to mould the stubborn
lineaments, at pleasure, to suit the moment. Not even where my heart was
most deeply interested--thus aroused--could I look the feelings of the
lover, which, nevertheless, were most truly the predominant ones within
my bosom.

“Julia,” I exclaimed, “I did not think to see you.”

“Ah, Edward, did you wish it?” she replied in very mournful accents,
gently reproachful, as she suffered me to take her hand in mine, and
lead her back to the parlor in the basement story. I seated her upon the
sofa, and took a place at her side.

“Why should I not wish to see you, Julia? What should lead you to fancy
now that I could wish otherwise?”

“Alas!” she replied, “I know not what to think--I scarcely know what
I say. I am very miserable. What is this they tell me? Can it be true,
Edward, that you are acting against my father--that you are trying to
bring him to shame and poverty?”

I released her hand. I fixed my eyes keenly upon hers.

“Julia, you have your instructions what to say. You are sent here for
this. They have set you in waiting to meet me here, and speak things
which you do not understand, and assert things which I know you can not
believe.”

“Edward, I believe YOU!” she exclaimed with emphasis, but with downcast
eyes; “but it does not matter whether I was sent here, or sought you of
my own free will. They tell me other things--there is more--but I have
not the heart to say it, and it needs not much.”

“If you believe me, Julia, it certainly does not need that you should
repeat to me what is said of me by enemies, equally unjust to me, and
hostile to themselves. Yet I can readily conjecture some things which
they have told you. Did they not tell you that your hand had been
proffered me, and that I had refused it?”

She hung her head in silence.

“You do not answer.”

“Spare me; ask me not.”

“Nay, tell me, Julia, that I may see how far you hold me worthy of your
love, your confidence. Speak to me--have they not told you some such
story?”

“Something of this; but I did not heed it, Edward.”

“Julia--nay!--did you not?”

“And if I did, Edward--”

“It surely was not to believe it?”

“No! no! no! I had no fears of you--have none, dear Edward! I knew that
it was not, could not be true.”

“Julia, it was true!”

“Ah!”

“True, indeed! There was more truth in THAT than in any other part of
the story. Nay, more--had they told you all the truth, dearest Julia,
that part, strange as it may appear, would have given you less pain than
pleasure.”

“How! Can it be so?”

“Your hand was proffered me by your father, and I refused it. Nay, look
not from me, dearest--fear not for my affection--fear nothing. I should
have no fear that you could suppose me false to you, though the whole
world should come and tell you so. True love is always secured by a
just confidence in the beloved object; and, without this confidence,
the whole life is a series of long doubts, struggles, griefs, and
apprehensions, which break down the strength, and lay the spirit in the
dust. I will now tell you, in few words, what is the relation in which
I stand to your father and his family. He, many years ago, committed an
error in business, which the laws distinguish by a harsher name. By
this error he became rich. Until recently, the proofs of this error were
unknown. They have lately been discovered by certain claimants, who are
demanding reparation. In the difficulty of your father, he came to me.
I examined the business, and have given it as my opinion that he should
stifle the legal process by endeavoring to make a private arrangement
with the creditors.”

“Could he do this?”

“He could. The creditors were willing, and at first he consented that I
should arrange it with them. He now rejects the arrangement.”

“But why?”

“Because it involves the surrender of the entire amount of property
which they claim--a sum of forty thousand dollars.”

“But, dear Edward, is it due?--does my father owe this money? If he
does, surely he can not refuse. Perhaps he thinks that he owes nothing.”

“Nay, Julia, unhappily he knows it, and the offer of your hand, and half
of the sum mentioned, was made to me, on the express condition that I
should exert my influence as a man, and my ingenuity as a lawyer, in
baffling the creditors and stifling the claim.”

The poor girl was silent and hung her head, her eyes fixed upon the
carpet, and the big tears slowly gathering, dropping from them, one,
by one. Meanwhile, I explained, as tenderly as I could, the evil
consequences which threatened Mr. Clifford in consequence of his
contumacy.

“Alas” she exclaimed, “it is not his fault. He would be willing--I
heard him say as much last night--but mother--she will not consent. She
refused positively the moment father said it would be necessary to sell
out, and move to a cheaper house. Oh, Edward, is there no way that
you can save us? Save my father from shame, though he gives up all the
money.”

“Would I not do this, Julia? Nay, were I owner of the necessary amount
myself, believe me, it should not be withheld.”

“I do believe you, Edward; but”--and here her voice sunk to a
whisper--“you must try again, try again and again--for I think that
father knows the danger, though mother does not; and I think--I hope--he
will be firm enough, when you press him, and warn him of the danger, to
do as you wish him.”

“I am afraid not, Julia. Your mother--”

“Do not fear; hope--hope all, dear Edward; for, to confess to you, I
KNOW that they are anxious to have your support--they said as much. Nay,
why should I hide anything from you? They sent me here to see--to speak
with you, and--”

“To see what your charms could do to persuade me to be a villain. Julia!
Julia! did you think to do this--to have me be the thing which they
would make me?”

“No! no!--Heaven forbid, dear Edward, that you should fancy that any
such desire had a place, even for a moment, in my mind. No! I knew not
that the case involved any but mere money considerations. I knew not
that--”

“Enough! Say no more, Julia! I do not think that you would counsel me to
my own shame.”

“No! no! You do me only justice. But, Edward, you will save my father!
You will try--you will see him again--”

“What! to suffer again the open scorn, the declared doubts of my
friendship and integrity, which is the constant language of your mother?
Can it be that you would desire that I should do this--nay, seek it?”

“For my poor father's sake!” she cried, gaspingly.

But I shook my head sternly.

“For mine, then--for mine! for mine!”

She threw herself into my arms, and clung to me until I promised all
that she required. And as I promised her, so I strove with her father.
I used every argument, resorted to every mode of persuasion, but all was
of no avail. Mr. Clifford was under the rigid, the iron government
of his fate! His wife was one of those miserably silly women--born,
according to Iago--

     “To suckle fools and chronicle small beer”--

who, raised to the sudden control of unexpected wealth, becomes insane
upon it, and is blind, deaf, and dumb, to all counsel or reason which
suggests the possibility of its loss. From the very moment when Mr.
Clifford spoke of selling out house, horses, and carriage, as the
inevitable result which must follow his adoption of my recommendation,
she declared herself against it at all hazards, particularly when
her husband assured her that “the glorious uncertainties of the law”
 afforded a possibility of his escape with less loss. The loss of money
was, with her, the item of most consideration; her mind was totally
insensible to that of reputation. She was willing to make this
compromise with me, as a sort of alternative, for, in that case, there
would be no diminution of attendance and expense--no loss of rank
and equipage. We should all live together--how harmoniously, one may
imagine--but the grandeur and the state would still be intact and
unimpaired. Even for this, however, she was not prepared, when she
discovered that there was no certainty that my alliance would bring
immunity to her husband. How this notion got even partially into his
head, I know not; unless in consequence of a growing imbecility of
intellect, which in a short time after betrayed itself more strikingly.
But of this in its own place.

My attempts to convince my unfortunate uncle were all rendered
unavailing, and shown to be so to Julia herself in a very short time
afterward. The insolence of Mrs. Clifford, when I did seek an interview
with her husband, was so offensive and unqualified, that Julia herself,
with a degree of indignation which she could not entirely suppress,
begged me to quit the house, and relieve myself from such undeserved
insult and abuse. I did so, but with no unfriendly wishes for the
wretched woman who presided over its destinies, and the no less wretched
husband whom she helped to make so; and my place as consulting friend
and counsellor was soon supplied by Mr. Perkins--one of those young
barristers, to be found in every community, who regard the “penny fee”
 as the sine qua non, and obey implicitly the injunction of the scoundrel
in the play “Make money--honestly if you can, but--make money!” He was
one of those creatures who set people at loggerheads, goad foolish and
petulant clients into lawsuits, stir up commotions in little sets,
and invariably comfort the suit-bringer with the most satisfactory
assurances of success. It was the confident assurances of this person
which had determined Mr. Clifford--his wife rather--to resist to the
last the suit in question. Through the sheer force of impudence, this
man had obtained a tolerable share of practice. His clients, as may be
supposed, lay chiefly among such persons as, having no power or standard
for judging, necessarily look upon him who is most bold and pushing as
the most able and trustworthy. The bullies of the law--and, unhappily,
the profession has quite too many--are very commanding persons among the
multitude. Mr. Clifford knew this fellow's mental reputation very well,
and was not deceived by the confidence of his assurances; nay, to the
last, he showed a hankering desire to give me the entire control of the
subject; but the hostility of Mrs. Clifford overruled his more prudent
if not more honorable purposes; and, as he was compelled to seek a
lawyer, the questionable moral standing of Perkins decided his choice.
He wished one, in short, to do a certain piece of dirty work: and, as if
in anticipation of the future, he dreaded to unfold the case to any of
the veterans, the old-time gentlemen and worthies of the bar. I proposed
this to him. I offered to make a supposititious relation of the facts
for the opinion of Mr. Edgerton and others--nay, pledged myself to
procure a confidential consultation--anything, sooner than that he
should resort to a mode of extrication which, I assured him, would only
the more deeply involve him in the meshes of disgrace and loss. But
there was a fatality about this gentleman--a doom that would not be
baffled, and could not be stayed. The wilful mind always precipitates
itself down the abyss; and, whether acting by his own, or under the
influence of another's judgment, such was, most certainly, the case with
him. He was not to be saved. Mr. Perkins was regularly installed as
his defender--his counsellor, private and public--and I was compelled,
though with humiliating reluctance, to admit to the plaintiffs, Banks &
Tressell, that there was no longer any hope of compromise. The issue
on which hung equally his fortune and his reputation was insanely
challenged by my uncle.



CHAPTER IX.

DUELLO.


But my share in the troubles of this affair was not to end, though I was
no longer my uncle's counsellor. An event now took place which gave
the proceedings a new and not less unpleasing aspect than they had
worn before. Mrs. Clifford, it appears, in her communications to her
husband's lawyer, did not confine herself to the mere business of
the lawsuit. Her voluminous discourse involved her opinions of her
neighbors, friends, and relatives; and, one day, a few weeks after, I
was suddenly surprised by a visit from a gentleman--one of the members
of the bar--who placed a letter in my hands from Mr. Perkins. I read
this billet with no small astonishment. It briefly stated that certain
reports had reached his ears, that I had expressed myself contemptuously
of his abilities and character, and concluded with an explicit demand,
not for an explanation, but an apology. My answer was immediate.

“You will do me the favor to say, Mr. Carter, that Mr. Perkins has been
misinformed. I never uttered anything in my life which could disparage
either his moral or legal reputation.”

“I am sorry to say, Mr. Clifford,” was the reply, “that denial is
unnecessary, and can not be received. Mr. Perkins has his information
from the lips of a lady; and, as a lady is not responsible, she can not
be allowed to err. I am required, sir to insist on an apology. I have
already framed it, and it only needs your signature.”

He drew a short, folded letter, from his pocket, and placed it before
me. There was so much cool impertinence in this proceeding, and in the
fellow's manner, that I could with difficulty refrain from flinging the
paper in his face. He was one of the little and vulgar clique of which
Perkins was a sort of centre. The whole set were conscious enough of the
low estimate which was put upon them by the gentlemen of the bar. Denied
caste, they were disposed to force their way to recognition by the
bully's process, and stung by some recent discouragements, Mr. Perkins
was, perhaps, rather glad than otherwise, of the silly, and no less
malicious than silly, tattle of Mrs. Clifford for I did not doubt that
the gross perversion of the truth which formed the basis of his note,
had originated with her, which enabled him to single out a victim, who,
as the times went, had suddenly risen to a comparative elevation which
is not often accorded to a young beginner. I readily conjectured his
object from his character and that of the man he sent. My own nature was
passionate; and the rude school through which my boyhood had gone,
had made me as tenacious of my position as the grave. That I should be
chafed by reptiles such as these, stung me to vexation; and though I
kept from any violence of action, my words did not lack of it.

“Mr. Perkins is, permit me to say, a very impertinent fellow; and, if
you please, our conference will cease from this moment.”

He was a little astounded--rose, and then recovering himself, proceeded
to reply with the air of a veteran martinet.

“I am glad, sir, that you give me an opportunity of proceeding with this
business without delay. My friend, Mr. Perkins, prepared me for some
such answer. Oblige me, sir, by reading this paper.” He handed me the
challenge for which his preliminaries had prepared me.

“Accepted, sir; I will send my friend to you in the course of the
morning.”

As I uttered this reply, I bowed and waved him to the door. He did not
answer, other than by a bow, and took his departure. The promptness
which I had shown impressed him with respect. Baffled, in his first
spring, the bully, like the tiger, is very apt to slink back to his
jungle. His departure gave me a brief opportunity for reflection, in
which I slightly turned over in my mind the arguments for and against
duelling. But these were now too late--even were they to decide me
against the practice--to affect the present transaction; and I sallied
out to seek a friend--a friend!

Here was the first difficulty. I had precious little choice among
friends. My temper was not one calculated to make or keep friends. My
earnestness of character, and intensity of mood, made me dictatorial;
and where self-esteem is a large and active development, as it must
be in an old aristocratic community, such qualities are continually
provoking popular hostility. My friends, too, were not of the kind to
whom such scrapes as the present were congenial. I was unwilling to go
to young Edgerton, as I did not wish to annoy his parents by my novel
anxieties. But where else could I turn? To him I went. When he heard my
story, he began by endeavoring to dissuade me from the meeting.

“I am pledged to it, William,” was my only answer.

“But, Edward, I am opposed to duelling myself, and should not promote or
encourage, in another, a practice which I would not be willing myself to
adopt.”

“A good and sufficient reason, William. You certainly should not. I will
go to Frank Kingsley.”

“He will serve you, I know; but, Edward, this duelling is a bad
business. It does no sort of good. Kill Perkins, and it does not prove
to him, even if he were then able to hear, that Mrs. Clifford spoke
a falsehood; and if he kills you, you are even still farther from
convincing him.

“I have no such desire, William; and your argument, by the way, is
one of those beggings of the question which the opponents of duelling
continually fall into when discussing the subject. The object of the
man, who, in a case like mine, fights a duel, is not to prove his truth,
but to protect himself from persecution. Perkins seeks to bully and
drive me out of the community. Public opinion here approves of this mode
of protecting one's self;--may, if I do not avail myself of its agency,
the same public opinion would assist my assailant in my expulsion. I
fight on the same ground that a nation fights when it goes to war. It is
the most obvious and easy mode to protect myself from injury and insult.
So long as I submit, Perkins will insult and bully, and the city will
encourage him, If I resist, I silence this fellow, and perhaps protect
other young beginners. I have not the most distant idea of convincing
him of my truth by fighting him--may, the idea of giving him
satisfaction is an idea that never entered my brain. I simply take a
popular mode of securing myself from outrage and persecution.”

“But, do you secure yourself? Has duelling this result?”

“Not invariably, perhaps; simply because the condition of humanity does
not recognise invariable results. If it is shown to be the probable, the
frequent result, it is all that can be expected of any human agency or
law.”

“But, is it probable--frequent?”

“Yes, almost certain, almost invariable. Look at the general manners,
the deportment, the forbearance, of all communities where duelling is
recognised as an agent of society. See the superior deference paid to
females, the unfrequency of bullying, the absence of blackguarding, the
higher tone of this public press, and of society in general, from which
the public press takes its tone, and which it represents in our country,
but does not often inform. Even seduction is a rare offence, and a
matter of general exclamation, where this extra-judicial agent is
recognised.”

And so forth. It is not necessary to repeat our discussion on this vexed
question, of its uses and abuses. I did not succeed in convincing him,
and, under existing circumstances, it is not reasonable to imagine that
his arguments had any influent over me. To Frank Kingsley I went, and
found him in better mood to take up the cudgels, and even make my cause
his own. He was one of those ardent bloods, who liked nothing better
than the excitement of such an affair; whether as principal or
assistant, it mattered little. To him I expressed my wish that his
arrangements should bring the matter to an issue, if possible, within
the next twenty-four hours.

“Prime!” he exclaimed, rubbing his hands. “That's what I like. If you
shoot as quickly now, and as much to the point, you may count any button
on Perkins's coat.”

He proceeded to confer with the friend of my opponent, while, with a
meditative mind, I went to my office, necessarily oppressed with the
strange feelings belonging to my situation. In less than two hours after
Kingsley brought me the carte, by which I found that the meeting was
to take place two miles out of town, by sunrise the day after the one
ensuing--the weapons, pistols--distance, as customary, ten paces!

“You are a shot, of course?” said Kingsley.

My answer, in the negative, astonished him.

“Why, you will have little or no time for practice.”

“I do not intend it. My object is not to kill this man; but to make him
and all others see that the dread of what may be done, either by him or
them, will never reconcile me to submit to injury or insult. I shall
as effectually secure this object by going out, as I do, without
preparation, as if I were the best shot in America. He does not know
that I am not; and a pistol is always a source of danger when in the
grasp of a determined man.”

“You are a queer fellow in your notions, Clifford, and I can not say
that I altogether understand you; but you must certainly ride out with
me this afternoon, and bark a tree. It will do no hurt to a determined
man to be a skilful one also.”

“I see no use in it.”

“Why--what if you should wish to wing him?”

“I think I can do it without practice. But I have no such desire.”

“Really you are unnecessarily magnanimous. You may be put to it,
however. Should the first shot be ineffectual and he should demand a
second, would you throw away that also?”

“No! I should then try to shoot him. As my simple aim is to secure
myself from persecution, which is usually the most effectual mode of
destroying a young man in this country, I should resort only to such
a course as would be likely to yield me this security. That failing,
I should employ stronger measures; precisely as a nation would do in a
similar conflict with another nation. One must not suffer himself to be
destroyed or driven into exile. This is the first law of nature--this
of self-preservation. In maintaining this law, a man must do any or all
things which in his deliberate judgment, will be effectual for the end
proposed. Were I fighting with savages, for example, and knew that they
regarded their scalps with more reverence than their lives, I should
certainly scalp as well as slay.”

“They would call that barbarous?”

“Ay, no doubt; particularly in those countries where they paid from five
to fifty, and even one hundred pounds to one Indian for the scalp of
his brother, until they rid themselves of both. But see you not that
the scalping process, as it produces the most terror and annoyance,
is decidedly the most merciful, as being most likely to discourage
and deter from war. If the scalp could bo taken from the head of every
Seminole shot down, be sure the survivors never after would have come
within range of rifle-shot.”

But these discussions gave way to the business before me. Kingsley left
me to myself, and though sad and serious with oppressive thoughts, I
still had enough of the old habits, dominant with me, to go to my daily
concerns, and arrange my papers with considerable industry and customary
method. My professional business was set in order, and Edgerton duly
initiated in the knowledge of all such portions as needed explanation.
This done, I sat down and wrote a long farewell letter to Julia, and
one, more brief, but renewing the counsel I had previously given to
her father, in respect to the suit against him. These letters were so
disposed as to be sent in the event of my falling in the fight. The
interval which followed was not so easy to be borne. Conscience and
reflection were equally busy, and unpleasantly so. I longed for the time
of action which should silence these unpleasant monitors.

The brief space of twenty-four hours was soon overpassed, and my
anxieties ceased as the moment for the meeting with my enemy, drew nigh.
My friend called at my lodgings a good hour before daylight--it was a
point of credit with him that we should not delay the opposite party
the sixtieth part of a second. We drove out into the country in a close
carriage, taking a surgeon--who was a friend of Kingsley--along with
us. We were on the ground in due season, and some little time before
our customers. But they did not fail or delay us. They were there with
sufficient promptitude.

Perkins was a man of coolness and courage. He took his position with
admirable nonchalance; but I observed, when his eyes met mine, that they
were darkened with a scowl of anger. His brows were contracted, and
his face which was ordinarily red, had an increased flush upon it which
betrayed unusual excitement. He evidently regarded me with feelings of
bitter animosity. Perhaps this was natural enough, if he believed
the story of Mrs. Clifford--and my scornful answer to his friend, Mr.
Carter, was not calculated to lessen the soreness. For my part, I am
free to declare, I had not the smallest sentiment of unkindness toward
the fellow. I thought little of him, but did not hate--I could not have
hated him. I had no wish to do him hurt; and, as already stated, only
went out to put a stop to the further annoyances of insolents and
bullies, by the only effectual mode--precisely as I should have used a
bludgeon over his head, in the event of a personal assault upon me. Of
course, I had no purpose to do him any injury, unless--with the view
to my own safety. I resolved secretly to throw away my fire. Kingsley
suspected me of some such intention, and earnestly protested against it.

“I should not place you at all,” he said, “if I fancied you could do a
thing so d---d foolish. The fellow intends to shoot you if he can. Help
him to a share of the same sauce.”

I nodded as he proceeded to his arrangements. Here some conference
ensued between the seconds:--

“Mr. Carter was very sorry that such a business must proceed. Was it yet
too late to rectify mistakes? Might not the matter be adjusted?”

Kingsley, on such occasions, the very prince of punctilio, agreed that
the matter was a very lamentable one--to be regretted, and so forth--but
of the necessity of the thing, he, Mr. Carter, for his principal, must
be the only judge.

“Mr. Carter could answer for his friend, Mr. Perkins, that he was always
accessible to reason.”

“Mr. Kingsley never knew a man more so than HIS principal.”

“May we not reconcile the parties?” demanded Mr. Carter.

“Does Mr. Perkins withdraw his message?” answered Kingsley by another
question.

“He would do so, readily, were there any prospect of adjusting the
matter upon an honorable footing.”

“Mr. Carter will be pleased to name the basis for what he esteems an
honorable adjustment.”

“Mr. Perkins withdraws his challenge.”

“We have no objection to that.”

“He substitutes a courteous requisition upon Mr. Clifford for an
explanation of certain language, supposed to be offensive, made to a
lady.”

“Mr. Clifford denies, without qualification, the employment of any such
language.”

“This throws us back on our old ground,” said Carter--“there is a lady
in question--”

“Who can not certainly be brought into the controversy,” said
Kingsley--“I see no other remedy, Mr. Carter, but that we should place
the parties. We are here to answer to your final summons.”

“Very good, sir; this matter, and what happens, must lie at your door.
You are peremptory. I trust you have provided a surgeon.”

“His services are at your need, sir,” replied Kingsley with military
courtesy.

“I thank you, sir--my remark had reference to your own necessity. Shall
we toss up for the word?”

These preliminaries were soon adjusted. The word fell to Carter, and
thus gave an advantage to Perkins, as his ear was more familiar than
mine with the accents of his friend. We were placed, and the pistol put
into my hands, without my uttering a sentence.

“Coolly now, my dear fellow,” said Kingsley in a whisper, as he withdrew
from my side;--“wing him at least--but don't burn powder for nothing.”

Scarcely the lapse of a moment followed, when I heard the words “one,”
 “two,” “three,” in tolerably rapid succession, and, at the utterance of
the last, I pulled trigger. My antagonist had done so at the first.
His eye was fixed upon mine with deliberate malignity--THAT I clearly
saw--but it did not affect my shot. This, I purposely threw away. The
skill of my enemy did not correspondend (sic) with his evident desires.
I was hurt, but very slightly. His bullet merely raised the skin upon
the fleshy part of my right thigh. We kept our places while a conference
ensued between the two seconds. Mr. Perkins, through his friend,
declared himself unsatisfied unless I apologized, or--in less unpleasant
language--explained. This demand was answered by Kingsley with cavalier
indifference He came to me with a second pistol. His good-humored visage
was now slightly ruffled.

“Clifford!” said he, as he put the weapon into my hand, “you must trifle
no longer. This fellow abuses your generosity. He knows, as well as I,
that you threw away your fire; and he will play the same game with you,
on the same terms, for a month together, Sundays not excepted. I am
not willing to stand by and see you risk your life in this manner; and,
unless you tell me that you will give him as good as he sends, I leave
you on the spot. Will you take aim this time?”

“I will!”

“You promise me then?”

“I do!”

I was conscious of the increased activity of my organ of destructiveness
as I said these words. I smiled with a feeling of pleasant
bitterness--that spicy sort of malice which you may sometimes rouse in
the bosom of the best-natured man in the world, by an attempt to do him
injustice. The wound I had received, though very trifling, had no little
to do with this determination. It was not unlike such a wound as would
be made by a smart stroke of a whip, and the effect upon my blood was
pretty much as if it had been inflicted by some such instrument. I was
stung and irritated by it, and the pertinacity of my enemy, particularly
as he must have seen that my shot was thrown away, decided me to punish
him if I could. I did so! I was not conscious that I was hurt myself,
until I saw him falling!--I then felt a heavy and numbing sensation in
the same thigh which had been touched before. A faintness relieved me
from present sensibility, and when I became conscious, I found myself
in the carriage, supported by Kingsley and the surgeon, on my way to my
lodgings. My wound was a flesh wound only; the ball was soon extracted,
and in a few weeks after, I was enabled to move about with scarcely a
feeling of inconvenience. My opponent suffered a much heavier penalty.
The bone of his leg was fractured, and it was several months before he
was considered perfectly safe. The lesson he got made him a sorer and
shorter--a wiser, if not a better man; but as I do not now, and did
not then, charge myself with the task of bringing about his moral
improvement, it is not incumbent upon me to say anything further on this
subject. We will leave him to get better as he may.



CHAPTER X.

HEAD WINDS.


The hurts of Perkins did not, unhappily, delay the progress of my uncle
to that destruction to which his silly wife and knavish lawyer
had destined him. His business was brought before the court by the
claimants, Messrs. Banks & Tressell; and a brief period only was left
him for putting in his answer. When I thought of Julia, I resolved, in
spite of all previous difficulties--the sneers of the father, and the
more direct, coarse insults of the mother--to make one more effort to
rescue him from the fate which threatened him. I felt sure that, for the
reasons already given, the merchants would still be willing to effect a
compromise which would secure them the principal of their claim, without
incurring the delay and risk of litigation. Accordingly, I penned a note
to Mr. Clifford, requesting permission to wait upon him at home, at
a stated hour. To this I received a cold, brief answer, covering the
permission which I sought. I went, but might as well have spared myself
the labor and annoyance of this visit. Mrs. Clifford was still in the
ascendant--still deaf to reason, and utterly blind to the base position
into which her meddlesome interference in the business threw her
husband. She had her answer ready; and did not merely content herself
with rejecting my overtures, but proceeded to speak in the language of
one who really regarded me as busily seeking, by covert ways, to effect
the ruin of her family. Her looks and language equally expressed the
indignation of a mind perfectly convinced of the fraudulent and evil
purposes of the person she addressed. Those of my uncle were scarcely
less offensive. A grin of malicious self-gratulation mantled his lips as
he thanked me for my counsel, which, he yet remarked, “however wise and
good, and well-intended, he did not think it advisable to adopt. He had
every confidence in the judgment of Mr. Perkins, who, though without the
great legal knowledge of some of his youthful neighbors, had enough
for his purposes; and had persuaded him to see the matter in a very
different point of view from that in which I was pleased to regard it.”

There was no doing anything with or for these people. The fiat for
their overthrow had evidently been issued. The fatuity which leads to
self-destruction was fixed upon them; and, with a feeling rather
of commiseration than anger, I prepared to leave the house. In this
interview, I made a discovery, which tended still more to lessen the
hostility I might otherwise have felt toward my uncle. I was constrained
to perceive that he labored under an intellectual feebleness and
incertitude which disconcerted his expression, left his thoughts
seemingly without purpose, and altogether convinced me that, if not
positively imbecile in mind and memory, there were yet some ugly
symptoms of incapacity growing upon him which might one day result
in the loss of both. I had always known him to be a weak-minded man,
disposed to vanity and caprice, but the weakness had expanded very much
in a brief period, and now presented itself to my view in sundry very
salient aspects. It was easy now to divert his attention from the
business which he had in hand--a single casual remark of courtesy or
observation would have this effect--and then his mind wandered from
the subject with all the levity and caprice of a thoughtless damsel.
He seemed to entertain now no sort of apprehension of his legal
difficulties, and spoke of them as topics already adjusted. Nay, for
that matter, he seemed to have no serious sense of any subject, whatever
might be its personal or general interest; but, passing from point to
point, exhibited that instability of mental vision which may not inaptly
be compared to that wandering glance which is usually supposed to
distinguish and denote, in the physical eye, the presence of insanity.
It was not often now that he indulged, while speaking to me, in that
manner of hostility--those sneers and sarcastic remarks--which had been
his common habit. This was another proof of the change which his mental
man had undergone. It was not that he was more prudent or more tolerant
than before. He was quite as little disposed to be generous toward me.
But he now appeared wholly incapable of that degree of intellectual
concentration which could enable him to examine a subject to its
close. He would begin to talk with me seriously enough, and with a due
solemnity, about the suit against him; but, in a tangent, he would dart
off to the consideration of some trifle, some household matter, or petty
affair, of which, at any other time, he must have known that his hearers
had no wish to hear. Poor Julia confirmed the conjectures which I
entertained, but did not utter, by telling me that her father had
changed very much in his ways ever since this business had been begun.

“Mother does not see it, but he is no longer the same man. Oh, Edward, I
sometimes think he's even growing childish.”

The fear was a well-founded one. Before the case was tried, Mr. Clifford
was generally regarded, among those who knew him intimately, as little
better than an imbecile; and so rapid was the progress of his infirmity,
that when the judgment was given, as it was, against him, he was wholly
unable to understand or fear its import. His own sense of guilt had
anticipated its effects, and his intense vanity was saved from public
shame only by the substitution of public pity. The decree of the court
gave all that was asked; and the handsome competence of the Cliffords
was exchanged for a miserable pittance, which enabled the family to live
only in the very humblest manner.

It will readily be conjectured, from what I have stated in respect to
myself, that mine was not the disposition to seek revenge, or find cause
for exultation in these deplorable events. I had no hostility against my
unhappy uncle; I should have scorned myself if I had. If such a feeling
ever filled my bosom, it would have been most effectually disarmed
by the sight of the wretched old man, a grinning, gibbering idiot,
half-dancing and half-shivering from the cold, over the remnants of a
miserable and scant fire in the severest evening in November. It was
when the affair was all over; when the property of the family was all in
the hands of the sheriff; when the mischievous counsel of such a person
as Jonathan Perkins, Esquire could do no more harm even to so foolish
a person as my uncle's wife; and when his presence, naturally enough
withdrawn from a family from which he could derive no further profit,
and which he had helped to ruin, was no longer likely to offend mine by
meeting him there--that I proceeded to renew my direct intercourse with
the unfortunate people whom I was not suffered to save.

The reader is not to suppose that I had kept myself entirely aloof
from the family until these disasters had happened. I sought Julia when
occasion offered, and, though she refused it, tendered my services and
my means whenever they might be bestowed with hope of good. And now,
when all was over, and I met her at the door, and she sank upon my
bosom, and wept in my embrace, still less than ever was I disposed to
show to her mother the natural triumph of a sagacity which had shown
itself at the expense of hers. I forgot, in the first glance of my
uncle, all his folly and unkindness. He was now a shadow, and the mental
wreck was one of the most deplorable, as it was one of the most rapid
and complete, that could be imagined. In less than seven months,
a strong man--strong in health--strong, as supposed, in
intellect--singularly acute in his dealings among tradesmen--regarded by
them as one of the most shrewd in the fraternity--vain of his parts, of
his family, and of his fortune--solicitous of display, and constant in
its indulgence!--that such a man should be stricken down to imbecility
and idiotism--a meagre skeleton in form--pale, puny, timid--crouching
by the fireplace--grinning with stealthy looks, momently cast around
him--and playing--his most constant employment--with the bellows strings
that hung beside him, or the little kitten, that, delighted with new
consideration, had learned to take her place constantly at his feet!
What a wreck!

But the moral man had been wrecked before, or this could not have been.
It was only because of his guilt--of its exposure rather--that he
sunk. In striving to shake off the oppressive burden, he shook off the
intellect which had been compelled chiefly to endure it. The sense of
shame, the conviction of loss, and, possibly, other causes of conscience
which lay yet deeper--for the progeny of crime is most frequently a
litter as numerous as a whelp's puppies--helped to crush the mind which
was neither strong enough to resist temptation at first, nor to bear
exposure at last. I turned away with a tear, which I could not suppress,
from the wretched spectacle. But I could have borne with more patience
to behold this ruin, than to subdue the rising reproach which I felt as
I turned to encounter Mrs. Clifford.

This weak woman, still weak, received me coldly, and I could see in her
looks that she regarded me as one whom it was natural to suppose would
feel some exultation at beholding their downfall. I saw this, but
determined to say nothing, in the attempt to undo these impressions. I
knew that time was the best teacher in all such matters, and resolved
that my deportment should gradually make her wiser on the subject of
that nature which she had so frequently abused, and which, I well
knew, she could never understand. But this hope I soon discovered to be
unavailing. Her disaster had only soured, not subdued her; and, with
the natural tendency of the vulgar mind, she seemed to regard me as the
person to whom she should ascribe all her misfortunes. As, to her narrow
intellect, it seemed natural that I should exult in the accomplishment
of my predictions, so it was a process equally natural that she should
couple me with their occurrence; and, indeed, I was too nearly connected
with the event, through the medium of my unconscious father, not to feel
some portion of the affliction on his account also; though neither his
memory nor my reputation suffered from the development of the affair in
the community where we lived.

Mrs. Clifford did not openly, or in words, betray the feelings which
were striving in her soul; but the general restraint which she put upon
herself in my presence, the acerbity of her tone, manner, and language,
to poor Julia, and the unvaried querulousness of her remarks, were
sufficient to apprize me of the spite which she would have willingly
bestowed upon myself, had she any tolerable occasion for doing so. A few
weeks served still further to humble the conceit and insolence of the
unfortunate woman. The affair turned out much more seriously than I
expected. A sudden fall in the value of real and personal estate, just
about the time when the sheriff's sale took place, rendered necessary
a second levy, which swept the miserable remnant of Mr. Clifford's
fortune, leaving nothing to my uncle but a small estate which had been
secured by settlement to Mrs. Clifford and her daughter, and which the
sheriff could not legally lay hands on.

I came forward at this juncture, and, having allowed them to remove into
the small tenement to which, in their reduced condition they found it
prudent to retire, I requested a private interview with Mrs. Clifford,
and readily obtained it.

I was received by the good lady in apparent state. All the little
furniture which she could save from the former, was transferred very
inappropriately to the present dwelling-house. The one was quite
unsuited to the other. The massive damask curtains accorded badly with
the little windows over which they were now suspended, and the sofa, ten
feet in length, occupied an unreasonable share of an apartment twelve by
sixteen. The dais of piled cushions, on which so many fashionable groups
had lounged in better times, now seemed a mountain, which begot ideas of
labor, difficulty, and up-hill employment, rather than ease, as the eye
beheld it cumbering two thirds of the miserable area into which it was
so untastefully compressed. These, and other articles of splendor and
luxury, if sold, would have yielded her the means to buy furniture more
suitable to her circumstances and situation, and left her with some
additional resources to meet the daily and sometimes pressing exigencies
of life.

The appearance of this parlor argued little in behalf of the salutary
effect which such reverses might be expected to produce in a mind even
tolerably sensible. They argued, I fancied, as unfavorably for my suit
as for the humility of the lady whom I was about to meet. If the
parlor of Mrs. Clifford bore such sufficient tokens of her weakness of
intellect, her own costume betrayed still more. She had made her person
a sort of frame or rack upon which she hung every particle of that
ostentatious drapery which she was in the habit of wearing at her
fashionable evenings. A year's income was paraded upon her back, and the
trumpery jewels of three generations found a place on every part of her
person where it is usual for fashionable folly to display such gewgaws.
She sailed into the room in a style that brought to my mind instantly
the description which Milton gives of the approach of Delilah to Samson,
after the first days of his blind captivity:--


   “But who is this, what thing of sea or land?--
    Female of sex it seems--
    That so bedecked, ornate and gay,
    Comes this way sailing, like a stately ship
    Of Tarsus, bound for the isles
    Of Javan or Gadire,
    With all her bravery on and tackle trim,
    Sails filled, and streamers waving,
    Courted by all the winds that hold their play,
    An amber scent of odorous perfume
    Her harbinger!”


No description could have been more, just and literal in the case of
Mrs. Clifford. I could scarce believe my eyes; and when forced to do
so, I could scarcely suppose that this bravery was intended for my eyes
only. Nor was it;--but let me not anticipate. This spectacle, I need
not say, sobered me entirely, if anything was necessary to produce this
effect, and increased the grave apprehensions which were already at my
heart. The next consequence was to make the manner of my communication
serious even to severity. A smile, which was of that doubtful sort which
is always sinister and offensive, overspread her lips as she motioned
me to resume the seat from which I had risen at her entrance; while she
threw herself with an air of studied negligence upon one part of the
sofa. I felt the awkwardness of my position duly increased, as her
house, dress, and manner, convinced me that she was not yet subdued to
hers; but a conscious rectitude of intention carried me forward, and
lightened the task to my feelings.

“Mrs. Clifford,” I said, without circumlocution, “I have presumed to ask
your attention this morning to a brief communication which materially
affects my happiness, and which I trust may not diminish, if it does not
actually promote, yours. Before I make this communication, however, I
hope I may persuade myself that the little misunderstandings which
have occurred between us are no longer to be considered barriers to our
mutual peace, and happiness--”

“Misunderstandings, Mr. Clifford?--I don't know what misunderstandings
you mean. I'm sure I've never misunderstood you.”

I could not misunderstand the insolent tenor of this speech, but
I availed myself of the equivoque which it involved to express my
gratification that such was the case.

“My path will then be more easy, Mrs. Clifford--my purpose more easily
explained.”

“I am glad you think so, sir,” she answered coolly, smoothing down
certain folds of her frock, and crossing her hands upon her lap, while
she assumed the attitude of a patient listener. There was something
very repulsive in all this; but I saw that the only way to lessen the
unpleasantness of the scene, and to get on with her, would be to make
the interview as short as possible, and come at once to my object. This
I did.

“It is now more than a year, Mrs. Clifford, since I had the honor to
say to my uncle, that I entertained for my cousin Julia such a degree
of affection as to make it no longer doubtful to me that I should best
consult my own happiness by seeking to make her my wife. I had the
pleasure at the same time to inform him, which I believed to be true,
that Julia herself was not unwilling that such should be the nearer tie
between us--”

“Yes, yes, Mr. Clifford, I know all this; but my husband and myself
thought better of it, and--” she said with fidgety impatience.

“And my application was refused,” I said calmly; thus finishing the
sentence where she had paused.

“Well, sir, and what then?”

“At that time, madam, my uncle gave as a reason that he had other
arrangements in view.”

“Yes, sir, so we had; and this reminds me that those arrangements were
broken off entirely in consequence of the perversity which you taught
my daughter. I know it all, sir; there's no more need to tell me of
it, than there is to deny it. You put my daughter up to refusing young
Roberts, who would have jumped at her, as his father did--and he one of
the best families and best fortunes in the city. I'm sure I don't know,
sir, what object you can have in reminding me of these things.”

Here was ingenious perversity. I bore with it as well as I could, and
strove to preserve my consideration and calmness.

“You do your daughter injustice, Mrs. Clifford, and me no less, in
this opinion. But I do not seek to remind you of misunderstandings and
mistakes, the memory of which can do no good. My purpose now is to renew
the offer to you which I originally made to Mr. Clifford. My attachment
to your daughter remains unaltered, and I am happy to say that fortune
has favored me so far as to enable me to place her in a situation of
comparative comfort and independence which I could not offer then--”

“Which is as much as to say that she don't enjoy comfort and
independence where she is; and if she does not, sir, to whom is it all
owing, sir, but to you and your father? By your means it is that we are
reduced to poverty; but you shall see, sir, that we are not entirely
wanting in independence. My answer, sir, is just the same as Mr.
Clifford's was. I am very much obliged to you for THE HONOR you intend
my family, but we must decline it. As for the comfort and independence
which you proffer to my daughter, I am happy to inform you that she
can receive it at any moment from a source perhaps far more able than
yourself to afford both, if her perversity does not stand in the way,
as it did when young Roberts made his offers. Mr. Perkins, sir, the
excellent young man that you tried to murder, is to be here, sir, this
very morning, to see my daughter. Here's his letter, sir, which you may
read, that you may be under no apprehensions that my daughter will ever
suffer from a want of comfort and independence.”

She flung a letter down on the sofa beside her, but I simply bowed, and
declined looking at it. I did not, however, yield the contest in this
manner. I urged all that might properly be urged on the subject, and
with as much earnestness as could be permitted in an interview with a
lady--and such a lady!--but, as the reader may suppose, my toils were
taken in vain: all that I could suggest, either in the shape of reason
or expostulation, only served to make her more and more dogged, and
to increase her tone of insolence; and sore, stung with vexation,
disappointed, and something more than bewildered, I dashed almost
headlong out of the house, without seeing either Julia or her father,
precisely at the moment when Mr. Perkins was about to enter.



CHAPTER XI.

CRISIS.


The result of this interview of my rival with the mother of Julia, was
afforded me by the latter. The mother had already given her consent to
his suit--that of Julia alone was to be obtained; and to this end the
arts of the suitor and the mother were equally devoted. Her refusal only
brought with it new forms of persecution. Her steps were haunted by the
swain, to whom Mrs. Clifford gave secret notice of all her daughter's
intentions. He was her invariable attendant at church, where I had
the pain constantly to behold them, in such close proximity, that I at
length abandoned the customary house of worship, and found my pew in
another, where I could be enabled to endure the forms of service without
being oppressed by foreign and distracting thoughts and fancies.

Of the progress of the suit I had occasional intelligence from Julia
herself, whom I had, very reluctantly on her part, persuaded to meet me
at the house of a female relative and friend, who favored our desires
and managed our interviews. Brief were these stolen moments, but oh, how
blissful! The pleasures they afforded, however, were almost wholly mine.
The clandestine character of our meetings served to deprive her of the
joy which they otherwise might have yielded; and the fear that she was
not doing right, humbled her spirit and made her tremble with frequent
apprehensions.

At length Mrs. Clifford suspected our interviews, and detected them.
We had a most stormy scene on one occasion, when the sudden entrance
of this lady surprised us together, at the house of our friend. The
consequence of this was, a rupture between the ladies, which resulted in
Julia's being forbidden to visit the house of her relative again. This
measure was followed by others of such precaution, that at length I
could no longer communicate with her, or even seek her, unless when she
was on her way to church. Her appearance then was such as to awaken
all my apprehensions. Her form, always slender, was become more so.
The change was striking in a single week. Her face, usually pale and
delicate, was now haggard. Her walk was feeble, and without elasticity.
Her whole appearance was wo-begone and utterly spiritless. Days
and weeks passed, and my heart was filled with hourly-increasing
apprehensions. I returned to the familiar church, but here I suffered a
new alarm. That sabbath the family pew was unoccupied. While I trembled
lest something serious had befallen her, I was called on by the family
physician. This gentleman had been always friendly. He had been my
father's physician, and had been his friend and frequent guest; he knew
my history, and sympathized with my fortunes. He now know the history
of Julia's affections. She had made him her confidante so far, and he
brought me a letter from her. She was sick, as I expected. This letter
was of startling tenor:--

“Save me, Edward, if you can. I am now willing to do as you proposed.
I can no longer endure these annoyances--these cruel persecutions! My
mother tells me that I must submit and marry this man, if we would save
ourselves from ruin. It seems he has a claim against the estate for
professional services; and as we have no other means of payment, without
the sale of all that is left, he is base enough to insist upon my
hand as the condition of his forbearance. He uses threats now, since
entreaties have failed him. Oh, Edward, if you can save me, come!--for
of a certainty, I can not bear this persecution much long and live. I am
now willing to consent to do what Aunt Sophy recommended. Do not think
me bold to say so, dear Edward--if I am bold, it is despair which makes
me so.”

I read this letter with mingled feelings of indignation and
delight--indignation, because of the cruelties to which the worthless
mother and the base suitor subjected one so dear and innocent delight,
since the consent which she now yielded placed the means of saving her
at my control. The consent was to flight and clandestine marriage, to
which I had, with the assistance of our mutual friend, endeavored to
persuade her, in several instances, before.

The question now was, how to effect this object, since we had no
opportunities for communication; but, before I took any steps in the
matter, I made it a point of duty to deprive the infamous attorney,
Perkins, of his means of power over the unhappy family. I determined
to pay his legal charges; and William Edgerton, at my request, readily
undertook this part of the business. They were found to be extortionate,
and far beyond anything either warranted by the practice or the fee
bill. Edgerton counselled me to resist the claim; but the subject was
too delicate in all its relations, and my own affair with Perkins would
have made my active opposition seem somewhat the consequence of malice
and inveterate hostility. I preferred to pay the excess, which was done
by Edgerton, rather than have any further dispute or difficulty with
one whom I so much despised. Complete satisfaction was entered upon
the records of the court, and a certified discharge, under the hand
of Perkins himself--which he gave with a reluctance full of
mortification--was sent in a blank envelope to Mrs. Clifford. She was
thus deprived of the only excuse--if, indeed, such a woman ever needs an
excuse for wilfulness--for persecuting her unhappy daughter on the score
of the attorney.

But the possession of this document effected no sort of change in her
conduct. She pursued her victim with the same old tenacity. It was not
to favor Perkins that she strove for this object: it was to baffle ME.
That blind heart, which misguides all of us in turn, was predominant in
her, and rendered her totally incapable of seeing the cruel consequences
to her daughter which her perseverance threatened. Julia was now so
feeble as scarcely to leave her chamber; the physician was daily in
attendance; and, though I could not propose to make use of his services
in promoting a design which would subject him to the reproach of the
grossest treachery, yet, without counsel, he took it upon him plainly
to assure the mother that the disorder of her daughter arose solely from
her mental afflictions. He went farther. Mrs. Clifford, whose garrulity
was as notorious as her vanity and folly, herself took occasion, when
this was told her, to ascribe the effect to me; and, with her own
coloring, she continued, by going into a long history of our “course of
wooing.” The doctor availed himself of these statements to suggest the
necessity of a compromise, assuring Mrs. Clifford that I was really
a more deserving person than she thought me, and, in short, that some
concessions must be made, if it was her hope to save her daughter's
life.

“She is naturally feeble of frame, nervous and sensitive, and these
excitements, pressing upon her, will break down her constitution and her
spirits together. Let me warn you, Mrs. Clifford, while yet in season.
Dismiss your prejudices against this young man, whether well or ill
founded, and permit your daughter to marry him. Suffer me to assure you,
Mrs. Clifford, that such an event will do more toward her recovery than
all my medicine.”

“What, and see him the master of my house--he, the poor beggar-boy that
my husband fed in charity, and who turned from him with ingratitude in
his moment of difficulty, and left him to be despoiled by his enemies?
Never! never! Daughter of mine shall never be wife of his! The serpent!
to sting the hand of his benefactor!”

“My dear Mrs. Clifford, this prejudice of yours, besides being totally
unfounded, amounts to monomania. Now, I know something of all these
matters, as you should be aware; and I should be sorry to counsel
anything to you or to your family which would be either disgraceful or
injurious. So far from this young man being ungrateful, neglectful, or
suffering your husband to be preyed on by enemies, I am of opinion that,
if his counsel had been taken in this late unhappy business, you would
probably have been spared all of the misery and nearly one half of the
loss which has been incurred by the refusal to do so.”

“And so you, too, are against us, doctor? You, too, believe everything
that this young man tells you?”

“No, madam; I assure you, honestly, that I never heard a single word
from his lips in regard to this subject. It is spoken of by everybody
but himself.”

“Ay! ay! the whole town knows it, and from who else but him, I wonder?
But you needn't to talk, doctor, on the subject. My mind's made up.
Edward Clifford, while I have breath to say 'No,' and a hand to turn the
lock of the door against him, shall never again darken these doors!”

The physician was a man of too much experience to waste labor upon a
case so decidedly hopeless. He knew that no art within his compass could
cure so thorough a case of heart-blindness, and he gave her up; but he
did not give up Julia. He whispered words of consolation into her ears,
which, though vague, were yet far more useful than physic.

“Cheer up, my daughter; be of good heart and faith. I AM SURE that there
will be some remedy provided for you, before long, which will do you
good. I have given the letter to your aunt, and she promises to do as
you wish.”

It may be said, en passant, that the billet sent to me had been covered
in another to my female friend and Julia's relative; and that the
doctor, though not unconscious of the agency of this lady between us,
was yet guilty of no violation of the faith which is always implied
between the family and the physician. He might SUSPECT, but he did not
KNOW; and whatever might have been his suspicions, he certainly did not
have the most distant idea of that concession which Julia had made, and
of the course of conduct for which her mother's persecutions had now
prepared her mind.

Mr. Perkins, though deprived of his lien upon Mrs. Clifford, by reason
of his claim, did not in the least forego his intentions. His complaints
and threatenings necessarily ceased--his tone was something lowered;
but he possessed a hold upon this silly woman's prejudices which was
far superior to any which he might before have had upon her fears. His
hostility to me was grateful to the hate which she also entertained,
and which seemed to be more thoroughly infixed in her after her
downfall--which, as it has been seen, she ascribed to me; chiefly
because of my predictions that such would be the case. In due proportion
to her hate for me, was her desire to baffle my wishes, even though it
might be at the expense of her own daughter's life. But a vain mother
has no affections--none, at least, worthy of the name, and none which
she is not prepared to discard at the first requisition of her dearer
self. Her hate of me was so extreme as to render her blind to everything
besides--her daughter's sickness, the counsel of the physician, the
otherwise obvious vulgarity and meanness of Perkins, and that gross
injustice which I had suffered at her hands from the beginning, and
which, to many minds, might have amply justified in me the hostile
feelings which she laid to my charge. In this blindness she precipitated
events, and by her cruelty justified extremities in self-defence. The
moment that Julia exhibited some slight improvement, she was summoned
to an interview with Perkins, and in this interview her mother solemnly
swore that she should marry him. The base-minded suitor stood by in
silence, beheld the loathing of the maiden, heard her distinct refusal,
yet clung to his victim, and permitted the violence of the mother,
without rebuke--that rebuke which the true gentleman might have
administered in such a case, and which, to forbear, was the foulest
shame--the rebuke of his own decided refusal to participate in such
a sacrifice. But he was not capable of this; and Julia, stunned and
terrified, was shocked to hear Mrs. Clifford appoint the night of the
following Thursday for the forced nuptials.

“She will consent--she shall consent, Mr. Perkins,” were the vehement
assurances of the mother, as the craven-spirited suitor prepared to take
his leave. “I know her better than you do, and she knows me. Do you fear
nothing, but bring Mr--” (the divine) “along with you. We shall put an
end to this folly.”

“Oh, do not, do not, mother, if you would not drive me mad!” was the
exclamation of the destined victim, as she threw herself at the feet of
her unnatural parent. “You will kill me to wed this man! I can not marry
him--I can not love him. Why would you force this matter upon me--why!
why!”

“Why will you resist me, Julia? why will you provoke your mother to this
degree? You have only to consent willingly, and you know how kind I am.”

“I can not consent!” was the gasping decision of the maiden.

“You shall! you must! you will!”

“Never! never! On my knees I say it, mother. God will witness what you
refuse to believe. I will die before I consent to marry where I do not
give my heart.”

“Oh, you talk of dying, as if it was a very easy matter. But you won't
die. It's more easy to say than do. Do you come, Mr. Perkins. Don't you
mind--don't you believe in these denials, and oaths, and promises. It's
the way with all young ladies. They all make a mighty fuss when they're
going to be married; but they're all mighty willing, if the truth was
known. I ought to know something about it. I did just the same as she
when I was going to marry Mr. Clifford; yet nobody was more willing than
I was to get a husband. Do you come and bring the parson; she'll sing a
different tune when she stands up before him, I warrant you.”

“That shall never be, Mr. Perkins!” said the maiden solemnly, and
somewhat approaching the person whom she addressed. “I have already more
than once declined the honor you propose to do me. I now repeat to you
that I will sooner marry the grave and the winding-sheet than be your
wife! My mother mistakes me and all my feelings. For your own sake, if
not for mine, I beg that YOU will not mistake them; for, if the strength
is left me for speech, I will declare aloud to the reverend man whom you
are told to bring, the nature of those persecutions to which you have
been privy. I will tell him of the cruelty which I have been compelled
to endure, and which you have beheld and encouraged with your silence.”

Perkins looked aghast, muttered his unwillingness to prosecute his suit
under such circumstances, and prepared to take his leave. His mutterings
and apologies were all swallowed up in that furious storm of abuse and
denunciation which now poured from the lips of the exemplary mother.
These we need not repeat. Suffice it that the deep feelings of
Julia--her sense of propriety and good taste--prevailed to keep her
silent, while her mother, still raving, renewed her assurances to the
pettifogger that he should certainly receive his wife at her hands on
the evening of the ensuing Thursday. The unmanly suitor accepted her
assurances--and took leave of mother and daughter, with the expression
of a simpering hope, intended chiefly for the latter, that her
objections would resolve themselves into the usual maidenly scruples
when the appointed time should arrive. Julia mustered strength enough to
reply in language which brought down another storm from her mother upon
her devoted head.

“Do not deceive Perkins--do not let the assurances of my mother deceive
you. She does not know me. I can not and will not marry you. I will
sooner marry the grave--the winding-sheet--the worm!”

Her strength failed her the moment he left the apartment. She sank in a
fainting-fit upon the floor, and was thus saved from hearing the bitter
abuse which her miserable and misguided parent continued to lavish upon
her, even while undertaking the task of her restoration. The evident
exhaustion of her frame, her increasing feebleness, the agony of her
mind, and the possibly fatal termination of her indisposition, did not
in the least serve to modify the violent and vexing mood of this most
unnatural woman!



CHAPTER XII.

“GONE TO BE MARRIED.”


These proceedings, the tenor of which was briefly communicated to me
in a hurried note from Julia, despatched by the hands of the physician,
under a cover, to the friendly aunt, rendered it imperatively necessary
that, whatever we proposed to do should be done quickly, if we
entertained any hope to save.

The tone of her epistle alarmed me exceedingly in one respect, as
it evidently showed that she could not much longer save herself. Her
courage was sinking with her spirits, which were yielding rapidly
beneath the continued presence of that persecution which had so long
been acting upon her. She began now to distrust her own strength--her
very powers of utterance to declare her aversion to the proposed
marriage, if ever the trial was brought to the threatened issue before
the holy man.

“What am I to do--what say--” demanded her trembling epistle, “should
they go so far? Am I to declare the truth?--can I tell to strange ears
that it is my mother who forces this cruel sacrifice upon me? I dread I
can not. I fear that my soul and voice will equally fail me. I tremble,
dear Edward, when I think that the awful moment may find me speechless,
and my consent may be assumed from my silence. Save me from this trial,
dearest Edward; for I fear everything now--and fear myself--my unhappy
weakness of nerve and spirit more than all. Do not leave me to this
trial of my strength--for I have none. Save me if you can!”

It may be readily believed that I needed little soliciting to exertion
after this. The words of this letter occasioned an alarm in my mind,
little less--though of a different kind--than that which prevailed
in hers. I knew the weakness of hers--I knew hers--and felt the
apprehension that she might fail at the proper moment, even more vividly
than she expressed it.

This letter did not take me by surprise. Before it was received, and
soon after the first with which she had favored me, by the hands of the
friendly physician, I had begun my preparations with the view to our
clandestine marriage. I was only now required to quicken them. The
obstacle, on the face of it, was, comparatively, a small one. To get her
from a dwelling, in which, though her steps were watched, she was not
exactly a prisoner, was scarcely a difficulty, where the lover and the
lady are equally willing.

Our mode of operations was simple. There was a favorite servant--a
negro--who had been raised in the family, had been a playmate with my
poor deceased cousin and myself, and had always been held in particular
regard by both of us. He was not what is called a house-servant, but
was employed in the yard in doing various offices, such as cutting wood,
tending the garden, going of messages, and so forth. This was in the
better days of the Clifford family. Since its downfall he had been
instructed to look an owner, and, opportunely, at this moment, when I
was deliberating upon the process I should adopt for the extrication of
his young mistress, he came to me to request that I would buy him.
The presence of this servant suggested to me that he could assist me
materially in my plans. Without suffering him to know the intention
which I had formed I listened to his garrulous harangue. A negro is
usually very copious, where he has an auditor; and though, from his
situation, he could directly see nothing of the proceedings in the house
of his owner, yet, from his fellow-servants he had contrived to gather,
perhaps, a very correct account of the general condition of things. It
appeared from his story that the attachment of Miss Julia to myself was
very commonly understood. The effort of the mother to persuade her to
marry Perkins was also known to him; but of the ar

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