← catalogue

Eugene Aram — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton · English · Gutenberg #7614 · 933,138 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Eugene Aram — Complete
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Eugene Aram — Complete

Author: Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton


        
Release date: November 22, 2004 [eBook #7614]
                Most recently updated: August 28, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7614

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENE ARAM — COMPLETE ***




Produced by David Widger








EUGENE ARAM

A TALE


By Edward Bulwer Lytton



TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., ETC.

SIR,--It has long been my ambition to add some humble tribute to the
offerings laid upon the shrine of your genius. At each succeeding book
that I have given to the world, I have paused to consider if it were
worthy to be inscribed with your great name, and at each I have played
the procrastinator, and hoped for that morrow of better desert which
never came. But ‘defluat amnis’,--the time runs on; and I am tired of
waiting for the ford which the tides refuse. I seize, then, the present
opportunity, not as the best, but as the only one I can be sure of
commanding, to express that affectionate admiration with which you have
inspired me in common with all your contemporaries, and which a French
writer has not ungracefully termed “the happiest prerogative of genius.”
 As a Poet and as a Novelist your fame has attained to that height in
which praise has become superfluous; but in the character of the writer
there seems to me a yet higher claim to veneration than in that of the
writings. The example your genius sets us, who can emulate? The example
your moderation bequeaths to us, who shall forget? That nature
must indeed be gentle which has conciliated the envy that pursues
intellectual greatness, and left without an enemy a man who has no
living equal in renown.

You have gone for a while from the scenes you have immortalized, to
regain, we trust, the health which has been impaired by your noble
labors or by the manly struggles with adverse fortunes which have not
found the frame as indomitable as the mind. Take with you the prayers of
all whom your genius, with playful art, has soothed in sickness, or has
strengthened, with generous precepts, against the calamities of life.

   [Written at the time of Sir W. Scott’s visit to Italy, after the
   great blow to his health and fortunes.]

          “Navis quae, tibi creditum
           Debes Virgilium...
           Reddas incolumem!”

     “O ship, thou owest to us Virgil! Restore in
     safety him whom we intrusted to thee.”

You, I feel assured, will not deem it presumptuous in one who, to
that bright and undying flame which now streams from the gray hills
of Scotland,--the last halo with which you have crowned her literary
glories,--has turned from his first childhood with a deep and unrelaxing
devotion; you, I feel assured, will not deem it presumptuous in him to
inscribe an idle work with your illustrious name,--a work which, however
worthless in itself, assumes something of value in his eyes when thus
rendered a tribute of respect to you.

THE AUTHOR OF “EUGENE ARAM.”

LONDON, December 22, 1831.




PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1831.

Since, dear Reader, I last addressed thee, in “Paul Clifford,” nearly
two years have elapsed, and somewhat more than four years since, in
“Pelham,” our familiarity first began. The Tale which I now submit to
thee differs equally from the last as from the first of those works; for
of the two evils, perhaps it is even better to disappoint thee in a new
style than to weary thee with an old. With the facts on which the
tale of “Eugene Aram” is founded, I have exercised the common and fair
license of writers of fiction it is chiefly the more homely parts of the
real story that have been altered; and for what I have added, and what
omitted, I have the sanction of all established authorities, who have
taken greater liberties with characters yet more recent, and far more
protected by historical recollections. The book was, for the most part,
written in the early part of the year, when the interest which the task
created in the Author was undivided by other subjects of excitement, and
he had leisure enough not only to be ‘nescio quid meditans nugarum,’ but
also to be ‘totes in illis.’

   [“Not only to be meditating I know not what of trifles, but also to
   be wholly engaged on them.”]

I originally intended to adapt the story of Eugene Aram to the Stage.
That design was abandoned when more than half completed; but I wished to
impart to this Romance something of the nature of Tragedy,--something
of the more transferable of its qualities. Enough of this: it is not the
Author’s wishes, but the Author’s books that the world will judge him
by. Perhaps, then (with this I conclude), in the dull monotony of public
affairs, and in these long winter evenings, when we gather round the
fire, prepared for the gossip’s tale, willing to indulge the fear and
to believe the legend, perhaps, dear Reader, thou mayest turn, not
reluctantly, even to these pages, for at least a newer excitement than
the Cholera, or for momentary relief from the everlasting discussion on
“the Bill.” [The year of the Reform Bill.]

LONDON, December 22, 1831.





PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840.

The strange history of Eugene Aram had excited my interest and wonder
long before the present work was composed or conceived. It so happened
that during Aram’s residence at Lynn his reputation for learning had
attracted the notice of my grandfather,--a country gentleman living in
the same county, and of more intelligence and accomplishments than, at
that day, usually characterized his class. Aram frequently visited at
Heydon (my grandfather’s house), and gave lessons--probably in no very
elevated branches of erudition--to the younger members of the family.
This I chanced to hear when I was on a visit in Norfolk some two years
before this novel was published; and it tended to increase the interest
with which I had previously speculated on the phenomena of a trial
which, take it altogether, is perhaps the most remarkable in the
register of English crime. I endeavored to collect such anecdotes of
Aram’s life and manners as tradition and hearsay still kept afloat.
These anecdotes were so far uniform that they all concurred in
representing him as a person who, till the detection of the crime for
which he was sentenced, had appeared of the mildest character and the
most unexceptionable morals. An invariable gentleness and patience in
his mode of tuition--qualities then very uncommon at school--had made
him so beloved by his pupils at Lynn that, in after life, there was
scarcely one of them who did not persist in the belief of his innocence.

His personal and moral peculiarities, as described in these pages, are
such as were related to me by persons who had heard him described by his
contemporaries, the calm, benign countenance; the delicate health; the
thoughtful stoop; the noiseless step; the custom, not uncommon with
scholars and absent men, of muttering to himself; a singular eloquence
in conversation, when once roused from silence; an active tenderness
and charity to the poor, with whom he was always ready to share his own
scanty means; an apparent disregard for money, except when employed in
the purchase of books; an utter indifference to the ambition usually
accompanying self-taught talent, whether to better the condition or to
increase the repute: these, and other traits of the character portrayed
in the novel, are, as far as I can rely on my information, faithful to
the features of the original.

That a man thus described--so benevolent that he would rob his own
necessities to administer to those of another, so humane that he would
turn aside from the worm in his path--should have been guilty of the
foulest of human crimes, namely, murder for the sake of gain; that a
crime thus committed should have been so episodical and apart from the
rest of his career that, however it might rankle in his conscience,
it should never have hardened his nature; that through a life of some
duration, none of the errors, none of the vices, which would seem
essentially to belong to a character capable of a deed so black,
from motives apparently so sordid, should have been discovered or
suspected,--all this presents all anomaly in human conduct so rare and
surprising that it would be difficult to find any subject more adapted
for that metaphysical speculation and analysis, in order to indulge
which, Fiction, whether in the drama or the higher class of romance,
seeks its materials and grounds its lessons in the chronicles of passion
and crime.

   [For I put wholly out of question the excuse of jealousy, as
   unsupported by any evidence, never hinted at by Aram himself
   (at least on any sufficient authority), and at variance with the
   only fact which the trial establishes; namely, that the robbery was
   the crime planned, and the cause, whether accidental or otherwise,
   of the murder.]

The guilt of Eugene Aram is not that of a vulgar ruffian; it leads to
views and considerations vitally and wholly distinct from those with
which profligate knavery and brutal cruelty revolt and displease us in
the literature of Newgate and the hulks. His crime does, in fact, belong
to those startling paradoxes which the poetry of all countries, and
especially of our own, has always delighted to contemplate and examine.
Whenever crime appears the aberration and monstrous product of a great
intellect or of a nature ordinarily virtuous, it becomes not only
the subject for genius, which deals with passions, to describe, but a
problem for philosophy, which deals with actions, to investigate and
solve; hence the Macbeths and Richards, the Iagos and Othellos. My
regret, therefore, is not that I chose a subject unworthy of elevated
fiction, but that such a subject did not occur to some one capable of
treating it as it deserves; and I never felt this more strongly than
when the late Mr. Godwin (in conversing with me after the publication
of this romance) observed that he had always thought the story of Eugene
Aram peculiarly adapted for fiction, and that he had more than once
entertained the notion of making it the foundation of a novel. I can
well conceive what depth and power that gloomy record would have taken
from the dark and inquiring genius of the author of “Caleb Williams.”
 In fact, the crime and trial of Eugene Aram arrested the attention and
engaged the conjectures of many of the most eminent men of his own time.
His guilt or innocence was the matter of strong contest; and so keen
and so enduring was the sensation created by an event thus completely
distinct from the ordinary annals of human crime that even History
turned aside from the sonorous narrative of the struggles of parties
and the feuds of kings to commemorate the learning and the guilt of
the humble schoolmaster of Lynn. Did I want any other answer to the
animadversions of commonplace criticism, it might be sufficient to
say that what the historian relates the novelist has little right to
disdain.

Before entering on this romance, I examined with some care the
probabilities of Aram’s guilt; for I need scarcely perhaps observe that
the legal evidence against him is extremely deficient,--furnished almost
entirely by one (Houseman) confessedly an accomplice of the crime and
a partner in the booty, and that in the present day a man tried
upon evidence so scanty and suspicious would unquestionably escape
conviction. Nevertheless, I must frankly own that the moral evidence
appeared to me more convincing than the legal; and though not without
some doubt, which, in common with many, I still entertain of the real
facts of the murder, I adopted that view which, at all events, was the
best suited to the higher purposes of fiction. On the whole, I still
think that if the crime were committed by Aram, the motive was not very
far removed from one which led recently to a remarkable murder in Spain.
A priest in that country, wholly absorbed in learned pursuits, and
apparently of spotless life, confessed that, being debarred by extreme
poverty from prosecuting a study which had become the sole passion of
his existence, he had reasoned himself into the belief that it would
be admissible to rob a very dissolute, worthless man if he applied the
money so obtained to the acquisition of a knowledge which he could
not otherwise acquire, and which he held to be profitable to mankind.
Unfortunately, the dissolute rich man was not willing to be robbed for
so excellent a purpose; he was armed and he resisted. A struggle ensued,
and the crime of homicide was added to that of robbery. The robbery was
premeditated; the murder was accidental. But he who would accept some
similar interpretation of Aram’s crime must, to comprehend fully the
lessons which belong to so terrible a picture of frenzy and guilt,
consider also the physical circumstances and condition of the criminal
at the time,--severe illness, intense labor of the brain, poverty
bordering upon famine, the mind preternaturally at work devising schemes
and excuses to arrive at the means for ends ardently desired. And all
this duly considered, the reader may see the crime bodying itself out
from the shades and chimeras of a horrible hallucination,--the awful
dream of a brief but delirious and convulsed disease. It is thus only
that we can account for the contradiction of one deed at war with a
whole life,--blasting, indeed, forever the happiness, but making little
revolution in the pursuits and disposition of the character. No one who
has examined with care and thoughtfulness the aspects of Life and Nature
but must allow that in the contemplation of such a spectacle, great and
most moral truths must force themselves on the notice and sink deep
into the heart. The entanglements of human reasoning; the influence
of circumstance upon deeds; the perversion that may be made, by one
self-palter with the Fiend, of elements the most glorious; the secret
effect of conscience in frustrating all for which the crime was
done, leaving genius without hope, knowledge without fruit, deadening
benevolence into mechanism, tainting love itself with terror and
suspicion,--such reflections (leading, with subtler minds, to many more
vast and complicated theorems in the consideration of our nature, social
and individual) arise out of the tragic moral which the story of Eugene
Aram (were it but adequately treated) could not fail to convey.

BRUSSELS, August, 1840.




PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

If none of my prose works have been so attacked as “Eugene Aram,” none
have so completely triumphed over attack. It is true that, whether
from real or affected ignorance of the true morality of fiction, a few
critics may still reiterate the old commonplace charges of “selecting
heroes from Newgate,” or “investing murderers with interest;” but the
firm hold which the work has established in the opinion of the general
public, and the favor it has received in every country where English
literature is known, suffice to prove that, whatever its faults, it
belongs to that legitimate class of fiction which illustrates life and
truth, and only deals with crime as the recognized agency of pity and
terror in the conduct of tragic narrative. All that I would say further
on this score has been said in the general defence of my writings which
I put forth two years ago; and I ask the indulgence of the reader if I
repeat myself:--

   “Here, unlike the milder guilt of Paul Clifford, the author was not
   to imply reform to society, nor open in this world atonement and
   pardon to the criminal. As it would have been wholly in vain to
   disguise, by mean tamperings with art and truth, the ordinary habits
   of life and attributes of character which all record and remembrance
   ascribed to Eugene Aram; as it would have defeated every end of the
   moral inculcated by his guilt, to portray, in the caricature of the
   murderer of melodrama, a man immersed in study, of whom it was noted
   that he turned aside from the worm in his path,--so I have allowed
   to him whatever contrasts with his inexpiable crime have been
   recorded on sufficient authority. But I have invariably taken care
   that the crime itself should stand stripped of every sophistry, and
   hideous to the perpetrator as well as to the world. Allowing all by
   which attention to his biography may explain the tremendous paradox
   of fearful guilt in a man aspiring after knowledge, and not
   generally inhumane; allowing that the crime came upon him in the
   partial insanity produced by the combining circumstances of a brain
   overwrought by intense study, disturbed by an excited imagination
   and the fumes of a momentary disease of the reasoning faculty,
   consumed by the desire of knowledge, unwholesome and morbid, because
   coveted as an end, not a means, added to the other physical causes
   of mental aberration to be found in loneliness, and want verging
   upon famine,--all these, which a biographer may suppose to have
   conspired to his crime, have never been used by the novelist as
   excuses for its enormity, nor indeed, lest they should seem as
   excuses, have they ever been clearly presented to the view. The
   moral consisted in showing more than the mere legal punishment at
   the close. It was to show how the consciousness of the deed was to
   exclude whatever humanity of character preceded and belied it from
   all active exercise, all social confidence; how the knowledge of the
   bar between the minds of others and his own deprived the criminal of
   all motive to ambition, and blighted knowledge of all fruit.
   Miserable in his affections, barren in his intellect; clinging to
   solitude, yet accursed in it; dreading as a danger the fame he had
   once coveted; obscure in spite of learning, hopeless in spite of
   love, fruitless and joyless in his life, calamitous and shameful in
   his end,--surely such is no palliative of crime, no dalliance and
   toying with the grimness of evil! And surely to any ordinary
   comprehension and candid mind such is the moral conveyed by the
   fiction of ‘Eugene Aram.’”--[A word to the Public, 1847]

In point of composition “Eugene Aram” is, I think, entitled to
rank amongst the best of my fictions. It somewhat humiliates me to
acknowledge that neither practice nor study has enabled me to surpass
a work written at a very early age, in the skilful construction and
patient development of plot; and though I have since sought to call
forth higher and more subtle passions, I doubt if I have ever excited
the two elementary passions of tragedy,--namely, pity and terror,--to
the same degree. In mere style, too, “Eugene Aram,” in spite of certain
verbal oversights, and defects in youthful taste (some of which I have
endeavored to remove from the present edition), appears to me unexcelled
by any of my later writings,--at least in what I have always studied as
the main essential of style in narrative; namely, its harmony with the
subject selected and the passions to be moved,--while it exceeds them
all in the minuteness and fidelity of its descriptions of external
nature. This indeed it ought to do, since the study of external nature
is made a peculiar attribute of the principal character, whose fate
colors the narrative. I do not know whether it has been observed that
the time occupied by the events of the story is conveyed through the
medium of such descriptions. Each description is introduced, not for its
own sake, but to serve as a calendar marking the gradual changes of the
seasons as they bear on to his doom the guilty worshipper of Nature. And
in this conception, and in the care with which it has been followed
out, I recognize one of my earliest but most successful attempts at the
subtler principles of narrative art.

In this edition I have made one alteration somewhat more important than
mere verbal correction. On going, with maturer judgment, over all the
evidences on which Aram was condemned, I have convinced myself that
though an accomplice in the robbery of Clarke, he was free both from the
premeditated design and the actual deed of murder. The crime, indeed,
would still rest on his conscience and insure his punishment, as
necessarily incidental to the robbery in which he was an accomplice,
with Houseman; but finding my convictions, that in the murder itself he
had no share, borne out by the opinion of many eminent lawyers by whom
I have heard the subject discussed, I have accordingly so shaped his
confession to Walter.

Perhaps it will not be without interest to the reader if I append to
this preface an authentic specimen of Eugene Aram’s composition, for
which I am indebted to the courtesy of a gentleman by whose grandfather
it was received, with other papers (especially a remarkable “Outline of
a New Lexicon”), during Aram’s confinement in York prison. The essay
I select is, indeed, not without value in itself as a very curious and
learned illustration of Popular Antiquities, and it serves also to show
not only the comprehensive nature of Aram’s studies and the inquisitive
eagerness of his mind, but also the fact that he was completely
self-taught; for in contrast to much philological erudition, and to
passages that evince considerable mastery in the higher resources of
language, we may occasionally notice those lesser inaccuracies from
which the writings of men solely self-educated are rarely free,--indeed
Aram himself, in sending to a gentleman an elegy on Sir John Armitage,
which shows much, but undisciplined, power of versification, says, “I
send this elegy, which, indeed, if you had not had the curiosity to
desire, I could not have had the assurance to offer, scarce believing I,
who was hardly taught to read, have any abilities to write.”

         THE MELSUPPER AND SHOUTING THE CHURN.

These rural entertainments and usages were formerly more general all
over England than they are at present, being become by time, necessity,
or avarice, complex, confined, and altered. They are commonly insisted
upon by the reapers as customary things, and a part of their due for the
toils of the harvest, and complied with by their masters perhaps more
through regards of interest than inclination; for should they refuse
them the pleasures of this much-expected time, this festal night, the
youth especially, of both sexes would decline serving them for the
future, and employ their labors for others, who would promise them the
rustic joys of the harvest-supper, mirth and music, dance and song.
These feasts appear to be the relics of Pagan ceremonies or of Judaism,
it is hard to say which, and carry in them more meaning and are of far
higher antiquity than is generally apprehended. It is true the subject
is more curious than important, and I believe altogether untouched; and
as it seems to be little understood, has been as little adverted to.
I do not remember it to have been so much as the subject of a
conversation. Let us make, then, a little excursion into this field, for
the same reason men sometimes take a walk. Its traces are discoverable
at a very great distance of time from ours,--nay, seem as old as a sense
of joy for the benefit of plentiful harvests and human gratitude to the
eternal Creator for His munificence to men. We hear it under various
names in different counties, and often in the same county; as,
“melsupper,” “churn-supper,” “harvest-supper,” “harvest-home,” “feast of
in-gathering,” etc. And perhaps this feast had been long observed, and
by different tribes of people, before it became preceptive with the
Jews. However, let that be as it will, the custom very lucidly appears
from the following passages of S. S., Exod. xxiii. 16, “And the feast
of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in
the field.” And its institution as a sacred rite is commanded in Levit.
xxiii. 39: “When ye have gathered in the fruit of the land ye shall keep
a feast to the Lord.”

The Jews then, as is evident from hence, celebrated the feast of
harvest, and that by precept; and though no vestiges of any such feast
either are or can be produced before these, yet the oblation of the
Primitae, of which this feast was a consequence, is met with prior
to this, for we find that “Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an
offering to the Lord” (Gen. iv. 3).

Yet this offering of the first-fruits, it may well be supposed was not
peculiar to the Jews either at the time of, or after, its establishment
by their legislator; neither the feast in consequence of it. Many other
nations, either in imitation of the Jews, or rather by tradition from
their several patriarchs, observed the rite of offering their Primitiae,
and of solemnizing a festival after it, in religious acknowledgment
for the blessing of harvest, though that acknowledgment was ignorantly
misapplied in being directed to a secondary, not the primary, fountain
of this benefit,--namely to Apollo, or the Sun.

For Callimachus affirms that these Primitiae were sent by the people
of every nation to the temple of Apollo in Delos, the most distant that
enjoyed the happiness of corn and harvest, even by the Hyperboreans
in particular,--Hymn to Apol., “Bring the sacred sheafs and the mystic
offerings.”

Herodotus also mentions this annual custom of the Hyperboreans,
remarking that those of Delos talk of “Holy things tied up in sheaf of
wheat conveyed from the Hyperboreans.” And the Jews, by the command of
their law, offered also a sheaf: “And shall reap the harvest thereof,
then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of the harvest unto the
priest.”

This is not introduced in proof of any feast observed by the people who
had harvests, but to show the universality of the custom of offering the
Primitiae, which preceded this feast. But yet it maybe looked upon as
equivalent to a proof; for as the offering and the feast appear to have
been always and intimately connected in countries affording records, so
it is more than probable they were connected too in countries which
had none, or none that ever survived to our times. An entertainment
and gayety were still the concomitants of these rites, which with the
vulgar, one may pretty truly suppose, were esteemed the most acceptable
and material part of them, and a great reason of their having subsisted
through such a length of ages, when both the populace and many of
the learned too have lost sight of the object to which they had been
originally directed. This, among many other ceremonies of the heathen
worship, became disused in some places and retained in others, but still
continued declining after the promulgation of the Gospel. In short,
there seems great reason to conclude that this feast, which was once
sacred to Apollo, was constantly maintained, when a far less valuable
circumstance,--i.e., “shouting the churn,”--is observed to this day by
the reapers, and from so old an era; for we read of this exclamation,
Isa. xvi. 9: “For the shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy harvest
is fallen;” and again, ver. 10: “And in the vineyards there shall be no
singing, their shouting shall be no shouting.” Hence then, or from some
of the Phoenician colonies, is our traditionary “shouting the churn.”
 But it seems these Orientals shouted both for joy of their harvest of
grapes and of corn. We have no quantity of the first to occasion so much
joy as does our plenty of the last; and I do not remember to have heard
whether their vintages abroad are attended with this custom. Bread or
cakes compose part of the Hebrew offering (Levit. xxiii. 13), and a cake
thrown upon the head of the victim was also part of the Greek offering
to Apollo (see Hom., Il., a), whose worship was formerly celebrated in
Britain, where the May-pole yet continues one remain of it. This they
adorned with garlands on May-day, to welcome the approach of Apollo, or
the Sun, towards the North, and to signify that those flowers were
the product of his presence and influence. But upon the progress of
Christianity, as was observed above, Apollo lost his divinity again,
and the adoration of his deity subsided by degrees. Yet so permanent is
custom that this rite of the harvest-supper, together with that of the
May-pole (of which last see Voss. de Orig. and Prag. Idolatr., 1, 2),
have been preserved in Britain; and what had been anciently offered to
the god, the reapers as prudently ate up themselves.

At last the use of the meal of the new corn was neglected, and the
supper, so far as meal was concerned, was made indifferently of old
or new corn, as was most agreeable to the founder. And here the usage
itself accounts for the name of “Melsupper” (where mel signifies meal,
or else the instrument called with us a “Mell,” wherewith antiquity
reduced their corn to meal in a mortar, which still amounts to the same
thing); for provisions of meal, or of corn in furmety, etc., composed
by far the greatest part in these elder and country entertainments,
perfectly conformable to the simplicity of those times, places, and
persons, however meanly they may now be looked upon. And as the harvest
was last concluded with several preparations of meal, or brought to be
ready for the “mell,” this term became, in a translated signification,
to mean the last of other things; as, when a horse comes last in the
race, they often say in the North, “He has got the mell.”

All the other names of this country festivity sufficiently explain
themselves, except “Churn-supper;” and this is entirely different from
“Melsupper:” but they generally happen so near together that they are
frequently confounded. The “Churn-supper” was always provided when all
was shorn, but the “Melsupper” after all was got in. And it was called
the “Churn-supper” because, from immemorial times, it was customary to
produce in a churn a great quantity of cream, and to circulate it by
dishfuls to each of the rustic company, to be eaten with bread. And here
sometimes very extraordinary execution has been done upon cream. And
though this custom has been disused in many places, and agreeably
commuted for by ale, yet it survives still, and that about Whitby and
Scarborough in the East, and round about Gisburn, etc., in Craven, in
the West. But perhaps a century or two more will put an end to it, and
both the thing and name shall die. Vicarious ale is now more approved,
and the tankard almost everywhere politely preferred to the Churn.

This Churn (in our provincial pronunciation Kern) is the Hebrew Kern,
or Keren, from its being circular, like most horns; and it is the Latin
‘corona’,--named so either from ‘radii’, resembling horns, as on some
very ancient coins, or from its encircling the head: so a ring of people
is called corona. Also the Celtic Koren, Keren, or corn, which continues
according to its old pronunciation in Cornwall, etc., and our modern
word horn is no more than this; the ancient hard sound of k in corn
being softened into the aspirate h, as has been done in numberless
instances.

The Irish Celtae also called a round stone ‘clogh crene’, where the
variation is merely dialectic. Hence, too, our crane-berries,--i.e.,
round berries,--from this Celtic adjective ‘crene’, round.

The quotations from Scripture in Aram’s original MS. were both in the
Hebrew character, and their value in English sounds.





                 CONTENTS.

                  BOOK I.


 CHAPTER I.

 THE VILLAGE.--ITS INHABITANTS.--AN OLD MANORHOUSE: AND AN ENGLISH FAMILY;
 THEIR HISTORY, INVOLVING A MYSTERIOUS EVENT.


 CHAPTER II.
 A PUBLICAN, A SINNER, AND A STRANGER


 CHAPTER III.
 A DIALOGUE AND AN ALARM.--A STUDENT’S HOUSE.


 CHAPTER IV.
 THE SOLILOQUY, AND THE CHARACTER, OF A RECLUSE.--THE INTERRUPTION.


 CHAPTER V.

 A DINNER AT THE SQUIRE’S HALL.--A CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO RETIRED MEN
 WITH DIFFERENT OBJECTS IN RETIREMENT.--DISTURBANCE FIRST INTRODUCED INTO
 A PEACEFUL FAMILY.


 CHAPTER VI.

 THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE STUDENT.--A SUMMER SCENE--ARAM’S CONVERSATION WITH
 WALTER, AND SUBSEQUENT COLLOQUY WITH HIMSELF.


 CHAPTER VII.

 THE POWER OF LOVE OVER THE RESOLUTION OF THE STUDENT.--ARAM BECOMES A
 FREQUENT GUEST AT THE MANOR-HOUSE.--A WALK.--CONVERSATION WITH DAME
 DARKMANS.--HER HISTORY.--POVERTY AND ITS EFFECTS.


 CHAPTER VII.

 THE PRIVILEGE OF GENIUS.--LESTER’S SATISFACTION AT THE ASPECT OF
 EVENTS.--HIS CONVERSATION WITH WALTER.--A DISCOVERY.


 CHAPTER IX.

 THE STATE OF WALTER’S MIND.--AN ANGLER AND A MAN OF THE WORLD.--A
 COMPANION FOUND FOR WALTER.


 CHAPTER X.
 THE LOVERS.--THE ENCOUNTER AND QUARREL OF THE RIVALS.


 CHAPTER XI.

 THE FAMILY SUPPER.--THE TWO SISTERS IN THEIR CHAMBER.--A MISUNDERSTANDING
 FOLLOWED BY A CONFESSION.--WALTER’S APPROACHING DEPARTURE AND THE
 CORPORAL’S BEHAVIOUR THEREON.--THE CORPORAL’S FAVOURITE INTRODUCED TO THE
 READER.--THE CORPORAL PROVES HIMSELF A SUBTLE DIPLOMATIST.


 CHAPTER XII.

 A STRANGE HABIT.--WALTER’S INTERVIEW WITH MADELINE.--HER GENEROUS AND
 CONFIDING DISPOSITION.--WALTER’S ANGER.--THE PARTING MEAL.--CONVERSATION
 BETWEEN THE UNCLE AND NEPHEW.--WALTER ALONE.--SLEEP THE BLESSING OF THE
 YOUNG.


 BOOK II.


 CHAPTER I.

 THE MARRIAGE SETTLED.--LESTER’S HOPES AND SCHEMES.--GAIETY OF TEMPER A
 GOOD SPECULATION.--THE TRUTH AND FERVOUR OF ARAM’S LOVE.


 CHAPTER II.

 A FAVOURABLE SPECIMEN OF A NOBLEMAN AND A COURTIER.--A MAN OF SOME FAULTS
 AND MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS.


 CHAPTER III.

 WHEREIN THE EARL AND THE STUDENT CONVERSE ON GRAVE BUT DELIGHTFUL
 MATTERS.--THE STUDENT’S NOTION OF THE ONLY EARTHLY HAPPINESS.


 CHAPTER IV.

 A DEEPER EXAMINATION INTO THE STUDENT’S HEART.--THE VISIT TO THE
 CASTLE.--PHILOSOPHY PUT TO THE TRIAL.


 CHAPTER V.

 IN WHICH THE STORY RETURNS TO WALTER AND THE CORPORAL.--THE RENCONTRE
 WITH A STRANGER, AND HOW THE STRANGER PROVES TO BE NOT ALTOGETHER A
 STRANGER.


 CHAPTER VI.

 SIR PETER DISPLAYED.--ONE MAN OF THE WORLD SUFFERS FROM ANOTHER.--THE
 INCIDENT OF THE BRIDLE BEGETS THE INCIDENT OF THE SADDLE; THE INCIDENT OF
 THE SADDLE BEGETS THE INCIDENT OF THE WHIP; THE INCIDENT OF THE WHIP
 BEGETS WHAT THE READER MUST READ TO SEE.


 CHAPTER VII.

 WALTER VISITS ANOTHER OF HIS UNCLE’S FRIENDS.--MR. COURTLAND’S STRANGE
 COMPLAINT.--WALTER LEARNS NEWS OF HIS FATHER, WHICH SURPRISES HIM.--THE
 CHANGE IN HIS DESTINATION.


 CHAPTER VIII.

 WALTER’S MEDITATIONS.--THE CORPORAL’S GRIEF AND ANGER.--THE CORPORAL
 PERSONALLY DESCRIBED.--AN EXPLANATION WITH HIS MASTER.--THE CORPORAL
 OPENS HIMSELF TO THE YOUNG TRAVELLER.--HIS OPINIONS ON LOVE;--ON THE
 WORLD;--ON THE PLEASURE AND RESPECTABILITY OF CHEATING;--ON LADIES--AND A
 PARTICULAR CLASS OF LADIES;--ON AUTHORS;--ON THE VALUE OF WORDS;--ON
 FIGHTING;--WITH SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS OF EQUAL DELECTATION AND
 IMPROVEMENT.--AN UNEXPECTED EVENT.


 BOOK III.


 CHAPTER I.

 FRAUD AND VIOLENCE ENTER EVEN GRASSDALE.--PETER’S NEWS.--THE LOVERS’
 WALK.--THE REAPPEARANCE.


 CHAPTER II.
 THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN ARAM AND THE STRANGER.


 CHAPTER III.

 FRESH ALARM IN THE VILLAGE.--LESTER’S VISIT TO ARAM.--A TRAIT OF DELICATE
 KINDNESS IN THE STUDENT.--MADELINE.--HER PRONENESS TO CONFIDE.--THE
 CONVERSATION BETWEEN LESTER AND ARAM.--THE PERSONS BY WHOM IT IS
 INTERRUPTED.


 CHAPTER IV.

 MILITARY PREPARATIONS.--THE COMMANDER AND HIS MAN.--ARAM IS PERSUADED TO
 PASS THE NIGHT AT THE MANOR-HOUSE.


 CHAPTER V.
 THE SISTERS ALONE.--THE GOSSIP OF LOVE.--AN ALARM--AND AN EVENT.


 CHAPTER VI.

 ARAM ALONE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.--HIS SOLILOQUY AND PROJECT.--SCENE
 BETWEEN HIMSELF AND MADELINE.


 CHAPTER VII

 ARAM’S SECRET EXPEDITION.--A SCENE WORTHY THE ACTORS.--ARAM’S ADDRESS AND
 POWERS OF PERSUASION OR HYPOCRISY.--THEIR RESULT.--A FEARFUL
 NIGHT.--ARAM’S SOLITARY RIDE HOMEWARD.--WHOM HE MEETS BY THE WAY, AND
 WHAT HE SEES.


 BOOK IV.


 CHAPTER I.

 IN WHICH WE RETURN TO WALTER.--HIS DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO MR. PERTINAX
 FILLGRAVE.--THE CORPORAL’S ADVICE, AND THE CORPORAL’S VICTORY.


 CHAPTER II.

 NEW TRACES OF THE FATE OF GEOFFREY LESTER.--WALTER AND THE CORPORAL
 PROCEED ON A FRESH EXPEDITION.--THE CORPORAL IS ESPECIALLY SAGACIOUS ON
 THE OLD TOPIC OF THE WORLD.--HIS OPINIONS ON THE MEN WHO CLAIM ‘KNOWLEDGE
 THEREOF.--ON THE ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY A VALET.--ON THE SCIENCE OF
 SUCCESSFUL LOVE.--ON VIRTUE AND THE CONSTITUTION.--ON QUALITIES TO BE
 DESIRED IN A MISTRESS, ETC.--A LANDSCAPE.


 CHAPTER III.

 A SCHOLAR, BUT OF A DIFFERENT MOULD FROM THE STUDENT OF GRASSDALE.--NEW
 PARTICULARS CONCERNING GEOFFREY LESTER.--THE JOURNEY RECOMMENCED.


 CHAPTER IV.

 ARAM’S DEPARTURE.--MADELINE.--EXAGGERATION OF SENTIMENT NATURAL IN
 LOVE.--MADELINE’S LETTER.--WALTER’S.--THE WALK.--TWO VERY DIFFERENT
 PERSONS, YET BOTH INMATES OF THE SAME COUNTRY VILLAGE.--THE HUMOURS OF
 LIFE, AND ITS DARK PASSIONS, ARE FOUND IN JUXTA-POSITION EVERYWHERE.


 CHAPTER V.

 A REFLECTION NEW AND STRANGE.--THE STREETS OF LONDON.--A GREAT MAN’S
 LIBRARY.--A CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE STUDENT AND AN ACQUAINTANCE OF THE
 READER’S.--ITS RESULT.


 CHAPTER VI.

 THE THAMES AT NIGHT.--A THOUGHT.--THE STUDENT RE-SEEKS THE RUFFIAN.--A
 HUMAN FEELING EVEN IN THE WORST SOIL.


 CHAPTER VII.

 MADELINE, HER HOPES.--A MILD AUTUMN CHARACTERISED.--A LANDSCAPE.--A
 RETURN.


 CHAPTER VIII.

 AFFECTION: ITS GODLIKE NATURE.--THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN ARAM AND
 MADELINE.--THE FATALIST FORGETS FATE.


 CHAPTER IX.

 WALTER AND THE CORPORAL ON THE ROAD.--THE EVENING SETS IN.--THE GIPSEY
 TENTS.--ADVENTURE WITH THE HORSEMAN.--THE CORPORAL DISCOMFITED, AND THE
 ARRIVAL AT KNARESBOROUGH.


 CHAPTER X.

 WALTER’S REFLECTIONS.--MINE HOST.--A GENTLE CHARACTER AND A GREEN OLD
 AGE.--THE GARDEN, AND THAT WHICH IT TEACHETH.--A DIALOGUE, WHEREIN NEW
 HINTS TOWARDS THE WISHED FOR DISCOVERY ARE SUGGESTED.--THE CURATE.--A
 VISIT TO A SPOT OF DEEP INTEREST TO THE ADVENTURER.


 CHAPTER XI.

 GRIEF IN A RUFFIAN.--THE CHAMBER OF EARLY DEATH.--A HOMELY YET MOMENTOUS
 CONFESSION.--THE EARTH’S SECRETS.--THE CAVERN.--THE ACCUSATION.


 BOOK V.


 CHAPTER I.

 GRASSDALE.--THE MORNING OF THE MARRIAGE.--THE CRONES’ GOSSIP. THE BRIDE
 AT HER TOILET.--THE ARRIVAL.


 CHAPTER II.
 THE STUDENT ALONE IN HIS CHAMBER.--THE INTERRUPTION.--FAITHFUL
 LOVE.


 CHAPTER III.

 THE JUSTICE.--THE DEPARTURE.--THE EQUANIMITY OF THE CORPORAL IN BEARING
 THE MISFORTUNES OF OTHER PEOPLE.--THE EXAMINATION; ITS RESULT.--ARAM’S
 CONDUCT IN PRISON.--THE ELASTICITY OF OUR HUMAN NATURE.--A VISIT FROM THE
 EARL.--WALTER’S DETERMINATION.--MADELINE.


 CHAPTER IV.

 THE EVENING BEFORE THE TRIAL.--THE COUSINS.--THE CHANGE IN MADELINE.--THE
 FAMILY OF GRASSDALE MEET ONCE MORE BENEATH ONE ROOF.


 CHAPTER V.
 THE TRIAL


 CHAPTER VI.
 THE DEATH.--THE PRISON.--AN INTERVIEW.--ITS RESULT


 CHAPTER VII.
 THE CONFESSION; AND THE FATE


 CHAPTER VIII AND LAST.

 THE TRAVELLER’S RETURN.--THE COUNTRY VILLAGE ONCE MORE VISITED.--ITS
 INHABITANTS.--THE REMEMBERED BROOK.--THE DESERTED MANOR-HOUSE.--THE
 CHURCH-YARD.--THE TRAVELLER RESUMES HIS JOURNEY.--THE COUNTRY TOWN.--A
 MEETING OF TWO LOVERS AFTER LONG ABSENCE AND MUCH SORROW.--CONCLUSION.






EUGENE ARAM




BOOK I.



CHAPTER I.

THE VILLAGE.--ITS INHABITANTS.--AN OLD MANORHOUSE: AND AN ENGLISH
FAMILY; THEIR HISTORY, INVOLVING A MYSTERIOUS EVENT.

“Protected by the divinity they adored, supported by the earth which
they cultivated, and at peace with themselves, they enjoyed the sweets
of life, without dreading or desiring dissolution.” Numa Pompilius.

In the country of--there is a sequestered hamlet, which I have often
sought occasion to pass, and which I have never left without a certain
reluctance and regret. It is not only (though this has a remarkable
spell over my imagination) that it is the sanctuary, as it were, of a
story which appears to me of a singular and fearful interest; but the
scene itself is one which requires no legend to arrest the traveller’s
attention. I know not in any part of the world, which it has been my lot
to visit, a landscape so entirely lovely and picturesque, as that which
on every side of the village I speak of, you may survey. The hamlet to
which I shall here give the name of Grassdale, is situated in a valley,
which for about the length of a mile winds among gardens and orchards,
laden with fruit, between two chains of gentle and fertile hills.

Here, singly or in pairs, are scattered cottages, which bespeak a
comfort and a rural luxury, less often than our poets have described
the characteristics of the English peasantry. It has been observed,
and there is a world of homely, ay, and of legislative knowledge in the
observation, that wherever you see a flower in a cottage garden, or a
bird-cage at the window, you may feel sure that the cottagers are better
and wiser than their neighbours; and such humble tokens of attention to
something beyond the sterile labour of life, were (we must now revert
to the past,) to be remarked in almost every one of the lowly abodes
at Grassdale. The jasmine here, there the vine clustered over the
threshold, not so wildly as to testify negligence; but rather to sweeten
the air than to exclude it from the inmates. Each of the cottages
possessed at its rear its plot of ground, apportioned to the more useful
and nutritious product of nature; while the greater part of them fenced
also from the unfrequented road a little spot for the lupin, the sweet
pea, or the many tribes of the English rose. And it is not unworthy of
remark, that the bees came in greater clusters to Grassdale than to any
other part of that rich and cultivated district. A small piece of waste
land, which was intersected by a brook, fringed with ozier and dwarf
and fantastic pollards, afforded pasture for a few cows, and the only
carrier’s solitary horse. The stream itself was of no ignoble
repute among the gentle craft of the Angle, the brotherhood whom our
associations defend in the spite of our mercy; and this repute drew
welcome and periodical itinerants to the village, who furnished it with
its scanty news of the great world without, and maintained in a decorous
custom the little and single hostelry of the place. Not that Peter
Dealtry, the proprietor of the “Spotted Dog,” was altogether contented
to subsist upon the gains of his hospitable profession; he joined
thereto the light cares of a small farm, held under a wealthy and an
easy landlord; and being moreover honoured with the dignity of clerk
to the parish, he was deemed by his neighbours a person of no small
accomplishment, and no insignificant distinction. He was a little, dry,
thin man, of a turn rather sentimental than jocose; a memory well stored
with fag-ends of psalms, and hymns which, being less familiar than the
psalms to the ears of the villagers, were more than suspected to be his
own composition; often gave a poetic and semi-religious colouring to his
conversation, which accorded rather with his dignity in the church, than
his post at the Spotted Dog. Yet he disliked not his joke, though it was
subtle and delicate of nature; nor did he disdain to bear companionship
over his own liquor, with guests less gifted and refined.

In the centre of the village you chanced upon a cottage which had been
lately white-washed, where a certain preciseness in the owner might be
detected in the clipped hedge, and the exact and newly mended style by
which you approached the habitation; herein dwelt the beau and bachelor
of the village, somewhat antiquated it is true, but still an object of
great attention and some hope to the elder damsels in the vicinity, and
of a respectful popularity, that did not however prohibit a joke, to
the younger part of the sisterhood. Jacob Bunting, so was this gentleman
called, had been for many years in the king’s service, in which he had
risen to the rank of corporal, and had saved and pinched together a
certain small independence upon which he now rented his cottage and
enjoyed his leisure. He had seen a good deal of the world, and profited
in shrewdness by his experience; he had rubbed off, however, all
superfluous devotion as he rubbed off his prejudices, and though he
drank more often than any one else with the landlord of the Spotted
Dog, he also quarrelled with him the oftenest, and testified the least
forbearance at the publican’s segments of psalmody. Jacob was a
tall, comely, and perpendicular personage; his threadbare coat was
scrupulously brushed, and his hair punctiliously plastered at the sides
into two stiff obstinate-looking curls, and at the top into what he
was pleased to call a feather, though it was much more like a tile. His
conversation had in it something peculiar; generally it assumed a quick,
short, abrupt turn, that, retrenching all superfluities of pronoun and
conjunction, and marching at once upon the meaning of the sentence, had
in it a military and Spartan significance, which betrayed how
difficult it often is for a man to forget that he has been a corporal.
Occasionally indeed, for where but in farces is the phraseology of
the humorist always the same? he escaped into a more enlarged and
christianlike method of dealing with the king’s English, but that was
chiefly noticeable, when from conversation he launched himself into
lecture, a luxury the worthy soldier loved greatly to indulge, for much
had he seen and somewhat had he reflected; and valuing himself, which
was odd in a corporal, more on his knowledge of the world than his
knowledge even of war, he rarely missed any occasion of edifying a
patient listener with the result of his observations.

After you had sauntered by the veteran’s door, beside which you
generally, if the evening were fine, or he was not drinking with
neighbour Dealtry--or taking his tea with gossip this or master that--or
teaching some emulous urchins the broadsword exercise--or snaring trout
in the stream--or, in short, otherwise engaged; beside which, I say, you
not unfrequently beheld him sitting on a rude bench, and enjoying with
half-shut eyes, crossed legs, but still unindulgently erect posture, the
luxury of his pipe; you ventured over a little wooden bridge; beneath
which, clear and shallow, ran the rivulet we have before honorably
mentioned; and a walk of a few minutes brought you to a moderately sized
and old-fashioned mansion--the manor-house of the parish. It stood at
the very foot of the hill; behind, a rich, ancient, and hanging wood,
brought into relief--the exceeding freshness and verdure of the patch of
green meadow immediately in front. On one side, the garden was bounded
by the village churchyard, with its simple mounds, and its few scattered
and humble tombs. The church was of great antiquity; and it was only in
one point of view that you caught more than a glimpse of its grey tower
and graceful spire, so thickly and so darkly grouped the yew tree and
the larch around the edifice. Opposite the gate by which you gained the
house, the view was not extended, but rich with wood and pasture, backed
by a hill, which; less verdant than its fellows, was covered with sheep:
while you saw hard by the rivulet darkening and stealing away; till your
sight, though not your ear, lost it among the woodland.

Trained up the embrowned paling on either side of the gate, were bushes
of rustic fruit, and fruit and flowers (through plots of which green and
winding alleys had been cut with no untasteful hand) testified by their
thriving and healthful looks, the care bestowed upon them. The main
boasts of the garden were, on one side, a huge horse-chesnut tree--the
largest in the village; and on the other, an arbour covered without
with honeysuckles, and tapestried within by moss. The house, a grey and
quaint building of the time of James I. with stone copings and gable
roof, could scarcely in these days have been deemed a fitting residence
for the lord of the manor. Nearly the whole of the centre was occupied
by the hall, in which the meals of the family were commonly held--only
two other sitting-rooms of very moderate dimensions had been reserved by
the architect for the convenience or ostentation of the proprietor. An
ample porch jutted from the main building, and this was covered with
ivy, as the windows were with jasmine and honeysuckle; while seats were
ranged inside the porch covered with many a rude initial and long-past
date.

The owner of this mansion bore the name of Rowland Lester. His
forefathers, without pretending to high antiquity of family, had held
the dignity of squires of Grassdale for some two centuries; and Rowland
Lester was perhaps the first of the race who had stirred above fifty
miles from the house in which each successive lord had received his
birth, or the green churchyard in which was yet chronicled his death.
The present proprietor was a man of cultivated tastes; and abilities,
naturally not much above mediocrity, had been improved by travel as well
as study. Himself and one younger brother had been early left masters of
their fate and their several portions. The younger, Geoffrey,
testified a roving and dissipated turn. Bold, licentious, extravagant,
unprincipled,--his career soon outstripped the slender fortunes of
a cadet in the family of a country squire. He was early thrown into
difficulties, but, by some means or other they never seemed to overwhelm
him; an unexpected turn--a lucky adventure--presented itself at the very
moment when Fortune appeared the most utterly to have deserted him.

Among these more propitious fluctuations in the tide of affairs, was,
at about the age of forty, a sudden marriage with a young lady of what
might be termed (for Geoffrey Lester’s rank of life, and the rational
expenses of that day) a very competent and respectable fortune.
Unhappily, however, the lady was neither handsome in feature nor gentle
in temper; and, after a few years of quarrel and contest, the faithless
husband, one bright morning, having collected in his proper person
whatever remained of their fortune, absconded from the conjugal hearth
without either warning or farewell. He left nothing to his wife but
his house, his debts, and his only child, a son. From that time to
the present little had been known, though much had been conjectured,
concerning the deserter. For the first few years they traced, however,
so far of his fate as to learn that he had been seen once in India;
and that previously he had been met in England by a relation, under the
disguise of assumed names: a proof that whatever his occupations, they
could scarcely be very respectable. But, of late, nothing whatsoever
relating to the wanderer had transpired. By some he was imagined dead;
by most he was forgotten. Those more immediately connected with him--his
brother in especial, cherished a secret belief, that wherever Geoffrey
Lester should chance to alight, the manner of alighting would (to use
the significant and homely metaphor) be always on his legs; and coupling
the wonted luck of the scapegrace with the fact of his having been seen
in India, Rowland, in his heart, not only hoped, but fully expected,
that the lost one would, some day or other, return home laden with
the spoils of the East, and eager to shower upon his relatives, in
recompense of long desertion,

“With richest hand... barbaric pearl and gold.”

But we must return to the forsaken spouse.--Left in this abrupt
destitution and distress, Mrs. Lester had only the resource of applying
to her brother-in-law, whom indeed the fugitive had before seized many
opportunities of not leaving wholly unprepared for such an application.
Rowland promptly and generously obeyed the summons: he took the child
and the wife to his own home,--he freed the latter from the persecution
of all legal claimants,--and, after selling such effects as remained, he
devoted the whole proceeds to the forsaken family, without regarding his
own expenses on their behalf, ill as he was able to afford the luxury
of that self-neglect. The wife did not long need the asylum of his
hearth,--she, poor lady, died of a slow fever produced by irritation and
disappointment, a few months after Geoffrey’s desertion. She had no need
to recommend her children to their kindhearted uncle’s care. And now we
must glance over the elder brother’s domestic fortunes.

In Rowland, the wild dispositions of his brother were so far tamed, that
they assumed only the character of a buoyant temper and a gay spirit. He
had strong principles as well as warm feelings, and a fine and resolute
sense of honour utterly impervious to attack. It was impossible to be
in his company an hour and not see that he was a man to be respected. It
was equally impossible to live with him a week and not see that he was a
man to be beloved. He also had married, and about a year after that era
in the life of his brother, but not for the same advantage of fortune.
He had formed an attachment to the portionlesss daughter of a man in his
own neighbourhood and of his own rank. He wooed and won her, and for a
few years he enjoyed that greatest happiness which the world is capable
of bestowing--the society and the love of one in whom we could wish
for no change, and beyond whom we have no desire. But what Evil cannot
corrupt Fate seldom spares. A few months after the birth of a second
daughter the young wife of Rowland Lester died. It was to a widowed
hearth that the wife and child of his brother came for shelter. Rowland
was a man of an affectionate and warm heart: if the blow did not crush,
at least it changed him. Naturally of a cheerful and ardent disposition,
his mood now became soberized and sedate. He shrunk from the rural
gaieties and companionship he had before courted and enlivened, and, for
the first time in his life, the mourner felt the holiness of solitude.
As his nephew and his motherless daughters grew up, they gave an object
to his seclusion and a relief to his reflections. He found a pure and
unfailing delight in watching the growth of their young minds, and
guiding their differing dispositions; and, as time at length enabled the
to return his affection, and appreciate his cares, he became once more
sensible that he had a HOME.

The elder of his daughters, Madeline, at the time our story opens, had
attained the age of eighteen. She was the beauty and the boast of the
whole country. Above the ordinary height, her figure was richly and
exquisitely formed. So translucently pure and soft was her complexion,
that it might have seemed the token of delicate health, but for the dewy
and exceeding redness of her lips, and the freshness of teeth whiter
than pearls. Her eyes of a deep blue, wore a thoughtful and serene
expression, and her forehead, higher and broader than it usually is
in women, gave promise of a certain nobleness of intellect, and added
dignity, but a feminine dignity, to the more tender characteristics of
her beauty. And indeed, the peculiar tone of Madeline’s mind fulfilled
the indication of her features, and was eminently thoughtful and
high-wrought. She had early testified a remarkable love for study,
and not only a desire for knowledge, but a veneration for those who
possessed it. The remote corner of the county in which they lived, and
the rarely broken seclusion which Lester habitually preserved from the
intercourse of their few and scattered neighbours, had naturally cast
each member of the little circle upon his or her own resources. An
accident, some five years ago, had confined Madeline for several weeks
or rather months to the house; and as the old hall possessed a very
respectable share of books, she had then matured and confirmed that
love to reading and reflection, which she had at a yet earlier period
prematurely evinced. The woman’s tendency to romance naturally tinctured
her meditations, and thus, while they dignified, they also softened
her mind. Her sister Ellinor, younger by two years, was of a character
equally gentle, but less elevated. She looked up to her sister as a
superior being. She felt pride without a shadow of envy, at her superior
and surpassing beauty; and was unconsciously guided in her pursuits and
predilections, by a mind she cheerfully acknowledged to be loftier
than her own. And yet Ellinor had also her pretensions to personal
loveliness, and pretensions perhaps that would be less reluctantly
acknowledged by her own sex than those of her sister. The sunlight of
a happy and innocent heart sparkled on her face, and gave a beam it
gladdened you to behold, to her quick hazel eye, and a smile that broke
out from a thousand dimples. She did not possess the height of Madeline,
and though not so slender as to be curtailed of the roundness and
feminine luxuriance of beauty, her shape was slighter, feebler, and less
rich in its symmetry than her sister’s. And this the tendency of the
physical frame to require elsewhere support, nor to feel secure of
strength, influenced perhaps her mind, and made love, and the dependence
of love, more necessary to her than to the thoughtful and lofty
Madeline. The latter might pass through life, and never see the one to
whom her heart could give itself away. But every village might possess
a hero whom the imagination of Ellinor could clothe with unreal graces,
and to whom the lovingness of her disposition might bias her affections.
Both, however, eminently possessed that earnestness and purity of heart,
which would have made them, perhaps in an equal degree, constant and
devoted to the object of an attachment, once formed, in defiance of
change and to the brink of death.

Their cousin Walter, Geoffrey Lester’s son, was now in his twenty-first
year; tall and strong of person, and with a face, if not regularly
handsome, striking enough to be generally deemed so. High-spirited,
bold, fiery, impatient; jealous of the affections of those he loved;
cheerful to outward seeming, but restless, fond of change, and subject
to the melancholy and pining mood common to young and ardent minds: such
was the character of Walter Lester. The estates of Lester were settled
in the male line, and devolved therefore upon him. Yet there were
moments when he keenly felt his orphan and deserted situation; and
sighed to think, that while his father perhaps yet lived, he was a
dependent for affection, if not for maintenance, on the kindness of
others. This reflection sometimes gave an air of sullenness or petulance
to his character, that did not really belong to it. For what in the
world makes a man of just pride appear so unamiable as the sense of
dependence?





CHAPTER II.

         A PUBLICAN, A SINNER, AND A STRANGER

“Ah, Don Alphonso, is it you? Agreeable accident! Chance presents you to
my eyes where you were least expected.” Gil Blas.

It was an evening in the beginning of summer, and Peter Dealtry and the
ci-devant Corporal sate beneath the sign of The Spotted Dog (as it hung
motionless from the bough of a friendly elm), quaffing a cup of boon
companionship. The reader will imagine the two men very different
from each other in form and aspect; the one short, dry, fragile, and
betraying a love of ease in his unbuttoned vest, and a certain lolling,
see-sawing method of balancing his body upon his chair; the other, erect
and solemn, and as steady on his seat as if he were nailed to it. It
was a fine, tranquil balmy evening; the sun had just set, and the clouds
still retained the rosy tints which they had caught from his parting
ray. Here and there, at scattered intervals, you might see the cottages
peeping from the trees around them; or mark the smoke that rose from
their roofs--roofs green with mosses and house-leek,--in graceful and
spiral curls against the clear soft air. It was an English scene, and
the two men, the dog at their feet, (for Peter Dealtry favoured a wirey
stone-coloured cur, which he called a terrier,) and just at the door of
the little inn, two old gossips, loitering on the threshold in familiar
chat with the landlady, in cap and kerchief,--all together made a groupe
equally English, and somewhat picturesque, though homely enough, in
effect.

“Well, now,” said Peter Dealtry, as he pushed the brown jug towards the
Corporal, “this is what I call pleasant; it puts me in mind--”

“Of what?” quoth the Corporal.

“Of those nice lines in the hymn, Master Bunting.

     ‘How fair ye are, ye little hills,
       Ye little fields also;
      Ye murmuring streams that sweetly run;
       Ye willows in a row!’

“There is something very comfortable in sacred verses, Master Bunting;
but you’re a scoffer.”

“Psha, man!” said the Corporal, throwing out his right leg and leaning
back, with his eyes half-shut, and his chin protruded, as he took an
unusually long inhalation from his pipe; “Psha, man!--send verses to the
right-about--fit for girls going to school of a Sunday; full-grown men
more up to snuff. I’ve seen the world, Master Dealtry;--the world, and
be damned to you!--augh!”

“Fie, neighbour, fie! What’s the good of profaneness, evil speaking and
slandering?--

     ‘Oaths are the debts your spendthrift soul must pay;
      All scores are chalked against the reckoning day.’
      Just wait a bit, neighbour; wait till I light my pipe.”

“Tell you what,” said the Corporal, after he had communicated from
his own pipe the friendly flame to his comrade’s; “tell you what--talk
nonsense; the commander-in-chief’s no Martinet--if we’re all right in
action, he’ll wink at a slip word or two. Come, no humbug--hold jaw.
D’ye think God would sooner have snivelling fellow like you in his
regiment, than a man like me, clean limbed, straight as a dart, six feet
one without his shoes!--baugh!”

This notion of the Corporal’s, by which he would have likened the
dominion of Heaven to the King of Prussia’s body-guard, and only
admitted the elect on account of their inches, so tickled mine host’s
fancy, that he leaned back in his chair, and indulged in a long, dry,
obstreperous cachinnation. This irreverence mightily displeased the
Corporal. He looked at the little man very sourly, and said in his least
smooth accentuation:--

“What--devil--cackling at?--always grin, grin, grin--giggle, giggle,
giggle--psha!”

“Why really, neighbour,” said Peter, composing himself, “you must let a
man laugh now and then.”

“Man!” said the Corporal; “man’s a noble animal! Man’s a musquet,
primed, loaded, ready to supply a friend or kill a foe--charge not to be
wasted on every tom-tit. But you! not a musquet, but a cracker! noisy,
harmless,--can’t touch you, but off you go, whizz, pop, bang in one’s
face!--baugh!”

“Well!” said the good-humoured landlord, “I should think Master Aram,
the great scholar who lives down the vale yonder, a man quite after
your own heart. He is grave enough to suit you. He does not laugh very
easily, I fancy.”

“After my heart? Stoops like a bow!”

“Indeed he does look on the ground as he walks; when I think, I do the
same. But what a marvellous man it is! I hear, that he reads the Psalms
in Hebrew. He’s very affable and meek-like for such a scholard.”

“Tell you what. Seen the world, Master Dealtry, and know a thing or two.
Your shy dog is always a deep one. Give me a man who looks me in the
face as he would a cannon!”

“Or a lass,” said Peter knowingly.

The grim Corporal smiled.

“Talking of lasses,” said the soldier, re-filling his pipe, “what
creature Miss Lester is! Such eyes!--such nose! Fit for a colonel, by
God! ay, or a major-general!”

“For my part, I think Miss Ellinor almost as handsome; not so
grand-like, but more lovesome!”

“Nice little thing!” said the Corporal, condescendingly. “But, zooks!
whom have we here?”

This last question was applied to a man who was slowly turning from
the road towards the inn. The stranger, for such he was, was stout,
thick-set, and of middle height. His dress was not without pretension
to a rank higher than the lowest; but it was threadbare and worn,
and soiled with dust and travel. His appearance was by no means
prepossessing; small sunken eyes of a light hazel and a restless and
rather fierce expression, a thick flat nose, high cheekbones, a large
bony jaw, from which the flesh receded, and a bull throat indicative
of great strength, constituted his claims to personal attraction. The
stately Corporal, without moving, kept a vigilant and suspicious eye
upon the new comer, muttering to Peter,--“Customer for you; rum customer
too--by Gad!”

The stranger now reached the little table, and halting short, took up
the brown jug, without ceremony or preface, and emptied it at a draught.

The Corporal stared--the Corporal frowned; but before--for he was
somewhat slow of speech--he had time to vent his displeasure, the
stranger, wiping his mouth across his sleeve, said, in rather a civil
and apologetic tone,

“I beg pardon, gentlemen. I have had a long march of it, and very tired
I am.”

“Humph! march,” said the Corporal a little appeased, “Not in his
Majesty’s service--eh?”

“Not now,” answered the Traveller; then, turning round to Dealtry, he
said: “Are you landlord here?”

“At your service,” said Peter, with the indifference of a man well to
do, and not ambitious of halfpence.

“Come, then, quick--budge,” said the Traveller, tapping him on the back:
“bring more glasses--another jug of the October; and any thing or every
thing your larder is able to produce--d’ye hear?”

Peter, by no means pleased with the briskness of this address, eyed the
dusty and way-worn pedestrian from head to foot; then, looking over his
shoulder towards the door, he said, as he ensconced himself yet more
firmly on his seat--

“There’s my wife by the door, friend; go, tell her what you want.”

“Do you know,” said the Traveller, in a slow and measured accent--“Do
you know, master Shrivel-face, that I have more than half a mind to
break your head for impertinence. You a landlord!--you keep an inn,
indeed! Come, Sir, make off, or--”

“Corporal!--Corporal!” cried Peter, retreating hastily from his seat as
the brawny Traveller approached menacingly towards him--“You won’t see
the peace broken. Have a care, friend--have a care I’m clerk to the
parish--clerk to the parish, Sir--and I’ll indict you for sacrilege.”

The wooden features of Bunting relaxed into a sort of grin at the alarm
of his friend. He puffed away, without making any reply; meanwhile
the Traveller, taking advantage of Peter’s hasty abandonment of his
cathedrarian accommodation, seized the vacant chair, and drawing it yet
closer to the table, flung himself upon it, and placing his hat on
the table, wiped his brows with the air of a man about to make himself
thoroughly at home.

Peter Dealtry was assuredly a personage of peaceable disposition; but
then he had the proper pride of a host and a clerk. His feeling were
exceedingly wounded at this cavalier treatment--before the very eyes
of his wife too--what an example! He thrust his hands deep into his
breeches pockets, and strutting with a ferocious swagger towards the
Traveller, he said:--

“Harkye, sirrah! This is not the way folks are treated in this
country: and I’d have you to know, that I’m a man what has a brother a
constable.”

“Well, Sir!”

“Well, Sir, indeed! Well!--Sir, it’s not well, by no manner of means;
and if you don’t pay for the ale you drank, and go quietly about your
business, I’ll have you put in the stocks for a vagrant.”

This, the most menacing speech Peter Dealtry was ever known to deliver,
was uttered with so much spirit, that the Corporal, who had hitherto
preserved silence--for he was too strict a disciplinarian to thrust
himself unnecessarily into brawls,--turned approvingly round, and
nodding as well as his stock would suffer him at the indignant Peter,
he said: “Well done! ‘fegs--you’ve a soul, man!--a soul fit for the
forty-second! augh!--A soul above the inches of five feet two!”

There was something bitter and sneering in the Traveller’s aspect as he
now, regarding Dealtry, repeated--

“Vagrant--humph! And pray what is a vagrant?”

“What is a vagrant?” echoed Peter, a little puzzled.

“Yes! answer me that.”

“Why, a vagrant is a man what wanders, and what has no money.”

“Truly,” said the stranger smiling, but the smile by no means improved
his physiognomy, “an excellent definition, but one which, I will
convince you, does not apply to me.” So saying, he drew from his pocket
a handful of silver coins, and, throwing them on the table, added:
“Come, let’s have no more of this. You see I can pay for what I order;
and now, do recollect that I am a weary and hungry man.”

No sooner did Peter behold the money, than a sudden placidity stole over
his ruffled spirit:--nay, a certain benevolent commiseration for the
fatigue and wants of the Traveller replaced at once, and as by a spell,
the angry feelings that had previously roused him.

“Weary and hungry,” said he; “why did not you say that before? That
would have been quite enough for Peter Dealtry. Thank God! I am a man
what can feel for my neighbours. I have bowels--yes, I have bowels.
Weary and hungry!--you shall be served in an instant. I may be a little
hasty or so, but I’m a good Christian at bottom--ask the Corporal. And
what says the Psalmist, Psalm 147?--

     ‘By Him, the beasts that loosely range
       With timely food are fed:
      He speaks the word--and what He wills
       Is done as soon as said.’”

Animating his kindly emotions by this apt quotation, Peter turned to the
house. The Corporal now broke silence: the sight of the money had not
been without an effect upon him as well as the landlord.

“Warm day, Sir:--your health. Oh! forgot you emptied jug--baugh! You
said you were not now in his Majesty’s service: beg pardon--were you
ever?”

“Why, once I was; many years ago.”

“Ah!--and what regiment? I was in the forty-second. Heard of the
forty-second? Colonel’s name, Dysart; captain’s, Trotter; corporal’s,
Bunting, at your service.”

“I am much obliged by your confidence,” said the Traveller drily. “I
dare say you have seen much service.”

“Service! Ah! may well say that;--twenty-three years’ hard work: and
not the better for it! A man that loves his country is ‘titled to
a pension--that’s my mind!--but the world don’t smile upon
corporals--augh!”

Here Peter re-appeared with a fresh supply of the October, and an
assurance that the cold meat would speedily follow.

“I hope yourself and this gentleman will bear me company,” said the
Traveller, passing the jug to the Corporal; and in a few moments, so
well pleased grew the trio with each other, that the sound of their
laughter came loud and frequent to the ears of the good housewife
within.

The traveller now seemed to the Corporal and mine host a right jolly,
good-humoured fellow. Not, however, that he bore a fair share in the
conversation--he rather promoted the hilarity of his new acquaintances
than led it. He laughed heartily at Peter’s jests, and the Corporal’s
repartees; and the latter, by degrees, assuming the usual sway he bore
in the circle of the village, contrived, before the viands were on the
table, to monopolize the whole conversation.

The Traveller found in the repast a new excuse for silence. He ate with
a most prodigious and most contagious appetite; and in a few seconds the
knife and fork of the Corporal were as busily engaged as if he had only
three minutes to spare between a march and a dinner.

“This is a pretty, retired spot,” quoth the Traveller, as at length he
finished his repast, and threw himself back on his chair--a very pretty
spot. Whose neat old-fashioned house was that I passed on the green,
with the gable-ends and the flower-plots in front?

“Oh, the Squire’s,” answered Peter; “Squire Lester’s an excellent
gentleman.”

“A rich man, I should think, for these parts; the best house I have seen
for some miles,” said the Stranger carelessly.

“Rich--yes, he’s well to do; he does not live so as not to have money to
lay by.”

“Any family?”

“Two daughters and a nephew.”

“And the nephew does not ruin him. Happy uncle! Mine was not so lucky,”
 said the Traveller.

“Sad fellows we soldiers in our young days!” observed the Corporal with
a wink. “No, Squire Walter’s a good young man, a pride to his uncle!”

“So,” said the pedestrian, “they are not forced to keep up a large
establishment and ruin themselves by a retinue of servants?--Corporal,
the jug.”

“Nay!” said Peter, “Squire Lester’s gate is always open to the poor; but
as for shew, he leaves that to my lord at the castle.”

“The castle, where’s that?”

“About six miles off, you’ve heard of my Lord--, I’ll swear.”

“Ah, to be sure, a courtier. But who else lives about here? I mean,
who are the principal persons, barring the Corporal and yourself, Mr.
Eelpry--I think our friend here calls you.”

“Dealtry, Peter Dealtry, Sir, is my name.--Why the most noticeable man,
you must know, is a great scholard, a wonderfully learned man; there
yonder, you may just catch a glimpse of the tall what-d’ye-call-it he
has built out on the top of his house, that he may get nearer to the
stars. He has got glasses by which I’ve heard that you may see the
people in the moon walking on their heads; but I can’t say as I believe
all I hear.”

“You are too sensible for that, I’m sure. But this scholar, I suppose,
is not very rich; learning does not clothe men now-a-days--eh,
Corporal?”

“And why should it? Zounds! can it teach a man how to defend his
country? Old England wants soldiers, and be d--d to them! But the man’s
well enough, I must own, civil, modest--”

“And not by no means a beggar,” added Peter; “he gave as much to the
poor last winter as the Squire himself.”

“Indeed!” said the Stranger, “this scholar is rich then?”

“So, so; neither one nor t’other. But if he were as rich as my lord, he
could not be more respected; the greatest folks in the country come in
their carriages and four to see him. Lord bless you, there is not a name
more talked on in the whole county than Eugene Aram.”

“What!” cried the Traveller, his countenance changing as he sprung from
his seat; “what!--Aram!--did you say Aram? Great God! how strange!”

Peter, not a little startled by the abruptness and vehemence of his
guest, stared at him with open mouth, and even the Corporal took his
pipe involuntarily from his lips.

“What!” said the former, “you know him, do you? you’ve heard of him,
eh?”

The Stranger did not reply, he seemed lost in a reverie; he muttered
inaudible words between his teeth; now he strode two steps forward,
clenching his hands; now smiled grimly; and then returning to his
seat, threw himself on it, still in silence. The soldier and the clerk
exchanged looks, and now outspake the Corporal.

“Rum tantrums! What the devil, did the man eat your grandmother?”

Roused perhaps by so pertinent and sensible a question, the Stranger
lifted his head from his breast, and said with a forced smile, “You have
done me, without knowing it, a great kindness, my friend. Eugene Aram
was an early and intimate acquaintance of mine: we have not met for many
years. I never guessed that he lived in these parts: indeed I did not
know where he resided. I am truly glad to think I have lighted upon him
thus unexpectedly.”

“What! you did not know where he lived? Well! I thought all the world
knew that! Why, men from the univarsities have come all the way, merely
to look at the spot.”

“Very likely,” returned the Stranger; “but I am not a learned man
myself, and what is celebrity in one set is obscurity in another.
Besides, I have never been in this part of the world before!”

Peter was about to reply, when he heard the shrill voice of his wife
behind.

“Why don’t you rise, Mr. Lazyboots? Where are your eyes? Don’t you see
the young ladies.”

Dealtry’s hat was off in an instant,--the stiff Corporal rose like a
musquet; the Stranger would have kept his seat, but Dealtry gave him
an admonitory tug by the collar; accordingly he rose, muttering a hasty
oath, which certainly died on his lips when he saw the cause which had
thus constrained him into courtesy.

Through a little gate close by Peter’s house Madeline and her sister
had just passed on their evening walk, and with the kind familiarity for
which they were both noted, they had stopped to salute the landlady of
the Spotted Dog, as she now, her labours done, sat by the threshold,
within hearing of the convivial group, and plaiting straw. The whole
family of Lester were so beloved, that we question whether my Lord
himself, as the great nobleman of the place was always called, (as if
there were only one lord in the peerage,) would have obtained the same
degree of respect that was always lavished upon them.

“Don’t let us disturb you, good people,” said Ellinor, as they now
moved towards the boon companions, when her eye suddenly falling on the
Stranger, she stopped short. There was something in his appearance, and
especially in the expression of his countenance at that moment, which
no one could have marked for the first time without apprehension and
distrust: and it was so seldom that, in that retired spot, the young
ladies encountered even one unfamiliar face, that the effect the
stranger’s appearance might have produced on any one, might well be
increased for them to a startling and painful degree. The Traveller saw
at once the sensation he had created: his brow lowered; and the same
unpleasing smile, or rather sneer, that we have noted before, distorted
his lip, as he made with affected humility his obeisance.

“How!--a stranger!” said Madeline, sharing, though in a less degree,
the feelings of her sister; and then, after a pause, she said, as she
glanced over his garb, “not in distress, I hope.”

“No, Madam!” said the stranger, “if by distress is meant beggary. I am
in all respects perhaps better than I seem.”

There was a general titter from the Corporal, my host, and his wife,
at the Traveller’s semi-jest at his own unprepossessing appearance:
but Madeline, a little disconcerted, bowed hastily, and drew her sister
away.

“A proud quean!” said the Stranger, as he re-seated himself, and watched
the sisters gliding across the green.

All mouths were opened against him immediately. He found it no easy
matter to make his peace; and before he had quite done it, he called for
his bill, and rose to depart.

“Well!” said he, as he tendered his hand to the Corporal, “we may meet
again, and enjoy together some more of your good stories. Meanwhile,
which is my way to this--this--this famous scholar’s--Ehem?”

“Why,” quoth Peter, “you saw the direction in which the young ladies
went; you must take the same. Cross the stile you will find at the
right--wind along the foot of the hill for about three parts of a mile,
and you will then see in the middle of a broad plain, a lonely grey
house with a thingumebob at the top; a servatory they call it. That’s
Master Aram’s.”

“Thank you.”

“And a very pretty walk it is too,” said the Dame, “the prettiest
hereabouts to my liking, till you get to the house at least; and so the
young ladies think, for it’s their usual walk every evening!”

“Humph,--then I may meet them.”

“Well, and if you do, make yourself look as Christian-like as you can,”
 retorted the hostess.

There was a second grin at the ill-favoured Traveller’s expense, amidst
which he went his way.

“An odd chap!” said Peter, looking after the sturdy form of the
Traveller. “I wonder what he is; he seems well edicated--makes use of
good words.”

“What sinnifies?” said the Corporal, who felt a sort of fellow-feeling
for his new acquaintance’s brusquerie of manner;--“what sinnifies what
he is. Served his country,--that’s enough;--never told me, by the by,
his regiment;--set me a talking, and let out nothing himself;--old
soldier every inch of him!”

“He can take care of number one,” said Peter. “How he emptied the jug;
and my stars! what an appetite!”

“Tush,” said the Corporal, “hold jaw. Man of the world--man of the
world,--that’s clear.”




CHAPTER III.

       A DIALOGUE AND AN ALARM.--A STUDENT’S HOUSE.

          “A fellow by the hand of Nature marked,
          Quoted, and signed, to do a deed of shame.”
                  --Shakspeare.--King John.

          “He is a scholar, if a man may trust
          The liberal voice of Fame, in her report.
           Myself was once a student, and indeed
           Fed with the self-same humour he is now.”
              --Ben Jonson.--Every Man in his Humour.

The two sisters pursued their walk along a scene which might well be
favoured by their selection. No sooner had they crossed the stile, than
the village seemed vanished into earth; so quiet, so lonely, so far from
the evidence of life was the landscape through which they passed. On
their right, sloped a green and silent hill, shutting out all view
beyond itself, save the deepening and twilight sky; to the left, and
immediately along their road lay fragments of stone, covered with moss,
or shadowed by wild shrubs, that here and there, gathered into copses,
or breaking abruptly away from the rich sod, left frequent spaces
through which you caught long vistas of forestland, or the brooklet
gliding in a noisy and rocky course, and breaking into a thousand
tiny waterfalls, or mimic eddies. So secluded was the scene, and so
unwitnessing of cultivation, that you would not have believed that a
human habitation could be at hand, and this air of perfect solitude and
quiet gave an additional charm to the spot.

“But I assure you,” said Ellinor, earnestly continuing a conversation
they had begun, “I assure you I was not mistaken, I saw it as plainly as
I see you.”

“What, in the breast pocket?”

“Yes, as he drew out his handkerchief, I saw the barrel of the pistol
quite distinctly.”

“Indeed, I think we had better tell my father as soon as we get home;
it may be as well to be on our guard, though robbery, I believe, has not
been heard of in Grassdale for these twenty years.”

“Yet for what purpose, save that of evil, could he in these peaceable
times and this peaceable country, carry fire arms about him. And what a
countenance! Did you note the shy, and yet ferocious eye, like that of
some animal, that longs, yet fears to spring upon you.”

“Upon my word, Ellinor,” said Madeline, smiling, “you are not very
merciful to strangers. After all, the man might have provided himself
with the pistol which you saw as a natural precaution; reflect that, as
a stranger, he may well not know how safe this district usually is, and
he may have come from London, in the neighbourhood of which they say
robberies have been frequent of late. As to his looks, they are I own
unpardonable; for so much ugliness there can be no excuse. Had the man
been as handsome as our cousin Walter, you would not perhaps have been
so uncharitable in your fears at the pistol.”

“Nonsense, Madeline,” said Ellinor, blushing, and turning away her
face;--there was a moment’s pause, which the younger sister broke.

“We do not seem,” said she, “to make much progress in the friendship of
our singular neighbour. I never knew my father court any one so much as
he has courted Mr. Aram, and yet, you see how seldom he calls upon us;
nay, I often think that he seeks to shun us; no great compliment to our
attractions, Madeline.”

“I regret his want of sociability, for his own sake,” said Madeline,
“for he seems melancholy as well as thoughtful, and he leads so secluded
a life, that I cannot but think my father’s conversation and society, if
he would but encourage it, might afford some relief to his solitude.”

“And he always seems,” observed Ellinor, “to take pleasure in my
father’s conversation, as who would not? how his countenance lights up
when he converses! it is a pleasure to watch it. I think him positively
handsome when he speaks.”

“Oh, more than handsome!” said Madeline, with enthusiasm, “with that
high, pale brow, and those deep, unfathomable eyes!”

Ellinor smiled, and it was now Madeline’s turn to blush.

“Well,” said the former, “there is something about him that fills one
with an indescribable interest; and his manner, if cold at times, is yet
always so gentle.”

“And to hear him converse,” said Madeline, “it is like music. His
thoughts, his very words, seem so different from the language and ideas
of others. What a pity that he should ever be silent!”

“There is one peculiarity about his gloom, it never inspires one
with distrust,” said Ellinor; “if I had observed him in the same
circumstances as that ill-omened traveller, I should have had no
apprehension.”

“Ah! that traveller still runs in your head. If we were to meet him in
this spot.”

“Heaven forbid!” cried Ellinor, turning hastily round in alarm--and, lo!
as if her sister had been a prophet, she saw the very person in question
at some little distance behind them, and walking on with rapid strides.

She uttered a faint shriek of surprise and terror, and Madeline, looking
back at the sound, immediately participated in her alarm. The spot
looked so desolate and lonely, and the imagination of both had been
already so worked upon by Ellinor’s fears, and their conjectures
respecting the ill-boding weapon she had witnessed, that a thousand
apprehensions of outrage and murder crowded at once upon the minds of
the two sisters. Without, however, giving vent in words to their alarm,
they, as by an involuntary and simultaneous suggestion, quickened their
pace, every moment stealing a glance behind, to watch the progress of
the suspected robber. They thought that he also seemed to accelerate his
movements; and this observation increased their terror, and would appear
indeed to give it some more rational ground. At length, as by a sudden
turn of the road they lost sight of the dreaded stranger, their alarm
suggested to them but one resolution, and they fairly fled on as fast as
the fear which actuated, would allow, them. The nearest, and indeed the
only house in that direction, was Aram’s, but they both imagined if they
could come within sight of that, they should be safe. They looked back
at every interval; now they did not see their fancied pursuer--now he
emerged again into view--now--yes--he also was running.

“Faster, faster, Madeline, for God’s sake! he is gaining upon us!” cried
Ellinor: the path grew more wild, and the trees more thick and frequent;
at every cluster that marked their progress they saw the Stranger
closer and closer; at length, a sudden break,--a sudden turn in the
landscape;--a broad plain burst upon them, and in the midst of it the
Student’s solitary abode!

“Thank God, we are safe!” cried Madeline. She turned once more to look
for the Stranger; in so doing, her foot struck against a fragment of
stone, and she fell with great violence to the ground. She endeavoured
to rise, but found herself, at first, unable to stir from the spot.
In this state she looked, however, back, and saw the Traveller at
some little distance. But he also halted, and after a moment’s seeming
deliberation, turned aside, and was lost among the bushes.

With great difficulty Ellinor now assisted Madeline to rise; her ancle
was violently sprained, and she could not put her foot to the ground;
but though she had evinced so much dread at the apparition of the
stranger, she now testified an almost equal degree of fortitude in
bearing pain.

“I am not much hurt, Ellinor,” she said, faintly smiling, to encourage
her sister, who supported her in speechless alarm: “but what is to be
done? I cannot use this foot; how shall we get home?”

“Thank God, if you are not much hurt!” said poor Ellinor, almost crying,
“lean on me--heavier--pray. Only try and reach the house, and we can
then stay there till Mr. Aram sends home for the carriage.”

“But what will he think? how strange it will seem!” said Madeline,
the colour once more visiting her cheek, which a moment since had been
blanched as pale as death.

“Is this a time for scruples and ceremony?” said Ellinor. “Come! I
entreat you, come; if you linger thus, the man may take courage and
attack us yet. There! that’s right! Is the pain very great?”

“I do not mind the pain,” murmured Madeline; “but if he should think we
intrude? His habits are so reserved--so secluded; indeed I fear--”

“Intrude!” interrupted Ellinor. “Do you think so ill of him?--Do you
suppose that, hermit as he is, he has lost common humanity? But lean
more on me, dearest; you do not know how strong I am!”

Thus alternately chiding, caressing, and encouraging her sister, Ellinor
led on the sufferer, till they had crossed the plain, though with
slowness and labour, and stood before the porch of the Recluse’s house.
They had looked back from time to time, but the cause of so much alarm
appeared no more. This they deemed a sufficient evidence of the justice
of their apprehensions.

Madeline would even now fain have detained her sister’s hand from the
bell that hung without the porch half imbedded in ivy; but Ellinor,
out of patience--as she well might be--with her sister’s unseasonable
prudence, refused any longer delay. So singularly still and solitary
was the plain around the house, that the sound of the bell breaking the
silence, had in it something startling, and appeared in its sudden and
shrill voice, a profanation to the deep tranquillity of the spot.
They did not wait long--a step was heard within--the door was slowly
unbarred, and the Student himself stood before them.

He was a man who might, perhaps, have numbered some five and thirty
years; but at a hasty glance, he would have seemed considerably younger.
He was above the ordinary stature; though a gentle, and not ungraceful
bend in the neck rather than the shoulders, somewhat curtailed his
proper advantages of height. His frame was thin and slender, but well
knit and fair proportioned. Nature had originally cast his form in
an athletic mould; but sedentary habits, and the wear of mind, seemed
somewhat to have impaired her gifts. His cheek was pale and delicate;
yet it was rather the delicacy of thought than of weak health. His hair,
which was long, and of a rich and deep brown, was worn back from his
face and temples, and left a broad high majestic forehead utterly
unrelieved and bare; and on the brow there was not a single wrinkle, it
was as smooth as it might have been some fifteen years ago. There was
a singular calmness, and, so to speak, profundity, of thought, eloquent
upon its clear expanse, which suggested the idea of one who had passed
his life rather in contemplation than emotion. It was a face that a
physiognomist would have loved to look upon, so much did it speak both
of the refinement and the dignity of intellect.

Such was the person--if pictures convey a faithful resemblance--of a
man, certainly the most eminent in his day for various and profound
learning, and a genius wholly self-taught, yet never contented to repose
upon the wonderful stores it had laboriously accumulated.

He now stood before the two girls, silent, and evidently surprised; and
it would scarce have been an unworthy subject for a picture--that
ivied porch--that still spot--Madeline’s reclining and subdued form and
downcast eyes--the eager face of Ellinor, about to narrate the nature
and cause of their intrusion--and the pale Student himself, thus
suddenly aroused from his solitary meditations, and converted into the
protector of beauty.

No sooner did Aram gather from Ellinor the outline of their story, and
of Madeline’s accident, than his countenance and manner testified the
liveliest and most eager sympathy. Madeline was inexpressibly touched
and surprised at the kindly and respectful earnestness with which this
recluse scholar--usually so cold and abstracted in mood--assisted and
led her into the house: the sympathy he expressed for her pain--the
sincerity of his tone--the compassion of his eyes--and as those
dark--and to use her own thought--unfathomable orbs bent admiringly and
yet so gently upon her, Madeline, even in spite of her pain, felt an
indescribable, a delicious thrill at her heart, which in the presence of
no one else had she ever experienced before.

Aram now summoned the only domestic his house possessed, who appeared in
the form of an old woman, whom he seemed to have selected from the whole
neighbourhood as the person most in keeping with the rigid seclusion he
preserved. She was exceedingly deaf, and was a proverb in the village
for her extreme taciturnity. Poor old Margaret; she was a widow, and had
lost ten children by early deaths. There was a time when her gaiety had
been as noticeable as her reserve was now. In spite of her infirmity,
she was not slow in comprehending the accident Madeline had met with;
and she busied herself with a promptness that shewed her misfortunes
had not deadened her natural kindness of disposition, in preparing
fomentations and bandages for the wounded foot.

Meanwhile Aram, having no person to send in his stead, undertook to seek
the manor-house, and bring back the old family coach, which had dozed
inactively in its shelter for the last six months, to convey the
sufferer home.

“No, Mr. Aram,” said Madeline, colouring; “pray do not go yourself:
consider, the man may still be loitering on the road. He is armed--good
Heavens, if he should meet you!”

“Fear not, Madam,” said Aram, with a faint smile. “I also keep arms,
even in this obscure and safe retreat; and to satisfy you, I will not
neglect to carry them with me.”

“As he spoke, he took from the wainscoat, from which they hung, a brace
of large horse pistols, slung them round him by a leather belt, and
flinging over his person, to conceal weapons so alarming to any less
dangerous passenger he might encounter, the long cloak then usually worn
in inclement seasons, as an outer garment, he turned to depart.

“But are they loaded?” asked Ellinor.

Aram answered briefly, in the affirmative. It was somewhat singular,
but the sisters did not then remark it, that a man so peaceable in
his pursuits, and seemingly possessed of no valuables that could tempt
cupidity, should in that spot, where crime was never heard of, use such
habitual precaution.

When the door closed upon him, and while the old woman, relieved with
a light hand and soothing lotions, which she had shewn some skill in
preparing, the anguish of the sprain, Madeline cast glances of interest
and curiosity around the apartment into which she had had the rare good
fortune to obtain admittance.

The house had belonged to a family of some note, whose heirs had
outstripped their fortunes. It had been long deserted and uninhabited;
and when Aram settled in those parts, the proprietor was too glad to
get rid of the incumbrance of an empty house, at a nominal rent. The
solitude of the place had been the main attraction to Aram; and as he
possessed what would be considered a very extensive assortment of books,
even for a library of these days, he required a larger apartment than
he would have been able to obtain in an abode more compact and more
suitable to his fortunes and mode of living.

The room in which the sisters now found themselves was the most spacious
in the house, and was indeed of considerable dimensions. It contained in
front one large window, jutting from the wall. Opposite was an antique
and high mantelpiece of black oak. The rest of the room was walled from
the floor to the roof with books; volumes of all languages, and it might
even be said, without much exaggeration, upon all sciences, were strewed
around, on the chairs, the tables, or the floor. By the window stood the
Student’s desk, and a large old-fashioned chair of oak. A few papers,
filled with astronomical calculations, lay on the desk, and these were
all the witnesses of the result of study. Indeed Aram does not appear
to have been a man much inclined to reproduce the learning he
acquired;--what he wrote was in very small proportion to what he had
read.

So high and grave was the reputation he had acquired, that the retreat
and sanctum of so many learned hours would have been interesting, even
to one who could not appreciate learning; but to Madeline, with her
peculiar disposition and traits of mind, we may readily conceive that
the room presented a powerful and pleasing charm. As the elder sister
looked round in silence, Ellinor attempted to draw the old woman into
conversation. She would fain have elicited some particulars of the
habits and daily life of the recluse; but the deafness of their
attendant was so obstinate and hopeless, that she was forced to give up
the attempt in despair. “I fear,” said she at last, her good-nature so
far overcome by impatience as not to forbid a slight yawn; “I fear we
shall have a dull time of it till my father arrives. Just consider,
the fat black mares, never too fast, can only creep along that broken
path,--for road there is none: it will be quite night before the coach
arrives.”

“I am sorry, dear Ellinor, my awkwardness should occasion you so stupid
an evening,” answered Madeline.

“Oh,” cried Ellinor, throwing her arms around her sister’s neck, “it is
not for myself I spoke; and indeed I am delighted to think we have got
into this wizard’s den, and seen the instruments of his art. But I do so
trust Mr. Aram will not meet that terrible man.”

“Nay,” said the prouder Madeline, “he is armed, and it is but one man. I
feel too high a respect for him to allow myself much fear.”

“But these bookmen are not often heroes,” remarked Ellinor, laughing.

“For shame,” said Madeline, the colour mounting to her forehead. “Do you
not remember how, last summer, Eugene Aram rescued Dame Grenfeld’s child
from the bull, though at the literal peril of his own life? And who
but Eugene Aram, when the floods in the year before swept along the low
lands by Fairleigh, went day after day to rescue the persons, or even
to save the goods of those poor people; at a time too, when the boldest
villagers would not hazard themselves across the waters?--But bless me,
Ellinor, what is the matter? you turn pale, you tremble.’

“Hush!” said Ellinor under her breath, and, putting her finger to her
mouth, she rose and stole lightly to the window; she had observed the
figure of a man pass by, and now, as she gained the window, she saw him
halt by the porch, and recognised the formidable Stranger. Presently the
bell sounded, and the old woman, familiar with its shrill sound, rose
from her kneeling position beside the sufferer to attend to the summons.
Ellinor sprang forward and detained her: the poor old woman stared at
her in amazement, wholly unable to comprehend her abrupt gestures
and her rapid language. It was with considerable difficulty and after
repeated efforts, that she at length impressed the dulled sense of the
crone with the nature of their alarm, and the expediency of refusing
admittance to the Stranger. Meanwhile, the bell had rung again,--again,
and the third time with a prolonged violence which testified the
impatience of the applicant. As soon as the good dame had satisfied
herself as to Ellinor’s meaning, she could no longer be accused of
unreasonable taciturnity; she wrung her hands and poured forth a volley
of lamentations and fears, which effectually relieved Ellinor from the
dread of her unheeding the admonition. Satisfied at having done thus
much, Ellinor now herself hastened to the door and secured the ingress
with an additional bolt, and then, as the thought flashed upon her,
returned to the old woman and made her, with an easier effort than
before, now that her senses were sharpened by fear, comprehend the
necessity of securing the back entrance also; both hastened away to
effect this precaution, and Madeline, who herself desired Ellinor to
accompany the old woman, was left alone. She kept her eyes fixed on
the window with a strange sentiment of dread at being thus left in so
helpless a situation; and though a door of no ordinary dimensions and
doubly locked interposed between herself and the intruder, she expected
in breathless terror, every instant, to see the form of the ruffian
burst into the apartment. As she thus sat and looked, she shudderingly
saw the man, tired perhaps of repeating a summons so ineffectual, come
to the window and look pryingly within: their eyes met; Madeline had
not the power to shriek. Would he break through the window? that was her
only idea, and it deprived her of words, almost of sense. He gazed upon
her evident terror for a moment with a grim smile of contempt; he then
knocked at the window, and his voice broke harshly on a silence yet more
dreadful than the interruption.

“Ho, ho! so there is some life stirring! I beg pardon, Madam, is Mr.
Aram--Eugene Aram, within?”

“No,” said Madeline faintly, and then, sensible that her voice did not
reach him, she reiterated the answer in a louder tone. The man, as if
satisfied, made a rude inclination of his head and withdrew from the
window. Ellinor now returned, and with difficulty Madeline found words
to explain to her what had passed. It will be conceived that the two
young ladies watched the arrival of their father with no lukewarm
expectation; the stranger however appeared no more; and in about an
hour, to their inexpressible joy, they heard the rumbling sound of the
old coach as it rolled towards the house. This time there was no delay
in unbarring the door.




CHAPTER IV.

     THE SOLILOQUY, AND THE CHARACTER, OF A RECLUSE.--THE
               INTERRUPTION.

          “Or let my lamp at midnight hour
          Be seen in some high lonely tower,
          Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
          Or thrice-great Hermes, and unsphere
          The spirit of Plato.”
               --Milton.--Il Penseroso.

As Aram assisted the beautiful Madeline into the carriage--as he
listened to her sweet voice--as he marked the grateful expression of her
soft eyes--as he felt the slight yet warm pressure of her fairy hand,
that vague sensation of delight which preludes love, for the first time,
in his sterile and solitary life, agitated his breast. Lester held out
his hand to him with a frank cordiality which the scholar could not
resist.

“Do not let us be strangers, Mr. Aram,” said he warmly. “It is not often
that I press for companionship out of my own circle; but in your company
I should find pleasure as well as instruction. Let us break the ice
boldly, and at once. Come and dine with me to-morrow, and Ellinor shall
sing to us in the evening.”

The excuse died upon Aram’s lips. Another glance at Madeline conquered
the remains of his reserve: he accepted the invitation, and he could
not but mark, with an unfamiliar emotion of the heart, that the eyes of
Madeline sparkled as he did so.

With an abstracted air, and arms folded across his breast, he gazed
after the carriage till the winding of the valley snatched it from his
view. He then, waking from his reverie with a start, turned into the
house, and carefully closing and barring the door, mounted with slow
steps to the lofty chamber with which, the better to indulge his
astronomical researches, he had crested his lonely abode.

It was now night. The Heavens broadened round him in all the loving yet
august tranquillity of the season and the hour; the stars bathed the
living atmosphere with a solemn light; and above--about--around--

“The holy time was quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration.” He looked
forth upon the deep and ineffable stillness of the night, and indulged
the reflections that it suggested.

“Ye mystic lights,” said he soliloquizing: “worlds upon
worlds--infinite--incalculable.--Bright defiers of rest and change,
rolling for ever above our petty sea of mortality, as, wave after wave,
we fret forth our little life, and sink into the black abyss;--can we
look upon you, note your appointed order, and your unvarying course, and
not feel that we are indeed the poorest puppets of an all-pervading
and resistless destiny? Shall we see throughout creation each marvel
fulfilling its pre-ordered fate--no wandering from its orbit--no
variation in its seasons--and yet imagine that the Arch-ordainer
will hold back the tides He has sent from their unseen source, at our
miserable bidding? Shall we think that our prayers can avert a doom
woven with the skein of events? To change a particle of our fate, might
change the destiny of millions! Shall the link forsake the chain, and
yet the chain be unbroken? Away, then, with our vague repinings, and our
blind demands. All must walk onward to their goal, be he the wisest
who looks not one step behind. The colours of our existence were doomed
before our birth--our sorrows and our crimes;--millions of ages back,
when this hoary earth was peopled by other kinds, yea! ere its atoms
had formed one layer of its present soil, the Eternal and the all-seeing
Ruler of the universe, Destiny, or God, had here fixed the moment of
our birth and the limits of our career. What then is crime?--Fate! What
life?--Submission!”

Such were the strange and dark thoughts which, constituting a part
indeed of his established creed, broke over Aram’s mind. He sought for a
fairer subject for meditation, and Madeline Lester rose before him.

Eugene Aram was a man whose whole life seemed to have been one sacrifice
to knowledge. What is termed pleasure had no attraction for him. From
the mature manhood at which he had arrived, he looked back along his
youth, and recognized no youthful folly. Love he had hitherto regarded
with a cold though not an incurious eye: intemperance had never lured
him to a momentary self-abandonment. Even the innocent relaxations with
which the austerest minds relieve their accustomed toils, had had no
power to draw him from his beloved researches. The delight monstrari
digito; the gratification of triumphant wisdom; the whispers of an
elevated vanity; existed not for his self-dependent and solitary heart.
He was one of those earnest and high-wrought enthusiasts who now are
almost extinct upon earth, and whom Romance has not hitherto attempted
to pourtray; men not uncommon in the last century, who were devoted to
knowledge, yet disdainful of its fame; who lived for nothing else than
to learn. From store to store, from treasure to treasure, they proceeded
in exulting labour, and having accumulated all, they bestowed nought;
they were the arch-misers of the wealth of letters. Wrapped in
obscurity, in some sheltered nook, remote from the great stir of men,
they passed a life at once unprofitable and glorious; the least part of
what they ransacked would appal the industry of a modern student, yet
the most superficial of modern students might effect more for mankind.
They lived among oracles, but they gave none forth. And yet, even in
this very barrenness, there seems something high; it was a rare and
great spectacle--Men, living aloof from the roar and strife of the
passions that raged below, devoting themselves to the knowledge which is
our purification and our immortality on earth, and yet deaf and blind
to the allurements of the vanity which generally accompanies research;
refusing the ignorant homage of their kind, making their sublime motive
their only meed, adoring Wisdom for her sole sake, and set apart in the
populous universe, like stars, luminous with their own light, but too
remote from the earth on which they looked, to shed over its inmates the
lustre with which they glowed.

From his youth to the present period, Aram had dwelt little in cities
though he had visited many, yet he could scarcely be called ignorant of
mankind; there seems something intuitive in the science which teaches
us the knowledge of our race. Some men emerge from their seclusion, and
find, all at once, a power to dart into the minds and drag forth the
motives of those they see; it is a sort of second sight, born with
them, not acquired. And Aram, it may be, rendered yet more acute by his
profound and habitual investigations of our metaphysical frame, never
quitted his solitude to mix with others, without penetrating into the
broad traits or prevalent infirmities their characters possessed.
In this, indeed, he differed from the scholar tribe, and even in
abstraction was mechanically vigilant and observant. Much in his nature
would, had early circumstances given it a different bias, have fitted
him for worldly superiority and command. A resistless energy, an
unbroken perseverance, a profound and scheming and subtle thought, a
genius fertile in resources, a tongue clothed with eloquence, all, had
his ambition so chosen, might have given him the same empire over the
physical, that he had now attained over the intellectual world. It could
not be said that Aram wanted benevolence, but it was dashed, and mixed
with a certain scorn: the benevolence was the offspring of his nature;
the scorn seemed the result of his pursuits. He would feed the birds
from his window, he would tread aside to avoid the worm on his path;
were one of his own tribe in danger, he would save him at the hazard of
his life:--yet in his heart he despised men, and believed them beyond
amelioration. Unlike the present race of schoolmen, who incline to the
consoling hope of human perfectibility, he saw in the gloomy past but a
dark prophecy of the future. As Napoleon wept over one wounded soldier
in the field of battle, yet ordered without emotion, thousands to a
certain death; so Aram would have sacrificed himself for an individual,
but would not have sacrificed a momentary gratification for his race.
And this sentiment towards men, at once of high disdain and profound
despondency, was perhaps the cause why he rioted in indolence upon his
extraordinary mental wealth, and could not be persuaded either to dazzle
the world or to serve it. But by little and little his fame had broke
forth from the limits with which he would have walled it: a man who had
taught himself, under singular difficulties, nearly all the languages
of the civilized earth; the profound mathematician, the elaborate
antiquarian, the abstruse philologist, uniting with his graver lore the
more florid accomplishments of science, from the scholastic trifling
of heraldry to the gentle learning of herbs and flowers, could scarcely
hope for utter obscurity in that day when all intellectual acquirement
was held in high honour, and its possessors were drawn together into a
sort of brotherhood by the fellowship of their pursuits. And though
Aram gave little or nothing to the world himself, he was ever willing
to communicate to others any benefit or honour derivable from his
researches. On the altar of science he kindled no light, but the
fragrant oil in the lamps of his more pious brethren was largely
borrowed from his stores. From almost every college in Europe came to
his obscure abode letters of acknowledgement or inquiry; and few
foreign cultivators of learning visited this country without seeking
an interview with Aram. He received them with all the modesty and the
courtesy that characterized his demeanour; but it was noticeable that
he never allowed these interruptions to be more than temporary. He
proffered no hospitality, and shrunk back from all offers of friendship;
the interview lasted its hour, and was seldom renewed. Patronage was
not less distasteful to him than sociality. Some occasional visits and
condescensions of the great, he had received with a stern haughtiness,
rather than his wonted and subdued urbanity. The precise amount of his
fortune was not known; his wants were so few, that what would have been
poverty to others might easily have been competence to him; and the only
evidence he manifested of the command of money, was in his extended and
various library.

He had now been about two years settled in his present retreat. Unsocial
as he was, every one in the neighbourhood loved him; even the reserve
of a man so eminent, arising as it was supposed to do from a painful
modesty, had in it something winning; and he had been known to evince on
great occasions, a charity and a courage in the service of others which
removed from the seclusion of his habits the semblance of misanthropy
and of avarice. The peasant drew aside with a kindness mingled with his
respect, as in his homeward walk he encountered the pale and thoughtful
Student, with the folded arms and downeast eyes, which characterised the
abstraction of his mood; and the village maiden, as she curtsied by him,
stole a glance at his handsome but melancholy countenance; and told her
sweetheart she was certain the poor scholar had been crossed in love.

And thus passed the Student’s life; perhaps its monotony and dullness
required less compassion than they received; no man can judge of the
happiness of another. As the Moon plays upon the waves, and seems to our
eyes to favour with a peculiar beam one long track amidst the waters,
leaving the rest in comparative obscurity; yet all the while, she is no
niggard in her lustre--for though the rays that meet not our eyes seem
to us as though they were not, yet she with an equal and unfavouring
loveliness, mirrors herself on every wave: even so, perhaps, Happiness
falls with the same brightness and power over the whole expanse of Life,
though to our limited eyes she seems only to rest on those billows from
which the ray is reflected back upon our sight.

From his contemplations, of whatsoever nature, Aram was now aroused by a
loud summons at the door;--the clock had gone eleven. Who could at
that late hour, when the whole village was buried in sleep, demand
admittance? He recollected that Madeline had said the Stranger who had
so alarmed them had inquired for him, at that recollection his cheek
suddenly blanched, but again, that stranger was surely only some poor
traveller who had heard of his wonted charity, and had called to solicit
relief, for he had not met the Stranger on the road to Lester’s house;
and he had naturally set down the apprehensions of his fair visitants to
a mere female timidity. Who could this be? no humble wayfarer would at
that hour crave assistance;--some disaster perhaps in the village. From
his lofty chamber he looked forth and saw the stars watch quietly over
the scattered cottages and the dark foliage that slept breathlessly
around. All was still as death, but it seemed the stillness of innocence
and security: again! the bell again! He thought he heard his name
shouted without; he strode once or twice irresolutely to and fro the
chamber; and then his step grew firm, and his native courage returned.
His pistols were still girded round him; he looked to the priming, and
muttered some incoherent words; he then descended the stairs, and slowly
unbarred the door. Without the porch, the moonlight full upon his harsh
features and sturdy frame, stood the ill-omened Traveller.




CHAPTER V.

    A DINNER AT THE SQUIRE’S HALL.--A CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO
   RETIRED MEN WITH DIFFERENT OBJECTS IN RETIREMENT.--DISTURBANCE
        FIRST INTRODUCED INTO A PEACEFUL FAMILY.

          “Can he not be sociable?”
                  --Troilus and Cressida.

        “Subit quippe etiam ipsius inertiae dulcedo;
         et invisa primo desidia postremo amatur.”
                   --Tacitus.

          “How use doth breed a habit in a man!
          This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
          I better brook than flourishing people towns.”
                  --Winter’s Tale.

The next day, faithful to his appointment, Aram arrived at Lester’s.
The good Squire received him with a warm cordiality, and Madeline with
a blush and a smile that ought to have been more grateful to him
than acknowledgements. She was still a prisoner to the sofa, but in
compliment to Aram, the sofa was wheeled into the hall where they dined,
so that she was not absent from the repast. It was a pleasant room, that
old hall! Though it was summer--more for cheerfulness than warmth, the
log burnt on the spacious hearth: but at the same time the latticed
windows were thrown open, and the fresh yet sunny air stole in, rich
from the embrace of the woodbine and clematis, which clung around the
casement.

A few old pictures were paneled in the oaken wainscot; and here and
there the horns of the mighty stag adorned the walls, and united with
the cheeriness of comfort associations of that of enterprise. The good
old board was crowded with the luxuries meet for a country Squire. The
speckled trout, fresh from the stream, and the four-year-old mutton
modestly disclaiming its own excellent merits, by affecting the shape
and assuming the adjuncts of venison. Then for the confectionery,--it
was worthy of Ellinor, to whom that department generally fell; and we
should scarcely be surprised to find, though we venture not to affirm,
that its delicate fabrication owed more to her than superintendence.
Then the ale, and the cyder with rosemary in the bowl, were incomparable
potations; and to the gooseberry wine, which would have filled Mrs.
Primrose with envy, was added the more generous warmth of port which, in
the Squire’s younger days, had been the talk of the country, and which
had now lost none of its attributes, save “the original brightness” of
its colour.

But (the wine excepted) these various dainties met with slight honour
from their abstemious guest; and, for though habitually reserved he was
rarely gloomy, they remarked that he seemed unusually fitful and sombre
in his mood. Something appeared to rest upon his mind, from which, by
the excitement of wine and occasional bursts of eloquence more
animated than ordinary, he seemed striving to escape; and at length, he
apparently succeeded. Naturally enough, the conversation turned upon the
curiosities and scenery of the country round; and here Aram shone with a
peculiar grace. Vividly alive to the influences of Nature, and minutely
acquainted with its varieties, he invested every hill and glade to
which remark recurred with the poetry of his descriptions; and from his
research he gave even scenes the most familiar, a charm and interest
which had been strange to them till then. To this stream some romantic
legend had once attached itself, long forgotten and now revived;--that
moor, so barren to an ordinary eye, was yet productive of some rare
and curious herb, whose properties afforded scope for lively
description;--that old mound was yet rife in attraction to one versed in
antiquities, and able to explain its origin, and from such explanation
deduce a thousand classic or celtic episodes.

No subject was so homely or so trite but the knowledge that had
neglected nothing, was able to render it luminous and new. And as he
spoke, the scholar’s countenance brightened, and his voice, at first
hesitating and low, compelled the attention to its earnest and winning
music. Lester himself, a man who, in his long retirement, had not
forgotten the attractions of intellectual society, nor even neglected a
certain cultivation of intellectual pursuits, enjoyed a pleasure that
he had not experienced for years. The gay Ellinor was fascinated into
admiration; and Madeline, the most silent of the groupe, drank in every
word, unconscious of the sweet poison she imbibed. Walter alone seemed
not carried away by the eloquence of their guest. He preserved an
unadmiring and sullen demeanour, and every now and then regarded Aram
with looks of suspicion and dislike. This was more remarkable when
the men were left alone; and Lester, in surprise and anger, darted
significant and admonitory looks towards his nephew, which at length
seemed to rouse him into a more hospitable bearing. As the cool of
the evening now came on, Lester proposed to Aram to enjoy it without,
previous to returning to the parlour, to which the ladies had retired.
Walter excused himself from joining them. The host and the guest
accordingly strolled forth alone.

“Your solitude,” said Lester, smiling, “is far deeper and less broken
than mine: do you never find it irksome?”

“Can Humanity be at all times contented?” said Aram. “No stream,
howsoever secret or subterranean, glides on in eternal tranquillity.”

“You allow, then, that you feel some occasional desire for a more active
and animated life?”

“Nay,” answered Aram; “that is scarcely a fair corollary from my remark.
I may, at times, feel the weariness of existence--the tedium vitae;
but I know well that the cause is not to be remedied by a change from
tranquillity to agitation. The objects of the great world are to be
pursued only by the excitement of the passions. The passions are at
once our masters and our deceivers;--they urge us onward, yet present no
limit to our progress. The farther we proceed, the more dim and shadowy
grows the goal. It is impossible for a man who leads the life of the
world, the life of the passions, ever to experience content. For the
life of the passions is that of a perpetual desire; but a state of
content is the absence of all desire. Thus philosophy has become
another name for mental quietude; and all wisdom points to a life of
intellectual indifference, as the happiest which earth can bestow.”

“This may be true enough,” said Lester, reluctantly; “but--”

“But what?”

“A something at our hearts--a secret voice--an involuntary
impulse--rebels against it, and points to action--action, as the true
sphere of man.”

A slight smile curved the lip of the Student; he avoided, however, the
argument, and remarked,

“Yet, if you think so, the world lies before you; why not return to it?”

“Because constant habit is stronger than occasional impulse; and my
seclusion, after all, has its sphere of action--has its object.”

“All seclusion has.”

“All? Scarcely so; for me, I have my object of interest in my children.”

“And mine is in my books.”

“And engaged in your object, does not the whisper of Fame ever animate
you with the desire to go forth into the world, and receive the homage
that would await you?”

“Listen to me,” replied Aram. “When I was a boy, I went once to a
theatre. The tragedy of Hamlet was performed: a play full of the
noblest thoughts, the subtlest morality, that exists upon the stage. The
audience listened with attention, with admiration, with applause. I said
to myself, when the curtain fell, ‘It must be a glorious thing to obtain
this empire over men’s intellects and emotions.’ But now an Italian
mountebank appeared on the stage,--a man of extraordinary personal
strength and slight of hand. He performed a variety of juggling
tricks, and distorted his body into a thousand surprising and unnatural
postures. The audience were transported beyond themselves: if they had
felt delight in Hamlet, they glowed with rapture at the mountebank: they
had listened with attention to the lofty thought, but they were snatched
from themselves by the marvel of the strange posture. ‘Enough,’ said I;
‘I correct my former notion. Where is the glory of ruling men’s minds,
and commanding their admiration, when a greater enthusiasm is excited by
mere bodily agility, than was kindled by the most wonderful emanations
of a genius little less than divine?’ I have never forgotten the
impression of that evening.”

Lester attempted to combat the truth of the illustration, and thus
conversing, they passed on through the village green, when the gaunt
form of Corporal Bunting arrested their progress.

“Beg pardon, Squire,” said he, with a military salute; “beg pardon, your
honour,” bowing to Aram; “but I wanted to speak to you, Squire, ‘bout
the rent of the bit cot yonder; times very hard--pay scarce--Michaelmas
close at hand--and--”

“You desire a little delay, Bunting, eh?--Well, well, we’ll see about
it, look up at the Hall to-morrow; Mr. Walter, I know wants to consult
you about letting the water from the great pond, and you must give us
your opinion of the new brewing.”

“Thank your honour, thank you; much obliged I’m sure. I hope your honour
liked the trout I sent up. Beg pardon, Master Aram, mayhap you would
condescend to accept a few fish now and then; they’re very fine in these
streams, as you probably know; if you please to let me, I’ll send some
up by the old ‘oman to-morrow, that is if the day’s cloudy a bit.”

The Scholar thanked the good Bunting, and would have proceeded onward,
but the Corporal was in a familiar mood.

“Beg pardon, beg pardon, but strange-looking dog here last
evening--asked after you--said you were old friend of his--trotted off
in your direction--hope all was right, Master?--augh!”

“All right!” repeated Aram, fixing his eyes on the Corporal, who had
concluded his speech with a significant wink, and pausing a full moment
before he continued, then as if satisfied with his survey, he added:

“Ay, ay, I know whom you mean; he had known me some years ago. So you
saw him! What said he to you of me?”

“Augh! little enough, Master Aram, he seemed to think only of satisfying
his own appetite; said he’d been a soldier.”

“A soldier, humph!”

“Never told me the regiment, though,--shy--did he ever desert, pray,
your honour?”

“I don’t know;” answered Aram, turning away. “I know little, very
little, about him!” He was going away, but stopped to add: “The man
called on me last night for assistance; the lateness of the hour a
little alarmed me. I gave him what I could afford, and he has now
proceeded on his journey.”

“Oh, then, he won’t take up his quarters hereabouts, your honour?” said
the Corporal, inquiringly.

“No, no; good evening.”

“What! this singular stranger, who so frightened my poor girls,
is really known to you;” said Lester, in surprise: “pray is he as
formidable as he seemed to them?”

“Scarcely,” said Aram, with great composure; “he has been a wild roving
fellow all his life, but--but there is little real harm in him. He is
certainly ill-favoured enough to--” here, interrupting himself, and
breaking into a new sentence, Aram added: “but at all events he will
frighten your nieces no more--he has proceeded on his journey northward.
And now, yonder lies my way home. Good evening.” The abruptness of this
farewell did indeed take Lester by surprise.

“Why, you will not leave me yet? The young ladies expect your return to
them for an hour or so! What will they think of such desertion? No, no,
come back, my good friend, and suffer me by and by to walk some part of
the way home with you.”

“Pardon me,” said Aram, “I must leave you now. As to the ladies,” he
added, with a faint smile, half in melancholy, half in scorn, “I am not
one whom they could miss;--forgive me if I seem unceremonious. Adieu.”

Lester at first felt a little offended, but when he recalled the
peculiar habits of the Scholar, he saw that the only way to hope for
a continuance of that society which had so pleased him, was to indulge
Aram at first in his unsocial inclinations, rather than annoy him by a
troublesome hospitality; he therefore, without further discourse, shook
hands with him, and they parted.

When Lester regained the little parlour, he found his nephew sitting,
silent and discontented, by the window. Madeline had taken up a book,
and Ellinor, in an opposite corner, was plying her needle with an air
of earnestness and quiet, very unlike her usual playful and cheerful
vivacity. There was evidently a cloud over the groupe; the good Lester
regarded them with a searching, yet kindly eye.

“And what has happened?” said he, “something of mighty import, I am
sure, or I should have heard my pretty Ellinor’s merry laugh long before
I crossed the threshold.”

Ellinor coloured and sighed, and worked faster than ever. Walter threw
open the window, and whistled a favourite air quite out of tune. Lester
smiled, and seated himself by his nephew.

“Well, Walter,” said he, “I feel, for the first time in these ten
years, I have a right to scold you. What on earth could make you so
inhospitable to your uncle’s guest? You eyed the poor student, as if you
wished him among the books of Alexandria!”

“I would he were burnt with them!” answered Walter, sharply. “He seems
to have added the black art to his other accomplishments, and bewitched
my fair cousins here into a forgetfulness of all but himself.”

“Not me!” said Ellinor eagerly, and looking up.

“No, not you, that’s true enough; you are too just, too kind;--it is a
pity that Madeline is not more like you.”

“My dear Walter,” said Madeline, “what is the matter? You accuse me of
what? being attentive to a man whom it is impossible to hear without
attention!”

“There!” cried Walter passionately; “you confess it; and so for a
stranger,--a cold, vain, pedantic egotist, you can shut your ears and
heart to those who have known and loved you all your life; and--and--”

“Vain!” interrupted Madeline, unheeding the latter part of Walter’s
address.

“Pedantic!” repeated her father.

“Yes! I say vain, pedantic!” cried Walter, working himself into a
passion. What on earth but the love of display could make him monopolize
the whole conversation?--What but pedantry could make him bring out
those anecdotes and allusions, and descriptions, or whatever you call
them, respecting every old wall or stupid plant in the country?

“I never thought you guilty of meanness before,” said Lester gravely.

“Meanness!”

“Yes! for is it not mean to be jealous of superior acquirements, instead
of admiring them?”

“What has been the use of those acquirements? Has he benefited mankind
by them? Shew me the poet--the historian--the orator, and I will yield
to none of you; no, not to Madeline herself in homage of their genius:
but the mere creature of books--the dry and sterile collector of other
men’s learning--no--no. What should I admire in such a machine of
literature, except a waste of perseverance?--And Madeline calls him
handsome too!”

At this sudden turn from declamation to reproach, Lester laughed
outright; and his nephew, in high anger, rose and left the room.

“Who could have thought Walter so foolish?” said Madeline.

“Nay,” observed Ellinor gently, “it is the folly of a kind heart, after
all. He feels sore at our seeming to prefer another--I mean another’s
conversation--to his!”

Lester turned round in his chair, and regarded with a serious look, the
faces of both sisters.

“My dear Ellinor,” said he, when he had finished his survey, “you are a
kind girl--come and kiss me!”




CHAPTER VI.

     THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE STUDENT.--A SUMMER SCENE--ARAM’S
     CONVERSATION WITH WALTER, AND SUBSEQUENT COLLOQUY WITH
                HIMSELF.

          “The soft season, the firmament serene,
          The loun illuminate air, and firth amene
          The silver-scalit fishes on the grete
          O’er-thwart clear streams sprinkillond for the heat,”
                  --Gawin Douglas.

                    “Ilia subter
          Caecum vulnus habes; sed lato balteus auro
          Praetegit.”
                  --Persius.

Several days elapsed before the family of the manor-house encountered
Aram again. The old woman came once or twice to present the inquiries
of her master as to Miss Lester’s accident; but Aram himself did not
appear. This want to interest certainly offended Madeline, although she
still drew upon herself Walter’s displeasure, by disputing and resenting
the unfavourable strictures on the scholar, in which that young
gentleman delighted to indulge. By degrees, however, as the days passed
without maturing the acquaintance which Walter had disapproved, the
youth relaxed in his attacks, and seemed to yield to the remonstrances
of his uncle. Lester had, indeed, conceived an especial inclination
towards the recluse. Any man of reflection, who has lived for some
time alone, and who suddenly meets with one who calls forth in him, and
without labour or contradiction, the thoughts which have sprung up in
his solitude, scarcely felt in their growth, will comprehend the new
zest, the awakening, as it were, of the mind, which Lester found in the
conversation of Eugene Aram. His solitary walk (for his nephew had the
separate pursuits of youth) appeared to him more dull than before; and
he longed to renew an intercourse which had given to the monotony of his
life both variety and relief. He called twice upon Aram, but the student
was, or affected to be, from home; and an invitation he sent him, though
couched in friendly terms, was, but with great semblance of kindness,
refused.

“See, Walter,” said Lester, disconcerted, as he finished reading the
refusal--“see what your rudeness has effected. I am quite convinced that
Aram (evidently a man of susceptible as well as retired mind) observed
the coldness of your manner towards him, and that thus you have deprived
me of the only society which, in this country of boors and savages, gave
me any gratification.”

Walter replied apologetically, but his uncle turned away with a greater
appearance of anger than his placid features were wont to exhibit; and
Walter, cursing the innocent cause of his uncle’s displeasure towards
him, took up his fishing-rod and went out alone, in no happy or
exhilarated mood.

It was waxing towards eve--an hour especially lovely in the month of
June, and not without reason favoured by the angler. Walter sauntered
across the rich and fragrant fields, and came soon into a sheltered
valley, through which the brooklet wound its shadowy way. Along the
margin the grass sprung up long and matted, and profuse with a thousand
weeds and flowers--the children of the teeming June. Here the ivy-leaved
bell-flower, and not far from it the common enchanter’s night-shade,
the silver weed, and the water-aven; and by the hedges that now and then
neared the water, the guelder-rose, and the white briony, overrunning
the thicket with its emerald leaves and luxuriant flowers. And here and
there, silvering the bushes, the elder offered its snowy tribute to the
summer. All the insect youth were abroad, with their bright wings and
glancing motion; and from the lower depths of the bushes the blackbird
darted across, or higher and unseen the first cuckoo of the eve began
its continuous and mellow note. All this cheeriness and gloss of life,
which enamour us with the few bright days of the English summer, make
the poetry in an angler’s life, and convert every idler at heart into a
moralist, and not a gloomy one, for the time.

Softened by the quiet beauty and voluptuousness around him, Walter’s
thoughts assumed a more gentle dye, and he broke out into the old lines:

“Sweet day, so soft, so calm, so bright; The bridal of the earth and
sky,” as he dipped his line into the current, and drew it across the
shadowy hollows beneath the bank. The river-gods were not, however, in
a favourable mood, and after waiting in vain for some time, in a spot in
which he was usually successful, he proceeded slowly along the margin
of the brooklet, crushing the reeds at every step, into that fresh and
delicious odour, which furnished Bacon with one of his most beautiful
comparisons.

He thought, as he proceeded, that beneath a tree that overhung the
waters in the narrowest part of their channel, he heard a voice, and as
he approached he recognised it as Aram’s; a curve in the stream brought
him close by the spot, and he saw the student half reclined beneath the
tree, and muttering, but at broken intervals, to himself.

The words were so scattered, that Walter did not trace their clue; but
involuntarily he stopped short, within a few feet of the soliloquist:
and Aram, suddenly turning round, beheld him. A fierce and abrupt change
broke over the scholar’s countenance; his cheek grew now pale, now
flushed; and his brows knit over his flashing and dark eyes with an
intent anger, that was the more withering, from its contrast to the
usual calmness of his features. Walter drew back, but Aram stalking
directly up to him, gazed into his face, as if he would read his very
soul.

“What! eaves-dropping?” said he, with a ghastly smile. “You overheard
me, did you? Well, well, what said I?--what said I?” Then pausing, and
noting that Walter did not reply, he stamped his foot violently, and
grinding his teeth, repeated in a smothered tone “Boy! what said I?”

“Mr. Aram,” said Walter, “you forget yourself; I am not one to play
the listener, more especially to the learned ravings of a man who can
conceal nothing I care to know. Accident brought me hither.”

“What! surely--surely I spoke aloud, did I not?--did I not?”

“You did, but so incoherently and indistinctly, that I did not profit
by your indiscretion. I cannot plagiarise, I assure you, from any
scholastic designs you might have been giving vent to.”

Aram looked on him for a moment, and then breathing heavily, turned
away.

“Pardon me,” he said; “I am a poor half-crazed man; much study has
unnerved me; I should never live but with my own thoughts; forgive me,
Sir, I pray you.”

Touched by the sudden contrition of Aram’s manner, Walter forgot, not
only his present displeasure, but his general dislike; he stretched
forth his hand to the Student, and hastened to assure him of his ready
forgiveness. Aram sighed deeply as he pressed the young man’s hand, and
Walter saw, with surprise and emotion, that his eyes were filled with
tears.

“Ah!” said Aram, gently shaking his head, “it is a hard life we bookmen
lead. Not for us is the bright face of noon-day or the smile of woman,
the gay unbending of the heart, the neighing steed, and the shrill
trump; the pride, pomp, and circumstance of life. Our enjoyments are few
and calm; our labour constant; but that is it not, Sir?--that is it not?
the body avenges its own neglect. We grow old before our time; we wither
up; the sap of youth shrinks from our veins; there is no bound in our
step. We look about us with dimmed eyes, and our breath grows short and
thick, and pains and coughs, and shooting aches come upon us at night;
it is a bitter life--a bitter life--a joyless life. I would I had never
commenced it. And yet the harsh world scowls upon us: our nerves are
broken, and they wonder we are querulous; our blood curdles, and they
ask why we are not gay; our brain grows dizzy and indistinct, (as
with me just now,) and, shrugging their shoulders, they whisper their
neighbours that we are mad. I wish I had worked at the plough, and known
sleep, and loved mirth--and--and not been what I am.”

As the Student uttered the last sentence, he bowed down his head, and a
few tears stole silently down his cheek. Walter was greatly affected--it
took him by surprise; nothing in Aram’s ordinary demeanour betrayed any
facility to emotion; and he conveyed to all the idea of a man, if not
proud, at least cold.

“You do not suffer bodily pain, I trust?” asked Walter, soothingly.

“Pain does not conquer me,” said Aram, slowly recovering himself. “I
am not melted by that which I would fain despise. Young man, I wronged
you--you have forgiven me. Well, well, we will say no more on that head;
it is past and pardoned. Your father has been kind to me, and I have
not returned his advances; you shall tell him why. I have lived thirteen
years by myself, and I have contracted strange ways and many humours
not common to the world--you have seen an example of this. Judge for
yourself if I be fit for the smoothness, and confidence, and ease
of social intercourse; I am not fit, I feel it! I am doomed to be
alone--tell your father this--tell him to suffer me to live so! I am
grateful for his goodness--I know his motives--but have a certain pride
of mind; I cannot bear sufferance--I loath indulgence. Nay, interrupt me
not, I beseech you. Look round on Nature--behold the only company
that humbles me not--except the dead whose souls speak to us from the
immortality of books. These herbs at your feet, I know their secrets--I
watch the mechanism of their life; the winds--they have taught me their
language; the stars--I have unravelled their mysteries; and these, the
creatures and ministers of God--these I offend not by my mood--to them
I utter my thoughts, and break forth into my dreams, without reserve and
without fear. But men disturb me--I have nothing to learn from them--I
have no wish to confide in them; they cripple the wild liberty which
has become to me a second nature. What its shell is to the tortoise,
solitude has become to me--my protection; nay, my life!”

“But,” said Walter, “with us, at least, you would not have to dread
restraint; you might come when you would; be silent or converse,
according to your will.”

Aram smiled faintly, but made no immediate reply.

“So, you have been angling!” he said, after a short pause, and as if
willing to change the thread of conversation. “Fie! It is a treacherous
pursuit; it encourages man’s worst propensities--cruelty and deceit.”

“I should have thought a lover of Nature would have been more indulgent
to a pastime which introduces us to her most quiet retreats.”

“And cannot Nature alone tempt you without need of such allurements?
What! that crisped and winding stream, with flowers on its very
tide--the water-violet and the water-lily--these silent brakes--the cool
of the gathering evening--the still and luxuriance of the universal life
around you; are not these enough of themselves to tempt you forth? if
not, go to--your excuse is hypocrisy.”

“I am used to these scenes,” replied Walter; “I am weary of the thoughts
they produce in me, and long for any diversion or excitement.”

“Ay, ay, young man! The mind is restless at your age--have a care.
Perhaps you long to visit the world--to quit these obscure haunts which
you are fatigued in admiring?”

“It may be so,” said Walter, with a slight sigh. “I should at least like
to visit our great capital, and note the contrast; I should come back, I
imagine, with a greater zest to these scenes.”

Aram laughed. “My friend,” said he, “when men have once plunged into the
great sea of human toil and passion, they soon wash away all love and
zest for innocent enjoyments. What once was a soft retirement,
will become the most intolerable monotony; the gaming of social
existence--the feverish and desperate chances of honour and wealth,
upon which the men of cities set their hearts, render all pursuits
less exciting, utterly insipid and dull. The brook and the
angle--ha!--ha!--these are not occupations for men who have once battled
with the world.”

“I can forego them, then, without regret;” said Walter, with the
sanguineness of his years. Aram looked upon him wistfully; the bright
eye, the healthy cheek, and vigorous frame of the youth, suited with his
desire to seek the conflict of his kind, and gave a naturalness to his
ambition, which was not without interest, even to the recluse.

“Poor boy!” said he, mournfully, “how gallantly the ship leaves the
port; how worn and battered it will return!”

When they parted, Walter returned slowly homewards, filled with pity
towards the singular man whom he had seen so strangely overpowered;
and wondering how suddenly his mind had lost its former rancour to the
Student. Yet there mingled even with these kindly feelings, a little
displeasure at the superior tone which Aram had unconsciously adopted
towards him; and to which, from any one, the high spirit of the young
man was not readily willing to submit.

Meanwhile, the Student continued his path along the water side, and
as, with his gliding step and musing air, he roamed onward, it was
impossible to imagine a form more suited to the deep tranquillity of the
scene. Even the wild birds seemed to feel, by a sort of instinct, that
in him there was no cause for fear; and did not stir from the turf that
neighboured, or the spray that overhung, his path.

“So,” said he, soliloquizing, but not without casting frequent and
jealous glances round him, and in a murmur so indistinct as would have
been inaudible even to a listener--“so, I was not overheard,--well, I
must cure myself of this habit; our thoughts, like nuns, ought not to go
abroad without a veil. Ay, this tone will not betray me, I will
preserve its tenor, for I can scarcely altogether renounce my sole
confidant--SELF; and thought seems more clear when uttered even thus.
‘Tis a fine youth! full of the impulse and daring of his years; I was
never so young at heart. I was--nay, what matters it? Who is answerable
for his nature? Who can say, ‘I controlled all the circumstances which
made me what I am?’ Madeline,--Heavens! did I bring on myself this
temptation? Have I not fenced it from me throughout all my youth, when
my brain did at moments forsake me, and the veins did bound? And now,
when the yellow hastens on the green of life; now, for the first
time, this emotion--this weakness--and for whom? One I have lived
with--known--beneath whose eyes I have passed through all the fine
gradations, from liking to love, from love to passion? No;--one, whom
I have seen but little; who, it is true, arrested my eye at the first
glance it caught of her two years since, but with whom till within the
last few weeks I have scarcely spoken! Her voice rings on my ear, her
look dwells on my heart; when I sleep, she is with me; when I wake, I
am haunted by her image. Strange, strange! Is love then, after all, the
sudden passion which in every age poetry has termed it, though till now
my reason has disbelieved the notion?... And now, what is the question?
To resist, or to yield. Her father invites me, courts me; and I stand
aloof! Will this strength, this forbearance, last?--Shall I encourage my
mind to this decision?” Here Aram paused abruptly, and then renewed:
“It is true! I ought to weave my lot with none. Memory sets me apart
and alone in the world; it seems unnatural to me, a thought of dread--to
bring another being to my solitude, to set an everlasting watch on my
uprisings and my downsittings; to invite eyes to my face when I sleep at
nights, and ears to every word that may start unbidden from my lips. But
if the watch be the watch of love--away! does love endure for ever? He
who trusts to woman, trusts to the type of change. Affection may turn to
hatred, fondness to loathing, anxiety to dread; and, at the best, woman
is weak, she is the minion to her impulses. Enough, I will steel my
soul,--shut up the avenues of sense,--brand with the scathing-iron these
yet green and soft emotions of lingering youth,--and freeze and chain
and curdle up feeling, and heart, and manhood, into ice and age!”




CHAPTER VII.

   THE POWER OF LOVE OVER THE RESOLUTION OF THE STUDENT.--ARAM
    BECOMES A FREQUENT GUEST AT THE MANOR-HOUSE.--A WALK.--
   CONVERSATION WITH DAME DARKMANS.--HER HISTORY.--POVERTY AND
               ITS EFFECTS.

       MAD. “Then, as Time won thee frequent to our hearth,

       Didst thou not breathe, like dreams, into my soul

       Nature’s more gentle secrets, the sweet lore

       Of the green herb and the bee-worshipp’d flower?

       And when deep Night did o’er the nether Earth

       Diffuse meek quiet, and the Heart of Heaven

       With love grew breathless--didst thou not unrol

       The volume of the weird chaldean stars,

       And of the winds, the clouds, the invisible air,

       Make eloquent discourse, until, methought,

       No human lip, but some diviner spirit

       Alone, could preach such truths of things divine?

       And so--and so--”

       ARAM. “From Heaven we turned to Earth,

       And Wisdom fathered Passion.”

       ..................

       ARAM. “Wise men have praised the Peasant’s thoughtless lot,

       And learned Pride hath envied humble Toil;

       If they were right, why let us burn our books,

       And sit us down, and play the fool with Time,

       Mocking the prophet Wisdom’s high decrees,

       And walling this trite Present with dark clouds,

       ‘Till Night becomes our Nature; and the ray

       Ev’n of the stars, but meteors that withdraw

       The wandering spirit from the sluggish rest

       Which makes its proper bliss. I will accost

       This denizen of toil.”

       --From Eugene Aram, a MS. Tragedy.

       “A wicked hag, and envy’s self excelling

       In mischiefe, for herself she only vext,

       But this same, both herself and others eke perplext.”

     ...............

       “Who then can strive with strong necessity,

       That holds the world in his still changing state,

     .................

       Then do no further go, no further stray,

       But here lie down, and to thy rest betake.”

                --Spenser.

Few men perhaps could boast of so masculine and firm a mind, as, despite
his eccentricities, Aram assuredly possessed. His habits of solitude
had strengthened its natural hardihood; for, accustomed to make all the
sources of happiness flow solely from himself, his thoughts the only
companion--his genius the only vivifier--of his retreat; the tone and
faculty of his spirit could not but assume that austere and vigorous
energy which the habit of self-dependence almost invariably produces;
and yet, the reader, if he be young, will scarcely feel surprise that
the resolution of the Student, to battle against incipient love, from
whatever reasons it might be formed, gradually and reluctantly melted
away. It may be noted, that the enthusiasts of learning and reverie
have, at one time or another in their lives, been, of all the tribes
of men, the most keenly susceptible to love; their solitude feeds their
passion; and deprived, as they usually are, of the more hurried and
vehement occupations of life, when love is once admitted to their
hearts, there is no counter-check to its emotions, and no escape from
its excitation. Aram, too, had just arrived at that age when a man
usually feels a sort of revulsion in the current of his desires. At
that age, those who have hitherto pursued love, begin to grow alive to
ambition; those who have been slaves to the pleasures of life, awaken
from the dream, and direct their desire to its interests. And in the
same proportion, they who till then have wasted the prodigal fervours
of youth upon a sterile soil; who have served Ambition, or, like Aram,
devoted their hearts to Wisdom; relax from their ardour, look back on
the departed years with regret, and commence, in their manhood, the
fiery pleasures and delirious follies which are only pardonable in
youth. In short, as in every human pursuit there is a certain
vanity, and as every acquisition contains within itself the seed of
disappointment, so there is a period of life when we pause from the
pursuit, and are discontented with the acquisition. We then look around
us for something new--again follow--and are again deceived. Few men
throughout life are the servants to one desire. When we gain the middle
of the bridge of our mortality, different objects from those which
attracted us upward almost invariably lure us to the descent. Happy
they who exhaust in the former part of the journey all the foibles of
existence! But how different is the crude and evanescent love of that
age when thought has not given intensity and power to the passions,
from the love which is felt, for the first time, in maturer but still
youthful years! As the flame burns the brighter in proportion to the
resistance which it conquers, this later love is the more glowing in
proportion to the length of time in which it has overcome temptation:
all the solid and, concentred faculties ripened to their full height,
are no longer capable of the infinite distractions, the numberless
caprices of youth; the rays of the heart, not rendered weak by
diversion, collect into one burning focus;

   [Love is of the nature of a burning glass, which kept
    still in one place, fireth; changed often it doth nothing!”
     --Letters by Sir John Suckling.]

the same earnestness and unity of purpose which render what we undertake
in manhood so far more successful than what we would effect in youth,
are equally visible and equally triumphant, whether directed to interest
or to love. But then, as in Aram, the feelings must be fresh as well as
matured; they must not have been frittered away by previous indulgence;
the love must be the first produce of the soil, not the languid
after-growth.

The reader will remark, that the first time in which our narrative has
brought Madeline and Aram together, was not the first time they had met;
Aram had long noted with admiration a beauty which he had never seen
paralleled, and certain vague and unsettled feelings had preluded the
deeper emotion that her image now excited within him. But the main cause
of his present and growing attachment, had been in the evident sentiment
of kindness which he could not but feel Madeline bore towards him. So
retiring a nature as his, might never have harboured love, if the love
bore the character of presumption; but that one so beautiful beyond
his dreams as Madeline Lester, should deign to exercise towards him a
tenderness, that might suffer him to hope, was a thought, that when he
caught her eye unconsciously fixed upon him, and noted that her voice
grew softer and more tremulous when she addressed him, forced itself
upon his heart, and woke there a strange and irresistible emotion,
which solitude and the brooding reflection that solitude produces--a
reflection so much more intense in proportion to the paucity of living
images it dwells upon--soon ripened into love. Perhaps even, he would
not have resisted the impulse as he now did, had not at this time
certain thoughts connected with past events, been more forcibly than
of late years obtruded upon him, and thus in some measure divided his
heart. By degrees, however, those thoughts receded from their vividness,
into the habitual deep, but not oblivious, shade beneath which his
commanding mind had formerly driven them to repose; and as they thus
receded, Madeline’s image grew more undisturbedly present, and his
resolution to avoid its power more fluctuating and feeble. Fate seemed
bent upon bringing together these two persons, already so attracted
towards each other. After the conversation recorded in our last chapter,
between Walter and the Student, the former, touched and softened as we
have seen, in spite of himself, had cheerfully forborne (what before
he had done reluctantly) the expressions of dislike which he had once
lavished so profusely upon Aram; and Lester, who, forward as he had
seemed, had nevertheless been hitherto a little checked in his advances
to his neighbour by the hostility of his son, now felt no scruple
to deter him from urging them with a pertinacity that almost forbade
refusal. It was Aram’s constant habit, in all seasons, to wander abroad
at certain times of the day, especially towards the evening; and if
Lester failed to win entrance to his house, he was thus enabled to meet
the Student in his frequent rambles, and with a seeming freedom from
design. Actuated by his great benevolence of character, Lester earnestly
desired to win his solitary and unfriended neighbour from a mood and
habit which he naturally imagined must engender a growing melancholy
of mind; and since Walter had detailed to him the particulars of his
meeting with Aram, this desire had been considerably increased. There is
not perhaps a stronger feeling in the world than pity, when united
with admiration. When one man is resolved to know another, it is almost
impossible to prevent him: we see daily the most remarkable instances of
perseverance on one side conquering distaste on the other. By degrees,
then, Aram relaxed from his insociability; he seemed to surrender
himself to a kindness, the sincerity of which he was compelled to
acknowledge; if he for a long time refused to accept the hospitality
of his neighbour, he did not reject his society when they met, and
this intercourse by little and little progressed, until ultimately
the recluse yielded to solicitation, and became the guest as well
as companion. This, at first accident, grew, though not without many
interruptions, into habit; and at length few evenings were passed by the
inmates of the Manor-house without the society of the Student. As his
reserve wore off, his conversation mingled with its attractions a tender
and affectionate tone. He seemed grateful for the pains which had been
taken to allure him to a scene in which, at last, he acknowledged he
found a happiness that he never experienced before: and those who had
hitherto admired him for his genius, admired him now yet more for his
susceptibility to the affections.

There was not in Aram any thing that savoured of the harshness of
pedantry, or the petty vanities of dogmatism: his voice was soft and
low, and his manner always remarkable for its singular gentleness, and a
certain dignified humility. His language did indeed, at times, assume
a tone of calm and patriarchal command; but it was only the command
arising from an intimate persuasion of the truth of what he uttered.
Moralizing upon our nature, or mourning over the delusions of the world,
a grave and solemn strain breathed throughout his lofty words and
the profound melancholy of his wisdom; but it touched, not
offended--elevated, not humbled--the lesser intellect of his listeners;
and even this air of unconscious superiority vanished when he was
invited to teach or explain. That task which so few do gracefully, that
an accurate and shrewd thinker has said: “It is always safe to learn,
even from our enemies; seldom safe to instruct even our friends,” [Note:
Lacon.] Aram performed with a meekness and simplicity that charmed the
vanity, even while it corrected the ignorance, of the applicant; and so
various and minute was the information of this accomplished man, that
there scarcely existed any branch even of that knowledge usually called
practical, to which he could not impart from his stores something
valuable and new. The agriculturist was astonished at the success of his
suggestions; and the mechanic was indebted to him for the device which
abridged his labour in improving its result.

It happened that the study of botany was not, at that day, so favourite
and common a diversion with young ladies as it is now, and Ellinor,
captivated by the notion of a science that gave a life and a history
to the loveliest of earth’s offspring, besought Aram to teach her its
principles.

As Madeline, though she did not second the request, could scarcely
absent herself from sharing the lesson, this pursuit brought the
pair--already lovers--closer and closer together. It associated them not
only at home, but in their rambles throughout that enchanting country;
and there is a mysterious influence in Nature, which renders us, in her
loveliest scenes, the most susceptible to love! Then, too, how often in
their occupation their hands and eyes met:--how often, by the shady wood
or the soft water-side, they found themselves alone. In all times, how
dangerous the connexion, when of different sexes, between the scholar
and the teacher! Under how many pretences, in that connexion, the heart
finds the opportunity to speak out.

Yet it was not with ease and complacency that Aram delivered himself
to the intoxication of his deepening attachment. Sometimes he was
studiously cold, or evidently wrestling with the powerful passion that
mastered his reason. It was not without many throes, and desperate
resistance, that love at length overwhelmed and subdued him; and these
alternations of his mood, if they sometimes offended Madeline and
sometimes wounded, still rather increased than lessened the spell which
bound her to him. The doubt and the fear--the caprice and the change,
which agitate the surface, swell also the tides, of passion. Woman,
too, whose love is so much the creature of her imagination, always asks
something of mystery and conjecture in the object of her affection. It
is a luxury to her to perplex herself with a thousand apprehensions;
and the more restlessly her lover occupies her mind, the more deeply he
enthrals it.

Mingling with her pure and tender attachment to Aram, a high and
unswerving veneration, she saw in his fitfulness, and occasional
abstraction and contradiction of manner, a confirmation of the modest
sentiment that most weighed upon her fears; and imagined that at those
times he thought her, as she deemed herself, unworthy of his love.
And this was the only struggle which she conceived to pass between
the affection he evidently bore her, and the feelings which had as yet
restrained him from its open avowal.

One evening, Lester and the two sisters were walking with the Student
along the valley that led to the house of the latter, when they saw an
old woman engaged in collecting firewood among the bushes, and a little
girl holding out her apron to receive the sticks with which the crone’s
skinny arms unsparingly filled it. The child trembled, and seemed
half-crying; while the old woman, in a harsh, grating croak, was
muttering forth mingled objurgation and complaint.

There was something in the appearance of the latter at once impressive
and displeasing; a dark, withered, furrowed skin was drawn like
parchment over harsh and aquiline features; the eyes, through the rheum
of age, glittered forth black and malignant; and even her stooping
posture did not conceal a height greatly above the common stature,
though gaunt and shrivelled with years and poverty. It was a form and
face that might have recalled at once the celebrated description of
Otway, on a part of which we have already unconsciously encroached, and
the remaining part of which we shall wholly borrow.

“--On her crooked shoulders had she wrapped The tattered remnants of an
old stript hanging, That served to keep her carcase from the cold, So
there was nothing of a piece about her. Her lower weeds were all o’er
coarsely patched With different coloured rags, black, red, white,
yellow, And seemed to speak variety of wretchedness.”

“See,” said Lester, “one of the eyesores of our village, (I might say)
the only discontented person.”

“What! Dame Darkmans!” said Ellinor, quickly. “Ah! let us turn back. I
hate to encounter that old woman; there is something so evil and savage
in her manner of talk--and look, how she rates that poor girl, whom she
has dragged or decoyed to assist her!”

Aram looked curiously on the old hag. “Poverty,” said he, “makes some
humble, but more malignant; is it not want that grafts the devil on this
poor woman’s nature? Come, let us accost her--I like conferring with
distress.”

“It is hard labour this?” said the Student gently.

The old woman looked up askant--the music of the voice that addressed
her sounded harsh on her ear.

“Ay, ay!” she answered. “You fine gentlefolks can know what the poor
suffer; ye talk and ye talk, but ye never assist.”

“Say not so, Dame,” said Lester; “did I not send you but yesterday bread
and money? and when do you ever look up at the Hall without obtaining
relief?”

“But the bread was as dry as a stick,” growled the hag: “and the money,
what was it? will it last a week? Oh, yes! Ye think as much of your
doits and mites, as if ye stripped yourselves of a comfort to give it
to us. Did ye have a dish less--a ‘tato less, the day ye sent me--your
charity I ‘spose ye calls it? Och! fie! But the Bible’s the poor
cretur’s comfort.”

“I am glad to hear you say that, Dame,” said the good-natured Lester;
“and I forgive every thing else you have said, on account of that one
sentence.”

The old woman dropped the sticks she had just gathered, and glowered
at the speaker’s benevolent countenance with a malicious meaning in her
dark eyes.

“An’ ye do? Well, I’m glad I please ye there. Och! yes! the Bible’s a
mighty comfort; for it says as much that the rich man shall not inter
the kingdom of Heaven! There’s a truth for you, that makes the poor
folk’s heart chirp like a cricket--ho! ho! I sits by the imbers of a
night, and I thinks and thinks as how I shall see you all burning;
and ye’ll ask me for a drop o’ water, and I shall laugh thin from my
pleasant seat with the angels. Och--it’s a book for the poor that!”

The sisters shuddered. “And you think then that with envy, malice,
and all uncharitableness at your heart, you are certain of Heaven? For
shame! Pluck the mote from your own eye!”

“What sinnifies praching? Did not the Blessed Saviour come for the poor?
Them as has rags and dry bread here will be ixalted in the nixt world;
an’ if we poor folk have malice as ye calls it, whose fault’s that? What
do ye tache us? Eh?--answer me that. Ye keeps all the larning an’ all
the other fine things to yoursel’, and then ye scould, and thritten, and
hang us, ‘cause we are not as wise as you. Och! there is no jistice in
the Lamb, if Heaven is not made for us; and the iverlasting Hell, with
its brimstone and fire, and its gnawing an’ gnashing of teeth, an’ its
theirst, an’ its torture, and its worm that niver dies, for the like o’
you.”

“Come! come away,” said Ellinor, pulling her father’s arm.

“And if,” said Aram, pausing, “if I were to say to you,--name your want
and it shall be fulfilled, would you have no charity for me also?”

“Umph,” returned the hag, “ye are the great scolard; and they say
ye knows what no one else do. Till me now,” and she approached, and
familiarly, laid her bony finger on the student’s arm; “till me,--have
ye iver, among other fine things, known poverty?”

“I have, woman!” said Aram, sternly.

“Och ye have thin! And did ye not sit and gloat, and eat up your oun
heart, an’ curse the sun that looked so gay, an’ the winged things that
played so blithe-like, an’ scowl at the rich folk that niver wasted a
thought on ye? till me now, your honour, till me!”

And the crone curtesied with a mock air of beseeching humility.

“I never forgot, even in want, the love due to my fellow-sufferers; for,
woman, we all suffer,--the rich and the poor: there are worse pangs than
those of want!”

“Ye think there be, do ye? that’s a comfort, umph! Well, I’ll till ye
now, I feel a rispict for you, that I don’t for the rest on ‘em; for
your face does not insult me with being cheary like their’s yonder;
an’ I have noted ye walk in the dusk with your eyes down and your arms
crossed; an’ I have said,--that man I do not hate, somehow, for he has
something dark at his heart like me!”

“The lot of earth is woe,” answered Aram calmly, yet shrinking back
from the crone’s touch; “judge we charitably, and act we kindly to each
other. There--this money is not much, but it will light your hearth and
heap your table without toil, for some days at least!”

“Thank your honour: an’ what think you I’ll do with the money?”

“What?”

“Drink, drink, drink!” cried the hag fiercely; “there’s nothing like
drink for the poor, for thin we fancy oursels what we wish, and,”
 sinking her voice into a whisper, “I thinks thin that I have my foot
on the billies of the rich folks, and my hands twisted about their
intrails, and I hear them shriek, and--thin I’m happy!”

“Go home!” said Aram, turning away, “and open the Book of life with
other thoughts.”

The little party proceeded, and, looking back, Lester saw the old woman
gaze after them, till a turn in the winding valley hid her from his
sight.

“That is a strange person, Aram; scarcely a favourable specimen of the
happy English peasant;” said Lester, smiling.

“Yet they say,” added Madeline, “that she was not always the same
perverse and hateful creature she is now.”

“Ay,” said Aram, “and what then is her history?”

“Why,” replied Madeline, slightly blushing to find herself made the
narrator of a story, “some forty years ago this woman, so gaunt and
hideous now, was the beauty of the village. She married an Irish soldier
whose regiment passed through Grassdale, and was heard of no more
till about ten years back, when she returned to her native place, the
discontented, envious, altered being you now see her.”

“She is not reserved in regard to her past life,” said Lester. “She is
too happy to seize the attention of any one to whom she can pour forth
her dark and angry confidence. She saw her husband, who was afterwards
dismissed the service, a strong, powerful man, a giant of his tribe,
pine and waste, inch by inch, from mere physical want, and at last
literally die from hunger. It happened that they had settled in the
country in which her husband was born, and in that county, those
frequent famines which are the scourge of Ireland were for two years
especially severe. You may note, that the old woman has a strong vein of
coarse eloquence at her command, perhaps acquired in (for it partakes of
the natural character of) the country in which she lived so long; and it
would literally thrill you with horror to hear her descriptions of the
misery and destitution that she witnessed, and amidst which her husband
breathed his last. Out of four children, not one survives. One, an
infant, died within a week of the father; two sons were executed, one
at the age of sixteen, one a year older, for robbery committed under
aggravated circumstances; and the fourth, a daughter, died in the
hospitals of London. The old woman became a wanderer and a vagrant, and
was at length passed to her native parish, where she has since dwelt.
These are the misfortunes which have turned her blood to gall; and these
are the causes which fill her with so bitter a hatred against those whom
wealth has preserved from sharing or witnessing a fate similar to hers.”

“Oh!” said Aram, in a low, but deep tone, “when--when will these hideous
disparities be banished from the world? How many noble natures--how many
glorious hopes--how much of the seraph’s intellect, have been crushed
into the mire, or blasted into guilt, by the mere force of physical
want? What are the temptations of the rich to those of the poor? Yet see
how lenient we are to the crimes of the one,--how relentless to those of
the other! It is a bad world; it makes a man’s heart sick to look around
him. The consciousness of how little individual genius can do to relieve
the mass, grinds out, as with a stone, all that is generous in ambition;
and to aspire from the level of life is but to be more graspingly
selfish.”

“Can legislators, or the moralists that instruct legislators, do so
little, then, towards universal good?” said Lester, doubtingly.

“Why? what can they do but forward civilization? And what is
civilization, but an increase of human disparities? The more the luxury
of the few, the more startling the wants, and the more galling the
sense, of poverty. Even the dreams of the philanthropist only tend
towards equality; and where is equality to be found, but in the state
of the savage? No; I thought otherwise once; but I now regard the
vast lazar-house around us without hope of relief:--Death is the sole
Physician!”

“Ah, no!” said the high-souled Madeline, eagerly; “do not take away from
us the best feeling and the highest desire we can cherish. How poor,
even in this beautiful world, with the warm sun and fresh air about us,
that alone are sufficient to make us glad, would be life, if we could
not make the happiness of others!”

Aram looked at the beautiful speaker with a soft and half-mournful
smile. There is one very peculiar pleasure that we feel as we grow
older,--it is to see embodied in another and a more lovely shape the
thoughts and sentiments we once nursed ourselves; it is as if we viewed
before us the incarnation of our own youth; and it is no wonder that we
are warmed towards the object, that thus seems the living apparition
of all that was brightest in ourselves! It was with this sentiment
that Aram now gazed on Madeline. She felt the gaze, and her heart beat
delightedly, but she sunk at once into a silence, which she did not
break during the rest of their walk.

“I do not say,” said Aram, after a pause, “that we are not able to make
the happiness of those immediately around us. I speak only of what
we can effect for the mass. And it is a deadening thought to mental
ambition, that the circle of happiness we can create is formed more by
our moral than our mental qualities. A warm heart, though accompanied
but by a mediocre understanding, is even more likely to promote the
happiness of those around, than are the absorbed and abstract, though
kindly powers of a more elevated genius; but (observing Lester about
to interrupt him), let us turn from this topic,--let us turn from man’s
weakness to the glories of the mother-nature, from which he sprung.”

And kindling, as he ever did, the moment he approached a subject so
dear to his studies, Aram now spoke of the stars, which began to sparkle
forth,--of the vast, illimitable career which recent science had opened
to the imagination,--and of the old, bewildering, yet eloquent theories,
which from age to age had at once misled and elevated the conjecture of
past sages. All this was a theme which his listeners loved to listen
to, and Madeline not the least. Youth, beauty, pomp, what are these,
in point of attraction, to a woman’s heart, when compared to
eloquence?--the magic of the tongue is the most dangerous of all spells!




CHAPTER VIII.

   THE PRIVILEGE OF GENIUS.--LESTER’S SATISFACTION AT THE ASPECT
    OF EVENTS.--HIS CONVERSATION WITH WALTER.--A DISCOVERY.

       “Alc.--I am for Lidian:
       This accident no doubt will draw him from his hermit’s life!

       “Lis.--Spare my grief, and apprehend
       What I should speak.”
          --Beaumont and Fletcher.--The Lovers’ Progress.

In the course of the various conversations our family of Grassdale
enjoyed with their singular neighbour, it appeared that his knowledge
had not been confined to the closet; at times, he dropped remarks
which shewed that he had been much among cities, and travelled with the
design, or at least with the vigilance, of the observer; but he did
not love to be drawn into any detailed accounts of what he had seen,
or whither he had been; an habitual though a gentle reserve, kept watch
over the past--not indeed that character of reserve which excites the
doubt, but which inspires the interest. His most gloomy moods were
rather abrupt and fitful than morose, and his usual bearing was calm,
soft, and even tender.

There is a certain charm about great superiority of intellect,
that winds into deep affections which a much more constant and even
amiability of manners in lesser men, often fails to reach. Genius makes
many enemies, but it makes sure friends--friends who forgive much,
who endure long, who exact little; they partake of the character of
disciples as well as friends. There lingers about the human heart a
strong inclination to look upward--to revere: in this inclination
lies the source of religion, of loyalty, and also of the worship and
immortality which are rendered so cheerfully to the great of old. And
in truth, it is a divine pleasure to admire! admiration seems in some
measure to appropriate to ourselves the qualities it honours in others.
We wed,--we root ourselves to the natures we so love to contemplate,
and their life grows a part of our own. Thus, when a great man, who has
engrossed our thoughts, our conjectures, our homage, dies, a gap seems
suddenly left in the world; a wheel in the mechanism of our own being
appears abruptly stilled; a portion of ourselves, and not our worst
portion, for how many pure, high, generous sentiments it contains, dies
with him! Yes! it is this love, so rare, so exalted, and so denied to
all ordinary men, which is the especial privilege of greatness, whether
that greatness be shewn in wisdom, in enterprise, in virtue, or even,
till the world learns better, in the more daring and lofty order of
crime. A Socrates may claim it to-day--a Napoleon to-morrow; nay, a
brigand chief, illustrious in the circle in which he lives, may call it
forth no less powerfully than the generous failings of a Byron, or the
sublime excellence of the greater Milton.

Lester saw with evident complacency the passion growing up between
his friend and his daughter; he looked upon it as a tie that would
permanently reconcile Aram to the hearth of social and domestic life; a
tie that would constitute the happiness of his daughter, and secure to
himself a relation in the man he felt most inclined, of all he knew, to
honour and esteem. He remarked in the gentleness and calm temper of
Aram much that was calculated to ensure domestic peace, and knowing
the peculiar disposition of Madeline, he felt that she was exactly the
person, not only to bear with the peculiarities of the Student, but to
venerate their source. In short, the more he contemplated the idea of
this alliance, the more he was charmed with its probability.

Musing on this subject, the good Squire was one day walking in his
garden, when he perceived his nephew at some distance, and remarked that
Walter, on seeing him, was about, instead of coming forward to meet him,
to turn down an alley in an opposite direction.

A little pained at this, and remembering that Walter had of late seemed
estranged from himself, and greatly altered from the high and cheerful
spirits natural to his temper, Lester called to his nephew; and Walter,
reluctantly and slowly changing his purpose of avoidance, advanced and
met him.

“Why, Walter!” said the uncle, taking his arm; “this is somewhat unkind,
to shun me; are you engaged in any pursuit that requires secrecy or
haste?”

“No, indeed, Sir!” said Walter, with some embarrassment; “but I thought
you seemed wrapped in reflection, and would naturally dislike being
disturbed.”

“Hem! as to that, I have no reflections I wish concealed from you,
Walter, or which might not be benefited by your advice.” The youth
pressed his uncle’s hand, but made no reply; and Lester, after a pause,
continued:--

“You seem, Walter, I am most delighted to think, entirely to have
overcome the little unfavourable prepossession which at first you
testified towards our excellent neighbour. And for my part, I think
he appears to be especially attracted towards yourself, he seeks your
company; and to me he always speaks of you in terms, which, coming from
such a quarter, give me the most lively gratification.”

Walter bowed his head, but not in the delighted vanity with which a
young man generally receives the assurance of another’s praise.

“I own,” renewed Lester, “that I consider our friendship with Aram one
of the most fortunate occurrences in my life; at least,” added he with
a sigh, “of late years. I doubt not but you must have observed the
partiality with which our dear Madeline evidently regards him; and yet
more, the attachment to her, which breaks forth from Aram, in spite
of his habitual reserve and self-control. You have surely noted this,
Walter?”

“I have,” said Walter, in a low tone, and turning away his head.

“And doubtless you share my satisfaction. It happens fortunately now,
that Madeline early contracted that studious and thoughtful turn, which
I must own at one time gave me some uneasiness and vexation. It has
taught her to appreciate the value of a mind like Aram’s. Formerly, my
dear boy, I hoped that at one time or another, she and yourself might
form a dearer connection than that of cousins. But I was disappointed,
and I am now consoled. And indeed I think there is that in Ellinor which
might be yet more calculated to render you happy; that is, if the bias
of your mind should ever lean that way.”

“You are very good,” said Walter, bitterly. “I own I am not flattered by
your selection; nor do I see why the plainest and least brilliant of the
two sisters must necessarily be the fittest for me.”

“Nay,” replied Lester, piqued, and justly angry, “I do not think, even
if Madeline have the advantage of her sister, that you can find any
fault with the personal or mental attractions of Ellinor. But indeed
this is not a matter in which relations should interfere. I am far from
any wish to prevent you from choosing throughout the world any one
whom you may prefer. All I hope is, that your future wife will be like
Ellinor in kindness of heart and sweetness of temper.”

“From choosing throughout the world!” repeated Walter; “and how in this
nook am I to see the world?”

“Walter! your voice is reproachful!--do I deserve it?”

Walter was silent.

“I have of late observed,” continued Lester, “and with wounded feelings,
that you do not give me the same confidence, or meet me with the same
affection, that you once delighted me by manifesting towards me. I know
of no cause for this change. Do not let us, my son, for I may so call
you--do not let us, as we grow older, grow also more apart. Time divides
with a sufficient demarcation the young from the old; why deepen the
necessary line? You know well, that I have never from your childhood
insisted heavily on a guardian’s authority. I have always loved to
contribute to your enjoyments, and shewn you how devoted I am to your
interests, by the very frankness with which I have consulted you on my
own. If there be now on your mind any secret grievance, or any secret
wish, speak it, Walter:--you are alone with the friend on earth who
loves you best!”

Walter was wholly overcome by this address: he pressed his good
uncle’s hand to his lips, and it was some moments before he mustered
self-composure sufficient to reply.

“You have ever, ever been to me all that the kindest parent, the
tenderest friend could have been:--believe me, I am not ungrateful.
If of late I have been altered, the cause is not in you. Let me speak
freely: you encourage me to do so. I am young, my temper is restless; I
have a love of enterprise and adventure: is it not natural that I should
long to see the world? This is the cause of my late abstraction of mind.
I have now told you all: it is for you to decide.”

Lester looked wistfully on his nephew’s countenance before he replied--

“It is as I gathered,” said he, “from various remarks which you have
lately let fall. I cannot blame your wish to leave us; it is certainly
natural: nor can I oppose it. Go, Walter, when you will!”

The young man turned round with a lighted eye and flushed cheek.

“And why, Walter?” said Lester, interrupting his thanks, “why this
surprise? why this long doubt of my affection? Could you believe I
should refuse a wish that, at your age, I should have expressed myself?
You have wronged me; you might have saved a world of pain to us both by
acquainting me with your desire when it was first formed; but, enough. I
see Madeline and Aram approach,--let us join them now, and to-morrow we
will arrange the time and method of your departure.

“Forgive me, Sir,” said Walter, stopping abruptly as the glow faded
from his cheek, “I have not yet recovered myself; I am not fit for other
society than yours. Excuse my joining my cousin, and--”

“Walter!” said Lester, also stopping short and looking full on his
nephew, “a painful thought flashes upon me! Would to heaven I may be
wrong!--Have you ever felt for Madeline more tenderly than for her
sister?”

Walter literally trembled as he stood. The tears rushed into Lester’s
eyes:--he grasped his nephew’s hand warmly--

“God comfort thee, my poor boy!” said he, with great emotion; “I never
dreamt of this.”

Walter felt now that he was understood. He gratefully returned the
pressure of his uncle’s hand, and then, withdrawing his own, darted down
one of the intersecting walks, and was almost instantly out of sight.




CHAPTER IX.

    THE STATE OF WALTER’S MIND.--AN ANGLER AND A MAN OF THE
         WORLD.--A COMPANION FOUND FOR WALTER.

          “This great disease for love I dre,
           There is no tongue can tell the wo;
          I love the love that loves not me,
           I may not mend, but mourning mo.”
                 --The Mourning Maiden.

          “I in these flowery meads would be,
          These crystal streams should solace me,
          To whose harmonious bubbling voice

          I with my angle would rejoice.”
               --Izaac Walton.

When Walter left his uncle, he hurried, scarcely conscious of his steps,
towards his favourite haunt by the water-side. From a child, he had
singled out that scene as the witness of his early sorrows or boyish
schemes; and still, the solitude of the place cherished the habit of his
boyhood.

Long had he, unknown to himself, nourished an attachment to his
beautiful cousin; nor did he awaken to the secret of his heart, until,
with an agonizing jealousy, he penetrated the secret at her own. The
reader has, doubtless, already perceived that it was this jealousy which
at the first occasioned Walter’s dislike to Aram: the consolation of
that dislike was forbid him now. The gentleness and forbearance of the
Student’s deportment had taken away all ground of offence; and Walter
had sufficient generosity to acknowledge his merits, while tortured
by their effect. Silently, till this day, he had gnawed his heart, and
found for its despair no confidant and no comfort. The only wish that
he cherished was a feverish and gloomy desire to leave the scene which
witnessed the triumph of his rival. Every thing around had become
hateful to his eyes, and a curse had lighted upon the face of Home. He
thought now, with a bitter satisfaction, that his escape was at hand: in
a few days he might be rid of the gall and the pang, which every moment
of his stay at Grassdale inflicted upon him. The sweet voice of Madeline
he should hear no more, subduing its silver sound for his rival’s
ear:--no more he should watch apart, and himself unheeded, how timidly
her glance roved in search of another, or how vividly her cheek flushed
when the step of that happier one approached. Many miles would at least
shut out this picture from his view; and in absence, was it not possible
that he might teach himself to forget? Thus meditating, he arrived at
the banks of the little brooklet, and was awakened from his reverie by
the sound of his own name. He started, and saw the old Corporal seated
on the stump of a tree, and busily employed in fixing to his line the
mimic likeness of what anglers, and, for aught we know, the rest of the
world, call the “violet fly.”

“Ha! master,--at my day’s work, you see:--fit for nothing else now. When
a musquet’s halfworn out, schoolboys buy it--pop it at sparrows. I be
like the musket: but never mind--have not seen the world for nothing. We
get reconciled to all things: that’s my way--augh! Now, Sir, you shall
watch me catch the finest trout you have seen this summer: know where he
lies--under the bush yonder. Whi--sh! Sir, whi--sh!”

The Corporal now gave his warrior soul up to the due guidance of the
violet-fly: now he shipped it lightly on the wave; now he slid it
coquettishly along the surface; now it floated, like an unconscious
beauty, carelessly with the tide; and now, like an artful prude, it
affected to loiter by the way, or to steal into designing obscurity
under the shade of some overhanging bank. But none of these manoeuvres
captivated the wary old trout on whose acquisition the Corporal had
set his heart; and what was especially provoking, the angler could see
distinctly the dark outline of the intended victim, as it lay at the
bottom,--like some well-regulated bachelor who eyes from afar the charms
he has discreetly resolved to neglect.

The Corporal waited till he could no longer blind himself to the
displeasing fact, that the violet-fly was wholly inefficacious; he then
drew up his line, and replaced the contemned beauty of the violet-fly,
with the novel attractions of the yellow-dun.

“Now, Sir!” whispered he, lifting up his finger, and nodding sagaciously
to Walter. Softly dropped the yellow-dun upon the water, and swiftly did
it glide before the gaze of the latent trout; and now the trout seemed
aroused from his apathy, behold he moved forward, balancing himself on
his fins; now he slowly ascended towards the surface; you might see all
the speckles of his coat;--the Corporal’s heart stood still--he is
now at a convenient distance from the yellow-dun; lo, he surveys it
steadfastly; he ponders, he see-saws himself to and fro. The yellow-dun
sails away in affected indifference, that indifference whets the
appetite of the hesitating gazer, he darts forward; he is opposite
the yellow-dun,--he pushes his nose against it with an eager
rudeness,--he--no, he does not bite, he recoils, he gazes again with
surprise and suspicion on the little charmer; he fades back slowly
into the deeper water, and then suddenly turning his tail towards the
disappointed bait, he makes off as fast as he can,--yonder,--yonder, and
disappears! No, that’s he leaping yonder from the wave; Jupiter! what
a noble fellow! What leaps he at?--a real fly--“Damn his eyes!” growled
the Corporal.

“You might have caught him with a minnow,” said Walter, speaking for the
first time.

“Minnow!” repeated the Corporal gruffly, “ask your honour’s pardon.
Minnow!--I have fished with the yellow-dun these twenty years, and never
knew it fail before. Minnow!--baugh! But ask pardon; your honour is very
welcome to fish with a minnow if you please it.”

“Thank you, Bunting. And pray what sport have you had to-day?”

“Oh,--good, good,” quoth the Corporal, snatching up his basket and
closing the cover, lest the young Squire should pry into it. No man is
more tenacious of his secrets than your true angler. “Sent the best home
two hours ago; one weighed three pounds, on the faith of a man; indeed,
I’m satisfied now; time to give up;” and the Corporal began to disjoint
his rod.

“Ah, Sir!” said he, with a half sigh, “a pretty river this, don’t mean
to say it is not; but the river Lea for my money. You know the Lea?--not
a morning’s walk from Lunnun. Mary Gibson, my first sweetheart, lived
by the bridge,--caught such a trout there by the by!--had beautiful
eyes--black, round as a cherry--five feet eight without shoes--might
have listed in the forty-second.”

“Who, Bunting!” said Walter smiling, “the lady or the trout?”

“Augh!--baugh!--what? Oh, laughing at me, your honour, you’re welcome,
Sir. Love’s a silly thing--know the world now--have not fallen in love
these ten years. I doubt--no offence, Sir, no offence--I doubt whether
your honour and Miss Ellinor can say as much.”

“I and Miss Ellinor!--you forge yourself strangely, Bunting,” said
Walter, colouring with anger.

“Beg pardon, Sir, beg pardon--rough soldier--lived away from the world
so long, words slipped out of my mouth--absent without leave.”

“But why,” said Walter, smothering or conquering his vexation,--“why
couple me with Miss Ellinor? Did you imagine that we,--we were in love
with each other?”

“Indeed, Sir, and if I did, ‘tis no more than my neighbours imagine
too.”

“Humph! your neighbours are very silly, then, and very wrong.”

“Beg pardon, Sir, again--always getting askew. Indeed some did say
it was Miss Madeline, but I says,--says I,--‘No! I’m a man of the
world--see through a millstone; Miss Madeline’s too easy like; Miss
Nelly blushes when he speaks; scarlet is love’s regimentals--it was ours
in the forty-second, edged with yellow--pepper and salt pantaloons! For
my part I think,--but I’ve no business to think, howsomever--baugh!”

“Pray what do you think, Mr. Bunting? Why do you hesitate?”

“‘Fraid of offence--but I do think that Master Aram--your honour
understands--howsomever Squire’s daughter too great a match for such as
he!”

Walter did not answer; and the garrulous old soldier, who had been
the young man’s playmate and companion since Walter was a boy; and
was therefore accustomed to the familiarity with which he now spoke,
continued, mingling with his abrupt prolixity an occasional shrewdness
of observation, which shewed that he was no inattentive commentator on
the little and quiet world around him.

“Free to confess, Squire Walter, that I don’t quite like this larned
man, as much as the rest of ‘em--something queer about him--can’t see
to the bottom of him--don’t think he’s quite so meek and lamb-like as
he seems:--once saw a calm dead pool in foren parts--peered down into
it--by little and little, my eye got used to it--saw something dark
at the bottom--stared and stared--by Jupiter--a great big
alligator!--walked off immediately--never liked quiet pools since--augh,
no!”

“An argument against quiet pools, perhaps, Bunting; but scarcely against
quiet people.”

“Don’t know as to that, your honour--much of a muchness. I have seen
Master Aram, demure as he looks, start, and bite his lip, and change
colour, and frown--he has an ugly frown, I can tell ye--when he thought
no one nigh. A man who gets in a passion with himself may be soon out
of temper with others. Free to confess, I should not like to see him
married to that stately beautiful young lady--but they do gossip about
it in the village. If it is not true, better put the Squire on his
guard--false rumours often beget truths--beg pardon, your honour--no
business of mine--baugh! But I’m a lone man, who have seen the world,
and I thinks on the things around me, and I turns over the quid--now on
this side, now on the other--‘tis my way, Sir--and--but I offend your
honour.”

“Not at all; I know you are an honest man, Bunting, and well affected
to our family; at the same time it is neither prudent nor charitable to
speak harshly of our neighbours without sufficient cause. And really you
seem to me to be a little hasty in your judgment of a man so inoffensive
in his habits and so justly and generally esteemed as Mr. Aram.”

“May be, Sir--may be,--very right what you say. But I thinks what I
thinks all the same; and indeed, it is a thing that puzzles me, how that
strange-looking vagabond, as frighted the ladies so, and who, Miss Nelly
told me, for she saw them in his pocket, carried pistols about him,
as if he had been among cannibals and hottentots, instead of the
peaceablest county that man ever set foot in, should boast of his
friendship with this larned schollard, and pass a whole night in his
house. Birds of a feather flock together--augh!--Sir!”

“A man cannot surely be answerable for the respectability of all
his acquaintances, even though he feel obliged to offer them the
accommodation of a night’s shelter.”

“Baugh!” grunted the Corporal. “Seen the world, Sir--seen the
world--young gentlemen are always so good-natured; ‘tis a pity, that the
more one sees the more suspicious one grows. One does not have gumption
till one has been properly cheated--one must be made a fool very often
in order not to be fooled at last!”

“Well, Corporal, I shall now have opportunities enough of profiting
by experience. I am going to leave Grassdale in a few days, and learn
suspicion and wisdom in the great world.”

“Augh! baugh!--what?” cried the Corporal, starting from the
contemplative air which he had hitherto assumed. “The great
world?--how?--when?--going away;--who goes with your honour?”

“My honour’s self; I have no companion, unless you like to attend me;”
 said Walter, jestingly--but the Corporal affected, with his natural
shrewdness, to take the proposition in earnest.

“I! your honour’s too good; and indeed, though I say it, Sir, you might
do worse; not but what I should be sorry to leave nice snug home here,
and this stream, though the trout have been shy lately,--ah! that was a
mistake of yours, Sir, recommending the minnow; and neighbour Dealtry,
though his ale’s not so good at ‘twas last year; and--and--but, in
short, I always loved your honour--dandled you on my knees;--You
recollect the broadsword exercise?--one, two, three--augh! baugh!--and
if your honour really is going, why rather than you should want a proper
person who knows the world, to brush your coat, polish your shoes, give
you good advice--on the faith of a man, I’ll go with you myself!”

This alacrity on the part of the Corporal was far from displeasing to
Walter. The proposal he had at first made unthinkingly, he now seriously
thought advisable; and at length it was settled that the Corporal should
call the next morning at the manor-house, and receive instructions as to
the time and method of their departure. Not forgetting, as the sagacious
Bunting delicately insinuated, “the wee settlements as to wages, and
board wages, more a matter of form, like, than any thing else--augh!”




CHAPTER X.

     THE LOVERS.--THE ENCOUNTER AND QUARREL OF THE RIVALS.

          Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox
          In his loose traces from the furrow came.
                 --Comus.

          Pedro. Now do me noble right.
          Rod. I’ll satisfy you;
          But not by the sword.
           --Beaumont and Fletcher.--The Pilgrim.

While Walter and the Corporal enjoyed the above conversation, Madeline
and Aram, whom Lester soon left to themselves, were pursuing their walk
along the solitary fields. Their love had passed from the eye to the
lip, and now found expression in words.

“Observe,” said he, as the light touch of one who he felt loved him
entirely rested on his arm,--“Observe, as the later summer now begins
to breathe a more various and mellow glory into the landscape, how
singularly pure and lucid the atmosphere becomes. When, two months ago,
in the full flush of June, I walked through these fields, a grey mist
hid yon distant hills and the far forest from my view. Now, with what a
transparent stillness the whole expanse of scenery spreads itself before
us. And such, Madeline, is the change that has come over myself since
that time. Then, if I looked beyond the limited present, all was dim
and indistinct. Now, the mist had faded away--the broad future extends
before me, calm and bright with the hope which is borrowed from your
love!”

We will not tax the patience of the reader, who seldom enters with keen
interest into the mere dialogue of love, with the blushing Madeline’s
reply, or with all the soft vows and tender confessions which the rich
poetry of Aram’s mind made yet more delicious to the ear of his dreaming
and devoted mistress.

“There is one circumstance,” said Aram, “which casts a momentary shade
on the happiness I enjoy--my Madeline probably guesses its nature. I
regret to see that the blessing of your love must be purchased by the
misery of another, and that other, the nephew of my kind friend. You
have doubtless observed the melancholy of Walter Lester, and have long
since known its origin.”

“Indeed, Eugene,” answered Madeline, “it has given me great pain to note
what you refer to, for it would be a false delicacy in me to deny that I
have observed it. But Walter is young and high-spirited; nor do I think
he is of a nature to love long where there is no return!”

“And what,” said Aram, sorrowfully,--“what deduction from reason can
ever apply to love? Love is a very contradiction of all the elements
of our ordinary nature,--it makes the proud man meek,--the cheerful,
sad,--the high-spirited, tame; our strongest resolutions, our hardiest
energy fail before it. Believe me, you cannot prophesy of its future
effect in a man from any knowledge of his past character. I grieve
to think that the blow falls upon one in early youth, ere the world’s
disappointments have blunted the heart, or the world’s numerous
interests have multiplied its resources. Men’s minds have been turned
when they have not well sifted the cause themselves, and their fortunes
marred, by one stroke on the affections of their youth. So at least have
I read, Madeline, and so marked in others. For myself, I knew nothing
of love in its reality till I knew you. But who can know you, and not
sympathise with him who has lost you?”

“Ah, Eugene! you at least overrate the influence which love produces on
men. A little resentment and a little absence will soon cure my cousin
of an ill-placed and ill-requited attachment. You do not think how easy
it is to forget.”

“Forget!” said Aram, stopping abruptly; “Ay, forget--it is a strange
truth! we do forget! the summer passes over the furrow, and the
corn springs up; the sod forgets the flower of the past year; the
battle-field forgets the blood that has been spilt upon its turf; the
sky forgets the storm; and the water the noon-day sun that slept upon
its bosom. All Nature preaches forgetfulness. Its very order is the
progress of oblivion. And I--I--give me your hand, Madeline,--I, ha

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/7614