CHAPTER XI.
I boast no song in magic wonders rife;
But yet, O Nature! is there nought to prize,
Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life?
And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies
No form with which the soul may sympathize?
Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild
The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise,
An inmate in the home of Albert smiled,
Or blessed his noonday walk,--she was his only child.
Gertrude of Wyoming.
O time, thou hast played strange tricks with us; and we bless the stars
that made us a novelist, and permit us now to retaliate. Leaving Paul to
the instructions of Augustus Tomlinson and the festivities of the Jolly
Angler, and suffering him, by slow but sure degrees, to acquire the
graces and the reputation of the accomplished and perfect appropriator
of other men's possessions, we shall pass over the lapse of years with
the same heedless rapidity with which they have glided over us, and
summon our reader to a very different scene from those which would be
likely to greet his eyes, were he following the adventures of our new
Telemachus. Nor wilt thou, dear reader, whom we make the umpire between
ourself and those who never read,--the critics; thou who hast, in the
true spirit of gentle breeding, gone with us among places where the
novelty of the scene has, we fear, scarcely atoned for the coarseness,
not giving thyself the airs of a dainty abigail,--not prating,
lacquey-like, on the low company thou has met,--nor wilt thou, dear and
friendly reader, have cause to dread that we shall weary thy patience by
a “damnable iteration” of the same localities. Pausing for a moment to
glance over the divisions of our story, which lies before us like a map,
we feel that we may promise in future to conduct thee among aspects of
society more familiar to thy habits; where events flow to their allotted
gulf through landscapes of more pleasing variety and among tribes of a
more luxurious civilization.
Upon the banks of one of fair England's fairest rivers, and about fifty
miles distant from London, still stands an old-fashioned abode, which we
shall here term Warlock Manorhouse. It is a building of brick, varied by
stone copings, and covered in great part with ivy and jasmine. Around
it lie the ruins of the elder part of the fabric; and these are
sufficiently numerous in extent and important in appearance to testify
that the mansion was once not without pretensions to the magnificent.
These remains of power, some of which bear date as far back as the
reign of Henry the Third, are sanctioned by the character of the country
immediately in the vicinity of the old manor-house. A vast tract of
waste land, interspersed with groves of antique pollards, and here
and there irregular and sinuous ridges of green mound, betoken to the
experienced eye the evidence of a dismantled chase or park, which must
originally have been of no common dimensions. On one side of the house
the lawn slopes towards the river, divided from a terrace, which forms
the most important embellishment of the pleasure-grounds, by that fence
to which has been given the ingenious and significant name of “ha-ha!”
A few scattered trees of giant growth are the sole obstacles that break
the view of the river, which has often seemed to us, at that particular
passage of its course, to glide with unusual calmness and serenity.
On the opposite side of the stream there is a range of steep hills,
celebrated for nothing more romantic than their property of imparting to
the flocks that browse upon that short and seemingly stinted herbage a
flavour peculiarly grateful to the lovers of that pastoral animal which
changes its name into mutton after its decease. Upon these hills the
vestige of human habitation is not visible; and at times, when no boat
defaces the lonely smoothness of the river, and the evening has
stilled the sounds of labour and of life, we know few scenes so utterly
tranquil, so steeped in quiet, as that which is presented by the old,
quaint-fashioned house and its antique grounds,--the smooth lawn, the
silent, and (to speak truly, though disparagingly) the somewhat sluggish
river, together with the large hills (to which we know, from simple
though metaphysical causes, how entire an idea of quiet and immovability
peculiarly attaches itself), and the white flocks,--those most peaceful
of God's creatures,--that in fleecy clusters stud the ascent.
In Warlock House, at the time we refer to, lived a gentleman of the name
of Brandon. He was a widower, and had attained his fiftieth year without
casting much regret on the past or feeling much anxiety for the
future. In a word, Joseph Brandon was one of those careless, quiescent,
indifferent men, by whom a thought upon any subject is never recurred to
without a very urgent necessity. He was good-natured, inoffensive, and
weak; and if he was not an incomparable citizen, he was at least an
excellent vegetable. He was of a family of high antiquity, and formerly
of considerable note. For the last four or five generations, however,
the proprietors of Warlock House, gradually losing something alike from
their acres and their consequence, had left to their descendants
no higher rank than that of a small country squire. One had been a
Jacobite, and had drunk out half-a-dozen farms in honour of Charley
over the water; Charley over the water was no very dangerous person, but
Charley over the wine was rather more ruinous. The next Brandon had been
a fox-hunter, and fox-hunters live as largely as patriotic politicians.
Pausanias tells us that the same people; who were the most notorious for
their love of wine were also the most notorious for their negligence
of affairs. Times are not much altered since Pausanias wrote, and the
remark holds as good with the English as it did with the Phigalei. After
this Brandon came one who, though he did not scorn the sportsman,
rather assumed the fine gentleman. He married an heiress, who of
course assisted to ruin him; wishing no assistance in so pleasing an
occupation, he overturned her (perhaps not on purpose), in a new sort of
carriage which he was learning to drive, and the good lady was killed
on the spot. She left the fine gentleman two sons,--Joseph Brandon, the
present thane,--and a brother some years younger. The elder, being of a
fitting age, was sent to school, and somewhat escaped the contagion of
the paternal mansion. But the younger Brandon, having only reached his
fifth year at the time of his mother's decease, was retained at home.
Whether he was handsome or clever or impertinent, or like his father
about the eyes (that greatest of all merits), we know not; but the
widower became so fond of him that it was at a late period and with
great reluctance that he finally intrusted him to the providence of a
school.
Among harlots and gamblers and lords and sharpers, and gentlemen of
the guards, together with their frequent accompaniments,--guards of the
gentlemen, namely, bailiffs,--William Brandon passed the first stage of
his boyhood. He was about thirteen when he was sent to school; and being
a boy of remarkable talents, he recovered lost time so well that when
at the age of nineteen he adjourned to the University, he had scarcely
resided there a single term before he had borne off two of the highest
prizes awarded to academical merit. From the University he departed
on the “grand tour,” at that time thought so necessary to complete the
gentleman; he went in company with a young nobleman, whose friendship he
had won at the University, stayed abroad more than two years, and on his
return he settled down to the profession of the law.
Meanwhile his father died, and his fortune, as a younger brother, being
literally next to nothing, and the family estate (for his brother was
not unwilling to assist him) being terribly involved, it was believed
that he struggled for some years with very embarrassed and penurious
circumstances. During this interval of his life, however, he was
absent from London, and by his brother supposed to have returned to
the Continent; at length, it seems, he profited by a renewal of his
friendship with the young nobleman who had accompanied him abroad,
reappeared in town, and obtained through his noble friend one or two
legal appointments of reputable emolument. Soon afterwards he got
a brief on some cause where a major had been raising a corps to his
brother officer, with the better consent of the brother-officer's wife
than of the brother officer himself. Brandon's abilities here, for the
first time in his profession, found an adequate vent; his reputation
seemed made at once, he rose rapidly in his profession, and, at the time
we now speak of, he was sailing down the full tide of fame and wealth,
the envy and the oracle of all young Templars and barristers, who,
having been starved themselves for ten years, began now to calculate
on the possibility of starving their clients. At an early period in
his career he had, through the good offices of the nobleman we have
mentioned, obtained a seat in the House of Commons; and though his
eloquence was of an order much better suited to the bar than the senate,
he had nevertheless acquired a very considerable reputation in the
latter, and was looked upon by many as likely to win to the same
brilliant fortunes as the courtly Mansfield,--a great man, whose
political principles and urbane address Brandon was supposed especially
to affect as his own model. Of unblemished integrity in public
life,--for, as he supported all things that exist with the most
unbending rigidity, he could not be accused of inconsistency,--William
Brandon was (as we have said in a former place of unhappy memory to our
hero) esteemed in private life the most honourable, the most moral, even
the most austere of men; and his grave and stern repute on this score,
joined to the dazzle of his eloquence and forensic powers, had baffled
in great measure the rancour of party hostility, and obtained for him
a character for virtues almost as high and as enviable as that which he
had acquired for abilities.
While William was thus treading a noted and an honourable career, his
elder brother, who had married into a clergyman's family, and soon lost
his consort, had with his only child, a daughter named Lucy, resided
in his paternal mansion in undisturbed obscurity. The discreditable
character and habits of the preceding lords of Warlock, which had sunk
their respectability in the county as well as curtailed their property,
had rendered the surrounding gentry little anxious to cultivate the
intimacy of the present proprietor; and the heavy mind and retired
manners of Joseph Brandon were not calculated to counterbalance the
faults of his forefathers, nor to reinstate the name of Brandon in its
ancient popularity and esteem. Though dull and little cultivated, the
squire was not without his “proper pride;” he attempted not to intrude
himself where he was unwelcome, avoided county meetings and county
balls, smoked his pipe with the parson, and not unoften with the surgeon
and the solicitor, and suffered his daughter Lucy to educate herself
with the help of the parson's wife, and to ripen (for Nature was more
favourable to her than Art) into the very prettiest girl that the whole
county--we long to say the whole country--at that time could boast of.
Never did glass give back a more lovely image than that of Lucy Brandon
at the age of nineteen. Her auburn hair fell in the richest luxuriance
over a brow never ruffled, and a cheek where the blood never slept; with
every instant the colour varied, and at every variation that smooth,
pure; virgin cheek seemed still more lovely than before. She had the
most beautiful laugh that one who loved music could imagine,--silvery,
low, and yet so full of joy! All her movements, as the old parson said,
seemed to keep time to that laugh, for mirth made a great part of her
innocent and childish temper; and yet the mirth was feminine, never
loud, nor like that of young ladies who had received the last finish at
Highgate seminaries. Everything joyous affected her, and at once,--air,
flowers, sunshine, butterflies. Unlike heroines in general, she very
seldom cried, and she saw nothing charming in having the vapours. But
she never looked so beautiful as in sleep; and as the light breath came
from her parted lips, and the ivory lids closed over those eyes which
only in sleep were silent,--and her attitude in her sleep took that
ineffable grace belonging solely to childhood, or the fresh youth into
which childhood merges,--she was just what you might imagine a sleeping
Margaret, before that most simple and gentle of all a poet's visions of
womanhood had met with Faust, or her slumbers been ruffled with a dream
of love.
We cannot say much for Lucy's intellectual acquirements; she could,
thanks to the parson's wife, spell indifferently well, and write a
tolerable hand; she made preserves, and sometimes riddles,--it was more
difficult to question the excellence of the former than to answer the
queries of the latter. She worked to the admiration of all who knew her,
and we beg leave to say that we deem that “an excellent thing in woman.”
She made caps for herself and gowns for the poor, and now and then she
accomplished the more literary labour of a stray novel that had wandered
down to the Manorhouse, or an abridgment of ancient history, in which
was omitted everything but the proper names. To these attainments she
added a certain modicum of skill upon the spinet, and the power of
singing old songs with the richest and sweetest voice that ever made
one's eyes moisten or one's heart beat.
Her moral qualities were more fully developed than her mental. She was
the kindest of human beings; the very dog that had never seen her before
knew that truth at the first glance, and lost no time in making her
acquaintance. The goodness of her heart reposed upon her face like
sunshine, and the old wife at the lodge said poetically and truly of the
effect it produced, that “one felt warm when one looked on her.” If we
could abstract from the description a certain chilling transparency, the
following exquisite verses of a forgotten poet might express the purity
and lustre of her countenance:--
“Her face was like the milky way i' the sky,
A meeting of gentle lights without a name.”
She was surrounded by pets of all kinds, ugly and handsome,--from Ralph
the raven to Beauty the pheasant, and from Bob, the sheep-dog without a
tail, to Beau, the Blenheim with blue ribbons round his neck; all things
loved her, and she loved all things. It seemed doubtful at that time
whether she would ever have sufficient steadiness and strength of
character. Her beauty and her character appeared so essentially
womanlike--soft yet lively, buoyant yet caressing--that you could
scarcely place in her that moral dependence that you might in a
character less amiable but less yieldingly feminine. Time, however, and
circumstance, which alter and harden, were to decide whether the inward
nature did not possess some latent and yet undiscovered properties.
Such was Lucy Brandon in the year ----; and in that year, on a beautiful
autumnal evening, we first introduce her personally to our readers.
She was sitting on a garden-seat by the river side, with her father, who
was deliberately conning the evening paper of a former week, and gravely
seasoning the ancient news with the inspirations of that weed which
so bitterly excited the royal indignation of our British Solomon. It
happens, unfortunately for us,--for outward peculiarities are scarcely
worthy the dignity to which comedy, whether in the drama or the
narrative, aspires,--that Squire Brandon possessed so few distinguishing
traits of mind that he leaves his delineator little whereby to designate
him, save a confused and parenthetical habit of speech, by which he very
often appeared to those who did not profit by long experience or close
observation, to say exactly, and somewhat ludicrously, that which he did
not mean to convey.
“I say, Lucy,” observed Mr. Brandon, but without lifting his eyes from
the paper,--“I say, corn has fallen; think of that, girl, think of that!
These times, in my opinion (ay, and in the opinion of wiser heads than
mine, though I do not mean to say that I have not some experience in
these matters, which is more than can be said of all our neighbours),
are very curious and even dangerous.”
“Indeed, Papa!” answered Lucy.
“And I say, Lucy, dear,” resumed the squire, after a short pause, “there
has been (and very strange it is, too, when one considers the crowded
neighbourhood--Bless me! what times these are!) a shocking murder
committed upon (the tobacco stopper,--there it is)--think, you know,
girl,--just by Epping!--an old gentleman!”
“Dear, how shocking! By whom?”
“Ay, that's the question! The coroner's inquest has (what a blessing
it is to live in a civilized country, where a man does not die without
knowing the why and the wherefore!) sat on the body, and declared (it is
very strange, but they don't seem to have made much discovery; for why?
we knew as much before) that the body was found (it was found on the
floor, Lucy) murdered; murderer or murderers (in the bureau, which was
broken open, they found the money left quite untouched) unknown!”
Here there was again a slight pause; and passing to another side of the
paper, Mr. Brandon resumed, in a quicker tone,--“Ha! well, now this is
odd! But he's a deuced clever fellow, Lucy! That brother of mine
has (and in a very honourable manner, too, which I am sure is highly
creditable to the family, though he has not taken too much notice of me
lately,--a circumstance which, considering I am his elder brother, I am
a little angry at) distinguished himself in a speech, remarkable, the
paper says, for its great legal (I wonder, by the by, whether William
could get me that agistment-money! 't is a heavy thing to lose; but
going to law, as my poor father used to say, is like fishing for
gudgeons [not a bad little fish; we can have some for supper] with,
guineas) knowledge, as well as its splendid and overpowering (I do love
Will for keeping up the family honour; I am sure it is more than I have
done, heigh-ho!), eloquence!”
“And on what subject has he been speaking, Papa?”
“Oh, a very fine subject; what you call a (it is astonishing that
in this country there should be such a wish for taking away people's
characters, which, for my part, I don't see is a bit more entertaining
than what you are always doing,--playing with those stupid birds)
libel!”
“But is not my uncle William coming down to see us? He promised to do
so, and it made you quite happy--, Papa, for two days. I hope he will
not disappoint you; and I am sure that it is not his fault if he ever
seems to neglect you. He spoke of you to me, when I saw him, in the
kindest and most affectionate manner. I do think, my dear father, that
he loves you very much.”
“Ahem!” said the squire, evidently flattered, and yet not convinced.
“My brother Will is a very acute fellow, and I make no--my dear little
girl--question, but that (when you have seen as much of the world as I
have, you will grow suspicious) he thought that any good word said of
me to my daughter would (you see, Lucy, I am as clear-sighted as my
neighbours, though I don't give myself all their airs; which I very well
might do, considering my great-great-great-grandfather, Hugo Brandon,
had a hand in detecting the gunpowder plot) he told to me again!”
“Nay, but I am quite sure my uncle never spoke of you to me with that
intention.”
“Possibly, my dear child; but when (the evenings are much shorter than
they were!) did you talk with your uncle about me?
“Oh, when staying with Mrs. Warner, in London; to be sure, it is six
years ago, but I remember it perfectly. I recollect, in particular, that
he spoke of you very handsomely to Lord Mauleverer, who dined with him
one evening when I was there, and when my uncle was so kind as to
take me to the play. I was afterwards quite sorry that he was so
good-natured, as he lost (you remember I told you the story) a very
valuable watch.”
“Ay, ay, I remember all about that, and so (how long friendship lasts
with some people!) Lord Mauleverer dined with William! What a fine thing
it is for a man (it is what I never did, indeed; I like being what they
call 'Cock of the Walk'--let me see, now I think of it, Pillum comes
to-night to play a hit at backgammon) to make friends with a great man
early in (yet Will did not do it very early, poor fellow! He struggled
first with a great deal of sorrow--hardship, that is) life! It is many
years now since Will has been hand-and-glove with my ['t is a bit of a
puppy) Lord Mauleverer. What did you think of his lordship?”
“Of Lord Mauleverer? Indeed I scarcely observed him; but he seemed a
handsome man, and was very polite. Mrs. Warner said he had been a very
wicked person when he was young, but he seems good-natured enough now,
Papa.”
“By the by,” said the squire, “his lordship has just been made (this new
ministry seems very unlike the old, which rather puzzles me; for I think
it my duty, d'ye see, Lucy, always to vote for his Majesty's government,
especially seeing that old Hugo Brandon had a hand in detecting the gun
powder plot; and it is a little odd-at least, at first-to think that
good now which one has always before been thinking abominable) Lord
Lieutenant of the county.”
“Lord Mauleverer our Lord Lieutenant?”
“Yes, child; and since his lordship is such a friend of my brother, I
should think, considering especially what an old family in the county we
are,--not that I wish to intrude myself where I am not thought as fine
as the rest,--that he would be more attentive to us than Lord --------
was; but that, my dear Lucy, puts me in mind of Pillum; and so, perhaps,
you would like to walk to the parson's, as it is a fine evening. John
shall come for you at nine o'clock with (the moon is not up then) the
lantern.”
Leaning on his daughter's willing arm, the good old man then rose and
walked homeward; and so soon as she had wheeled round his easy-chair,
placed the backgammon board on the table, and wished the old gentleman
an easy victory over his expected antagonist, the apothecary, Lucy tied
down her bonnet, and took her way to the rectory.
When she arrived at the clerical mansion and entered the drawing-room,
she was surprised to find the parson's wife, a good, homely, lethargic
old lady, run up to her, seemingly in a state of great nervous agitation
and crying,--
“Oh, my dear Miss Brandon! which way did you come? Did you meet nobody
by the road? Oh, I am so frightened! Such an accident to poor dear Dr.
Slopperton! Stopped in the king's highway, robbed of some tithe-money
he had just received from Farmer Slowforth! If it had not been for that
dear angel, good young man, God only knows whether I might not have been
a disconsolate widow by this time!”
While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy's eye glancing
round the room discovered in an armchair the round and oily little
person of Dr. Slopperton, with a countenance from which all the
carnation hues, save in one circular excrescence on the nasal member,
that was left, like the last rose of summer, blooming alone, were faded
into an aspect of miserable pallor. The little man tried to conjure up
a smile while his wife was narrating his misfortune, and to mutter
forth some syllable of unconcern; but he looked, for all his bravado,
so exceedingly scared that Lucy would, despite herself, have laughed
outright, had not her eye rested upon the figure of a young man who had
been seated beside the reverend gentleman, but who had risen at Lucy's
entrance, and who now stood gazing upon her intently, but with an air
of great respect. Blushing deeply and involuntarily, she turned her eyes
hastily away, and approaching the good doctor, made her inquiries into
the present state of his nerves, in a graver tone than she had a
minute before imagined it possible that she should have been enabled to
command.
“Ah! my good young lady,” said the doctor, squeezing her hand, “I--may,
I may say the church--for am I not its minister? was in imminent
danger--but this excellent gentleman prevented the sacrilege, at least
in great measure. I only lost some of my dues,--my rightful dues,--for
which I console myself with thinking that the infamous and abandoned
villain will suffer hereafter.”
“There cannot be the least doubt of that,” said the young man. “Had
he only robbed the mail-coach, or broken into a gentleman's house, the
offence might have been expiable; but to rob a clergyman, and a rector
too!--Oh, the sacrilegious dog!”
“Your warmth does you honour, sir,” said the doctor, beginning now
to recover; “and I am very proud to have made the acquaintance of a
gentleman of such truly religious opinions.”
“Ah!” cried the stranger, “my foible, sir,--if I may so speak,--is a
sort of enthusiastic fervour for the Protestant Establishment. Nay,
sir, I never come across the very nave of the church without feeling an
indescribable emotion--a kind of sympathy, as it were--with--with--you
understand me, sir--I fear I express myself ill.”
“Not at all, not at all!” exclaimed the doctor: “such sentiments are
uncommon in one so young.”
“Sir, I learned them early in life from a friend and preceptor of mine,
Mr. MacGrawler, and I trust they may continue with me to my dying day.”
Here the doctor's servant entered with (we borrow a phrase from the
novel of ----------) “the tea-equipage;” and Mrs. Slopperton, betaking
herself to its superintendence, inquired with more composure than
hitherto had belonged to her demeanour, what sort of a looking creature
the ruffian was.
“I will tell you, my dear, I will tell you, Miss Lucy, all about it.
I was walking home from Mr. Slowforth's, with his money in my pocket,
thinking, my love, of buying you that topaz cross you wished to have.”
“Dear, good man!” cried Mrs. Slopperton; “what a fiend it must have been
to rob so excellent a creature!”
“And,” resumed the doctor, “it also occurred to me that the Madeira was
nearly out,--the Madeira, I mean, with the red seal; and I was thinking
it might not be amiss to devote part of the money to buy six dozen more;
and the remainder, my love, which would be about one pound eighteen, I
thought I would divide--'for he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the
Lord!'--among the thirty poor families on the common; that is, if they
behaved well, and the apples in the back garden were not feloniously
abstracted!”
“Excellent, charitable man!” ejaculated Mrs. Slopperton. “While I was
thus meditating, I lifted my eyes, and saw before me two men,--one
of prodigious height, and with a great profusion of hair about his
shoulders; the other was smaller, and wore his hat slouched over
his face: it was a very large hat. My attention was arrested by the
singularity of the tall person's hair, and while I was smiling at its
luxuriance, I heard him say to his companion, 'Well, Augustus, as you
are such a moral dog, he is in your line, not mine; so I leave him to
you.' Little did I think those words related to me. No sooner were they
uttered than the tall rascal leaped over a gate and disappeared; the
other fellow, then marching up to me, very smoothly asked me the way to
the church, and while I was explaining to him to turn first to the
right and then to the left, and so on,--for the best way is, you know,
exceedingly crooked,--the hypocritical scoundrel seized me by the
collar, and cried out, 'Your money or your life!' I do assure you that
I never trembled so much,--not, my dear Miss Lucy, so much for my own
sake, as for the sake of the thirty poor families on the common, whose
wants it had been my intention to relieve. I gave up the money,
finding my prayers and expostulations were in vain; and the dog then,
brandishing over my head an enormous bludgeon, said--what abominable
language!--'I think, doctor, I shall put an end to an existence
derogatory to your self and useless to others.' At that moment the young
gentleman beside me sprang over the very gate by which the tall ruffian
had disappeared, and cried, 'Hold, villain!' On seeing my deliverer,
the coward started back, and plunged into a neighbouring wood. The good
young gentleman pursued him for a few minutes, but then returning to my
aid, conducted me home; and as we used to say at school,--
“' Te rediisse incolumem gaudeo,'--
which, being interpreted, means (sir, excuse a pun, I am sure so great a
friend to the Church understands Latin) that I am very glad to get back
safe to my tea. He! he! And now, Miss Lucy, you must thank that young
gentleman for having saved the life of your pastoral teacher, which act
will no doubt be remembered at the Great Day!”
As Lucy, looking towards the stranger, said something in compliment,
she observed a vague, and as it were covert smile upon his countenance,
which immediately and as if by sympathy conjured one to her own. The
hero of the adventure, however, in a very grave tone replied to her
compliment, at the same time bowing profoundly,--
“Mention it not, madam! I were unworthy of the name of a Briton and
a man, could I pass the highway without relieving the distress or
lightening the burden of a fellow-creature. And,” continued the
stranger, after a momentary pause, colouring while he spoke, and
concluding in the high-flown gallantry of the day, “methinks it were
sufficient reward, had I saved the whole church instead of one of its
most valuable members, to receive the thanks of a lady whom I might
reasonably take for one of those celestial beings to whom we have been
piously taught that the Church is especially the care!”
Though there might have been something really ridiculous in this
overstrained compliment, coupled as it was with the preservation of Dr.
Slopperton, yet, coming from the mouth of one whom Lucy thought the very
handsomest person she had ever seen, it appeared to her anything but
absurd; and for a very long time afterwards her heart thrilled with
pleasure when she remembered that the cheek of the speaker had glowed,
and his voice had trembled as he spoke it.
The conversation now, turning from robbers in particular, dwelt upon
robberies in general. It was edifying to hear the honest indignation
with which the stranger spoke of the lawless depredators with whom the
country, in that day of Macheaths, was infested.
“A pack of infamous rascals!” said he, in a glow, “who attempt to
justify their misdeeds by the example of honest men, and who say
that they do no more than is done by lawyers and doctors, soldiers,
clergymen, and ministers of State. Pitiful delusion, or rather shameless
hypocrisy!”
“It all comes of educating the poor,” said the doctor. “The moment they
pretend to judge the conduct of their betters, there's an end of all
order! They see nothing sacred in the laws, though we hang the dogs ever
so fast; and the very peers of the land, spiritual and temporal, cease
to be venerable in their eyes.”
“Talking of peers,” said Mrs. Slopperton, “I hear that Lord Mauleverer
is to pass by this road to-night on his way to Mauleverer Park. Do you
know his lordship, Miss Lucy: He is very intimate with your uncle.”
“I have only seen him once,” answered Lucy.
“Are you sure that his lordship will come this road?” asked the
stranger, carelessly. “I heard something of it this morning, but did not
know it was settled.”
“Oh, quite so!” rejoined Mrs. Slopperton. “His lordship's gentleman
wrote for post-horses to meet his lordship at Wyburn, about three miles
on the other side of the village, at ten o'clock to-night. His lordship
is very impatient of delay.”
“Pray,” said the doctor, who had not much heeded this turn in the
conversation, and was now “on hospitable cares intent,”--“pray, sir, if
not impertinent, are you visiting or lodging in the neighbourhood; or
will you take a bed with us?”
“You are extremely kind, my dear sir, but I fear I must soon wish you
good-evening. I have to look after a little property I have some miles
hence, which, indeed, brought me down into this part of the world.”
“Property!--in what direction, sir, if I may ask?” quoth the doctor; “I
know the country for miles.”
“Do you, indeed? Where's my property, you say? Why, it is rather
difficult to describe it, and it is, after all, a mere trifle; it is
only some common-land near the highroad, and I came down to try the
experiment of hedging and draining.”
“'T is a good plan, if one has capital, and does not require a speedy
return.”
“Yes; but one likes a good interest for the loss of principal, and a
speedy return is always desirable,--although, alas! it is often attended
with risk!”
“I hope, sir,” said the doctor, “if you must leave us so soon, that your
property will often bring you into our neighbourhood.”
“You overpower me with so much unexpected goodness,” answered the
stranger. “To tell you the truth, nothing can give me greater pleasure
than to meet those again who have once obliged me.”
“Whom you have obliged, rather!” cried Mrs. Slopperton; and then added,
in a loud whisper to Lucy, “How modest! but it is always so with true
courage!”
“I assure you, madam,” returned the benevolent stranger, “that I never
think twice of the little favours I render my fellow-men; my only hope
is that they may be as forgetful as myself.”
Charmed with so much unaffected goodness of disposition, the doctor
and Mrs. Slopperton now set up a sort of duet in praise of their guest:
after enduring their commendations and compliments for some minutes with
much grimace of disavowal and diffidence, the stranger's modesty seemed
at last to take pain at the excess of their gratitude; and accordingly,
pointing to the clock, which was within a few minutes to nine, he
said,--
“I fear, my respected host and my admired hostess, that I must now leave
you; I have far to go.”
“But are you yourself not afraid of the highwaymen?” cried Mrs.
Slopperton, interrupting him.
“The highwaymen!” said the stranger, smiling; “no; I do not fear them;
besides, I have little about me worth robbing.”
“Do you superintend your property yourself?” said the doctor, who farmed
his own glebe and who, unwilling to part with so charming a guest,
seized him now by the button.
“Superintend it myself! why, not exactly. There is a bailiff, whose
views of things don't agree with mine, and who now and then gives me a
good deal of trouble.”
“Then why don't you discharge him altogether?”
“Ah! I wish I could; but 't is a necessary evil. We landed proprietors,
my dear sir, must always be plagued with some thing of the sort. For my
part, I have found those cursed bailiffs would take away, if they
could, all the little property one has been trying to accumulate. But,”
abruptly changing his manner into one of great softness, “could I not
proffer my services and my companionship to this young lady? Would she
allow me to conduct her home, and indeed stamp this day upon my memory
as one of the few delightful ones I have ever known?”
“Thank you, dear sir,” said Mrs. Slopperton, answering at once for Lucy;
“it is very considerate of you.--And I am sure, my love, I could
not think of letting you go home alone with old John, after such an
adventure to the poor dear doctor.”
Lucy began an excuse which the good lady would not hear. But as the
servant whom Mr. Brandon was to send with a lantern to attend his
daughter home had not arrived, and as Mrs. Slopperton, despite her
prepossessions in favour of her husband's deliverer, did not for a
moment contemplate his accompanying, without any other attendance, her
young friend across the fields at that unseasonable hour, the stranger
was forced, for the present, to re-assume his seat. An open harpsichord
at one end of the room gave him an opportunity to make some remark
upon music; and this introducing an eulogium on Lucy's voice from Mrs.
Slopperton, necessarily ended in a request to Miss Brandon to indulge
the stranger with a song. Never had Lucy, who was not a shy girl,--she
was too innocent to be bashful,--felt nervous hitherto in singing before
a stranger; but now she hesitated and faltered, and went through a
whole series of little natural affectations before she complied with
the request. She chose a song composed somewhat after the old English
school, which at that time was reviving into fashion. The song, though
conveying a sort of conceit, was not, perhaps, altogether without
tenderness; it was a favourite with Lucy, she scarcely knew why, and ran
thus:--
LUCY'S SONG.
Why sleep, ye gentle flowers, ah, why,
When tender eve is falling,
And starlight drinks the happy sigh
Of winds to fairies calling?
Calling with low and plaining note,
Most like a ringdove chiding,
Or flute faint-heard from distant boat
O'er smoothest waters gliding.
Lo, round you steals the wooing breeze;
Lo, on you falls the dew!
O sweets, awake, for scarcely these
Can charm while wanting you!
Wake ye not yet, while fast below
The silver time is fleeing?
O heart of mine, those flowers but show
Thine own contented being.
The twilight but preserves the bloom,
The sun can but decay
The warmth that brings the rich perfume
But steals the life away.
O heart, enjoy thy present calm,
Rest peaceful in the shade,
And dread the sun that gives the balm
To bid the blossom fade.
When Lucy ended, the stranger's praise was less loud than either the
doctor's or his lady's; but how far more sweet it was! And for the first
time in her life Lucy made the discovery that eyes can praise as well
as lips. For our part, we have often thought that that discovery is an
epoch in life.
It was now that Mrs. Slopperton declared her thorough conviction that
the stranger himself could sing. He had that about him, she said, which
made her sure of it.
“Indeed, dear madam,” said he, with his usual undefinable, half-frank,
half-latent smile, “my voice is but so-so, and any memory so indifferent
that even in the easiest passages I soon come to a stand. My best notes
are in the falsetto; and as for my execution--But we won't talk of
that.”
“Nay, nay; you are so modest,” said Mrs. Slopperton. “I am sure you
could oblige us if you would.”
“Your command,” said the stranger, moving to the harpsichord, “is
all-sufficient; and since you, madam,” turning to Lucy, “have chosen
a song after the old school, may I find pardon if I do the same? My
selection is, to be sure, from a lawless song-book, and is supposed to
be a ballad by Robin Hood, or at least one of his merry men,--a very
different sort of outlaws from the knaves who attacked you, sir!”
With this preface the stranger sung to a wild yet jovial air, with a
tolerable voice, the following effusion:
THE LOVE OF OUR PROFESSION; OR THE ROBBER'S LIFE.
On the stream of the world, the robber's life
Is borne on the blithest wave;
Now it bounds into light in a gladsome strife,
Now it laughs in its hiding cave.
At his maiden's lattice he stays the rein;
How still is his courser proud
(But still as a wind when it hangs o'er the main
In the breast of the boding cloud),
With the champed bit and the archd crest,
And the eye of a listening deer,
Like valour, fretful most in rest,
Least chafed when in career.
Fit slave to a lord whom all else refuse
To save at his desperate need;
By my troth! I think one whom the world pursues
Hath a right to a gallant steed.
“Away, my beloved, I hear their feet!
I blow thee a kiss, my fair,
And I promise to bring thee, when next we meet,
A braid for thy bonny hair.
Hurrah! for the booty!--my steed, hurrah!
Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we;
And the coy moon smiles on our merry way,
Like my own love,--timidly.”
The parson he rides with a jingling pouch,
How it blabs of the rifled poor!
The courtier he lolls in his gilded coach,
--How it smacks of a sinecure!
The lawyer revolves in his whirling chaise
Sweet thoughts of a mischief done;
And the lady that knoweth the card she plays
Is counting her guineas won!
“He, lady!--What, holla, ye sinless men!
My claim ye can scarce refuse;
For when honest folk live on their neighbours, then
They encroach on the robber's dues!”
The lady changed cheek like a bashful maid,
The lawyer talked wondrous fair,
The parson blasphemed, and the courtier prayed,
And the robber bore off his share.
“Hurrah! for the revel! my steed, hurrah!
Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we!
It is ever a virtue, when others pay,
To ruffle it merrily!”
Oh, there never was life like the robber's,
--so Jolly and bold and free!
And its end-why, a cheer from the crowd below,
And a leap from a leafless tree!
This very moral lay being ended, Mrs. Slopperton declared it was
excellent; though she confessed she thought the sentiments rather loose.
Perhaps the gentleman might be induced to favour them with a song of a
more refined and modern turn,--something sentimental, in short. Glancing
towards Lucy, the stranger answered that he only knew one song of
the kind Mrs. Slopperton specified, and it was so short that he could
scarcely weary her patience by granting her request.
At this moment the river, which was easily descried from the windows of
the room, glimmered in the starlight; and directing his looks towards
the water, as if the scene had suggested to him the verses he sung, he
gave the following stanzas in a very low, sweet tone, and with a far
purer taste, than, perhaps, would have suited the preceding and ruder
song.
THE WISH.
As sleeps the dreaming Eve below,
Its holiest star keeps ward above,
And yonder wave begins to glow,
Like friendship bright'ning into Love!
Ah, would thy bosom were that stream,
Ne'er wooed save by the virgin air!--
Ah, would that I were that star, whose beam
Looks down and finds its image there!
Scarcely was the song ended, before the arrival of Miss Brandon's
servant was announced; and her destined escort, starting up, gallantly
assisted her with her cloak and her hood,--happy, no doubt, to escape in
some measure the overwhelming compliments of his entertainers.
“But,” said the doctor, as he shook hands with his deliverer, “by what
name shall I remember and” (lifting his reverend eyes) “pray for the
gentleman to whom I am so much indebted?”
“You are very kind,” said the stranger; “my name is Clifford. Madam,”
turning to Lucy, “may I offer my hand down the stairs?”
Lucy accepted the courtesy; and the stranger was half-way down the
staircase, when the doctor, stretching out his little neck, exclaimed,--
“Good-evening, sir! I do hope we shall meet again.”
“Fear not!” said Mr. Clifford, laughing gayly; “I am too great a
traveller to make that hope a matter of impossibility. Take care,
madam,--one step more.”
The night was calm and tolerably clear, though the moon had not yet
risen, as Lucy and her companion passed through the fields, with the
servant preceding them at a little distance with the lantern.
After a pause of some length, Clifford said, with a little hesitation,
“Is Miss Brandon related to the celebrated barrister of her name?”
“He is my uncle,” said Lucy; “do you know him?”
“Only your uncle?” said Clifford, with vivacity, and evading Lucy's
question. “I feared--hem! hem!--that is, I thought he might have been a
nearer relation.” There was another, but a shorter pause, when Clifford
resumed, in a low voice: “Will Miss Brandon think me very presumptuous
if I say that a countenance like hers, once seen, can never be
forgotten; and I believe, some years since, I had the honour to see her
in London, at the theatre? It was but a momentary and distant glance
that I was then enabled to gain; and yet,” he added significantly, “it
sufficed!”
“I was only once at the theatre while in London, some years ago,” said
Lucy, a little embarrassed; “and indeed an unpleasant occurrence which
happened to my uncle, with whom I was, is sufficient to make me remember
it.”
“Ha! and what was it?”
“Why, in going out of the play-house his watch was stolen by some
dexterous pickpocket.”
“Was the rogue caught?” asked the stranger.
“Yes; and was sent the next day to Bridewell. My uncle said he was
extremely young, and yet quite hardened. I remember that I was foolish
enough, when I heard of his sentence, to beg very hard that my uncle
would intercede for him; but in vain.”
“Did you, indeed, intercede for him?” said the stranger, in so earnest
a tone that Lucy coloured for the twentieth time that night, without
seeing any necessity for the blush. Clifford continued, in a gayer
tone: “Well, it is surprising how rogues hang together. I should not be
greatly surprised if the person who despoiled your uncle were one of the
same gang as the rascal who so terrified your worthy friend the doctor.
But is this handsome old place your home?”
“This is my home,” answered Lucy; “but it is an old-fashioned, strange
place; and few people, to whom it was not endeared by associations,
would think it handsome.”
“Pardon me!” said Lucy's companion, stopping, and surveying with a look
of great interest the quaint pile, which now stood close before them;
its dark bricks, gable-ends, and ivied walls, tinged by the starry
light of the skies, and contrasted by the river, which rolled in silence
below. The shutters to the large oriel window of the room in which the
squire usually sat were still unclosed, and the steady and warm light of
the apartment shone forth, casting a glow even to the smooth waters of
the river; at the same moment, too, the friendly bark of the house-dog
was heard, as in welcome; and was followed by the note of the great
bell, announcing the hour for the last meal of the old-fashioned and
hospitable family.
“There is a pleasure in this,” said the stranger, unconsciously, and
with a half-sigh; “I wish I had a home!”
“And have you not a home?” said Lucy, with naivety. “As much as a
bachelor can have, perhaps,” answered Clifford, recovering without an
effort his gayety and self-possession. “But you know we wanderers are
not allowed the same boast as the more fortunate Benedicts; we send
our hearts in search of a home, and we lose the one without gaining the
other. But I keep you in the cold, and we are now at your door.”
“You will come in, of course!” said Miss Brandon, “and partake of our
evening cheer.”
The stranger hesitated for an instant, and then said in a quick tone,--
“No! many, many thanks; it is already late. Will Miss Brandon accept
my gratitude for her condescension in permitting the attendance of one
unknown to her?” As he thus spoke, Clifford bowed profoundly over the
hand of his beautiful charge; and Lucy, wishing him good-night, hastened
with a light step to her father's side.
Meanwhile Clifford, after lingering a minute, when the door was closed
on him, turned abruptly away; and muttering to himself, repaired with
rapid steps to whatever object he had then in view.