Part 12

Before the expiration of a week, he had communicated to the different members of the little circle, all that respectively most interested each. But it was only when alone with his revered uncle, that he laid open the undisguised history of all that had befallen him in his father's calamities and his own; the undisguised confession of his trials, his disappointments, and the present unnatural torpor of his soul.

The Pastor, with the gentleness of affection, and a knowledge that knew when to probe, to render the cure more radical, entered on all these discussions with wisdom and truth. He shewed Louis how mistaken had been his early conceptions of human nature; how idolatrous had been his estimation of beings, formed of the same dust and ashes as himself.

"I told you this from the first, my child!" said he; "and though your lips accorded, your spirit would not believe. But it is the error of most of us. We garnish finite man with the perfections of the infinite God. We fall down and worship the image we have made. We pray to it, we rest on it. But we soon find our trust is in a piece of clay. It has ears, and hears not; eyes, and sees not; and hands that cannot help!--Yes, Louis, all earthly idols are little more than blocks of wood; which might have been secure staves to hold us on our way; but when elevated to shrines, we find them things of naught. Now, my son, if we view all that are born of woman as erring creatures like ourselves; and accordingly love and assist, pardon and sustain them; we shall support, and be supported, through this travelling pilgrimage, till we at last lay down our heads in the grave, at peace with all mankind. But, on the reverse, when we look for perfection, and meet error, we are shocked; we resent and abhor; we do not forgive, we will not excuse; and they become our enemies from despair, whom the tender charities of a Christian spirit might have preserved as friends, and in time, persuaded to the hope of unerring purity!"

Louis acknowledged the truth of these observations. He had erred under them all, excepting that, of not knowing how to pardon; and there, his heart bore witness to itself, that he could forgive the hand that stabbed him.

"Yes, Sir;" replied he, "I know that in striving after excellence; to bear, and to forbear, is the duty of men on earth. Perfect virtue will be his happiness in Heaven."

"You sigh, very heavily, my dear Louis;" replied Mr. Athelstone, "while you acknowledge this!--But so right a judgement at so early an age, is cheaply purchased by the _sweet uses of adversity_!--you know I told you, in my first letter on the beginning of your misfortunes; that, may be you were only entered into a cloud, which would shed forth a gentle shower to refresh your virtues--and the event has proved it." "But not with gentle showers!" replied Louis with a smile of anguish.

"No, my child," answered the Pastor, tenderly regarding him; "but had you not required it, they would not have been so heavy."

"I believe it, Sir!" replied Louis rising from his chair, "I was proud, and I was ambitious. The world reigned in my heart, when you thought it possessed by a better principle. I was ignorant of my own state, till I was made to see my own likeness in a mirror--But we will not speak further on it!" cried he, interrupting himself,--"It is over,--quite over;--buried deep, deep--beneath the walls of Tetuan!"

Louis had touched a string that made every chord in his heart vibrate; and, he quitted the venerable presence, to recover composure in the recollections of solitude.

CHAP. XVIII.

The letters from Morewick, which announced to Sir Anthony Athelstone, the return of his nephew, found the Baronet at Cheltenham, just recovering from a fit of the gout. He was seated in his great-arm chair, and Cornelia reading by his footstool, when the tidings were brought in. Under these circumstances, for either to set out on an immediate journey northward, was impossible; but the raptures of both were not less eloquent; and was expressed with boisterous joy, by the one; and the mild transport of perfect happiness, from the lips of the other.

Sir Anthony wrote to Morewick, that his physicians would allow him to set forward in a very short time; when six horses should bring him with all speed to the banks of the Coquet. But this permission was not granted so soon as he expected; and, when it was accorded, the haste he made in travelling was so hostile to his convalescent state, that, within a stage of his own place of Athelstone-manor, he was seized with a relapse. Cornelia got him to the house, but no farther; the gout had now made prisoners of both feet; and he was laid upon his couch, for, perhaps a month to come, when she wrote to her cousin to tell him of this prevention to their progress.

The anticipated answer to this information was not disappointed. Louis set out for Athelstone. His reception there, was like that of the lost sheep being found; or the prodigal son, returned from his hopeless wanderings. The fatted calf was killed; and all the costly apparel brought forth, by the tenantry to honour the re-appearance of their master's future heir. Sir Anthony fell on his neck; and the happy Cornelia, standing bright in her beauty, like the palladian goddess her form and character resembled, looked on him with a sister's love beaming through her tears.

Time flew in this dear domestic circle. Louis and Cornelia successively read, and conversed; and amused the good-humoured invalid, in every possible way. And what was less agreeable to the cousins, the neighbouring gentry were curious to renew their acquaintance with the young and always animating de Montemar; but who was now returned amongst them, a politician and a soldier. Some enjoyed his society, with the zest of highly intelligent minds. Others gathered from his observations, information and pleasure; while the rest (and some of the older sort,) listened, and questioned; and marvelled with an absurd wonder, at such extraordinary knowledge in a man not yet four-and-twenty.

During his first visit to Athelstone, which was lengthened to more than a month, he received letters from Spain, from Martini and Ferdinand. The former told him, that he was still an unmolested occupier of the castle on the Guadalquivir. There was but one sentiment along its banks, with regard to him: lamentation for Ripperda, whom they still designated under the title of the _Great Duke_, while they accused the present ministry of Spain, of having forced him into rebellion. His dying in the arms of the church was a sufficient propitiation, in their eyes, for his short defection. But that was not enough for their love; and masses were daily said throughout Andalusia for the repose of his soul.

Martini's duty of charity proceeded in a manner equally grateful to the son of Ripperda. General ****, in Gibraltar, and Ismail Cheriff in Barbary, continued zealous coadjutors in the good work; and many slaves were ransomed, who had since arrived in Spain, full of thanksgiving to the hands which gave them freedom.

Ferdinand's letter was of a less agreeable complexion. An air of restraint pervaded its communications; which induced Louis to believe that his friend did not wish to let him see the whole hostility of the Spanish court against his father's fame, and his own claims on the country. He wrote of armaments by sea and land. This could no longer excite its former interest in the mind of his correspondent. He added there were great schisms in the _Sanctum Sanctorum_ of the Queen; but there was one head acknowledged infallible by all parties, and that was Duke Wharton. He rode the government, as Jupiter did his cloud; and in the same invisible manner shot his thunderbolts; every body knowing whence the shaft came, but nobody daring to mention the name that launched it. However, he was lately gone to Paris, to meet the Electress of Bavaria.

"I would, I might never read of him, or hear of him again!" exclaimed Louis, as he turned to the pages, which spoke of the Marquis Santa Cruz's journey into Italy, for the benefit of Marcella's health.

"She has never recovered her close attendance on the two wounded cavaliers at Ceuta," continued Ferdinand, "The life of so worthless a being as I am, may have been dearly purchased; but I will not say the same of my friend! However, Marcella will not own to this cause of her illness. She rather believes it to be a punishment laid on her, for her long resistance to the wishes of my father, for her entire seclusion from the world. This idea has fastened on her; and now all her petitions are to be fixed with our aunt, the abbess of the Ursalines."

Louis closed the letter at this passage. The form of Marcella was then before him. She whose bloom of health, he was too sensible had in part been sacrificed for him! He recalled her as she used to sit, evening after evening, by his apparently unobserving side, in that sad chamber of suffering at Ceuta. In those hours, the bright moon of that clear atmosphere, shining through the solitary window, fell direct on her face. It was pale from watching; but her eyes were often fixed on the orb; and the expression of her countenance, ever reminded him of Milton's lines:

"So dear to Heaven is saintly charity! That when a soul is found sincerely pure A thousand liveried angels lacquey her; Tell her of things, that no gross ear can hear; Till oft converse with heavenly habitants, Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape, The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turn it by degrees to the soul's essence, Till all be made immortal!"

When he used to repeat these lines to himself in her presence, and gazing upon that form, which already appeared half angel; he did not sigh when they closed with the remembrance of the vow, urged on her by her father. Why then did separation make a change? Why did her image haunt him? Why did his heart feel as if it had received another death stroke, when he read it was now her own repeated wish, to retire into the convent of the Ursalines?

His bosom's deepest grief whispered the solution to this mystery. While his father lived in exile, he was conscious to no feeling that did not point at him. That absorbing interest gone, the repressed sympathies of his heart streamed towards their attraction; and he found that he loved, and had most inexplicably dared to hope! But this letter of Ferdinand's extinguished the vain chimera. He was made sensible that the object of his tenderest thoughts, had never been more to him than a _Sister of Mercy_; that her unconscious eyes had never looked a dearer language; that she was now passing from him, by her own wish for ever!

"Then be it so!" said he, striking his breast; "I deserve this new misery, for my most extravagant presumption."

A few weeks after the receipt of these letters, Sir Anthony Athelstone was so completely recovered, as to meditate the transfer of himself and family to Bamborough. Mr. Athelstone's little household had been some time removed to Lindisfarne; and the prospect of the whole party being reunited under the venerable roof, was impatiently anticipated by them all. But the Baronet being one in the domestic circle of the Pastorage, was to be yet further postponed. The King had died the beginning of the month; and Sir Anthony was suddenly summoned to town, by order of his successor George the Second, to receive His Majesty's commands respecting the civil management of his northern counties. Other great land-holders, north of the Humber, had received the same writ; and without demur, the Baronet set forward with his nearest neighbour, to obey the summons of their new King.

Louis and Cornelia had their uncle's permission to proceed immediately to Bamborough; and either invite the family of the Pastorage to be their guests till his return, or if they preferred it cross over and take up their temporary abode at Lindisfarne.

It was a fine morning in the month of June, when they set off from Athelstone manor. Lorenzo, who would never lose sight of his master, rode by the side of the carriage. The usual out-riders kept their stations before and behind.

The cousins being together alone for so many hours, various subjects passed in review before them; and none of deeper interest, than the mutual attachment of Ferdinand and Alice.

"I wish," continued Cornelia, "that my sister could have pitied, without loving him." "But is it not natural to love what we pity?"

"Not always," replied she; "we must admire, to love."

"And may we not admire what we pity?" inquired Louis, the secret of whose heart was prompting these questions.

"In some cases," returned Cornelia; "but surely not in Alice's, when she first knew Don Ferdinand. She saw by his manner, that he was a man whose conscience was ill at ease; and how she could fix her pure affections on one his father acknowledged to have been very blame-worthy, has ever been an inexplicable wonder to me."

"But his melancholy was contrition for his offences, Cornelia," replied her cousin; "and Alice, admiring the principle, on your own argument, loved him."

"It may be so!" replied she, with a smile. "But were I to chuse, it should be an unsullied tablet!"

Louis shook his head. "Then, my sweet cousin, you must go to heaven for it!"

Cornelia shook her head in return.

"You are an amiable sceptic, my Cornelia; and, Heaven grant that time may not be the teacher to you, that it has been to me!"

"Louis," answered she, with a tender seriousness; "will you not be offended if I make a candid reply to that invocation?"

"Nothing that you would say can offend me."

"Then," replied she, "had you not deserted your youthful standard of female perfection--" She paused, and feared to go on. Louis completed the sentence.

"You would say, I should not have been disappointed in the Countess Altheim!"--A heightened colour was on his cheek as he spoke.

"Forgive me!" cried his cousin; "I was indelicate and cruel in making the reference." "Not cruel," returned he; "for she is no more to me than the recollection of a hideous dream. My imagination, not my heart, was the victim of her delusions."

"Ah, Louis!" cried Cornelia, again forgetting herself in the earnestness of her remarks; "It was something like your infatuation for Duke Wharton. My uncle always called him a splendid mischief; and, happily, the outlawry against him has banished him this country for ever. But you have long been convinced of his worthlessness; and, I thank Heaven for your second escape from similar delusions!"

Louis did not answer, but gratefully put his cousin's hand to his lips. She resumed.

"Indeed, when you wrote of her to my uncle, and under your best impressions too you dwelt so much on her beauty and accomplishments only, and her preference for you, that we could no way make ourselves esteem her, or believe her capable of making you finally happy. Dare I venture to go on, Louis?"

"Yes; you are a gentle physician!" replied he, with a forced smile; "and man's vanity needs a probe!"

"Now, the Lady Marcella!" continued Cornelia. Louis prevented himself from starting. "You wrote little of her, and you have said less; but it was always of her virtues; and in such few words, we saw her fairer, than the proud beauty of Vienna." Again Cornelia paused, and looked on her cousin, whose face was now bent on his hand. She rather hesitatingly proceeded. "We wished and thought, that had it not been for the vow anticipated by Ferdinand, you might have found her nearer to your first ideas of female excellence, and repaid her goodness to you with your love."

Louis did not speak, but still kept his head in its reclining position. She saw the struggle of a suppressed sigh, which would have been a sufficient response; and, grieved at the pain she had unconsciously excited, she tenderly pressed his hand.

"Louis," said she, in a tremulous voice, "could I have conjectured this--But I begin to think I have a very inhuman heart!" and the tears sprung to her eyes as she spoke.

"Not so;" replied he, looking up with a serene, though sad, countenance; "it has all of human softness, without its weakness. And, that I may emulate you, my Cornelia, there are some subjects I would rather avoid."

Cornelia did not answer this, nor ask another question: it declared itself. And turning to the other side of the carriage, while she gently pressed his hand, affected to gaze out of the window; but it was to allow her tears to flow unnoticed down her cheeks. Though she had never known the passion whose struggles she pitied, she loved the sufferer, dear as a brother; and, at that moment, would have surrendered her own blameless life, if, by that means, she could have purchased the happiness of Louis with the angelic Marcella.

CHAP. XIX.

During these conferences, the day gradually declined into red billowy clouds, till the whole heavens were overcast; and the pregnant vapour hung on every hill. A chill, unnatural to the season of the year, pervaded the air, while at times, a steam of sulphureous vapour descended from the sky, and rendered the atmosphere hot to suffocation. With the gathering clouds the evening soon deepened into night; and, in the midst of a succession of wide moors, this fearful canopy developed itself to the travellers, in all the horrors of a tempest. It was profoundly dark, though the hour could not be much beyond the time of twilight. But the violence of all the seasons, seemed accumulated in this tremendous storm. Thunder and lightning, sleet and rain, and furious hurricanes of wind, menaced the travellers in every blast. The postilions lost their way. Sometimes plunging into plashes of water; at other times, struggling in a morass; but, at every step encountering some new obstacle, and some new danger.

Several hours passed in this dreadful wandering over the dreary fells; and the yawning coal-pits which were scattered over their bosom, were not the least objects of fear to the bewildered drivers.

Louis became alarmed for the health, as well as the immediate personal safety of his cousin; for owing to the frequent narrow escapes of the carriage, from over-turning in the difficult and trackless road, he let the windows down, for fear of the glass injuring her, in case of an accident. He drew up the blinds in their stead; but, from their construction, little of the outward weather could be excluded; and the whole weight of the storm drove in upon her, till she was wet through. He had covered her with his coat; but all could not shield her from the deluge and piercing blast of that furious night. She shivered, and shrunk close into the corner of the carriage, in spite of her resolution not to distress him, by shewing herself affected by what was hopeless of remedy till the morning light should shew them where they were.

In the midst of this compulsory resignation, the carriage made a violent rebound, and stuck fast in the mud behind, while the horses plunged and reared with such strength, as to threaten its instant over-turn in the morass.

Lorenzo dismounted, and throwing open the door, Louis leaped out, and taking Cornelia in his arms, who was almost fainting from exhaustion, he carried her out of the reach of the wheels and refractory horses. One of the servants approached him at the moment, and told him the accident was occasioned by the breast of one of the leaders striking against the angle of a stone-hovel. It was a miserable, uninhabited shed; but might give some shelter to Miss Coningsby, till they saw what could be done with the carriage.

Revived at hearing of any refuge from the fury of the elements, Cornelia exerted herself to obey the suggestions of the servant; and Louis, equally glad of so providential a shelter, supported her tottering steps through the muddy ground. The hovel appeared of considerable extent, from the length of wall they had to grope along, before they reached the entrance, for door it had none. Louis bent under the low rafter, and leading Cornelia in, found his way obstructed by heaps of dried turf. On one of these heaps, she proposed seating herself, till her cousin had enquired after the injury of the horse, and given his judgment on what was best to be done for the extrication of the carriage.

Louis knew her too well, to fear that solitude and darkness alone could create any alarm in her mind; and, having seen her harassed spirits a little revived by the comparative security of the place, he had just consented to quit her for a short time, when Lorenzo re-entered with a glimmering lamp he had rescued from the carriage. All the others had been extinguished in succession, by the storm; and this was following their fate, when the prompt Italian seized it from its hook, and brought it in to light a few turfs, and warm Cornelia.

She took it, and dismissing her cousin and Lorenzo to their exertions without, with her own unpractised hands, she gathered some of the moor-fuel into a distant corner from the rest, and soon spread a cheering light and glow through the dreary habitation. Lorenzo ran in with a flask of oil from one of the postillions' pockets, to replenish her lamp; and he answered her anxious enquiries, by saying, that the wounded horse was loosened from the harness, and his master was then examining the injury. After this information, he left her.

While the group without, were raising the carriage from the bog into which it appeared to sink the deeper after every attempt at extrication, Cornelia sat, anxiously attending to their alternate voices of hope, and the disappointing plunges of the vehicle into the treacherous soil. In the midst of this solicitude, she thought she heard sounds of another import; and listening, found they were repeated low and heavily, as from one in a dying extremity. She turned her head in the direction whence they came; and, as she held her breath to hear more distinctly, the moans became louder, and drew her eye to a narrow door-way in the side of the intermediate mud-wall, at some distance from where she sat.--Without once considering there might be danger to herself, in exposing herself alone to the human being, or beings, she might find there, she thought only of succouring the distress those sounds indicated; and taking up her lamp, made her way over the scattered turf, to the miserable half-shut door.

It let her into a part of the hovel, even more dismal than the one she had left; for here was the confusion and stench of old worm-eaten sheep-skins; broken tar-tubs; and other implements of the shepherd's life, lying about in rust and disorder. In the middle of the apartment, something dark was spread on the floor. From that wretched bed the moans proceeded. Probably the poor tenant of this lonely sheep-cote, lay perishing there, under the toil of his occupation; without the support of necessary nourishment, or the comfort of a companion to soothe him in the last moments of over-tasked nature! She stepped gently towards the object of her pity. As she drew near, she saw the bed was a heap of these dingy fleeces, half covered with a cloak, on which lay the suffering person.

Cornelia bent over it; and holding the lamp, so as to distinguish what was beneath, beheld, not the squallid shape of poverty and comfortless old age, but a man in the garb of a gentleman, and with one of the noblest forms that ever met her sight. His dress was disordered, and clotted with the slime of the morass; but his figure, whose contour she thought she had never seen equalled, needed no embellishment to shew its consummate elegance, though now motionless in the torpor of approaching death.