Part 2

'Catherine,' added I, 'can I see you another's? The thought chokes me! Would you have me behold it?--shall my eyes be withered by the sight? Never, never! Forgive me!--Catherine, forgive me! I have acted rashly, perhaps cruelly; but I would not have spoken as I have done--I would have fled from your presence--I would not have given one pang to your gentle bosom--your father should not have said that he sheltered a scorpion that turned and stung him; but, meeting you as I have done to-day, I could no longer suppress the tumultuous feelings that struggled in my bosom. But it is past. Forgive me--forget me!'

Still memory hears her sighs, as her tears fell upon my bosom, and, wringing her hands in bitterness, she cried--

'Say not, _forget_ you! If, in compliance with my father's will, I must give my hand to another, and if to him my vows must be plighted, I will keep them sacred--yet my heart is yours!'

Lewis! I was delirious with joy, as I listened to this confession from her lips. The ecstasy of years was compressed into a moment of deep, speechless, almost painful luxury. We mingled our tears together, and our vows went up to heaven a sacrifice pure as the first that ascended, when the young earth offered up its incense from paradise to the new-born sun.

I remained beneath her father's roof until within three days of the time fixed for her becoming the bride of Sir Peter Blakely. Day by day, I beheld my Catherine move to and fro like a walking corpse--pale, speechless, her eyes fixed and lacking their lustre. Even I seemed unnoticed by her. She neither sighed nor wept. A trance had come over her faculties. She made no arrangements for her bridal; and when I at times whispered to her that _she should be mine_! O Lewis! she would then smile--but it was a smile where the light of the soul was not--more dismal, more vacant than the laugh of idiotcy! Think, then, how unlike they were to the rainbows of the soul which I had seen radiate the countenance of my Catherine!

Sir Peter Blakely had gone into Roxburghshire, to make preparations for taking home his bride, and her father had joined you in Edinburgh, relative to the affairs of Prince Charles, in consequence of a letter which he had received from you, and the contents of which might not even be communicated to me. At any other time, and this lack of confidence would have provoked my resentment; but my thoughts were then of other things, and I heeded it not. Catherine and I were ever together; and for hour succeeding hour we sat silent, gazing on each other. O my friend! could your imagination conjure up our feelings and our thoughts in this hour of trial, you would start, shudder, and think no more. The glance of each was as a pestilence, consuming the other. As the period of her father's return approached, a thousand resolutions crowded within my bosom--some of magnanimity, some of rashness. But I was a coward--morally, I was a coward. Though I feared not the drawn sword nor the field of danger more than another man, yet misery compels me to confess what I was. Every hour, every moment, the sacrifice of parting from her became more painful. Oh! a mother might have torn her infant from her breast, dashed it on the earth, trampled on its outstretched hands, and laughed at its dying screams, rather than that I now could have lived to behold my Catherine another's.

Suddenly, the long, the melancholy charm of my silence broke. I fell upon my knee, and, clenching my hands together, exclaimed--

'Gracious Heaven!--if I be within the pale of thy mercy, spare me this sight! Let me be crushed as an atom--but let not mine eyes see the day when a tongue speaks it, nor mine ears hear the sound that calls her another's.'

I started to my feet, I grasped her hands in frenzy, I exclaimed--'You _shall_ be mine!' I took her hand. 'Catherine!' I added, 'you will not--you SHALL not give your hand to another! It is mine, and from mine it shall not part! And I pressed it to my breast as a mother would her child from the knife of a destroyer.

'It SHALL be yours!' she replied wildly; and the feeling of life and consciousness again gushed through her heart. But she sank on my breast, and sobbed--

'My father! O my father!'

'Your father is Sir Peter Blakely's friend,' replied I, 'and he will not break the pledge he has given him. With his return, Catherine, my hopes and life perish together. Now only can you save yourself--now only can you save me. Fly with me!--be mine, and your father's blessing will not be withheld. Hesitate now, and farewell happiness.'

She hastily raised her head from my breast, she stood proudly before me, and, casting her bright blue eyes upon mine, with a look of piercing inquiry, said--

'Edward! what would you have me to do? Deep as my love for you is--and I blush not to confess it--would you have me to fly with you accompanied by the tears of blighted reputation--followed by the groans and lamentations of a heart-broken father--pointed at by the finger of the world as an outcast of human frailty? Would you have me to break the last cord that binds to existence the only being to whom I am related on earth--for whom have I but my father? My _hand_ I shall _never_ give to another; but I cannot, I will not leave my father's house. If Catherine Forrester has gained your _love_, she shall not forfeit your _esteem_. I may droop in secret, Edward, as a bud broken on its stem, but I will not be trampled on in public as a worthless weed.'

'Nay, my beloved, mistake me not,' returned I--'when the lamb has changed natures with the wolf, then, but not till then, could I breathe a thought, a word in your presence, that I would blush to utter at the gate of Heaven. Within two days, your father and his intended son-in-law will return, and the father's threats and tears will subdue the daughter's purpose. Catherine will be a wife!--Edward a----

'Speak not impiously,' she cried, imploringly--'what--what can we do?'

'The present moment only is left us,' replied I. 'To-night, become the wife of Edward Fleming, and happiness will be ours.'

Her pulse stood still; the blood rushed into her face and back to her heart, while her bosom heaved, and her cheeks glowed with the agony of incertitude, as she resolved and re-resolved.

But wherefore should I tire you with a recital of what you already know. That night, my Catherine became my wife. For a few months her father disowned us; but when the fortunes of the Prince began to ripen, through his instrumentality we were again received into his favour. Yet I was grieved to hear, that, in consequence of our marriage, Sir Peter Blakely's mind had become affected; for, while I detested him as a rival, I was compelled to esteem him as a man.

But now, Lewis, comes the misery of my story. You are aware that, before I saw my Catherine, I was a ruined man. Youthful indiscretions--but why call them indiscretions?--rather let me say my headlong sins--before I had well attained the age of manhood, contributed to undermine my estate, and the unhappy political contest in which we were engaged had wrecked it still more. I had ventured all that my follies had left me upon the fortunes of Prince Charles. You know that I bought arms, I kept men ready for the field, I made voyages to France, I assisted others in their distress; and, in doing all this, I anticipated nothing less than an earldom, when the Stuarts should again sit on the throne of their fathers. You had more sagacity, more of this world's wisdom; and you told me I was wrong--that I was involving myself in a labyrinth from which I might never escape. But I thought myself wiser than you. I knew the loyalty and the integrity of my own actions, and with me, at all times, to feel was to act. I had dragged ruin around me, indulging in a vague dream of hope; and now I had obtained the hand of my Catherine, and I had not the courage to inform her that she had wed that of a ruined man.

It was when you and I were at the University together, that the spirit of gambling threw its deceitful net around me, and my estate was sunk to half its value ere I was of age to enjoy it; the other half I had wrecked in idle schemes for the restoration of the Stuarts. When, therefore, a few weeks after our marriage, I removed with my Catherine to London, I was a beggar, a bankrupt, living in fashionable misery. I became a universal borrower, making new creditors to pacify the clamours of the old, and to hide from my wife the wretchedness of which I had made her a partner. And, O Lewis! the thought that she should discover our poverty, was to me a perpetual agony. It came over the fondest throbbings of my soul like the echo of a funeral bell, for ever pealing its sepulchral boom through the music of bridal joy. I cared not for suffering as it might affect myself; but I could not behold her suffer, and suffer for my sake. I heard words of tenderness fall from her tongue, in accents sweeter than the melody of the lark's evening song, as it chirming descends to fold its wings for the night by the side of its anxious mate. I beheld her smiling to beguile my care, and fondly watching every expression of my countenance, as a mother watches over her sick child; and the half-concealed tear following the smile when her efforts proved unavailing; and my heart smote me that she should weep for me, while her tears, her smiles, and her tenderness, added to my anguish, and I was unable to say in my heart, 'Be comforted.' It could not be affection which made me desirous of concealing our situation from her, but a weakness which makes us unwilling to appear before each other as we really are.

For twelve months I concealed, or thought that I had concealed, the bankruptcy which overwhelmed me as a helmless vessel on a tempestuous sea. But the Prince landed in Scotland, and the war began. I was employed in preparing the way for him in England, and, for a season, wild hopes, that made my brain giddy, rendered me forgetful of the misery that had hung over and haunted me. But the brilliant and desperate game was soon over; our cause was lost, and with it my hopes perished; remorse entered my breast, and I trembled in the grasp of ruin. Sir William Forrester effected his escape to France, but his estates were confiscated, and my Catherine was robbed of the inheritance that would have descended to her. With this came another pang, more bitter than the loss of her father's fortune; for he, now a fugitive in a strange land, and unconscious of my condition, had a right to expect assistance from me. The thought dried up my very heart's blood, and made it burn within me--and I fancied I heard my Catherine soliciting me to extend the means of life to her father, which I was no longer able to bestow upon herself: for, with the ruin of our cause, my schemes of borrowing, and of allaying the clamour of creditors, perished.

But it is said that evils come not singly--nor did they so with me; they came as a legion, each more cruel than that which preceded it. Within three weeks after the confiscation of the estates of Sir William Forrester, the individual who held the mortgage upon mine died, and his property passed into the hands--of whom?--heaven and earth! Lewis, I can hardly write it. His property, including the mortgage on my estate, passed into the hands of--Sir Peter Blakely! I could have died a thousand deaths rather than have listened to the tidings. My estate was sunk beyond its value, and now I was at the mercy of the man I had injured--of him I hated. I could not doubt but that, now that I was in his power, he would wring from me his 'pound o' flesh' to the last grain--and he has done it!--the monster has done it! But to proceed with my history.

My Catherine was now a mother, and longer to conceal from her the wretchedness that surrounded us, and was now ready to overwhelm us, was impossible; yet I lacked the courage, the manliness to acquaint her with it, or prepare her for the coming storm.

But she had penetrated my soul--she had read our condition; and, while I sat by her side buried in gloom, and my soul groaning in agony, she took my hand in hers, and said--

'Come, dear Edward, conceal nothing from me. If I cannot remove your sorrows, let me share them. I have borne much, but, for you, I can bear more.'

'What mean ye, Catherine?' I inquired, in a tone of petulance.

'My dear husband,' replied she, with her wonted affection, 'think not I am ignorant of the sorrow that preys upon your heart. But brood not on poverty as an affliction. You may regain affluence, or you may not; it can neither add to nor diminish my happiness but as it affects you. Only smile upon me, and I will welcome penury. Why think of degradation or of suffering? Nothing is degrading that is virtuous and honest; and where honesty and virtue are, there alone is true nobility, though their owner be a hewer of wood. Believe not that poverty is the foe of affection. The assertion is the oft-repeated, but idle falsehood of those who never loved. I have seen mutual love, joined with content, within the clay walls of humble cotters, rendering their scanty and coarse morsel sweeter than the savoury dainties of the rich; and affection increased, and esteem rose, from the knowledge that they endured privation together, and for each other. No, Edward,' she added, hiding her face upon my shoulder, 'think not of suffering. We are young, the world is wide, and Heaven is bountiful. Leave riches to those who envy them, and affection will render the morsel of our industry delicious.'

My first impulse was to press her to my bosom; but pride and shame mastered me, and, with a troubled voice, I exclaimed--'Catherine!'

'O Edward!' she continued, and her tears burst forth, 'let us study to understand each other--if I am worthy of being your wife, I am worthy of your confidence.'

I could not reply. I was dumb in admiration, in reverence of virtue and affection of which I felt myself unworthy. A load seemed to fall from my heart, I pressed her lips to mine.

'Cannot Edward be as happy as his Catherine,' she continued; 'we have, at least, enough for the present, and, with frugality, we have enough for years. Come, love, wherefore will you be unhappy? Be you our purser.' And, endeavouring to smile, she gently placed her purse in my hands.

'Good Heavens!' I exclaimed, striking my forehead, and the purse dropped upon the floor; 'am I reduced to this? Never, Catherine!--never! Let me perish in my penury; but crush me not beneath the weight of my own meanness! Death!--what must you think of me?'

'Think of you?' she replied, with a smile, in which affection, playfulness, and sorrow met--'I did not think that you would refuse to be your poor wife's banker.'

'Ah, Catherine!' cried I, 'would that I had half your virtue--half your generosity.'

'The half?' she answered laughingly--'have you not the whole? Did I not give you hand and heart--faults and virtues?--and you, cruel man, have lost the half already! Ungenerous Edward!'

'Oh!' exclaimed I, 'may Heaven render me worthy of such a wife!'

'Come, then,' returned she, 'smile upon your Catherine--_it is all over now_.'

'What is all over, love?' inquired I.

'Oh, nothing, nothing,' continued she, smiling--'merely the difficulty a young husband has in making his wife acquainted with the state of the firm in which she has become a partner.'

'And,' added I, bitterly, 'you find it bankrupt.'

'Nay, nay,' rejoined she, cheerfully, 'not bankrupt; rather say, beginning the world with a small capital. Come, now, dearest, smile, and say you will be cashier to the firm of Fleming & Co.'

'Catherine!--O Catherine!' I exclaimed, and tears filled my eyes.

'Edward!--O Edward!' returned she, laughing, and mimicking my emotion; 'good by, dear--good by!' And, picking up the purse, she dropped it on my knee, and tripped out of the room, adding gaily--

'For still the house affairs would call her hence.'

Fondly as I imagined that I loved Catherine, I had never felt its intensity until now, nor been aware of how deeply she deserved my affection. My indiscretions and misfortunes had taught me the use of money--they had made me to know that it was an indispensable agent in our dealings with the world; but they had not taught me economy. And I do not believe that a course of misery, continued and increasing throughout life, would ever teach this useful and prudent lesson to one of a warm-hearted and sanguine temperament; nor would any power on earth, or in years, enable him to put it in practice, save the daily and endearing example of an affectionate and virtuous wife. I do not mean the influence which all women possess during the oftentimes morbid admiration of what is called a honeymoon; but the deeper and holier power which grows with years, and departs not with grey hairs--in our boyish fancies being embodied, and our young feelings being made tangible, in the never-changing smile of her who was the sun of our early hopes, the spirit of our dreams--and who, now, as the partner of our fate, ever smiles on us, and, by a thousand attentions, a thousand kindnesses and acts of love, becomes every day dearer and more dear to the heart where it is her only ambition to reign and sit secure in her sovereignty--while her chains are soft as her own bosom, and she spreads her virtues around us, till they become a part of our own being, like an angel stretching his wings over innocence. Such is the power and influence of every woman who is as studious to reform and delight the husband as to secure the lover.

Such was the influence which, I believed, I now felt over my spirit, and which would save me from future folly and from utter ruin. But I was wrong, I was deceived--yes, most wickedly I was deceived. But you shall hear. On examining the purse, I found that it contained between four and five hundred pounds in gold and bills.

'This,' thought I, 'is the wedding present of her father to my poor Catherine, and she has kept it until now! Bless her! Heaven bless her.'

I wandered to and fro across the room, in admiration of her excellence, and my bosom was troubled with a painful sense of my own unworthiness. I had often, when my heart was full, attempted to soothe its feelings by pouring them forth in rhyme. There were writing materials upon the table before me. I sat down--I could think of nothing but my Catherine, and I wrote the following verses

TO MY WIFE.

Call woman--angel, goddess, what you will-- With all that fancy breathes at passion's call, With all that rapture fondly raves--and still That one word--WIFE--outvies--contains them all. It is a word of music which can fill The soul with melody, when sorrows fall Round us, like darkness, and her heart alone Is all that fate has left to call our own.

Her bosom is a fount of love that swells, Widens, and deepens with its own outpouring, And, as a desert stream, for ever wells Around her husband's heart, when cares devouring, Dry up its very blood, and man rebels Against his being!--When despair is lowering, And ills sweep round him, like an angry river, She is his star, his rock of hope for ever.

Yes; woman only knows what 'tis to mourn She only feels how slow the moments glide Ere those her young heart loved in joy return And breathe affection, smiling by her side. Hers only are the tears that waste and burn-- The anxious watchings, and affection's tide That never, never ebbs!--hers are the cares No ear hath heard, and which no bosom shares

Cares, like her spirit, delicate as light Trembling at early dawn from morning stars, Cares, all unknown to feeling and to sight Of rougher man, whose stormy bosom wars With each fierce passion in its fiery might; Nor deems how look unkind, or absence, jars Affection's silver cords by woman wove, Whose soul, whose business, and whose life is--LOVE.

I left the verses upon the table, that she might find them when she entered, and that they might whisper to her that I at least appreciated her excellence, however little I might have merited it.

Lewis, even in my solitary cell, I feel the blush upon my cheek, when I think upon the next part of my history. My hand trembles to write it, and I cannot now. Methinks that even the cold rocks that surround me laugh at me derision, and I feel myself the vilest of human things. But I cannot describe it to-day--I have gone too far already, and I find that my brain burns. I have conjured up the past, and I would hide myself from its remembrance. Another day, when my brain is cool, when my hand trembles not, I may tell you all; but, in the shame of my own debasement, my reason is shaken from its throne.

Here ended the first part of the Hermit's manuscript; and on another, which ran thus, he had written the words--

"MY HISTORY CONTINUED."

I told you, Lewis, where I last broke off my history, that I left the verses on the table for the eye of my Catherine. I doubted not that I would devise some plan of matchless wisdom, and that, with the money so unexpectedly come into my possession, I would redeem my broken fortunes. I went out into the streets, taking the purse with me, scarce knowing what I did, but musing on what to do. I met one who had been a fellow-gambler with me, when at the University.

'Ha! Fleming!' he exclaimed, 'is such a man alive! I expected that you and your Prince would have crossed the water together, or that you would have exhibited at Carlisle or Tower Hill.'

He spoke of the run of good fortune he had had on the previous night--(for he was a gambler still.) 'Five thousand!' said he, rubbing his hands, 'were mine within five minutes.'

'Five thousand!' I repeated. I took my Catherine's purse in my hand.

Lewis! some demon entered my soul, and extinguished reason. 'Five thousand!' I repeated again; 'it would rescue my Catherine and my child from penury.' I thought of the joy I should feel in placing the money and her purse again in her hands. I accompanied him to the table of destruction. For a time fortune, that it might mock my misery, and not dash the cup from my lips until they were parched, seemed to smile on me. But I will not dwell on particulars; my friend 'laughed to see the madness rise' within me. I became desperate--nay, I was insane--and all that my wife had put into my hands, to the last coin, was lost. Never, until that moment, did I experience how terrible was the torture of self-reproach, or how fathomless the abyss of human wretchedness. I would have raised my hand against my own life; but, vile and contemptible as I was, I had not enough of the coward within me to accomplish the act. I thought of my mother. She had long disowned me, partly from my follies, and partly that she adhered to the house of Hanover. But, though I had squandered the estates which my father had left me, I knew that she was still rich, and that she intended to bestow her wealth upon my sister; for there were but two of us. Yet I remembered how fondly she had loved me, and I did not think that there was a feeling in a mother's breast that could spurn from her a penitent son--for nature, at the slightest spark, bursteth into a flame. I resolved, therefore, to go as the prodigal in the Scriptures, and to throw myself at her feet, and confess that I had sinned against Heaven, and in her sight.

I wrote a note to my injured Catherine, stating that I was suddenly called away, and that I would not see her again perhaps for some weeks. Almost without a coin in my pocket, I took my journey from London to Cumberland, where my mother dwelt.