Part 8

But where was the master ruffian all this time? How was he employed, and how did he feel, while this dreadful and affecting scene was enacting? Why, he was giving himself very little concern about it, further than that which proceeded from his fears for his L5000.

He had indeed called two or three times at Fanny's lodgings during her illness, to inquire for her, and had even sent her some cordials--cordials, alas! of which she had never partaken--from his own house; but more than this he had not done, nor in any other way had he evinced the smallest sympathy for the unhappy victim of his villany.

Raeburn knew that Fanny's illness was of a dangerous nature--but he had no idea that it was to terminate as it did so soon; and it was under this mistaken impression that he and Cressingham called at Fanny's lodgings on the very evening on which she died, and, as it happened, within a few minutes after that melancholy event had taken place.

Having tapped gently at the door, which was slowly opened to him by the lodging-house-keeper herself--

"How is your patient to-night, lady?" he said, addressing the latter, smilingly.

"She is well, sir--she is well," replied the woman, in whom Fanny's gentle nature and hard fate--of which she, too, had gathered something during the unfortunate girl's fits of delirium--had excited a strong feeling of sympathy. "She is well!--she is well!" she said, wiping her eyes with her apron as she spoke. "She's in heaven, sir!"

"What!" exclaimed Raeburn, in a tone of voice startling from its hollowness, and becoming deadly pale; his mean and dastardly soul instantly sinking under the weight of guilt with which he felt this dreadful intelligence burdening it. "What! she's not dead?"

"But she is though," replied the woman; "and there's an avenging God above that will seek out and make a terror and example of those who have been the cause of this poor girl's death."

"What do you mean, woman?" said Raeburn, in an alarm which he could not conceal, and which the slightest allusion to his villany was now sufficient to excite to an overwhelming degree; "you do not mean to say that she died by violence?"

"I know what I know, Mr Raeburn," rejoined the lodging-house-keeper, "and that's all I have to say about the matter." And she turned into the house.

Having by no means any wish to renew the conversation, Raeburn availed himself of the opportunity presented by the woman's retiring into the house, to sneak off, which he did, and joined his friend Cressingham, who was waiting for him at a little distance.

"She's dead, Cressingham!--she's dead!" he said, in great agitation, as he approached the latter.

"Dead!" exclaimed Cressingham--"is it possible? Why, then, Harry, your L5000 are gone, and you have been a villain for nothing."

"A villain, did you say, Cressingham?" repeated Raeburn, his lips pale and quivering as he spoke.

"Yes; surely a villain--a double-dyed villain!" reiterated the former. "Did you ever imagine you were anything else? My share in the transaction is bad enough--I allow it; but it's nothing to yours, Raeburn--nothing; for I would assuredly have married the girl, if she would have had me. My conduct in the business was perhaps that of a profligate: but yours--yours, Raeburn--was unquestionably that," repeated Cressingham, coolly and considerately--"that of a double-dyed villain." Saying this, he turned on his heel and left him.

The instances just mentioned were the first and the only ones in which Raeburn had yet suffered the martyrdom of hearing the opinion of others of his conduct with regard to Miss Rutherford; but this was a species of torture to which he was now to be frequently exposed. On this very occasion, he had not proceeded twenty yards from the place where Cressingham had left him, when he encountered the medical gentleman who had been attending his victim. This person, conjecturing, from the direction whence Raeburn was coming, that he had been inquiring for his patient, accosted him, and asked him how she was.

Raeburn, it will readily be believed, would have gone fifty miles about--ay, even on his bare knees--rather than have exposed himself to this meeting; but it had taken place, and he now, therefore, endeavoured to suppress his agitation, and tried to look as composed as possible; and it was with this forced and affected calmness that he replied to the physician's inquiry, that his patient was dead.

"Dead!" said the kind-hearted man; "ah, poor girl! I knew it was at hand, but I thought she might have lived for at least twenty-four hours yet. Well, then," he went on, and now looking Raeburn sternly in the face, "since it is so, I will tell you, Mr Raeburn, my opinion of what your conduct has been in this most heartrending affair; for you are deeply implicated in it. My opinion, then, is, sir, that it has been most infamous, most atrocious; and, regarding yourself, sir, I certainly think you one of the most heartless ruffians that ever lived."

"Ruffian, sir!" repeated Raeburn, affecting to feel insulted, although he was quaking in every limb--"ruffian, sir! I shall have satisfaction for this, sir, you may depend upon it."

"Satisfaction, you scoundrel!" exclaimed Dr Henderson--the name of Fanny's medical attendant--"what right have you to satisfaction? Who would condescend to fight such a dastardly and disgraceful villain as you are? But, mark me, sir," he went on; "I know who the lady's friends are; and you may depend upon it, I shall not lose a moment in writing to inform them of everything connected with this shocking affair, and of your conduct towards the deceased. Take my word for that, sir. And, sir, not only will I do this, but I will inform every one I know of your conduct, until you are scouted from all society."

To this Raeburn made no other reply than by turning on his heel, and muttering the words, "Dr Henderson, you shall hear from me."

"Hear from you, you basest and most infamous of men!" said the doctor, looking with an expression of the most profound contempt and hatred after Raeburn, as he receded; "the less we hear of you or from you, the better for yourself, you ruffian."

Faithfully redeeming his pledge, Dr Henderson, on the following day, wrote to Fanny's father, whose address he had learned from her while attending her, and detailed all he knew--and this was nearly all that was to be known--regarding Raeburn's conduct to his daughter; for, although the latter had never accused Raeburn to him of ill-treatment, the doctor had, by connecting the broken hints which she had dropped from time to time, and especially by marking certain expressions which escaped her during her temporary fits of delirium, arrived at a knowledge of the whole truth. Having executed this part of his threat, Dr Henderson set diligently about the remaining portion, which was to give all the publicity he could to the story of Raeburn's infamy; and so successful was he in his efforts in this way, that he had the satisfaction in a very short time of seeing him shunned by all his acquaintances, and completely debarred from respectable society.

After Fanny's death, Raeburn had evinced a disposition to take an active part in her obsequies; and even expressed a willingness to defray the whole of the funeral charges. But this Dr Henderson would on no account permit. Neither would he suffer him to interfere in any way whatever with the funeral rites; the whole expense of which he insisted on paying out of his own pocket; and Raeburn knew too well the advantage the doctor possessed over him, to offer any resistance to these peremptory objections.

Thus stood matters, then, with Raeburn, and thus they remained for about eighteen months afterwards. He still, during all this time, continued in possession of his situation; but his superiors, who were well acquainted with the story of his villany to Miss Rutherford, were eagerly and anxiously watching for an opportunity to dismiss him. They did not feel that they would have been warranted in discharging him for his infamous conduct on the occasion alluded to, as it was a matter of which they had no right, officially, to take cognisance; but they had determined that the slightest dereliction of duty on his part should cost him his situation. Of this Raeburn was perfectly aware; and it required all his diligence, care, and attention, to avoid the visitation with which he was threatened. Such, we say, then, was the state of matters with Raeburn for about eighteen months after Fanny Rutherford's death. At the expiry of this period, however, that event occurred which winds up this tragic tale.

One evening, about nine o'clock, Raeburn was sitting solitary in his room, musing on the miseries to which his villany had subjected him, and no doubt indulging, as all villains do, in imaginary schemes of vengeance against his enemies, when a waiter from one of the hotels in town called, and said that a gentleman there desired to see him immediately on a matter of importance.

Raeburn, conceiving that it might be on some official business that he was wanted, instantly repaired to the hotel, and was ushered into the room where the person was who wished to see him.

That person kept his back towards Raeburn till he had fairly entered the apartment, and until the waiter who had shown him in had retired. This done, he suddenly rushed towards the door, snatching up at the same time one of a pair of pistols which lay on a table in the middle of the room, and having locked the door in the inside, he fiercely confronted Raeburn, who, horror-struck at the sight, instantly recognised, in the person before him, Edward Rutherford, the brother of the unfortunate Fanny.

"Do you know me, villain? Do you know me?" shouted out Edward, first seizing him by the breast, and then dashing him from him with a violence that sent him reeling to the farther end of the apartment. "Do you know the brother of Fanny Rutherford, murderer? Did you think, ruffian, that you were safe from my vengeance, because the half of the globe lay between us? If you did, you mistook Edward Rutherford. But I will waste no more words on you, villain! The shade of my murdered sister--murdered by the cruellest of all deaths--is calling aloud for retribution, and, in her name, I am here to demand it! Here, dastard!" he said, taking up the other pistol, and presenting it to Raeburn--"here, take this, and stand to me like a man; for I would not imbrue my hands in your filthy blood but upon equal terms. Although you but little deserve it, I will give you a chance for your life! Come, sir," he went on, Raeburn declining to take the pistol, "take it--take it; for, by the heaven above us, one or other of us, or both, must die; and your only chance is in opposing me; for, if you do not fire, I will! By all that's sacred, I will!" At this moment, Raeburn rushed to the window, with the view of calling for assistance; and one supplicatory cry, which, however, was unattended to, he did emit. But, ere he could fully effect his object, Edward had him by the throat, and, holding his pistol within a few inches of his head, threatened, if he stirred or repeated his outcry, that that moment should be his last.

Seeing the desperate situation in which he was placed, the trembling wretch now took the pistol from Rutherford's hand, being aware, as he had been told, that it was indeed his only chance for life.

The parties now took their stations, one at each end of the room, and confronted each other.

"Raise your weapon, Raeburn; raise your weapon!" exclaimed Rutherford, on observing that his antagonist was not proceeding to assume a hostile attitude. "Your not firing will not save you from mine. I give you fair warning!"

Raeburn elevated, and levelled his pistol.

"Are you ready?" said his terrible opponent.

"Yes," replied Raeburn, faintly.

"Then fire, villain!" exclaimed Rutherford; and both pistols went off at the same instant, but with very different effect. A retributive power had directed the fatal engines of destruction. Raeburn's bullet struck the wall wide of its mark, while Rutherford's passed through the heart of him at whom it was aimed, and he fell lifeless on the floor.

Rutherford threw himself on his knees, and holding aloft the still reeking weapon of death, thanked Heaven that he had been permitted to be the avenger of his sister's wrongs.

The house in which this dreadful scene took place was a large one, and the apartment, especially selected on that account by Rutherford, was a remote one; so that the firing was not heard by any of the inmates--at least not so distinctly as to inform them that it was the noise of firearms. No one, therefore, appeared to interrupt the escape which Rutherford now meditated, and lost no time in effecting. He left the apartment, and, unheeded by any one, descended the great staircase which led to it and to others, and fled from the house.

Although, however, Rutherford effected his escape in safety, the transaction which rendered his flight necessary did not long remain unknown. It came to the ears of justice, and she uncoupled her bloodhounds after the offender; but, as the whole circumstances of the case gradually transpired, it is supposed that the pursuit was neither a very eager nor a very willing one. Certain it is, at any rate, that Rutherford could nowhere be found, although it is equally certain that several persons knew very well where he was for nearly two months after the death of Raeburn.

To these it was known that, immediately after the fatal occurrence in the hotel, a person closely wrapped up in a travelling-cloak called at Dr Henderson's, and desired to have a private interview with the doctor. When that gentleman entered the apartment into which the stranger had been shown, the latter announced himself to be Edward Rutherford, the brother of Fanny Rutherford, with whose melancholy story he said the doctor was so well acquainted.

"The brother of poor Fanny!" said the doctor, in amazement, and at the same time taking his visiter kindly by the hand. "I am happy to see you, sir, on your poor unfortunate sister's account. Did you come with the ship that arrived from England to-day, sir?"

"I did, sir," replied Edward.

"And pray, my dear sir," said the doctor, "if it be not an impertinent question--I assure you it is put with the most friendly intentions--what may be your purpose and views in coming out to India?"

"Vengeance, doctor! vengeance!" replied Rutherford, fiercely, "was my sole object--and I have already had it."

"Raeburn!" exclaimed the doctor, eagerly.

"Yes, sir, Raeburn is no more--his villanous career is ended. I have killed the ruffian; but, thank God! I killed him in fair fight. Villain as he was, I took no advantage of him, farther than compelling him to fight me." Edward then went on to detail the whole proceedings connected with the duel in the hotel.

When he had concluded--

"On my word, sir," said Dr Henderson, smiling--he could not help it--"you have made quick work of it indeed; and I assure you, I for one am not sorry that the villain has met with his deserts. But we must now care for your safety, Mr Rutherford, from the vengeance of the laws," added the doctor; "although I do not see how they can be very severe in such a case as this. Yet it will be as well for you to keep out of harm's way for a little. You must remain for some time in concealment; and a fitter or more secure place than I shall provide for you in my house here, you could not readily find anywhere; and I must insist on your availing yourself of it."

Edward did not know how to express the gratitude he felt for the singular and most disinterested kindness of his worthy host. He was, in truth, too strongly impressed with it to be able to acknowledge it otherwise than by a few broken sentences; but there was in these, and still more in the manner in which they were spoken, enough to show Dr Henderson that his friendly conduct was properly appreciated.

"Nothing at all, my dear sir!--nothing at all!" said the doctor, in reply to Edward's attempts at acknowledgment of the generous part he was acting towards him. "I'm very sure you would do the same for me, were I placed in your situation. You have, besides, Mr Rutherford--although, perhaps, a strict morality might question your right to the step you have taken--you have, I say, notwithstanding this, a claim on the friendly services of every man who can feel for the wrongs of another, especially--most especially--such grievous wrongs as yours. It was a just, and, on the part of him who has suffered, a well-merited retribution."

Edward was shortly afterwards introduced into the place of concealment--a comfortable little apartment, which had been prepared for him by the kindness of the worthy doctor; and here he remained for about seven weeks, experiencing every kindness and attention from his benevolent host, when he was secretly conveyed on board of a ship about to sail for London, where he arrived in safety, at the expiry of somewhere about the usual period occupied in such a voyage.

On his return home, Edward found his father at the point of death. The fate of his unfortunate daughter was hurrying him to the grave. Edward had not told him what was his object in going out to India; but the old man had guessed it, and had made several ineffectual attempts to dissuade him from his purpose. On the former now approaching his bedside, therefore, "Thank God!'" he said, stretching out his hand to Edward, "that I see you safe again, my son;" and added--afraid to be more particular in his inquiries--"have you seen Raeburn?"

"I have, father," was the only reply of his son; but it was said in a manner, and accompanied by a look, which assured him of what had taken place.

"I cannot approve, Edward, of what you have done," said his father; "but God will forgive you!"

They were the last words he spoke; and Raeburn's villany boasted yet another victim.

THE PROFESSOR'S TALES.

THE ENTHUSIAST.

There is a splendid book written, called "The Enthusiast;" but, though it discovers the author's talents, to my apprehension and feelings, it fails, after a few pages, to keep alive the attention--and why? Just because the author, portraying the general character of enthusiasm, steps beyond himself and his own personal observations, and talks about the workings of the principle in a new and untried combination of circumstances. From the law which regulates projectiles in _aere_, he reasons to what should regulate them _in vacuo_; he reasons from things seen to things unseen; and then leaves both himself and his reader in the mud and the mist of mere supposition. But, in what I mean to say of enthusiasm, I pledge myself to state nothing but what I have felt or seen; and I shall separate this principle from all others, only marking its influence when it is in a state of intensity, as one marks the electric spark, not in the cloud or the machine, but as it passes from one locality to another. Enthusiasm is, in fact, the electrical element of life. It is more or less everywhere, and often where it is least suspected. It bursts forth, occasionally, in the character of the warrior, the scholar, the poet, the speculator; but it remains as substantially, perhaps, though not so ostensibly, in the bosom of the parent, the husband, the wife, the child, the friend, the kinsman. The tradesman is an enthusiast, if he hopes to succeed; the merchant, the labourer, the mechanic. I have seen a shoemaker as enthusiastic in making his shoes fit neatly without pinching, as the scholar would be in divining the meaning of a difficult passage. Without enthusiasm man had never been what he is. It found him in the world naked, and it clothed him; houseless, and it covered him; defenceless, and it armed him. It run him up through the pastoral, the agricultural, to the commercial state. It composed the "Idylls" of Theocritus, the "Georgics" of Virgil, and the "Fleece" of Dyer. Without this there had been no shepherds to sing, and no poets to sing of their singing; no husbandmen to labour, and no Virgils and Hesiods to speak of their labour and argonautic expeditions; and no sacred bard to celebrate their pursuit of the golden fleece, commerce. But, though all this is true, in the enlarged and diluted sense of the word, it is not so in that sense in which the term is commonly understood. He is quite an enthusiast in the pursuit of knowledge--of a fox--or of hoped-for discovery--or of fame or of fortune--anybody knows to be terms applied to an unusually spirited pursuit of any or all of these. But the enthusiasm of which I speak is more limited still. It is a glow which originates and cools in the same bosom; which has no view beyond itself. It is not a mean to an end, but mean and end in one. Look at that boy: he is never to be found at a leisure hour without a fishing-rod in his hand; at that other youth--his book is his constant companion by the fountain and the hill; at that religious devotee--prayer and Bible-reading are his heaven; at that butcher's boy, who is now killing a lamb--his father has put the knife into his hand to please him--he is an enthusiast in butchery--his passion feeds on itself: it is, like virtue, its own reward--he cares not for cutlets or brown roasts.

Having thus narrowed the field to a class, I shall now select an individual, and that individual shall be one with whom I have had many opportunities of becoming well acquainted. Curious reader, it is not you, nor your brother Robert, nor your uncle Andrew, nor any, so far as I know, of your kindred--it is "myself." And how has enthusiasm wrought in me? That I am just going to tell you. It has made me, in the first place, miserable--most miserable; and I'll tell you how. I took it into my head, when a boy of about eight or nine years of age, that my mother--my only living parent--was mortal; nay, that she was so old and infirm--though she was not more than fifty, and in perfect health--that she would drop down dead, even before my eyes. I followed her wherever she went; held on by her apron-string, roaring aloud most mournfully, and shedding, besides, a world of tears. In vain did my kind mother endeavour to rally me, to reason me, to scold me, and even to chastise me, out of my dream: it had taken such hold of my imagination, that, sleeping or waking, it was there. When my mother travelled anywhere abroad, I was sure to be after her, like a domestic cur. When she went to offer up her private oblations to a throne of mercy, I crept in under her plaid, and heard every audible aspiration. In my sleep she was still before me as I had seen my grandmother--the lips parted, the eyes open, and set in night. It was horrible. I started into real life, and wept aloud. I rushed into my mother's apartment, felt her face all over, and cried bitterly. Reader, have you always been made of pot-mettle? Have you never experienced any such nervous enthusiasm as this? Have you been at all times a child of realities--a very steady, thinking, prudent person; slept like a top, ate like a raven, and talked to the amazement even of the minister himself? You may be a steady, good person now. You may even be married, with a family of thirteen children. You may have succeeded in the world, and feathered your nest. You may have presided well at various public dinners, and

"Never wrote One line which, dying, you would wish to blot;"