EUGENE ARAM

 By Edward Bulwer-Lytton

 BOOK V. 

 Surely the man that plotteth ill against his neighbor perpetrateth ill against himself, and the evil design is most evil to him that deviseth it. --Hesiod

 CHAPTER I. 

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

 JAM veniet virgo, jam dicetur Hymenaeus, Hymen, O Hymenae! Hymen ades, O Hymenae! CATULLUS: Carmen Nuptiale. 

It was now the morning in which Eugene Aram was to be married to MadelineLester. The student's house had been set in order for the arrival of thebride; and though it was yet early morn, two old women, whom his domestic(now not the only one, for a buxom lass of eighteen had been transplantedfrom Lester's household to meet the additional cares that the change ofcircumstances brought to Aram's) had invited to assist her in arrangingwhat was already arranged, were bustling about the lower apartments andmaking matters, as they call it, "tidy. "

"Them flowers look but poor things, after all, " muttered an old crone, whom our readers will recognize as Dame Darkmans, placing a bowl ofexotics on the table. "They does not look nigh so cheerful as them asgrows in the open air. "

"Tush! Goody Darkmans, " said the second gossip. "They be much prettierand finer, to my mind; and so said Miss Nelly when she plucked them lastnight and sent me down with them. They says there is not a blade o' grassthat the master does not know. He must be a good man to love the thingsof the field so. "

"Ho!" said Dame Darkmans, "ho! When Joe Wrench was hanged for shootingthe lord's keeper, and he mounted the scaffold wid a nosegay in his hand, he said, in a peevish voice, says he: 'Why does not they give me atarnation? I always loved them sort o' flowers, --I wore them when Iwent a courting Bess Lucas, --an' I would like to die with one in myhand!' So a man may like flowers, and be but a hempen dog after all!"

"Now don't you, Goody; be still, can't you? What a tale for a marriageday!"

"Tally vally!" returned the grim hag, "many a blessing carries a cursein its arms, as the new moon carries the old. This won't be one of yourhappy weddings, I tell ye. "

"And why d' ye say that?"

"Did you ever see a man with a look like that make a happy husband? No, no! Can ye fancy the merry laugh o' childer in this house, or a babe onthe father's knee, or the happy, still smile on the mother's winsomeface, some few years hence? No, Madge! the devil has set his black clawon the man's brow. "

"Hush, hush, Goody Darkmans; he may hear o' ye!" said the second gossip, who, having now done all that remained to do, had seated herself down bythe window, while the more ominous crone, leaning over Aram's oak chair, uttered from thence her sibyl bodings. 

"No, " replied Mother Darkmans, "I seed him go out an hour agone, when thesun was just on the rise; and I said, when I seed him stroam into thewood yonder, and the ould leaves splashed in the damp under his feet, andhis hat was aboon his brows, and his lips went so, --I said, says I, 't isnot the man that will make a hearth bright that would walk thus on hismarriage day. But I knows what I knows, and I minds what I seed lastnight. "

"Why, what did you see last night?" asked the listener, with a tremblingvoice; for Plother Darkmans was a great teller of ghost and witch tales, and a certain ineffable awe of her dark gypsy features and malignantwords had circulated pretty largely throughout the village. 

"Why, I sat up here with the ould deaf woman, and we were a drinking thehealth of the man and his wife that is to be, and it was nigh twelve o'the clock ere I minded it was time to go home. Well, so I puts on mycloak, and the moon was up, an' I goes along by the wood, and up byFairlegh Field, an' I was singing the ballad on Joe Wrench's hanging, forthe spirats had made me gamesome, when I sees somemut dark creep, creep, but iver so fast, arter me over the field, and making right ahead to thevillage. And I stands still, an' I was not a bit afeared; but sure Ithought it was no living cretur, at the first sight. And so it comes upfaster and faster, and then I sees it was not one thing, but a many, manythings, and they darkened the whole field afore me. And what d' ye thinkthey was? A whole body o' gray rats, thousands and thousands on 'em; andthey were making away from the outbuildings here. For sure they knew, thewitch things, that an ill luck sat on the spot. And so I stood aside bythe tree, an' I laughed to look on the ugsome creturs as they swept closeby me, tramp, tramp! and they never heeded me a jot; but some on 'emlooked aslant at me with their glittering eyes, and showed their whiteteeth, as if they grinned, and were saying to me, 'Ha, ha! GoodyDarkmans, the house that we leave is a falling house, for the devil willhave his own. '"

In some parts of the country, and especially in that where our scene islaid, no omen is more superstitiously believed evil than the departure ofthese loathsome animals from their accustomed habitation; the instinctwhich is supposed to make them desert an unsafe tenement is supposed alsoto make them predict, in desertion, ill fortune to the possessor. Butwhile the ears of the listening gossip were still tingling with thisnarration, the dark figure of the student passed the window, and the oldwomen, starting up, appeared in all the bustle of preparation, as Aramnow entered the apartment. 

"A happy day, your honor; a happy good morning, " said both the crones ina breath; but the blessing of the worse-natured was vented in so harsh acroak that Arum turned round as if struck by the sound, and still moredisliking the well-remembered aspect of the person from whom it came, waved his hand impatiently, and bade them begone. 

"A-whish, a-whish!" muttered Dame Darkmans, --"to spake so to the poor;but the rats never lie, the bonny things!"

Aram threw himself into his chair, and remained for some moments absorbedin a revery, which did not bear the aspect of gloom. Then, walking onceor twice to and fro the apartment, he stopped opposite the chimney-piece, over which were slung the firearms, which he never omitted to keepcharged and primed. 

"Humph!" he said, half aloud, "ye have been but idle servants; and now yeare but little likely ever to requite the care I have bestowed upon you. "

With that a faint smile crossed his features; and turning away, heascended the stairs that led to the lofty chamber in which he had been sooften wont to outwatch the stars, --

 "The souls of systems, and the lords of life, Through their wide empires. "

Before we follow him to his high and lonely retreat we will bring thereader to the manor-house, where all was already gladness and quiet butdeep joy. 

It wanted about three hours to that fixed for the marriage; and Aram wasnot expected at the manor-house till an hour before the celebration ofthe event. Nevertheless, the bells were already ringing loudly andblithely; and the near vicinity of the church to the house brought thatsound, so inexpressibly buoyant and cheering, to the ears of the bridewith a noisy merriment that seemed like the hearty voice of an old-fashioned friend who seeks in his greeting rather cordiality thandiscretion. Before her glass stood the beautiful, the virgin, theglorious form of Madeline Lester; and Ellinor, with trembling hands(and a voice between a laugh and a cry), was braiding up her sister'srich hair, and uttering her hopes, her wishes, her congratulations. Thesmall lattice was open, and the air came rather chillingly to the bride'sbosom. 

"It is a gloomy morning, dearest Nell, " said she, shivering; "the winterseems about to begin at last. "

"Stay, I will shut the window. The sun is struggling with the clouds atpresent, but I am sure it will clear up by and by. You don't, you don'tleave us--the word must out--till evening. "

"Don't cry!" said Madeline, half weeping herself, and sitting down, shedrew Ellinor to her; and the two sisters, who had never been parted sincebirth, exchanged tears that were natural, though scarcely the unmixedtears of grief. 

"And what pleasant evenings we shall have, " said Madeline, holding hersister's hands, "in the Christmas time! You will be staying with us, youknow; and that pretty old room in the north of the house Eugene hasalready ordered to be fitted up for you. Well, and my dear father, anddear Walter, who will be returned long ere then, will walk over to seeus, and praise my housekeeping, and so forth. And then, after dinner, we will draw near the fire, --I next to Eugene, and my father, our guest, on the other side of me, with his long gray hair and his good fine face, with a tear of kind feeling in his eye, --you know that look he haswhenever he is affected. And at a little distance on the other side ofthe hearth will be you--and Walter; I suppose we must make room for him. And Eugene, who will be then the liveliest of you all, shall read to uswith his soft, clear voice, or tell us all about the birds and flowersand strange things in other countries. And then after supper we will walkhalf-way home across that beautiful valley--beautiful even in winter--with my father and Walter, and count the stars, and take new lessons inastronomy, and hear tales about the astrologers and the alchemists, withtheir fine old dreams. Ah! it will be such a happy Christmas! And then, when spring comes, some fine morning--finer than this--when the birds areabout, and the leaves getting green, and the flowers springing up everyday, I shall be called in to help your toilet, as you have helped mine, and to go with you to church, though not, alas! as your bridesmaid. Ah!whom shall we have for that duty?"

"Pshaw!" said Ellinor, smiling through her tears. 

While the sisters were thus engaged, and Madeline was trying, with herinnocent kindness of heart, to exhilarate the spirits, so naturallydepressed, of her doting sister, the sound of carriage-wheels was heardin the distance, --nearer, nearer; now the sound stopped, as at the gate;now fast, faster, --fast as the postilions could ply whip and the horsestear along. While the groups in the church-yard ran forth to gaze, andthe bells rang merrily all the while, two chaises whirled by Madeline'swindow and stopped at the porch of the house. The sisters had flown insurprise to the casement. 

"It is, it is--good God! it is Walter, " cried Ellinor; "but how pale helooks!"

"And who are those strange men with him?" faltered Madeline, alarmed, though she knew not why. 

 CHAPTER II. 

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

 NEQUICQUAM thalamo graves Hastas . . . . Vitabis strepitumque et celerem sequi Ajacem. --HORACE: Od. Xv. Lib. 1. 

 ["In vain within your nuptial chamber will you shun the deadly spears, . .. The hostile shout, and Ajax eager in pursuit. "]

Alone in his favorite chamber, the instruments of science around him, and books, some of astronomical research, some of less lofty but yetabstruser lore, scattered on the tables, Eugene Aram indulged the lastmeditation he believed likely to absorb his thoughts before that greatchange of life which was to bless solitude with a companion. 

"Yes, " said he, pacing the apartment with folded arms, "yes, all is safe!He will not again return; the dead sleeps now without a witness. I maylay this working brain upon the bosom that loves me, and not start atnight and think that the soft hand around my neck is the hangman's gripe. Back to thyself, henceforth and forever, my busy heart! Let not thysecret stir from its gloomy depth! The seal is on the tomb; henceforthbe the spectre laid. Yes, I must smooth my brow, and teach my liprestraint, and smile and talk like other men. I have taken to my hearth awatch, tender, faithful, anxious, --but a watch. Farewell the unguardedhour! The soul's relief in speech, the dark and broken, yet howgrateful, confidence with self, farewell! And come, thou veil! subtle, close, unvarying, the everlasting curse of entire hypocrisy, that underthee, as night, the vexed world within may sleep, and stir not! and all, in truth concealment, may seem repose!"

As he uttered these thoughts, the student paused and looked on theextended landscape that lay below. A heavy, chill, and comfortless mistsat saddening over the earth. Not a leaf stirred on the autumnal trees, but the moist damps fell slowly and with a mournful murmur upon theunwaving grass. The outline of the morning sun was visible, but it gaveforth no lustre: a ring of watery and dark vapor girded the melancholyorb. Far at the entrance of the valley the wild fern showed red andfaded, and the first march of the deadly winter was already heralded bythat drear and silent desolation which cradles the winds and storms. Butamidst this cheerless scene the distant note of the merry marriage-bellfloated by, like the good spirit of the wilderness, and the studentrather paused to hearken to the note than to survey the scene. "Mymarriage-bell!" said he. "Could I, two short years back, have dreamed ofthis? My marriage-bell! How fondly my poor mother, when first shelearned pride for her young scholar, would predict this day, and blendits festivities with the honor and the wealth her son was to acquire!Alas! can we have no science to count the stars and forebode the blackeclipse of the future? But peace! peace! peace! I am, I will, I shallbe happy now! Memory, I defy thee!"

He uttered the last words in a deep and intense tone; and turning away asthe joyful peal again broke distinctly on his ear, --

"My marriage-bell! Oh, Madeline, how wondrously beloved, how unspeakablydear thou art to me! What hast thou conquered! How many reasons forresolve, how vast an army in the Past, has thy bright and tender purityoverthrown! But thou--No, never shalt thou repent!" And for severalminutes the sole thought of the soliloquist was love. But scarceconsciously to himself, a spirit, not, to all seeming, befitted to thatbridal-day, --vague, restless, impressed with the dark and flutteringshadow of coming change, --had taken possession of his breast, and did notlong yield the mastery to any brighter and more serene emotion. 

"And why, " he said, as this spirit regained its empire over him, and hepaused before the "starred tubes" of his beloved science, --"and why thischill, this shiver, in the midst of hope? Can the mere breath of theseasons, the weight or lightness of the atmosphere, the outward gloom orsmile of the brute mass called Nature, affect us thus? Out on this emptyscience, this vain knowledge, this little lore, if we are so fooled bythe vile clay and the common air from our one great empire, self! GreatGod! hast thou made us in mercy, or in disdain? Placed in this narrowworld, darkness and cloud around us; no fixed rule for men; creeds, morals, changing in every clime, and growing like herbs upon the meresoil, --we struggle to dispel the shadows; we grope around; from our ownheart and our sharp and hard endurance we strike our only light. Forwhat? To show us what dupes we are, --creatures of accident, tools ofcircumstance, blind instruments of the scorner Fate; the very mind, thevery reason, a bound slave to the desires, the weakness of the clay;affected by a cloud, dulled by the damps of the foul marsh; stricken frompower to weakness, from sense to madness, to gaping idiocy, or deliriousraving, by a putrid exhalation! A rheum, a chill, and Caesar trembles!The world's gods, that slay or enlighten millions, poor puppets to thesame rank imp which calls up the fungus or breeds the worm, --pah! Howlittle worth is it in this life to be wise! Strange, strange, how myheart sinks. Well, the better sign, the better sign! In danger it neversank. "

Absorbed in these reflections, Aram had not for some minutes noticed thesudden ceasing of the bell; but now, as he again paused from hisirregular and abrupt pacings along the chamber, the silence struck him, and looking forth, and striving again to catch the note, he saw a littlegroup of men, among whom he marked the erect and comely form of RowlandLester, approaching towards the house. 

"What!" he thought, "do they come for me? Is it so late? Have I playedthe laggard? Nay, it yet wants near an hour to the time they expectedme. Well, some kindness, some attention from my good father-in-law; Imust thank him for it. What! my hand trembles. How weak are these poornerves; I must rest and recall my mind to itself!"

And indeed, whether or not from the novelty and importance of the eventhe was about to celebrate, or from some presentiment, occasioned, as hewould fain believe, by the mournful and sudden change in the atmosphere, an embarrassment, a wavering, a fear, very unwonted to the calm andstately self-possession of Eugene Aram, made itself painfully feltthroughout his frame. He sank down in his chair and strove to re-collecthimself; it was an effort in which he had just succeeded, when a loudknocking was heard at the outer door; it swung open; several voices wereheard. Aram sprang up, pale, breathless, his lips apart. 

"Great God!" he exclaimed, clasping his hands. "'Murderer!'--was that theword I heard shouted forth? The voice, too, is Walter Lester's. Has hereturned? Can he have learned--?"

To rush to the door, to throw across it a long, heavy iron bar, whichwould resist assaults of no common strength, was his first impulse. Thusenabled to gain time for reflection, his active and alarmed mind ran overthe whole field of expedient and conjecture. Again, "Murderer!" "Stay menot, " cried Walter, from below; "my hand shall seize the murderer!"

Guess was now over; danger and death were marching on him. Escape, --how?whither? The height forbade the thought of flight from the casement!The door?--he heard loud steps already hurrying up the stairs; his handsclutched convulsively at his breast, where his fire-arms were generallyconcealed, --they were left below. He glanced one lightning glance roundthe room; no weapon of any kind was at hand. His brain reeled for amoment, his breath gasped, a mortal sickness passed over his heart, andthen the MIND triumphed over all. He drew up to his full height, foldedhis arms doggedly on his breast, and muttering, "The accuser comes, --Ihave it still to refute the charge!" he stood prepared to meet, nordespairing to evade, the worst. 

As waters close over the object which divided them, all these thoughts, these fears, and this resolution had been but the work, the agitation, and the succeeding calm of the moment; that moment was past. 

"Admit us!" cried the voice of Walter Lester, knocking fiercely at thedoor. 

"Not so fervently, boy, " said Lester, laying his hand on his nephew'sshoulder; "your tale is yet to be proved, --I believe it not. Treat him asinnocent, I pray, --I command, --till you have shown him guilty. "

"Away, uncle!" said the fiery Walter; "he is my father's murderer. Godhath given justice to my hands. " These words, uttered in a lower keythan before, were but indistinctly heard by Aram through the massy door. 

"Open, or we force our entrance!" shouted Walter again; and Aram, speaking for the first time, replied in a clear and sonorous voice, sothat an angel, had one spoken, could not have more deeply impressed theheart of Rowland Lester with a conviction of the student's innocence, "Who knocks so rudely? What means this violence? I open my doors to myfriends. Is it a friend who asks it?"

"I ask it, " said Rowland Lester, in a trembling and agitated voice. "There seems some dreadful mistake: come forth, Eugene, and rectify it bya word. "

Is it you, Rowland Lester? It is enough. I was but with my books, andhad secured myself from intrusion. Enter. " The bar was withdrawn, thedoor was burst open, and even Walter Lester, even the officers of justicewith him, drew back for a moment as they beheld the lofty brow, themajestic presence, the features so unutterably calm, of Eugene Aram. "What want you, sirs?" said he, unmoved and unfaltering, though in theofficers of justice he recognized faces he had known before, and in thatdistant town in which all that he dreaded in the past lay treasured up. At the sound of his voice the spell that for an instant had arrested thestep of the avenging son melted away. 

"Seize him!" he cried to the officers; "you see your prisoner. "

"Hold!" cried Aram, drawing back. "By what authority is this outrage, --for what am I arrested?"

"Behold, " said Walter, speaking through his teeth, "behold our warrant!You are accused of murder! Know you the name of Richard Houseman, --pause, consider, --or that of Daniel Clarke?"

Slowly Aram lifted his eyes from the warrant, and it might be seen thathis face was a shade more pale, though his look did not quail, or hisnerves tremble. Slowly he turned his gaze upon Walter; and then, afterone moment's survey, dropped it once more on the paper. 

"The name of Houseman is not unfamiliar to me, " said he calmly, but witheffort. 

"And knew you Daniel Clarke

"What mean these questions?" said Aram, losing temper, and stampingviolently on the ground. "Is it thus that a man, free and guiltless, isto be questioned at the behest, or rather outrage, of every lawless boy?Lead me to some authority meet for me to answer; for you, boy, my answeris contempt. "

"Big words shall not save thee, murderer!" cried Walter, breaking fromhis uncle, who in vain endeavored to hold him, and laying his powerfulgrasp upon Aram's shoulder. Livid was the glare that shot from thestudent's eye upon his assailer; and so fearfully did his features workand change with the passions within him that even Walter felt a strangeshudder thrill through his frame. 

"Gentlemen, " said Aram at last, mastering his emotions, and resuming someportion of the remarkable dignity that characterized his usual bearing, as he turned towards the officers of justice, "I call upon you todischarge your duty. If this be a rightful warrant, I am your prisoner, but I am not this man's. I command your protection from him!"

Walter had already released his gripe, and said, in a muttered voice, "My passion misled me; violence is unworthy my solemn cause. God andJustice--not these hands--are my avengers. "

"Your avengers!" said Aram. "What dark words are these? This warrantaccuses me of the murder of one Daniel Clarke. What is he to thee?"

"Mark me, man!" said Walter, fixing his eyes on Aram's countenance. "The name of Daniel Clarke was a feigned name; the real name was GeoffreyLester: that murdered Lester was my father, and the brother of him whosedaughter, had I not come to-day, you would have called your wife!"

Aram felt, while these words were uttered, that the eyes of all in theroom were on him; and perhaps that knowledge enabled him not to reveal byoutward sign what must have passed within during the awful trial of thatmoment. 

"It is a dreadful tale, " he said, "if true, --dreadful to me, so nearlyallied to that family. But as yet I grapple with shadows. "

"What! does not your conscience now convict you?" cried Walter, staggered by the calmness of the prisoner. But here Lester, who could nolonger contain himself, interposed; he put by his nephew, and rushing toAram, fell, weeping, upon his neck. 

"I do not accuse thee, Eugene, my son, my son! I feel, I know thou artinnocent of this monstrous crime; some horrid delusion darkens that poorboy's sight. You, you, who would walk aside to save a worm!" and thepoor old man, overcome with his emotions, could literally say no more. 

Aram looked down on Lester with a compassionate expression; and soothinghim with kind words, and promises that all would be explained, gentlymoved from his hold, and, anxious to terminate the scene, silentlymotioned the officers to proceed. Struck with the calmness and dignity ofhis manner, and fully impressed by it with the notion of his innocence, the officers treated him with a marked respect; they did not even walk byhis side, but suffered him to follow their steps. As they descended thestairs, Aram turned round to Walter, with a bitter and reproachfulcountenance, "And so, young man, your malice against me has reached even to this!Will nothing but my life content you?"

"Is the desire of execution on my father's murderer but the wish ofmalice?" retorted Walter; though his heart yet well-nigh misgave himas to the grounds on which his suspicion rested. 

Aram smiled, as half in scorn, half through incredulity; and, shaking hishead gently, moved on without further words. 

The three old women, who had remained in listening astonishment at thefoot of the stairs, gave way as the men descended; but the one who solong had been Aram's solitary domestic, and who, from her deafness, wasstill benighted and uncomprehending as to the causes of his seizure, though from that very reason her alarm was the greater and more acute, she, impatiently thrusting away the officers, and mumbling someunintelligible anathema as she did so, flung herself at the feet of amaster whose quiet habits and constant kindness had endeared him to herhumble and faithful heart, and exclaimed, --

"What are they doing? Have they the heart to ill-use you? O master, Godbless you! God shield you! I shall never see you, who was my onlyfriend--who was every one's friend--any more!"

Aram drew himself from her, and said, with a quivering lip to RowlandLester, --

"If her fears are true--if--if I never more return hither, see that herold age does not starve--does not want. " Lester could not speak forsobbing, but the request was remembered. And now Aram, turning aside hisproud head to conceal his emotion, beheld open the door of the room sotrimly prepared for Madeline's reception: the flowers smiled upon himfrom their stands. "Lead on, gentlemen, " he said quickly. And so EugeneAram passed his threshold!

"Ho, ho!" muttered the old hag whose predictions in the morning hadbeen so ominous, --"ho, ho! you'll believe Goody Darkmans another time!Providence respects the sayings of the ould. 'T was not for nothing therats grinned at me last night. But let's in and have a warm glass. He, he! there will be all the strong liquors for us now; the Lord is mercifulto the poor!"

As the little group proceeded through the valley, the officers first, Aram and Lester side by side, Walter, with his hand on his pistol and hiseye on the prisoner, a little behind, Lester endeavored to cheer theprisoner's spirits and his own by insisting on the madness of the chargeand the certainty of instant acquittal from the magistrate to whom theywere bound, and who was esteemed the one both most acute and most just inthe county. Aram interrupted him somewhat abruptly, "My friend, enough of this presently. But Madeline, what knows she asyet?"

"Nothing; of course, we kept--"

"Exactly, exactly; you have done wisely. Why need she learn anything asyet? Say an arrest for debt, a mistake, an absence but of a day or so atmost, --you understand?"

"Yes. Will you not see her, Eugene, before you go, and say thisyourself?"

"I!--O God!--I! to whom this day was--No, no; save me, I implore you, from the agony of such a contrast, --an interview so mournful andunavailing. No, we must not meet! But whither go we now? Not, not, surely, through all the idle gossips of the village, --the crowd alreadyexcited to gape and stare and speculate on the--"

"No, " interrupted Lester; "the carriages await us at the farther end ofthe valley. I thought of that, --for the rash boy behind seems to havechanged his nature. I loved--Heaven knows how I loved my brother! Butbefore I would let suspicion thus blind reason, I would suffer inquiry tosleep forever on his fate. "

"Your nephew, " said Aram, "has ever wronged me. But waste not words onhim; let us think only of Madeline. Will you go back at once to her, --tell her a tale to lull her apprehensions, and then follow us with haste?I am alone among enemies till you come. "

Lester was about to answer, when, at a turn in the road which brought thecarriage within view, they perceived two figures in white hasteningtowards them; and ere Aram was prepared for the surprise, Madeline hadsunk pale, trembling, and all breathless on his breast. 

"I could not keep her back, " said Ellinor, apologetically, to her father. 

"Back! and why? Am I not in my proper place?" cried Madeline, liftingher face from Aram's breast; and then, as her eyes circled the group, and rested on Aram's countenance, now no longer calm, but full of woe, of passion, of disappointed love, of anticipated despair, she rose, andgradually recoiling with a fear which struck dumb her voice, thriceattempted to speak, and thrice failed. 

"But what--what is--what means this?" exclaimed Ellinor. "Why do youweep, father? Why does Eugene turn away his face? You answer not. Speak, for God's sake! These strangers, --what are they? And you, Walter, you, --why are you so pale? Why do you thus knit your brows andfold your arms! You, you will tell me the meaning of this dreadfulsilence, --this scene. Speak, cousin, dear cousin, speak!"

"Speak!" cried Madeline, finding voice at length, but in the sharp andstraining tone of wild terror, in which they recognized no note of thenatural music. The single word sounded rather as a shriek than anadjuration; and so pierciugly it ran through the hearts of all presentthat the very officers, hardened as their trade had made them, felt as ifthey would rather have faced death than answered that command. 

A dead, long, dreary pause, and Aram broke it. "Madeline Lester, " saidhe, "prove yourself worthy of the hour of trial. Exert yourself; arouseyour heart; be prepared! You are the betrothed of one whose soul neverquailed before man's angry word. Remember that, and fear not!"

"I will not, I will not, Eugene! Speak, only speak!"

"You have loved me in good report; trust me now in ill. They accuse me ofa crime, --a heinous crime! At first I would not have told you the realcharge. Pardon me, I wronged you, --now, know all! They accuse me, I say, of crime. Of what crime? you ask. Ay, I scarce know, so vague is thecharge, so fierce the accuser; but prepare, Madeline, --it is of murder!"

Raised as her spirits had been by the haughty and earnest tone of Aram'sexhortation, Madeline now, though she turned deadly pale, though theearth swam round and round, yet repressed the shriek upon her lips asthose horrid words shot into her soul. 

"You!--murder!--you! And who dares accuse you?"

"Behold him, --your cousin!"

Ellinor heard, turned, fixed her eyes on Walter's sullen brow andmotionless attitude, and fell senseless to the earth. Not thus Madeline. As there is an exhaustion that forbids, not invites repose, so when themind is thoroughly on the rack, the common relief to anguish is notallowed; the senses are too sharply strung, thus happily to collapse intoforgetfulness; the dreadful inspiration that agony kindles, supportsnature while it consumes it. Madeline passed, without a downward glance, by the lifeless body of her sister; and walking with a steady step toWalter, she laid her hand upon his arm, and fixing on his countenancethat soft clear eye, which was now lit with a searching and preternaturalglare, and seemed to pierce into his soul, she said, "Walter, do I hear aright? Am I awake? Is it you who accuse EugeneAram, --your Madeline's betrothed husband, --Madeline, whom you once loved?Of what? Of crimes which death alone can punish. Away! It is not you, --I know it is not. Say that I am mistaken, --that I am mad, if you will. Come, Walter, relieve me; let me not abhor the very air you breathe!"

"Will no one have mercy on me?" cried Walter, rent to the heart, andcovering his face with his hands. In the fire and heat of vengeance hehad not reeked of this. He had only thought of justice to a father, punishment to a villain, rescue for a credulous girl. The woe, the horrorhe was about to inflict on all he most loved: this had not struck uponhim with a due force till now!

"Mercy--you talk of mercy! I knew it could not be true!" said Madeline, trying to pluck her cousin's hand from his face; "you could not havedreamed of wrong to Eugene and--and upon this day. Say we have erred, or that you have erred, and we will forgive and bless you even now!"Aram had not interfered in this scene; he kept his eyes fixed on thecousins, not uninterested to see what effect Madeline's touching wordsmight produce on his accuser. Meanwhile she continued: "Speak to me, Walter, dear Walter, speak to me'. Are you, my cousin, my playfellow, --are you the one to blight our hopes, to dash our joys, to bring dreadand terror into a home so lately all peace and sunshine, your own home, your childhood's home? What have you done? What have you dared to do?Accuse him! Of what? Murder! Speak, speak. Murder, ha! ha!--murder!nay, not so! You would not venture to come here, you would not let metake your hand, you would not look us, your uncle, your more thansisters, in the face if you could nurse in your heart this lie, --thisblack, horrid lie!"

Walter withdrew his hands, and as he turned his face said, --

"Let him prove his innocence. Pray God he do! I am not his accuser, Madeline. His accusers are the bones of my dead father! Save these, Heaven alone and the revealing earth are witness against him!"

"Your father!" said Madeline, staggering back, --"my lost uncle! Nay, nowI know indeed what a shadow has appalled us all! Did you know my uncle, Eugene? Did you ever see Geoffrey Lester?"

"Never, as I believe, so help me God!" said Aram, laying his hand on hisheart. "But this is idle now, " as, recollecting himself, he felt that thecase had gone forth from Walter's hands, and that appeal to him hadbecome vain. "Leave us now, dearest Madeline, my beloved wife that shallbe, that is! I go to disprove these charges. Perhaps I shall returnto-night. Delay not my acquittal, even from doubt, --a boy's doubt. Come, sirs. "

"O Eugene! Eugene!" cried Madeline, throwing herself on her kneesbefore hint, "do not order me to leave you now, now in the hour of dread!I will not. Nay, look not so! I swear I will not! Father, dear father, come and plead for me, --say I shall go with you. I ask nothing more. Donot fear for my nerves, --cowardice is gone. I will not shame you, I willnot play the woman. I know what is due to one who loves him. Try me, onlytry me. You weep, father, you shake your head. But you, Eugene, --you have not the heart to deny me? Think--think if I stayed here tocount the moments till you return, my very senses would leave me. What doI ask? But to go with you, to be the first to hail your triumph! Hadthis happened two hours hence, you could not have said me nay, --I shouldhave claimed the right to be with you; I now but implore the blessing. You relent, you relent; I see it!"

"O Heaven!" exclaimed Aram, rising, and clasping her to his breast, andwildly kissing her face, but with cold and trembling lips, "this isindeed a bitter hour; let me not sink beneath it. Yes, Madeline, ask yourfather if he consents; I hail your strengthening presence as that of anangel. I will not be the one to sever you from my side. "

"You are right, Eugene, " said Lester, who was supporting Ellinor, not yetrecovered, --"let her go with us; it is but common kindness and commonmercy. "

Madeline uttered a cry of joy (joy even at such a moment!), and clungfast to Eugene's arm, as if for assurance that they were not indeed to beseparated. 

By this time some of Lester's servants, who had from a distance followedtheir young mistresses, reached the spot. To their care Lester gave thestill scarce reviving Ellinor; and then, turning round with a severecountenance to Walter, said, "Come, sir, your rashness has donesufficient wrong for the present; come now, and see how soon yoursuspicions will end in shame. "

"Justice, and blood for blood!" said Walter, sternly; but his heart feltas if it were broken. His venerable uncle's tears, Madeline's look ofhorror as she turned from him, Ellinor all lifeless, and he not daring toapproach her, --this was HIS work! He pulled his hat over his eyes, andhastened into the carriage alone. Lester, Madeline, and Aram followed inthe other vehicle; and the two officers contented themselves withmounting the box, certain the prisoner would attempt no escape. 

 CHAPTER III. 

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

 Bear me to prison, where I am committed. --Measure for Measure. 

On arriving at Sir--'s, a disappointment, for which, had they previouslyconversed with the officers they might have been prepared, awaited them. The fact was, that the justice had only endorsed the warrant sent fromYorkshire; and after a very short colloquy, in which he expressed hisregret at the circumstance, his conviction that the charge would bedisproved, and a few other courteous common-places, he gave Aram tounderstand that the matter now did not rest with him, but that it was toYorkshire that the officers were bound, and before Mr. Thornton, amagistrate of that country, that the examination was to take place. "AllI can do, " said the magistrate, "I have already done; but I wished for anopportunity of informing you of it. I have written to my brother justiceat full length respecting your high character, and treating the habitsand rectitude of your life alone as a sufficient refutation of somonstrous a charge. "

For the first time a visible embarrassment came over the firm nerves ofthe prisoner: he seemed to look with great uneasiness at the prospect ofthis long and dreary journey, and for such an end. Perhaps, the verynotion of returning as a suspected criminal to that part of the countrywhere a portion of his youth had been passed, was sufficient to disquietand deject him. All this while his poor Madeline seemed actuated by aspirit beyond herself; she would not be separated from his side--she heldhis hand in hers--she whispered comfort and courage at the very momentwhen her own heart most sank. The magistrate wiped his eyes when he saw acreature so young, so beautiful, in circumstances so fearful, and bearingup with an energy so little to be expected from her years and delicateappearance. Aram said but little; he covered his face with his right handfor a few moments, as if to hide a passing emotion, a sudden weakness. When he removed it, all vestige of colour had died away; his face waspale as that of one who has risen from the grave; but it was settled andcomposed. 

"It is a hard pang, Sir, " said he, with a faint smile; "so many miles--somany days--so long a deferment of knowing the best, or preparing to meetthe worst. But, be it so! I thank you, Sir, --I thank you all, --Lester, Madeline, for your kindness; you two must now leave me; the brand is onmy name--the suspected man is no fit object for love or friendship!Farewell!"

"We go with you!" said Madeline firmly, and in a very low voice. 

Aram's eye sparkled, but he waved his hand impatiently. 

"We go with you, my friend!" repeated Lester. 

And so, indeed, not to dwell long on a painful scene, it was finallysettled. Lester and his two daughters that evening followed Aram to thedark and fatal bourne to which he was bound. 

It was in vain that Walter, seizing his uncle's hands, whispered, "For Heaven's sake, do not be rash in your friendship! You have not yetlearnt all. I tell you, that there can be no doubt of his guilt!Remember, it is a brother for whom you mourn! will you countenance hismurderer?"

Lester, despite himself, was struck by the earnestness with which hisnephew spoke, but the impression died away as the words ceased: so strongand deep had been the fascination which Eugene Aram had exercised overthe hearts of all once drawn within the near circle of his attraction, that had the charge of murder been made against himself, Lester could nothave repelled it with a more entire conviction of the innocence of theaccused. Still, however, the deep sincerity of his nephew's manner insome measure served to soften his resentment towards him. 

"No, no, boy!" said he, drawing away his hand, "Rowland Lester is not theone to desert a friend in the day of darkness and the hour of need. Besilent I say!--My brother, my poor brother, you tell me, has beenmurdered. I will see justice done to him: but, Aram! Fie! fie! it is aname that would whisper falsehood to the loudest accusation. Go, Walter!go! I do not blame you!--you may be right--a murdered father is a dreadand awful memory to a son! What wonder that the thought warps yourjudgment? But go! Eugene was to me both a guide and a blessing; a fatherin wisdom, a son in love. I cannot look on his accuser's face withoutanguish. Go! we shall meet again. --How! Go!"

"Enough, Sir!" said Walter, partly in anger, partly in sorrow--"Time bethe judge between us all!"

With those words he turned from the house, and proceeded on foot towardsa cottage half way between Grassdale and the Magistrate's house, atwhich, previous to his return to the former place, he had prudently leftthe Corporal--not willing to trust to that person's discretion, as to thetales and scandal that he might propagate throughout the village on amatter so painful and so dark. 

Let the world wag as it will, there are some tempers which itsvicissitudes never reach. Nothing makes a picture of distress more sadthan the portrait of some individual sitting indifferently looking on inthe back-ground. This was a secret Hogarth knew well. Mark his deathbedscenes:--Poverty and Vice worked up into horror--and the Physicians inthe corner wrangling for the fee!--or the child playing with the coffin--or the nurse filching what fortune, harsh, yet less harsh than humanity, might have left. In the melancholy depth of humour that steeps both ourfancy and our heart in the immortal Romance of Cervantes (for, howprofoundly melancholy is it to be compelled by one gallant folly to laughat all that is gentle, and brave, and wise, and generous!) nothing grateson us more than when--last scene of all, the poor Knight lies dead--hisexploits for ever over--for ever dumb his eloquent discourses: than when, I say, we are told that, despite of his grief, even little Sancho did noteat or drink the less:--these touches open to us the real world, it istrue; but it is not the best part of it. What a pensive thing is truehumour! Certain it was, that when Walter, full of contending emotions atall he had witnessed, --harassed, tortured, yet also elevated, by hisfeelings, stopped opposite the cottage door, and saw there the Corporalsitting comfortably in the porch, --his vile modicum Sabini before him--his pipe in his mouth, and a complacent expression of satisfactiondiffusing itself over features which shrewdness and selfishness hadmarked for their own;--certain it was, that, at this sight Walterexperienced a more displeasing revulsion of feeling--a more entireconviction of sadness--a more consummate disgust of this weary world andthe motley masquers that walk thereon, than all the tragic scenes he hadjust witnessed had excited within him. 

"And well, Sir, " said the Corporal, slowly rising, "how did it go off?--Wasn't the villain bash'd to the dust?--You've nabbed him safe, I hope?"

"Silence, " said Walter, sternly, "prepare for our departure. The chaisewill be here forthwith; we return to Yorkshire this day. Ask me no morenow. "

"A--well--baugh!" said the Corporal. 

There was a long silence. Walter walked to and fro the road before thecottage. The chaise arrived; the luggage was put in. Walter's foot was onthe step; but before the Corporal mounted the rumbling dickey, thatinvaluable domestic hemmed thrice. 

"And had you time, Sir, to think of poor Jacob, and look at the cottage, and slip in a word to your uncle about the bit tato ground?"

We pass over the space of time, short in fact, long in suffering, thatelapsed, till the prisoner and his companions reached Knaresbro'. Aram'sconduct during this time was not only calm but cheerful. The stoicaldoctrines he had affected through life, he on this trying interval calledinto remarkable exertion. He it was who now supported the spirits of hismistress and his friend; and though he no longer pretended to be sanguineof acquittal--though again and again he urged upon them the gloomy fact--first, how improbable it was that this course had been entered intoagainst him without strong presumption of guilt; and secondly, how littleless improbable it was, that at that distance of time he should be ableto procure evidence, or remember circumstances, sufficient on the instantto set aside such presumption, --he yet dwelt partly on the hope ofultimate proof of his innocence, and still more strongly on the firmnessof his own mind to bear, without shrinking, even the hardest fate. 

"Do not, " he said to Lester, "do not look on these trials of life onlywith the eyes of the world. Reflect how poor and minute a segment in thevast circle of eternity existence is at the best. Its sorrow and itsshame are but moments. Always in my brightest and youngest hours I havewrapt my heart in the contemplation of an august futurity. 

 "'The soul, secure in its existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. '

"If I die even the death of the felon, it is beyond the power of fate toseparate us for long. It is but a pang, and we are united again for ever;for ever in that far and shadowy clime, where the wicked cease fromtroubling, and the weary are at rest. ' Were it not for Madeline's dearsake, I should long since have been over weary of the world. As it is, the sooner, even by a violent and unjust fate, we leave a path begirtwith snares below and tempests above, the happier for that soul whichlooks to its lot in this earth as the least part of its appointed doom. "

In discourses like this, which the nature of his eloquence was peculiarlycalculated to render solemn and impressive, Aram strove to prepare hisfriends for the worst, and perhaps to cheat, or to steel, himself. Everas he spoke thus, Lester or Ellinor broke on him with impatientremonstrance; but Madeline, as if imbued with a deeper and more mournfulpenetration into the future, listened in tearless and breathlessattention. She gazed upon him with a look that shared the thought heexpressed, though it read not (yet she dreamed so) the heart from whichit came. In the words of that beautiful poet, to whose true nature, sofull of unuttered tenderness--so fraught with the rich nobility of love--we have begun slowly to awaken, "Her lip was silent, scarcely beat her heart. Her eye alone proclaimed 'we will not part!' Thy 'hope' may perish, or thy friends may flee. Farewell to life--but not adieu to thee!" --[Lara]

They arrived at noon at the house of Mr. Thornton, and Aram underwent hisexamination. Though he denied most of the particulars in Houseman'sevidence, and expressly the charge of murder, his commitment was madeout; and that day he was removed by the officers, (Barker and Moor, whohad arrested him at Grassdale, ) to York Castle, to await his trial at theassizes. 

The sensation which this extraordinary event created throughout thecountry, was wholly unequalled. Not only in Yorkshire, and the county inwhich he had of late resided, where his personal habits were known, buteven in the Metropolis, and amongst men of all classes in England, itappears to have caused one mingled feeling of astonishment, horror, andincredulity, which in our times has had no parallel in any criminalprosecution. The peculiar turn of the prisoner--his genius--his learning--his moral life--the interest that by students had been for yearsattached to his name--his approaching marriage--the length of time thathad elapsed since the crime had been committed--the singular and abruptmanner, the wild and legendary spot, in which the skeleton of the lostman had been discovered--the imperfect rumours--the dark and suspiciousevidence--all combined to make a tale of such marvellous incident, andbreeding such endless conjecture, that we cannot wonder to find itafterwards received a place, not only in the temporary chronicles, buteven the most important and permanent histories of the period. 

Previous to Walter's departure from Knaresbro' to Grassdale, andimmediately subsequent to the discovery at St. Robert's Cave, thecoroner's inquest had been held upon the bones so mysteriously andsuddenly brought to light. Upon the witness of the old woman at whosehouse Aram had lodged, and upon that of Houseman, aided by somecircumstantial and less weighty evidence, had been issued that warrant onwhich we have seen the prisoner apprehended. 

With most men there was an intimate and indignant persuasion of Aram'sinnocence; and at this day, in the county where he last resided, therestill lingers the same belief. Firm as his gospel faith, that convictionrested in the mind of the worthy Lester; and he sought, by every means hecould devise, to soothe and cheer the confinement of his friend. Inprison, however (indeed after his examination--after Aram had madehimself thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstantial evidence whichidentified Clarke with Geoffrey Lester, a story that till then he hadpersuaded himself wholly to disbelieve) a change which, in the presenceof Madeline or her father, he vainly attempted wholly to conceal, and towhich, when alone, he surrendered himself with a gloomy abstraction--cameover his mood, and dashed him from the lofty height of Philosophy, fromwhich he had before looked down on the peril and the ills below. 

Sometimes he would gaze on Lester with a strange and glassy eye, andmutter inaudibly to himself, as if unaware of the old man's presence; atothers, he would shrink from Lester's proffered hand, and start abruptlyfrom his professions of unaltered, unalterable regard; sometimes he wouldsit silently, and, with a changeless and stony countenance, look uponMadeline as she now spoke in that exalted tone of consolation which hadpassed away from himself; and when she had done, instead of replying toher speech, he would say abruptly, "Ay, at the worst you love me, then--love me better than any one on earth--say that, Madeline, again saythat!"

And Madeline's trembling lips obeyed the demand. 

"Yes, " he would renew, "this man, whom they accuse me of murdering, this, --your uncle, --him you never saw since you were an infant, a mereinfant; him you could not love! What was he to you?--yet it is dreadfulto think of--dreadful, dreadful;" and then again his voice ceased; buthis lips moved convulsively, and his eyes seemed to speak meanings thatdefied words. These alterations in his bearing, which belied his steadyand resolute character, astonished and dejected both Madeline and herfather. Sometimes they thought that his situation had shaken his reason, or that the horrible suspicion of having murdered the uncle of hisintended wife, made him look upon themselves with a secret shudder, andthat they were mingled up in his mind by no unnatural, though unjustconfusion, with the causes of his present awful and uncertain state. Withthe generality of the world, these two tender friends believed Housemanthe sole and real murderer, and fancied his charge against Aram was butthe last expedient of a villain to ward punishment from himself, byimputing crime to another. Naturally, then, they frequently sought toturn the conversation upon Houseman, and on the different circumstancesthat had brought him acquainted with Aram; but on this ground theprisoner seemed morbidly sensitive, and averse to detailed discussion. His narration, however, such as it was, threw much light upon certainmatters on which Madeline and Lester were before anxious and inquisitive. 

"Houseman is, in all ways, " said he, with great and bitter vehemence, "unredeemed, and beyond the calculations of an ordinary wickedness; weknew each other from our relationship, but seldom met, and still morerarely held long intercourse together. After we separated, when I leftKnaresbro', we did not meet for years. He sought me at Grassdale; he waspoor, and implored assistance; I gave him all within my power; he soughtme again, nay, more than once again, and finding me justly averse toyielding to his extortionate demands, he then broached the purpose he hasnow effected; he threatened--you hear me--you understand--he threatenedme with this charge--the murder of Daniel Clarke, by that name alone Iknew the deceased. The menace, and the known villainy of the man, agitated me beyond expression. What was I? a being who lived without theworld--who knew not its ways--who desired only rest! The menace hauntedme--almost maddened! Your nephew has told you, you say, of broken words, of escaping emotions, which he has noted, even to suspicion, in me; younow behold the cause! Was it not sufficient? My life, nay more, my fame, my marriage, Madeline's peace of mind, all depended on the uncertain furyor craft of a wretch like this! The idea was with me night and day; toavoid it, I resolved on a sacrifice; you may blame me, I was weak, yet Ithought then not unwise; to avoid it, I say I offered to bribe this manto leave the country. I sold my pittance to oblige him to it. I bound himthereto by the strongest ties. Nay, so disinterestedly, so truly did Ilove Madeline, that I would not wed while I thought this danger couldburst upon me. I believed that, before my marriage day, Houseman had leftthe country. It was not so, Fate ordered otherwise. It seems thatHouseman came to Knaresbro' to see his daughter; that suspicion, by asudden train of events, fell on him, perhaps justly; to skreen himself hehas sacrificed me. The tale seems plausible; perhaps the accuser maytriumph. But, Madeline, you now may account for much that may haveperplexed you before. Let me remember--ay--ay--I have dropped mysteriouswords--have I not? have I not?--owning that danger was around me--owningthat a wild and terrific secret was heavy at my breast; nay, once, walking with you the evening before, before the fatal day, I said that wemust prepare to seek some yet more secluded spot, some deeper retirement;for, despite my precautions, despite the supposed absence of Housemanfrom the country itself, a fevered and restless presentiment would atsome times intrude itself on me. All this is now accounted for, is itnot, Madeline? Speak, speak!"

"All, love all! Why do you look on me with that searching eye, thatfrowning brow?"

"Did I? no, no, I have no frown for you; but peace, I am not what I oughtto be through this ordeal. "

The above narration of Aram's did indeed account to Madeline for muchthat had till then remained unexplained; the appearance of Houseman atGrassdale, --the meeting between him and Aram on the evening she walkedwith the latter, and questioned him of his ill-boding visitor; thefrequent abstraction and muttered hints of her lover; and as he had said, his last declaration of the possible necessity of leaving Grassdale. Norwas there any thing improbable, though it was rather in accordance withthe unworldly habits, than with the haughty character of Aram, that heshould seek, circumstanced as he was, to silence even the false accuserof a plausible tale, that might well strike horror and bewilderment intoa man much more, to all seeming, fitted to grapple with the hard andcoarse realities of life, than the moody and secluded scholar. Be that asit may, though Lester deplored, he did not blame this circumstance, whichafter all had not transpired, nor seemed likely to transpire; and heattributed the prisoner's aversion to enter farther on the matter, to thenatural dislike of so proud a man to refer to his own weakness, and todwell upon the manner in which, despite of that weakness, he had beenduped. This story Lester retailed to Walter, and it contributed to throwa damp and uncertainty over those mixed and unquiet feelings with whichthe latter waited for the coming trial. There were many moments when theyoung man was tempted to regret that Aram had not escaped a trial which, if he were proved guilty, would for ever blast the happiness of hisfamily; and which might, notwithstanding such a verdict, leave onWalter's own mind an impression of the prisoner's innocence; and anuneasy consciousness that he, through his investigations, had brought himto that doom. 

Walter remained in Yorkshire, seeing little of his family, of none indeedbut Lester; it was not to be expected that Madeline would see him, andonce only he caught the tearful eyes of Ellinor as she retreated from theroom he entered, and those eyes beamed kindness and pity, but somethingalso of reproach. 

Time passed slowly and witheringly on: a man of the name of Terry havingbeen included in the suspicion, and indeed committed, it appeared thatthe prosecutor could not procure witnesses by the customary time, and thetrial was postponed till the next assizes. As this man was however, neverbrought up to trial, and appears no more, we have said nothing of him inour narrative, until he thus became the instrument of a delay in the fateof Eugene Aram. Time passed on, Winter, Spring, were gone, and the gloryand gloss of Summer were now lavished over the happy earth. In somemeasure the usual calmness of his demeanour had returned to Aram; he hadmastered those moody fits we have referred to, which had so afflicted hisaffectionate visitors; and he now seemed to prepare and buoy himself upagainst that awful ordeal of life and death, which he was about so soonto pass. Yet he, --the hermit of Nature, who--

 "Each little herb That grows on mountain bleak, or tangled forest, Had learnt to name;" --Remorse, by S. T. Coleridge

he could not feel, even through the bars and checks of a prison, the softsummer air, 'the witchery of the soft blue sky;' he could not see theleaves bud forth, and mellow into their darker verdure; he could not hearthe songs of the many-voiced birds; or listen to the dancing rain, calling up beauty where it fell; or mark at night, through his high andnarrow casement, the stars aloof, and the sweet moon pouring in herlight, like God's pardon, even through the dungeon-gloom and the desolatescenes where Mortality struggles with Despair; he could not catch, obstructed as they were, these, the benigner influences of earth, and notsicken and pant for his old and full communion with their ministry andpresence. Sometimes all around him was forgotten, the harsh cell, thecheerless solitude, the approaching trial, the boding fear, the darkenedhope, even the spectre of a troubled and fierce remembrance, --all wasforgotten, and his spirit was abroad, and his step upon the mountain-toponce more. 

In our estimate of the ills of life, we never sufficiently take into ourconsideration the wonderful elasticity of our moral frame, the unlookedfor, the startling facility with which the human mind accommodates itselfto all change of circumstance, making an object and even a joy from thehardest and seemingly the least redeemed conditions of fate. The man whowatched the spider in his cell, may have taken, at least, as muchinterest in the watch, as when engaged in the most ardent and ambitiousobjects of his former life; and he was but a type of his brethren; all insimilar circumstances would have found some similar occupation. Let anyman look over his past life, let him recall not moments, not hours ofagony, for to them Custom lends not her blessed magic; but let him singleout some lengthened period of physical or moral endurance; in hastilyreverting to it, it may seem at first, I grant, altogether wretched; aseries of days marked with the black stone, --the clouds without a star;--but let him look more closely, it was not so during the time ofsuffering; a thousand little things, in the bustle of life dormant andunheeded, then started froth into notice, and became to him objects ofinterest or diversion; the dreary present, once made familiar, glidedaway from him, not less than if it had been all happiness; his mind dweltnot on the dull intervals, but the stepping-stone it had created andplaced at each; and, by that moral dreaming which for ever goes on withinman's secret heart, he lived as little in the immediate world before him, as in the most sanguine period of his youth, or the most scheming of hismaturity. 

So wonderful in equalizing all states and all times in the varying tideof life, are these two rulers yet levellers of mankind, Hope and Custom, that the very idea of an eternal punishment includes that of an utteralteration of the whole mechanism of the soul in its human state, and noeffort of an imagination, assisted by past experience, can conceive astate of torture which custom can never blunt, and from which thechainless and immaterial spirit can never be beguiled into even amomentary escape. 

Among the very few persons admitted to Aram's solitude, was Lord--Thatnobleman was staying, on a visit, with a relation of his in theneighbourhood, and he seized with an excited and mournful avidity, theopportunity thus afforded him of seeing, once more, a character that hadso often forced itself on his speculation and surprise. He came to offernot condolence, but respect; services, at such a moment, no individualcould render, --he gave however, what was within his power--advice, --andpointed out to Aram the best counsel to engage, and the best method ofprevious inquiry into particulars yet unexplored. He was astonished tofind Aram indifferent on these points, so important. The prisoner, itwould seem, had even then resolved on being his own counsel, andconducting his own cause; the event proved that he did not rely in vainon the power of his own eloquence and sagacity, though he might on theirresult. As to the rest, he spoke with impatience, and the petulance of awronged man. "For the idle rumours of the world, I do not care, " said he, "let them condemn or acquit me as they will;--for my life, I might bewilling indeed, that it were spared, --I trust it may be, if not, I canstand face to face with Death. I have now looked on him within thesewalls long enough to have grown familiar with his terrors. But enough ofme; tell me, my Lord, something of the world without, I have grown eagerabout it at last. I have been now so condemned to feed upon myself, thatI have become surfeited with the diet;"--and it was with great difficultythat the Earl drew Aram back to speak of himself: he did so, even whencompelled to it, with so much qualification and reserve, mixed with someevident anger at the thought of being sifted and examined--that hisvisitor was forced finally to drop the subject, and not liking, norindeed able, at such a time, to converse on more indifferent themes, thelast interview he ever had with Aram terminated much more abruptly thanhe had meant it. His opinion of the prisoner was not, however, shaken inthe least. I have seen a letter of his to a celebrated personage of theday, in which, mentioning this interview, he concludes with saying, --"Inshort, there is so much real dignity about the man, that adversecircumstances increase it tenfold. Of his innocence I have not theremotest doubt; but if he persist in being his own counsel, I tremble forthe result, --you know in such cases how much more valuable is practicethan genius. But the judge you will say is, in criminal causes, theprisoner's counsel, --God grant he may here prove a successful one! Irepeat, were Aram condemned by five hundred juries, I could not believehim guilty. No, the very essence of all human probabilities is againstit. "

The Earl afterwards saw and conversed with Walter. He was much struckwith the conduct of the young Lester, and much impressed with a feelingfor a situation, so harassing and unhappy. 

"Whatever be the result of the trial, " said Walter, "I shall leave thecountry the moment it is finally over. If the prisoner be condemned, there is no hearth for me in my uncle's home; if not, my suspicions maystill remain, and the sight of each other be an equal bane to the accusedand to myself. A voluntary exile, and a life that may lead toforgetfulness, are all that I covet. --I now find in my own person, " headded, with a faint smile, "how deeply Shakspeare had read the mysteriesof men's conduct. Hamlet, we are told, was naturally full of fire andaction. One dark discovery quells his spirit, unstrings his heart, andstales to him for ever the uses of the world. I now comprehend thechange. It is bodied forth even in the humblest individual, who is met bya similar fate--even in myself. "

"Ay, " said the Earl, "I do indeed remember you a wild, impetuous, headstrong youth. I scarcely recognize your very appearance. The elasticspring has left your step--there seems a fixed furrow in your brow. Theseclouds of life are indeed no summer vapour, darkening one moment and gonethe next. But my young friend, let us hope the best. I firmly believe inAram's innocence--firmly!--more rootedly than I can express. The realcriminal will appear on the trial. All bitterness between you and Arammust cease at his acquittal; you will be anxious to repair to him theinjustice of a natural suspicion: and he seems not one who could longretain malice. All will be well, believe me. "

"God send it!" said Walter, sighing deeply. 

"But at the worst, " continued the Earl, pressing his hand in parting, "ifyou should persist in your resolution to leave the country, write to me, and I can furnish you with an honourable and stirring occasion for doingso. --Farewell. "

While Time was thus advancing towards the fatal day, it was graving deepravages within the pure breast of Madeline Lester. She had borne up, aswe have seen, for some time, against the sudden blow that had shiveredher young hopes, and separated her by so awful a chasm from the side ofAram; but as week after week, month after month rolled on, and he stilllay in prison, and the horrible suspense of ignominy and death still hungover her, then gradually her courage began to fail, and her heart tosink. Of all the conditions to which the heart is subject, suspense isthe one that most gnaws, and cankers into, the frame. One little month ofthat suspense, when it involves death, we are told, in a very remarkablework lately published by an eye-witness. [Note: See Mr. Wakefield's workon 'The Punishment of Death. '] is sufficient to plough fixed lines andfurrows in the face of a convict of five-and-twenty--sufficient to dashthe brown hair with grey, and to bleach the grey to white. And thissuspense--suspense of this nature, for more than eight whole months, hadMadeline to endure!

About the end of the second month the effect upon her health grewvisible. Her colour, naturally delicate as the hues of the pink shell orthe youngest rose, faded into one marble whiteness, which again, as timeproceeded, flushed into that red and preternatural hectic, which oncesettled, rarely yields its place but to the colours of the grave. Herflesh shrank from its rounded and noble proportions. Deep hollows tracedthemselves beneath eyes which yet grew even more lovely as they grew lessserenely bright. The blessed Sleep sunk not upon her brain with itswonted and healing dews. Perturbed dreams, that towards dawn succeededthe long and weary vigil of the night, shook her frame even more than theanguish of the day. In these dreams one frightful vision--a crowd--ascaffold--and the pale majestic face of her lover, darkened byunutterable pangs of pride and sorrow, were for ever present before her. Till now, she and Ellinor had always shared the same bed: this Madelinewould not now suffer. In vain Ellinor wept and pleaded. "No, " saidMadeline, with a hollow voice; "at night I see him. My soul is alone withhis; but--but, "--and she burst into an agony of tears--"the mostdreadful thought is this, I cannot master my dreams. And sometimes Istart and wake, and find that in sleep I have believed him guilty. Nay, OGod! that his lips have proclaimed the guilt! And shall any living being--shall any but God, who reads not words but hearts, hear this hideousfalsehood--this ghastly mockery of the lying sleep? No, I must be alone!The very stars should not hear what is forced from me in the madness ofmy dreams. "

But not in vain, or not excluded from her, was that elastic and consolingspirit of which I have before spoken. As Aram recovered the tenor of hisself-possession, a more quiet and peaceful calm diffused itself over themind of Madeline. Her high and starry nature could comprehend thosesublime inspirations of comfort, which lift us from the lowest abyss ofthis world to the contemplation of all that the yearning visions ofmankind have painted in another. She would sit, rapt and absorbed forhours together, till these contemplations assumed the colour of a gentleand soft insanity. "Come, dearest Madeline, " Ellinor would say, --"Come, you have thought enough; my poor father asks to see you. "

"Hush!" Madeline answered. "Hush, I have been walking with Eugene inheaven; and oh! there are green woods, and lulling waters above, as thereare on earth, and we see the stars quite near, and I cannot tell you howhappy their smile makes those who look upon them. And Eugene never startsthere, nor frowns, nor walks aside, nor looks on me with an estranged andchilling look; but his face is as calm and bright as the face of anangel;--and his voice!--it thrills amidst all the music which plays therenight and day--softer than their softest note. And we are married, Ellinor, at last. We were married in heaven, and all the angels came tothe marriage! I am now so happy that we were not wed before! What! areyou weeping, Ellinor? Ah, we never weep in heaven! but we will all gothere again--all of us, hand in hand!"

These affecting hallucinations terrified them, lest they should settleinto a confirmed loss of reason; but perhaps without cause. They neverlasted long, and never occurred but after moods of abstraction of unusualduration. To her they probably supplied what sleep does to others--arelaxation and refreshment--an escape from the consciousness of life. Andindeed it might always be noted, that after such harmless aberrations ofthe mind, Madeline seemed more collected and patient in thought, and forthe moment, even stronger in frame than before. Yet the body evidentlypined and languished, and each week made palpable decay in her vitalpowers. 

Every time Aram saw her, he was startled at the alteration; and kissingher cheek, her lips, her temples, in an agony of grief, wondered that tohim alone it was forbidden to weep. Yet after all, when she was gone, andhe again alone, he could not but think death likely to prove to her themost happy of earthly boons. He was not sanguine of acquittal, and evenin acquittal, a voice at his heart suggested insuperable barriers totheir union, which had not existed when it was first anticipated. 

"Yes, let her die, " he would say, "let her die; she at least is certainof Heaven!" But the human infirmity clung around him, and notwithstandingthis seeming resolution in her absence, he did not mourn the less, he wasnot stung the less, when he saw her again, and beheld a new characterfrom the hand of death graven upon her form. No; we may triumph over allweakness, but that of the affections. Perhaps in this dreary and haggardinterval of time, these two persons loved each other more purely, morestrongly, more enthusiastically, than they had ever done at any formerperiod of their eventful history. Over the hardest stone, as over thesoftest turf, the green moss will force its verdure and sustain its life!

 CHAPTER IV. 

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

 Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows, For Sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears, Divides one thing entire to many objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Hope] is a flatterer, A parasite, a keeper back of death; Who gently would dissolve the bands of death Which false Hope lingers in extremity? --Richard II. 

It was the evening before the trial. Lester and his daughters lodged at aretired and solitary house in the suburbs of the town of York; andthither, from the village some miles distant, in which he had chosen hisown retreat, Walter now proceeded across fields laden with the ripeningcorn. The last and the richest month of summer had commenced, but theharvest was not yet begun, and deep and golden showed the vegetation oflife, bedded among the dark verdure of the hedge-rows, and "the merriewoods!" The evening was serene and lulled; at a distance arose the spiresand chimneys of the town, but no sound from the busy hum of men reachedthe ear. Nothing perhaps gives a more entire idea of stillness than thesight of those abodes where "noise dwelleth, " but where you cannot nowhear even its murmurs. The stillness of a city is far more impressivethan that of Nature; for the mind instantly compares the present silencewith the wonted uproar. The harvest-moon rose slowly from a copse ofgloomy firs, and diffused its own unspeakable magic into the hush andtransparency of the night. As Walter walked slowly on, the sound ofvoices from some rustic party going homeward, broke jocundly on thesilence, and when he paused for a moment at the stile, from which hefirst caught a glimpse of Lester's house, he saw, winding along the greenhedgerow, some village pair, the "lover and the maid, " who could meetonly at such hours, and to whom such hours were therefore especiallydear. It was altogether a scene of pure and true pastoral character, andthere was all around a semblance of tranquillity, of happiness, whichsuits with the poetical and the scriptural paintings of a pastoral life;and which perhaps, in a new and fertile country, may still find arealization. From this scene, from these thoughts, the young loitererturned with a sigh towards the solitary house in which this night couldawaken none but the most anxious feelings, and that moon could beam onlyon the most troubled hearts. 

 "Terra salutiferas herbas, eademque nocentes Nutrit; et urticae proxima saepe rosa est. "

He now walked more quickly on, as if stung by his reflections, andavoiding the path which led to the front of the house, gained a littlegarden at the rear, and opening a gate that admitted to a narrow andshaded walk, over which the linden and nut trees made a sort ofcontinuous and natural arbour, the moon, piercing at broken intervalsthrough the boughs, rested on the form of Ellinor Lester. 

"This is most kind, most like my own sweet cousin, " said Walterapproaching; "I cannot say how fearful I was, lest you should not meet meafter all. "

"Indeed, Walter, " replied Ellinor, "I found some difficulty in concealingyour note, which was given me in Madeline's presence; and still more, instealing out unobserved by her, for she has been, as you may wellconceive, unusually restless the whole of this agonizing day. Ah, Walter, would to God you had never left us!"

"Rather say, " rejoined Walter--"that this unhappy man, against whom myfather's ashes still seem to me to cry aloud, had never come into ourpeaceful and happy valley! Then you would not have reproached me, that Ihave sought justice on a suspected murderer; nor I have longed for deathrather than, in that justice, have inflicted such distress and horror onthose whom I love the best!"

"What! Walter, you yet believe--you are yet convinced that Eugene Aram isthe real criminal?"

"Let to-morrow shew, " answered Walter. "But poor, poor Madeline! How doesshe bear up against this long suspense? You know I have not seen her formonths. "

"Oh! Walter, " said Ellinor, weeping bitterly, "you would not know her, sodreadfully is she altered. I fear--" (here sobs choaked the sister'svoice, so as to leave it scarcely audible)--"that she is not many weeksfor this world!"

"Great God! is it so?" exclaimed Walter, so shocked, that the treeagainst which he leant scarcely preserved him from falling to the ground, as the thousand remembrances of his first love rushed upon his heart. "And Providence singled me out of the whole world, to strike this blow!"

Despite her own grief, Ellinor was touched and smitten by the violentemotion of her cousin; and the two young persons, lovers--though love wasat this time the least perceptible feeling of their breasts--mingledtheir emotions, and sought, at least to console and cheer each other. 

"It may yet be better than our fears, " said Ellinor, soothingly. "Eugenemay be found guiltless, and in that joy we may forget all the past. "

Walter shook his head despondingly. "Your heart, Ellinor, was always kindto me. You now are the only one to do me justice, and to see how utterlyreproachless I am for all the misery the crime of another occasions. Butmy uncle--him, too, I have not seen for some time: is he well?"

"Yes, Walter, yes, " said Ellinor, kindly disguising the real truth, howmuch her father's vigorous frame had been bowed by his state of mind. "And I, you see, " added she, with a faint attempt to smile, --"I am, inhealth at least, the same as when, this time last year, we were all happyand full of hope. "

Walter looked hard upon that face, once so vivid with the rich colour andthe buoyant and arch expression of liveliness and youth, now pale, subdued, and worn by the traces of constant tears; and, pressing his handconvulsively on his heart, turned away. 

"But can I not see my uncle?" said he, after a pause. 

"He is not at home: he has gone to the Castle, " replied Ellinor. 

"I shall meet him, then, on his way home, " returned Walter. "But, Ellinor, there is surely no truth in a vague rumour which I heard in thetown, that Madeline intends to be present at the trial to-morrow. "

"Indeed, I fear that she will. Both my father and myself have soughtstrongly and urgently to dissuade her; but in vain. You know, with allthat gentleness, how resolute she is when her mind is once determined onany object. "

"But if the verdict should be against the prisoner, in her state ofhealth consider how terrible would be the shock!--Nay, even the joy ofacquittal might be equally dangerous--for Heaven's sake! do not sufferher. "

"What is to be done, Walter?" said Ellinor, wringing her hands. "Wecannot help it. My father has, at last, forbid me to contradict the wish. Contradiction, the physician himself says, might be as fatal asconcession can be. And my father adds, in a stern, calm voice, which itbreaks my heart to hear, 'Be still, Ellinor. If the innocent is toperish, the sooner she joins him the better: I would then have all myties on the other side the grave!'"

"How that strange man seems to have fascinated you all!" said Walter, bitterly. 

Ellinor did not answer: over her the fascination had never been to anequal degree with the rest of her family. 

"Ellinor!" said Walter, who had been walking for the last few moments toand fro with the rapid strides of a man debating with himself, and whonow suddenly paused, and laid his hand on his cousin's arm--"Ellinor! Iam resolved. I must, for the quiet of my soul, I must see Madeline thisnight, and win her forgiveness for all I have been made the unintentionalagent of Providence to bring upon her. The peace of my future life maydepend on this single interview. What if Aram be condemned--and--and--inshort, it is no matter--I must see her. "

"She would not hear of it, I fear, " said Ellinor, in alarm. "Indeed, youcannot--you do not know her state of mind. "

"Ellinor!" said Walter, doggedly, "I am resolved. " And so saying, hemoved towards the house. 

"Well, then, " said Ellinor, whose nerves had been greatly shattered bythe scenes and sorrow of the last several months, "if it must be so, waitat least till I have gone in, and consulted or prepared her. "

"As you will, my gentlest, kindest cousin; I know your prudence andaffection. I leave you to obtain me this interview; you can, and will, Iam convinced. "

"Do not be sanguine, Walter. I can only promise to use my bestendeavours, " answered Ellinor, blushing as he kissed her hand; and, hurrying up the walk, she disappeared within the house. 

Walter walked for some moments about the alley in which Ellinor had lefthim, but growing impatient, he at length wound through the overhangingtrees, and the house stood immediately before him, --the moonlight shiningfull on the window-panes, and sleeping in quiet shadow over the greenturf in front. He approached yet nearer, and through one of the windows, by a single light in the room, he saw Ellinor leaning over a couch, onwhich a form reclined, that his heart, rather than his sight, told himwas his once-adored Madeline. He stopped, and his breath heaved thick;--he thought of their common home at Grassdale--of the old Manor-house--ofthe little parlour with the woodbine at its casement--of the groupwithin, once so happy and light-hearted, of which he had formerly madethe one most buoyant, and not least-loved. And now this strange--thisdesolate house--himself estranged from all once regarding him, --(andthose broken-hearted, )--this night ushering what a morrow!--he groanedalmost aloud, and retreated once more into the shadow of the trees. In afew minutes the door at the right of the building opened, and Ellinorcame forth with a quick step. 

"Come in, dear Walter, " said she; "Madeline has consented to see you--nay, when I told her you were here, and desired an interview, she pausedbut for one instant, and then begged me to admit you. "

"God bless her!" said poor Walter, drawing his hand across his eyes, andfollowing Ellinor to the door. 

"You will find her greatly changed!" whispered Ellinor, as they gainedthe outer hall; "be prepared!"

Walter did not reply, save by an expressive gesture; and Ellinor led himinto a room, which communicated, by one of those glass doors often to beseen in the old-fashioned houses of country towns, with the one in whichhe had previously seen Madeline. With a noiseless step, and almostholding his breath, he followed his fair guide through this apartment, and he now stood by the couch on which Madeline still reclined. She heldout her hand to him--he pressed it to his lips, without daring to lookher in the face; and after a moment's pause, she said--

"So, you wished to see me, Walter! It is an anxious night this for all ofus!"

"For all!" repeated Walter, emphatically; and for me not the least!"

"We have known some sad days since we last met!" renewed Madeline; andthere was another, and an embarrassed pause. 

"Madeline--dearest Madeline!" said Walter, at length dropping on hisknee; "you, whom while I was yet a boy, I so fondly, passionately loved;--you, who yet are--who, while I live, ever will be, so inexpressibly dearto me--say but one word to me on this uncertain and dreadful epoch of ourfate--say but one word to me--say you feel you are conscious thatthroughout these terrible events I have not been to blame--I have notwillingly brought this affliction upon our house--least of all upon thatheart which my own would have forfeited its best blood to preserve fromthe slightest evil;--or, if you will not do me this justice, say at leastthat you forgive me!"

"I forgive you, Walter! I do you justice, my cousin!" replied Madeline, with energy; and raising herself on her arm. "It is long since I havefelt how unreasonable it was to throw any blame upon you--the mere andpassive instrument of fate. If I have forborne to see you, it was notfrom an angry feeling, but from a reluctant weakness. God bless andpreserve you, my dear cousin! I know that your own heart has bled asprofusely as ours; and it was but this day that I told my father, if wenever met again, to express to you some kind message as a last memorialfrom me. Don't weep, Walter! It is a fearful thing to see men weep! It isonly once that I have seen him weep, --that was long, long ago! He has notears in the hour of dread and danger. But no matter, this is a badworld, Walter, and I am tired of it. Are not you? Why do you look so atme, Ellinor? I am not mad! Has she told you that I am, Walter? Don'tbelieve her! Look at me! I am calm and collected! Yet to-morrow is--OGod! O God!--if--if!--"

Madeline covered her face with her hands, and became suddenly silent, though only for a short time; when she again lifted up her eyes, theyencountered those of Walter; as through those blinding and agonisedtears, which are only wrung from the grief of manhood, he gazed upon thatface on which nothing of herself, save the divine and unearthlyexpression which had always characterised her loveliness, was left. 

"Yes, Walter, I am wearing fast away--fast beyond the power of chance!Thank God, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, if the worst happen, we cannot be divided long. Ere another Sabbath has passed, I may be withhim in Paradise! What cause shall we then have for regret?"

Ellinor flung herself on her sister's neck, sobbing violently. --"Yes, weshall regret you are not with us, Ellinor; but you will also soon growtired of the world; it is a sad place--it is a wicked place--it is fullof snares and pitfalls. In our walk to-day lies our destruction for to-morrow! You will find this soon, Ellinor! And you, and my father, andWalter, too, shall join us! Hark! the clock strikes! By this time to-morrow night, what triumph!--or to me at least (sinking her voice into awhisper, that thrilled through the very bones of her listeners) whatpeace!"

Happily for all parties, this distressing scene was here interrupted. Lester entered the room with the heavy step into which his once elasticand cheerful tread had subsided. 

"Ha, Walter!" said he, irresolutely glancing over the group; but Madelinehad already sprang from her seat. 

"You have seen him!--you have seen him! And how does he--how does helook? But that I know; I know his brave heart does not sink. And whatmessage does he send to me? And--and--tell me all, my father: quick, quick!"

"Dear, miserable child!--and miserable old man!" muttered Lester, foldingher in his arms; "but we ought to take courage and comfort from him, Madeline. A hero, on the eve of battle, could not be more firm--even morecheerful. He smiled often--his old smile; and he only left tears andanxiety to us. But of you, Madeline, we spoke mostly: he would scarcelylet me say a word on any thing else. Oh, what a kind heart!--what anoble spirit! And perhaps a chance tomorrow may quench both. But, God! bejust, and let the avenging lightning fall on the real criminal, and notblast the innocent man!"

"Amen!" said Madeline deeply. 

"Amen!" repeated Walter, laying his hand on his heart. 

"Let us pray!" exclaimed Lester, animated by a sudden impulse, andfalling on his knees. The whole group followed his example; and Lester, in a trembling and impassioned voice, poured forth an extempore prayer, that Justice might fall only where it was due. Never did that majesticand pausing Moon, which filled that lowly room as with the presence of aspirit, witness a more impressive adjuration, or an audience moreabsorbed and rapt. Full streamed its holy rays upon the now snowy locksand upward countenance of Lester, making his venerable person morestriking from the contrast it afforded to the dark and sunburnt cheek--the energetic features, and chivalric and earnest head of the young manbeside him. Just in the shadow, the raven locks of Ellinor were bowedover her clasped hands, --nothing of her face visible; the graceful neckand heaving breast alone distinguished from the shadow;--and, hushed ina death-like and solemn repose, the parted lips moving inaudibly; the eyefixed on vacancy; the wan transparent hands, crossed upon her bosom; thelight shone with a more softened and tender ray upon the faded but all-angelic form and countenance of her, for whom Heaven was alreadypreparing its eternal recompense for the ills of Earth!

 CHAPTER V. THE TRIAL. 

 "Equal to either fortune. "--Speech of Eugene Aram. 

A thought comes over us, sometimes, in our career of pleasure, or thetroublous exultation of our ambitious pursuits; a thought come over us, like a cloud, that around us and about us Death--Shame--Crime--Despair, are busy at their work. I have read somewhere of an enchanted land, wherethe inmates walked along voluptuous gardens, and built palaces, and heardmusic, and made merry; while around, and within, the land, were deepcaverns, where the gnomes and the fiends dwelt: and ever and anon theirgroans and laughter, and the sounds of their unutterable toils, orghastly revels, travelled to the upper air, mixing in an awfulstrangeness with the summer festivity and buoyant occupation of thoseabove. And this is the picture of human life! These reflections of themaddening disparities of the world are dark, but salutary:--

 "They wrap our thoughts at banquets in the shroud;" [Young. ]

but we are seldom sadder without being also wiser men!

The third of August 1759 rose bright, calm, and clear: it was the morningof the trial; and when Ellinor stole into her sister's room, she foundMadeline sitting before the glass, and braiding her rich locks with anevident attention and care. 

"I wish, " said she, "that you had pleased me by dressing as for aholiday. See, I am going to wear the dress I was to have been marriedin. "

Ellinor shuddered; for what is more appalling than to find the signs ofgaiety accompanying the reality of anguish!

"Yes, " continued Madeline, with a smile of inexpressible sweetness, "alittle reflection will convince you that this day ought not to be one ofmourning. It was the suspense that has so worn out our hearts. If he isacquitted, as we all believe and trust, think how appropriate will be theoutward seeming of our joy! If not, why I shall go before him to ourmarriage home, and in marriage garments. Ay, " she added after a moment'spause, and with a much more grave, settled, and intense expression ofvoice and countenance--"ay; do you remember how Eugene once told us, thatif we went at noonday to the bottom of a deep pit, [Note: The remark isin Aristotle. Buffon quotes it, with his usual adroit felicity, in, Ithink, the first volume of his great work. ] we should be able to see thestars, which on the level ground are invisible. Even so, from the depthsof grief--worn, wretched, seared, and dying--the blessed apparitions andtokens of Heaven make themselves visible to our eyes. And I know--I haveseen--I feel here, " pressing her hand on her heart, "that my course isrun; a few sands only are left in the glass. Let us waste them bravely. Stay, Ellinor! You see these poor withered rose-leaves: Eugene gave themto me the day before--before that fixed for our marriage. I shall wearthem to-day, as I would have worn them on the wedding-day. When hegathered the poor flower, how fresh it was; and I kissed off the dew: nowsee it! But, come, come; this is trifling: we must not be late. Help me, Nell, help me: come, bustle, quick, quick! Nay, be not so slovenly; Itold you I would be dressed with care to-day. "

And when Madeline was dressed, though the robe sat loose and in largefolds over her shrunken form, yet, as she stood erect, and looked with asmile that saddened Ellinor more than tears at her image in the glass, perhaps her beauty never seemed of a more striking and lofty character, --she looked indeed, a bride, but the bride of no earthly nuptials. Presently they heard an irresolute and trembling step at the door, andLester knocking, asked if they were prepared. 

"Come in, father, " said Madeline, in a calm and even cheerful voice; andthe old man entered. 

He cast a silent glance over Madeline's white dress, and then at his own, which was deep mourning: the glance said volumes, and its meaning was notmarred by words from any one of the three. 

"Yes, father, " said Madeline, breaking the pause, --"We are all ready. Isthe carriage here?"

"It is at the door, my child. "

"Come then, Ellinor, come!"--and leaning on her arm, Madeline walkedtowards the door. When she got to the threshold, she paused, and lookedround the room. 

"What is it you want?" asked Ellinor. 

"I was but bidding all here farewell, " replied Madeline, in a soft andtouching voice: "And now before we leave the house, Father, --Sister, oneword with you;--you have ever been very, very kind to me, and most of allin this bitter trial, when I must have taxed your patience sadly--for Iknow all is not right here, (touching her forehead)--I cannot go forththis day without thanking you. Ellinor, my dearest friend--my fondestsister--my playmate in gladness--my comforter in grief--my nurse insickness;--since we were little children, we have talked together, andlaughed together, and wept together, and though we knew all the thoughtsof each other, we have never known one thoughts that we would haveconcealed from God;--and now we are going to part?--do not stop me, itmust be so, I know it. But, after a little while may you be happy again, not so buoyant as you have been, that can never be, but still happy!--Youare formed for love and home, and for those ties you once thought wouldbe mine. God grant that I may have suffered for us both, and that when wemeet hereafter, you may tell me you have been happy here!"

"But you, father, " added Madeline, tearing herself from the neck of herweeping sister, and sinking on her knees before Lester, who leanedagainst the wall convulsed with his emotions, and covering his face withhis hands--"but you, --what can I say to you?--You, who have never, --no, not in my first childhood, said one harsh word to me--who have sunk all afather's authority in a father's love, --how can I say all that I feel foryou?--the grateful overflowing, (paining, yet--oh, how sweet!)remembrances which crowd around and suffocate me now?--The time will comewhen Ellinor and Ellinor's children must be all in all to you--when ofyour poor Madeline nothing will be left but a memory; but they, they willwatch on you and tend you, and protect your grey hairs from sorrow, as Imight once have hoped I also was fated to do. "

"My child! my child! you break my heart!" faltered forth at last the poorold man, who till now had in vain endeavoured to speak. 

"Give me your blessing, dear father, " said Madeline, herself overcome byher feelings;--"Put your hand on my head and bless me--and say, that if Ihave ever unconsciously given you a moment's pain--I am forgiven!"

"Forgiven!" repeated Lester, raising his daughter with weak and tremblingarms as his tears fell fast upon her cheek, --"Never did I feel what anangel had sate beside my hearth till now!--But be comforted--be cheered. What, if Heaven had reserved its crowning mercy till this day, and Eugenebe amongst us, free, acquitted, triumphant before the night!"

"Ha!" said Madeline, as if suddenly roused by the thought into new life:--"Ha! let us hasten to find your words true. Yes! yes!--if it should beso--if it should. And, " added she, in a hollow voice, (the enthusiasmchecked, ) "if it were not for my dreams, I might believe it would be so:--But--come--I am ready now!"

The carriage went slowly through the crowd that the fame of theapproaching trial had gathered along the streets, but the blinds weredrawn down, and the father and daughter escaped that worst of tortures, the curious gaze of strangers on distress. Places had been kept for themin court, and as they left the carriage and entered the fatal spot, thevenerable figure of Lester, and the trembling and veiled forms that clungto him, arrested all eyes. They at length gained their seats, and it wasnot long before a bustle in the court drew off attention from them. Abuzz, a murmur, a movement, a dread pause! Houseman was first arraignedon his former indictment, acquitted, and admitted evidence against Aram, who was thereupon arraigned. The prisoner stood at the bar! Madelinegasped for breath, and clung, with a convulsive motion, to her sister'sarm. But presently, with a long sigh she recovered her self-possession, and sat quiet and silent, fixing her eyes upon Aram's countenance; andthe aspect of that countenance was well calculated to sustain hercourage, and to mingle a sort of exulting pride, with all the strainedand fearful acuteness of her sympathy. Something, indeed, of what he hadsuffered, was visible in the prisoner's features; the lines around themouth in which mental anxiety generally the most deeply writes itstraces, were grown marked and furrowed; grey hairs were here and therescattered amongst the rich and long luxuriance of the dark brown locks, and as, before his imprisonment, he had seemed considerably younger thanhe was, so now time had atoned for its past delay, and he might haveappeared to have told more years than had really gone over his head; butthe remarkable light and beauty of his eye was undimmed as ever, andstill the broad expanse of his forehead retained its unwrinkled surfaceand striking expression of calmness and majesty. High, self-collected, serene, and undaunted, he looked upon the crowd, the scene, the judge, before and around him; and, even among those who believed him guilty, that involuntary and irresistible respect which moral firmness alwaysproduces on the mind, forced an unwilling interest in his fate, and evena reluctant hope of his acquittal. 

Houseman was called upon. No one could regard his face without a certainmistrust and inward shudder. In men prone to cruelty, it has generallybeen remarked, that there is an animal expression strongly prevalent inthe countenance. The murderer and the lustful man are often alike in thephysical structure. The bull-throat--the thick lips--the recedingforehead--the fierce restless eye--which some one or other says remindsyou of the buffalo in the instant before he becomes dangerous, are theoutward tokens of the natural animal unsoftened--unenlightened--unredeemed--consulting only the immediate desires of his nature, whatever be the passion (lust or revenge) to which they prompt. And thisanimal expression, the witness of his character, was especially wrought, if we may use the word, in House-man's rugged and harsh features;rendered, if possible, still more remarkable at that time by a mixture ofsullenness and timidity. The conviction that his own life was saved, could not prevent remorse at his treachery in accusing his comrade--asort of confused principle of which villains are the most susceptible, when every other honest sentiment has deserted them. 

With a low, choked, and sometimes a faltering tone, Houseman deposed, that, in the night between the 7th and 8th of January 1744-5, sometimebefore 11 o'clock, he went to Aram's house--that they conversed ondifferent matters--that he stayed there about an hour--that some threehours afterwards he passed, in company with Clarke, by Aram's house, andAram was outside the door, as if he were about to return home--that Araminvited them both to come in--that they did so--that Clarke, who intendedto leave the town before day-break, in order, it was acknowledged, tomake secretly away with certain property in his possession, was about toquit the house, when Aram proposed to accompany him out of the town--thathe (Aram) and Houseman then went forth with Clarke--that when they cameinto the field where St. Robert's Cave is, Aram and Clarke went into it, over the hedge, and when they came within six or eight yards off theCave, he saw them quarrelling--that he saw Aram strike Clarke severaltimes, upon which Clarke fell, and he never saw him rise again--that hesaw no instrument Aram had, and knew not that he had any--that upon this, without any interposition or alarm, he left them and returned home--thatthe next morning he went to Aram's house, and asked what business he hadwith Clarke last night, and what he had done with him? Aram replied notto this question; but threatened him, if he spoke of his being inClarke's company that night; vowing revenge either by himself or someother person if he mentioned any thing relating to the affair. This wasthe sum of Houseman's evidence. 

A Mr. Beckwith was next called, who deposed that Aram's garden had beensearched, owing to a vague suspicion that he might have been anaccomplice in the frauds of Clarke--that some parts of clothing, and alsosome pieces of cambric which he had sold to Clarke a little while before, were found there. 

The third witness was the watchman, Thomas Barnet, who deposed, thatbefore midnight (it might be a little after eleven) he saw a person comeout from Aram's house, who had a wide coat on, with the cape about hishead, and seemed to shun him; whereupon he went up to him, and put by thecape of his great coat, and perceived it to be Richard Houseman. Hecontented himself with wishing him good night. 

The officers who executed the warrant then gave their evidence as to thearrest, and dwelt on some expressions dropped by Aram before he arrivedat Knaresbro', which, however, were felt to be wholly unimportant. 

After this evidence there was a short pause;--and then a shiver, thatrecoil and tremor which men feel at any exposition of the relics of thedead, ran through the court; for the next witness was mute--it was theskull of the Deceased! On the left side there was a fracture, that fromthe nature of it seemed as it could only have been made by the stroke ofsome blunt instrument. The piece was broken, and could not be replacedbut from within. 

The surgeon, Mr. Locock, who produced it, gave it as his opinion that nosuch breach could proceed from natural decay--that it was not a recentfracture by the instrument with which it was dug up, but seemed to be ofmany years' standing. 

This made the chief part of the evidence against Aram; the minor pointswe have omitted, and also such as, like that of Aram's hostess, wouldmerely have repeated what the reader knew before. 

And now closed the criminatory evidence--and now the prisoner was asked, in that peculiarly thrilling and awful question--What he had to say inhis own behalf? Till now, Aram had not changed his posture or hiscountenance--his dark and piercing eye had for one instant fixed on eachwitness that appeared against him, and then dropped its gaze upon theground. But at this moment a faint hectic flushed his cheek, and heseemed to gather and knit himself up for defence. He glanced round thecourt, as if to see what had been the impression created against him. Hiseye rested on the grey locks of Rowland Lester, who, looking down, hadcovered his face with his hands. But beside that venerable form was thestill and marble face of Madeline; and even at that distance from him, Aram perceived how intent was the hush and suspense of her emotions. Butwhen she caught his eye--that eye which even at such a moment beamedunutterable love, pity, regret for her--a wild, a convulsive smile ofencouragement, of anticipated triumph, broke the repose of her colourlessfeatures, and suddenly dying away, left her lips apart, in thatexpression which the great masters of old, faithful to Nature, give aliketo the struggle of hope and the pause of terror. 

"My Lord, " began Aram, in that remarkable defence still extant, and stillconsidered as wholly unequalled from the lips of one defending his own, and such a, cause;--"My Lord, I know not whether it is of right, orthrough some indulgence of your Lordship, that I am allowed the libertyat this bar, and at this time, to attempt a defence; incapable anduninstructed as I am to speak. Since, while I see so many eyes upon me, so numerous and awful a concourse, fixed with attention, and filled withI know not what expectancy, I labour, not with guilt, my Lord, but withperplexity. For, having never seen a court but this, being whollyunacquainted with law, the customs of the bar, and all judiciaryproceedings, I fear I shall be so little capable of speaking withpropriety, that it might reasonably be expected to exceed my hope, shouldI be able to speak at all. 

"I have heard, my Lord, the indictment read, wherein I find myselfcharged with the highest of human crimes. You will grant me then yourpatience, if I, single and unskilful, destitute of friends, andunassisted by counsel, attempt something perhaps like argument in mydefence. What I have to say will be but short, and that brevity may bethe best part of it. 

"My Lord, the tenor of my life contradicts this indictment. Who can lookback over what is known of my former years, and charge me with one vice--one offence? No! I concerted not schemes of fraud--projected no violence--injured no man's property or person. My days were honestly laborious--mynights intensely studious. This egotism is not presumptuous--is notunreasonable. What man, after a temperate use of life, a series ofthinking and acting regularly, without one single deviation from a soberand even tenor of conduct, ever plunged into the depth of crimeprecipitately, and at once? Mankind are not instantaneously corrupted. Villainy is always progressive. We decline from right--not suddenly, butstep after step. 

"If my life in general contradicts the indictment, my health at that timein particular contradicts it yet more. A little time before, I had beenconfined to my bed, I had suffered under a long and severe disorder. Thedistemper left me but slowly, and in part. So far from being well at thetime I am charged with this fact, I never, to this day, perfectlyrecovered. Could a person in this condition execute violence againstanother?--I, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage--noability to accomplish--no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact;--without interest, without power, without motives, without means!

"My Lord, Clarke disappeared: true; but is that a proof of his death? Thefallibility of all conclusions of such a sort, from such a circumstance, is too obvious to require instances. One instance is before you: thisvery castle affords it. 

"In June 1757, William Thompson, amidst all the vigilance of this place, in open daylight, and double-ironed, made his escape; notwithstanding animmediate inquiry set on foot, notwithstanding all advertisements, allsearch, he was never seen or heard of since. If this man escaped unseenthrough all these difficulties, how easy for Clarke, whom no difficultiesopposed. Yet what would be thought of a prosecution commenced against anyone seen last with Thompson?

"These bones are discovered! Where? Of all places in the world, can wethink of any one, except indeed the church-yard, where there is so greata certainty of finding human bones, as a hermitage? In times past, thehermitage was a place, not only of religious retirement, but of burial. And it has scarce, or never been heard of, but that every cell now known, contains, or contained these relics of humanity; some mutilated--someentire! Give me leave to remind your Lordship, that here sat SOLITARYSANCTITY, and here the hermit and the anchorite hoped that repose fortheir bones when dead, they here enjoyed when living. I glance over a fewof the many evidences that these cells were used as repositories of thedead, and enumerate a few of the many caves similar in origin to St. Robert's, in which human bones have been found. " Here the prisonerinstanced, with remarkable felicity, several places, in which bones hadbeen found, under circumstances, and in spots analogous to those inpoint. [Note: See his published defence. ] And the reader, who willremember that it is the great principle of the law, that no man can becondemned for murder unless the body of the deceased be found, willperceive at once how important this point was to the prisoner's defence. After concluding his instances with two facts of skeletons found infields in the vicinity of Knaresbro', he burst forth--"Is then theinvention of those bones forgotten or industriously concealed, that thediscovery of these in question may appear the more extraordinary?Extraordinary--yet how common an event! Every place conceals suchremains. In fields--in hills--in high-way sides--on wastes--on commons, lie frequent and unsuspected bones. And mark, --no example perhaps occursof more than one skeleton being found in one cell. Here you find but one, agreeable to the peculiarity of every known cell in Britain. Had twoskeletons been discovered, then alone might the fact have seemedsuspicious and uncommon. What! Have we forgotten how difficult, as in thecase of Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Symnell, it has been sometimes toidentify the living; and shall we now assign personality to bones--boneswhich may belong to either sex? How know you that this is even theskeleton of a man? But another skeleton was discovered by some labourer!Was not that skeleton averred to be Clarke's full as confidently as this?

"My Lord, my Lord--must some of the living be made answerable for all thebones that earth has concealed and chance exposed? The skull that hasbeen produced, has been declared fractured. But who can surely tellwhether it was the cause or the consequence of death. In May, 1732 theremains of William Lord Archbishop of this province were taken up bypermission in their cathedral, the bones of the skull were found brokenas these are. Yet he died by no violence! by no blow that could havecaused that fracture. Let it be considered how easily the fracture on theskull produced is accounted for. At the dissolution of religious houses, the ravages of the times affected both the living and the dead. In searchafter imaginary treasures, coffins were broken, graves and vaults dugopen, monuments ransacked, shrines demolished, Parliament itself wascalled in to restrain these violations. And now are the depredations, theiniquities of those times, to be visited on this? But here, above all, was a castle vigorously besieged; every spot around was the scene of asally, a conflict, a flight, a pursuit. Where the slaughtered fell, therewere they buried. What place is not burial earth in war? How many bonesmust still remain in the vicinity of that siege, for futurity todiscover! Can you, then, with so many probable circumstances, choose theone least probable? Can you impute to the living what Zeal in its furymay have done; what Nature may have taken off and Piety interred, or whatWar alone may have destroyed, alone deposited?

"And now, glance over the circumstantial evidence, how weak, how frail! Ialmost scorn to allude to it. I will not condescend to dwell upon it. Thewitness of one man, arraigned himself! Is there no chance that to savehis own life he might conspire against mine?--no chance that he mighthave committed this murder, if murder hath indeed been done? thatconscience betrayed to his first exclamation? that craft suggested histhrowing that guilt on me, to the knowledge of which he had unwittinglyconfessed? He declares that he saw me strike Clarke, that he saw himfall; yet he utters no cry, no reproof. He calls for no aid; he returnsquietly home; he declares that he knows not what became of the body, yethe tells where the body is laid. He declares that he went straight home, and alone; yet the woman with whom I lodged declares that Houseman and Ireturned to my house in company together;--what evidence is this? andfrom whom does it come?--ask yourselves. As for the rest of the evidence, what does it amount to? The watchman sees Houseman leave my house atnight. What more probable, but what less connected with the murder, realor supposed, of Clarke? Some pieces of clothing are found buried in mygarden. But how can it be shewn that they belonged to Clarke? Who canswear to, who can prove any thing so vague? And if found there, even ifbelonging to Clarke, what proof that they were there deposited by me? Howlikely that the real criminal may in the dead of night have preferred anyspot, rather than that round his own home, to conceal the evidence of hiscrime!

"How impotent such evidence as this! and how poor, how precarious, eventhe strongest of mere circumstantial evidence invariably is! Let it riseto probability, to the strongest degree of probability; it is butprobability still. Recollect the case of the two Harrisons, recorded byDr. Howell; both suffered on circumstantial evidence on account of thedisappearance of a man, who, like Clarke, contracted debts, borrowedmoney, and went off unseen. And this man returned several years aftertheir execution. Why remind you of Jaques du Moulin, in the reign ofCharles the Second?--why of the unhappy Coleman, convicted, thoughafterwards found innocent, and whose children perished for want, becausethe world believed the father guilty? Why should I mention the perjury ofSmith, who, admitted king's-evidence, screened himself by accusingFainloth and Loveday of the murder of Dunn? the first was executed, thesecond was about to share the same fate, when the perjury of Smith wasincontrovertibly proved. 

"And now, my Lord, having endeavoured to shew that the whole of thischarge is altogether repugnant to every part of my life; that it isinconsistent with my condition of health about that time; that norational inference of the death of a person can be drawn from hisdisappearance; that hermitages were the constant repositories of thebones of the recluse; that the proofs of these are well authenticated;that the revolutions in religion, or the fortune of war, have mangled orburied the dead; that the strongest circumstantial evidence is oftenlamentably fallacious, that in my case, that evidence, so far from beingstrong, is weak, disconnected, contradictory; what remains? A conclusion, perhaps, no less reasonably than impatiently wished for. I, at last, after nearly a year's confinement, equal to either fortune, entrustmyself to the candour, the justice, the humanity of your Lordship, and toyours, my countrymen, gentlemen of the jury. "

The prisoner ceased: and the painful and choking sensations of sympathy, compassion, regret, admiration, all uniting, all mellowing into onefearful hope for his acquittal, made themselves felt through the crowdedcourt. 

In two persons only, an uneasy sentiment remained--a sentiment that theprisoner had not completed that which they would have asked from him. Theone was Lester;--he had expected a more warm, a more earnest, though, perhaps, a less ingenious and artful defence. He had expected Aram todwell far more on the improbable and contradictory evidence of Houseman, and above all, to have explained away, all that was still leftunaccounted for in his acquaintance with Clarke (as we will still callthe deceased), and the allegation that he had gone out with him on thefatal night of the disappearance of the latter. At every word of theprisoner's defence, he had waited almost breathlessly, in the hope thatthe next sentence would begin an explanation or a denial on this point:and when Aram ceased, a chill, a depression, a disappointment, remainedvaguely on his mind. Yet so lightly and so haughtily had Aram approachedand glanced over the immediate evidence of the witnesses against him, that his silence her might have been but the natural result of a disdain, that belonged essentially to his calm and proud character. The otherperson we referred to, and whom his defence had not impressed with abelief in its truth, equal to an admiration for its skill, was one farmore important in deciding the prisoner's fate--it was the Judge!

But Madeline--Great God! how sanguine is a woman's heart, when theinnocence, the fate of the one she loves is concerned!--a radiant flushbroke over a face so colourless before; and with a joyous look, a kindledeye, a lofty brow, she turned to Ellinor, pressed her hand in silence, and once more gave up her whole soul to the dread procedure of the court. 

The Judge now began. --It is greatly to be regretted, that we have nominute and detailed memorial of the trial, except only the prisoner'sdefence. The summing up of the Judge was considered at that time scarceless remarkable than the speech of the prisoner. He stated the evidencewith peculiar care and at great length to the jury. He observed how thetestimony of the other deponents confirmed that of Houseman; and then, touching on the contradictory parts of the latter, he made themunderstand, how natural, how inevitable was some such contradiction in awitness who had not only to give evidence against another, but to refrainfrom criminating himself. There could be no doubt but that Houseman wasan accomplice in the crime; and all therefore that seemed improbable inhis giving no alarm when the deed was done, was easily rendered natural, and reconcileable with the other parts of his evidence. Commenting thenon the defence of the prisoner (who, as if disdaining to rely on aughtsave his own genius or his own innocence, had called no witnesses, as hehad employed no counsel), and eulogizing its eloquence and art, till hedestroyed their effect by guarding the jury against that impression whicheloquence and art produce in defiance of simple fact, he contended thatAram had yet alleged nothing to invalidate the positive evidence againsthim. 

I have often heard, from men accustomed to courts of law, that nothing ismore marvellous, than the sudden change in a jury's mind, which thesumming up of the Judge can produce; and in the present instance it waslike magic. That fatal look of a common intelligence, of a common assent, was exchanged among the doomers of the prisoner's life and death as theJudge concluded. 

They found the prisoner guilty. 

The Judge drew on the black cap. 

 CHAPTER VI. 

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

 "Lay her i' the earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring. " . . . . . . . . . . . "See in my heart there was a kind of fighting

 That would not let me sleep. " --Hamlet. 

"Bear with me a little longer, " said Madeline. "I shall be well, quitewell presently. "

Ellinor let down the carriage window, to admit the air; and she took theoccasion to tell the coachman to drive faster. There was that change inMadeline's voice which alarmed her. 

"How noble was his look! you saw him smile!" continued Madeline, talkingto herself: "And they will murder him after all. Let me see, this dayweek, ay, ere this day week we shall meet again. "

"Faster; for God's sake, Ellinor, tell them to drive faster!" criedLester, as he felt the form that leant on his bosom wax heavier andheavier. They sped on; the house was in sight; that lonely and cheerlesshouse; not their sweet home at Grassdale, with the ivy round its porch, and the quiet church behind. The sun was setting slowly, and Ellinor drewthe blind to shade the glare from her sister's eyes. 

Madeline felt the kindness, and smiled. Ellinor wiped her eyes, and triedto smile again. The carriage stopped, and Madeline was lifted out; shestood, supported by her father and Ellinor, for a moment on thethreshold. She looked on the golden sun, and the gentle earth, and thelittle motes dancing in the western ray--all was steeped in quiet, andfull of the peace and tranquillity of the pastoral life! "No, no, " shemuttered, grasping her father's hand. "How is this? this is not his hand!Ah, no, no; I am not with him! Father, " she added in a louder and deepervoice, rising from his breast, and standing alone and unaided. "Father, bury this little packet with me, they are his letters; do not break theseal, and--and tell him that I never felt how deeply I--I--loved him--till all--the world--had--deserted him!"--

She uttered a faint cry of pain, and fell at once to the ground; shelived a few hours longer, but never made speech or sign, or evinced tokenof life but its breath, which died at last gradually, --imperceptibly--away. 

On the following evening Walter obtained entrance to Aram's cell: thatmorning the prisoner had seen Lester; that morning he had heard ofMadeline's death. He had shed no tear; he had, in the affecting languageof Scripture, "turned his face to the wall;" none had seen his emotions;yet Lester felt in that bitter interview, that his daughter was dulymourned. 

He did not lift his eyes, when Walter was admitted, and the young manstood almost at his knee before he perceived him. He then looked up andthey gazed on each other for a moment, but without speaking, till Waltersaid in a hollow voice: "Eugene Aram!"

"Ay!"

"Madeline Lester is no more. "

"I have heard it! I am reconciled. Better now than later. "

"Aram!" said Walter, in a tone trembling with emotion, and passionatelyclasping his hands, "I entreat, I implore you, at this awful time, if itbe within your power, to lift from my heart a load that weighs it to thedust, that if left there, will make me through life a crushed andmiserable man;--I implore you, in the name of common humanity, by yourhopes of Heaven, to remove it! The time now has irrevocably passed whenyour denial or your confession could alter your doom; your days arenumbered, there is no hope of reprieve; I implore you then, if you wereled, I will not ask how or wherefore, to the execution of the crime forthe charge of which you die, to say, to whisper to me but one word ofconfession, and I, the sole child of the murdered man, will forgive youfrom the bottom of my soul. "

Walter paused, unable to proceed. 

Aram's brow worked; he turned aside; he made no answer; his head droppedon his bosom, and his eyes were unmovedly fixed on the earth. 

"Reflect, " continued Walter, recovering himself, "Reflect! I have beenthe mute instrument in bringing you to this awful fate, in destroying thehappiness of my own house--in--in--in breaking the heart of the womanwhom I adored even as a boy. If you be innocent, what a dreadful memoryis left to me! Be merciful, Aram! be merciful. And if this deed was doneby your hand, say to me but one word to remove the terrible uncertaintythat now harrows up my being. What now is earth, is man, is opinion, toyou? God only now can judge you. The eye of God reads your heart while Ispeak, and in the awful hour when Eternity opens to you, if the guilt hasbeen indeed committed, think, oh think, how much lighter will be youroffence, if, by vanquishing the stubborn heart, you can relieve a humanbeing from a doubt that otherwise will make the curse--the horror of anexistence. Aram, Aram, if the father's death came from you, shall thelife of the son be made a burthen to him, through you also?"

"What would you have of me? speak!" said Aram, but without lifting hisface from his breast. 

"Much of your nature belies this crime. --You are wise, calm, beneficentto the distressed. Revenge, passion, --nay, the sharp pangs of hunger, mayhave urged to one deed; but your soul is not wholly hardened: nay, Ithink I would so far trust you, that, if at this dread moment--the clayof Madeline Lester scarce yet cold, woe busy and softening at yourbreast, and the son of the murdered dead before you;--if at this momentyou can lay your hand on your heart, and say: 'Before God, and at perilof my soul, I am innocent of this deed, ' I will depart--I will believeyou, and bear, as bear I may, the reflection, that, in any way I havebeen one of the unconscious agents of condemning to a fearful death aninnocent man! If innocent in this--how good! how perfect in all else!But, if you cannot at so dark a crisis take that oath, --then! oh then! bejust--be generous, even in guilt, and let me not be haunted throughoutlife by the spectre of a ghastly and restless doubt! Speak! oh! speak!"

Well, well may we judge how crushing must have been that doubt in thebreast of one naturally bold and fiery, when it thus humbled the very sonof the murdered man to forget wrath and vengeance, and descend to prayer!But Walter had heard the defence of Aram; he had marked his mien: notonce in that trial had he taken his eyes from the prisoner, and he hadfelt, like a bolt of ice through his heart, that the sentence passed onthe accused, his judgment could not have passed! How dreadful must thenhave been the state of his mind when, repairing to Lester's house hefound it the house of death--the pure, the beautiful spirit gone--thefather mourning for his child, and not to be comforted--and Ellinor!--No!scenes like these, thoughts like these, pluck the pride from a man'sheart. 

"Walter Lester!" said Aram, after a pause; but raising his head withdignity, though on the features there was but one expression--woe, unutterable woe. "Walter Lester! I had thought to quit life with my taleuntold: but you have not appealed to me in vain! I tear the self from myheart!--I renounce the last haughty dream, in which I wrapt myself fromthe ills around me. You shall learn all, and judge accordingly. But toyour ear the tale can scarce be told:--the son cannot hear in silencethat which, unless I too unjustly, too wholly condemn myself, I must sayof the dead! But Time, " continued Aram, mutteringly, and with his eyes onvacancy, "Time does not press too fast. Better let the hand speak thanthe tongue:--yes; the day of execution is--ay, ay--two days yet to it--to-morrow? no! Young man, " he said abruptly, turning to Walter, "on theday after to-morrow, about seven in the evening, the eve before that mornfated to be my last--come to me. At that time I will place in your handsa paper containing the whole history that connects myself with yourfather. On the word of a man on the brink of another world, no truth thatimparts your interest therein shall be omitted. But read it not till I amno more; and when read, confide the tale to none, till Lester's greyhairs have gone to the grave. This swear! 'tis an oath difficult perhapsto keep, but--" "As my Redeemer lives, I will swear to both conditions!"cried Walter, with a solemn fervour. 

"But tell me now at least"--"Ask me no more!" interrupted Aram, in histurn. "The time is near, when you will know all! Tarry that time, andleave me! Yes, leave me now--at once--leave me!"

To dwell lingeringly over those passages which excite pain withoutsatisfying curiosity, is scarcely the duty of the drama, or of thatprovince even nobler than the drama; for it requires minuter care--indulges in more complete description--yields to more elaborateinvestigation of motives--commands a greater variety of chords in thehuman heart--to which, with poor and feeble power for so high, yet soill-appreciated a task we now, not irreverently if rashly, aspire!

We pass at once--we glance not around us at the chamber of death--at thebroken heart of Lester--at the two-fold agony of his surviving child--theagony which mourns and yet seeks to console another--the mixed emotionsof Walter, in which, an unsleeping eagerness to learn the fearful allformed the main part--the solitary cell and solitary heart of theconvicted--we glance not at these;--we pass at once to the evening inwhich Aram again saw Walter Lester, and for the last time. 

"You are come, punctual to the hour, " said he, in a low clear voice: "Ihave not forgotten my word; the fulfilment of that promise has been avictory over myself which no man can appreciate: but I owed it to you. Ihave discharged the debt. Enough!--I have done more than I at firstpurposed. I have extended my narration, but, superficially in some parts, over my life: that prolixity, perhaps I owed to myself. Remember yourpromise: this seal is not broken till the pulse is stilled in the handwhich now gives you these papers!"

Walter renewed his oath, and Aram, pausing for a moment, continued in analtered and softening voice:

"Be kind to Lester: soothe, console him--never by a hint let him thinkotherwise of me than he does. For his sake more than mine I ask this. Venerable, kind old man! the warmth of human affection has rarely glowedfor me. To the few who loved me, how deeply I have repaid the love! Butthese are not words to pass between you and me. Farewell! Yet, before wepart, say this much: whatever I have revealed in this confession--whatever has been my wrong to you, or whatever (a less offence) thelanguage I have now, justifying myself, used to--to your father--say, that you grant me that pardon which one man may grant another. "

"Fully, cordially, " said Walter. 

"In the day that for you brings the death that to-morrow awaits me, " saidAram, in a deep tone, "be that forgiveness accorded to yourself!Farewell. In that untried variety of Being which spreads beyond us, whoknows, but progressing from grade to grade, and world to world, oursouls, though in far distant ages, may meet again!--one dim and shadowymemory of this hour the link between us, farewell--farewell!"

For the reader's interest we think it better (and certainly it is moreimmediately in the due course of narrative, if not of actual events) tolay at once before him the Confession that Aram placed in Walter's hands, without waiting till that time when Walter himself broke the seal of aconfession, not of deeds alone, but of thoughts how wild and entangled--of feelings how strange and dark--of a starred soul that had wanderedfrom, how proud an orbit, to what perturbed and unholy regions of nightand chaos! For me, I have not sought to derive the reader's interest fromthe vulgar sources, that such a tale might have afforded; I have sufferedhim, almost from the beginning, to pierce into Aram's secret; and I haveprepared him for that guilt, with which other narrators of this storymight have only sought to surprise. 

 CHAPTER VII. 

 THE CONFESSION. --AND THE FATE. 

 "In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales Of woful ages long ago betid: And ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief, Tell them the lamentable fall of me. " --Richard II. 

"I was born at Ramsgill, a little village in Netherdale. My family hadoriginally been of some rank; they were formerly lords of the town ofAram, on the southern banks of the Tees. But time had humbled thesepretensions to consideration; though they were still fondly cherished bythe heritors of an ancient name, and idle but haughty recollections. Myfather resided on a small farm, and was especially skilful inhorticulture, a taste I derived from him. When I was about thirteen, thedeep and intense Passion that has made the Demon of my life, firststirred palpably within me. I had always been, from my cradle, of asolitary disposition, and inclined to reverie and musing; these traits ofcharacter heralded the love that now seized me--the love of knowledge. Opportunity or accident first directed my attention to the abstrusersciences. I poured my soul over that noble study, which is the bestfoundation of all true discovery; and the success I met with soon turnedmy pursuits into more alluring channels. History, poetry, the mastery ofthe past, the spell that admits us into the visionary world, took theplace which lines and numbers had done before. I became gradually moreand more rapt and solitary in my habits; knowledge assumed a yet morelovely and bewitching character, and every day the passion to attain itincreased upon me; I do not, I have not now the heart to do it--enlargeupon what I acquired without assistance, and with labour sweet inproportion to its intensity. 

 [We learn from a letter of Eugene Aram's, now extant, that his method of acquiring the learned lauguages, was, to linger over five lines at a time, and never to quit a passage till he thought he had comprehended its meaning. ]

The world, the creation, all things that lived, moved, and were, becameto me objects contributing to one passionate, and, I fancied, one exaltedend. I suffered the lowlier pleasures of life, and the charms of its morecommon ties, to glide away from me untasted and unfelt. As you read, inthe East, of men remaining motionless for days together, with their eyesfixed upon the heavens, my mind, absorbed in the contemplation of thethings above its reach, had no sight of what passed around. My parentsdied, and I was an orphan. I had no home, and no wealth; but wherever thefield contained a flower, or the heavens a star, there was matter ofthought and food for delight to me. I wandered alone for months together, seldom sleeping but in the open air, and shunning the human form as thatpart of God's works from which I could learn the least. I came toKnaresbro': the beauty of the country, a facility in acquiring books froma neighbouring library that was open to me, made me resolve to settlethere. And now, new desires opened upon me with new stores: I becameseized, possessed, haunted with the ambition of enlightening my race. Atfirst, I had loved knowledge solely for itself: I now saw afar an objectgrander than knowledge. To what end, said I, are these labours? Why do Ifeed a lamp which consumes itself in a desert place? Why do I heap upriches, without asking who shall gather them? I was restless anddiscontented. What could I do? I was friendless; I was strange to mykind; I was shut out from all uses by the wall of my own poverty. I sawmy desires checked when their aim was at the highest: all that was proud, and aspiring, and ardent in my nature, was cramped and chilled. Iexhausted the learning within my reach. Where, with my appetite excitednot slaked, was I, destitute and penniless, to search for more? Myabilities, by bowing them to the lowliest tasks, but kept me fromfamine:--was this to be my lot for ever? And all the while, I was thusgrinding down my soul in order to satisfy the vile physical wants, whatgolden hours, what glorious advantages, what openings into new heavens ofscience, what chances of illumining mankind were for ever lost to me!Sometimes when the young, whom I taught some elementary, all-unheeded, initiations into knowledge, came around me; when they looked me in theface with their laughing eyes; when, for they all loved me, they told metheir little pleasures and their petty sorrows, I have wished that Icould have gone back again into childhood, and becoming as one of them, enter into that heaven of quiet which was denied me now. Yet more oftenit was with an indignant and chafed rather than a sorrowful spirit that Ilooked upon my lot; and if I looked beyond it, what could I see of hope?Dig I could; but was all that thirsted and swelled within to be dried upand stifled, in order that I might gain the sustenance of life? Was I toturn menial to the soil, and forget that knowledge was abroad? Was I tostarve my mind, that I might keep alive my body? Beg I could not. Whereever lived the real student, the true minister and priest of knowledge, who was not filled with the lofty sense of the dignity of his calling?Was I to shew the sores of my pride, and strip my heart from itsclothing, and ask the dull fools of wealth not to let a scholar starve?Pah!--He whom the vilest poverty ever stooped to this, may be the quack, but never the trne disciple, of Learning. Steal, rob--worse--ay, allthose I or any of my brethren might do:--beg? never! What did I then? Idevoted the lowliest part of my knowledge to the procuring the bare meansof life, and the grandest, --the knowledge that pierced to the depths ofearth, and numbered the stars of heaven--why, that was valueless, save tothe possessor. 

"In Knaresbro', at this time, I met a distant relation, Richard Houseman. Sometimes in our walks we encountered each other; for he sought me, and Icould not always avoid him. He was a man like myself, born to poverty, yet he had always enjoyed what to him was wealth. This seemed a mysteryto me; and when we met, we sometimes conversed upon it. 'You are poor, with all your wisdom, ' said he. 'I know nothing; but I am never poor. Whyis this? The world is my treasury. --I live upon my kind. --Society is myfoe. --Laws order me to starve; but self-preservation is an instinct moresacred than society, and more imperious then laws. '

"The undisguised and bold manner of his discourse impressed while itrevolted me. I looked upon him as a study, and I combated, in order tolearn, him. He had been a soldier--he had seen the greatest part ofEurope--he possessed a strong shrewd sense--he was a villain--but avillain bold--adroit--and not then thoroughly unredeemed. Hisconversation created dark and perturbed reflections. What was that stateof society--was it not at war with its own elements--in which viceprospered more than virtue? Knowledge was my dream, that dream I mightrealize, not by patient suffering, but by active daring. I might wrestfrom society, to which I owed nothing, the means to be wise and great. Was it not better and nobler to do this, even at my life's hazard, thanlie down in a ditch and die the dog's death? Was it not better than sucha doom--ay better for mankind--that I should commit one bold wrong, andby that wrong purchase the power of good? I asked myself that question. It is a fearful question; it opens a labyrinth of reasonings, in whichthe soul may walk and lose itself for ever. 

"One day Houseman met me, accompanied by a stranger who had just visitedour town, for what purpose you know already. His name--supposed name--wasClarke. Man, I am about to speak plainly of that stranger--his characterand his fate. And yet--yet you are his son! I would fain soften thecolouring; but I speak truth of myself, and I must not, unless I wouldblacken my name yet deeper than it deserves, varnish truth when I speakof others. Houseman joined, and presented to me this person. From thefirst I felt a dislike creep through me at the stranger, which indeed itwas easy to account for. He was of a careless and somewhat insolentmanner. His countenance was impressed with the lines and character of athousand vices: you read in the brow and eye the history of a sordid yetreckless life. His conversation was repellent to me beyond expression. Heuttered the meanest sentiments, and he chuckled over them as the maximsof a superior sagacity; he avowed himself a knave upon system, and uponthe lowest scale. To overreach, to deceive, to elude, to shuffle, tofawn, and to lie, were the arts that he confessed to with so naked andcold a grossness, that one perceived that in the long habits ofdebasement he was unconscious of what was not debased. Houseman seemed todraw him out: he told us anecdotes of his rascality, and the distressesto which it had brought him; and he finished by saying: 'Yet you see menow almost rich, and wholly contented. I have always been the luckiest ofhuman beings; no matter what ill-chances to-day, good turns up to-morrow. I confess that I bring on myself the ill, and Providence sends methe good. ' We met accidentally more than once, and his conversation wasalways of the same strain--his luck and his rascality: he had no othertheme, and no other boast. And did not this stir into gloomy speculationthe depths of my mind? Was it not an ordination that called upon men totake fortune in their own hands, when Fate lavished her rewards on thislow and creeping thing, that could only enter even Vice by its sewers andalleys? Was it worth while to be virtuous, and look on, while the badseized upon the feast of life? This man was instinct with the basestpassions, the pettiest desires: he gratified them, and Fate smiled uponhis daring. I, who had shut out from my heart the poor temptations ofsense--I, who fed only the most glorious visions, the most augustdesires--I, denied myself their fruition, trembling and spell-bound inthe cerements of human laws, without hope, without reward, --losing thevery powers of virtue because I would not stray into crime. 

"These thoughts fell on me darkly and rapidly; but they led to no result. I saw nothing beyond them. I suffered my indignation to gnaw my heart;and preserved the same calm and serene demeanour which had grown with mygrowth of mind. Nay, while I upbraided Fate, I did not cease to lovemankind. I envied--what? the power to serve them! I had been kind andloving to all things from a boy; there was not a dumb animal that wouldnot single me from a crowd as its protector, [Note: All the authenticanecdotes of Aram corroborate the fact of his natural gentleness to allthings. A clergyman (the Rev. Mr. Hinton) said that he used frequently toobserve Aram, when walking in the garden, stoop down to remove a snail orworm from the path, to prevent its being destroyed. Mr. Hintoningeniously conjectured that Aram wished to atone for his crime byshewing mercy to every animal and insect: but the fact is, that there areseveral anecdotes to shew that he was equally humane before the crime wascommitted. Such are the strange contradictions of the human heart!] andyet I was doomed--but I must not premeditate my tale. In returning, atnight, to my own home, from my long and solitary walks, I often passedthe house in which Clarke lodged; and sometimes I met him reeling by thedoor, insulting all who passed; and yet their resentment was absorbed intheir disgust. 'And this loathsome, and grovelling thing, ' said I, inly, 'squanders on low excesses, wastes upon outrages to society, that withwhich I could make my soul as a burning lamp, that should shed a lightover the world!"

"There was that in this man's vices which revolted me far more than thevillainy of Houseman. The latter had possessed no advantages ofeducation; he descended to no minutiae of sin, he was a plain, blunt, coarse wretch, and his sense threw something respectable around hisvices. But in Clarke you saw the traces of happier opportunities ofbetter education; it was in him not the coarseness of manner so much asthe sickening, universal canker of vulgarity of mind. Had Houseman moneyin his purse, he would have paid a debt and relieved a friend from mereindifference; not so the other. Had he been overflowing with wealth, hewould have slipped from a creditor, and duped a friend; there was apitiful and debasing weakness in his nature, which made him regard thelowest meanness as the subtlest wit. His mind too was not only degraded, but broken by his habits of life; a strange, idiotic folly, that made himlove laughing at his own littleness, ran through his character. Housemanwas young; he might amend; but Clarke had grey hairs and dim eyes; wasold in constitution, if not years; and every thing in him was hopelessand confirmed; the leprosy was in the system. Time, in this, has madeHouseman what Clarke was then. 

"One day, in passing through the street, though it was broad noon, Iencountered Clarke in a state of intoxication, and talking to a crowd hehad collected around him. I sought to pass in an opposite direction; hewould not suffer me; he, whom I sickened to touch, to see, threw himselfin my way, and affected gibe and insult, nay even threat. But when hecame near, he shrank before the mere glance of my eye, and I passed onunheeding him. The insult galled me; he had taunted my poverty, povertywas a favourite jest with him; it galled me; anger, revenge, no! thosepassions I had never felt for any man. I could not rouse them for thefirst time for such a cause; yet I was lowered in my own eyes, I wasstung. Poverty! he taunt me! He dream himself, on account of a littleyellow dust, my superior! I wandered from the town, and paused by thewinding and shagged banks of the river. It was a gloomy winter's day, thewaters rolled on black and sullen, and the dry leaves rustled desolatelybeneath my feet. Who shall tell us that outward nature has no effect uponour mood? All around seemed to frown upon my lot. I read in the face ofheaven and earth a confirmation of the curse which man hath set uponpoverty. I leant against a tree that overhung the waters, and suffered mythoughts to glide on in the bitter silence of their course. I heard myname uttered--I felt a hand on my arm, I turned, and Houseman was by myside. 

"'What, moralizing?' said he, with his rude smile. 

"I did not answer him. 

"'Look, ' said he, pointing to the waters, 'where yonder fish lies waitinghis prey, that prey his kind. Come, you have read Nature, is it not souniversally?'

"I did not answer him. 

"'They who do not as the rest, ' he renewed, 'fulfil not the object oftheir existence; they seek to be wiser than their tribe, and are foolsfor their pains. Is it not so? I am a plain man, and would learn. '

"Still I did not answer. 

"'You are silent, ' said he; 'do I offend you?'

"'No!'

"'Now, then, ' he continued, 'strange as it may seem, we, so different inmind, are at this moment alike in fortunes. I have not a guinea in thewide world; you, perhaps, are equally destitute. But mark the difference, I, the ignorant man, ere three days have passed, will have filled mypurse; you, the wise man, will be still as poor. Come, cast away yourwisdom, and do as I do. '

"'How?'

"'Take from the superfluities of others what your necessities crave. Myhorse, my pistol, a ready hand, a stout heart, these are to me, whatcoffers are to others. There is the chance of detection and of death; Iallow it. But is not this chance better than some certainties?'

"I turned away my face. In the silence of my chamber, and in the solitudeof my heart, I had thought, as the robber spoke--there was a strifewithin me. 

"'Will you share the danger and the booty?' renewed Houseman, in a lowvoice. 

"I turned my eyes upon him. 'Speak out, ' said I; 'explain your purpose!'

"Houseman's looks brightened. 

"'Listen!' said he; 'Clarke, despite his present wealth lawfully gained, is about to purloin more; he has converted his legacy into jewels; he hasborrowed other jewels on false pretences; he purposes to make these alsohis own, and to leave the town in the dead of night; he has confided tome his intention, and asked my aid. He and I, be it known to you, werefriends of old; we have shared together other dangers, and other spoils;he has asked my assistance in his flight. Now do you learn my purpose?Let us ease him of his burthen! I offer to you the half; share theenterprise and its fruits. '

"I rose, I walked away, I pressed my hands on my heart; I wished tosilence the voice that whispered me within. Houseman saw the conflict; hefollowed me; he named the value of the prize he proposed to gain; thatwhich he called my share placed all my wished within my reach!--themeans of gratifying the one passion of my soul, the food for knowledge, the power of a lone blessed independence upon myself, --and all were in mygrasp; no repeated acts of fraud; no continuation of sin, one single actsufficed! I breathed heavily, but I threw not off the emotion that seizedmy soul; I shut my eyes and shuddered, but the vision still rose beforeme. 

"'Give me your hand, ' said Houseman. [Note: Though, in the above part ofAram's confession, it would seem as if Houseman did not allude to morethan the robbery of Clarke; it is evident from what follows, that themore heinous crime also was then at least hinted at by Houseman. ]

"'No, no, ' I said, breaking away from him. 'I must pause--I mustconsider--I do not yet refuse, but I will not now decide. '--

"Houseman pressed, but I persevered in my determination;--he would havethreatened me, but my nature was haughtier than his, and I subdued him. It was agreed that he should seek me that night and learn my choice--thenext night was the one on which the deed was to be done. We parted--Ireturned an altered man to my home. Fate had woven her mesh around me--anew incident had occurred which strengthened the web: there was a poorgirl whom I had been accustomed to see in my walks. She supported herfamily by her dexterity in making lace, --a quiet, patient-looking, gentlecreature. Clarke had, a few days since, under pretence of purchasinglace, decoyed her to his house (when all but himself were from home), where he used the most brutal violence towards her. The extreme povertyof the parents had enabled him easily to persuade them to hush up thematter, but something of the story got abroad; the poor girl was markedout for that gossip and scandal, which among the very lowest classes areas coarse in the expression as malignant in the sentiment; and in theparoxysm of shame and despair, the unfortunate girl had that daydestroyed herself. This melancholy event wrung forth from the parents thereal story: the event and the story reached my ears in the very hour inwhich my mind was wavering to and fro. Can you wonder that they fixed itat once, and to a dread end? What was this wretch? aged with vice--forestalling time--tottering on to a dishonoured grave--soiling all thathe touched on his way--with grey hairs and filthy lewdness, therottenness of the heart, not its passion, a nuisance and a curse to theworld. What was the deed--that I should rid the earth of a thing at oncebase and venomous? Was it crime? Was it justice? Within myself I felt thewill--the spirit that might bless mankind. I lacked the means toaccomplish the will and wing the spirit. One deed supplied me with themeans. Had the victim of that deed been a man moderately good--pursuingwith even steps the narrow line between vice and virtue--blessing nonebut offending none, --it might have been yet a question whether mankindwould not gain more by the deed than lose. But here was one whose stepsstumbled on no good act--whose heart beat to no generous emotion;--therewas a blot--a foulness on creation, --nothing but death could wash it outand leave the world fair. The soldier receives his pay, and murthers, andsleeps sound, and men applaud. But you say he smites not for pay, butglory. Granted--though a sophism. But was there no glory to be gained infields more magnificent than those of war--no glory to be gained in theknowledge which saves and not destroys? Was I not about to strike forthat glory, for the means of earning it? Nay, suppose the soldier struckfor patriotism, a better feeling than glory, would not my motive be yetlarger than patriotism? Did it not body forth a broader circle? Could theworld stop the bound of its utilities? Was there a corner of the earth--was there a period in time, which an ardent soul, freed from, not chainedas now, by the cares of the body, and given wholly up to wisdom, mightnot pierce, vivify, illumine? Such were the questions which I asked:--time only answered them. 

"Houseman came, punctual to our dark appointment. I gave him my hand insilence. We understood each other. We said no more of the deed itself, but of the manner in which it should be done. The melancholy incident Ihave described made Clarke yet more eager to leave the town. He hadsettled with Houseman that he would abscond that very night, not wait forthe next, as at first he had intended. His jewels and property were putin a small compass. He had arranged that he would, towards midnight orlater, quit his lodging; and about a mile from the town, Houseman hadengaged to have a chaise in readiness. For this service Clarke hadpromised Houseman a reward, with which the latter appeared contented. Itwas arranged that I should meet Houseman and Clarke at a certain spot intheir way from the town, and there--! Houseman appeared at first fearful, lest I should relent and waver in my purpose. It is never so with menwhose thoughts are deep and strong. To resolve was the arduous step--onceresolved, and I cast not a look behind. Houseman left me for the present. I could not rest in my chamber. I went forth and walked about the town;the night deepened--I saw the lights in each house withdrawn, one by one, and at length all was hushed--Silence and Sleep kept court over theabodes of men. That stillness--that quiet--that sabbath from care andtoil--how deeply it sank into my heart! Nature never seemed to me to makeso dread a pause. I felt as if I and my intended victim had been leftalone in the world. I had wrapped myself above fear into a high andpreternatural madness of mind. I looked on the deed I was about to commitas a great and solemn sacrifice to Knowledge, whose Priest I was. Thevery silence breathed to me of a stern and awful sanctity--the repose, not of the charnel-house, but the altar. I heard the clock strike hourafter hour, but I neither faltered nor grew impatient. My mind lay hushedin its design. 

"The Moon came out, but with a pale and sickly countenance. Winter wasaround the earth; the snow, which had been falling towards eve, lay deepupon the ground; and the Frost seemed to lock the Universal Nature intothe same calm and deadness which had taken possession of my soul. 

"Houseman was to have come to me at midnight, just before Clarke left hishouse, but it was nearly two hours after that time ere he arrived. I wasthen walking to and fro before my own door; I saw that he was not alone, but with Clarke. 'Ha!' said he, 'this is fortunate, I see you are justgoing home. You were engaged, I recollect, at some distance from thetown, and have, I suppose, just returned. Will you admit Mr. Clarke andmyself for a short time--for to tell you the truth, ' said he, in a lowervoice--'The watchman is about, and we must not be seen by him! I havetold Clarke that he may trust you, we are relatives!'

"Clarke, who seemed strangely credulous and indifferent, considering thecharacter of his associate, --but those whom fate destroys she firstblinds, made the same request in a careless tone, assigning the samecause. Unwillingly, I opened the door and admitted them. We went up to mychamber. Clarke spoke with the utmost unconcern of the fraud he purposed, and with a heartlessness that made my veins boil, of the poor victim hisbrutality had destroyed. All this was as iron bands round my purpose. They stayed for nearly an hour, for the watchman remained some time inthat beat--and then Houseman asked me to accompany them a little way outof the town. Clarke seconded the request. We walked forth; the rest--whyneed I repeat? Houseman lied in the court; my hand struck--but notthedeath-blow: yet, from that hour, I have never given that right hand inpledge of love or friendship--the curse of memory has clung to it. 

"We shared our booty; mine I buried, for the present. Houseman haddealings with a gipsy hag, and through her aid removed his share, atonce, to London. And now, mark what poor strugglers we are in the eternalweb of destiny! Three days after that deed, a relation who neglected mein life, died, and left me wealth!--wealth at least to me!--Wealth, greater than that for which I had . . . ! The news fell on me as athunderbolt. Had I waited but three little days! Great God! when theytold me, --I thought I heard the devils laugh out at the fool who hadboasted wisdom! Tell me not now of our free will--we are but the thingsof a neverswerving, an everlasting Necessity!--pre-ordered to our doom--bound to a wheel that whirls us on till it touches the point at which weare crushed! Had I waited but three days, three little days!--Had but adream been sent me, had but my heart cried within me, --'Thou hastsuffered long, tarry yet!' [Note: Aram has hitherto been suffered to tellhis own tale without comment or interruption. The chain of reasonings, the metaphysical labyrinth of defence and motive, which he wrought aroundhis act, it was, in justice to him, necessary to give at length, in orderto throw a clearer light on his character--and lighten, perhaps, in somemeasure the heinousness of his crime. No moral can be more impressivethan that which teaches how man can entangle himself in his own sophisms--that moral is better, viewed aright, than volumes of homilies. But hereI must pause for one moment, to bid the reader mark, that that eventwhich confirmed Aram in the bewildering doctrines of his fatalism, oughtrather to inculcate the Divine virtue--the foundation of all virtues, Heathen or Christian--that which Epictetus made clear, and Christ sacred--FORTITUDE. The reader will note, that the answer to the reasonings thatprobably convinced the mind of Aram, and blinded him to his crime, may befound in the change of feelings by which the crime was followed. I mustapologize for this interruption--it seemed to me advisable in thisplace;--though, in general, the moment we begin to inculcate morality asa science, we ought to discard moralizing as a method. ] No, it was forthis, for the guilt and its penance, for the wasted life and the shamefuldeath--with all my thirst for good, my dreams of glory--that I was born, that I was marked from my first sleep in the cradle!

"The disappearance of Clarke of course created great excitement;--thosewhom he had over-reached had naturally an interest in discovering him. Some vague surmises that he might have been made away with, were rumouredabroad. Houseman and I, owing to some concurrence of circumstance, wereexamined, --not that suspicion attached to me before or after theexamination. That ceremony ended in nothing. Houseman did not betrayhimself; and I, who from a boy had mastered my passions, could masteralso the nerves, which are the passions' puppets: but I read in the faceof the woman with whom I lodged, that I was suspected. Houseman told methat she had openly expressed her suspicion to him; nay, he entertainedsome design against her life, which he naturally abandoned on quittingthe town. This he did soon afterwards. I did not linger long behind him. I dug up my jewels, --I concealed them about me, and departed on foot toScotland. There I converted my booty into money. And now I was abovewant--was I at rest? Not yet. I felt urged on to wander--Cain's cursedescends to Cain's children. I travelled for some considerable time, --Isaw men and cities, and I opened a new volume in my kind. It was strange;but before the deed, I was as a child in the ways of the world, and achild, despite my knowledge, might have duped me. The moment after it, alight broke upon me, --it seemed as if my eyes were touched with a charm, and rendered capable of piercing the hearts of men! Yes, it was a charm--a new charm--it was Suspicion! I now practised myself in the use ofarms, --they made my sole companions. Peaceful, as I seemed to the world, I felt there was that eternally within me with which the world was atwar. 

"I do not deceive you. I did not feel what men call remorse! Having onceconvinced myself that I had removed from the earth a thing that injuredand soiled its tribes, --that I had in crushing one worthless life, butwithout crushing one virtue--one feeling--one thought that could benefitothers, strode to a glorious end;--having once convinced myself of this, I was not weak enough to feel a vague remorse for a deed I would notallow, in my case, to be a crime. I did not feel remorse, but I feltregret. The thought that had I waited three days I might have been saved, not from guilt, but from the chance of shame, --from the degradation ofsinking to Houseman's equal--of feeling that man had the power to hurtme--that I was no longer above the reach of human malice, or humancuriosity--that I was made a slave to my own secret--that I was no longerlord of my heart, to shew or to conceal it--that at any hour, in thepossession of honours, by the hearth of love, I might be dragged forthand proclaimed a murderer--that I held my life, my reputation, at thebreath of accident--that in the moment I least dreamed of, the earthmight yield its dead, and the gibbet demand its victim;--this could Ifeel--all this--and not make a spectre of the past:--a spectre thatwalked by my side--that slept at my bed--that rose from my books--thatglided between me and the stars of heaven, that stole along the flowers, and withered their sweet breath--that whispered in my ear, 'Toil, fool, and be wise; the gift of wisdom is to place us above the reach offortune, but thou art her veriest minion!' Yes; I paused at last from mywanderings, and surrounded myself with books, and knowledge became oncemore to me what it had been, a thirst; but not what it had been, areward. I occupied my thoughts--I laid up new hoards within my mind--Ilooked around, and I saw few whose stores were like my own, --but where, with the passion for wisdom still alive within me--where was that oncemore ardent desire which had cheated me across so dark a chasm betweenyouth and manhood--between past and present life--the desire of applyingthat wisdom to the service of mankind? Gone--dead--buried for ever in mybosom, with the thousand dreams that had perished before it! When thedeed was done, mankind seemed suddenly to have grown my foes. I lookedupon them with other eyes. I knew that I carried within, that secretwhich, if bared to-day, would make them loath and hate me, --yea, though Icoined my future life into one series of benefits on them and theirposterity! Was not this thought enough to quell my ardour--to chillactivity into rest? The more I might toil, the brighter honours I mightwin--the greater services I might bestow on the world, the more dread andfearful might be my fall at last! I might be but piling up the scaffoldfrom which I was to be hurled! Possessed by these thoughts, a new view ofhuman affairs succeeded to my old aspirings;--the moment a man feels thatan object has ceased to charm, he reconciles himself by reasonings to hisloss. 'Why, ' said I; 'why flatter myself that I can serve--that I canenlighten mankind? Are we fully sure that individual wisdom has ever, inreality, done so? Are we really better because Newton lived, and happierbecause Bacon thought?' This dampening and frozen line of reflectionpleased the present state of my mind more than the warm and yearningenthusiasm it had formerly nourished. Mere worldly ambition from a boy Ihad disdained;--the true worth of sceptres and crowns--the inquietude ofpower--the humiliations of vanity--had never been disguised from mysight. Intellectual ambition had inspired me. I now regarded it equallyas a delusion. I coveted light solely for my own soul to bathe in. Iwould have drawn down the Promethean fire; but I would no longer havegiven to man what it was in the power of circumstance alone (which Icould control not) to make his enlightener or his ruin--his blessing orhis curse. Yes, I loved--I love still;--could I live for ever, I shouldfor ever love knowledge! It is a companion--a solace--a pursuit--aLethe. But, no more!--oh! never more for me was the bright ambition thatmakes knowledge a means, not end. As, contrary to the vulgar notion, thebee is said to gather her honey unprescient of the winter, labouringwithout a motive, save the labour, I went on, year after year, hiving allthat the earth presented to my toils, and asking not to what use. I hadrushed into a dread world, that I might indulge a dream. Lo! the dreamwas fled; but I could not retrace my steps. 

"Rest now became to me the sole to kalon--the sole charm of existence. Igrew enamoured of the doctrine of those old mystics, who have placedhappiness only in an even and balanced quietude. And where but in utterloneliness was that quietude to be enjoyed? I no longer wondered that menin former times, when consumed by the recollection of some hauntingguilt, fled to the desert and became hermits. Tranquillity and Solitudeare the only soothers of a memory deeply troubled--light griefs fly tothe crowd--fierce thoughts must battle themselves to rest. Many years hadflown, and I had made my home in many places. All that was turbulent, ifnot all that was unquiet, in my recollections, had died away. Time hadlulled me into a sense of security. I breathed more freely. I sometimesstole from the past. Since I had quitted Knaresbro' chance had thrown itin my power frequently to serve my brethren--not by wisdom, but bycharity or courage--by individual acts that it soothed me to remember. Ifthe grand aim of enlightening a world was gone--if to so enlarged abenevolence had succeeded apathy or despair, still the man, the humanman, clung to my heart--still was I as prone to pity--as prompt todefend--as glad to cheer, whenever the vicissitudes of life afforded methe occasion; and to poverty, most of all, my hand never closed. For oh!what a terrible devil creeps into that man's soul, who sees famine at hisdoor! One tender act and how many black designs, struggling into lifewithin, you may crush for ever! He who deems the world his foe, convincehim that he has one friend, and it is like snatching a dagger from hishand!

"I came to a beautiful and remote part of the country. Walter Lester, Icame to Grassdale!--the enchanting scenery around--the sequestered anddeep retirement of the place arrested me at once. 'And among thesevalleys, ' I said, 'will I linger out the rest of my life, and among thesequiet graves shall mine be dug, and my secret shall die with me!'

"I rented the lonely house in which I dwelt when you first knew me--thither I transported my books and instruments of science. I formed newprojects in the vast empire of wisdom, and a deep quiet, almost amountingto content, fell like a sweet sleep upon my soul!

"In this state of mind, the most free from memory and from the desire topierce the future that I had known for twelve years, I first saw MadelineLester. Even with that first time a sudden and heavenly light seemed todawn upon me. Her face--its still--its serene--its touching beauty, shone upon me like a vision. My heart warmed as I saw it--my pulse seemedto wake from its even slowness. I was young once more. Young! the youth, the freshness, the ardour--not of the frame only, but of the soul. But Ithen only saw, or spoke to her--scarce knew her--not loved her--nor wasit often that we met. When we did so, I felt haunted, as by a holyspirit, for the rest of the day--an unquiet yet delicious emotionagitated all within--the south wind stirred the dark waters of my mind, but it passed, and all became hushed again. It was not for two years fromthe time we first saw each other, that accident brought us closelytogether. I pass over the rest. We loved! Yet oh what struggles were mineduring the progress of that love! How unnatural did it seem to me toyield to a passion that united me with my kind; and as I loved her more, how far more urgent grew my fear of the future! That which had almostslept before awoke again to terrible life. The soil that covered the pastmight be riven, the dead awake, and that ghastly chasm separate me forever from HER! What a doom, too, might I bring upon that breast which hadbegun so confidingly to love me! Often--often I resolved to fly--toforsake her--to seek some desert spot in the distant parts of the world, and never to be betrayed again into human emotions! But as the birdflutters in the net, as the hare doubles from its pursuers, I did butwrestle--I did but trifle--with an irresistible doom. Mark how strangeare the coincidences of fate--fate that gives us warnings and takes awaythe power to obey them--the idle prophetess--the juggling fiend! On thesame evening that brought me acquainted with Madeline Lester, Houseman, led by schemes of fraud and violence into that part of the country, discovered and sought me! Imagine my feelings, when in the hush of nightI opened the door of my lonely home to his summons, and by the light ofthat moon which had witnessed so never-to-be-forgotten a companionshipbetween us, beheld my accomplice in murder after the lapse of so manyyears. Time and a course of vice had changed and hardened, and loweredhis nature; and in the power, at the will of that nature, I beheld myselfabruptly placed. He passed that night under my roof. He was poor. I gavehim what was in my hands. He promised to leave that part of England--toseek me no more. 

"The next day I could not bear my own thoughts, the revulsion was toosudden, too full of turbulent, fierce, torturing emotions; I fled for ashort relief to the house to which Madeline's father had invited me. Butin vain I sought, by wine, by converse, by human voices, human kindness, to fly the ghost that had been raised from the grave of time. I soonreturned to my own thoughts. I resolved to wrap myself once more in thesolitude of my heart. But let me not repeat what I have said before, somewhat prematurely, in my narrative. I resolved--I struggled in vain, Fate had ordained, that the sweet life of Madeline Lester should witherbeneath the poison tree of mine. Houseman sought me again, and now cameon the humbling part of crime, its low calculations, its poor defence, its paltry trickery, its mean hypocrisy! They made my chiefest penance! Iwas to evade, to beguile, to buy into silence, this rude and despisedruffian. No matter now to repeat how this task was fulfilled; Isurrendered nearly my all, on the condition of his leaving England forever: not till I thought that condition already fulfilled, till the dayhad passed on which he should have left England, did I consent to allowMadeline's fate to be irrevocably woven with mine. Fool that I was, as iflaws could bind us closer than love had done already. 

"How often, when the soul sins, are her loftiest feelings punishedthrough her lowest! To me, lone, rapt, for ever on the wing to unearthlyspeculation, galling and humbling was it indeed, to be suddenly calledfrom the eminence of thought, to barter, in pounds and pence, for life, and with one like Houseman. These are the curses that deepen the tragedyof life, by grinding down our pride. But I wander back to what I havebefore said. I was to marry Madeline, --I was once more poor, but want didnot rise before me; I had succeeded in obtaining the promise of acompetence from one whom you know. For that I had once forced from mykind, I asked now, but not with the spirit of the beggar, but of the justclaimant, and in that spirit it was granted. And now I was really happy;Houseman I believed removed for ever from my path; Madeline was about tobe mine: I surrendered myself to love, and blind and deluded, I wanderedon, and awoke on the brink of that precipice into which I am about toplunge. You know the rest. But oh! what now was my horror! It had notbeen a mere worthless, isolated unit in creation that I had blotted outof the sum of life. I had shed the blood of his brother whose child wasmy betrothed! Mysterious avenger--weird and relentless fate! How, when Ideemed myself the farthest from her, had I been sinking into her grasp!Mark, young man, there is a moral here that few preachers can teach thee!Mark. Men rarely violate the individual rule in comparison to theirviolation of general rules. It is in the latter that we deceive bysophisms which seem truths. In the individual instance it was easy for meto deem that I had committed no crime. I had destroyed a man, noxious tothe world; with the wealth by which he afflicted society I had been themeans of blessing many; in the individual consequences mankind had reallygained by my deed; the general consequence I had overlooked till now, andnow it flashed upon me. The scales fell from my eyes, and I knew myselffor what I was! All my calculations were dashed to the ground at once, for what had been all the good I had proposed to do--the good I had done--compared to the anguish I now inflicted on your house? Was your fathermy only victim? Madeline, have I not murdered her also? Lester, have Inot shaken the sands in his glass? You, too, have I not blasted the primeand glory of your years? How incalculable--how measureless--how viewlessthe consequences of one crime, even when we think we have weighed themall with scales that would have turned with a hair's weight! Yes; beforeI had felt no remorse. I felt it now. I had acknowledged no crime, andnow crime seemed the essence itself of my soul. The Theban's fate, whichhad seemed to the men of old the most terrible of human destinies, wasmine. The crime--the discovery--the irremediable despair--hear me, asthe voice of a man who is on the brink of a world, the awful nature ofwhich Reason cannot pierce--hear me! when your heart tempts to somewandering from the line allotted to the rest of men, and whispers 'Thismay be crime in others, but is not so in thee'--tremble; cling fast, fastto the path you are lured to leave. Remember me!

"But in this state of mind I was yet forced to play the hypocrite. Had Ibeen alone in the world--had Madeline and Lester not been to me what theywere, I might have avowed my deed and my motives--I might have spoken outto the hearts of men--I might have poured forth the gloomy tale ofreasonings and of temptings, in which we lose sense, and become thearchfiend's tools! But while their eyes were on me; while their lives andhearts were set on my acquittal, my struggle against truth was less formyself than them. For them I girded up my soul, a villain I was; and forthem, a bold, a crafty, a dexterous, villain I became! My defencefulfilled its end: Madeline died without distrusting the innocence of himshe loved. Lester, unless you betray me, will die in the same belief. Intruth, since the arts of hypocrisy have been commenced, the pride ofconsistency would have made it sweet to me to leave the world in a likeerror, or at least in doubt. For you I conquer that desire, the proudman's last frailty. And now my tale is done. From what passes at thisinstant within my heart, I lift not the veil! Whether beneath, bedespair, or hope, or fiery emotions, or one settled and ominous calm, matters not. My last hours shall not belie my life: on the verge of deathI will not play the dastard, and tremble at the Dim Unknown. The thirst, the dream, the passion of my youth, yet lives; and burns to learn thesublime and shaded mysteries that are banned Mortality. Perhaps I am notwithout a hope that the Great and Unseen Spirit, whose emanation withinme I have nursed and worshipped, though erringly and in vain, may see inhis fallen creature one bewildered by his reason rather than yielding tohis vices. The guide I received from Heaven betrayed me, and I was lost;but I have not plunged wittingly from crime to crime. Against one guiltydeed, some good, and much suffering may be set: and, dim and afar offfrom my allotted bourne, I may behold in her glorious home the starredface of her who taught me to love, and who, even there, could scarce beblessed without shedding the light of her divine forgiveness upon me. Enough! ere you break this seal, my doom rests not with man nor earth. The burning desires I have known--the resplendent visions I have nursed--the sublime aspirings that have lifted me so often from sense and clay--these tell me, that, whether for good or ill--I am the thing of anImmortality, and the creature of a God! As men of the old wisdom drewtheir garments around their face, and sat down collectedly to die, I wrapmyself in the settled resignation of a soul firm to the last, and takingnot from man's vengeance even the method of its dismissal. The courses ofmy life I swayed with my own hand: from my own hand shall come the mannerand moment of my death! "Eugene Aram. "

On the day after that evening in which Aram had given the aboveconfession to Walter Lester;--on the day of execution, when they enteredthe condemned cell, they found the prisoner lying on the bed; and whenthey approached to take off the irons, they found, that he neitherstirred nor answered to their call. They attempted to raise him, and hethen uttered some words in a faint voice. They perceived that he wascovered with blood. He had opened his veins in two places in the arm witha sharp instrument he had some time since concealed. A surgeon wasinstantly sent for, and by the customary applications the prisoner insome measure was brought to himself. Resolved not to defraud the law ofits victim, they bore him, though he appeared unconscious of all around, to the fatal spot. But when he arrived at that dread place, his sensesuddenly seemed to return. He looked hastily round the throng that swayedand murmured below, and a faint flush rose to his cheek: he cast his eyesimpatiently above, and breathed hard and convulsively. The direpreparations were made, completed; but the prisoner drew back for aninstant--was it from mortal fear? He motioned to the Clergyman toapproach, as if about to whisper some last request in his ear. Theclergyman bowed his head, --there was a minute's awful pause--Aram seemedto struggle as for words, when, suddenly throwing himself back, a brighttriumphant smile flashed over his whole face. With that smile, thehaughty Spirit passed away, and the law's last indignity was wreaked upona breathless corpse!

 CHAPTER VIII. 

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

 "The lopped tree in time may grow again, Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; The sorriest wight may find release from pain, The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: Time goes by turns, and chances change by course From foul to fair. " --Robert Southwell, the Jesuit. 

Sometimes towards the end of a gloomy day, the sun before but dimlyvisible, breaks suddenly out, and clothes the landscape with a smile;then beneath your eye, which during the clouds and sadness of day, hadsought only the chief features of the prospect around, (some grey hill, or rising spire, or sweeping wood, ) the less prominent, yet not lesslovely features of the scene, mellow forth into view; over them, perhaps, the sun sets with a happier and richer glow than over the rest of Nature;and thus they leave upon your mind its last grateful impression, andconsole you for the gloom and sadness which the parting light they catchand reflect, dispels. 

Just so in our tale; it continues not in cloud and sorrow to the last;some little ray breaks forth at the close; in that ray, characters whichbefore received but a slight portion of the interest that prouder anddarker ones engrossed, are thrown into light, and cheer from the mind ofhim who hath watched and tarried with us till now, --we will not say allthe sadness that may perhaps linger on his memory, --and yet something ofthe gloom. 

It was some years after the date of the last event we have recorded, andit was a fine warm noon in the happy month of May, when a horseman wasslowly riding through the long--straggling--village of Grassdale. He wasa man, though in the prime of youth, (for he might yet want some twoyears of thirty, ) that bore the steady and earnest air of one who hasseen not sparingly of the world; his eye keen but tranquil, his sunburntthough handsome features, which either exertion or thought, or care, haddespoiled of the roundness of their early contour, leaving the cheeksomewhat sunken, and the lines somewhat marked, were impressed with agrave, and at that moment with a melancholy and soft expression; and now, as his horse proceeded slowly through the green lane, which in everyvista gave glimpses of rich verdant valleys, the sparkling river, or theorchard ripe with the fragrant blossoms of spring; his gaze lost the calmexpression it habitually wore, and betrayed how busily Remembrance was atwork. The dress of the horseman was of foreign fashion, and at that day, when the garb still denoted the calling, sufficiently military to showthe profession he had belonged to. And well did the garb become the shortdark moustache, the sinewy chest and length of limb of the younghorseman: recommendations, the two latter, not despised in the court ofthe great Frederic of Prussia, in whose service he had borne arms. He hadcommenced his career in that battle terminating in the signal defeat ofthe bold Daun, when the fortunes of that gallant general paled at lastbefore the star of the greatest of modern kings. The peace of 1763 hadleft Prussia in the quiet enjoyment of the glory she had obtained, andthe young Englishman took the advantage it afforded him of seeing as atraveller, not despoiler, the rest of Europe. 

The adventure and the excitement of travel pleased and left him even nowuncertain whether or not his present return to England would be for long. He had not been a week returned, and to this part of his native countryhe had hastened at once. 

He checked his horse as he now past the memorable sign, that yet swungbefore the door of Peter Dealtry; and there, under the shade of the broadtree, now budding into all its tenderest verdure, a pedestrian wayfarersate enjoying the rest and coolness of his shelter. Our horseman cast alook at the open door, across which, in the bustle of housewifery, femaleforms now and then glanced and vanished, and presently he saw Peterhimself saunter forth to chat with the traveller beneath his tree. AndPeter Dealtry was the same as ever, only he seemed perhaps shorter andthinner than of old, as if Time did not so much break as wear mine host'sslender person gradually away. 

The horseman gazed for a moment, but observing Peter return the gaze, heturned aside his head, and putting his horse into a canter, soon passedout of cognizance of the Spotted Dog. 

He now came in sight of the neat white cottage of the old Corporal, andthere, leaning over the pale, a crutch under one arm, and his friendlypipe in one corner of his shrewd mouth, was the Corporal himself. Perchedupon the railing in a semi-doze, the ears down, the eyes closed, sat alarge brown cat: poor Jacobina, it was not thyself! death spares neithercat nor king; but thy virtues lived in thy grandchild; and thygrandchild, (as age brings dotage, ) was loved even more than thee by theworthy Corporal. Long may thy race flourish, for at this day it is notextinct. Nature rarely inflicts barrenness on the feline tribe; they areessentially made for love, and love's soft cares, and a cat's lineageoutlives the lineage of kaisars. 

At the sound of hoofs the Corporal turned his head, and he looked longand wistfully at the horseman, as, relaxing his horse's pace into a walk, our traveller rode slowly on. 

"'Fore George, " muttered the Corporal, "a fine man--a very fine man;'bout my inches--augh!"

A smile, but a very faint smile, crossed the lip of the horseman, as hegazed on the figure of the stalwart Corporal. 

"He eyes me hard, " thought he; "yet he does not seem to remember me. Imust be greatly changed. 'Tis fortunate, however, that I am notrecognised: fain, indeed, at this time, would I come and go unnoticed andalone. "

The horseman fell into a reverie, which was broken by the murmur of thesunny rivulet, fretting over each little obstacle it met, the happy andspoiled child of Nature! That murmur rang on the horseman's ear like avoice from his boyhood, how familiar was it, how dear! No tone of music--no haunting air, ever recalled so rushing a host of memories andassociations as that simple, restless, everlasting sound! Everlasting!--all had changed, --the trees had sprung up or decayed, --some cottagesaround were ruins, --some new and unfamiliar ones supplied their place, and on the stranger himself--on all those whom the sound recalled to hisheart, Time had been, indeed, at work, but with the same exulting boundand happy voice that little brook leaped along its way. Ages hence, maythe course be as glad, and the murmur as full of mirth! They are blessedthings, those remote and unchanging streams!--they fill us with the samelove as if they were living creatures!--and in a green corner of theworld there is one that, for my part, I never see without forgettingmyself to tears--tears that I would not lose for a king's ransom; tearsthat no other sight or sound could call from their source; tears of whataffection, what soft regret; tears that leave me for days afterwards, abetter and a kinder man!

The traveller, after a brief pause, continued his road; and now he camefull upon the old Manorhouse. The weeds were grown up in the garden, themossed paling was broken in many places, the house itself was shut up, and the sun glanced on the deep-sunk casements without finding its wayinto the desolate interior. High above the old hospitable gate hung aboard, anouncing that the house was for sale, and referring the curious, or the speculating, to the attorney of the neighbouring town. Thehorseman sighed heavily, and muttered to himself; then turning up theroad that led to the back entrance, he came into the court-yard, andleading his horse into an empty stable, he proceeded on foot through thedismantled premises, pausing with every moment, and holding a sad andever-changing commune with himself. An old woman, a stranger to him, wasthe sole inmate of the house, and imagining he came to buy, or at least, examine, she conducted him through the house, pointing out itsadvantages, and lamenting its dilapidated state. Our traveller scarcelyheard her, --but when he came to one room which he would not enter tillthe last, (it was the little parlour in which the once happy family hadbeen wont to sit, ) he sank down in the chair that had been Lester'shonoured seat, and covering his face with his hands, did not move or lookup for several moments. The old woman gazed at him with surprise. --"Perhaps, Sir, you knew the family, they were greatly beloved. "

The traveller did not answer; but when he rose, he muttered to himself, --"No, the experiment is made in vain! Never, never could I live here again--it must be so--my forefathers' house must pass into a stranger'shands. " With this reflection he hurried from the house, and re-enteringthe garden, turned through a little gate that swung half open on itsshattered hinges, and led into the green and quiet sanctuaries of thedead. The same touching character of deep and undisturbed repose thathallows the country church-yard, --and that more than most--yet broodedthere as when, years ago, it woke his young mind to reflection thenunmingled with regret. 

He passed over the rude mounds of earth that covered the deceased poor, and paused at a tomb of higher, though but of simple pretensions; it wasnot yet discoloured by the dews and seasons, and the short inscriptiontraced upon it was strikingly legible, in comparison with those around. 

 Rowland Lester, Obiit 1760, aet. 64. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. 

By that tomb the traveller remained in undisturbed contemplation for sometime, and when he turned, all the swarthy colour had died from his cheek, his eyes were dim, and the wonted pride of a young man's step and asoldier's bearing, was gone from his mien. 

As he looked up, his eye caught afar, embedded among the soft verdure ofthe spring, one lone and grey house, from whose chimney there rose nosmoke--sad, inhospitable, dismantled as that beside which he now stood;--as if the curse which had fallen on the inmates of either mansion, stillclung to either roof. One hasty glance only, the traveller gave to thesolitary and distant abode, --and then started and quickened his pace. 

On re-entering the stables, the traveller found the Corporal examininghis horse from head to foot with great care and scrupulosity. 

"Good hoofs too, humph!" quoth the Corporal, as he released the frontleg; and, turning round, saw, with some little confusion, the owner ofthe steed he had been honouring with so minute a survey. "Oh, --augh!looking at the beastie, Sir, lest it might have cast a shoe. Thought yourhonour might want some intelligent person to shew you the premises, if sobe you have come to buy; nothing but an old 'oman there; dare say yourhonour does not like old 'omen--augh!"

"The owner is not in these parts?" said the horseman. 

"No, over seas, Sir; a fine young gentleman, but hasty; and--and--butLord bless me! sure--no, it can't be--yes, now you turn--it is--it is myyoung master!" So saying, the old Corporal, roused into affection, hobbled up to the wanderer, and seized and kissed his hand. "Ah, Sir, weshall be glad, indeed, to see you back after such doings. But's allforgotten now, and gone by--augh! Poor Miss Ellinor, how happy she'll beto see your honour. Ah! how she be changed, surely!"

"Changed; ay, I make no doubt! What! does she look in weak health?"

"No; as to that, your honour, she be winsome enough still, " quoth theCorporal, smacking his lips; "I seed her the week afore last, when I wentover to--, for I suppose you knows as she lives there, all alone like, ina small house, with a green rail afore it, and a brass knocker on thedoor, at top of the town, with a fine view of the--hills in front? Well, Sir, I seed her, and mighty handsome she looked, though a little thinnerthan she was; but, for all that, she be greatly changed. "

"How! for the worse?"

"For the worse, indeed, " answered the Corporal, assuming an air ofmelancholy and grave significance; "she be grown religious, Sir, think ofthat--augh--bother--whaugh!"

"Is that all?" said Walter, relieved, and with a slight smile. "And shelives alone?"

"Quite, poor young lady, as if she had made up her mind to be an oldmaid; though I know as how she refused Squire Knyvett of the Grangewaiting for your honour's return, mayhap!"

"Lead out the horse, Bunting; but stay, I am sorry to see you with acrutch; what's the cause? no accident, I trust?"

"Merely rheumatics--will attack the youngest of us; never been quitemyself since I went a travelling with your honour--augh!--without goingto Lunnon arter all. But I shall be stronger next year, I dare to say--!"

"I hope you will, Bunting. And Miss Lester lives alone, you say?"

"Ay; and for all she be so religious, the poor about do bless her veryfootsteps. She does a power of good; she gave me half-a-guinea, yourhonour; an excellent young lady, so sensible like!"

"Thank you; I can tighten the girths!--so!--there, Bunting, there'ssomething for old companion's sake. "

"Thank your honour; you be too good, always was--baugh! But I hopes yourhonour be a coming to live here now; 'twill make things smile agin!"

"No, Bunting, I fear not, " said Walter, spurring through the gates of theyard; "Good day. "

"Augh, then, " cried the Corporal, hobbling breathlessly after him, "if sobe as I shan't see your honour agin, at which I am extramely consarned, will your honour recollect your promise, touching the 'tato ground? Thesteward, Master Bailey, 'od rot him, has clean forgot it--augh!"

"The same old man, Bunting, eh? Well, make your mind easy, it shall bedone. "

"Lord bless your honour's good heart; thankye; and--and"--laying his handon the bridle--"your honour did say, the bit cot should be rent-free. Yousee, your honour, " quoth the Corporal, drawing up with a grave smile, "Imay marry some day or other, and have a large family; and the rent won'tsit so easy then--augh!"

"Let go the rein, Bunting--and consider your house rent-free. "

"And, your honour--and--"

But Walter was already in a brisk trot; and the remaining petitions ofthe Corporal died in empty air. 

"A good day's work, too, " muttered Jacob, hobbling homeward. "What agreen un 'tis still! Never be a man of the world--augh!"

For two hours Walter did not relax the rapidity of his pace; and when hedid so at the descent of a steep hill, a small country town lay beforehim, the sun glittering on its single spire, and lighting up the long, clean, centre street, with the good old-fashioned garden stretchingbehind each house, and detached cottages around, peeping forth here andthere from the blossoms and verdure of the young may. He rode into theyard of the principal inn, and putting up his horse, inquired in a tonethat he persuaded himself was the tone of indifference, for Miss Lester'shouse. 

"John, " said the landlady, (landlord there was none, ) summoning a littleboy of about ten years old--"run on, and shew this gentleman the goodlady's house: and--stay--his honour will excuse you a moment--just takeup the nosegay you cut for her this morning: she loves flowers. Ah! Sir, an excellent young lady is Miss Lester, " continued the hostess, as theboy ran back for the nosegay; "so charitable, so kind, so meek to all. Adversity, they say, softens some characters; but she must always havebeen good. And so religious, Sir, though so young! Well, God bless her!and that every one must say. My boy John, Sir, he is not eleven yet, comenext August--a 'cute boy, calls her the good lady: we now always callher so here. Come, John, that's right. You stay to dine here, Sir? ShallI put down a chicken?"

At the farther extremity of the town stood Miss Lester's dwelling. It wasthe house in which her father had spent his last days; and there she hadcontinued to reside, when left by his death to a small competence, whichWalter, then abroad, had persuaded her, (for her pride was of the rightkind, ) to suffer him, though but slightly, to increase. It was a detachedand small building, standing a little from the road; and Walter pausedfor some moments at the garden-gate, and gazed round him before hefollowed his young guide, who, tripping lightly up the gravel-walk to thedoor, rang the bell, and inquired if Miss Lester was within?

Walter was left for some moments alone in a little parlour:--he requiredthose moments to recover himself from the past that rushed sweepinglyover him. And was it--yes, it was Ellinor that now stood before him!Changed she was, indeed; the slight girl had budded into woman; changedshe was, indeed; the bound had for ever left that step, once so elasticwith hope; the vivacity of the quick, dark eye was soft and quiet; therich colour had given place to a hue fainter, though not less lovely. Butto repeat in verse what is poorly bodied forth in prose--

 "And years had past, and thus they met again; The wind had swept along the flower since then, O'er her fair cheek a paler lustre spread, As if the white rose triumphed o'er the red. No more she walk'd exulting on the air; Light though her step, there was a languour there; No more--her spirit bursting from its bound, -- She stood, like Hebe, scattering smiles around. "

"Ellinor!" said Walter mournfully, "thank God! we meet at last. "

"That voice--that face--my cousin--my dear, dear Walter!"

All reserve--all consciousness fled in the delight of that moment; andEllinor leant her head upon his shoulder, and scarcely felt the kiss thathe pressed upon her lips. 

"And so long absent!" said Ellinor, reproachfully. 

"But did you not tell me that the blow that had fallen on our house hadstricken from you all thoughts of love--had divided us for ever? Andwhat, Ellinor, was England or home with out you?"

"Ah!" said Ellinor, recovering herself, and a deep paleness succeeding tothe warm and delighted flush that had been conjured to her cheek, "Do notrevive the past--I have sought for years--long, solitary, desolateyears, to escape from its dark recollections!"

"You speak wisely, dearest Ellinor; let us assist each other in doing so. We are alone in the world--let us unite our lot. Never, through all Ihave seen and felt, --in the starry nightwatch of camps--in the blaze ofcourts--by the sunny groves of Italy--in the deep forests of the Hartz--never have I forgotten you, my sweet and dear cousin. Your image haslinked itself indissolubly with all I conceived of home and happiness, and a tranquil and peaceful future; and now I return, and see you, andfind you changed, but, oh, how lovely! Ah, let us not part again! Aconsoler, a guide, a soother, father, brother, husband, --all this myheart whispers I could be to you!"

Ellinor turned away her face, but her heart was very full. The solitaryyears that had passed over her since they last met, rose up before her. The only living image that had mingled through those years with thedreams of the departed, was his who now knelt at her feet;--her solefriend--her sole relative--her first--her last love! Of all the world, hewas the only one with whom she could recur to the past; on whom she mightrepose her bruised, but still unconquered affections. 

And Walter knew by that blush--that sigh--that tear, that he wasremembered--that he was beloved--that his cousin was his own at last!

"But before you end, " said my friend, to whom I shewed the above pages, originally concluding my tale with the last sentence, "you must, it is acomfortable and orthodox old fashion, tell us a little about the fate ofthe other persons, to whom you have introduced us;--the wretchHouseman?"--

"True; in the mysterious course of mortal affairs, the greater villainhad escaped, the more generous and redeemed one fallen. But thoughHouseman died without violence, died in his bed, as honest men die, wecan scarcely believe that his life was not punishment enough. He lived instrict seclusion--the seclusion of poverty, and maintained himself bydressing flax. His life was several times attempted by the mob, for hewas an object of universal execration and horror; and even ten yearsafterwards, when he died, his body was buried in secret at the dead ofnight, for the hatred of the world survived him!"

"And the Corporal, did he marry in his old age?"

"History telleth of one Jacob Bunting, whose wife, several years youngerthan himself, played him certain sorry pranks with the young curate ofthe parish: the said Jacob, knowing nothing thereof, but furnishing greatoblectation unto his neighbours, by boasting that he turned an excellentpenny by selling poultry to his reverence above market prices, --'ForBessy, my girl, I'm a man of the world--augh!'"

"Contented! a suitable fate for the old dog--But Peter Dealtry?"

"Of Peter Dealtry know we nothing more, save that we have seen atGrassdale church-yard, a small tombstone inscribed to his memory, withthe following sacred poesy thereto appended, --

 "'We flourish, saith the holy text One hour, and are cut down the next: I was like grass but yesterday, But Death has mowed me into hay. '"

"And his namesake, Sir Peter Grindlescrew Hales?"

"Went through a long life, honoured and respected, but met with domesticmisfortunes in old age. His eldest son married a maid servant, and hisyoungest daughter--"

"Eloped with the groom?"

"By no means, --with a young spendthrift;--the very picture of what SirPeter was in his youth: they were both disinherited, and Sir Peter diedin the arms of his eight remaining children, seven of whom never forgavehis memory for not being the eighth, viz. Chief heir. "

"And his cotemporary, John Courtland, the non-hypochondriac?"

"Died of sudden suffocation, as he was crossing Hounslow Heath. "

"But Lord--?"

"Lived to a great age; his last days, owing to growing infirmities, werespent out of the world; every one pitied him, --it was the happiest timeof his life!"

"Dame Darkmans?"

"Was found dead in her bed, from over fatigue, it was supposed, in makingmerry at the funeral of a young girl on the previous day. "

"Well!--hem, --and so Walter and his cousin were really married; and didthey never return to the old Manor-house?"

"No; the memory that is allied only to melancholy, grows sweet withyears, and hallows the spot which it haunts; not so the memory allied todread, terror, and something too of shame. Walter sold the property withsome pangs of natural regret; after his marriage with Ellinor he returnedabroad for some time, but finally settling in England, engaged in activelife, and left to his posterity a name they still honour; and to hiscountry, the memory of some services that will not lightly pass away. "

But one dread and gloomy remembrance never forsook his mind, andexercised the most powerful influence over the actions and motives of hislife. In every emergency, in every temptation, there rose to his eyes thefate of him so gifted, so noble in much, so formed for greatness in allthings, blasted by one crime--self-sought, but self-denied; a crime, theoffspring of bewildered reasonings--all the while speculating uponvirtue. And that fate revealing the darker secrets of our kind, in whichthe true science of morals in chiefly found, taught him the twofoldlesson, caution for himself, and charity for others. He knew henceforththat even the criminal is not all evil; the angel within us is not easilyexpelled; it survives sin, ay, and many sins, and leaves us sometimes inamaze and marvel, at the good that lingers round the heart even of thehardiest offender. 

And Ellinor clung with more than revived affection to one with whose lotshe was now allied. Walter was her last tie upon earth, and in him shelearnt, day by day, more lavishly to treasure up her heart. Adversity andtrial had ennobled the character of both; and she who had so long seen inher cousin all she could love, beheld now in her husband that greater andmore enduring spell--all that she could venerate and admire. A certainreligious fervour, in which, after the calamities of her family, she hadindulged, continued with her to the last; but, (softened by human ties, and the reciprocation of earthly duties and affections, ) it wasfortunately preserved either from the undue enthusiasm or the undueausterity into which it would otherwise, in all likelihood, have merged. What remained, however, uniting her most cheerful thoughts with somethingserious, and the happiest moments of the present with the dim and solemnforecast of the future, elevated her nature, not depressed, and madeitself visible rather in tender than in sombre, hues. And it was sweetwhen the thought of Madeline and her father came across her, to recur atonce for consolation to that Heaven in which she believed their tearswere dried, and their past sorrows but a forgotten dream! There is, indeed, a time of life when these reflections make our chief, though amelancholy, pleasure. As we grow older, and sometimes a hope, sometimes afriend, is shivered from our path, the thought of an immortality willpress itself forcibly upon us! and there, by little and little, as theant piles grain after grain, the garners of a future sustenance, we learnto carry our hopes, and harvest, as it were, our wishes. 

Our cousins then were happy. Happy, for they loved one another entirely;and on those who do so love, I sometimes think, that, barring physicalpain and extreme poverty, the ills of life fall with but idle malice. Yes, they were happy in spite of the past, and in defiance of the future. 

"I am satisfied then, " said my friend, --"and your tale is fairly done!"

And now, Reader, farewell! If, sometimes as thou hast gone with me tothis our parting spot, thou hast suffered thy companion to win themastery over thine interest, to flash now on thy convictions, to touchnow thy heart, to guide thy hope, to excite thy anxiety, to gain evenalmost to the sources of thy tears--then is there a tie between thee andme which cannot readily be broken! And when thou hearest the malice thatwrongs affect the candour which should judge, thou wilt be surprised tofeel how unconsciously He who has, even in a tale, once wound himselfaround those feelings not daily excited, can find in thy sympathies thedefence, or, in thy charity the indulgence, --of a friend!