THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OE CALIFORNIA 
 
 IRVINE 
 
 GIFT OF 
 MR. WARREN STURTEVANT
 
 UB9ARV 
 
 California^
 
 EUGENE ARAM
 
 EUCF.NE AKAM.
 
 EUGENE ARAM 
 
 A TALE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD BULWER LYTTON 
 
 (LORD LYTTON) 
 
 " Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, 
 Our fatal Shadows that walk by us still. 
 ***** 
 
 * * * All things that are 
 
 Made for our general uses are at war 
 E'en we among ourselves ! " 
 
 JOHN FLETCHER, upon "An Honest Man's Fortune. 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 
 LONDON : BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL 
 NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE
 
 TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., 
 
 &C., &C. 
 
 SIR, It has long been my ambition to add some humble 
 tribute to the offerings laid upon the shrine of your genius. At 
 each succeeding book that I have given to the world, I have 
 paused to consider if it were worthy to be inscribed with 
 your great name, and at each I have played the procrastinator, 
 and hoped for that morrow of better desert which never came. 
 But defluat amnis, the time runs on and I am tired of waiting 
 for the ford which the tides refuse. I seize, then, the present 
 opportunity, not as the best, but as the only one I can be sure 
 of commanding, to express that affectionate admiration with 
 which you have inspired me in common with all your con- 
 temporaries, and which a French writer has not ungracefully 
 termed "the happiest prerogative of genius." As a Poet, 
 and as a Novelist, your fame has attained to that height in 
 which praise has become superfluous ; but in the character 
 of the writer there seems to me a yet higher claim to 
 veneration than in that of the writings. The example 
 your genius sets us, who can emulate ? the example your 
 moderation bequeaths to us, who shall forget ? That nature 
 must indeed be gentle which has conciliated the envy that 
 pursues intellectual greatness, and left without an enemy a 
 man who has no living equal in renown.
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 You have gone for a while from the scenes you have 
 immortalised, to regain, we trust, the health which has been 
 impaired by your noble labours, or by the manly struggles 
 with adverse fortunes, which have not found the frame as 
 indomitable as the mind. Take with you the prayers of all 
 whom your genius, with playful art, has soothed in sickness 
 or has strengthened, with generous precepts, against the 
 calamities of life. 1 
 
 " Navis qure tibi creditum 
 Dcbes Virgilitim 
 Reddaz inco: ;mem 1 " 
 
 You, I feel assured, will not deem it presumptuous in one 
 who, to that bright and undying flame which now streams 
 from the grey hills of Scotland, the last halo with which 
 you have crowned her literary glories, has turned from his 
 first childhood with a deep and unrelaxing devotion ; you, 
 I feel assured, will not deem it presumptuous in him to 
 inscribe an idle work with your illustrious name : a work 
 which, however worthless in itself, assumes something of 
 value in his eyes when thus rendered a tribute of respect to 
 you. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF " EUGENE ARAM." 
 
 LOKDO!*, December 22, 1831. 
 
 1 Written at the time of Sir \V. Scott's yisit to Italy after the great blow to hu 
 Health and fortunes. 
 *l"p, ti>fu owe** to at Virgil restore in safety him whom we entrusted tc the*.
 
 PREFACE 
 TO THE EDITION OF 1831, 
 
 SINCE deal Reader, I last addressed thee, in PAUL 
 CLIFFOPD, nearly two years have elapsed, and somewhat 
 more than four years since, in PELHAM, our familiarity first 
 began. The Tale which I now submit to thee differs equally 
 from the last as from the first of those works ; for, of the 
 two evils, perhaps it is even better to disappoint thee in a new 
 style, than to weary thee with an old. With the facts on which 
 the tale of EUGENE ARAM is founded, I have exercised the 
 common and fair license of writers of fiction : it is chiefly the 
 more homely parts of the real story that have been altered ; 
 and for what I have added, and what omitted, I have the 
 sanction of all established authorities, who have taken greater 
 liberties with characters yet more recent, and far more pro- 
 tected by historical recollections. The book was, for the most 
 part, written in the early part of the year, when the interest 
 which the task created in the Author was undivided by other 
 subjects of excitement, and he had leisure enough not only 
 to be nescio quid meditans nuganim, but also to be totus in 
 ittbl* 
 
 I originally intended to adapt the story of Eugene Aram to 
 
 1 Not only to be meditating I know not \vhat of trifles, but also to be wholly 
 engaged on them.
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 the Stage. That design was abandoned when more than half 
 completed : but I wished to impart to this Romance something 
 of the nature of Tragedy, something of the more transferable 
 of its qualities. Enough of this : it is not the Author's wishes, 
 but the Author's books that the world will judge him by. 
 Perhaps, then (with this I conclude), in the dull monotony of 
 public affairs, and in these long winter evenings, when we gather 
 round the fire, prepared for the gossip's tale, willing to indulge 
 the fear, and to believe the legend, perhaps, dear Reader, thou 
 mayest turn, not reluctantly, even to these pages, for at least 
 a newer excitement than the Cholera, or for a momentary relief 
 from the everlasting discussion on " the Bill? l 
 
 LONDON, December 22, 1831. 
 
 1 The jremr of the Reform BUL
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE EDITION OF 1840. 
 
 THE strange history of Eugene Aram had excited my interest 
 and wonder long before the present work was composed or 
 conceived. It so happened, that during Aram's residence at 
 Lynn, his reputation for learning had attracted the notice of 
 my grandfather a country gentleman living in the same county, 
 and of more intelligence and accomplishments than, at that day, 
 usually characterised his class. Aram frequently visited at 
 Heydon (my grandfather's house), and gave lessons, probably in. 
 no very elevated branches of erudition, to the younger members 
 of the family. This I chanced to hear when I was on a visit 
 in Norfolk, some two years before this novel was published, and 
 it tended to increase the interest with which I had previously 
 speculated on the phenomena of a trial which, take it altogether, 
 is perhaps the most remarkable in the register of English crime. 
 I endeavoured to collect such anecdotes of Aram's life and 
 manners as tradition and hearsay still kept afloat. These 
 anecdotes were so far uniform that they all concurred in re* 
 presenting him as a person who, till the detection of the crime
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 for which he was sentenced, had appeared of the mildest 
 character and the most unexceptionable morals. An invariable 
 gentleness and patience in his mode of tuition qualities then 
 very uncommon at school had made him so beloved by his 
 pupils at Lynn, that, in after life, there was scarcely one of them 
 who did not persist in the belief of his innocence. His personal 
 and moral peculiarities, as described in these pages, are such 
 as were related to me by persons who had heard him described 
 by his contemporaries : the calm benign countenance the 
 delicate health the thoughtful stoop the noiseless step the 
 custom, not uncommon with scholars and absent men, of mut- 
 tering to himself a singular eloquence in conversation, when 
 once roused from silence an active tenderness and charity to 
 the poor, with whom he was always ready to share his own 
 scanty means an apparent disregard for money, except when 
 employed in the purchase of books an utter indifference to the 
 ambition usually accompanying self-taught talent, whether to 
 better the condition or to increase the repute ; these, and other 
 traits of the character portrayed in the novel, are, as far as 
 I can rely on my information, faithful to the features of the 
 original 
 
 That a man thus described so benevolent that he would rob 
 his own necessities to administer to those of another, so humane 
 that he would turn aside from the worm in his path should 
 have been guilty of the foulest of human crimes, viz. murder 
 for the sake of gain ; that a crime thus committed should have 
 been so episodical and apart from the rest of his career, that, 
 however it might rankle in his conscience, it should never have 
 hardened his nature ; that, through a life of some duration, none 
 of the errors, none of the vices, which would seem essentially to 
 belong to a character capable of a deed so black from motives
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 apparently so sordid, 1 should have been discovered or suspected ; 
 all this presents an anomaly in human conduct so rare and 
 surprising, that it would be difficult to find any subject more 
 adapted for that metaphysical speculation and analysis, in order 
 to indulge which, Fiction, whether in the drama, or the higher 
 class of romance, seeks its materials and grounds its lessons 
 in the chronicles of passion and crime. 
 
 The guilt of Eugene Aram is not that of a vulgar ruffian : it 
 leads to views and considerations vitally and wholly distinct 
 from those with which profligate knavery and brutal cruelty 
 revolt and displease us in the literature of Newgate and the 
 hulks. His crime does, in fact, belong to those startling para- 
 doxes which the poetry of all countries, and especially of our 
 own, has always delighted to contemplate and examine. When- 
 ever crime appears the aberration and monstrous product of a 
 great intellect, or of a nature ordinarily virtuous, it becomes not 
 only the subject for genius, which deals with passions, to 
 describe; but a problem for philosophy, which deals with 
 actions, to investigate and solve : hence, the Macbeths and 
 Richards, the lagos and Othellos. My regret, therefore, is not 
 that I chose a subject unworthy of elevated fiction, but that 
 such a subject did not occur to some one capable of treating it 
 as it deserves ; and I never felt this more strongly than when 
 the late Mr. Godwin (in conversing with me after the publica- 
 tion of this romance) observed that "he had always thought 
 the story of Eugene Aram peculiarly adapted for fiction, and 
 that he had more than once entertained the notion of making 
 it the foundation of a novel." I can well conceive what depth 
 
 1 For I put wholly out of question the excuse of jealousy, as unsupported by any 
 evidence never hinted at by Aram himself (at least on any sufficient authority) and 
 at variance with the only fact which the trial establishes, viz., that the robbery was UM 
 crime planned, and the cause, whether accidental or otherwise, of the murder.
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 and power that gloomy record would have taken from the 
 dark and inquiring genius of the author of Caleb Williams. 
 In fact, the crime and trial of Eugene Aram arrested the atten- 
 tion and engaged the conjectures of many of the most eminent 
 men of his own time. His guilt or innocence was the matter 
 of strong contest ; and so keen and so enduring was the sensa- 
 tion created by an event thus completely distinct from the 
 ordinary annals of human crime, that even History turned 
 aside from the sonorous narrative of the struggles of parties, 
 and the feuds of kings, to commemorate the learning and the 
 guilt of the humble schoolmaster of Lynn. Did I want any 
 other answer to the animadversions of commonplace criticism, 
 it might be sufficient to say that what the historian relates 
 the novelist has little right to disdain. 
 
 Before entering on this romance, I examined with some care 
 the probabilities of Aram's guilt ; for I need scarcely perhaps 
 observe, that the legal evidence against him is extremely 
 deficient furnished almost entirely by one (Houseman) con- 
 fessedly an accomplice of the crime, and a partner in the 
 booty j and that, in the present day, a man tried upon evidence 
 so scanty and suspicious would unquestionably escape conviction. 
 Nevertheless, I must frankly own that the moral evidence 
 appeared to me more convincing than the legal ; and, though 
 not without some doubt, which, in common with many, I still 
 entertain of the real facts of the murder, l I adopted that view 
 which, at all events, was the best suited to the higher purposes 
 of fiction. On the whole, I still think that if the crime were 
 committed by Aram, the motive was not very far removed from 
 one which led recently to a remarkable murder in Spain. A 
 priest in that country, wholly absorbed in learned pursuits, and 
 1 See Preface to the Present Edition, p. xviii.
 
 PREFACE. xiii 
 
 apparently of spotless life, confessed that, being debarred by 
 extreme poverty from prosecuting a study which had become 
 the sole passion of his existence, he had reasoned himself into 
 the belief that it would be admissible to rob a very dissolute, 
 worthless man, if he applied the money so obtained to the 
 acquisition of a knowledge which he could not otherwise acquire, 
 and which he held to be profitable to mankind. Unfortunately, 
 the dissolute rich man was not willing to be robbed for so ex- 
 cellent a purpose : he was armed and he resisted a struggle 
 ensued, and the crime of homicide was added to that of 
 robbery. The robbery was premeditated : the murder was acci- 
 dental. But he who would accept some similar interpretation 
 of Aram's crime must, to comprehend fully the lessons which 
 belong to so terrible a picture of frenzy and guilt, consider also 
 the physical circumstances and condition of the criminal at the 
 time : severe illness intense labour of the brain poverty 
 bordering upon famine the mind preternaturally at work, 
 devising schemes and excuses to arrive at the means for ends 
 ardently desired. And all this duly considered, the reader may 
 see the crime bodying itself out from the shades and chimeras 
 of a horrible hallucination the awful dream of a brief but 
 delirious and convulsed disease. It is thus only that we can 
 account for the contradiction of one deed at war with a whole 
 life blasting, indeed, for ever the happiness ; but making little 
 revolution in the pursuits and disposition of the character. No 
 one who has examined with care and thoughtfulness the aspects 
 of Life and Nature but must allow that, in the contemplation of 
 such a spectacle, great and most moral truths must force them- 
 selves on the notice and sink deep into the heart. The en- 
 tanglements of human reasoning ; the influence of circumstance 
 upon deeds; the perversion that may be made, by one self- 
 palter with the Fiend, of elements the most glorious ; the secret
 
 JUT PREFACE. 
 
 effect of conscience in frustrating all for which the crime was 
 done leaving genius without hope, knowledge without fruit 
 deadening benevolence into mechanism tainting love itself with 
 terror and suspicion; such reflections leading, with subtler 
 minds, to many more vast and complicated theorems in the con- 
 sideration of our nature, social and individual arise out of the 
 tragic moral which the story of Eugene Aram (were it but 
 adequately treated) could not fail to convey. 
 
 BRVUCLI, August, 18401
 
 
 PREFACE 
 TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 
 
 IF none of my prose works have been so attacked as 
 EUGENE ARAM, none have so completely triumphed over 
 attack. It is true that, whether from real or affected ignor- 
 ance of the true morality of fiction, a few critics may still re- 
 iterate the old commonplace charges of " selecting heroes from 
 Newgate," or " investing murderers with interest ; " but the firm 
 hold which the work has established in the opinion of the 
 general public, and the favour it has received in every country 
 where English literature is known, suffice to prove that, what- 
 ever its faults, it belongs to that legitimate class of fiction which 
 illustrates life and truth, and only deals with crime as the 
 recognised agency of pity and terror, in the conduct of tragic 
 narrative. All that I would say farther on this score has been 
 said in the general defence of my writings which I put forth two 
 years ago ; and I ask the indulgence of the reader if I repeat 
 myself : 
 
 " Here, unlike the milder guilt of Paul Clifford, the author 
 was not to imply reform to society, nor open in this world 
 atonement and pardon to the criminal. As it would have been 
 wholly in vain to disguise, by mean tamperings with art and
 
 XT! PREFACE. 
 
 truth, the ordinary habits of life and attributes of character, 
 which all record and remembrance ascribed to Eugene Aram, 
 as it would have defeated every end of the moral inculcated by 
 his guilt, to portray in the caricature of the murderer of melo- 
 drame, a man immersed in study, of whom it was noted that he 
 turned aside from the worm in his path, so I have allowed to 
 him whatever contrasts with his inexpiable crime have been 
 recorded on sufficient authority. But I have invariably taken 
 care that the crime itself should stand stripped of every sophistry, 
 and hideous to the perpetrator as well as to the world. Allow- 
 ing all by which attention to his biography may explain the 
 tremendous paradox of fearful guilt in a man aspiring after 
 knowledge, and not generally inhumane allowing that the 
 crime came upon him in the partial insanity produced by the 
 combining circumstances of a brain overwrought by intense 
 study, disturbed by an excited imagination, and the fumes of a 
 momentary disease of the reasoning faculty, consumed by the 
 desire of knowledge, unwholesome and morbid, because coveted 
 as an end, not a means, added to the other physical causes of 
 mental aberration to be found in loneliness, and want verging 
 upon famine ; all these, which a biographer may suppose to 
 have conspired to his crime, have never been used by the 
 novelist as excuses for its enormity, nor indeed, lest they should 
 seem, as excuses, have they ever been clearly presented to the 
 view. The moral consisted in showing more than the mere legal 
 punishment at the close. It was to show how the consciousness 
 of the deed was to exclude whatever humanity of character 
 preceded and belied it from all active exercise all social con- 
 fidence ; how the knowledge of the bar between the minds of 
 others and his own deprived the criminal of all motive to am- 
 bition, and blighted knowledge of all fruit. Miserable in his 
 affections, barren in his intellect clinging to solitude, yet 
 accursed in it dreading as a danger the fame he had once
 
 PREFACE. xvfi 
 
 coveted obscure in spite of learning, hopeless in spite of love, 
 fruitless and joyless in his life, calamitous and shameful in his 
 end ; surely such is no palliative of crime, no dalliance and 
 toying with the grimness of evil ! And surely to any ordinary 
 comprehension, and candid mind, such is the moral conveyed by 
 the fiction of EUGENE ARAM." l 
 
 In point of composition EUGENE ARAM is, I think, entitled 
 to rank amongst the best of my fictions. It somewhat humili- 
 ates me to acknowledge, that neither practice nor study has 
 enabled m to surpass a work written at a very early age, in 
 the skilful construction and patient development of plot ; and 
 though I have since sought to call forth higher and more subtle 
 passions, I doubt if I have ever excited the two elementary 
 passions of tragedy, viz., pity and terror, to the same degree. In 
 mere style, too, EUGENE ARAM, in spite of certain verbal over- 
 sights, and defects in youthful taste (some of which I have en- 
 deavoured to remove from the present edition), appears to me 
 unexcelled by any of my later writings, at least in what I have 
 always studied as the main essential of style in narrative, viz., 
 its harmony with the subject selected and the passions to be 
 moved; while it exceeds them all in the minuteness and fidelity 
 of its descriptions of external nature. This indeed it ought to 
 do, since the study of external nature is made a peculiar attri- 
 bute of the principal character whose fate colours the narrative. 
 I do not know whether it has been observed that the time occu- 
 pied by the events of the story is conveyed through the medium 
 of such descriptions. Each description is introduced, not for its 
 own sake, but to serve as a calendar marking the gradual 
 jhanges of the seasons as they bear on to his doom the guilty 
 worshipper of Nature. And in this conception, and in the care 
 with which it has been followed out, I recognise one of my 
 1 A Word to the Public, 1847.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 earliest but most successful attempts at the subtler principles oi 
 narrative art. 
 
 In this edition I have made one alteration somewhat more 
 important than mere verbal correction. On going, with maturer 
 judgment, over all the evidences on which Aram was condemned, 
 I have convinced myself, that though an accomplice in the 
 robbery of Clarke, he was free both from the premeditated 
 design and the actual deed of murder. The crime, indeed, 
 would still rest on his conscience, and insure his punishment, as 
 necessarily incidental to the robbery in which he was an accom- 
 plice, with Houseman ; but finding my convictions, that in the 
 murder itself he had no share, borne out by the opinion of 
 many eminent lawyers, by whom I have heard the subject 
 discussed, I have accordingly so shaped his confession to 
 Walter. 
 
 Perhaps it will not be without interest to the reader, if I 
 append to this preface an authentic specimen of Eugene Aram's 
 composition, for which I am indebted to the courtesy of a 
 gentleman by whose grandfather it was received, with other 
 papers (especially a remarkable ' Outline of a New Lexicon ' ), 
 during Aram's confinement in York Prison. The essay I select 
 is, indeed, not without value in itself as a very curious and 
 learned illustration of Popular Antiquities, and it serves also 
 to show not only the comprehensive nature of Aram's studies, 
 and the inquisitive eagerness of his mind, but also the fact that 
 he was completely self-taught ; for in contrast to much 
 philological erudition, and to passages that evince consider- 
 able mastery in the higher resources of language, we may 
 occasionally notice those lesser inaccuracies from which the 
 writings of men solely self-educated are rarely free ; indeed, 
 Aram himself, in lending to a gentleman an elegy on Sir John
 
 PREFACE. xix 
 
 Armitage, which shows much but undisciplined power of versi- 
 fication, says, " I send this elegy, which, indeed, if you had not 
 had the curiosity to desire, I could not have had the assurance 
 to offer, scarce believing I, who was hardly taught to read, have 
 any abilities to write." 
 
 THE MELSUPPER AND SHOUTING THE CHURN. 
 
 THESE rural entertainments and usages were formerly more 
 general all over England than they are at present; being 
 become by time, necessity, or avarice, complex, confined, and 
 altered. They are commonly insisted upon by the reapers as 
 customary things, and a part of their due for the toils of the 
 harvest, and compiled with by their masters perhaps more 
 through regards of interest than inclination. For should they 
 refuse them the pleasures of this much-expected time, this festal 
 night, the youth especially, of both sexes, would decline serving 
 them for the future, and employ their labours for others, who 
 would promise them the rustic joys of the harvest supper, 
 mirth and music, dance and song. These feasts appear to be 
 the relics of Pagan ceremonies, or of Judaism, it is hard to say 
 which, and carry in them more meaning and are of far higher 
 antiquity than is generally apprehended. It is true the subject 
 is more curious than important, and I believe altogether un- 
 touched ; and as it seems to be little understood, has been as 
 little adverted to. I do not remember it to have been so much 
 as the subject of a conversation. Let us make then a little 
 excursion into this field, for the same reason men sometimes 
 take a walk. Its traces are discoverable at a very great distance 
 of time from ours, nay, seem as old as a sense of joy for the 
 benefit of plentiful harvests and human gratitude to the eternal 
 Creator for His munificence to men. We hear it under various 
 
 B 2
 
 xx PREFACE. 
 
 names in different counties, and often in the same county ; as, 
 mtlsupptr, churn supper, Jiarvcst supper, harvest kome, feast of 
 in-gatJicring, &c. And perhaps this feast had been long 
 observed, and by different tribes of people, before it became 
 preceptive with the Jews. However, let that be as it will, the 
 custom very lucidly appears from the following passages of 
 S. S, Exod. xxiii. 16, " And the feast of harvest, the first fruits 
 of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field." And its 
 institution as a sacred rite is commanded in Levit. xxiii. 39 : 
 " When ye have gathered in the fruit of the land ye shall keep 
 a feast to the Lord." 
 
 The Jews then, as is evident from hence, celebrated the feast 
 of harvest, and that by precept ; and though no vestiges of 
 any such feast either are or can be produced before these, yet 
 the oblation of the Primitiae, of which this feast was a con- 
 sequence, is met with prior to this, for we find that " Cain 
 brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord." 
 G**t. iv. 3. 
 
 Yet this offering of the first fruits, it may well be supposed, 
 was not peculiar to the Jews, either at the time of, or after, its 
 establishment by their legislator; neither the feast in conse- 
 quence of it. Many other nations, either in imitation of the 
 Jews, or rather by tradition from their several patriarchs, 
 observed the right of offering their Primitiae, and of solemnising 
 a festival after it, in religious acknowledgment for the blessing 
 of harvest, though that acknowledgment was ignorantly mis- 
 applied in being directed to a secondary, not the primary, 
 fountain of this benefit ; namely, to Apollo or the Sun. 
 
 For Callimachus affirms that these Primitiae were sent by the 
 people of every nation to the temple of Apollo in Delos, the
 
 PREFACE. xxi 
 
 most distant that enjoyed the happiness of corn and harvest, 
 even by the Hyperboreans in particular, Hymn to Apol., Ot 
 ftevTOt, ltd\afJLi)v re teal ipa Spay/ia 7rpS)TOt acrra,KV(av t "Bring 
 the sacred sheafs and the mystic offerings." 
 
 Herodotus also mentions this annual custom of the Hyperbo- 
 reans, remarking that those of Delos talk of 'lepa evSeSe/^eW eV 
 Kakapr] Trvpwv e 'fnepftopewv," Holy things tied up in sheaf of 
 wheat conveyed from the Hyperboreans." And the Jews, by 
 the command of their law, offered also a sheaf : " And shall 
 reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first 
 fruits of the harvest unto the priest." 
 
 This is not introduced in proof of any feast observed by the 
 people who had harvests, but to show the universality of the 
 custom of offering the Primitiae, which preceded this feast. But 
 yet it may be looked upon as equivalent to a proof ; for as the 
 offering and the feast appear to have been always and intimately 
 connected in countries affording records, so it is more than 
 probable they were connected too in countries which had none, 
 or none that ever survived to our times. An entertainment and 
 gaiety were still the concomitants of these rites, which with the 
 vulgar, "one may pretty truly suppose, were esteemed the most 
 acceptable and material part of them, and a great reason of their 
 having subsisted through such a length of ages, when both the 
 populace and many of the learned too have lost sight of the 
 object to which they had been originally directed. This, among 
 many other ceremonies of the heathen worship, became disused 
 in some places and retained in others, but still continued de- 
 clining after the promulgation of the Gospel. In short, there 
 seems great reason to conclude that this feast, which was once 
 sacred to Apollo, was constantly maintained, when a far less 
 valuable circumstance, i.e., sJiouting the churn, is observed to thU
 
 nil PREFACE. 
 
 day by the reapers, and from so old an era ; for we read of this 
 exclamation, fsa. xvi. 9: "For the shouting for thy summer 
 fruits and for thy harvest is fallen ;" and again, ver. 10: "And 
 in the vineyards there shall be no singing, their shouting shall 
 be no shouting." Hence then, or from some of the Phoenician 
 colonies, is our traditionary " shouting the churn." But it seems 
 these Orientals shouted both for joy of their harvest of grapes 
 and of corn. We have no quantity of the first to occasion 
 so much joy as does our plenty of the last ; and I do not 
 remember to have heard whether their vintages abroad are 
 attended with this custom. Bread or cakes compose part of the 
 Hebrew offering (Levit. xxiii. 13), and a cake thrown upon the 
 head of the victim was also part of the Greek offering to Apollo 
 (see Horn. II. a), whose worship was formerly celebrated in 
 Britain, where the May-pole yet continues one remain of it 
 This they adorned with garlands on May-day, to welcome the 
 approach of Apollo, or the sun, towards the north, and to 
 signify that those flowers were the product of his presence 
 and influence. But, upon the progress of Christianity, as was 
 observed above, Apollo lost his divinity again, and the adora- 
 tion of his deity subsided by degrees. Yet so permanent is 
 custom, that this rite of the harvest supper, together with that 
 of the May-pole (of which last see Voss. De Orig. anfl Prag. 
 Idolatr. i, 2), have been preserved in Britain ; and what had 
 been anciently offered to the god, the reapers as prudently eat 
 up themselves. 
 
 At last the use of the meal of the new corn was neglected, and 
 the supper, so far as meal was concerned, was made indifferently 
 of old or new corn, as was most agreeable to the founder. And 
 here the usage itself accounts for the name of Mclsuppcr (where 
 mcl signifies meal, or else the instrument called with us a Mell, 
 wherewith antiquity reduced their corn to meal in a mortar,
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 which still amounts to the same thing) for provisions of meal, or 
 of corn in furmity, &c., composed by far the greatest part in 
 these elder and country entertainments, perfectly conformable tc 
 the simplicity of those times, places, and persons, however 
 meanly they may now be looked upon. And as the harvest was 
 last concluded with several preparations of meal, or brought 
 to be ready for the mell, this term became, in a translated 
 signification, to mean the last of other things ; as, when a horse 
 comes last in the race, they often say in the north, " fie has got 
 tlie mell" 
 
 All the other names of this country festivity sufficiently 
 explain themselves, except Churn-supper, and this is entirely 
 different from Melsupper ; but they generally happen so near 
 together that they are frequently confounded. The Churn- 
 supper was always provided when all was shorn, but the 
 Melsupper after all was got in. And it was called the Churn- 
 supper because, from immemorial times, it was customary to 
 produce in a churn a great quantity of cream, and to circulate 
 it by dishfuls to each of the rustic company, to be eaten with 
 bread. And here sometimes very extraordinary execution has 
 been done upon cream. And though this custom has been 
 disused in many places, and agreeably commuted for by ale, 
 yet it survives still, and that about Whitby and Scarborough in 
 the east, and round about Gisburn, &c., in Craven, in the west. 
 But, perhaps, a century or two more will put an end to it, and 
 both the thing and name shall die. Vicarious ale is now more 
 approved, and the tankard almost everywhere politely preferred 
 to the Churn. 
 
 This Churn (in our provincial pronunciation Kern) is the 
 Hebrew Kern, pp or Keren, from its being circular like most 
 horns : and it is the Latin corona, named so either from radii,
 
 wiv PREFACE. 
 
 resembling horns, as on some very antient coins, or from its 
 encircling the head ; so a ring of people is called corona. Also 
 the Celtic Keren, Keren, or corn, which continues according to 
 its old pronunciation in Cornwall, &c., and our modern word 
 horn is no more than this ; the antient hard sound of k in corn 
 being softened into the aspirate //, as has been done in number- 
 less instances. 
 
 The Irish Celtae also called a round stone clogh cretie, where 
 the variation is merely dialectic. Hence, too, our crane-berries, 
 ijg. t round berries, from this Celtic adjective crene, round. 
 
 N.B. The quotations from Scripture in Aram's original MS. 
 were both in the Hebrew character, and their value in English 
 sounds.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 T $fi), <f>fv' fypovfiv w 
 
 Xi;ei (ppovovvri. 
 ***** 
 Ot. Tt 8* eoTiv ; us advpos eureX^Xu&is. 
 T. "A0es /*' s oocouf pqtrra yap TO uov re <ri> 
 Kayon Siot'crco Tovp.6v, t)v e/iot TTI'^J;. 
 
 OIA. TYP. 316-321. 
 
 TKI. Alas ! alas ! how sad it is to be wise, when it is not advantageous to him wLo 
 
 is so. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Ol. But what is the cause that you come hither sad ? 
 
 TEI. Dismiss me to my house. For both you will bear your fate easier, and I mine, 
 if you take my advice. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE VILLAGE. ITS INHABITANTS. AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE, AND AN ENGLISH 
 FAMILY ; THEIR HISTORY, INVOLVING A MYSTERIOUS EVENT. 
 
 Protected by the divinity they adored, supported by the earth which they cultivated, 
 and at peace with themselves, they enjoyed the sweets of life without dreading or 
 desiring dissolution. Numa Pompilius. 
 
 IN the county of * * * * there is a sequestered hamlet which 
 I have often sought occasion to pass, and which I have never 
 left without a certain reluctance and regret. The place, indeed, 
 is associated with the memory of events that still retain a singular 
 and fearful interest, but the scene needs not the charm of legend 
 to arrest the attention of the traveller. In no part of the world 
 which it has been my lot to visit have I seen a landscape of 
 morr pastoral beauty. The hamlet, to which I shall here give
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the name of Grassdale, is situated in a valley, which, for about 
 the length of a mile, winds among gardens and orchards laden 
 with fruit, between two chains of gentle and fertile hills. 
 
 Here, singly or in pairs, are scattered cottages, which bespeak a 
 comfort and a rural luxury less often than our poets have described 
 the characteristics of the English peasantry. It has been 
 observed, that wherever you see a flower in a cottage garden, or 
 a bird-cage at a cottage casement, you may feel sure that the 
 inmates are better and wiser than their neighbours ; and such 
 humble tokens of attention to something beyond the sterile 
 labour of life were (we must now revert to the past) to be 
 remarked in almost every one of the lowly abodes of Grassdale. 
 The jasmine here, there the rose or honeysuckle, clustered over 
 the lattice and threshold, not so wildly as to testify negligence, 
 but rather to sweeten the air than exclude the I'ght. Each of 
 the cottages possessed at its rear its plot of ground apportioned 
 to the more useful and nutritious products of nature ; while the 
 greater part of them fenced also from the unfrequented road a 
 little spot for a lupin, the sweet pea, the wallflower or the stock. 
 And it is not unworthy of remark, that the bees came in greater 
 clusters to Grassdale than to any other part of that rich and 
 cultivated district. A small piece of waste land, which was 
 intersected by a brook, fringed with ozier and dwarf and fantastic 
 pollards, afforded pasture for a few cows and the only carrier's 
 solitary horse. The stream itself was of no ignoble repute 
 among the gentle craft of the Angle, the brotherhood whom 
 our associations defend in spite of our mercy ; and this repute 
 drew welcome and periodical itinerants to the village, who 
 furnished it with its scanty news of the great world without, 
 and maintained in a decorous custom the little and single 
 hostelry of the place. Not that Peter Dealtry, the proprietor 
 of The Spotted Dog, was altogether contented to subsist upon 
 the gains of his hospitable profession ; he joined thereto the 
 light cares of a small farm, held under a wealthy and an easy 
 landlord ; and being moreover honoured with the dignity of 
 clerk to the parish, he was deemed by his neighbours a person 
 of no small accomplishments, and no insignificant distinction. 
 He was a little, dry, thin man, of a turn rather sentimental than
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 jocose. A memory well stored with fag-ends of psalms, and 
 hymns (which, being less familiar than the psalms to the ears of 
 the villagers, were more than suspected to be his own composi- 
 tion), often gave a poetic and semi-religious colouring to his 
 conversation, which accorded rather with his dignity in the 
 church than his post at The Spotted Dog. Yet he disliked not 
 his joke, though it was subtle and delicate of nature ; nor did he 
 disdain to bear companionship over his own liquor with guests 
 less gifted and refined. 
 
 In the centre of the village you chanced upon a cottage which 
 had been lately whitewashed, where a certain preciseness in the 
 owner might be detected in the clipped hedge, and the exact and 
 newly-mended stile by which you approached the habitation. 
 Herein dwelt the beau and bachelor of the village, somewhat 
 antiquated it is true, but still an object of great attention and 
 some hope to the elder damsels in the vicinity, and of a respectful 
 popularity (that did not, however, prohibit a joke) among the 
 younger. Jacob Bunting, so was this gentleman called, had 
 been for many years in the king's service, in which he had risen 
 to the rank of corporal, and had saved and pinched together a 
 certain small independence, upon which he now rented his cottage 
 and enjoyed his leisure. He had seen a good deal of the world, 
 and profited in shrewdness by his experience ; he had rubbed off, 
 however, all superfluous devotion as he rubbed off his prejudices; 
 and though he drank more often than any one else with the 
 landlord of The Spotted Dog, there was not a wit in the place 
 who showed so little indulgence to the publican's segments of 
 psalmody. Jacob was a tall, comely, and perpendicular person- 
 age ; his threadbare coat was scrupulously brushed, and his hair 
 punctiliously plastered at the sides into two stiff obstinate-looking 
 curls, and at the top into what he was pleased to call a feather, 
 though it was much more like a tile. His conversation had in 
 it something peculiar : generally it assumed a quick, short, abrupt 
 turn, that, retrenching all superfluities of pronoun and conjunc- 
 tion, and marching at once upon the meaning of the sentence, 
 had in it a military and Spartan significance, which betrayed 
 how difficult it often is for a man to forget that he has been a 
 corporal. Occasionally, indeed for where but in farces is the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 phraseology of the humorist always the same ? he escaped 
 into a more enlarged and Christianlike method of dealing with 
 the king's English ; but that was chiefly noticeable when from 
 conversation he launched himself into lecture, a luxuiy the 
 worthy soldier loved greatly to indulge, for much had he seen 
 and somewhat had he reflected ; and valuing himself, which was 
 odd in a corporal, more on his knowledge of the world than his 
 knowledge of war, he rarely missed any occasion of edifying a 
 patient listener with the result of his observations. 
 
 After .you have sauntered by the veteran's door, beside which 
 you generally, if the evening were fine, or he was not drinking 
 with neighbour Dealtry, or taking his tea with gossip this or 
 master that, or teaching some emulous urchins the broadsword 
 exercise, or snaring trout in the stream, or, in short, otherwise 
 engaged ; beside which, I say, you not unfrequently beheld him 
 sitting on a rude bench, and enjoying with half-shut eyes, crossed 
 legs, but still unindulgently erect posture, the luxury of his pipe; 
 you ventured over a little wooden bridge, beneath which, clear and 
 shallow, ran the rivulet we have before honourably mentioned, and 
 a walk of a few minutes brought you to a moderately-sized and 
 old-fashioned mansion the manor-house of the parish. It stood 
 at the very foot of a hill ; behind, a rich, ancient, and hanging 
 wood, brought into relief the exceeding freshness and verdure of 
 the patch of green meadow immediately in front. On one side, 
 the garden was bounded by the village churchyard, with its 
 simple mounds, and its few scattered and humble tombs. The 
 church was of great antiquity ; and it was only in one point of 
 view that you caught more than a glimpse of its grey tower and, 
 graceful spire, so thickly and so darkly grouped the yew-tree and 
 the pine around the edifice. Opposite the gate by which you 
 gained the house, the view was not extended, but rich with wood 
 and pasture, backed by a hill, which, less verdant than its fellows, 
 was covered with sheep ; while you saw hard by, the rivulet 
 darkening and stealing away till your sight, though not your ear, 
 lost it among the woodland. 
 
 Trained up the embrowned paling, on either side of the gate, 
 were bushes of rustic fruit ; and fruit and flowers (through plots 
 of which grc-'n and winding alleys had been cut with no untast-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 29 
 
 ful hand) testified, by their thriving and healthful looks, the care 
 bestowed upon them. The main boasts of the garden were, on 
 one side, a huge horse-chestnut-tree the largest in the village ; 
 and on the other, an arbour covered with honeysuckles, and 
 tapestried within by moss. The house, a grey and quaint building 
 of the time of James I., with stone copings and gable roof, could 
 scarcely in these days have been deemed a fitting residence for the 
 lord of the manor. Nearly the whole of the centre was occupied 
 by the hall, in which the meals of the family were commonly 
 held only two other sitting-rooms of very moderate dimensions' 
 had been reserved by the architect for the convenience or osten- 
 tation of the proprietor. An ample porch jutted from the main 
 building, and this was covered with ivy, as the sides of the 
 windows were with jasmine and honeysuckle ; while seats were 
 ranged inside the porch carved with many a rude initial and long 
 past date. 
 
 The owner of this mansion bore the name of Rowland Lester. 
 His forefathers, without pretending to high antiquity of family, 
 had held the dignity of squires of Grassdale for some two 
 centuries ; and Rowland Lester was perhaps the first of the race 
 who had stirred above fifty miles from the house in which each 
 successive lord had received his birth, or the green churchyard 
 in which was yet chronicled his death. The present proprietor 
 was a man of cultivated tastes ; and abilities, naturally not much 
 above mediocrity, had been improved by travel as well as study. 
 Himself and one younger brother had been early left masters 
 of their fate and their several portions. The younger, Geoffrey, 
 testified a roving and dissipated turn. Bold, licentious, extra- 
 vagant, unprincipled his career soon outstripped the slender 
 fortunes of a cadet in the family of a country squire. He was 
 early thrown into difficulties, but by some means or other they 
 never seemed to overwhelm him ; an unexpected turn a lucky 
 adventure presented itself at the very moment when Fortune 
 appeared the most utterly to have deserted him. 
 
 Among these more propitious fluctuations in the tide of affairs, 
 was, at about the age of forty, a sudden marriage with a young 
 lady of what might be termed (for Geoffrey Lester's rank of 
 life, and the rational expenses of that day) a very competent and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 respectable fortune. Unhappily, however, the l;uh* was neither 
 handsome in feature nor gentle in temper; and, after a fe\v years 
 of quarrel and contest, the faithless husband, one bright morning, 
 having collected in his proper person whatever remained of their 
 fortune, absconded from the conjugal hearth without either 
 warning or farewell. He left nothing to his wife but his house, 
 his debts, and his only child, a son. From that time to the 
 present little had been known, though much had been conjec- 
 tured, concerning the deserter. For the first few years they 
 traced, however, so far of his fate as to learn that he had been 
 seen once in India ; and that previously he had been met in 
 England by a relation, under the disguise of assumed names : 
 a proof that whatever his occupations, they could scarcely be 
 very respectable. But, of late, nothing whatsoever relating to 
 the wanderer had transpired. By some he was imagined dead ; 
 by most he was forgotten. Those more immediately connected 
 with him his brother in especial cherished a secret belief, that 
 wherever Geoffrey Lester should chance to alight, the manner 
 of alighting would (to use the significant and homely metaphor) 
 be always on his legs : and coupling the wonted luck of the 
 scapegrace with the fact of his having been seen in India, 
 Rowland in his heart not only hoped, but fully expected, that 
 the lost one would, some day or other, return home laden with 
 the spoils of the East, and eager to shower upon his relatives, 
 in recompense of long desertion, 
 
 " With richest hand . . . barbaric pearl and gold." 
 
 But we must return to the forsaken spouse. Left in this 
 abrupt destitution and distress, Mrs. Lester had only the resource 
 of applying to her brother-in-law, whom indeed the fugitive had 
 before seized many opportunities of not leaving wholly unpre- 
 pared for such an application. Rowland promptly and generously 
 obeyed the summons : he took the child and the wife to his own 
 home ; he freed the latter from the persecutions of all legal 
 claimants ; and, after selling such effects as remained, he devoted 
 the whole proceeds to the forsaken family, without regarding his 
 own expenses on their behalf, ill as he was able to afford the 
 luxury of that self-neglect. The wife did not long need the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 31 
 
 asylum of his hearth, she, poor lady, died of a slow fever 
 produced by irritation and disappointment, a few months after 
 Geoffrey's desertion. She had no need to recommend her child 
 to his kind-hearted uncle's care. And now we must glance over 
 the elder brother's Jomestic fortunes. 
 
 In Rowland, the wild dispositions of his brother were so far 
 tamed, that they assumed only the character of a buoyant 
 temper and a gay spirit. He had strong principles as well as 
 warm feelings, and a fine and resolute sense of honour utterly 
 impervious to attack. It was impossible to be in his company 
 an hour and not see that he was a man to be respected. It was 
 equally impossible to live with him a week and not see that he 
 was a man to be beloved. He also had married, and about a 
 year after that era in the life of his brother, but not for the same 
 advantage of fortune. He had formed an attachment to the 
 portionless daughter of a man in his own neighbourhood and of 
 his own rank. He wooed and won her, and for a few years he 
 enjoyed that greatest happiness which the world is capable of 
 bestowing the society and the love of one in whom we could 
 wish for no change, and beyond whom we have no desire. 
 But what Evil cannot corrupt, Fate seldom spares. A few 
 months after the birth of a second daughter, the young wife 
 of Rowland Lester died. It was to a widowed hearth that the 
 wife and child of his brother came for shelter. Rowland was a 
 man of an affectionate and warm heart : if the blow did not 
 crush, at least it changed him. Naturally of a cheerful and 
 ardent disposition, his mood now became more sober and sedate. 
 He shrank from the rural gaieties and companionship he had 
 before courted and enlivened, and, for the first time in his life, 
 the mourner felt the holiness of solitude. As his nephew and 
 his motherless daughters grew up, they gave an object to his 
 seclusion and a relief to his reflections. He found a pure and 
 unfailing delight in watching the growth of their young minds, 
 and guiding their differing dispositions ; and as time at length 
 enabled them to return his affection, and appreciate his cares, he 
 became once more sensible that he had a HOME. 
 
 The elder of his daughters, Madeline, at the time our story 
 opens, had attained the age of eighteen. She was the beauty
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and the boast of the whole country. Above the ordinary height, 
 her figure was richly and exquisitely formed. So translucently 
 pure and soft was her complexion, that it might have seemed 
 the token of delicate health, but for the dewy redness of her 
 lips, and the freshness of teeth whiter than pearls. Her eyes, 
 of a deep blue, wore a thoughtful and serene expression ; and 
 her forehead, higher and broader than it usually is in women, 
 gave promise of a certain nobleness of intellect, and added 
 dignity, but a feminine dignity, to the more tender characteristics 
 of her beauty. And, indeed, the peculiar tone of Madeline's 
 mind fulfilled the indication of her features, and was eminently 
 thoughtful and high-wrought. She had early testified a remark- 
 able love for study, and not only a desire for knowledge, but a 
 veneration for those who possessed it. The remote corner of 
 the county in which they lived, and the rarely broken seclusion 
 which Lester habitually preserved from the intercourse of their 
 few and scattered neighbours, had naturally cast each member 
 of the little circle upon his or her own resources. An accident, 
 some five years ago, had confined Madeline for several weeks, or 
 rather months, to the house ; and as the old Hall possessed a 
 very respectable share of books, she had then matured and con- 
 firmed that love for reading and reflection which she had at a 
 yet earlier period prematurely evinced. The woman's tendency 
 to romance naturally tinctured her meditations, and thus, while 
 they dignified, they also softened her mind. Her sister Ellinor, 
 younger by two years, was of a character equally gentle, but 
 less elevated. She looked up to her sister as a superior being. 
 She felt pride, without a shadow of envy, for Madeline's superior 
 and surpassing beauty ; and was unconsciously guided in her 
 pursuits and predilections by a mind which she cheerfully 
 acknowledged to be loftier than her own. And yet Ellinor had 
 also her pretensions to personal loveliness, and pretensions per- 
 haps that would be less reluctantly acknowledged by her own 
 sex than those of her sister. The sunlight of a happy and 
 innocent heart sparkled on her face, and gave a beam it 
 gladdened you to behold to her quick hazel eye, and a smile 
 that broke out from a thousand dimples. She did not possess 
 the height of Madeline, and though not so slender as to be
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 33 
 
 curtailed of the roundness and feminine luxuriance of beauty, 
 her shape was slighter, feebler, and less rich in its symmetry 
 than her sister's. And this the tendency of the physical frame 
 to require elsewhere support, nor to feel secure of strength, per- 
 haps influenced her mind, and made love, and the dependence 
 of love, more necessary to her than to the thoughtful and lofty 
 Madeline. The latter might pass through life, and never see 
 the one to whom her heart could give itself away. But every 
 village might possess a hero whom the imagination of Ellinor 
 could clothe with unreal graces, and towards whom the lovingness 
 of her disposition might bias her affections. Both, however, 
 eminently possessed that earnestness and purity of heart which 
 would have made them, perhaps in an equal degree, constant and 
 devoted to the object of an attachment once formed, in defiance 
 of change, and to the brink of death. 
 
 Their cousin Walter, Geoffrey Lester's son, was now in his 
 twenty-first year ; tall and strong of person, and with a face, if 
 not regularly handsome, striking enough to be generally deemed 
 so. High-spirited, bold, fiery, impatient ; jealous of the affections 
 of those he loved ; cheerful to outward seeming, but restless, 
 fond of change and subject to the melancholy and pining mood 
 common to young and ardent minds : such was the character of 
 Walter Lester. The estates of Lester were settled in the male 
 line, and devolved therefore upon him. Yet there were moments 
 when he keenly felt his orphan and deserted situation ; and 
 sighed to think that while his father perhaps yet lived, he was a 
 dependant for affection, if not for maintenance, on the kindness 
 of others. This reflection sometimes gave an air of sullenness 
 or petulance to his character, that did not really belong to it. 
 For what in the world makes a man of just pride appdir so 
 unamiable as the sense of dependence ?
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A PUBLICAN, A SI.VNKR, AND A STRANGE*. 
 
 Ah, Don Alphouso, is it you ? Agreeable accident 1 Chance presents you to my 
 eyes %ere you were least expected. Gil S7as. 
 
 IT was an evening in the beginning of summer, and Peter 
 Dealtry and the ci-devant corporal sat beneath the sign of The 
 Spotted Dog (as it hung motionless from the bough of a friendly 
 elm), quafling a cup of boon companionship. The reader will 
 imagine the two men very different from each other in form and 
 aspect ; the one short, dry, fragile, and betraying a love of ease 
 in his unbuttoned vest, and a certain lolling, see-sawing method 
 of balancing his body upon his chair ; the other, erect and 
 solemn, and as steady on his seat as if he were nailed to it 
 It was a fine, tranquil, balmy evening ; the sun had just set, 
 and the clouds still retained the rosy tints which they had caught 
 from its parting ray. Here and there, at scattered intervals, you 
 might see the cottages peeping from the trees around them ; or 
 mark the smoke that rose from their roofs roofs green with 
 mosses and house-leek, in graceful and spiral curls against the 
 clear soft air. It was an English scene, and the two men, the 
 dog at their feet (for Peter Dealtry favoured a wiry stone-coloured 
 cur, which he called a terrier), and just at the door of the little 
 inn, two old gossips, loitering on the threshold, in familiar chat 
 with the landlady in cap and kerchief, all together made a 
 group equally English, and somewhat picturesque, though 
 homely enough in effect. 
 
 " Well, now," said Peter Dealtry, as he pushed the brown jug 
 towards the corporal, " this is what I call pleasant ; it puts me 
 in mind " 
 
 " Of what ? " quoth the corporal. 
 
 "Of those nice lines in the hymn, Master Bunting: 
 
 ' ' How fair ye are, ye little hills : 
 
 Ye little fields also : 
 
 Ye murmuring streams that sweetly run, 
 Ye willows in a row 1 '
 
 EUGE-NE ARAM. 35 
 
 There is something very comfortable in sacred verses, Master 
 Bunting : but you're a scoffer." 
 
 " Psha, man ! " said the corporal, throwing out his right leg and 
 leaning back, with his eyes hak" shut, and kis chin protruded* as 
 he took an unusually long inhalation from his pipe. " Psha, 
 man ! send verses to the right-about fit for girls going to 
 school of a Sunday ; full-grown men more up to snuff. I've seen 
 
 the world, Master Dealtry; the world, and be d d to 
 
 you ! augh ! " 
 
 " Fie, neighbour, fie ! What's the good of profaneness, evil 
 speaking, and slandering ? 
 
 " ' Oaths are the debts your spendthrift soul must pay ; 
 All scores are chalk'd against the reckoning day.' 
 
 Just wait a bit, neighbour ; wait till I light my pipe." 
 
 " Tell you what," said the corporal, after he had communicated 
 from his own pipe the friendly flame to his comrade's ; " tell you 
 what talk nonsense ; the commander-in-chief's no martinet if 
 we're all right in action, he'll wink at a slip word or two. Come, 
 no humbug hold jaw. D'ye think God would sooner have a 
 snivelling fellow like you in his regiment, than a man like me, 
 clean-limbed, straight as a dart, six feet one without his shoes ? 
 Baugh ! " 
 
 This notion of the corporal's, by. which he would have likened 
 the dominion of heaven to the King of Prussia's body-guard, 
 and only admitted the elect on account of their inches, so tickled 
 mine host's fancy, that he leaned back in his chair and indulged 
 in a long, dry, obstreperous cachinnation. This irreverence 
 mightily displeased the corporal. He looked at the little man 
 very sourly, and said in his least smooth accentuation, 
 
 " What devil cackling at ? Always grin, grin, grin giggle, 
 gig^e, giggle psha ! " 
 
 "Why really, neighbour," said Peter, composing himself, "you 
 must let a man laugh now and then." 
 
 " Man ! " said the corporal ; " man's a noble animal ! Man's a 
 musket, primed, loaded, ready to save a friend or kill a foe 
 charge not to be wasted on every torn-tit. But you ! not a 
 musket, but a cracker ! noisy, harmless, can't touch you, but off 
 you go, whiz, pop, bang in one's face ! baugh ! " 
 
 C 2
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 1 Well ! " said the good-humoured landlord, " I should think 
 Master Aram the great scholar who lives down the vale yonder, 
 a man quite after your own heart. He is grave enough to suit 
 you. He does not laugh very easily, I fancy." 
 " After my heart ? Stoops like a bow ! " 
 
 " Indeed he does look on the ground as he walks ; when I 
 think, I do the same. But what a marvellous man it is ! I hear 
 that lie reads the Psalms in Hebrew. He's very affable and 
 meek-like for such a scholard." 
 
 " Tell you what. Seen the world, Master Dealtry, and know 
 a thing or two. Your shy dog is always a deep one. Give me a 
 man who looks me in the face as he would a cannon !" 
 " Or a lass," said Peter, knowingly. 
 The grim corporal smiled. 
 
 " Talking of lasses," said the soldier, re-filling his pipe, " what 
 creature Miss Lester is ! Such eyes ! such nose ! Fit for a 
 colonel, by Gad ! ay, or a major-general ! " 
 
 " For my part, I think Miss Ellinor almost as handsome ; not 
 so grand-like, but more lovesome." 
 
 " Nice little thing ! " said the corporal, condescendingly. " But 
 zooks ! whom have we here ? " 
 
 This last question was applied to a man who was slowly 
 turning from the road towards the inn. The stranger, for such 
 he was, was stout, thick-set, and of middle height. His dress 
 was not without pretension to a rank higher than the lowest ; 
 but it was threadbare and worn, and soiled with dust and travel. 
 His appearance was by no means prepossessing: small sunken 
 eyes of a light hazel, and a restless and rather fierce expression; 
 a thick flat nose, high cheek-bones, a large bony jaw from which 
 the flesh receded, and a bull throat indicative of great strength, 
 constituted his claims to personal attraction. The stately cor- 
 poral, without moving, kept a vigilant and suspicious eye upon 
 the new comer, muttering to Peter, " Customer for you ; rum 
 customer too by Gad ! " 
 
 The stranger now reached the little table, and halting short 
 took up the brown jug, without ceremony or preface, and emptied 
 it at a draught. 
 
 The corporal stared the corporal frowned ; but before fot
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 37 
 
 he was somewhat slow of speech he had time to vent his 
 displeasure, the stranger, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, said, 
 in rather a civil and apologetic tone, 
 
 " I beg pardon, gentlemen. I have had a long march of it, 
 and very tired I am." 
 
 " Humph ! march ! " said the corporal a little appeased : " not 
 in his Majesty's service eh ? " 
 
 " Not now," answered the traveller ; then, turning round to 
 Dealtry, he said, " Are you landlord here ? " 
 
 " At your service," said Peter,_with the indifference of a man 
 well to do, and not ambitious of halfpence. 
 
 " Come, then, quick budge," said the traveller, tapping him 
 on the back : " bring more glasses another jug of the October ; 
 and anything or everything your larder is able to produce 
 d'ye hear ? " 
 
 Peter, by no means pleased with the briskness of this address, 
 eyed the dusty and way-worn pedestrian from head to foot ; 
 then, looking over his shoulder towards the door, he said, as he 
 ensconced himself yet more firmly on his seat 
 
 " There's my wife by the door, friend ; go, tell her what you 
 ivant." 
 
 " Do you know," said the traveller, in a slow and measured 
 accent "do you know, master Shrivel-face, that I have more 
 than half a mind to break your head for impertinence ? You a 
 landlord ! you keep an inn, indeed ! Come, sir, make off, 
 or " 
 
 " Corporal ! corporal ! " cried Peter, retreating hastily from 
 his seat as the brawny traveller approached menacingly towards 
 him " you won't see the peace broken. Have a care, friend 
 have a care. I'm clerk to the parish clerk to the parish, sir 
 and I'll indict you for sacrilege." 
 
 The wooden features of Bunting relaxed into a sort of grin at 
 the alarm of his friend. He puffed away, without making any 
 reply ; meanwhile the traveller, taking advantage of Peter's 
 hasty abandonment of his cathedrarian accommodation, seized 
 the vacant chair, and, drawing it yet closer to the table, flung 
 himself upon it, and placing his hat on the table, wiped his brows 
 with the air of a man about to make himself thoroughly at home.
 
 38 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Peter Dealtry was assuredly a personage of peaceable dis- 
 position ; but then he had the proper pride of a host and a 
 clerk. 13 is feelings were exceedingly wounded at this cavalier 
 treatment: before the very eyes of his wife, too! what an 
 example ! He thrust his hands deep into his breeches pockets, 
 and strutting with a ferocious swagger towards the traveller, 
 he said, 
 
 " Hark ye, sirrah ! This is not the way folks are treated in 
 this country : and I'd have you to know that I'm a man what 
 has a brother a constable." 
 
 "Well, sir!" 
 
 " Well, sir, indeed ! Well ! Sir, it's not well, by no manner 
 of means ; and if you don't pay for the ale you drank, and go 
 quietly about your business, I'll have you put in the stocks for 
 a vagrant" 
 
 This, the most menacing speech Peter Dealtry was ever known 
 to deliver, was uttered with so much spirit, that the corporal, 
 who had hitherto preserved silence for he was too strict a 
 disciplinarian to thrust himself unnecessarily into brawls, turned 
 approvingly round, and nodding as well as his stock would suffer 
 him at the indignant Peter, he said, " Well done ! 'fegs you've 
 a soul, man ! a soul fit for the forty-second 1 augh ! A soul 
 above the inches of five feet two ! " 
 
 There was something bitter and sneering in the traveller's 
 aspect as he now, regarding Dealtry, repeated, 
 
 " Vagrant ! humph ! And pray what is a vagrant ? " 
 
 "What is a vagrant ?" echoed Peter, a little puzzled. 
 
 * Yes I answer me that." 
 
 " Why, a vagrant is a man what wanders, and what has no 
 money." 
 
 "Truly," said the stranger smiling, but the smile by no means 
 improved his physiognomy, " an excellent definition ; but one 
 \\hich, I will convince you, does not apply to me." So saying 
 he drew from his pocket a handful of silver coins, and, throwing 
 them on the table, added, " Come, let's have no more of this. 
 You see I can pay for what I order ; and now, do recollect that 
 I am a weary and hungry man." 
 
 No sooner did Peter behold the money, than a sudden placidity
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 39 
 
 stole over his ruffled spirit : nay, a certain benevolent com- 
 miseration for the fatigue and wants of the traveller replaced at 
 once, and as by a spell, the angry feelings that had previously 
 roused him. 
 
 " Weary and hungry," said he ; " why did not you say that 
 before ? That would have been quite enough for Peter Dealtry. 
 Thank Heaven ! I am a man what can feel for my neighbours. 
 I have bowels yes, I have bowels. Weary and hungry ! you 
 shall be served in an instant. I may be a little hasty or so, but 
 I'm a good Christian at bottom ask the corporal. And what 
 says the Psalmist, Psalm 147 ? 
 
 " ' By Him the beasts that loosely range 
 
 With timely food are fed : 
 He speaks the word and what He wills 
 Is done as soon as said.' " 
 
 Animating his kindly emotions by this apt quotation, Peter 
 turned to the house. The corporal now broke silence : the sight 
 of the money had not been without an effect upon him as well as 
 the landlord. 
 
 " Warm day, sir : your health. Oh ! forgot you emptied jug 
 baugh ! You said you were not now in his Majesty's service : 
 beg pardon were you ever ? " 
 
 " Why, once I was ; many years ago." 
 
 " Ah ! and what regiment ? I was in the forty-second. Heard 
 of the forty-second ? Colonel's name Dysart ; captain's, Trotter ; 
 corporal's, Bunting, at your service." 
 
 " I am much obliged by your confidence," said the traveller^ 
 drily. " I dare say you have seen much service ?" 
 
 " Service ! Ah ! may well say that ; twenty-three years' hard 
 work : and not the better for it ! A man that loves his country 
 is 'titled to a pension ; that's my mind ! But the world don't 
 smile upon corporals augh ! " 
 
 Here Peter reappeared with a fresh supply of the October, 
 and an assurance that the cold meat would speedily follow. 
 
 " I hope yourself and this gentleman will bear me company,'* 
 said the traveller, passing the jug to the corporal ; and in a few 
 moments, so well pleased grew the trio with each other, that the 
 sound of their laughter came loud and frequent to the ears of 
 the good housewife within.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 The traveller now seemed to the corporal and mine host a 
 right jolly, good-humoured fellow. Not, however, that he bore a 
 fair share in the conversation he rather promoted the hilarity 
 of his new acquaintances than led it. He laughed heartily at 
 Peter's jests, and the corporal's repartees; and the latter, by 
 degrees assuming the usual sway he bore in the circles of the 
 village, contrived, before the viands were on the table to mono- 
 polise the whole conversation. 
 
 The traveller found in the repast a new excuse for silence. He 
 ate with a most prodigious and most contagious appetite ; and 
 in a few seconds the knife and fork of the corporal were as 
 busily engaged as if he had only three minutes to spare between 
 a march and a dinner. 
 
 " This is a pretty retired spot," quoth the traveller, as at 
 length he finished his repast, and threw himself back on his 
 chair "a very pretty spot. Whose neat old-fashioned house 
 was that I passed on the green, with the gable-ends and the 
 flo\ver-pots in front ? " 
 
 " Oh, the squire's," answered Peter. " Squire Lester's, an 
 excellent gentleman." 
 
 " A rich man, I should think, for these parts ; the best house 
 I have seen for some miles," said the stranger, carelessly. 
 
 " Rich ! yes, he's well do ; he does not live so as not to have 
 money to lay by." 
 
 " Any family ? " 
 
 " Two daughters and a nephew." 
 
 " And the nephew does not ruin him ? Happy uncle ! Mine 
 was not so lucky ! " said the traveller. 
 
 " Sad fellows we soldiers in our young days ! " observed the 
 corporal with a wink. " No, Squire Walter's a good young nan, 
 a pride to his uncle ! " 
 
 " So," said the pedestrian, " they are not forced to keep up a 
 large establishment and ruin themselves by a retinue of servants ? 
 Corporal, the jug." 
 
 " Nay," said Peter, " Squire Lester's gate is always open to 
 the poor ; but as for show, he leaves that to my Vord at the 
 castle." 
 
 " The castle ! where's that ?"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "Abc^t six miles off; you've heard of my Lord***, I'll 
 swear." 
 
 " Ay, to be sure a courtier. But who else lives about here ? 
 I mean, who are the principal persons, barring the corporal and 
 yourself Mr. Eelpry, I think our friend here calls you." 
 
 " Dealtry, Peter Dealtry, sir, is my name. Why, the most ' 
 noticeable man, you must know, is a great scholard, a wonder- 
 fully learned man ; there yonder, you may just catch a glimpse 
 of the tall what-d'ye-call-it he has built out on the top of his 
 house, that he may get nearer to the stars. He has got glasses 
 by which I've heard that you may see the people in the moon 
 walking on their heads ; but I can't say as I believe all I hear." 
 
 " You are too sensible for that, I'm sure. But this scholar, I 
 suppose, is not very rich ; learning does not clothe men now-a- 
 days eh, coiporal ? " 
 
 " And why should it ? Zounds ! can it teach a man how to 
 defend his country ? Old England wants soldiers, and be d d to 
 them ! But the man's well enough, I must own, civil, modest " 
 
 " And not by no means a beggar," added Peter ; " he gave as 
 much to the poor last winter as the squire himself." 
 
 " Indeed," said the stranger : "this scholar is rich, then ?" 
 
 " So, so ; neither one nor t'other. But if he were as rich as 
 my lord he could not be more respected ; the greatest folks in 
 the country come in their carriages and four to see him. Lord 
 bless you ! there is not a name more talked on in the whole 
 county than Eugene Aram." 
 
 " What ! " cried the traveller, his countenance changing as he 
 sprang from his seat. " What ! Aram ! did you say Aram ? 
 Great God ! how strange ! " 
 
 Peter, not a little startled by the abruptness and vehemence 
 of his guest, stared at him with open mouth, and even the 
 corporal involuntarily took his pipe from his lips. 
 
 " What ! " said the former ; " you know him, do you ? You Ve 
 heard of him, eh ? " 
 
 The stranger did not reply ; he seemed lost in a reverie ; he 
 muttered inaudible words between his teeth; now he strode two 
 steps forward, clenching his hands ; now smiled grimly ; and 
 then returning to his seat, threw himself on it, still in silence.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 The soldier and the clerk exchanged looks, and now outspake 
 the corporal 
 
 44 Rum tantrums! What the devil! did the man cat your 
 grandmother?" 
 
 Roused perhaps by so pertinent and sensible a question, the 
 stranger lifted his head from his breast, and said, with a forced 
 smile, "You have done me, without knowing it, a great kindness, 
 my friend. Eugene Aram was an early and intimate acquaint- 
 ance of mine : we have not met for many years. I never guessed 
 that he lived in these parts : indeed I did not know where he 
 resided. I am truly glad to think I have lighted upon him thus 
 unexpectedly." 
 
 " What ! you did not know where he lived ? Well, I thought 
 ill the world knew that 1 Why, men from the univarsities have 
 come all the way merely to look at the spot" 
 
 u Very likely," returned the stranger ; " but I am not a learned 
 man myself.and what is celebrity in one set is obscurity in another. 
 Besides, I have never been in this part of the world before." 
 
 Peter was about to reply, when he heard the shrill voice of 
 his wife behind. 
 
 " Why don't you rise, Mr. Lazyboots? Where are your eyes ? 
 Don't you see the young ladies ? " 
 
 Dealt ry's hat was off in an instant the stiff corporal rose 
 like a musket. The stranger would have kept his seat, but 
 Dealtry gave him an admonitory tug by the collar ; accordingly 
 he rose, muttering a hasty oath, which certainly died on his lips 
 when he saw the cause which had thus constrained him into 
 courtesy. 
 
 Through a little gate close by Peter's house Madeline and her 
 sister had just passed on their evening walk, and with the kind 
 familiarity for which they were both noted, they had stopped to 
 salute the landlady of The Spotted Dog, as she now, her labours 
 done, sat by the threshold, within hearing of the convivial group, 
 and plaiting straw. The whole family of Lester were so beloved, 
 that we question whether my lord himself, as the great noble- 
 man of the place was always called (as if there were only one 
 lord in the peerage), would have obtained the same degree of 
 respect that was always lavished upon them.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 43 
 
 " Don't let us disturb you, good people," said Ellinor, as they 
 now moved towards the boon companions ; when her eye sud- 
 denly falling on the stranger, she stopped short. There was 
 something in his appearance, and especially in the expression 
 of his countenance at that moment, which no one could have 
 marked for the first time without apprehension and distrust ; 
 and it was so seldom that, in that retired spot, the young 
 ladies encountered even one unfamiliar face, that the effect the 
 stranger's appearance might have produced on any one, might 
 well be increased for them to a startling and painful degree. 
 The traveller saw at once the sensation he had created ; his 
 brow lowered ; and the same unpleasant smile, or rather sneer, 
 that we have noted before, distorted his lip, as with affected 
 humility he made his obeisance. 
 
 "How ! a stranger!" said Madeline, sharing, though in a less 
 degree, the feelings of her sister ; and then, after a pause, she 
 said, as she glanced oviar his garb, " not in distress, I hope ? " 
 
 "No, madam!" said the stranger; "if by distress is meant 
 beggary. I am in all respects, perhaps, better than I seem." 
 
 There was a general titter from the corporal, my host, and 
 his -wife, at the traveller's semi-jest at his own unprepossessing 
 appearance ; but Madeline, a little disconcerted, bowed hastily, 
 and drew her sister away. 
 
 ' " A proud quean ! " said the stranger, as he reseated himself 
 and watched the sisters gliding across the green. 
 
 All mouths were opened against him immediately. He found 
 it no easy matter to make his peace; and before he had quite 
 done it, he called for his bill, and rose to depart. 
 
 " Well ! " said he, as he tendered his hand to the corporal, " we 
 may meet again, and enjoy together some more of your good 
 stories. Meanwhile, which is my way to this this famous 
 scholar's ? Ehem ! " 
 
 " Why," quoth Peter, " you saw the direction in which the 
 young ladies went ; you must take the same. Cross the stile 
 you will find at the right, wind along the foot of the hill for 
 about three parts of a mile, and you will then see in the middle 
 of a broad plain a lonely grey house, with a thingumbob at the 
 top ; a 'servatory they call it. That's Master Aram's."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 - Thank you." 
 
 "And a very pretty walk it is, too," said the dame; 4 the 
 prettiest hereabouts to my liking, till you get to the house at 
 least ; and so the young ladies think, for it's their usual walk 
 every evening." 
 
 " Humph I Then I may meet them." 
 
 44 Well, and if you do, make yourself look as Christian-like as 
 you can," retorted the hostess. 
 
 There was a second grin at the ill-favoured traveller's expense, 
 amidst which he went his way. 
 
 " An odd chap ! " said Peter, looking after the sturdy form 
 of the traveller. " I wonder what he is ; he seems well edicated 
 makes use of good words." 
 
 " What sinnifies," said the corporal, who felt a sort of fellow- 
 feeling for his new acquaintance's bluffness of manner; "what 
 sinnifies what he is ? Served his country that's enough ; 
 never told me, by the by, his regiment ; set me a talking, and 
 let out nothing himself; old soldier every inch of him ! " 
 
 " He can take care of number one," said Peter. " How he 
 emptied the jug ! and, my stars ! what an appetite ! " 
 
 " Tush," said the corporal ; " hold jaw. Man of the world 
 man of the world that's clear." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A DIALOGUE AXD AN ALARM. A STUDENT'S HOUSE. 
 
 A fellow by the hand of Nature marked. 
 Quoted, and signed, to do a deed of shame. 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE, Kingjohm. 
 
 
 
 He is a scholar, if a man may trust 
 The liberal voice of Fame in her report 
 
 * 
 
 Myself was once a student, and indeed 
 Fed with the selfsame humour he is now. 
 
 BEN JONSON, Every Man in his Ifumotir. 
 
 THE two sisters pursued their walk along a scene which 
 might well be favoured by their selection. No sooner had 
 they crossed the stile than the village seemed vanished intc
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 4 5 
 
 earth ; so quiet, so lonely, so far from the evidence of life was 
 the landscape through which they passed. On their right sloped 
 a green and silent hill, shutting out all view beyond itself, save 
 the deepening and twilight sky ; to the left, and immediately 
 along their road, lay fragments of stone, covered with moss, or 
 shadowed by wild shrubs, that here and there gathered into 
 copses, or breaking abruptly away from the rich sod, left 
 frequent spaces through which you caught long vistas of forest- 
 land, or the brooklet gliding in a noisy and rocky course, and 
 breaking into a thousand tiny waterfalls or mimic eddies. So 
 secluded was the scene, and so unwitnessing of cultivation, that 
 you would not have believed that a human habitation could 
 be at hand, and this air of perfect solitude and quiet gave an 
 additional charm to the spot." 
 
 " But I assure you," said Ellinor, earnestly continuing a con- 
 versation they had begun, " I assure you I was not mistaken : 
 I jaw it as plainly as I see you." 
 
 " What, in the breast-pocket ? " 
 
 " Yes ; as he drew out his handkerchief I saw the barrel of 
 the pistol quite distinctly." 
 
 " Indeed ! I think we had better tell my father as soon as 
 we get home ; it may be as well to be on our guard : though 
 robbery, I believe, has not been heard of in Grassdale for these 
 twenty years." 
 
 " Yet for what purpose, save that of evil, could he in these 
 peaceable times and this peaceable country carry firearms about 
 him ? And what a countenance ! Did you note the shy and 
 yet ferocious eye, like that of some animal that longs yet fears 
 to spring upon you ? " 
 
 ' Upon my word, Ellinor," said Madeline, smiling, " you are 
 not very mercifu\ to strangers. After all, the man might have 
 provided himself with the pistol which you saw as a natural 
 precaution ; reflect that, as a stranger, he may well not know 
 how safe this district usually is, and he may have come from 
 London, in the neighbourhood of which they say robberies have 
 been frequent of late. As to his looks, they are, I own, un- 
 pardonable ! for so much ugliness there can be no excuse. Had 
 the man been as handsome as our cousin Walter, you would
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 not, perhaps, have been so uncharitable in your fears at the 
 pistol." 
 
 " Nonsense, Madeline," said Ellinor, blushing and turning 
 away her face : there was a moment's pause, which the younger 
 sister broke. 
 
 " We do not seem," said she, " to make much progress in the 
 friendship of our singular neighbour. I never knew my father 
 court any one so much as he has courted Mr. Aram, and yet 
 you see how seldom he calls upon us, nay, I often think that 
 he seeks to shun us ; no great compliment to our attractions, 
 Madeline!" 
 
 " I regret his want of sociability for his own sake," said 
 Madeline ; " for he seems melancholy as well as thoughtful ; and 
 he leads so secluded a life, that I cannot but think my father's 
 conversation and society, if he would but encourage it, might 
 afford some relief to his solitude." 
 
 "And he always seems," observed Ellinor, "to take pleasure 
 in my father's conversation, as who would not? How his 
 countenance lights up when he converses ! it is a pleasure to 
 watch it. I think him positively handsome when he speaks." 
 
 " Oh, more than handsome ! " said Madeline, with enthusi- 
 asm ! "with that high pale brow, and those deep, unfathomable 
 eyes." 
 
 Ellinor smiled, and it was now Madeline's turn to blush. 
 " Well," said the former, " there is something about him that 
 fills one with an indescribable interest ; and his manner, if cold 
 at times, is yet always so gentle." 
 
 ' And to hear him converse," said Madeline, " it is like 
 music. His thoughts, his very words, seems so different from 
 the language and ideas of others. What a pity that he should 
 ever be silent ! " 
 
 " There is one peculiarity about his gloom, it never inspires 
 one with distrust," said Ellinor ; " if I had observed him in the 
 same circumstances as that ill-omened traveller, I should have 
 had no apprehension." 
 
 "Ah! that traveller still runs in your head. If we were to 
 meet him on this spot ! " 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" cried Ellinor, turning hastily round in
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 47 
 
 alarm, and, lo ! as if her sister had been a.,prophet, she saw the 
 very person in question, at some little distance behind them, and 
 walking on with rapid strides. 
 
 She" uttered a faint shriek of surprise and terror, and Made- 
 line, looking back at the sound, immediately participated in her 
 alarm. The spot looked so desolate and lonely, and the imagina- 
 tion of both had been already so worked upon by Ellinor's feass-, 
 and their conjectures respecting the ill-boding weapon she had 
 witnessed, that a thousand apprehensions of outrage and murder 
 crowded at once upon the minds of the two sisters. Without, 
 however, giving vent in words to their alarm, they quickened 
 their pace involuntarily, every moment stealing a glance behind, 
 to watch the progress of the suspected robber. They thought 
 that he also seemed to accelerate his movements ; and this 
 observation increased their terror, and would appear, indeed, to 
 give it some more rational ground. At length, as by a sudden 
 turn of the road, they lost sight of the dreaded stranger, their 
 alarm suggested to them but one resolution, and they fairly fled 
 on as fast as the fear which actuated would allow them. The 
 nearest, and indeed the only house in that direction, was Aram's ; 
 but they both imagined if they could come within sight of that, 
 they should be safe. They looked back at every interval ; now 
 they did not see their fancied pursuer now he emerged again into 
 view now yes he also was running. " Faster faster, Made- 
 line, for God's sake ! he is gaining upon us ! " cried Ellinor. 
 The path grew more wild, and the trees more thick and fre- 
 quent ; at every cluster that marked their progress, they saw 
 the stranger closer and closer ; at length a sudden break a 
 sudden turn in the landscape, a broad plain burst upon them, 
 and in the midst of it the student's solitary abode ! 
 
 " Thank Heaven we are safe ! " cried Madeline. She turned 
 once more to look for the stranger ; in so doing, her foot struck 
 against a fragment of stone, and she fell with great violence to 
 the ground. She endeavoured to rise, but found herself, at first, 
 unable to stir from the spot. In this state, however, she looked 
 back, and saw the traveller at some little distance. But he also 
 halted, and, after a moment's seeming deliberation, turned aside, 
 and was lost among the bushes.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 With great difficulty Ellinor now assisted Madeline to rise ; 
 her ankle was violently sprained, and she could not put her foot 
 to the ground ; but though she had evinced so much dread at 
 the apparition of the stranger, she now testified an almost equal 
 degree of fortitude in bearing pain. " I am not much hurt, 
 Ellinor," she said, faintly smiling, to encourage her sister, who 
 supported her in speechless alarm : " but what is to be done ? 
 I cannot use this foot. How shall we get home ? " 
 
 " But are you sure you are not much hurt ? " said poor 
 Ellinor, almost crying ; " lean on me heavier pray ! Only 
 try and reach the house, and we can then stay there till Mr. 
 Aram sends home for the carriage." 
 
 " But what will he think ? how strange it will seem ! " said 
 Madeline, the colour once more visiting her cheek, which a 
 moment since had been blanched as pale as death. 
 
 " Is this a time for scruples and ceremony ? " said Ellinor. 
 " Come ! I entreat you, come ; if you linger thus, the man may 
 take courage and attack us yet There 1 that's right ! Is the 
 pain very great ? " 
 
 " I do not mind the pain," murmured Madeline ; " but if he 
 should think we intrude ? His habits are so reserved so 
 secluded ; indeed I fear " 
 
 ' Intrude 1 " interrupted Ellinor. " Do you think so ill of 
 him ? Do you suppose that, hermit as he is, he has lost com- 
 mon humanity ? But lean more on me, dearest ; you do not 
 know how strong I am ! " 
 
 Thus alternately chiding, caressing, and encouraging her 
 sister, Ellinor led on the sufferer, till they had crossed the plain, 
 though with slowness and labour, and stood before the porch of 
 the recluse's house. They had looked back from time to time, 
 but the cause of so much alarm appeared no more. This they 
 deemed a sufficient evidence of the justice of their appre- 
 hensions. 
 
 Madeline even now would fain have detained her sister's hand 
 from the bell that hung without the porch half imbedded in 
 ivy; but Ellinor, out of patience as she well might be with 
 her sister's unseasonable prudery, refused any longer delay. So 
 singularly still and solitary was the plain around the house, that
 
 EUGEXE ARAM. 49 
 
 the sound of the bell breaking the silence had in it something 
 startling, and appeared, in its sudden and shrill voice, a profana- 
 tion of the deep tranquillity of the spot. They did not wait long 
 a step was heard within the door was slowly unbarred, and 
 the student himself stood before them. 
 
 He was a man who might, perhaps, have numbered some five 
 and thirty years ; but, at a hasty glance, he would have seemed 
 considerably younger. He was above the ordinary stature ; 
 though a gentle, and not ungraceful bend in the neck, rather 
 than the shoulders, somewhat curtailed his proper advantages of 
 height. His frame was thin and slender, but well knit and fair 
 proportioned. Nature had originally cast his form in an athletic 
 mould ; but sedentary habits, and the wear of mind, seemed 
 somewhat to have impaired her gifts. His cheek was pale and 
 delicate ; yet it was rather the delicacy of thought than of weak 
 health. His hair, which was long, and of a rich and deep 
 brown, was thrown back from his face and temples, and left a 
 broad, high, majestic forehead utterly unrelieved and bare ; and 
 on the brow there was not a single wrinkle; it was as smooth 
 as it might have been some fifteen years ago. There was a 
 singular calmness, and, so to speak, profundity of thought, 
 eloquent upon its clear expanse, which suggested the idea of 
 one who had passed his life rather in contemplation than 
 emotion. It was a face that a physiognomist would have loved 
 to look upon, so much did it speak both of the refinement and 
 the dignity of intellect. 
 
 Such was the person if pictures convey a faithful re- 
 semblance of a man, certainly among the most eminent in 
 his day for various and profound learning, and especially for a 
 genius wholly self-taught, yet never contented to repose upon 
 the wonderful stores it had laboriously accumulated. 
 
 He now stood before the two girls, silent, and evidently 
 surprised ; and it would have been no unworthy subject for a 
 picture that ivied porch that still spot Madeline's reclining 
 and subdued form and downcast eyes the eager face of Ellinor, 
 about to narrate the nature and cause of their intrusion and 
 the pale student himself, thus suddenly aroused from his solitary 
 meditations, and converted into the protector of beauty. 
 
 D
 
 50 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 No sooner did Aram learn from Ellinor the outline of their 
 story, and Madeline's accident, than his countenance and manner 
 testified the liveliest and most eager interest Madeline was 
 inexpressibly touched and surprised at the kindly and respectful 
 earnestness with which this recluse scholar, usually so cold and 
 abstracted in mood, assisted and led her into the house : the 
 sympathy he expressed for her pain the sincerity of his tone 
 the compassion of his eyes and as those dark, and, to use her 
 own thought, unfathomable orbs, bent admiringly and yet so 
 gently upon her, Madeline, even in spite of her pain, felt an 
 indescribable, a delicious thrill at her heart, which in the presence 
 of no one else had she ever experienced before. 
 
 Aram now summoned the only domestic his house possessed, 
 who appeared in the form of an old woman, whom he seemed to 
 have selected from the whole neighbourhood as the person most 
 in keeping with the rigid seclusion he preserved. She was 
 exceedingly deaf, and was a proverb in the village for her 
 extreme taciturnity. Poor old Margaret ! she was a widow, and 
 had lost ten children by early deaths. There -was a time when 
 her gaiety had been as noticeable as her reserve was now. In 
 spite of her infirmity, she was not slow in comprehending the 
 accident Madeline had met with ; and she busied herself with a 
 promptness which showed that her misfortunes had not dead- 
 ened her natural kindness of disposition, in preparing fomenta- 
 tions and bandages for the wounded foot. 
 
 Meanwhile Aram undertook to seek the manor-house, and 
 bring back the old family coach, which had dozed inactively 
 in its shelter for the last six months, to convey the sufferer 
 home. 
 
 "No, Mr. Aram," said Madeline, colouring; "pray do not go 
 yourself: consider, the man may still be loitering on the road. 
 He is armed : good Heavens ! if he should meet you ! " 
 
 " Fear not, madam," said Aram, with a faint smile. " / also 
 keep arms, even in this obscure and safe retreat ; and to satisfy 
 you, I will not neglect to carry them with me." 
 
 As he spoke, he took from the wainscot, where they hung, a 
 brace of large horse-pistols, slung them round him by a leather 
 belt, and flinging over his person, to conceal weapons so alarming
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 to any less dangerous passenger he might encounter, the long 
 cloak then usually worn in inclement seasons, as an outer 
 garment, he turned to depart 
 
 "But are they loaded ?" asked Ellinor. 
 
 Aram answered briefly in the affirmative. It was somewhat 
 singular, but the sisters did not then remark it, that a man so 
 peaceable in his pursuits, and seemingly possessed of no valu- 
 ables that could tempt cupidity, should in that spot, where 
 crime was never heard of, use such habitual precaution. 
 
 When the door closed upon him, and while the old woman 
 relieved the anguish of the sprain with a light hand and soothing 
 lotions, which she had shown some skill in preparing, Madeline 
 cast glances of interest and curiosity around the apartment into 
 which she had had the rare good fortune to obtain admittance. 
 
 The house had belonged to a family of some note, whose heirs 
 had outstripped their fortunes. It had been long deserted and 
 uninhabited ; and when Aram settled in those parts, the pro- 
 prietor was too glad to get rid of the incumbrance of an empty 
 house at a nominal rent. The solitude of the place had been the 
 main attraction to Aram ; and as he possessed what would be 
 considered a very extensive assortment of books, even for a 
 library of these days, he required a larger apartment than he 
 would have been able to obtain in an abode more compact and 
 more suitable to his fortunes and mode of living. 
 
 The room in which the sisters now found themselves was the 
 most spacious in the house, and was indeed of considerable 
 dimensions. It contained in front one large window, jutting 
 from the wall. Opposite was an antique and high mantelpiece 
 of black oak. The rest of the room was walled from the floor 
 to the roof with books ; volumes of all languages, and it might 
 even be said, without much exaggeration, upon all sciences, were 
 strewed around, on the chairs, the tables, or the floor. By the 
 window stood the student's desk, and a large old-fashioned oak 
 chair. A few papers, filled with astronomical calculations, lay 
 on the desk, and these were all the witnesses of the result of 
 study. Indeed, Aram does not appear to have been a man 
 much inclined to reproduce the learning he acquired ; what he 
 wrote was in very small proportion to what he had read. 
 
 D 2
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 So high and grave was the scholar's reputation, that the 
 retreat and sanctum of so many learned hours would have been 
 interesting, even to one who could not appreciate learning ; but 
 to Madeline, with her peculiar disposition and traits of mind, we 
 may readily conceive that the room presented a powerful and 
 pleasing charm. As the elder sister looked round in silence, 
 Ellinor attempted to draw the old woman into conversation. 
 She would fain have elicited some particulars of the habits and 
 daily life of the recluse ; but the deafness of their attendant was 
 so obstinate and hopeless, that she was forced to give up the 
 attempt in despair. " I fear," said she at last, her good nature 
 so far overcome by impatience as not to forbid a slight yawn ; 
 " I fear we shall have a dull time of it till my father arrives. 
 Just consider, the fat black mares, never too fast, can only creep 
 along that broken path, for road there is none : it will be quite 
 night before the coach arrives." 
 
 " I am sorry, dear Ellinor, my awkwardness should occasion 
 you so stupid an evening," answered Madeline. 
 
 "Oh," cried Ellinor, throwing her arms around her sister's 
 neck, " it is not for myself I spoke ; and, indeed, I am de- 
 lighted to think we have got into this wizard's den, and seen 
 the instruments of his art. But I do so trust Mr. Aram will not 
 meet that terrible man." 
 
 " Nay," said the prouder Madeline, " he is armed, and it is 
 but one man. I feel too high a respect for him to allow myself 
 much fear." 
 
 " But these bookmen are not often heroes," remarked Ellinor, 
 laughing. 
 
 "For shame," said Madeline, the colour mounting to her 
 forehead. " Do you not remember how, last summer, Eugene 
 Aram rescued Dame Grenfeld's child from the bull, though at the 
 literal peril of his own life ? And who but Eugene Aram, when 
 the floods in the year before swept along the low lands by Fair- 
 leigh, went day after day to rescue the persons, or even to save 
 the goods of those poor people ; at a time, too, when the boldest 
 villagers would not hazard themselves across the waters ? But 
 bless me, Ellinor, what is the matter? you turn pale you 
 tremble."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 53 
 
 " Hush ! " said Ellinor, under her breath, and, putting her 
 finger to her mouth, she rose and stole lightly to the window ; 
 she had observed the figure of a man pass by, and now, as she 
 gained the window, she saw him halt by the porch, and recognised 
 the formidable stranger. Presently the bell sounded, and the 
 old woman, familiar with its shrill sound, rose from her kneeling 
 position beside the sufferer to attend to the summons. Ellinor 
 sprang forward and detained her : the poor old woman stared 
 at her in amazement, wholly unable to comprehend her abrupt 
 gestures and her rapid language. It was with considerable 
 difficulty, and after repeated efforts, that she at length impressed 
 the dulled sense of the crone with the nature of their alarm, and 
 the expediency of refusing admittance to the stranger. Mean- 
 while, the bell had rung again, again, and the third time, with a 
 prolonged violence which testified the impatience of the applicant. 
 As soon as the good dame had satisfied herself as to Ellinor's 
 meaning, she could no longer be accused of unreasonable 
 taciturnity ; she wrung her hands, and poured forth a volley 
 of lamentations and fears, which effectually relieved Ellinor from 
 the dread of her unheeding the admonition. Satisfied at having 
 done thus much, Ellinor now herself hastened to the door, and 
 secured the ingress with an additional bolt, and then, as the 
 thought flashed upon her, returned to the old woman, and made 
 her, with an easier effort than before, now that her senses were 
 sharpened by fear, comprehend the necessity of securing the back 
 entrance also : both hastened away to effect this precaution, and 
 Madeline, who herself desired Ellinor to accompany the old 
 woman, was left alone. She kept her eyes fixed on the window 
 with a strange sentiment of dread at being thus left in so helpless 
 a situation ; and though a door of no ordinary dimensions and 
 doubly locked interposed between herself and the intruder, she 
 expected in breathless terror, every instant, to see the form of 
 the ruffian burst into the apartment. As she thus sat and looked, 
 she shudderingly saw the man, tired perhaps of repeating a sum- 
 mons so ineffectual, come to the window and look pryingly 
 within : their eyes met ; Madeline had not the power to shriek 
 Would he break through the window ? that was her only idea 
 and it deprived her of words, almost of sense. He gazed upon
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 her evident terror for a moment with a grim smile of contempt : 
 he then knocked at the window, and his voice broke harshly on 
 a silence yet more dreadful than the interruption. 
 
 "Ho, ho! so there is some life stirring! I beg pardon, 
 madam, is Mr. Aram Eugene Aram, within ? * 
 
 " No," said Madeline, faintly ; and then, sensible that her 
 voice did not reach him, she reiterated the answer in a louder 
 tone. The man, as if satisfied, made a rude inclination of his 
 head, and withdrew from the window. Ellinor now returned, 
 and with difficulty Madeline found words to explain to her what 
 had passed. It will be conceived that the two young ladies 
 waited for the arrival of their father with o lukewarm expecta- 
 tion ; the stranger, however, appeared no more ; and in about 
 an hour, to their inexpressible joy, they heard the rumbling 
 sound of the old coach as it rolled towards the house. This 
 time there was no delay in unbarring the door. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SOLILOQUY AND THE CHARACTER OF A RECLUSE. THE INTERRUPTION. 
 
 Or let my lamp at midnight hour 
 lie seen in some high lonely tower, 
 \Vhere I may oft outwatch the bear, 
 Or thrice great Hermes and unsphere 
 The spirit of Plato. MILTON, // Fenserow. 
 
 As Aram assisted the beautiful Madeline into the carriage 
 as he listened to her sweet voice as he marked the grateful 
 expression of her soft eyes as he felt the slight yet warm 
 pressure of her fairy hand, that vague sensation of delight 
 which preludes love, for the first time in his sterile and solitary 
 life, agitated his breast. Lester held out his hand to him with 
 a frank cordiality which the scholar could not resist. 
 
 " Do not let us be strangers, Mr. Aram," said he, warmly. 
 "It is not often that I press for companionship o'ut of my own 
 circle ; but in your company I should find pleasure as well as 
 instruction. Let us break the ice boldly, and at once. Come
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 55 
 
 and dine \vith me to-morrow, and Ellinor shall sing to us in the 
 evening." 
 
 The excuse died upon Aram's lips. Another glance at Made- 
 line conquered the remains of his reserve : he accepted the 
 invitation, and he could not but mark, with an unfamiliar 
 emotion of the heart, that the eyes of Madeline sparkled as he 
 did so. 
 
 With an abstracted air, and arms folded across his breast, he 
 gazed after the carriage till the winding of the valley snatched 
 it from his view. He then, waking from his reverie with a start, 
 turned into the house and carefully closing and barring the door, 
 mounted the slow steps to the lofty chamber with which, the 
 better to indulge his astronomical researches, he had crested his 
 lonely abode. 
 
 It was now night. The heavens broadened round him in all 
 the loving yet august tranquillity of the season and the hour ; 
 the stars bathed the living atmosphere with a solemn light ; and 
 above about around 
 
 " The holy time was quiet as a nun 
 Breathless with adoration." 
 
 He looked forth upon the deep and ineffable stillness of the 
 night, and indulged the reflections that it suggested. 
 
 " Ye mystic lights," said he, soliloquising : " worlds upon 
 worlds infinite incalculable. Bright defiers of rest and change, 
 rolling for ever above our petty sea of mortality, as, wave after 
 wave, we fret forth our little life, and sink into the black abyss ; 
 can we look upon you, note your appointed order, and your 
 unvarying courses, and not feel that we are, indeed, the poorest 
 puppets of an all-pervading and resistless destiny? Shall we 
 see throughout creation each marvel fulfilling its pre-ordered 
 fate no wandering from its orbit no variation in its seasons 
 and yet imagine that the Arch-ordainer will hold back the tides 
 He has sent from their unseen source, at our miserable bidding? 
 Shall we think that our prayers can avert a doom woven with 
 the skein of events ? To change a particle of our fate might 
 change the destiny of millions ! Shall the link forsake the 
 chain, and yet the chain be unbroken ? Away, then, with our 
 vague repinings, and our blind demands. All must walk omvard
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 to their goal ; be he the wisest who looks not one step behind. 
 The colours of our existence were doomed before our birth 
 our sorrows and our crimes ; millions of ages back, when this 
 hoary earth was peopled by other kinds, yea, ere its atoms had 
 formed one layer of its present soil, the eternal and all-seeing 
 Ruler of the universe, Destiny or God, had here fixed the 
 moment of our birth and the limits of our career. What, then, 
 is crime ? Fate ! What life ? Submission ! " 
 
 Such were the strange and dark thoughts which, too familiar 
 to his musings, now obtruded their mournful dogmas on his 
 mind. He sought a fairer subject for meditation, and Madeline 
 Lester rose before him. 
 
 Eugene Aram was a man whose whole life seemed to have 
 been one sacrifice to knowledge. What is termed pleasure had 
 no attraction for him. From the mature manhood at which he 
 had arrived, he looked back along his youth, and recognized no 
 youthful folly. Love he had hitherto regarded with a cold though 
 not an incurious eye : intemperance had never lured him to a 
 momentary self-abandonment. Even the innocent relaxations 
 with which the austerest minds relieve their accustomed toils, 
 had had no power to draw him from his beloved researches. 
 The delight monstrari digito ; the gratification of triumphant 
 wisdom; the whispers of an elevated vanity ; existed not for his 
 self-dependent and solitary heart. He was one of those earnest 
 and high-wrought enthusiasts who now are almost extinct upon 
 earth, and whom Romance has not hitherto attempted to 
 portray ; men not uncommon in the last century, who were 
 devoted to knowledge, yet disdainful of its fame ; who lived 
 for nothing else than to learn. From store to store, from treasure 
 to treasure, they proceeded in exulting labour, and having accu- 
 mulated all, they bestowed nought; they were the arch- misers of 
 the wealth of letters. Wrapped in obscurity, in some sheltered 
 nook remote from the great stir of men, they passed a life at once 
 unprofitable and glorious; the kast part of what they ransacked 
 would appal the industry of a modern student, yet the most 
 superficial of modern students might effect more for mankind. 
 They lived among oracles, but they gave none forth. And yet, 
 even in tin's very barrenness, there seems nothing high ; it was a
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 57 
 
 rare and great spectacle men, living aloof from the roar and 
 strife of the passions that raged below, devoting themselves to 
 the knowledge which is our purification and our immortality on 
 earth, and yet deaf and blind to the allurements of the vanity 
 which generally accompanies research ; refusing the ignorant 
 homage of their kind, making their sublime motive their only 
 meed, adoring Wisdom for her sole sake, and set apart in the 
 pDpulous universe, like those remoter stars which interchange 
 no light with earth gild not our darkness, and colour not our 
 air. 
 
 From his youth to the present period, Aram had dwelt little 
 in cities, though he had visited many, yet he could scarcely be 
 called ignorant of mankind ; there seems something intuitive in 
 the science which teaches us the knowledge of our race. Some 
 men emerge from their seclusion, and find, all at once, a power to 
 dart into the minds and drag forth the motives of those they 
 see ; it is a sort of second sight,' born with them, not acquired. 
 And Aram, it may be, rendered yet more acute by his profound and 
 habitual investigations of our metaphysical frame, never quitted 
 his solitude to mix with others, without penetrating into the 
 broad traits or prevalent infirmities their characters possessed. 
 In this, indeed he differed from the scholar tribe, and even in 
 abstraction was mechanically vigilant and observant. Much in 
 his nature, had early circumstances given it a different bias, 
 would have fitted him for worldly superiority and command. A 
 resistless energy, an unbroken perseverance, a profound, and 
 scheming, and subtle thought, a genius fertile in resources, a 
 tongue clothed with eloquence all, had his ambition so chosen, 
 might have given him the same empire over the physical, that he 
 had now attained over the intellectual world. It could not be 
 said that Aram wanted benevolence, but it was dashed, and mixed 
 with a certain scorn : the benevolence was the offspring of his 
 nature : the scorn seemed the result of his pursuits. He would 
 feed the birds from his window ; he would tread aside to avoid 
 the worm on his path ; were one of his own tribe in danger he 
 would save him at the hazard of his life : yet in his heart he 
 despised men, and believed them beyond amelioration. Unlike 
 the present race of schoolmen, who incline to the consoling hope
 
 5 8 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 of human perfectibility, he saw in the gloomy past but a dark 
 prophecy of the future. As Napoleon wept over one wounded 
 soldier in the field of battle, yet ordered, without emotion, thou- 
 sands to a certain death ; so Aram would have sacrificed himself 
 for an individual, but would not have sacrificed a momentary 
 gratification for his race. And this sentiment towards men, 
 at once of high disdain and profound despondency, was perhaps 
 the case why he rioted in indolence upon hin extraordinary 
 mental wealth, and could not be persuaded either to dazzle the 
 world or to serve it. But by little and little his fame had 
 broken forth from the limits with which he would have walled it . 
 a man who had taught himself, under singular difficulties, nearly 
 all the languages of the civilised earth ; the profound mathe- 
 matician, the elaborate antiquarian, the abstruse philologist, 
 uniting with his graver lore the more florid accomplishments of 
 science, from the scholastic trifling of heraldry to the gentle 
 learning of herbs and flowers, could scarcely hope for utter 
 obscurity in that day when all intellectual acquirement was held 
 in high honour, and its possessors were drawn together into a 
 sort of brotherhood by the fellowship of their pursuits. And 
 though Aram gave little or nothing to the world himself, he was 
 cvei willing to communicate to others any benefit or honour 
 deri/able from his researches. On the altar of science he kindled 
 no light, but the fragrant oil in the lamps of his more pious 
 brethren was largely borrowed from his stores. From almost 
 every college in PLurope came to his obscure abode letters of 
 acknowledgment or inquiry ; and few foreign cultivators of 
 learning visited this country without seeking an interview with 
 Aram. He received them with all the modesty and the courtesy 
 that characterised his demeanour ; but it was noticeable that he 
 never allowed these interruptions to be more than temporary. 
 He proffered no hospitality, and shrunk back from all offers of 
 friendship ; the interview lasted its hour, and was seldom 
 renewed. Patronage was not less distasteful to him than 
 sociality. Some occasional visits and condescensions of the 
 great he had received with a stern haughtiness, rather than his 
 habitual subdued urbanity. The precise amount of his fortune 
 was not known ; his wants were so few. that what would nave
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 59 
 
 been poverty to others might easily have been competence to 
 him ; and the only evidence he manifested of the command of 
 money, was in his extended and various library. 
 
 He had been now about two years settled in his present 
 retreat. Unsocial as he was, every one in the neighbourhood 
 loved him ; even the reserve of a man so eminent, arising as 
 it was supposed to do from a painful modesty, had in it 
 something winning ; and he had been known to evince, on 
 great occasions, a charity and a courage in the service of 
 others which removed from the seclusion of his habits the 
 semblance of misanthropy and of avarice. The peasant threw 
 kindly pity into his respectful greeting, as in his homeward 
 walk he encountered the pale and thoughtful student, with the 
 folded arms and downcast eyes which characterised the ab- 
 straction of his mood ; and the village maiden, as she courtseyed 
 by him, stole a glance at his handsome but melancholy coun- 
 tenance ; and told her sweetheart she was certain the poor 
 scholar had been crossed in love ! 
 
 And thus passed the student's life ; perhaps its monotony and 
 dulness required less compassion than they received : no man 
 can judge of the happiness of another. As the moon plays 
 upon the waves, and seems to our eyes to favour with a peculiar 
 beam one long track amidst the waters, leaving the rest in 
 comparative obscurity ; yet all the while she is no niggard in 
 her lustre, for though the rays that meet not our eyes seem 
 to us as though they were not, yet she, with an equal and 
 un favouring loveliness, mirrors herself on every wave : even 
 so, perhaps, happiness falls with the same brightness and power 
 over the whole expanse of life, though to our limited eyes it 
 seems only to rest on those billows from which the ray is 
 reflected on our sight. 
 
 From his contemplations, of whatsoever nature, Aram was 
 now aroused by a loud summons at the door ; the clock had 
 gone eleven. Who, at that late hour, when the whole village 
 was buried in sleep, could demand admittance ? He recollected 
 that Madeline had said the stranger who had so alarmed them 
 had inquired for him; at that recollection his cheek suddenly 
 blanched, but again, that stranger was surely only some poor
 
 60 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 traveller who had heard of his wonted charity, and had called 
 to solicit relief; for he had not met the stranger on the road to 
 Lester's house, and he had naturally set down the apprehensions 
 of his fair visitants to mere female timidity. Who could this 
 be ? No humble wayfarer would at that hour crave assistance ; 
 some disaster, perhaps, in the village ? From his lofty 
 chamber he looked forth and saw the stars watch quietly over 
 the scattered cottages and the dark foliage that slept breathlessly 
 around. All was still as death, but it seemed the stillness of 
 innocence and security : again ! the bell again ! He thought he 
 heard his name shouted without ; he strode once or twice 
 irresolutely to and fro the chamber ; and then his step grew 
 firm, and his native courage returned. His pistols were still 
 girded round him ; he looked to the priming, and muttered some 
 incoherent words ; he then descended the stairs, and slowly 
 unbarred the door. Without the porch, the moonlight full upon 
 his harsh features and sturdy frame, stood the ill- omened 
 traveller. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A DIXNF.R AT THE SQUIRE'S HALL. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO RETIRED 
 MEN WITH DIFFERENT OBJECTS IN RETIREMENT. DISTURBANCE FIRST IN- 
 TRODUCED INTO A I'EACEFUL FAMILY. 
 
 Can he not be sociable? Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 Subit quippe etiam ipsius incrtiie dulccdo ; et invisa primo dcsidia postremo amatur. 1 
 
 t Tacitus. 
 
 How use cloth breed a habit in a man ! 
 This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, 
 1 better brook than flourishing peopled towns. Winter's Tale. 
 
 THE next day, faithful to his appointment, Aram arrived at 
 Lester's. The good squire received him with a warm cordiality, 
 and Madeline with a blush and a smile that ought to have been 
 more grateful to him than acknowledgments. She was still a 
 prisoner to the sofa, but in compliment to Aram, the sofa *vas 
 wheeled into the hall where they dined, so that she was not 
 
 h a* the very sweetness of idleness stealthily introduces itself into the 
 <2, and the iloth, which wa, at f;rit hateful, becomes at length beloved.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 6l 
 
 absent from the repast. It was a pleasant room, that old hall ! 
 Though it was summer more for cheerfulness than warmth, 
 the log burnt on the spacious hearth : but at the same time the 
 latticed windows were thrown open, and the fresh yet sunny air 
 stole in, rich from the embrace of the woodbine and clematis, 
 which clung around the casement. 
 
 A few old pictures were panelled in the open wainscot ; and 
 here and there the horns of the mighty stag adorned the walls, 
 and united with the cheeriness of comfort associations of that of 
 enterprise. The good old board was crowded with the luxuries 
 meet for a country squire. The speckled trout, fresh from the 
 stream, and the four-year-old mutton modestly disclaiming its 
 own excellent merits, by affecting the shape and assuming the 
 adjuncts of venison. Then for the confectionery, it was worthy 
 of Ellinor, to whom that department generally fell ; and we 
 should scarcely be surprised to find, though we venture not 
 to affirm, that its delicate fabrication owed more to her than 
 superintendence. Then the ale, and the cider with rosemary in 
 the bowl, were incomparable potations ; and to the gooseberry 
 wine, which would have filled Mrs. Primrose with envy, was 
 added the more generous warmth of port which, in the squire's 
 younger days, had been the talk of the country, and which had 
 now lost none of its attributes, save " the original brightness " of 
 its colour. 
 
 But (the wine excepted) these various dainties met with slight 
 honour from their abstemious guest ; and, for though habitually 
 reserved he was rarely gloomy, they remarked that he seemed 
 'unusually fitful and sombre in his mood. Something appeared 
 to rest upon his mind, from which, by the excitement of wine 
 and occasional bursts of eloquence more animated than ordinary, 
 he seemed striving to escape ; and, at length, he apparently 
 succeeded. Naturally enough the conversation turned upon the 
 curiosities and scenery of the country round ; and here Aram 
 shone with a peculiar grace. Vividly alive to the influences of 
 nature, and minutely acquainted with its varieties, he invested 
 every hill and glade to which remark recurred with the poetry 
 of his descriptions ; and from his research he gave even scenes 
 the most familiar a charm and interest which had been strange
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 to them till then. To this stream some romantic legend had 
 once attached itself, long forgotten and now revived ; that 
 moor, so barren to an ordinary eye, was yet productive of some 
 rare and curious herb, whose properties afforded scope for lively 
 description ; that old mound was yet rife in attraction to one 
 versed in antiquities, and able to explain its origin, and from 
 such explanation deduce a thousand classic or Celtic episodes. 
 
 No subject was so homely or so trite, but the knowledge that 
 had neglected nothing was able to render it luminous and new. 
 And as he spoke, the scholar's countenance brightened, and his 
 voice, at first hesitating and low, compelled the attention to its 
 earnest and winning music. Lester himself, a man who, in his 
 long retirement, had not forgotten the attractions of intellectual 
 society, nor even neglected a certain cultivation of intellectual 
 pursuits, enjoyed a pleasure that he had not experienced for 
 years. The gay Ellinor was fascinated into admiration ; and 
 Madeline, the most silent of the group, drank in every word, 
 unconscious of the sweet poison she imbibed. Walter alone 
 seemed not carried away by the eloquence of their guest. He 
 preserved an unadmiring and sullen demeanour, and every now 
 and then regarded Aram with looks of suspicion and dislike. 
 This was more remarkable when the men were left alone : and 
 Lester, in surprise and anger, darted significant and admonitory 
 glances towards his nephew, which at length seemed to rouse 
 him into a more hospitable bearing. As the cool of the evening 
 now came on, Lester proposed to Aram to enjoy it without, 
 previous to returning to the parlour, to which the ladies had 
 retired. Walter excused himself from joining them. The host 
 and the guest accordingly strolled forth alone. 
 
 "Your solitude," said Lester, smiling, "is far deeper and less 
 broken than mine : do you never find it irksome ? " 
 
 " Can Humanity be at all times contented ? " said Aram. "No 
 stream, howsoever secret or subterranean, glides on in eternal 
 tranquillity." 
 
 " You allow, then, that you feel some occasional desire for a 
 more active and animated life ? " 
 
 " Nay," answered Aram ; " that is scarcely a fair corollary from 
 my remark. I may, at times, feel the weariness of existence
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 63 
 
 the tedium vit<z : but I know well that the cause is not to be 
 remedied by a change from tranquillity to agitation. The objects 
 of the great world are to be pursued only by the excitement of 
 the passions. The passions are at once our masters and our 
 deceivers ; they urge us onward, yet present no limit- to our 
 progress. The farther we proceed, the more dim and shadowy 
 grows the goal. It is impossible for a man who leads the life of 
 the world, the life of the passions, ever to experience content. 
 For the life of the passions is that of a perpetual desire ; but a 
 state of content is the absence of all desire. Thus philosophy has 
 become another name for mental quietude ; and all wisdom points 
 to a life of intellectual indifference as the happiest which earth 
 can bestow." 
 
 "This may be true enough," said Lester, reluctantly ; "but " 
 
 ; ' But what ? " 
 
 "A something at our hearts a secret voice an involuntary 
 impulse rebels against it, and points to action action, as the 
 true sphere of man." 
 
 A slight smile curved the lip of the student : he avoided, 
 however, the argument, and remarked, 
 
 "Yet, if you think so, the world lies before you : why not 
 return to it ? " 
 
 " Because constant habit is stronger than occasional impulse ; 
 and my seclusion, after all has its sphere of action has its 
 object." 
 
 "All seclusion has." 
 
 " All ? Scarcely so ; for me, I have my object of interest 
 in my children." 
 
 "And mine is in my books. " 
 
 " And engaged in your object, does not the whisper of Fame 
 ever animate you with the desire to go forth into the world, and 
 receive the homage that would await you ?" 
 
 " Listen to me," replied Aram. " When I was a boy, I went 
 once to a theatre. The tragedy of " Hamlet " was performed ; a 
 play full of the noblest thoughts, the subtlest morality. The 
 audience listened with attention, with admiration, with applause. 
 I said to myself, when the curtain fell, ' It must be a glorious 
 thing to obtain this empire over men's intellects and emotions.'
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 But now an Italian mountebank appeared on the stage, a man 
 of extraordinary personal strength and sleight of hand. He 
 performed a variety of juggling tricks, and distorted his body 
 into a thousand surprising and unnatural postures. The 
 audience were transported beyond themselves : if they had 
 felt delight in Hamlet, they glowed with rapture at the 
 mountebank: they had listened with attention to the lofty 
 thought, but they were snatched from themselves by the 
 marvel of the strange posture. ' Enough,' said I ; ' I correct my 
 former notion. Where is the glory of ruling men's minds, and 
 commanding their admiration, when a greater enthusiasm 
 is excited by mere bodily agility than was kindled by the 
 most wonderful emanations of a genius little less than divine ? ' 
 I have never forgotten the impression of that evening." 
 
 Lester attempted to combat the truth of the illustration, and 
 thus conversing, they passed on through the village green, when 
 the gaunt form of Corporal Bunting arrested their progress. 
 
 " Beg pardon, squire," said he, with a military salute ; " beg 
 pardon, your honour," bowing to Aram ; " but I wanted to speak 
 to you, squire, 'bout the rent of the bit cot yonder: times very 
 hard pay scarce and " 
 
 " You desire a little delay, Bunting, eh ? Well, well, we'll see 
 about it ; look up at the hall to-morrow. Mr. Walter, I know, 
 wants to consult you aboux* letting the water from the great pond, 
 and you must give us your opinion of the new brewing." 
 
 " Thank your honour, thank you ; much obliged, I'm sure. I 
 hope your honour liked the trout I sent up. Beg pardon, Master 
 Aram, mayhap you would condescend to accept a few fish, now 
 and then ; they're very fine in these streams, as you probably 
 know ; if you please to let me, I'll send some up by the old 
 'oman to-morrow, that is, if the day's cloudy a bit." 
 
 The scholar thanked the good Bunting, and would have 
 proceeded onward, but the corporal was in a familiar mood. 
 
 Beg pardon, beg pardon, but strange-looking dog here last 
 evening asked after you said you were old friend of his 
 trotted off in your direction hope all was right, master ? 
 augh ! " 
 
 "All right!" repeated Aram, fixing his eyes on the corporal,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 65 
 
 who had concluded his speech with a significant wink, and 
 pausing a full moment before he continued ; then, as if satisfied 
 with his survey, he added, 
 
 " Ay, ay, I know whom you mean ; he had become acquainted 
 with me some years ago. So you saw him ! What said he to 
 you of me ? " 
 
 " Augh ! little enough, Master Aram : he seemed to think only 
 of satisfying his own appetite ; said he'd been a soldier." 
 
 " A soldier ! true ! " 
 
 " Never told me the regiment, though ; shy ! did he ever 
 desert, pray, your honour ? " 
 
 " I don't know," answered Aram, turning away. " I know 
 little, very little, about him ! " He was going away, but stopped 
 to add, " The man called on me last night for assistance ; the 
 lateness of the hour a little alarmed me. I gave him what I 
 could afford, and he has now proceeded on his journey." 
 
 " Oh, then, he won't take up his quarters hereabouts, your 
 honour ? " said the corporal, inquiringly. * 
 
 " No, no ; good evening." 
 
 " What ! this singular stranger, who so frightened my poor 
 girls, is really known to you ! " sakl Lester, in surprise : " pray, is 
 he as formidable as he seems to them ? " 
 
 " Scarcely," said Aram, with great composure " he has been 
 a wild roving fellow all his life, but but there is little real harm, 
 in him. He is certainly ill-favoured enough to" here, inter- 
 rupting himself, and breaking into a new sentence, Aram added : 
 " but at all events he will frighten your nieces no more he has 
 proceeded on his journey northward. And now, yonder lies my 
 way home. Good evening." The abruptness of this farewell 
 did indeed take Lester by surprise. 
 
 " Why, you will not leave me yet ? The young ladies expect 
 your return to them for an hour or so ! What will they think of 
 such desertion ? No, no, come back, my good friend, and suffer 
 me by and by to walk some part of the way home with you." 
 
 " Pardon me," said Aram, " I must leave you now. As to the 
 ladies," he added, with a faint smile, half in melancholy, half in- 
 scorn, " I am not one whom they could miss ; forgive me if I 
 seem unceremonious. Adieu." 
 

 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 tcr at first felt a little offended, but when he recalled the 
 peculiar habits of the scholar, he saw that the only way to hope 
 for a continuance of that society which had so pleased him, was 
 to indulge Aram at first in his unsocial inclinations, rather 
 than annoy him by a troublesome hospitality ; he, therefore, 
 without further discourse, shook hands with him, and they 
 parted. 
 
 When Lester regained the little parlour, he found his nephew 
 sitting, silent and discontented, by the window. Madeline had 
 taken up a book, and Ellinor, in an opposite corner, was plying 
 her needle with an air of earnestness and quiet, very unlike her 
 usual playful and cheerful vivacity. There was evidently a cloud 
 over the group ; the good Lester regarded them with a searching, 
 yet kindly eye. 
 
 "And what has happened ?" said he : "something of mighty 
 import, I am sure, or I should have heard my pretty Ellinor's 
 merry laugh long before I crossed the threshold." 
 
 Ellinor coloured and sighed, and worked faster than ever. 
 Walter threw open the window, and whistled a favourite air 
 quite out of tune. Lester smiled, and seated himself by his 
 nephew. 
 
 44 Well, Walter," said he, " I feel, for the first time these ten 
 years, that I have a right to scold you. What on earth could 
 make you so inhospitable to your uncle's guest ? You eyed 
 the poor student as if you wished him among the books of 
 Alexandria ! " 
 
 44 1 would he were burnt with them ! " answered Walter, sharply. 
 * He seems to have added the black art to his other accomplish- 
 ments, and bewitched my fair cousins here into a forgetfulness 
 of all but himself." 
 
 * Not me ! " said Ellinor eagerly, and looking up. 
 
 44 No, not you, that's true enough ; you are too just, too kind ; 
 it is a pity that Madeline is not more like you." 
 
 "My dear Walter," said Madeline, "what is the matter? 
 You accuse me of what ? being attentive to a man whom it is 
 impossible to hear without attention." 
 
 14 There 1 " cried Walter, passionately; "you confess it And 
 so for a stranger, a cold, vain, pedantic egotist, you can shut
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 6-r 
 
 your ears and heart to those who have known and loved you all 
 your life ; and and " 
 
 "Vain!" interrupted Madeline, unheeding the latter part of 
 Walter's address. 
 
 " Pedantic ! " repeated her father. 
 
 "Yes! I say vain, pedantic!" cried Walter, working himself 
 into a passion. " What on earth but the love of display could 
 make him monopolise the whole conversation ? What but 
 pedantry could make him bring out those anecddtes, and allu- 
 sions, and descriptions, or whatever you call them, respecting 
 every old wall or stupid plant in the country ? " 
 
 " I never thought you guilty of meanness before," said Lester 
 gravely. 
 
 " Meanness ! " 
 
 " Yes ! for is it not mean to be jealous of superior acquire- 
 ments, instead of admiring them ? " 
 
 "What has been the use of those acquirements? Has he 
 benefited mankind by them ? Show me the poet the historian 
 the orator, and I will yield to none of you : no, not to Made- 
 line herself, in homage of their genius : but the mere creature of 
 books the dry and sterile collector of other men's learning no 
 no. What should I admire in such a machine of literature, 
 except a waste of perseverance ? And Madeline calls him 
 handsome, too ! " 
 
 At this sudden turn from declamation to reproach, Lester 
 laughed outright ; and his nephew, in high anger, rose and left 
 the room. 
 
 "Who could have thought Walter so foolish ?" said Madeline. 
 
 * Nay," observed Ellinor gently, " it is the folly of a kind 
 heart, after all. He feels sore at our seeming to prefer another 
 I mean another's conversation to his !" 
 
 Lester turned round in his chair, and regarded with a serious 
 look the faces of both sisters. 
 
 " My dear Ellinor," said he, when he had finished his survey, 
 "you are a kind girl come and kiss me!" 
 
 E 2
 
 68 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 THE RHAVTOrJ OF THE STUDENT. A SUMMER SCENE. ARAM'S CONYERSAT13M 
 WITH WALTER, AND SUBSEQUENT COLLOQUY WITH HIMSELF. 
 
 The soft season, the firmament serene, 
 
 The loun illuminate air, and firth amcne 
 
 The silver scnlit fishes on the grete 
 
 O'er-thwart clear streams sprinkillond for the heat. 
 
 Calvin Douglat, 
 
 Ilia subter 
 
 Ctecum vulmts hal>es ; sed lato balteus auro 
 Prsetegit. l J\rsntt. 
 
 SEVERAL days elapsed before the family of the manor-house 
 encountered Aram again. The old woman came once or twice 
 to present the inquiries of her master as to Miss Lester's accident ; 
 but Aram himself did not appear. This want of interest certainly 
 offended Madeline, although she still drew upon herself Walter's 
 displeasure, by disputing and resenting the unfavourable stric- 
 tures on the scholar, in which that young gentleman delighted 
 to indulge. By degrees, however, as the days passed without 
 maturing the acquaintance which Walter had disapproved, the 
 youth relaxed in his attacks, and seemed to yield to the remon- 
 strances of his uncle. Lester had, indeed, conceived an especial 
 inclination towards the recluse. Any man of reflection, who has 
 lived for some time alone, and who suddenly meets with one 
 who calls forth in him, and without labour or contradiction, the 
 thoughts which have sprung up in his solitude, scarcely felt in 
 their growth, will comprehend the new zest, the awakening, as it 
 were, of the mind, which Lester found in the conversation of 
 Eugene Aram. His solitary walk (for his nephew had the 
 separate pursuits of youth) appeared to him more dull than 
 before ; and he longed to renew an intercourse which had given 
 to the monotony of his life both variety and relief. He called 
 twice upon Aram, but the student was, or affected to be, from 
 home ; and an invitation thatLester sent him, though couched 
 in friendly terms, was, but with great semblance of kindness, 
 refused. 
 
 re a wjund deep hidden in your heart, hut the broad belt of gold co 
 
 C .. > .L
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 69 
 
 "See, Walter," said Lester, disconcerted, as he finished reading 
 the refusal "see what your rudeness has effected. I am quite 
 convinced that Aram (evidently a man of susceptible as well as 
 retired mind) observed the coldness of your manner towards him, 
 and that thus you have deprived me of the only society which, in 
 this wilderness of boors and savages, gave me any gratification." 
 
 Walter replied apologetically, but his uncle turned away with 
 a greater appearance of anger than his placid features were wont 
 to exhibit ; and Walter, cursing the innocent cause of his uncle's 
 displeasure towards him, took up his fishing-rod and went out 
 alone, in no happy or exhilarated mood. 
 
 It was waxing towards eve an hour especially lovely in the 
 month of June, and not without reason favoured by the angler. 
 Walter sauntered across the rich and fragrant fields, and came 
 soon into a sheltered valley, through which the brooklet wound 
 its shadowy way. Along the margin, the grass sprung up long 
 and matted, and profuse with a thousand weeds and flowers 
 the children of the teeming June. Here the ivy-leafed bell- 
 flower, and not far from it the common enchanter's night-shade, 
 the silver-weed, and the water-aven ; and by the hedges that 
 now and then neared the water, the guelder-rose, and the white 
 briony, over-running the thicket with its emerald leaves and 
 luxuriant flowers. And here and there, silvering the bushes, the 
 elder offered its snowy tribute to the summer. All the insect 
 youth were abroad, with their bright wings and glancing motion ; 
 and from the lower depths of the bushes the .blackbird darted 
 across, or higher and unseen the first cuckoo of the eve began its 
 continuous and mellow note. All this cheeriness and gloss of 
 life, which enamour us with the few bright days of the English 
 summer, make the poetry in an angler's life, and convert every 
 idler at heart into a moralist, and not a gloomy one, for the time. 
 
 Softened by the quiet beauty and voluptuousness around him, 
 Walter's thoughts assumed a more gentle dye, and he broke out 
 into the old lines 
 
 * Sweet day, so soft, so calm, so bright ; 
 The bridal of the earth and sky," 
 
 as he dipped his line into the current, and drew it across th* 
 shadowy hollows beneath the bank. The river-gods were not,
 
 TO EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 however, in a favourable mood, and after waiting in vain for 
 some time, in a spot in which he was usually successful, he 
 proceeded slowly along the margin of the brooklet, crushing the 
 rccds at every step into that fresh and delicious odour which 
 furnished Bacon with one of his most beautiful comparisons. 
 
 He thought, as he proceeded, that beneath a tree that over- 
 hung the waters in the narrowest part of their channel, he heard 
 a voice, and as he approached he recognised it as Aram's. A 
 curve in the stream brought him close by the spot, and he 
 saw the student half-reclined beneath the tree, and muttering, 
 but at broken inteivals, to himself. 
 
 The words were so scattered, that Walter did not trace their 
 clue ; but involuntarily he stopped short, within a few feet of 
 the soliloquist: and Aram, suddenly turning round, beheld 
 him. A fierce and abrupt change broke over the scholar's 
 countenance; his cheek grew now pale, now flushed; and his 
 brows knit over his flashing and dark eyes with an intent 
 anger, that was the more withering, from its contrast to the 
 usual calmness of his features. Walter drew back, but Aram, 
 stalking directly up to him, gazed into his face, as if he would 
 read his very soul. 
 
 " What ! eavesdropping ? " said he, with a ghastly smile. 
 " You overheard me, did you ? Well, well, what said I ? what 
 said I ? " Then pausing, and noting that Walter did not reply 
 he stamped his foot violently, and grinding his teeth, repeated 
 in a smothered tone, " Boy, what said I ? " 
 
 "Mr. Aram," said Walter, "you forget yourself. I am not 
 one to play the listener, more especially to the learned ravings 
 of a man who can conceal nothing I care to know. Accident 
 brought me hither." 
 
 " What ! surely surely I spoke aloud, did I not ? did I 
 not ? " 
 
 " You did, but so incoherently and indistinctly, that I did 
 not profit by your indiscretion. I cannot plagiarise, I assure 
 you, from any scholastic designs you might have been giving 
 vent to." 
 
 Aram looked on him for a moment, and then breathing 
 heavily, turned away.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 71 
 
 "Pardon me," he said ; " I am a poor, half-crazed man ; much 
 study has unnerved me ; I should never live but with my own 
 thoughts : forgive me, sir, I pray you." 
 
 Touched by the sudden contrition of Aram's manner, Walter 
 forgot, not only his present displeasure, but his general dislike ; 
 he stretched forth his hand to the student, and hastened to ass> re 
 him of his ready forgiveness. Aram sighed deeply as he pressed 
 the young man's hand, and Walter saw, with surprise and emotion, 
 that his eyes were filled with tears. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Aram, gently shaking his head, " it is a hard life 
 we bookmen lead ! Not for us is the bright face of noonday 
 or the smile of woman, the gay unbending of the heart, the 
 neighing steed, and the shrill trump ; the pride, pomp, and cir- 
 cumstance of life. Our enjoyments are few and calm ; our 
 labour constant ; but that is not the evil, sir the body avenges 
 its own neglect. We grow old before our time ; we wither up ; 
 the sap of youth shrinks from our .veins ; there is no bound in 
 our step. We look about us with dimmed eyes, and our breath 
 grows short and thick, and pains, and coughs, and shooting aches, 
 come upon us at night : it is a bitter life a bitter life a joyless 
 life. I would I had never commenced it. And yet the harsh 
 world scowls upon us : our nerves are broken, and they wonder 
 why we are querulous ; our blood curdles, and they ask why 
 we are not gay ; our brain grows dizzy and indistinct (as with 
 me just now), and shrugging their shoulders, they whisper their 
 neighbours that we are mad. I wish I had worked at the 
 plough, and known sleep, and loved mirth and and not been 
 what I am." 
 
 As the student uttered the last sentence, he bowed his head, 
 and a few tears stole silently down his cheek. Walter was greatly 
 affected it took him by surprise ; nothing in Aram's ordinary 
 demeanour betrayed any facility to emotion ; and he conveyed 
 to all the idea of a man, if not proud, at least cold. 
 
 "You do not suffer bodily pain, I trust?" asked Walter, 
 soothingly. 
 
 "Pain does not conquer me," said Aram, slowly recovering 
 himself. " I am not melted by that which I would fain despise. 
 Young man, I wronged you you have forgiven me. Well, well,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 we will say no more on that head ; it is past and pardoned. Your 
 uncle has been kind to me, and I have not returned his advances ; 
 you shall tell him why. I have lived thirteen years by myself, 
 and I have contracted strange ways and many humours not 
 common tD the world you have seen an example of this. Judge 
 for yourself if I be fit for the smoothness, and confidence, and 
 case of social intercourse ; I am not fit, I feel it! I am doomed 
 to be alone ; tell your uncle this tell him to suffer me to live 
 so ! I am grateful for his goodness I know his motives but I 
 have a certain pride of mind ; I cannot bear sufferance I loathe 
 indulgence. Nay, interrupt me not, I beseech you. Look round 
 on Nature behold the only company that humbles me not- 
 except the dead whose souls speak to us from the immortality 
 of books. These herbs at your feet, I know their secrets I 
 watch the mechanism of their life ; the winds they have taught 
 me their language ; the stars I have unravelled their mysteries ; 
 anil these, the creatures and ministers of God these I offend 
 not by my mood to them I utter my thoughts, and break forth 
 into my dreams, without reserve and without fear. But men 
 disturb me I have nothing to learn from them I have no wish 
 to confide in them ; they cripple the wild liberty which has 
 become to me a second nature. What its shell is to the tortoise, 
 solitude has become to me my protection ; nay, my life ! " 
 
 " But," said Walter, " with us, at least, you would not have to 
 dread restraint ; you might come when you would ; be silent or 
 converse, according to your will." 
 
 Aram smiled faintly, but made no immediate reply. 
 
 " So, you have been angling ! " he said, after a short pause, and 
 as if willing to change the thread of conversation. " Fie ! it is 
 a treacherous pursuit ; it encourages man s worst propensities- 
 cruelty and deceit." 
 
 " I should have thought a lover of Nature would have been 
 more indulgent to a pastime which introduces us to her most 
 quiet retreats." 
 
 "And cannot Nature alone tempt you without need of such 
 allurements What ! that crisped and winding stream, with 
 flowers on its very tide the water-violet and the water-lily 
 these silent brakes the cool of the gathering evening the still
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 73 
 
 and luxuriance of the universal life around you ; are not these 
 enough of themselves to tempt you forth ? If not, go to ! your 
 excuse is hypocrisy." 
 
 " I am used to these scenes," replied Walter ; " I am weary of 
 the thoughts they produce in me, and long for any diversion or 
 excitement." 
 
 "Ay, ay, young man ! The mind is restless at your age : have 
 a care. Perhaps you long to visit the world to quit these 
 obscure haunts which you are fatigued in admiring ?" 
 
 " It may be so," said Walter, with a slight sigh. " I should at 
 least like to visit our great capital, and note the contrast ; I 
 should come back, I imagine, with a greater zest to these scenes." 
 
 Aram laughed. " My friend," said he, " when men have once 
 plunged in the great sea of human toil and passion, they soon 
 wash away all love and zest for innocent enjoyments. What 
 once was a soft retirement will become the most intolerable 
 monotony ; the gaming of social existence the feverish and 
 desperate chances of honour and wealth, upon which the men 
 of cities set their hearts, render all pursuits less exciting utterly 
 insipid and dull. The brook and the angle ha ! ha ! these 
 are not occupations for men who have' once battled with the 
 world." 
 
 " I can forego them, then, without regret," said Walter, with 
 the sanguineness of his years. Aram looked upon him wistfully; 
 the bright eye, the healthy cheek, and vigorous frame of the 
 youth, suited with his desire to seek the conflict of his kind, and 
 gave a natural grace to his ambition which was not without 
 interest, even to the recluse. 
 
 " Poor boy ! " said he, mournfully, " how gallantly the ship 
 leaves the port ; how worn and battered it will return ! " 
 
 When they parted, Walter returned slowly homewards, filled 
 with pity for the singular man whom he had seen so strangely 
 overpowered ; and wondering how suddenly his mind had lost 
 its former rancour to the student. Yet there mingled even 
 with these kindly feelings a little displeasure at the superior 
 tone which Aram had unconsciously adopted towards him ; and 
 to which, from any one, the high spirit of the young man was 
 not readily willing to submit.
 
 74 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 inwhilc, the student continued his path along the water 
 side, and as, with his gliding step and musing air, he roamed 
 onward, it was impossible to imagine a form more suited to the 
 deep tranquillity of the scene. Even the wild birds seemed to 
 feel, by a sort of instinct, that in him there was no cause for fear ; 
 and did not stir from the turf that neighboured, or the spray 
 that overhung his path. 
 
 "So," said he, soliloquising, but not without casting frequent 
 and jealous glances round him, and in a murmur so indistinct 
 as would have been inaudible even to a listener; "so, I was 
 not overheard well, I must cure myself of this habit; our 
 thoughts, like nuns, ought not to go abroad without a veil 
 Ay, this tone will not betray me; I will preserve its tenor, 
 for I can scarcely altogether renounce my sole confidant 
 SELF ; and thought seems more clear when uttered even thus. 
 Tis a fine youth ! full of the impulse and daring of his years ; 
 / was never so young at heart. I was nay, what matters it ? 
 Who is answerable for his nature ? Who can say, ' I controlled 
 all the circumstances which made me what I am?' Madeline 
 Heavens ! did I bring on myself this temptation ? Have I not 
 fenced it from me throughout all my youth, when my brain did 
 at moments forsake me, and the veins did bound ? And now, 
 when the yellow hastens on the green of life ; now, for the first 
 time, this emotion this weakness and for whom ? One I have 
 lived with known beneath whose eyes I have passed through 
 all the fine gradations, from liking to love, from love to passion ? 
 No ; one, whom I have seen but little ; who, it is true, arrested 
 ir.y eye at the first glance it caught of her two years since, but 
 to whom, till within the last few weeks, I have scarcely spoken ! 
 Her voice rings in my ear, her look dwells on my heart; when I 
 sleep she is with me : when I wake I am haunted by her image. 
 Strange, strange ! Is love, then, after all, the sudden passion 
 which in every age poetry has termed it, though till now my 
 reason has disbelieved the notion ? . . . . And now, what 
 is the question ? To resist, or to yield. Her father invites me, 
 courts me ; and I stand aloof ! Will this strength, this forbear- 
 ance, last ? Shall I incwirage my mind to this decision ?" Here 
 Aram paused abiuptly, and then renewed: "It is true! I ought
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 75 
 
 to weave my lot with none. Memory sets me apart and alone 
 in the world. It seems unnatural to me a thought of dread 
 to bring another being to my solitude, to set an everlasting 
 watch on my uprisings and my downsittings ; to invite eyes to 
 my face when I sleep at nights, and ears to every word that 
 may start unbidden from my lips. But if the watch be the 
 watch of love away ! does love endure for ever ? He who 
 trusts to woman, trusts to the type of change. Affection may 
 turn to -hatred, fondness to loathing, anxiety to dread: and, at 
 the best, woman is weak she is the minion to her impulses. 
 Enough ; I will steel my soul shut up the avenues of sense 
 brand with the scathing-iron these yet green and soft emotions of 
 lingering youth and freeze, and chain, and curdle up feeling, 
 and heart, and manhood, into ice and age 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE POWFR OF LOVE OVER THE RESOLUTION OF THE STUDENT. ARAM BECOMES 
 A FREQUENT GUEST AT THE MANOR-HOUSE. A WALK. CONVERSATION WITH 
 DAME DARKMANS. HER HISTORY. POVERTY AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 Mat}. Then, as Time won thee frequent to our hearth. 
 Didst thou not breathe, like dreams, into my soul, 
 Nature's more gentle secrets, the sweet lore 
 Of the green herb and the bee- worshipped flower? 
 And when deep Night did o'er the nether Earth 
 Diffuse meek quiet and the Heart of Heaven 
 "With love grew breathle.-s didst thou not unroll 
 The volume of the weird Chaldean stars. 
 And of the winds, the clouds, the invisible air, 
 Make eloquent discourse, until, methought, 
 No human lip, but some diviner spirit 
 Alone, could preach such truths ot things divine ? 
 And so and so 
 
 Aram. From Heaven we turn'd to Earth 
 
 And Wisdom fathered Passion. 
 *** 
 
 Aram. Wise men have praised the Peasant's thoughtless lot. 
 And learned Pride hath envied humble Toil ; 
 If they were right, why let us burn our books, 
 And sit us down, and play the fool with Time, 
 Mocking the prophet Wisdom's high decrees, 
 And walling this trite Present with dark clouds 
 Till Night becomes our Nature ; and the ray 
 E'en of the st&rs, but meteors that withdraw 
 The wandering spirit from the sluggish rest 
 Which makes its proper bliss. I will accost 
 This denizen of toil" From Eugene Aram, a MS. Tragccty.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 A wicked hag, and envy's self excelling 
 
 In misch-efe, for herself she only vext, 
 
 Lut this same, both herself and others eke perplext. 
 
 
 
 \Vho then can strive with strong necessity, 
 
 That holds the world in his still changing state? &c., &c. 
 
 Then do no further go, no further stray, 
 
 But here lie down, and to thy rest betake. Spenser. 
 
 FEW men, perhaps, could boast of so masculine and firm a 
 mind as, despite his eccentricities, Aram assuredly possessed. 
 His habits of solitude had strengthened its natural hardihood ; 
 for, accustomed to make all the sources of happiness flow solely 
 from himself, his thoughts the only companions his genius the 
 only vivifier of his retreat ; the tone and faculty of his spirit 
 could not but assume that austere and vigorous energy which 
 the habit of self-dependence almost invariably produces ; and 
 yet the reader, if he be young, will scarcely feel surprised that 
 the resolution of the student to battle against incipient love, 
 from whatever reasons it might be formed, gradually and reluc- 
 tantly melted away. It may be noted that the enthusiasts of 
 learning and reverie have, at one time or another in their lives, 
 been, of all the tribes of men, the most keenly susceptible to 
 love ; their solitude feeds their passion ; and deprived, as they 
 usually are, of the more hurried and vehement occupations of 
 life, when love is once admitted to their hearts, there is no 
 counter-check to its emotions, and no escape from its excite- 
 ment Aram, too, had just arrived at that age when a man 
 usually feels a sort of revulsion in the current of his desires. At 
 that age, those who have hitherto pursued love begin to grow 
 alive to ambition ; those who have been slaves to the pleasures 
 of life awaken from the dream, and direct their desire to its 
 interests. And in the same proportion, they who till then have 
 wasted the prodigal fervours of youth upon a sterile soil who 
 have served Ambition, or, like Aram, devoted their hearts to 
 Wisdom relax from their ardour, look back on the departed 
 years with regret, and commence, in their manhood, the fiery 
 pleasures and delirious follies which are only pardonable in 
 youth. In short, as in every human pursuit there is a certain 
 vanity, and as every acquisition contains within itself the seed of 
 disappointment, so there is a period of life when we pause from
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 77 
 
 the pursuit, and are discontented with the acquisition. We 
 then look around us for something new again follow and are 
 again deceived. Few men throughout life are the servants to 
 one desire. When we gain the middle of the bridge of our 
 mortality, different objects from those which attracted us upward 
 almost invariably lure us down the descent. Happy they who 
 exhaust in the former part of the journey all the foibles of 
 existence ! But how different is the crude and evanescent love 
 of that age when thought has not given intensity and power to 
 the passions, from the love which is felt, for the first time, in 
 maturer but still youthful years ! As the flame burns the 
 brighter in proportion to the resistance which it conquers, this 
 later love is the more glowing in proportion to the length of 
 time in which it has overcome temptation ; all the solid and 
 concentred faculties, ripened to their full height, are no longer 
 capable of the infinite distractions, the numberless caprices of 
 youth ; the rays of the heart, not rendered weak by diversion, 
 collect into one burning focus ; l the same earnestness and unity 
 of purpose which render what we undertake in manhood so far 
 more successful than what we would effect in youth, are equally 
 visible and equally triumphant, whether directed to interest or 
 to love. But then, as in Aram, the feelings must be fresh as 
 well as matured ; they must not have been frittered away by 
 previous indulgence; the love must be the first produce of the 
 soil, not the languid after-growth. 
 
 The reader will remark, that the first time in which our 
 narrative has brought Madeline and Aram together, was not the 
 first time they had met : Aram had long noted with admiration 
 a beauty which he had never seen paralleled, and certain vague 
 and unsettled feelings had preluded the deep emotion that her 
 image now excited within him. But the main cause of his 
 present and growing attachment had been in the evident senti- 
 ment of kindness which he could not but feel Madeline bore 
 towards him. So retiring a nature as his might never have 
 harboured love if the love bore the character of presumption ; 
 but that one so beautiful beyond his dreams as Madeline Lester 
 
 1 "Love is of the nature of a burning-glass, which, kept still in one place, fireth 
 changed often, it doth nothing. "- -Letters by Sir John Sxck'.ing.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 should deign to cherish for him a tenderness that might suffer 
 him to hope was a thought that, when he caught her eye uncon- 
 sciously fixed upon him, and noted that her voice grew softer 
 and more tremulous when she addressed him, forced itself upon 
 his heait, and woke there a strange and irresistible emotion 
 which solitude and the brooding reflection that solitude produces 
 a reflection so much more intense in proportion to the paucity 
 of living images it dwells upon soon ripened into love. Perhaps, 
 even, he would not have resisted the impulse as he now did, had 
 not, at this time, certain thoughts connected with past events 
 been more forcibly than of late years obtruded upon him, and 
 thus in some measure divided his heart. By degrees, however, 
 those thoughts receded from their vividness into the habitual 
 deep, but not oblivious, shade, beneath which his commanding 
 mind had formerly driven them to repose ; and as they thus 
 receded, Madeline's image grew more undisturbedly present, 
 and his resolution to avoid its power more fluctuating and feeble. 
 Fate seemed bent upon bringing together these two persons, 
 already so attracted towards each other. After the conversation 
 recorded in our last chapter, between Walter and the student, 
 the former, touched and softened as we have seen in spite of 
 himself, had cheerfully forborne (what before he had done re- 
 luctantly) the expressions of dislike which he had once lavished 
 so profusely upon Aram ; and Lester, who, forward as he had 
 seemed, had nevertheless been hitherto a little checked in his 
 advances to his neighbour by the hostility of his nephew, felt no 
 scruple to deter him from urging them with a pertinacity that 
 almost forbade refusal. It was Aram's constant habit, in all 
 seasons, to wander abroad at certain times of the day, especially 
 towards the evening; and if Lester failed to win entrance to his 
 house, he was thus enabled to meet the student in his frequent 
 rambles, and with a seeming freedom from design. Actuated by 
 his great benevolence of character, Lester earnestly desired to 
 win his solitary and unfriended neighbour from a mood and 
 habit which he naturally imagined must engender a growing 
 melancholy of mind ; and since Walter had detailed to him the 
 particulars of his meeting with Aram, this desire had been con- 
 siderably increased. There is not, perhaps, a stronger feeling in
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 79 
 
 the world than pity, when united with admiration. When one 
 man is resolved to know another, it is almost impossible to 
 prevent it : we see daily the most remarkable instances of per- 
 severance on one side conquering distaste on the other. By 
 degrees, then, Aram relaxed from his insociability ; he seemed 
 to surrender himself to a kindness the sincerity of which he was 
 compelled to acknowledge, if he for a long time refused to 
 accept the hospitality of his neighbour, he did not reject his 
 society when they met, and this intercourse increased by little 
 and little, until, ultimately, the recluse yielded to solicitation, 
 and became the guest as well as companion. This, at first acci- 
 dent, grew, though not without many interruptions, into habit ; 
 and, at length, few evenings were passed by the inmates of the 
 manor-house without the society of the student. 
 
 As his reserve wore off, his conversation mingled with its 
 attractions a tender and affectionate tone. He seemed grateful 
 for the pains which had been taken to allure him to a scene in 
 which, at last, he acknowledged he found a happiness that he 
 had never experienced before : and those who had hitherto 
 admired him for his genius, admired him now yet more for his 
 susceptibility to the affections. 
 
 There was not in Aram anything that savoured of the harsh- 
 ness of pedantry, or the petty vanities of dogmatism : his voice 
 was soft and low, and his manner always remarkable for its 
 singular gentleness, and a certain dignified humility. His 
 language did, indeed, at times, assume a tone of calm and 
 patriarchal command ; but it was only the command arising 
 from an intimate persuasion of the truth of what he uttered. 
 Moralising upon our nature, or mourning over the delusions of 
 the world, a grave and solemn strain breathed throughout his 
 lofty words and the profound melancholy of his wisdom : but 
 it touched, not offended elevated, not humbled the lesser 
 intellect of his listeners : and even this air of unconscious 
 superiority vanished when he was invited to teach or explain. 
 
 That task which so few do gracefully, that an accurate and 
 shrewd thinker has said, " It is always safe to learn, even from 
 our enemies ; seldom safe to instruct even our friends," l Aram 
 
 1 Lacon.
 
 EUGK:.*E ARAM. 
 
 performed with a meekness and simplicity that charmed the 
 vanity, even while it corrected the ignorance, of the applicant ; 
 and so various and minute was the information of this accom 
 plished man, that there scarcely existed any branch even of that 
 knowledge usually called practical, to which he could not impart 
 from his stores something valuable and new. The agriculturist 
 was astonished at the success of his suggestions ; and the 
 mechanic was indebted to him for the device which abridged 
 his labour in improving its result 
 
 It happened that the study of botany was not, at that day, so 
 favourite and common a diversion with young ladies as it is now ; 
 and Ellinor, captivated by the notion of a science that gave a 
 life and a history to the loveliest of earth's offspring, besought 
 Aram to teach her its principles. 
 
 As Madeline, though she did not second the request, could 
 scarcely absent herself from sharing the lesson, this pursuit 
 brought the pair already lovers closer and closer together. It 
 associated them not only at home, but in their rambles through- 
 out that enchanting country ; and there is a mysterious influence 
 in Nature, which renders us, in her loveliest scenes, the most 
 susceptible to love ! Then, too, how often in their occupation 
 their hands and eyes met : how often, by the shady wood or the 
 soft water side, they found themselves alone. In all times, how 
 dangerous the connection, when of different sexes, between the 
 scholar and the teacher. Under how many pretences, in that 
 Connection, the heart finds the opportunity to speak out. 
 
 Yet it was not with ease and complacency that Aram de- 
 livered himself to the intoxication of his deepening attachment. 
 Sometimes he was studiously cold, or evidently wrestling with 
 the powerful passion that mastered his reason. It was not with- 
 out many throes and desperate resistance, that love at length 
 overwhelmed and subdued him ; and these alternations of his 
 mood, if they sometimes offended Madeline and sometimes 
 wounded, still rather increased than lessened the spell which 
 bound her to him. The doubt and the fear, the caprice and 
 the change, which agitate the surface, swell also the tides, of 
 passion. Woman, too, whose love is so much the creature 
 of her imagination, always asks something of mystery and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 81 
 
 conjecture in the object of her affection. It is a luxury to her to 
 perplex herself with a thousand apprehensions; and the more 
 restlessly her lover occupies her mind, the more deeply he 
 enthrals it. 
 
 Mingling with her pure and tender attachment to Aram a 
 high and unswerving veneration, she saw in his fitfulness, and 
 occasional abstraction and contradiction of manner, a confirma- 
 tion of the modest sentiment that most weighed upon her fears ; 
 and imagined that, at those times, he thought her, as she deemed 
 herself, unworthy of his love. And this was the only struggle 
 which she conceived to pass between the affection he evidently 
 bore her, and the feelings which had as yet restrained him from 
 its open avowal. 
 
 One evening, Lester and the two sisters were walking with the 
 student along the valley that led to the house of the latter, 
 when they saw an old woman engaged in collecting firewood 
 among the bushes, and a little girl holding out her apron to 
 receive the sticks with which the crone's skinny arms unspar- 
 ingly filled it. The child trembled, and seemed half-crying; 
 while the old woman, in a harsh, grating croak, was muttering 
 forth mingled objurgation and complaint. 
 
 There was something in the appearance of the latter at once 
 impressive and displeasing ; a dark, withered, furrowed skin 
 was drawn like parchment over harsh' and aquiline features ; 
 the eyes, through the rheum of age, glittered forth black and 
 malignant ; and even her stooping posture did not conceal a 
 height greatly above the common stature, though gaunt and 
 shrivelled with years and poverty. It was a form and face that 
 might have recalled at once the celebrated description of Otway, 
 on a part of which we have already unconsciously encroached, 
 and the remaining part of which we shall wholly borrow : 
 
 " On her crooked shoulders had she wrapp'd 
 The tattered remnants of an old stript hanging, 
 That served to keep her carcass from the cold, 
 So there was nothing of a piece about her. 
 Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patch'd 
 With different-coloured rags, black, red, white, yellow, 
 And seemed to speak variety of wretchedness." 
 
 " See," said Lester, " one of the eyesores of our village I 
 might say the only discontented person." 
 
 F
 
 EUGE-VE ARAM. 
 
 41 What! Dame Dark-mans!" said Ellinor quickly. "Ah! 
 let us turn back. I hate to encounter that old woman ; there is 
 something so evil and savage in her manner of talk, and look, 
 how she rates that poor girl, whom she has dragged or decoyed 
 to assist her ! " 
 
 Aram looked curiously on the old hag. "Poverty," said he, 
 " makes some humble, but more malignant ; is it not want that 
 grafts the devil on this poor woman's nature? Come, let us 
 accost her I like conferring with distress." 
 
 " It is hard labour this ? " said the student, gently. 
 
 The- old woman looked up askant the music of the voice that 
 addressed her sounded harsh on her ear. 
 
 * Ay, ay ! " she answered. " You fine gentlefolks can know 
 what the poor suffer ; ye talk and ye talk, but ye never assist." 
 
 " Say not so, dame," said Lester ; " did I not send you but 
 yesterday bread and money ? And when did you ever look up 
 at the hall without obtaining relief?" 
 
 " But the bread was as dry as a stick," growled the hag : " and 
 the money, what was it ? will it last a week ? Oh, yes ! Ye 
 /hink as much of your doits and mites, as if ye stripped 
 yourselves of a comfort to give it to us. Did ye have a dish 
 less a 'tato less, the day ye sent me your charity I 'spose ye 
 calls it ? Och ! fie ! But the Bible's the poor cretur's comfort" 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say that, dame," said the good-natured 
 Lester ; " and I forgive everything else you have said, on account 
 of that one sentence." 
 
 The old woman dropped the sticks she had just gathered, 
 and glowered at the speaker's benevolent countenance with a 
 malicious meaning in her dark eyes. 
 
 " An' ye do ? Well, I'm glad I please ye there. Och ! yes 1 
 the Bible's a mighty comfort ; for it says as much that the rich 
 man shall not r'nter the kingdom of Heaven ! There's a truth for 
 you that makes the poor folks' heart chirp like a cricket ho! 
 ho ! / sits by the mibers of a night, and I thinks and thinks as 
 how I shall see you all burning ; and ye'll ask me for a drop o* 
 water, and I shall laugh thm from my pleasant seat with the 
 angels. Och ! it's a book for the poor that ! " 
 
 The sisters shuddered. "And you think, then, that with
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 83 
 
 envy, malice, and all uncharitableness at your heart, you are 
 certain of Heaven ? For shame ! Pluck the mote from your 
 own eye ! " 
 
 "What sinnifies praching? Did not the Blessed Saviour 
 come for the poor? Them as has rags and dry bread here 
 will be ixalted in the nixt world ; an' if we poor folk have 
 ma!ice as ye calls it, whose fault's that ? What do ye tache us ? 
 Eh? Answer me that. Ye keeps all the laming an' all the 
 other fine things to yoursel', and then ye scould, and thritten, 
 and hang us, 'cause we are not as wise as you. Och ! there's no 
 jistice in the Lamb, if Heaven is not made for us ; and the 
 iverlasting Hell, with its brimstone and fire, and its gnawing 
 an* gnashing of teeth, an' its theirst, an' its torture, an" its worm 
 that niver dies, for the like o' you." 
 
 " Come ! come away," said Ellinor, pulling her father's arm. 
 
 " And if," said Aram, pausing, " if I were to say to you, name 
 your want and it shall be fulfilled, would you have no charity for 
 me also ? " 
 
 " Umph ! " returned the hag, " ye are the great scholard ; and 
 they say ye knows what no one else do. Tz'll me now," and she 
 approached, and familiarly laid her bony finger on the student's 
 arm ; " till me, have ye iver, among other fine things, known 
 poverty ? " 
 
 " I have, woman ! " said Aram, sternly. 
 
 " Och, ye have thai ! And did ye not sit, and gloom, and eat 
 up your own heart, an' curse the sun that looked so gay, an' the 
 winged things that played so blithe-like, an' scowl at the rich 
 folk that niver wasted a thought on ye ? Till me now, your 
 honour, tz'll me ! " 
 
 And the crone curtseyed with a mock air of beseeching 
 humility. 
 
 " I never forgot, even in want, the love due to my fellow- 
 sufferers ; for, woman, we all suffer, the rich and the poor ; 
 there are worse pangs than those of want." 
 
 "Ye think there be, do ye? That's a comfort, umph! Well, 
 I'll tz'll ye now, I feel a rispict for you, that I don't for the rest 
 on 'em ; for your face does not insult me with being cheary like 
 theirs yonder ; an' I have noted ye walk in the dusk with your 
 
 F 2
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 eyes down and your arms crossed ; an* I have said, that man 
 I do not hate, somehow, for he has something dark at his 
 heart like me!" 
 
 "The lot of earth is woe," answered Aram, calmi,, yet 
 shrinking back from the crone's touch; "judge we charitably, 
 and act we kindly to each other. There this money is not 
 much, but it will light your hearth and heap your table, without 
 toil, for some days at least." 
 
 " Thank your honour : an' what think you I'll do with the 
 money ? " 
 -What?" 
 
 " Drink, drink, drink ! " cried the hag, fiercely. " There's 
 nothing like drink for the poor, for th/'n we fancy ourselves 
 what we wish ; and," sinking her voice into a whisper, " I thinks 
 thin that I have my foot on the billies of the rich folks, and my 
 hands twisted about their intrails, and I hear them shriek, and 
 thin I am happy." 
 
 " Go home ! " said Aram, turning away, " and open the Book 
 of Life with other thoughts." 
 
 The little party proceeded, and, looking back, Lester saw the 
 old woman gaze after them, till a turn in the winding valley hid 
 her from his sight 
 
 " That is a strange person, Aram ; scarcely a favourable 
 specimen of the happy English peasant," said Lester, smiling. 
 
 " Yet they say," added Madeline, " that she was not always 
 the same perverse and hateful creature she is now." 
 " Ay," said Aram ; " and what, then, is her history ? M 
 "Why," replied Madeline, slightly blushing to find herself 
 made the narrator of a story, " some forty years ago, thia 
 woman, so gaunt and hideous now, was the' beauty of the 
 village. She married an Irish soldier, whose regiment passed 
 through Grassdale, and was heard o. no more till atout ten 
 years back, when she returned to her native place, the discon- 
 tented, envious, altered being you now sec her." 
 
 She is not reserved in regard to her past life," said Lester. 
 ' She is too happy to seize the attention of any one to whom 
 she can pour forth her dark and angry confidence. She saw 
 her husband, who was afterwards dismissed the service a strong.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 85 
 
 powerful man, a giant of his tribe, pine and waste, inch by inch, 
 from mere physical want, and at last literally die from hunger. 
 It happened that they had settled in the county in which her 
 husband was born, and in that county, those frequent famines 
 which are the scourge of Ireland were for two years especially 
 severe. You may note that the old woman has a strong vein 
 of coarse eloquence at her command, perhaps acquired in (for it 
 partakes of the natural character of) the country in which she 
 lived so long ; and it would literally thrill you with horror to 
 hear her descriptions of the misery and destitution that she 
 witnessed, and amidst which her husband breathed his last. 
 Out of four children, not one survives. One, an infant, died 
 within a week of the father ; two sons were executed, one at the 
 age of sixteen, one a year older, for robber}' committed under 
 aggravated circumstances; and a fourth, a daughter, died in the 
 hospitals of London. The old woman became a wanderer and 
 a vagrant, and was at length passed to her native parish, where 
 she has since dwelt. These are the misfortunes which have 
 turned her blood to gall ; and these are the causes which fill 
 her with so bitter a hatred against those whom wealth has 
 preserved from sharing or witnessing a fate similar to hers." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Aram in a low but deep tone, " when when will 
 these hideous disparities be banished from the world ? How 
 many noble natures how many glorious hopes how much of 
 the seraph's intellect, have been crushed into the mire, or blasted 
 into guilt, by the mere force of physical want ! What are the 
 temptations of the rich to those of the poor? Yet, see how 
 lenient we are to the crimes of the one how relentless to those 
 of the other ! It is a bad world ; it makes a man's heart sick to 
 look around him. The consciousness of how little individual 
 genius can do to relieve the mass, grinds out, as with a stone, 
 all that is generous in ambition, and to aspire from the level 
 of life is but to be more graspingly selfish." 
 
 " Can legislator^, or the moralists that instruct legislators, do 
 so little, then, towards universal good ? " said Lester, doubtingly. 
 
 " Why, what can they do but forward civilisation ? And what 
 is civilisation but an increase of human disparities ? 
 
 " The more the luxury of the few, the more startling the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 wants, and the more galling the sense of poverty. Even the 
 dreams of the philanthropist only tend towards equality ; and 
 where is equality to be found but in the state of the savage ? 
 No : I thought otherwise once ; but I now regard the vast 
 iazar-house around us without hope of relief; death is the sole 
 physician!" 
 
 "Ah, no," said the high-souled Madeline, eagerly; "do not 
 take away from us the best feeling and the highest desire wt 
 can cherish. How poor, even in this beautiful world, with the 
 warm sun and fresh air about us, would be life, if we could not 
 make the happiness of others ! " 
 
 Aram looked at the beautiful speaker with a soft and half- 
 mournful smile. There is one very peculiar pleasure that we 
 feel as we grow older, it is to see embodied, in another and a 
 more lovely shape, the thoughts and sentiments we once nursed 
 ourselves ; it is as if we viewed before us the incarnation of our 
 own youth ; and it is no wonder that we are warmed towards 
 the object, that thus seems the living apparition of all that was 
 brightest in ourselves ! It was with this sentiment that Aram 
 now gazed on Madeline. She felt the gaze, and her heart beat 
 delightedly; but she sank at once into a silence which she did 
 not break during the rest of their walk. 
 
 " 1 do not say," said Aram, after a pause, " that we are not 
 able to make the happiness of those immediately around us. 
 I speak only of what we can effect for the mass. And it is a 
 deadening thought to mental ambition that the circle of happi- 
 ness we can create is formed more by our moral than our mental 
 qualities. A warm heart, though accompanied but by a mediocre 
 understanding, is even more likely to promote the happiness of 
 those around, than are the absorbed and abstract, though kindly 
 powers of a more elevated genius : but (observing Lester about 
 t interrupt him) let us turn from this topic, let us turn from 
 man's weakness to the glories of the Mother-Nature, from which 
 he sprung." 
 
 And kindling, as he ever did, the moment he approached a 
 subject so dear to his studies, Aram now spoke of the stars, 
 which began to sparkle forth, of the vast, illimitable career 
 which recent science had opened to the imagination, and 01
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 87 
 
 the old, bewildering, yet eloquent, theories, which from age to 
 age had at once misled and elevated the conjecture of past sages. 
 Ail this was a theme to which his listeners loved to listen, and 
 Madeline not the least. Youth, beauty, pomp, what are these, 
 in point of attraction, to a woman's heart, when compared to 
 eloquence ? The magic of the tongue is the most dangerous 
 of all spells 1 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 THE PRIVILEGE OP GENIUS. LESTER'S SATISFACTION AT THE ASPECT OF EVENTS. 
 HIS CONVERSATION WITH WALTER. A DISCOVERY. 
 
 Ale. I am for Lidian : 
 This accident, no doubt, will draw him from his hermit's life I 
 
 ** 
 
 Lis. Spare my grief, and apprehend 
 What I should speak. 
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Lover's Progrea. 
 
 IN the course of the various conversations our family o! 
 Grassdale enjoyed with their singular neighbour, it appeared 
 that his knowledge had not been confined to the closet : at 
 times, he dropped remarks which showed that he had been 
 much among cities, and travelled with the design, of at least 
 with the vigilance, of the observer ; but he did not love to be 
 drawn into any detailed accounts of what he had seen, or 
 whither he had been : an habitual, though a gentle, reserve 
 kept watch over the past not, indeed, that character of reserve 
 which excites the doubt, but which inspires the interest. His 
 most gloomy moods were rather abrupt and fitful than morose, 
 and his usual bearing was calm, soft, and even tender. 
 
 There is a certain charm about great superiority of intellect 
 that winds into deep affections, which a much more constant 
 and even amiability of manners in lesser men often fails to 
 reach. Genius makes many enemies, but it makes sure friends 
 friends who forgive much, who endure long, who exact little :
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 they partake of the character of disciples as well as friends 
 There lingers about the human heart a strong inclination to look 
 upward to revere : in this inclination lies the source ?f religion, 
 of loyalty, and also of the worship and immortality which are 
 rendered so cheerfully to the great of old. And, in truth, it is a 
 divine pleasure ! admiration seems in some measure to appro- 
 priate to ourselves the qualities it honours in others. We wed, - 
 we root ourselves to the natures we so love to contemplate, and 
 their life grows a part of our own. Thus, when a great man, 
 who has engrossed our thoughts, our conjectures, our homage, 
 dies, a gap seems suddenly left in the world ; a wheel in the 
 mechanism of our own being appears abruptly stilled ; a portion 
 of ourselves, and not our worst portion, for how many pure, 
 high, generous sentiments it contains, dies with him ! Yes ! it 
 is this love, so rare, so exalted, and so denied to all ordinary 
 men, which is the especial privilege of greatness, whether that 
 greatness be shown in wisdom, in enterprise, in virtue, or even, 
 till the world learns better, in the more daring and lofty order of 
 crime. A Socrates may claim it to-day a Napoleon to-morrow ; 
 nay, a brigand chief, illustrious in the circle in which he lives, 
 may call it forth no less powerfully than the generous failings 
 of a Byron, or the sublime excellence of the greater Milton. 
 
 Lester saw with evident complacency the passion growing up 
 betv een his friend and his daughter ; he looked upon it as a tie 
 that would permanently reconcile Aram to the hearth of social 
 and domestic life ; a tie that would constitute the happiness of 
 his daughter, and secure to himself a relation in the man he felt 
 most inclined, of all he knew, to honour and esteem. He re- 
 marked in the gentleness and calm temper of Aram much that 
 was calculated to ensure domestic peace ; and, knowing the 
 peculiar disposition of Madeline, he felt that she was exactly the 
 person, not only to bear with the peculiarities of the student, but 
 to venerate their source. In short, the more he contemplated 
 the idea of this alliance, the more he was charmed with its 
 probability. 
 
 Musing on this subject, the good squire was one day walking 
 in his garden, when he perceived his nephew at some distance, 
 and remarked that Walter, on seeing him, instead of coming
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 89 
 
 forward to meet him, was about to turn down an alley in an 
 opposite direction. 
 
 A little pained at this, and remembering that Walter had of 
 late seemed estranged from himself, and greatly altered from the 
 high and cheerful spirits natural to his temper, Lester called to 
 his nephew : and Walter, reluctantly and slowly changing his 
 purpose of avoidance, advanced and met him. 
 
 " Why, Walter ! " said the uncle, taking his arm, " this is 
 somewhat unkind to shun me ; are you engaged in any pursuit 
 that requires secrecy or haste ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, sir ! " said Walter, with some embarrassment ; 
 " but I thought you seemed wrapped in reflection, and would 
 naturally dislike being disturbed." 
 
 " Hem ! As to that, I have no reflections I wish concealed 
 from you, Walter, or which might not be benefited by your 
 advice." The youth pressed his uncle's hand, but made no 
 reply ; and Lester, after a pause, continued : 
 
 " I am delighted to think, Walter, that you seem entirely to 
 have overcome the unfavourable prepossession which at first you 
 testified towards our excellent neighbour. And, for my part, I 
 think he appears to be especially attracted towards yourself: he 
 seeks your company; and to me he always speaks of you in 
 terms which, coming from such a quarter, give me the most 
 lively gratification." 
 
 Walter bowed his head, but not in the delighted vanity with 
 which a young man generally receives the assurance of another's 
 praise. 
 
 " I own," renewed Lester, " that I consider our friendship with 
 Aram one of the most fortunate occurrences in my life ; at least," 
 added he with a sigh, " of late years. I doubt not but you must 
 have observed the partiality with which our dear Madeline 
 evidently regards him ; and yet more the attachment to her, 
 which breaks forth from Aram, in spite of his habitual reserve 
 and self-control. You have surely noted this, Walter ? " 
 
 " I have," said Walter, in a low tone, and turning away 
 his head. 
 
 " And doubtless you share my satisfaction. It happens 
 fortunately now, that Madeline early contracted that studious
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and thoughtful turn, which, I must own, at one time gave me 
 some uneasiness and vexation. It has taught her to appreciate 
 the value of a mind like Aram's. Formerly, my dear boy, I 
 hoped that at one time or another she and yourself might form 
 a dearer connection than that of cousins. But I was disap- 
 pointed, and I am now consoled. And indeed I think there is 
 that in Ellinor which might be yet more calculated to render 
 you happy ; that is, if the bias of your mind should ever lean 
 that way." 
 
 " You are very good," said Walter, bitterly. " I own I am 
 not flattered by your selection ; nor do I see why the plainer 
 and less brilliant of the two sisters must necessarily be the 
 fitter for me." 
 
 " Nay," replied Lester, piqued, and justly angry ; " I do not 
 think, even if Madeline have the advantage of her sister, that 
 you can find any fault with the personal or mental attractions of 
 Ellinor. But, indeed, this is not a matter in which relations 
 should interfere. I am far from any wish to prevent you from 
 choosing throughout the world any one whom you may prefer. 
 All I hope is, that your future wife will be like Ellinor in kind- 
 ness of heart and sweetness of temper." 
 
 " From choosing throughout the world 1 " repeated Walter ; 
 " and how in this nook am I to see the world ? " 
 
 "Walter, your voice is reproachful ! Do I deserve it ?" 
 
 Walter was silent 
 
 " I have of late observed," continued Lester, " and with 
 wounded feelings, that you do not give me the same confidence, 
 or meet me with the same affection that you once delighted me 
 by manifesting towards me. I know of no cause for this change. 
 Do not let us, my son, for I may so call you do not let us, as 
 we grow older, grow also more apart Time divides with a suffi- 
 cient demarcation the young from the old; why deepen the 
 necessary line ? You know well, that I have never from your 
 childhood insisted heavily on a guardian's authority. I have 
 always loved to contribute to your enjoyments, and shown you 
 how devoted I am to your interests, by the very frankness with 
 which I have consulted you on my own. If there be now on 
 your mind any secret grievance, or any secret wish, speak it.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 91 
 
 Walter, you are alone with the friend on earth who loves you 
 best!" 
 
 Walter was wholly overcome by this address : he pressed his 
 good uncle's hand to his lips, and it was some moments before 
 he mustered self-composure sufficient to reply. 
 
 " You have ever, ever been to me all that the kindest parent, 
 the tenderest friend, could have been : believe me, I am not 
 ungrateful. If of late I have been altered, the cause is not in 
 you. Let me speak freely : you encourage me to do so. I am 
 young, my temper is restless : I have a love of enterprise and 
 adventure : is it not natural that I should long to see the world ? 
 This is the cause of my late abstraction of mind. I have now 
 told you all : it is for you to decide." 
 
 Lester looked wistfully on his nephew's countenance before 
 he replied 
 
 " It is as I gathered," said he, " from various remarks which 
 you have lately let fall. I cannot blame your wish to leave us ; 
 it is certainly natural ; nor can I oppose it. Go, Walter, when 
 you will." 
 
 The young man turned round with a lighted eye and flushed 
 cheek. 
 
 " And why, Walter," said Lester, interrupting his thanks, 
 "why this surprise? why this long doubt of my affection? 
 Could you believe I should refuse a wish that, at your age, I 
 should have expressed myself? You have wronged me; you 
 might have saved a world of pain to us both by acquainting me 
 with your desire when it was first formed : but, enough. I see 
 Madeline and Aram approach, let us join them now, and 
 to-morrow we will arrange the time and method of your 
 departure." 
 
 " Forgive me, sir," said Walter, stopping abruptly as the glow 
 faded from his cheek, " I have not yet recovered myself ; I am 
 not fit for other society than yours. Excuse my joining my 
 cousin, and " 
 
 " Walter ! " said Lester, also stopping short, and looking full 
 on his nephew ; " a painful thought flashes upon me I Would to 
 Heaven I may be wrong! Have you ever felt for Madeline 
 more tenderly than for her sister ? "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Walter literally trembled as he stood. The tears rushed into 
 Lester's eyes : he grasped his nephew's hand warmly, 
 
 "God comfort thee, my poor boy!" said he, with great 
 emotion ; " I never dreamed of this." 
 
 Walter felt now that he was understood. He gratefully 
 returned the pressure of his uncle's hand, and then, withdrawing 
 his own, darted down one of the intersecting walks, and was 
 almost instantly out of sight 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE STATS OF WALTER'S MIND. AN ANGLER AND A MAN OF THE WORLD. 
 A COMPANION FOUND FOR WALTER. 
 
 This great disease for love I 
 
 There is no tongue can tell the wo ; 
 I love the love that loves not me, 
 
 I may not mend, but mourning mo. 
 
 Tke Mourning Maiden. 
 
 I in these flowery meads would be, 
 
 These crystal streams should solace me, 
 
 To whose h'armoniou* bubbling voice 
 
 I with my angle would rejoice. Jzaak Walton. 
 
 WHEN Waiter left his uncle, he hurried, scarcely conscious of 
 his steps, towards his favourite haunt by the water-side. From 
 a child, he had singled out that scene as the witness of his early 
 sorrows or boyish schemes ; and still, the solitude of the place 
 cherished the habits of his boyhood. 
 
 Long had he, unknown to himself, nourished an attachment 
 to his beautiful cousin ; nor did he awaken to the secret of his 
 heart, until, with an agonising jealousy, he penetrated the secret 
 at hta own. The reader has, doubtless, already perceived, that 
 it was this jealousy which at the first occas'oned Walter's dislike 
 to Aram : the consolation of that dislike was forbidden him now. 
 The gentleness and forbearance of the student's deportment had 
 taken away all ground of offence ; and Walter had sufficient 
 generosity to acknowledge his merits, while tortured by their 
 
 1 Bear.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 93 
 
 effect. Silently, till this day, he had gnawed his heart, and found 
 for its despair no confidant and no comfort. The only wish that 
 he cherished was a feverish and gloom'y desire to leave the scene 
 which witnessed the triumph of his rival. Everything around 
 had become hateful to his eyes, and a curse had lighted upon 
 the face of home. He thought now, with a bitter satisfaction, 
 that his escape was at hand ; in a few days he might be rid of 
 the gall and the pang, which every moment of his stay at Grass- 
 dale inflicted upon him. The sweet voice of Madeline he should 
 hear no more, subduing its silver sound for his rival's ear : no 
 more he should watch apart, and himself unheeded, how timidly 
 her glance roved in search of another, or how vividly her cheek 
 flushed when the step of that happier one approached. Many 
 miles would at least shut out this picture from his view ; and in 
 absence, was it not possible that he might teach himself to 
 forget ? Thus meditating, he arrived at the banks of the little 
 brooklet, and was awakened from his reverie by the sound of his 
 own name. He started, and saw the old corporal seated on the 
 stump of a tree, and busily employed in fixing to his line the 
 mimic likeness of what anglers, and, for aught we know, the rest 
 of the world, call the " violet-fly." 
 
 " Ha ! master, at my day's work, you see ; fit for nothing 
 else now. When a musket's half worn out, schoolboys buy it 
 pop it at sparrows. I be like the musket! but never mind I 
 have not seen the world for nothing. We get reconciled to all 
 things : that's my way ^augh ! Now, sir, you shall watch me 
 catch the finest trout you have seen this summer : know where 
 he lies under the bush yonder. Whi sh ! sir, whi sh ! " 
 
 The corporal now gave his warrior soul up to the due guid- 
 ance of the violet-fly : now he whipped it lightly on the wave ; 
 now he slid it coquettishly along the surface : now it floated, 
 like an unconscious beauty, carelessly with the tide ; and now, 
 like an artful prude, it affected to loiter by the way, or to steal 
 into designing obscurity under the shade of some overhanging 
 bank. But. none of these manoeuvres captivated the wary old 
 trout, on whose acquisition the corporal had set his heart ; and, 
 what was especially provoking, the angler could see distinctly 
 the dark outline of the intended victim as it lay at the bottom,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 like some well-regulated bachelor, who eyes from afar the 
 charms he has discreetly resolved to neglect 
 
 The corporal waited till he could no longer blind himself 
 to the displeasing fact that the violet-fly was wholly ineffi- 
 cacious ; he then drew up his line, and replaced the contemned 
 beauty of the violet-fly with the novel attractions of the 
 yellow-dun. 
 
 "Now, sir," whispered he, lifting up his finger, and nodding 
 sagaciously to Walter. Softly dropped the yellow-dun on the 
 water, and swiftly did it glide before the gaze of the latent trout : 
 and now the trout seemed aroused from his apathy, behold, he 
 moved forward, balancing himself upon his fins : now he slowly 
 ascended towards the surface : you might see all the speckles of 
 his coat : the corporal's heart stood still he is now at a con- 
 venient distance from the yellow-dun ; lo, he surveys it stead- 
 fastly ; he ponders, he see-saws himself to and fro. The yellow- 
 dun sails away in affected indifference ; that indifference whets 
 the appetite of the hesitating gazer ; he darts forward ; he is 
 opposite the yellow-dun, he pushes his nose against it with an 
 eager rudeness, he no, he does not bite, he recoils, he gazes 
 again with surprise and suspicion on the little charmer ; he fades 
 back slowly into the deeper water, and then, suddenly turning 
 his tail towards the disappointed bait, he makes off as fast as 
 he can, yonder, yonder, and disappears ! No, that's he 
 leaping yonder from the wave: Jupiter! what a noble fellow I 
 What leaps he at ? A real fly ! " D n his eyes ! " growled the 
 corporal. 
 
 4 You might have caught him with a minnow," said Walter, 
 speaking for the first time. 
 
 " Minnow : " repeated the corporal, gruffly ; "ask your honour's 
 pardon. Minnow! I have fished with the yellow-dun these 
 twenty years, and never knew it fail before. Minnow ! baugh 1 
 But ask pardon ; your honour is very welcome to fish with a 
 minnow, if you please it." 
 
 " Thank you, Bunting. And pray what sport have you had 
 to-day ? " 
 
 " Oh, good, good," quoth the corporal, snatching up his 
 basket and closing the cover, lest the young squire should
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 95 
 
 pry into it. No man is more tenacious of his secrets than 
 your true angler. " Sent the best home two hours ago ; one 
 weighed three pounds on the faith of a man ; indeed, I'm 
 satisfied now ; time to give up : " and the corporal began to 
 disjoint his rod. 
 
 " Ah, sir ! " said he, with a half sigh, " a pretty river this, don't 
 mean to say it is not ; but the river Lea for my money. You 
 know the Lea ? not a morning's walk from Lunnon. Mary 
 Gibson, my first sweetheart, lived by the bridge, caught such 
 a trout there by the by ! had beautiful eyes black, round as 
 a cherry five feet eight without shoes might have listed in the 
 forty-second." 
 
 " Who, Bunting ! " said Walter, smiling ; " the lady or the 
 trout?" 
 
 " Augh ! baugh ! what ? Oh, laughing at me, your honour; 
 you're welcome, sir. Love's a silly thing know the world now 
 have not fallen in love these ten years. I doubt no offence, 
 sir, no offence I doubt whether your honour and Miss Ellinor 
 can say as much." 
 
 "I and Miss Ellinor ! you forget yourself strangely, Bunting." 
 said Walter, colouring with anger. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir, beg pardon rough soldier lived away from 
 the world so long, words slipped out of my mouth absent 
 without leave." 
 
 " But why," said Walter, smothering or conquering his vexa- 
 tion, " why couple me with Miss Ellinor ? Did you imagine 
 that we we were in love with each other ? " 
 
 " Indeed, sir, and if I did, 'tis no more than my neighbours 
 imagine too." 
 
 " Humph ! Your neighbours are very silly, then, and very 
 wrong." 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir, again always getting askew. Indeed some 
 did say it was Miss Madeline, but I says, says I, ' No ! I'm a 
 man of the world see through a millstone ; Miss Madeline's 
 too easy like ; Miss Nelly blushes when he speaks ; ' scarlet is 
 Love's regimentals it was ours in the forty-second, edged with 
 yellow pepper-and-salt pantaloons ! For my part I think, but 
 I've no business to think, howsomever baugh 1 "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Pray what do you think, Mr. Bunting ? Why do you 
 hesitate ? " 
 
 " 'Fraid of offence but I do think that Mastei Aram your 
 honour understands howsomever squire's daughter too great a 
 match for such as he ! " 
 
 Walter did not answer ; and the garrulous old soldier, who had 
 been the young man's playmate and companion since Walter 
 was a boy, and was therefore accustomed to the familiarity with 
 which he now spoke, continued, mingling with his abrupt prolixity 
 an occasional shrewdness of observation, which showed that he 
 was no inattentive commentator on the little and quiet world 
 around him, 
 
 " Free to confess, Squire Walter, that I don't quite like this 
 larned man, as much as the rest of 'em something queer about 
 him can't see to the bottom of him don't think he's quite 
 so meek and lamblike as he seems : once saw a calm dead 
 pool in foreign parts peered down into it by little and little, 
 my eye got used to it saw something dark at the bottom 
 stared and stared by Jupiter a great big alligator! walked 
 off immediately never liked quiet pools since augh, no! " 
 
 " An argument against quiet pools, perhaps, Bunting ; but 
 scarcely against quiet people." 
 
 " Don't know as to that, your honour much of a muchness. 
 I have seen Master Aram, demure as he looks, start, and bite his 
 lip, and change colour, and frown he has an ugly frown, I can 
 tell ye, when he thought no one nigh. A man who gets in a 
 passion with himself may be soon out of temper with others. 
 Free to confess, I should not like to see him married to that 
 stately, beautiful, young lady but they do gossip about it in 
 the village. If it is not true, better put the squire on his guard 
 false rumours often beget truths beg pardon, your honour 
 no business of mine baugh ! But I'm a lone man, who have 
 seen the world, and I thinks on the things around me, and I turns 
 over the quid now on this side, now on the other 'tis my way, 
 sir and but I offend your honour." 
 
 " Not at all ; I know you are an honest man, Bunting, and 
 well affected to our family : at the same time, it is neither pru- 
 dent nor charitable to speak harshly of our neighbours without
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 97 
 
 sufficient cause. And really you seem to me to be a little hasty 
 in your judgment of a man so inoffensive in his habits, and so 
 justly and generally esteemed, as Mr. Aram." 
 
 "May be, sir may be, very right what you say. But I 
 thinks what I thinks all the same ; and, indeed, it is a thing that 
 puzzles me, how that strange-looking vagabond, as frighted the 
 ladies so, and who, Miss Nelly told me for she saw them in 
 his pocket carried pistols about him, as if he had been among 
 cannibals and Hottentots, instead of the peaceablest county 
 that man ever set foot in, should boast of his friendship with 
 this lamed schollard, and pass I dare swear a whole night in 
 his house ! Birds of a feather flock together augh ! sir ! " 
 
 " A man cannot surely be answerable for the respectability of 
 all his acquaintances, even though he feel obliged to offer them 
 the accommodation of a night's shelter ? " 
 
 " Baugh ! " grunted the corporal. " Seen the world, sir seen 
 the world young gentlemen are always so good-natured ; 'tis a 
 pity, that the more one sees the more suspicious one grows.. 
 One does not have gumption till one has been properly cheated 
 one must be made a fool very often in order not to be fooled 
 at last ! " 
 
 " Well, corporal, I shall now have opportunities enough of 
 profiting by experience. I am going to leave Grassdale in a few 
 days, and learn suspicion and wisdom in the great world." 
 
 "Augh! baugh! what!" cried the corporal, starting from 
 the contemplative air which he had hitherto assumed, " the 
 great world? how? when? going away? who goes with 
 your honour ? " 
 
 " My honour's self; I have no companion, unless you like to 
 attend me," said Walter, jestingly ; but the corporal affected, 
 with his natural shrewdness, to take the proposition in earnest. 
 
 " I ! your honour's too good ; and indeed, though I say it, sir, 
 you might do worse : not but what I should be sorry to leave 
 nice snug home here, and this stream, though the trout have 
 been shy lately, ah! that was a mistake of yours, sir, recom- 
 mending the minnow ; and neighbour Dealtry, though his ale's 
 not so good as 'twas last year ; and and but, in short, I ahvays 
 loved your honour dandled you on my knees ;- you recollect 
 
 G
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the broadsword exercise ? one, two, three augh ! baugh ! and 
 if your honour really is going, why, rather than you should want 
 a proper person, who knows the world, to brush your coat, polish 
 your shoes, give you good advice on the faith of a man, I'll go 
 with you myself ! " 
 
 This alacrity on the part of the corporal was far from displeas- 
 ing to Walter. The proposal he had at first made unthinkingly, 
 he now seriously thought advisable ; and at length it was settled 
 that the corporal should call the next morning at the manor- 
 house, and receive instructions to conclude arrangements for the 
 journey. Not forgetting, as the sagacious Bunting delicately 
 insinuated, " the wee settlements as to wages, and board-wages, 
 more a matter of form, like, than anything ebe augh 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TH LOVERS. THE ENCOUNTER AND QUARREL OF THE RIVALS. 
 
 Two such I saw, what time the labour'd ox 
 
 In his loose traces from the furrow came. Comta. 
 
 Pedro. Now do me noble right 
 Rod. I'll satisfy you ; 
 But not by the sword. 
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Pilgrim. 
 
 WHILE Walter and the corporal enjoyed the above conver- 
 sation, Madeline and Aram, whom Lester left to themselves, 
 were pursuing their walk along the solitary fields. Their love 
 had passed from the eye to the lip, and now found expression 
 in words. 
 
 "Observe," said he, as the light touch of one, who he felt loved 
 him entirely, rested on his arm, " observe, as the later summer 
 now begins to breathe a more various and mellow glory into the 
 landscape, how singularly pure and lucid the atmosphere 
 becomes. When, two months ago, in the full flush of June, I 
 walked through these fields, a grey mist hid yon distant hills and 
 the far forest from my view. Now, with what a transparent 
 stillness the whole expanse of scenery spreads itself before us. 
 And kuch, Madeline, is the change that has come over myself
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 99 
 
 since that time. Then if I looked beyond the limited present, 
 all was dim and indistinct. Now, the mist has faded away the 
 broad future extends before me, calm and bright with the hope 
 which is borrowed from your love ! " 
 
 We will not tax the patience of the reader, who seldom enters 
 with keen interest into the mere dialogue of love, with the 
 blushing Madeline's reply, or with all the soft vows and tender 
 confessions which the rich poetry of Aram's mind made yet 
 more delicious to the ear of his dreaming and devoted mistress. 
 
 "There is one circumstance," said Aram, "which casts a 
 momentary shade on the happiness I enjoy my Madeline pro- 
 bably guesses its nature. I regret to see that the blessing of 
 your love must be purchased by the misery of another, and 
 that other the nephew of my kind friend. You have doubtless 
 observed the melancholy of Walter Lester, and have long since 
 known its origin ? " 
 
 " Indeed, Eugene," answered Madeline, " it has given me great 
 pain to note what you refer to, for it would be a false delicacy in 
 me to deny that I have observed it. But Walter is young and 
 high-spirited ; nor do I think he is of a nature to love long 
 where there is no return." 
 
 " And what," said Aram, sorrowfully, " what deduction from 
 reason can ever apply to love ? Love is a very contradiction of 
 all the elements of our ordinary nature : it makes the proud 
 man meek, the cheerful, sad, the high-spirited, tame ; our 
 strongest resolutions, our hardiest energy, fail before it. Believe 
 me, you cannot prophesy of its future effect in a man from any 
 knowledge of his past character. I grieve to think that the 
 blow falls upon one in early youth, ere the world's disappoint- 
 ments have blunted the heart, or the world's numerous interests 
 have multiplied its resources. Men's minds have been turned 
 when they have not well sifted the cause themselves, and their 
 fortunes marred, by one stroke on the affections of th;ir youth. 
 So at least have I read, Madeline, and so marked in others. For 
 myself, I knew nothing of love in its reality till I knew you. 
 But who can know you, and not sympathise with him who has 
 lost you ? " 
 
 " Ah, Eugene ! you at least overrate the influence which love 
 
 G 2
 
 loo EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 produces on men. A little resentment and a little absence will 
 soon cure my cousin of an ill-placed and ill-requited attachment. 
 You do not think how easy it is to forget." 
 
 " Forget !" said Aram, stopping abruptly; " ay, forget it is 
 a strange truth ! we do forget ! The summer passes over the 
 furrow, and the corn springs up ; the sod forgets the flower of 
 the past year ; the battle-field forgets the blood that has been 
 spilt upon its turf ; the sky forgets the storm ; and the water the 
 noon-day sun that slept upon its bosom. All Nature preaches 
 forget fulness. Its very order is the progress of oblivion. And 
 I I give me your hand, Madeline, I ha ! ha ! I forget too ! " 
 
 As Aram spoke thus wildly, his countenance worked ; but his 
 voice was slow and scarcely audible ; he seemed rather conferring 
 with himself than addressing Madeline. But when his words 
 ceased, and he felt the soft hand of his betrothed, and, turning, 
 saw her anxious and wistful eyes fixed in alarm, yet in all 
 unsuspecting confidence, on his face : his features relaxed into 
 their usual serenity, and kissing the hand he clasped, he continued, 
 in a collected and steady tone, 
 
 " Forgive me, my sweetest Madeline. These fitful and strange 
 moods sometimes come upon me yet. I have been so long in 
 the habit of pursuing any train of thought, however wild, that 
 presents itself to my mind, that I cannot easily break it, even in 
 your presence. All studious men the twilight eremites of 
 books and closets contract this ungraceful custom of soliloquy. 
 You know our abstraction is a common jest and proverb : you 
 must laugh me out of it But stay, dearest ! there is a rare herb 
 at your feet, let me gather it. So, do you note its leaves this 
 bending and silver flower? Let us rest on this bank, and I will 
 tell you of its qualities. Beautiful as it is, it has a poison." 
 
 The place in which the lovers rested is one which the villagers 
 to this day call "The Lady's Seat ; " for Madeline, whose history 
 is fondly preserved in that district, was afterwards wont 
 constantly to repair to that bank (during a short absence of her 
 ^vcr, hereafter to be noted), and subsequent events stamped with 
 interr-,t every spot she was known to have favoured with resort, 
 ivhen the flower had been duly conned, and the study dis- 
 missed, Aram, to whom all the signs of the seasons were familiar,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 101 
 
 pointed to her the thousand symptoms of the month which are 
 unheeded by less observant eyes ; not forgetting, as they thus 
 reclined, their hands clasped together, to couple each remark 
 with some allusion to his love, or some deduction which 
 heightened compliment into poetry. He bade her mark the 
 light gossamer as it floated on the air ; now soaring high high 
 into the translucent atmosphere : now suddenly stooping, and 
 sailing away beneath the boughs, which ever and anon it hung 
 with a silken web, that by the next morn would glitter with a 
 thousand dew-drops. " And so," said he, fancifully, " does Love 
 lead forth its numberless creations, making the air its path and 
 empire ; ascending aloof at its wild will, hanging its meshes on 
 every bough, and bidding the common grass break into a fairy 
 lustre at the beam of the daily sun ! " 
 
 He pointed to her the spot, where, in the silent brake, the hare- 
 bells, now waxing rare and few, yet lingered or where the 
 mystic ring on the soft turf conjured up the associations of 
 Oberon and his train. That superstition gave license and play 
 to his full memory and glowing fancy ; and Shakspeare 
 Spenser Ariosto the magic of each mighty master of Fairy 
 Realm he evoked, and poured into her transported ear. It was 
 precisely such arts, which to a gayer and more worldly nature 
 than Madeline's might have seemed but wearisome, that arrested 
 and won her imaginative and high-wrought mind. And thus he, 
 who to another might have proved but the retired and moody 
 student, became to her the very being of whom her " maiden 
 meditation " had dreamed the master and magician of her fate. 
 
 Aram did not return to the house with Madeline ; he accom- 
 panied her to the garden-gate, and then, taking leave of her, 
 bent his way homeward. He had gained the entrance of the 
 little valley that led to his abode, when he saw Walter cross his 
 path at a short distance. His heart, naturally susceptible to 
 kindly emotion, smote him as he remarked the moody listless- 
 ness of the young man's step, and recalled the buoyant lightness 
 it was once wont habitually to wear. He quickened his pace, 
 and joined Walter before the latter was aware of his presence. 
 
 " Good evening," said he mildly ; " if you are going my way, 
 give me the benefit of your company."
 
 ,oa EUGENE A I 
 
 " My path lies yonder," replied Walter, somewhat sullenly ; 
 " I regret that it is different from yours." 
 
 44 In that case," said Aram, " I can delay my return home, and 
 will, with your leave, intrude my society upon you for some few 
 minutes.* 
 
 Walter bowed his head in reluctant assent. They walked or. 
 for some moments without speaking, the one unwilling, the other 
 seeking an occasion, to break the silence. 
 
 * This, to my mind," said Aram, at length, " is the most pleas- 
 ing landscape in the whole country ; observe the bashful water 
 stealing away among the woodlands. Methinks the wave is 
 endowed with an instinctive wisdom, that it thus shuns the 
 world." 
 
 " Rather," said Walter, " with the love for change which exists 
 everywhere in nature, it does not seek the shade until it has 
 passed by 'towered cities,' and ' the busy hum of men.' " 
 
 " I admire the shrewdness of your reply," rejoined Aram ; 
 " but note how far more pure and lovely are its waters in these 
 retreats, than when washing the walls of the reeking town, 
 receiving into its breast the taint of a thousand pollutions, vexed 
 by the sound, and stench, and unholy perturbation of men's 
 dwelling-place. Now it glasses only what is high or beautiful in 
 nature the stars or the leafy banks. The wind that ruffles it is 
 clothed with perfumes ; the rivulet that swells it descends from 
 the everlasting mountains, or is formed by the rains of heaven. 
 Believe me, it is the type of a life that glides into solitude from 
 
 he weariness and fretful turmoil of the world. 
 
 44 'No flattery, hate, or envy lodgeth there ; 
 
 There no kuspicion walled in proved steel, 
 Yet fearful of tne arms herself doth wear ; 
 
 Pride is not there ; no tyrant there we feel ! '"* 
 
 * I will not cope with you in simile or in poetry," said Walter, 
 as his lip curved ; " it is enough for me to think that life should 
 be spent in action. I hasten to prove if my judgment be 
 erroneous." 
 
 " Are you, then, about to leave us?" inquired Aram. 
 
 * Yes, within a few days." 
 
 1 Phinea* Fletcher.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 103 
 
 " Indeed ! I regret to hear it." 
 
 The answer sounded jarringly on the irritated nerves of the 
 disappointed rival. 
 
 " You do me more honour than I desire," said he, " in interest- 
 ing yourself, however lightly, in my schemes or fortune." 
 
 " Young man," replied Aram, coldly, " I never see the im- 
 petuous and yearning spirit of youth without a certain, and, it 
 may be, a painful interest. How feeble is the chance that its 
 hopes will be fulfilled ! Enough if it lose not all its loftier 
 aspirings as well as its brighter expectations." 
 
 Nothing more aroused the proud and fiery temper of Walter 
 Lester than the tone of superior wisdom and superior age which 
 his rival sometimes assumed towards him. More and more 
 displeased with his present companion, he answered, in no con- 
 ciliatory tone, " I cannot but consider the warning and the fears 
 of one, neither my relation nor my friend, in the light of a 
 gratuitous affront." 
 
 Ararm smiled as he answered, 
 
 "There is no occasion for resentment Preserve this hot spirit 
 and this high self-confidence till you return again to these scenes, 
 and I shall be at once satisfied and corrected." 
 
 " Sir," said Walter, colouring, and irritated more by the smile 
 than the words of his rival, " I am not aware by what right or on 
 what ground you assume towards me the superiority, not only 
 of admonition but reproof! My uncle's preference towards you 
 gives you no authority over me. That preference I do not 
 pretend to share." He paused for a moment, thinking Aram 
 might hasten to reply ; but as the student walked on with his 
 usual calmness of demeanour, he added, stung by the indifference 
 which he attributed, not altogether without truth, to disdain, 
 " And since you have taken upon yourself to caution me, and to 
 forebode my inability to resist the contamination, as you would 
 term it ; of the world, I tell you, that it may be happy for you to 
 bear so clear a conscience, so untouched a spirit, as that which 
 I now boast, and with which I trust in God and my own soul 
 I shall return to my birth-place. It is not the holy only that 
 love solitude ; and men may shun the world from another motive 
 than that of philosophy."
 
 104 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 It was now Aram's turn to feel resentment, and this was 
 indeed an insinuation not only unwarrantable in itself, but one 
 which a man of so peaceable and guileless a life, affecting even 
 an extreme and rigid austerity of morals, might well be tempted 
 to repel with, scorn and indignation ; and Aram, however meek 
 and forbearing in general, testified in this instance that his 
 wonted gentleness arose from no lack of man's natural spirit. 
 He laid his hand commandingly on young Lester's shoulder, 
 and surveyed his countenance with a dark and menacing frown. 
 
 " Boy ! " said he, " were there meaning in your words, I should 
 (mark me !) avenge the insult ; as it is, I despise it. Go ! " 
 
 So high and lofty was Aram's manner so majestic was the 
 sternness of his rebuke, and the dignity of his bearing, as, waving 
 his hand, he now turned away, that Walter lost his self-possession 
 and stood fixed to the spot, abashed, and humbled from his late 
 anger. It was not till Aram had moved with a slow step several 
 paces backward toward his home, that the bold and haughty 
 temper of the young man returned to his aid. Ashanfed of 
 himself for the momentary weakness he had betrayed, and 
 burning to redeem it, he hastened after the stately form of his 
 rival, and, planting himself full in his path, said, in a voice 
 half-choked with contending emotions, 
 
 " Hold ! you have given me the opportunity I have long 
 desired ; you yourself have now broken that peace which exited 
 between us, and which to me was more bitter than wormwood. 
 You have dared, yes, dared to use threatening language towards 
 me! I c^ll on you to fulfil your threat. I tell you that I meant, 
 I desired, I thirsted to affront you. Now resent my purposed, 
 premeditated affront, as you will and can." 
 
 There was something remarkable in the contrasted figures of 
 the rivals, as they now stood fronting each other. The elastic 
 and vigorous form of Walter Lester, his sparkling eyes, his 
 sunburnt and glowing cheek, his clenched hands, and his whole 
 frame, alive and eloquent with the energy, the heat, the hasty 
 courage, and fiery spirit of youth : on the other hand, the 
 bending frame of the student, gradually rising into the dignity 
 of its full height his pale check, in which the wan hues neither 
 deepened nor waned, his large eye raised to meet Walter's, bright.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 105 
 
 steady, and yet how calm ! Nothing weak, nothing irresolute, 
 could be traced in that form or that lofty countenance ; yet all 
 resentment had vanished from his aspect. He seemed at once 
 tranquil and prepared. 
 
 "You designed to affront me!" said he; "it is well it is a 
 noble confession ; and wherefore ? What do you propose to gain 
 by it ? A man whose whole life is peace, you would provoke 
 to outrage. Would there be triumph in this, or disgrace ? A 
 man, whom your uncle honours and loves, you would insult 
 without cause you would waylay you would, after watching 
 and creating your opportunity, entrap into defending himself. 
 Is this worthy of that high spirit of which you boasted ? is 
 this worthy a generous anger, or a noble hatred ? Away ! you 
 malign yourself. I shrink from no quarrel why should I ? I 
 have nothing to fear : my nerves are firm my heart is faithful 
 to my will ; my habits may have diminished my strength, but it 
 is yet equal to that of most men. As to the weapons of the 
 world they fall not to my use. I might be excused by the 
 most punctilious for .rejecting what becomes neither my station 
 nor my habjts of life ; but I learned thus much from books long 
 since, ' Hold thyself prepared for all things ; ' I am so prepared. 
 And as I command the spirit, I lack not the skill, to defend 
 myself, or return the hostility of another." As Aram thus said, 
 he drew a pistol from his bosom ; and pointed it leisurely towards 
 a tree, at the distance of some paces. 
 
 "Look," said he: "you note that small discoloured and white 
 stain in the bark you can but just observe it; he who can 
 send a bullet through that spot need not fear to meet the 
 quarrel which he seeks to avoid." 
 
 Walter turned mechanically, and indignant, though silent, 
 towards the tree. Aram fired, and the ball penetrated the 
 centre of the stain. He then replaced the pistol in his bosom, 
 and said, 
 
 " Early in life I had many enemies, and I taught myself these 
 arts. From habit, I still bear about me the weapons I trust and 
 pray I may never have occasion to use. But to return. I have 
 offended you I have incurred your hatred why ? What are 
 my sins ? "
 
 lo6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Do you ask the cause ?" said Walter, speaking between his 
 ground teeth. " Have you not traversed my views blighted 
 my hopes charmed away from me the affections which we,re 
 more to me than the world, and driven me to wander from my 
 home with a crushed spirit and a cheerless heart ? Are these 
 no causes for hate ? " 
 
 " Have I done this ? " said Aram, recoiling, and evidently and 
 powerfully affected. " Have I so injured you ? It is true ! I 
 know it I perceive it I read your heart; and bear witness, 
 Heaven! I feel for the wound that I, but with no guilty hand, 
 inflict upon you. Yet be just : ask yourself, have I done aught 
 that you, in my case, would have left undone ? Have I been 
 insolent in triumph, or haughty in success? If so, hate me, nay, 
 spurn me, now." 
 
 Walter turned his head irresolutely away. 
 
 14 If it please you, that I accuse myself, in that I, a man 
 seared and lone at heart, presumed to come within the pale of 
 human affections; that I exposed myself to cross another's 
 better and brighter hopes, or dared to soften my fate with the 
 tender and endearing ties that are meet alone for a more genial 
 and youthful nature; if it please you that I accuse and curse 
 myself for this that I yielded to it with pain and with self- 
 reproach that I shall think hereafter of what I unconsciously 
 cost you, with remorse then be consoled ! " 
 
 " It is enough," said Walter ; " let us part. I leave you with 
 more soreness at my late haste than I will acknowledge ; let 
 that content you : for myself, I ask for no apology or " 
 
 " But you shall have it amply," interrupted Aram, advancing 
 with a cordial openness of mien not usual to him. " I was all 
 to blame ; I should have remembered you were an injured man, 
 and suffered you to have said all you would. Words at best are 
 but a poor vent for a wronged and burning heart. It shall be 
 so in future : speak your will, attack, upbraid, taunt me, I will 
 bear it all. And, indeed, even to myself there appears some 
 witchcraft, some glamoury, in what has chanced. What! I 
 favoured where you love ? Is it possible ? It might teach the 
 vainest to forswear vanity. You, the young, the buoyant, the 
 fresh, the beautiful ? And I, who have passed the glory and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 107 
 
 zest of life between dusty walls ; I who well, well, Fate laughs 
 at probabilities ! " 
 
 Aram now seemed relapsing into one of his more abstracted 
 moods ; he ceased to speak aloud but his lips moved, and his 
 ej^es grew fixed in reverie on the ground. Walter gazed at him 
 for some moments with mixed and contending sensations. Once 
 more, resentment and the bitter wrath of jealousy had faded 
 back into the remoter depths of his mind, and a certain interest 
 for his singular rival, despite of himself, crept into his breast. 
 But this mysterious and fitful nature was it one in which the 
 devoted Madeline would certainly find happiness and repose ? 
 would she never regret her choice ? This question obtruded 
 itself upon him, and, while he sought to answer it, Aram, regain- 
 ing his composure, turned abruptly and offered him his hand. 
 Walter did not accept it ; he bowed with a cold aspect. " I 
 cannot give my hand without my heart," said he ; " we were foes 
 just now ; we are not friends yet. I am unreasonable in this, I 
 know, but " 
 
 " Be it so," interrupted Aram ; " I understand you. I press 
 my good -will on you no more. When this pang is forgotten, 
 when this wound is healed, and when you will have learned more 
 of him who is now your rival, we may meet again, with other 
 feelings on your side." 
 
 Thus they parted, and the solitary lamp which for weeks past 
 had been quenched at the wholesome hour in the student's 
 home, streamed from the casement throughout the whole of 
 that night : was it a witness of the calm and learned vigil, or of 
 the unresting heart I
 
 log i.ENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE FAMILY SfPFER. THE TWO SISTERS IN THEIR CIIAMUF.R. A MISUNDER- 
 STANDING FOLLOWED BY A CONFESSION. WALTER'S APPROACHING DE- 
 PARTl'KE, AND THE CORPORAL'S BEHAVIOUR THERKON. THE CORPORAL'S 
 FAVOfRITE INTRODUCED TO THE READER. THE CORPORAL PROVES HIMSELF 
 A SUBTLE DIPLOMATIST. 
 
 So we grew together 
 Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, 
 But yet an union in partition. 
 
 A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, 
 
 The corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of artilleryship. 
 Tristram Shandy. 
 
 IT was late that evening when Walter returned home ; the 
 little family were assembled at the last and lightest meal of the 
 day ; Ellinor silently made room for her cousin beside herself, 
 and that little kindness touched Walter. " Why did I not love 
 /ttrf" thought he ; and he spoke to her in a tone so affectionate 
 that it made her heart thrill with delight. Lester was, on the 
 whole, the most pensive of the group ; but the old and young 
 man exchanged looks of restored confidence, which on the part 
 of the former were softened by a pitying tenderness. 
 
 When the cloth was removed, and .the servants gone, Lester 
 took it on himself to break to the sisters the intended departure 
 of their cousin. Madeline receive the news with painful blushes, 
 and a certain self-reproach ; for even where a woman has no 
 cause to blame herself, she, in these cases, feels a sort of remorse 
 at the unhappiness she occasions. But Ellinor rose suddenly 
 and left the room. 
 
 M And now," said Lester, " London will, I suppose, be your 
 first destination. I can furnish you with letters to some of my 
 old friends there : merry fellows they were once : you must take 
 care of the prodigality of their wine. There's John Courtland 
 ah ! a seductive dog to drink with. Be sure and let me know how 
 honest John looks, and what he says of me. I recollect him as 
 if it were yesterday ; a roguish eye, with a moisture in it ; full 
 cheeks ; a straight nose ; black curled hair ; and teeth as even 
 honest John showed his teeth pretty often, too : ha, 
 ha! how the d<-j loved a laugh! Well, and Peter Hales Sir
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 109 
 
 Peter now, has his uncle's baronetcy a generous open-hearted 
 fellow as ever lived will ask you very often to dinner nay, 
 offer you money if you want it : but take care he does not lead 
 you into extravagances : out of debt out of danger, Walter. It 
 would have been well for poor Peter Hales, had he remembered 
 that maxim. Often and often have I been to see him in the 
 Marshalsea ; but he was the heir to good fortunes, though his 
 relations kept him close ; so I suppose he is well off now. His 
 
 estates lie in shire, on your road to London ; so, if he is at 
 
 his country-seat, you can beat up his quarters, and spend a 
 month or so with him : a most hospitable fellow." 
 
 With these little sketches of his contemporaries, the good 
 squire endeavoured to while the time, taking, it is true, some 
 pleasure in the youthful reminiscences they excited, but chiefly 
 designing to enliven the melancholy of his nephew. When, how- 
 ever, Madeline had retired, and they were alone, he drew his chair 
 closer to Walter's, and changed the conversation into a more 
 serious and anxious strain. The guardian and the ward sat up 
 late that night ; and when Walter retired to rest it was with 
 a heart more touched by his uncle's kindness than his own 
 sorrows. 
 
 But we are not about to close the day without a glance at the 
 charnber which the two sisters held in common. The night was 
 serene and starlit, and Madeline sat by the open window, leaning 
 her face upon her hand, and gazing on the lone house of her 
 lover, which might be seen afar across the landscape, the trees 
 sleeping around it, and one pale and steady light gleaming from 
 its lofty casement like a star. 
 
 " He has broken faith," said Madeline ; " I shall chide him for 
 this to-morrow. He promised me the light should be ever 
 quenched before this hour." 
 
 " Nay," said Ellinor, in a tone somewhat sharpened from its 
 native sweetness, and who now sat up in the bed, the curtain of 
 which was half-drawn aside, and the soft light of the skies rested 
 full upon her rounded neck and youthful countenance " nay, 
 Madeline, do not loiter there any longer ; the air grows sharp 
 and cold, and the clock struck one several minutes since. Come, 
 sister, come 1 "
 
 no EUGENE /.RAM. 
 
 " I cannot sleep," replied Madeline, sighing, " and think that 
 yon light streams upon those studies which steal the healthful 
 hues from his cheek, and the very life from his heart." 
 
 " You arc r nfatuated you are bewitched by that man," said 
 Ellinor, peevishly. 
 
 *' And have I not cause ample cause ? H returned Madeline, 
 with all a girl's beautiful enthusiasm, as the colour mantled her 
 cheek, and gave it the only additional loveliness it could receive. 
 " When he speaks, is it not like music ? or, rather, what music 
 so arrests and touches the heart ? Methinks it is heaven only to 
 gaze upon him, to note the changes of that majestic countenance 
 to set down as food for memory every look and every movement. 
 But when the look turns to me when the voice utters my name, 
 ah ! Ellinor, then it is not a wonder that I love him thus much, 
 but that any others should think they have known love* and yet 
 not loved //*/// / And, indeed, I feel asstired that what the 
 world calls love is not my love. Are there more Eugenes 
 in the world than one ? Who but Eugene could be loved as I 
 love ? 
 
 " What ! are there none as worthy ? " said Ellinor half smiling. 
 
 " Can you ask it ? " answered Madeline, with a simple wonder 
 in her voice : " whom would you compare compare ! nay, place 
 within a hundred grades of the height which Eugene Aram 
 holds in this little world ? " 
 
 "This is folly dotage," said Ellinor, indignantly: "surely 
 there are others as brave, as gentle, as kind, and if not so wise, 
 yet more fitted for the world." 
 
 " You mock me," replied Madeline, incredulously ; " whom 
 could you select ? " 
 
 Ellinor blushed deeply blushed from her snowy temples to 
 her yet whiter bosom as she answered : 
 
 " If I said Walter Lester, could you deny it ? " 
 
 "Walter ! " repeated Madeline ; "he equal to Eugene Aram 1" 
 
 "Ay, and more than equal," said Ellinor, with spirit, and a 
 warm and angry tone. " And, indeed, Madeline," she continued 
 after a pause, " I lose something of that respect which, passing 
 a sister's love, I have always borne towards you, when I see the 
 unthinking and lavish idolatry you manifest to one who, but for
 
 EUGENE ARAM. Ill 
 
 a silver tongue and florid words, would rather want attractions 
 
 D 
 
 than be the wonder you esteem him. Fie Madeline ! I blush 
 for you when you speak ; it is unmaidenly so to love any one ! " 
 
 Madeline rose from the window ; but the angry word died on 
 her lips when she saw that Ellinor, who had worked her mind 
 beyond her self-control, had thrown herself back on the pillow, 
 and now sobbed aloud. 
 
 The natural temper of the elder sister had always been much 
 more calm and even than that of the younger, who united with 
 her vivacity something of the passionate caprice and fitfulness 
 of her sex. And Madeline's affection for her had been tinged 
 by that character of forbearance and soothing which a superior 
 nature often manifests to one more imperfect, and which in this 
 instance did not desert her. She gently closed the window, and 
 gliding to the bed, threw her arms around her sister's neck and 
 kissed away her tears with a caressing fondness, that if Ellinor 
 resisted for one moment she returned with equal tenderness the 
 next. 
 
 " Indeed, dearest," said Madeline, gently, " I cannot guess 
 how I hurt you, and still less how Eugene has offended you ! " 
 
 " He has offended me in nothing," replied Ellinor, still 
 weeping, " if he has not stolen away all your affection from 
 me. But I was a foolish girl ; forgive me, as you always do ; 
 and at this time I need your kindness, for I am very, very 
 unhappy." 
 
 " Unhappy, dearest Nell, and why?" 
 
 Ellinor wept on without answering. 
 
 Madeline persisted in pressing for a reply ; and at length her 
 sister sobbed out, 
 
 " I know that that Walter only has eyes for you, and 
 a heart for you, who neglect, who despise his love ; and I I 
 but no matter, he is going to leave us, and of me poor me, 
 he will think no more ! " 
 
 Ellinor's attachment to their cousin, Madeline had long half 
 suspected, and she had often rallied her sister upon it ; indeed, 
 it might have been this suspicion which made her at the first 
 steel her breast against Walter's evident preference to herself. 
 But Ellinor had never till now seriously confessed how much her
 
 IIS EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 heart was .mooted ; and Madeline, in the natural engrossment of 
 her own ardent and devoted love, had not of late spared much 
 observation to the tokens of her sister's. She was therefore 
 dismayed, if not surprised, as she now perceived the cause 
 of the peevishness Ellinor had just manifested, and by the 
 nature of the love she felt herself, she judged, and perhaps 
 somewhat overrated, the anguish that Ellinor endured. 
 
 She strove to comfort her by all the arguments which the 
 fertile ingenuity of kindness could invent : she prophesied 
 Walter's speedy return, with his boyish disappointment forgotten, 
 and with eyes no longer blinded to the attractions of one sister 
 by a bootless fancy for another. And though Ellinor interrupted 
 her from time to time with assertions, now of Walter's eternal 
 constancy to his present idol, now with yet more vehement 
 declarations of the certainty of his finding new objects for hi? 
 affections in new scenes, she yet admitted, by little and little, the 
 persuasive powers of Madeline to creep into her heart, and 
 brighten away its griefs with hope, till at last, with the tears yet 
 wet on her cheek, she fell asleep in her sister's arms. 
 
 And Madeline, though she would not stir from her post lest 
 the movement should awaken her sister, was yet prevented irom 
 closing her eyes in a similar repose : ever and anon she breath- 
 lessly and gently raised herself to steal a glimpse of that solitary 
 light afar ; and ever as she looked, the ray greeted her eyes with 
 an unswerving and melancholy stillness, till the dawn crept 
 greyly over the heavens, and that speck of light, holier to her 
 than the stars, faded also with them beneath the broader lustre 
 of the day. 
 
 The next week was passed in preparations for Walter's 
 departure. At that time, and in that distant part of the 
 country, it was greatly the fashion among the younger travellers 
 to perform their excursions on horseback, and it was this method 
 of conveyance that Walter preferred. The best steed in the 
 squire's stable was therefore appropriated to his service, and a 
 strong black horse with a Roman nose and a long tail was 
 consigned to the mastery of Corporal Bunting. The squire 
 was delighted that his nephew had secured such an attendant 
 For the soldier, though odd and selfish, was a man of sense and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 113 
 
 experience, and Lester thought such qualities might not be 
 without their use to a young master new to the common frauds 
 and daily usages of the world he was about to enter. 
 
 As for Bunting himself, he covered his secret exultation at the 
 prospect of change and board-wages with the cool semblance of 
 a man sacrificing his wishes to his affections. He made it his 
 peculiar study to impress upon the squire's mind the extent of 
 the sacrifice he was about to make. The bit cot had been just 
 whitewashed, the pet cat just lain in ; then, too, who would 
 dig, and gather seeds in the garden, defend the plants (plants ! 
 the corporal could scarce count a dozen, and nine out of them 
 were cabbages!) from the impending frosts? It was exactly, 
 too, the time of year when the rheumatism paid flying visits to 
 the bones and loins of the worthy corporal ; and to think of his 
 "galavanting about the country" when he ought to be guarding 
 against the sly foe, the lumbago, in the fortress of his chimney- 
 corner. 
 
 To all these murmurs and insinuations the good Lester 
 seriously inclined, not with the less sympathy, in that they 
 invariably ended in the corporal's slapping his manly thigh, 
 and swearing that he loved Master Walter like gunpowder, 
 and that were it twenty times as much he would cheerfully do 
 it for the sake of his handsome young honour. Ever at this 
 peroration the eyes of the squire began to twinkle and new 
 thanks were given to the veteran for his disinterested affection,, 
 and new promises pledged him in adequate return. 
 
 The pious Dealtry felt a little jealousy at the trust imparted 
 to his friend. He halted on his return from his farm, by the 
 spruce stile which led to the demesne of the corporal, and eyed 
 the warrior somewhat sourly, as he now, in the cool of the even- 
 ing, sat without his door, arranging his fishing-tackle and flies- 
 in various little papers, which he carefully labelled by the help of 
 a stunted pen that had seen at least as much service as himself. 
 
 " Well, neighbour Bunting," said the little landlord, leaning 
 over the stile, but not passing its boundary, "and when do you 
 go ? You will have wet weather of it (looking up to the skies) ;: 
 you must take care of the rumatiz. At your age it's no trifle, 
 eh hem."
 
 i u EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " My age ! should like to know what mean by that ! my age, 
 indeed ! augh ! bother !" grunted Bunting, looking up from his 
 occupation. Peter chuckled inly at the corporal's displeasure, 
 and continued, as in an apologetic tone, 
 
 " Oh, I ax your pardon, neighbour. I don't mean to say 
 you are too old to travel. Why there was Hal Whitol, eighty- 
 two come next Michaelmas, took a trip to Lunnun last 
 year, 
 
 * ' For young and oM, the stout, the poorly, 
 The eye of Cod be on them surely.' " 
 
 " Bother f " said the corporal, turning round on his seat 
 
 " And what do you intend doing with the brindled cat ? put 
 'un up in the saddle-bags ? You won't surely have the heart to 
 leave "un." 
 
 "As to that," quoth the corporal, sighing, "the poor dumb 
 animal makes me sad to think on 't." And, putting down his 
 fish-hooks, he stroked the sides of an enormous cat, who now, 
 with tail on end, and back bowed up, and uttering her lencs 
 snsumis Anglic}, purr! rubbed herself to and fro athwart the 
 corporal's legs. 
 
 " What staring there for ? won't ye step in, man ? Can climb 
 the stile, I suppose ? augh ! " 
 
 " No, thank ye, neighbour. I do very well here, that is if you 
 can hear me ; your deafness is not so troublesome as it was last 
 win " 
 
 " Bother ! " interrupted the corporal, in a voice that made the 
 little landlord start bolt upright from the easy confidence of his 
 position. Nothing on earth so offended the perpendicular Jacob 
 Hunting as any insinuation of increasing years or growing in- 
 firmities ; but at this moment, as he meditated putting Dealtry 
 to some use he prudently conquered the gathering anger, and 
 added, like the man of the world he justly plumed himself on 
 being, in a voice gentle as a dying howl, 
 
 " What 'fraid on ? come in, there's good fellow : want to speak 
 to ye. Come do a-u-g-h ! " the last sound being prolonged into 
 one of unutterable coaxingness, and accompanied with a beck of 
 the hand and a wheedling wink.
 
 EUGENL ARAM. 115 
 
 These allurements the good Peter could not resist ; he 
 clambered the stile, and seated himself on the bench beside 
 the corporal. 
 
 "There now, fine fellow, fit for the forty-second," said Bunting, 
 clapping him on the back. "Well, and a nd a beautiful cat, 
 isn't her ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Peter, very shortly for though a remarkably 
 mild man, Peter did not love cats : moreover, we must now 
 inform the reader that the cat of Jacob Bunting was one more 
 feared than respected throughout the village. The corporal was 
 a cunning instructor of all animals : he could teach goldfinches 
 the use of the musket ; dogs, the art of the broadsword ; horses, 
 to dance hornpipes and pick pockets ; and he had relieved the 
 ennui of his solitary moments by imparting sundry accomplish- 
 ments to the ductile genius of his cat. Under his tuition puss 
 had learned to fetch and carry ; to turn over.head and tail like 
 a tumbler ; to run up your shoulder when you least expected it ; 
 to fly as if she were mad at anyone upon whom the corporal 
 thought fit to set her; and, above all, to rob larders, shelves, and 
 tables, and bring the produce to the corporal, who never failed 
 to consider such stray waifs lawful manorial acquisitions. These 
 little feline cultivations of talent, however delightful to the cor- 
 poral, and creditable to his powers of teaching the young idea 
 how to shoot, had, nevertheless, since the truth must be told, 
 rendered the corporal's cat a proverb and by-word throughout 
 the neighbourhood. Never was cat in such bad odour ; and the 
 dislike in which it was held was wonderfully increased by terror ; 
 for the creature was singularly large and robust, and withal of so 
 courageous a temper, that if you attempted to resist its invasion 
 of your property it forthwith set up its back, put down its ears, 
 opened its mouth, and bade you fully comprehend that what 
 it feloniously seized it could gallantly defend. More than 
 one gossip in the village had this notable cat hurried into 
 premature parturition as, on descending at daybreak into her 
 kitchen, the dame would descry the animal perched on the 
 dresser, having entered Heaven knows how, and glaring upon 
 her with its great green eyes and a malignant brownie expression 
 of countenance. 
 
 H 2
 
 Ii6 ARAM. 
 
 Various deputations had, indeed, from time to time arrived at 
 the corporal's cottage requesting the death, expulsion, or per- 
 petual imprisonment of the favourite. But the stout corporal 
 received them grimly, and dismissed them gruffly, and the cat 
 went on waxing in size and wickedness, and baffling, as if in- 
 spired by the devil, the various gins and traps set for its destruc- 
 tion. But never, perhaps, was there a greater disturbance and 
 perturbation in the little hamlet than when, some three weeks 
 since, the corporal's cat was known to be brought to bed, and 
 safely delivered of a numerous offspring. The village saw itself 
 overrun with a race and a perpetuity of corporal's cats. Perhaps, 
 too, their teacher growing more expert by practice, the descend- 
 ants might attain to even greater accomplishment than their 
 nefarious progenitor. No longer did the faint hope of being 
 delivered from their tormentor by an untimely or even natural 
 death occur to the harassed Grassdalians. Death was an in- 
 cident natural to one cat, however vivacious, but here was a 
 dynasty of cats ! Principes mortales, respublica cetcrna ! 
 
 Now the corporal loved this creature better, yes, better than 
 anything in the world except travelling and board wages ; and 
 he was sorely perplexed in his mind how he should be able to 
 dispose of her safdy in his absence. He was aware of the 
 general enmity she had inspired, and trembled to anticipate its 
 probable result when he was no longer by to afford her shelter 
 and protection. The squire had, indeed, offered her an asylum 
 at the manor-house ; but the squire's cook was the cat's most 
 embittered enemy ; and what man can answer for the peaceable 
 behaviour of his cook ? The corporal, therefore, with a reluctant 
 sigh, renounced the friendly offer, and after lying awake three 
 nights, and turning over in his mind the characters, consciences, 
 and capabilities of all his neighbours, he came at last to the con- 
 viction that there was no one with whom he could so safely 
 intrust his cat as Peter Dealtry. It is true, as we said before, 
 that Peter was no lover of cats; and the task of persuading him 
 to afford board and lodging to a cat, of all cats the most odious 
 1 malignant, was therefore no easy matter. But to a man of 
 the world what intrigue is impossible ? 
 
 The finest diplomatist in Europe might have taken a lesson
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 117 
 
 from the corporal, as he now proceeded earnestly towards the 
 accomplishment of his project. 
 
 He took the cat, which, by the by, we forgot to say that 
 he had thought fit to christen after himself, and to honour with 
 a name, somewhat lengthy for a cat (but, indeed, this was no 
 ordinary cat!) viz. Jacobina he took Jacobina then, we say, 
 upon his lap, and stroking her brindled sides with great tender- 
 ness, he bade Dealtry remark how singularly quiet the animal 
 was in its manners. Nay, he was not contented until Peter 
 himself had patted her with a timorous hand, and had reluctantly 
 submitted the said hand to the honour of being licked by the 
 cat in return. Jacobina, who, to do her justice, was ahvays 
 meek enough in the presence and at the will of her master, was, 
 fortunately, this day, on her very best behaviour. 
 
 " Them dumb animals be mighty grateful," quoth the 
 corporal. 
 
 " Ah ! " rejoined Peter, wiping his hand with his pocket- 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " But, Lord ! what scandal there be in the world 1 " 
 
 " 'Though slander's breath may raise a storm, 
 It quickly does decay 1 ' " 
 
 muttered Peter. 
 
 " Very well, very true ; sensible verses those," said the cor- 
 poral, approvingly : " and yet mischiefs often done before the 
 amends come. Body o' me, it makes a man sick of his kind, 
 ashamed to belong to the race of men, to see the envy that 
 abounds in this here sublunary wale of tears ! " said the corporal, 
 lifting up his eyes. 
 
 Peter stared at him with open mouth ; the hypocritical rascal 
 continued, after a pause, 
 
 "Now there's Jacobina, 'cause she's a good cat, a faithful 
 servant, the whole village is against her : such lies as they tell 
 on her, such wappers, you'd think she was the devil in garnet ! 
 I grant, I grant," added the corporal, in a tone of apologetic 
 randour, "that she's wild, saucy, knows her friends from her 
 foes, steals Goody Solomon's butter; but what then? Goody 
 Solomon's d d b h ! Goody Solomon sold beer in opposition
 
 US EtV.I-.XE A I 
 
 / _ 
 
 to you, set up a public ; you do not like Goody Solomon, Peter 
 Dealtry ? " 
 
 If that were all Jacobina had done!" said the landlord, 
 grinning. 
 
 "All ! what else did she do ? Why she eat up John Tomkins's 
 canary bird ; and did not John Tomkins, saucy rascal ! say you 
 could not sing better nor a raven ? " 
 
 ' I have nothing to say against the poor creature for that," 
 said Peter, stroking the cat of his own accord. " Cats will eat 
 birds, 'tis the 'spensation of Providence. But what, corporal I " 
 and Peter, hastily withdrawing his hand, hurried it into his 
 breeches' pocket " but what ! did not she scratch Joe Webster's 
 little boy's hand into ribands, because the boy tried to prevent 
 her running off with a ball of string ? " 
 
 " And well," grunted the corporal, " that was not Jacobina's 
 doing ; that was my doing. I wanted the string offered to pay 
 a penny for it think of that ! " 
 
 " It was priced twopence ha'penny," said Peter. 
 
 " Augh baugh ! you would not pay Joe Webster all he asks ! 
 What's the use of being a man of the world, unless one makes 
 one's tradesmen bate a bit ? Bargaining is not cheating, I hope?" 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " said Peter. 
 
 " But as to the bit string, Jacobina took it solely for your 
 sake. Ah, she did not think you were to turn against her ! " 
 
 So saying, the corporal got up, walked into his house, and 
 presently came back with a little net in his hand. 
 
 " There, Peter, net for you, to hold lemons. Thank Jacobina 
 for that ; she got the string. Says I to her one day, as I was 
 .sitting, as I might be now, without the door, ' Jacobina, Peter 
 Dealtry 's a good fellow, and he keeps his lemons in a bag : 
 bad habit, get mouldy, we'll make him a net :' and Jacobina 
 purred ^stroke the poor creature, Peter !) so Jacobina and I 
 took a walk, and when we came to Joe Webster's, I pointed out 
 the ball of twine to her. So, for your sake, Peter, she got into 
 this here scrape augh." 
 
 " Ah ! " quoth Peter, laughing, " poor puss ! poor pussy ! poor 
 little pussy ! " 
 
 ' And now, Peter," said the corporal, taking his friend's hand,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 119 
 
 " I am going to prove friendship to you going to do you great 
 favour." 
 
 "Aha!" said Peter, "my good friend, I'm very much obliged 
 to you. I know your kind heart, but I really don't want 
 any " 
 
 " Bother ! " cried the corporal ; " I'm not the man as makes 
 much of doing a friend a kindness. Hold jaw ! tell you what, 
 tell you what : am going away on Wednesday at daybreak, and 
 in my absence you shall " 
 
 " What ? my good corporal." 
 
 " Take charge of Jacobina ! " 
 
 " Take charge of the devil ! " cried Peter. 
 
 " Augh ! baugh ! what words are those ? Listen to me." 
 
 " I won't ! " 
 
 "You shall!" 
 
 " I'll be d d if I do ! " quoth Peter,, sturdily. It was the first 
 time he had been known to swear since he was parish clerk. 
 
 "Very well, very well ! " said the corporal, chucking up his 
 chin, " Jacobina can take care of herself ! Jacobina knows her 
 friends and her foes as well as her master ! Jacobina never 
 injures her friends, never forgives foes. Look to yourself! look to 
 yourself ! insult my cat, insult me ! Swear at Jacobina, indeed ! " 
 
 " If she steals my cream ! " cried Peter. 
 
 " Did she ever steal your cream ? " 
 
 " No ! but if " 
 
 " Did she ever steal your cream ? " 
 
 " I can't say she ever did." 
 
 " Or anything else of yours ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of ; but " 
 
 " Never too late to mend." 
 
 If " 
 
 " Will you listen to me, or not ? " 
 
 "Well." 
 
 " You'll listen ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Know then, that I wanted to do you kindness" 
 
 "Humph!" 
 
 "Hold jaw: I taught Jacobina all she knows."
 
 A RAM. 
 
 M ore's the pity!" 
 
 14 Hold Ja\v ! I taught her to respect her friends, never to 
 commit herself in-doors never to steal at home never to fly at 
 home navcr to scratch at home to kill mice and rats to 
 bring all she catches to her master to do what he tells her 
 and to defend his house as well as a mastiff: and this invaluable 
 creature I was going to lend you: won't now, d d if I do I" 
 
 " Humph." 
 
 " Hold jaw ! When I am gone, Jacobina will have no one to 
 I'eed her. She'll feed herself will go to every larder, every 
 house in the place yours best larder, best house ; will come 
 to you oftcnest If your wife attempts to drive her away, 
 scratch her eyes out ; if you disturb her, serve you worse than 
 Joe Webster's little boy : wanted to prevent this won't now, 
 d d if I do ! " 
 
 " But, corporal, how would it mend the matter to take the 
 devil in-doors ? " 
 
 " Devil ! don't call names. Did I not tell you, only one 
 Jacobina does not hurt is her master? make you her master: 
 now d'ye see ? " 
 
 ' It is very hard," said Peter, grumblingly, " that the only way 
 I can defend myself from this villainous creature is to take her 
 into my house." 
 
 "Villainous! You ought to be proud of her affection. S/te 
 returns good for evil she always loved you ; see how she rubs 
 herself against you and that's the reason why I selected you 
 from the whole village to take care of her ; but you at once 
 injure yourself and refuse to do your friend a service. How- 
 somcvcr, you know I shall be with young squire, and he'll be 
 master here one of these days, and I shall have an influence 
 over him you'll see you'll sec. Look that there's not another 
 Spotted Dog set up augh ! bother ! " 
 
 "But what would my wife say, if I took the cat? she can't 
 abide its name.'' 
 
 " Let nu.- lone to talk to your wife. What would she say if I 
 
 ! ring her from Lunnun town a fine silk gown, or a neat shawl 
 
 blue becomes her, or a tay-chest that will 
 
 do for you both, and would set off the little back parlour ?
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 121 
 
 Mahogany tay-chest, inlaid at top initials in silver, J. B. to D. 
 and P. D. ; two boxes for tay, and a bowl for sugar in the 
 middle. Ah ! ah ! Love me, love my cat ! When was Jacob 
 Bunting ungrateful ? augh ! " 
 
 " Well, well ! will you talk to Dorothy about it ?" 
 * I shall have your consent, then ? Thanks, my dear, dear 
 Peter ; 'pon my soul you're a fine fellow ! you see, you're great 
 man of the parish. If you protect her, none dare injure; if you 
 scout her, all set upon her. For, as you said, or rather sung, 
 t'other Sunday capital voice you were in, too, 
 
 " 'The mighty tyrants without cause, 
 Conspire her blood to shed ! ' " 
 
 " I did not think you had so good a memory, corporal," said 
 Peter, smiling ; the cat was now curling itself up in his lap : 
 'after all, Jacobina what a deuce of a name! seems gentle 
 enough." 
 
 ."Gentle as a lamb, soft as butter, kind as cream, and such a 
 mo'iser !" 
 
 " But I don't think Dorothy " 
 
 " I'll settle Dorothy." 
 
 " Well, when will you look up ? " 
 
 " Come and take a dish of tay with you in half an hour ; you 
 want a new tay-chest ; something new and genteel." 
 
 " I think we do," said Peter, rising and gently depositing the 
 cat on the ground. 
 
 " Aha ! we'll see to it ! we'll see ! Good-by for the present 
 in half an hour be with you ! " 
 
 The corporal, left alone with Jacobina, eyed her intently, and 
 burst into the following pathetic address : 
 
 'Well, Jacobina ! you little know the pains I takes to serve 
 you the lies I tells for you endangered my precious soul for 
 your sake, you jade ! Ah ! may well rub your sides against me. 
 Jacobina ! Jacobina ! you be the only thing in the world that 
 cares a button for me. I have neither kith nor kin. You are 
 daughter friend wife to me : if anything happened to you, I 
 should not have the heart to love anything else. And body 
 o' me, but you be as kind as any mistress, and much more 
 tractable than any wife ; but the world gives you a bad name,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Jacobina. Why ? Is it that you do worse than the v> orld do ? 
 You has no morality in you, Jacobina ; well, but has the world ? 
 No ! But it has humbug you have no humbug. Jacobina. On 
 the faith of a man, Jacobina, you be better than the world ! 
 baugh ! You takes care of your own interest, but you takes 
 care of your master's too ! You loves me well as yourself. Few 
 cats can say the same, Jacobina ! and no gossip that flings a 
 stone at your pretty brindled skin can say half as much. We 
 must not forget your kittens, Jacobina ; you have four left they 
 must be provided for. Why not a cat's children as well as a 
 courtier's ? I have got you a comfortable home, Jacobina ; take 
 care of yourself, and don't fall in love with every tom-cat in the 
 place. Be sober, and lead a single life till my return. Come, 
 Jacobina, we will lock up the house, and go and see the quarters 
 I have provided for you. Heigho!" 
 
 As he finished his harangue, the corporal locked the door of 
 his cottage, and Jacobina, trotting by his side, he stalked with 
 his usual stateliness to The Spotted Dog. 
 
 Dame Dorothy Dealtry received him with a clouded brow ; 
 but the man of the world knew whom he hao\ to deal with. On 
 Wednesday morning Jacobina was inducted into the comforts of 
 the hearth of mine host ; and her four little kittens mewed hard 
 by, from the sinecure of a basket lined with flannel. 
 
 Reader, here is wisdom in this chapter : it is not every man 
 knows how to dispose of his cat I 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A STRANGE HABIT. WALTER'S INTERVIEW WITH MADELINE. HER GENEROUS 
 AND CONFIDING DISPOSITION. WALTER'S ANGER. THE PARTING MEAL. 
 CONVERSATION HK'l \\KKN THE UNCLE AND NEPHEW. WALTER ALONE. 
 SLKEP THE BLKSSING OF THE YOUNG. 
 
 Fall. Out, out, unworthy to speak where he breathcth, 
 
 &c. 
 /Vm/. \Vcll now, my whole venture i* forth, I will resolve to depart. 
 
 BEN JONSON, Every Man out of Ait Humour. 
 
 IT was now the eve before Walter's departure, and on returning 
 home from a farewell walk among his favourite haunts, he found 
 Aram, whose visit had been made during Walter's absence, now
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 123 
 
 standing on the threshold of the door, and taking leave of 
 Madeline and her father. Aram and Walter had only met twice 
 before since the interview we recorded, and each time Walter 
 had taken care that the meeting should be but of short duration. 
 In these brief encounters Aram's manner had been even more 
 gentle than heretofore ; that of Walter's more cold and distant. 
 And now, as they thus unexpectedly met at the door, Aram, 
 looking at him earnestly, said, 
 
 " Farewell, sir ! You are to leave us for some time, I hear. 
 Heaven speed you ! " Then he added, in a lower tone, " Will 
 you take my hand, now, in parting ? " 
 
 As he said, he put forth his hand, it was the left. 
 
 " Let it be the right hand," observed the elder Lester, smiling : 
 "it is a luckier omen." 
 
 " I think not," said Aram, dryly. And Walter noted that he 
 had never remembered him to give his right hand to any one, 
 even to Madeline : the peculiarity of this habit might, however, 
 arise from an awkward early habit ; it was certainly scarce 
 worth observing, and Walter had already coldly touched the 
 hand extended to him when Lester said carelessly, 
 
 " Is there any superstition that makes you think, as some of 
 the ancients did, the left hand luckier than the right ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Aram ; " a superstition. Adieu." 
 
 The student departed ; Madeline slowly walked up one of the 
 garden alleys, and thither Walter, after whispering to his uncle, 
 followed her. 
 
 There is something in those bitter feelings which are the 
 offspring of disappointed love ; something in the intolerable 
 anguish of well-founded jealousy, that, when the first shock is 
 over, often hardens, and perhaps elevates the character. The 
 sterner powers that we arouse within us to combat a passion 
 that can no longer be worthily indulged, are never afterwards 
 wholly allayed. Like the allies which a nation summons to its 
 bosom to defend it from its foes, they expel the enemy only to 
 find a settlement for themselves. The mind of every man 
 who conquers an unfortunate attachment becomes stronger than 
 before ; it may be for evil, it may be for good, but the capacities 
 for either are more vigorous and collected.
 
 124 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 The last few weeks had done more for Walter's character than 
 years of ordinary, even of happy emotion, might have effected. 
 He had passed from youth to manhood, and with the sadness, 
 had acquired also something of the dignity, of experience. Not 
 that we would say that he had subdued his love, but he had 
 made the first step towards it ; he had resolved that at all 
 hazards it should be subdued. 
 
 As he now joined Madeline, and she perceived him by her 
 <ide, her embarrassment was more evident than his. She feared 
 some avowal, and, from his temper, perhaps some violence, on 
 his part However, she was the first to speak : women, in such 
 cases, always are. 
 
 " It is a beautiful evening," said she, " and the sun set in 
 promise of a fine day for your journey to-morrow." 
 
 Walter walked on silently ; his heart was full. " Madeline," 
 he said at length, " dear Madeline, give me your hand. Nay, do 
 not fear me ; I know what you think, and you are right : I 
 loved 1 still love you ! but I know well that 1 can have no 
 hope in making this confession ; and when I ask you for your 
 hand, Madeline, it is only to convince you that I have no suit to 
 press : had I, I would not dare to touch that hand." 
 
 Madeline, wondering and embarrassed, gave him her hand ; 
 he held it for a moment with a trembling clasp, pressed it to 
 his lips, and then resigned it. 
 
 "Yes, Madeline, my cousin, my sweet cousin; I have loved 
 you deeply, but silently, long before my heart could unravel the 
 mystery of the feelings with which it glowed. Hut this all this 
 it were now idle to repeat. I know that the heart whose 
 possession would have made my whole life a dream, a transport, 
 is given to another. I have not sought you now, Madeline, to 
 repine at this, or to vex you by the tale of any suffering I may 
 endure; I am come only to give you the parting wishes, the 
 parting blessing, of one uho, wherever he goes, or whatever 
 befall him, will always think of you as the brightest and love- 
 liest of human beings. May you be happy, yes, even with 
 another !' 
 
 "Oh, Walter! Madeline, affected to tears, "if I ever 
 
 encouraged if I ever led you to hope for more than the warm.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 125 
 
 the sisterly affection I bear you, how bitterly I should reproach 
 myself!" 
 
 "You never did, dear Madeline ; I asked for no inducement to 
 love you, I never dreamed of seeking a motive or inquiring if I 
 had cause to hope. But as I am now about to quit you, and as 
 you confess you feel for me a sister's affection, will you give me 
 leave to speak to you as a brother might ? " 
 
 Madeline held out her hand to him with frank cordiality. 
 "Yes!" said she, "speak!" 
 
 " Then," said Walter, turning away his head in a spirit of 
 delicacy that did him honour, " is it yet all too late for me to 
 say one word of caution that relates to Eugene Aram ? " 
 
 "Of caution! you alarm me, Walter: speak! has aught hap- 
 pened to him ? I saw him as lately as yourself. Does aught 
 threaten him ? Speak, I implore you quick ! " 
 
 " I know of no danger to him ! " replied Walter, stung to 
 perceive the breathless anxiety with which Madeline spoke ; 
 " but pause, my cousin ; may there be no danger to you from 
 this man ?" 
 
 "Walter!" 
 
 " I grant him wise, learned, gentle nay, more than all, bearing 
 about him a spell, a fascination, by which he softens, or awes at 
 will, and which even I cannot resist. But yet his abstracted 
 mood, his gloomy life, certain words that have broken from 
 him unawares certain tell-tale emotions which words of mine, 
 heedlessly said, have fiercely aroused, all united, inspire me 
 shall I say it? with fear and distrust. I cannot think him 
 altogether the calm and pure being he appears. Madeline, I 
 have asked myself again and again, is this suspicion the effect of 
 jealousy ? do I scan his bearing with the jaundiced eye of dis- 
 appointed rivalship ? And I have satisfied my conscience that 
 my judgment is not thus biased. Stay ! listen yet a little 
 while ! You have a high, a thoughtful mind. Exert it now. 
 Consider your whole happiness rests on one step ! Pause, 
 examine, compare ! Remember, you have not of Aram, as of 
 those whom you have hitherto mixed with, the eye-witness of a 
 life ! You can know but little of his real temper, his secret 
 qualities ; still less of the tenor of his former existence. I only
 
 ::-. EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 rf you, for your own sake, for my sake, your sister's sake, 
 and your good father's, not to judge too rashly! Love him, if 
 you will ; but observe him ! " 
 
 "Have you done?" said Madeline, who had hitherto with 
 difficulty contained herself; "then hear me. Was it I was it 
 Madeline Lester whom you asked to play the watch, to enact 
 the spy upon the man whom she exults in loving ? Was it not 
 enough that you should descend to mark down each incautious 
 look to chronicle every heedless word to draw dark deduc- 
 tions from the unsuspecting confidence of my father's friend to 
 lie in wait to hang with a foe's malignity upon the unbendings 
 jf familiar intercourse to extort anger from gentleness itself, 
 :hat you might wrest the anger into crime ! Shame, shame upon 
 you for the meanness ! And must you also suppose that I, to 
 whose trust he has given his noble heart, will receive it only to 
 play the eavesdropper to its secrets ? Away ! " 
 
 The generous blood crimsoned the cheek and brow of this 
 high-spirited girl, as she uttered her galling reproof; her eyes 
 sparkled, her lip quivered, her whole frame seemed to have 
 grown larger with the majesty of indignant love. 
 
 " Cruel, unjust, ungrateful ! " ejaculated Walter, pale with rage, 
 and trembling under the conflict of his roused and wounded 
 feelings. " Is it thus you answer the warning of too disinterested 
 and self-forgetful a love ? " 
 
 " Love ! " exclaimed Madeline. " Grant me patience ! Love ! 
 It was but now I thought myself honoured by the affection you 
 said you bore me. At this instant, I blush to have called forth 
 a single sentiment in one who knows so little what love is ! 
 Love ! methought that word denoted all that was high and 
 noble in human nature confidence, hope, devotion, sacrifice of 
 all thought of self! but you would make it the type and concen- 
 tration of all that lowers and debases ! suspicion cavil fear 
 selfishness in all its shapes I Out on you ! love ! " 
 
 * Enough, enough ! Say no more, Madeline ; say no more. 
 We part not as I had hoped : but be it so. You are changed 
 indeed if your conscience smite you not hereafter for this 
 injustice. Farewell, and may you never regret, not only the 
 heart you have rejected, but the friendship you have belied."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 127 
 
 With these words, and choked by his emotions, Walter hastily 
 strode away. 
 
 He hurried into the house, and into a little room adjoining 
 the chamber in which he slept, and which had been also appro- 
 priated solely to his use. It was now spread with boxes and 
 trunks, some half-packed, some corded, and inscribed with the 
 address to which they were to be sent in London. All these 
 mute tokens of his approaching departure struck upon his 
 excited feelings with a suddenness that overpowered him. 
 
 " And it is thus thus," said he, aloud, " that I am to leave, 
 for the first time, my childhood's home ! " 
 
 He threw himself on his chair, and, covering his face with his 
 hands, burst, fairly subdued and unmanned, into a paroxysm of 
 tears. 
 
 When this emotion was over, he felt as if his love for Madeline 
 had also disappeared ; a sore and insulted feeling was all that 
 her image now recalled to him. This idea gave him some con- 
 solation. "Thank Heaven!" he muttered; "thank Heaven, I 
 am cured at last ! " 
 
 The thanksgiving was scarcely over before the door opened 
 softly, and Ellinor, not perceiving him where he sat, entered the 
 room, and laid on the table a purse which she had long promised 
 to knit him, and which seemed now designed as a parting gift. 
 
 She sighed heavily as she laid it down, and he observed that 
 her eyes seemed red as with weeping. 
 
 He did not move, and Ellinor left the room without discover- 
 ing him ; but he remained there till dark, musing on her appa- 
 rition; and before he went down stairs he took up the little 
 purse, kissed it, and put it carefully into his bosom. 
 
 He sat next to Ellinor at supper that evening, and, though he 
 did not say much, his last words were more to her than words 
 had ever been before. When he took leave of her for the night, 
 he whispered, as he kissed her cheek, " God bless you, dearest 
 Ellinor! and till I return take care of yourself, for the sake of 
 one who loves you now better than anything on earth." 
 
 Lester had just left the room to write some letters for Walter; 
 and Madeline, who had hitherto sat absorbed and silent by the 
 window, approached Walter, and offered him her hand.
 
 123 tl'ul.Ni: ARAM. 
 
 " Forgive me, my dear cousin," she said, in her softest voice. 
 " I feel that I was hasty, and to blame. Believe me, I am now 
 at least grateful, warmly grateful, for the kindness of your 
 motives." 
 
 "Not so," said Walter, bitterly; "the advice of a friend is only 
 meanness." 
 
 "Come, come, forgive me; pray do not let us part unkindly. 
 When did we ever quarrel before ? I was wrong grievously 
 wrong. I will perform any penance you may enjoin." 
 
 "Agreed, then: follow my admonitions." 
 
 "Ah! anything else," said Madeline, gravely, and colouring 
 deeply. 
 
 Walter said no more; he pressed her hand lightly, and turned 
 away. 
 
 " Is all forgiven ?" said she, in so bewitching a tone, and with 
 so bright a smile, that Walter, against his conscience, answered 
 "Yes." 
 
 The sisters left the room ; I know not which of the two 
 received his last glance. 
 
 Lester now returned with the letters. " There is one charge, 
 my dear boy," said he, in concluding the moral injunctions and 
 experienced suggestions with which the young generally leave 
 the ancestral home " there is one charge which I need not 
 commend to your ingenuity and zeal. You know my strong 
 conviction that your father, my poor brother, still lives. Is it 
 necessary for me to tell you to exert yourself by all ways, and 
 in all means, to discover some clue to his fate ? Who knows," 
 added Lester, with a smile, " but that you may find him a rich 
 nabob! I confess that I snould feel but little surprise if it were 
 so ; but, at all events, you will make every possible inquiry. I 
 have written down in this paper the few particulars concerning 
 him which I hav.e been enabled to glean since he left his home; 
 the places where he was last seen, the false names he assumed, 
 &c. I shall wait with great anxiety for any fuller success to 
 your researches." 
 
 " You needed not, my dear uncle," said Walter, seriously, "to 
 have spoken to me on this subject. No one, not even yourself, 
 can have felt what I have can have cherished the same anxiety,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 129 
 
 nursed the same hope, indulged the same conjecture. I have 
 not, it is true, often of late years spoken to you on a matter so 
 near to us both ; but I have spent whole hours in guesses at my 
 father's fate, and in dreams that for me was reserved the proud 
 task to discover it. I will not say, indeed, that it makes at this 
 moment the chief motive for my desire to travel, but in travel it 
 will become my chief object. Perhaps I may find him not only 
 rich that, for my part, is but a minor wish but sobered, and 
 reformed from the errors and wildness of his earlier manhood. 
 Oh, what should be his gratitude to you for ail the care with 
 which you have supplied to the forsaken child the father's place ; 
 and not the least that you have, in softening the colours of his 
 conduct, taught me still to prize and seek for a father's love ! " 
 
 "You have a kind heart, Walter," said the good old man, 
 pressing his nephew's hand, " and that has more than repaid me 
 for the little I have done for you : it is better to sow a good 
 heart with kindness than a field with corn, for the heart's harvest 
 is perpetual." 
 
 Many and earnest that night were the meditations of Walter 
 Lester. He was about to quit the home in which youth had 
 been passed in which first love had been formed and blighted : 
 the world was before him ; but there was something more grave 
 than pleasure more steady than enterprise that beckoned him 
 to its paths. The deep mystery that for so many years had 
 hung over the fate of his parent, it might indeed be his lot to 
 pierce ; and, with a common waywardness in our nature, the 
 restless son felt his interest in that parent the livelier, from the 
 very circumstance of remembering nothing of his person. Affec- 
 tion had been nursed by curiosity and imagination ; and the bad 
 father was thus more fortunate in winning the heart of the son, 
 than had he, perhaps, by the tenderness of years, deserved that 
 affection. 
 
 Oppressed and feverish, Walter opened the lattice of his room, 
 and looked forth on the -night. The broad harvest-moon was in 
 the heavens, and filled the air as with a softer and holier day. 
 At a distance its light just gave the dark outline of Aram's 
 house, and beneath the window it lay, bright and steady on the 
 green, still churchyard, that adjoined the house. The air and 
 
 I
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the light allayed the fitfulness at the young man's heart, but 
 served to solemnise the project and desire with which it beat. 
 Still leaning from the casement, with his eyes fixed upon the 
 tranquil scene below, he poured forth the prayer, that to his 
 hands might the discovery of his lost sire be granted. The 
 prayer seemed to lift the oppression from his breast ; he felt 
 cheerful and relieved, and, flinging himself on his bed, soon fell 
 into the sound and healthful sleep of youth. And oh ! let youth 
 cherish that happiest of earthly boons while yet it is at its 
 command : for there cometh the day to all, when " neither the 
 voice of the lute nor the birds " 1 shall bring back the sweet 
 slumbers that fell on their young eyes, as unbidden as the dews. 
 It is a dark epoch in a man's life when sleep forsakes him ; when 
 he tosses to and fro, and thought will not be silenced ; when the 
 drug and draught are the couriers of stupefaction, not sleep ; 
 when the down pillow is as a knotted log; when the eyelids 
 close but with an effort, and there is a drag, and a weight, and 
 a dizziness in the eyes at morn. Desire, and grief, and love, 
 these are the young man's torments ; but they are the creatures 
 of time: time removes them as it brings, and the vigils we keep, 
 " while the evil days come not," if weary, are brief and few. But 
 memory, and care, and ambition, and avarice, these, are demon- 
 gods that defy the Time that fathered them. The worldlier 
 passions are the growth of mature years, and their grave is dug 
 but in our own. As the dark spirits in the northern tale, that 
 watch against the coming of one of a brighter and holier race, 
 lest, if he seize them unawares, he bind them prisoners in his 
 chain, they keep ward at night over the entrance of that deep 
 cave the human heart and scare away the angel Sleep. 
 
 * **Non avium cilbarx^u^" lie. Herat*
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 i o 
 
 (f>pr\i 
 'AvapidficiToi xpffjiavrai. 
 
 TOVTO 8' a/ 
 
 "Ort vvv, KOI 'i Tf\(v- 
 ra (piprarov av8pl 
 
 FIND. O. vii. 4. 
 
 Innumerous, o'er their human prey, 
 Grim errors hang the hoarded sorrow : 
 
 Thro' vapour gleains the present day, 
 And darkness wraps the morrow. 
 
 PARAPHRAS*. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TH MARRIAGE SETTLED. LESTER'S. HOPES AND SCHEMES. GAIETY OT TEMPE*. 
 
 A GOOD SPECULATION. THE TRUTH AND FERVOUR OF ARAM*S LOVE. 
 
 Love is better than a pair of spectacles, to make everything seem greater which is 
 seen through it. SIR PHILIP SYDNEY, Arcadia. 
 
 ARAM'S affection to Madeline having now been formally 
 announced to Lester, and Madeline's consent having been some- 
 what less formally obtained, it only remained to fix the time for 
 their wedding. Though Lester forbore to question Aram as to 
 his circumstances, the student frankly confessed, that, if not 
 affording what the generality of persons would consider even a 
 competence, they enabled one of his moderate wants and retired 
 life (especially in the remote and cheap district in which they 
 lived), to dispense with all fortune in a wife, who, like Madeline, 
 was equally with himself enamoured of obscurity. The good 
 Lester, however, proposed to bestow upon his daughter such 
 
 I 2
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 a portion as might allow for the wants of an increased family, 
 or the probable contingencies of Fate. For though Fortune 
 may often slacken her wheel, there is no spot in which she 
 suffers it to be wholly still 
 
 It was now the middle of September, and by the end of the 
 ensuing month it was agreed that the spousals of the lovers 
 should be held. It is certain that Lester felt one pang for his 
 nephew as he subscribed to this proposal ; but he consoled 
 himself with recurring to a hope he* had long cherished, viz., 
 that Walter would return home not only cured of his vain 
 attachment to Madeline, but with the disposition to admit the 
 attractions of her sister. A marriage between these two cousins 
 had for years been his favourite project. The lively and ready 
 temper of Ellinor, her household turn, her merry laugh, a 
 winning playfulness that characterised even her defects, were 
 all more after Lester's secret heart than the graver and higher 
 nature of his elder daughter. This might mainly be that they 
 were traits of disposition that more reminded him of his lost 
 wife, and were, therefore, more accordant with his ideal standard 
 of perfection ; but I incline also to believe that the more persons 
 advance in years, the more, even if of staid and sober temper 
 themseh'es, they love gaiety and elasticity in youth. I have 
 often pleased myself by observing, in some happy family circle 
 embracing all ages, that it is the liveliest and wildest child that 
 charms the grandsire the most. And after all it is, perhaps, with 
 characters as with books, the grave and thoughtful may be more 
 admired than the light and cheerful, but they are less liked ; 
 it is not only that the former, being of a more abstruse and 
 recondite nature, find fewer persons capable of judging of their 
 merits, but also that the great object of the majority of human 
 beings is to be amused, and that they naturally incline to love 
 those the best who amuse them most. And to so great a 
 practical extent is this preference pushed, that I think were 
 a nice observer to make a census of all those who have received 
 legacies, or dropped unexpectedly into fortunes, he would find 
 that where one grave disposition had so benefited, there would 
 be at least twenty gay. Perhaps, however, it may be said that 
 I am here taking the cause for the effect!
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 133 
 
 But to return from our speculative disquisitions : Lester, then, 
 who though he had so slowly discovered his nephew's passion 
 for Madeline, had long since guessed the secret of Ellinor's 
 affection for him, looked forward with a hope rather sanguine 
 than anxious to the ultimate realisation of his cherished domestic 
 scheme. And he pleased himself with thinking that when all 
 soreness would, by this double wedding, be banished from 
 Walter's mind, it would be impossible to conceive a family 
 group more united or more happy. 
 
 And Ellinor herself, ever since the parting words of her cousin, 
 had seemed, so far from being inconsolable for his absence, more 
 bright of cheek and elastic of step than she had been for months 
 before. What a world of all feelings which forbid despondence 
 lies hoarded in the hearts of the young ! As one fountain is 
 filled by the channels that exhaust another, we cherish wisdom 
 at the expense of hope. It thus happened, from one cause or 
 another, that Walter's absence created a less cheerless blank in 
 the family circle than might have been expected ; and the 
 approaching bridals of Madeline and her lover naturally diverted, 
 in a great measure, the thoughts of each, and engrossed their 
 conversation. 
 
 Whatever might be Madeline's infatuation as to the merits of 
 Aram, one merit the greatest of all in the eyes of a woman 
 who loves he at least possessed. Never was mistress more 
 burningly and deeply loved than she who, for the first time, 
 awoke the long slumbering passions in the heart of Eugene 
 Aram. Every day the ardour of his affections seemed to increase. 
 With what anxiety he watched her footsteps ! with what idolatry 
 he hung upon her words ! with what unspeakable and yearning 
 emotion he gazed upon the changeful eloquence of her cheek ! 
 Now that Walter was gone, he almost took up his abode at the 
 manor-house. He came thither in the early morning, and rarely 
 returned home before the family retired for the night ; and even 
 then, when all was hushed, and they believed him in his solitary 
 home, he lingered for hours around the house to look up to 
 Madeline's window, charmed to the spot which held the intoxica- 
 tion of her presence. Madeline discovered this habit, and chid 
 it ; but so tenderly., that it was not cured. And still at times.
 
 134 EUGENE ARAM 
 
 by the autumnal moon, she marked from her window his daik 
 figure gliding among the shadows of the trees, or pausing by the 
 lowly tombs in the still churchyard the resting-place of hearts 
 that once, perhaps, beat as wildly as his own. 
 
 It was impossible that a love of this order, and from one so 
 richly gifted as Aram a love which in substance was truth, and 
 yet in language poetry, could fail wholly to subdue and enthral 
 a girl so young, so romantic, so enthusiastic, as Madeline Lester. 
 How intense and delicious must have been her sense of happi- 
 ness ! In the pure heart of a girl loving for the first time, love 
 is far more ecstatic than in man, inasmuch as it is unfevered by 
 desire ; love, then and there, makes the only state of human 
 existence which is at once capable of calmness and transport 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A FATOC1ABLB SPECIMEN OF A NOBLEMAN AND A COURTIER. A MAN OF SOME 
 FAULTS AND MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 
 
 Titinins Capito is to rehearse. He is a man of an excellent disposition, and to be 
 numbered among the chief ornaments of his age. He cultivates literature he lores 
 men of learning, &c. LORD ORRERY'S Pliny. 
 
 ABOUT this time the Earl of * * *, the great nobleman of the 
 district, and whose residence was within a few miles of Grassdale, 
 came down to pay his wonted yearly visit to his country 
 domains. He was a man well known in the history of the 
 times, though, for various reasons, I conceal his name. He was 
 a courtier deep, wily, accomplished, but capable of generous 
 sentiments and enlarged views. Though, from regard to his 
 interests, he seized and lived as it were upon the fleeting spirit 
 of the day, the penetration of his intellect went far beyond its 
 reach. He claims the merit of having been the one of all his 
 contemporarijcrs (Lord Chesterfield alone excepted) who most 
 clearly saw, and most distinctly prophesied, the dark and fearful 
 storm that, at the close of the century, burst over France 
 visiting indeed the sins of the fathers upon the sons. 
 
 From the small circle of pompous trifles in which the dwellers
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 135 
 
 of a court are condemned to live, and which he brightened by 
 his abilities and graced by his accomplishments, the sagacious 
 and far-sighted mind of Lord * * * comprehended the vast 
 field without, usually invisible to those of his habits and pro- 
 fession. Men who the best know the little nucleus which is 
 called the world are often the most ignorant of mankind ; but it 
 was the peculiar attribute of this nobleman that he could not 
 only analyse the external customs of his species, but also 
 penetrate into their deeper and more hidden interests. 
 
 The works and correspondence he has left behind him, though 
 far from voluminous, testify a consummate knowledge of the 
 varieties of human nature. The refinement of his taste appears 
 less remarkable than the vigour of his understanding. It might 
 be that he knew the vices of men better than their virtues ; yet 
 he was no shallow disbeliever in the latter : he read the heart 
 too accurately not to know that it is guided as often by its 
 affections as its interests. In his early life he had incurred, not 
 without truth, the charge of licentiousness ; but, even in pursuit 
 of pleasure, he had been neither weak on the one hand nor 
 gross on the other neither the headlong dupe nor the callous 
 sensualist ; but his graces, his rank, his wealth, had made his 
 conquests a matter of too easy purchase; and hence, like all 
 voluptuaries, the part of his worldly knowledge which was the 
 most fallible was that which related to the sex. He judged of 
 women by a standard too distinct from that by which he judged 
 of men, and considered those foibles peculiar to the sex which in 
 reality are incident to human nature. 
 
 His natural disposition was grave and reflective ; and though 
 he was not without wit, it was rarely used. He lived, neces- 
 sarily, with the frivolous and the ostentatious ; yet ostentation 
 and frivolity were charges never brought against himself. As a 
 diplomatist and a statesman, he was of the old and erroneous 
 school of intriguers ; but his favourite policy was the science of 
 conciliation. He was one who would so far have suited the 
 present age, that no man could better have steered a nation 
 from the chances of war : James the First could not have been 
 inspired with a greater affection for peace ; but the peer's 
 dexterity would have made that peace as honourable as the
 
 136 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 king's weakness made it degraded. Ambitious to a certain 
 extent, but neither grasping nor mean, he never obtained for his 
 genius the full and extensive field it probably deserved. He 
 loved a happy life above all things ; and he knew that, while 
 activity is the spirit, fatigue is the bane, of happiness. 
 
 In his day he enjoyed a large share of that public attention 
 which generally bequeaths fame ; yet, from several causes (of 
 which his own moderation is not the least), his present reputation 
 is infinitely less great than the opinions of his most distinguished 
 contemporaries foreboded. 
 
 It is a more difficult matter for men of high rank to become 
 illustrious to posterity than for persons in a sterner and more 
 wholesome walk of life. Even the greatest among the dis- 
 tinguished men of the patrician order suffer in the eyes of 
 the after-age for the very qualities, chiefly dazzling defects or 
 brilliant eccentricities, which made them most popularly re- 
 markable in their day. Men forgive Burns his amours and his 
 revellings with greater ease than they will forgive Bolingbroke 
 and Byron for the same offences. 
 
 Our earl was fond of the society of literary men ; he himself 
 was well, perhaps even deeply, read. Certainly his intellectual 
 acquisitions were more profound than they have been generally 
 esteemed, though, with the common subtlety of a ready genius, 
 he could make the quick adaptation of a timely fact, acquired 
 for the occasion, appear the rich overflowing of a copious erudi- 
 tion. He was a man who instantly perceived, and liberally 
 acknowledged, the merits of others. No connoisseur had a more 
 felicitous knowledge of the arts, or was more just in the general 
 objects of his patronage. In short, what with all his advantages, 
 he was one whom an aristocracy may boast of, though a people 
 may forget ; and, if not a great man, was at least a most 
 remarkable lord. 
 
 The Earl of * * *, in his last visit to his estates, had not for- 
 gotten to seek out the eminent scholar who shed an honour 
 upon his neighbourhood ; he had been greatly struck wifh the 
 bearing and conversation of Aram ; and, with the usual felicity 
 ivith which the accomplished earl adapted his nature to those 
 with whom he was thrown, he had succeeded in ingratiating
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 137 
 
 himself with Aram in return. He could not, indeed, persuade 
 the haughty and solitary student to visit him at the castle ; but 
 the earl did not disdain to seek any one from whom he could 
 obtain instruction, and he had twice or thrice voluntarily 
 encountered Aram, and effectually drawn him from his reserve. 
 The earl now heard with some pleasure, and more surprise, that 
 the austere recluse was about to be married to the beauty of the 
 county, and he resolved to seize the first occasion to call at the 
 manor-house to offer his compliments and congratulations to its 
 inmates. 
 
 Sensible men of rank who, having enjoyed their dignity from 
 their birth, may reasonably be expected to grow occasionally 
 tired of it ; often like mixing with those the most who are the 
 least dazzled by the condescension : I do not mean to say with 
 the vulgar parvenus who mistake rudeness for independence no 
 man forgets respect to another who knows the value of respect 
 to himself; but the respect should be paid easily ; it is not every 
 Grand Seigneur who, like Louis the Fourteenth, is only pleased 
 when he puts those he addresses out of countenance. 
 
 There was, therefore, much in the simplicity of Lester's 
 manners and those of his daughters, which rendered the family 
 at the manor-house especial favourites with Lord * * * ; and the 
 wealthier but less honoured squirearchs of the county, stiff in 
 awkward pride, and bustling with yet more awkward veneration, 
 heard with astonishment and anger of the numerous visits which 
 his lordship, in his brief sojourn at the castle, always contrived 
 to pay to the Lesters, and the constant invitations which they 
 received to his most familiar festivities. 
 
 Lord * * * was no sportsman ; and one morning, when all his 
 guests were engaged among the stubbles of September, he 
 mounted his quiet palfrey, and gladly took his way to the 
 manor-house. 
 
 It was towards the latter end of the month, and one of the 
 earliest of the autumnal fogs hung thinly over the landscape. 
 As the earl wound along the sides of the hill on which his castle 
 was built, the scene on which he gazed below received from the 
 grey mists capriciously hovering over it, a dim and melancholy 
 wildness. A broader and whiter vapDur, that streaked the lower
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 part of the valley, betrayed the course of the rivulet ; and 
 beyond, to the left, rose, wan and spectral, the spire of the 
 little church adjoining Lester's abode. As the horseman's eye 
 wandered to this spot, the sun suddenly broke forth, and lit up 
 as by enchantment the quiet and lovely hamlet, embedded, as 
 it were, beneath, the cottages, with their gay gardens and 
 jasmined porches, the streamlet half in mist, half in light, 
 while here and there columns of vapour rose above its surface 
 like the chariots of the water genii, and broke into a thousand 
 hues beneath the smiles of the unexpected sun : but far to the 
 right, the mists around it yet unbroken, and the outline of its 
 form only visible, rose the lone house of the student, as if there 
 the sadder spirits of the air yet rallied their broken armament of 
 mist and shadow. 
 
 The earl was not a man peculiarly alive to scenery, but 
 he now involuntarily checked his horse, and gazed for a few 
 moments on the beautiful and singular aspect which the land- 
 scape had so suddenly assumed. As he so gazed, he observed 
 in a field at some little distance three or four persons gathered 
 round a bank, and among them he thought he recognised the 
 comely form of Rowland Lester. A second inspection convinced 
 him that he was right in his conjecture, and, turning from the 
 road through a gap in the hedge, he made towards the group in 
 question. He had not proceeded far, before he saw that the 
 remainder of the party was composed of Lester's daughters, the 
 lover of the elder, and a fourth, whom he recognised as a cele- 
 brated French botanist, who had lately arrived in England, and 
 who was now making an amateur excursion throughout the 
 more attractive districts of the island. 
 
 The carl guessed rightly, that Monsieur de N had not 
 
 neglected to apply to Aram for assistance in a pursuit which the 
 latter was known to have cultivated with such success, and that 
 he had been conducted hither as to a place affording some 
 specimen or another not unworthy of research. He now, giving 
 his horse to his groom, joined the group.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 139 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHEREIN THE EARL AND THE STUDENT CONVERSE ON GRAVE BUT DELIGHTFUL 
 MATTERS. THE STUDENT'S NOTION OF THE ONLY EARTHLY HAPPINESS. 
 
 Aram. If the witch Hope forbids us to be wise, 
 
 Yet when I turn to these Woes only friends, [Pointing to his books. 
 And with their weird and eloquent voices calm 
 The stir and Babel of the world within, 
 I can but dream that my vex'd years at last 
 Shall find the quiet of a hermit's cell : 
 And, neighbouring not this worn and jaded world, 
 Beneath the lambent eyes of the loved stars, 
 And, with the hollow rocks and sparry caves, 
 The tides, and all the many-music'd winds, 
 My i racles and co-mates ; watch my life 
 Glide down the Stream of Knowledge, and behold 
 Its waters with a musing stillness glass 
 The thousand hues of Nature and of Heaven. 
 
 From "Eugene Aram," a MS. Tragedy. 
 
 THE earl continued with the party he had joined ; and when 
 their occupation was concluded, and they turned homeward, he 
 accepted the squire's frank invitation to partake of some refresh- 
 ment at the manor-house. It so chanced, or perhaps the earl so 
 contrived it, that Aram and himself, in their way to the village, 
 lingered a little behind the rest, and that their conversation was 
 thus, for a few minutes, not altogether general. 
 
 " Is it I, Mr. Aram," said the earl, smiling, "or is it Fate that 
 has made you a convert ? The last time we sagely and quietly 
 conferred together, you contended that the more the* circle of 
 existence was contracted, the more we clung to a state of pure 
 and all self-dependent intellect, the greater our chance of happi- 
 ness. Thus you denied that we were rendered happier by our 
 luxuries, by our ambition, or by our affections. Love and its 
 ties were banished from your solitary Utopia ; and you asserted 
 that the true wisdom of life lay solely in the cultivation not of 
 our feelings, but our faculties. You know I held a different 
 doctrine : and it is with the natural triumph of a hostile partisan 
 that I hear you are about to relinquish the practice of one of 
 your dogmas ; in consequence, may I hope of having forsworn 
 the theory ? " 
 
 " Not so, my lord," answered Aram, colouring slightly ; " my
 
 El'GENE ARAM. 
 
 weakness only proves that my theory is difficult, not that it is 
 wrong. I still venture to think it true. More pain than pleasure 
 is occasioned us by others banish others, and you are neces- 
 sarily the gainer. Mental activity and moral quietude are the 
 two states which, were they perfected and united, would blend 
 into happiness. It is such a union which constitutes all we 
 imagine of heaven, or conceive of the majestic felicity of a 
 God." 
 
 " Yet, while you are on earth you will be (believe me) happier 
 in the state you are about to choose," said the earl. " Who could 
 look at that enchanting face " (the speaker directed his eyes 
 towards Madeline) "and not feel that it gave a pledge of 
 happiness that could not be broken ? " 
 
 It was not in the nature of Aram to like any allusion to 
 himself, and still less to his affections : he turned aside his head, 
 and remained silent : the wary earl discovered his indiscretion 
 immediately. 
 
 "But let us put aside individual cases," said he, "the meum 
 and the tnnm forbid all general argument: and confess that 
 there is for the majority of human beings a greater happiness in 
 love than in the sublime state of passionless intellect to which 
 you would so chillingly exalt us. Has not Cicero said wisely, 
 that we ought no more to subject too slavishly our affections 
 than to elevate them too imperiously into our masters ? Ncqut 
 se nimium erigere, nee subjaccre servi/ifcr." 
 
 " Cicero loved philosophising better than philosophy," said 
 Aram, coldly : " but surely, my lord, the affections give us pain 
 as well as pleasure? The doubt, the dread, the restlessness of 
 love, surely these prevent the passion from constituting a 
 happy state of mind ? To me, one knowledge alone seems 
 sufficient to embitter all its enjoyments the knowledge that 
 the object beloved must die. What a perpetuity of fear that 
 knowledge creates ! The avalanche that may en sh us depends 
 upon a single breath ! " 
 
 14 Is not that too refined a sentiment ? Custom surely blunts 
 us to ever)' chance, every clanger, that may happen to us hourly. 
 Were the avalanche over you for a clay, I grant your state of 
 torture : but had an avalanche rested over you for years, and not
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 141 
 
 yet fallen, you would forget that it could ever fall ; you would 
 eat, sleep, and make love, as if it were not ! " 
 
 " Ha ! my lord, you say well you say well," said Aram, with 
 a marked change of countenance ; and, quickening his pace, he 
 joined Lester's side, and the thread of the previous conversation 
 was broken off. 
 
 The earl afterwards, in walking- through the garden (an excur- 
 sion which he proposed himself, for he was somewhat of an 
 horticulturist), took an opportunity to renew the subject. 
 
 " You will pardon me," said he, " but I cannot convince myself 
 that man would be happier were he without emotions ; and that 
 to enjoy life he should be solely dependent on himself." 
 
 "Yet it seems to me," said Aram, "a truth easy of proof. 
 If we love, we place our happiness in others. The moment we 
 place our happiness in others, comes uncertainty, but uncertainty 
 is the bane of happiness. Children are the source of anxiety 
 to their parents ; his mistress to the lover. Change, accident, 
 death, all menace us in each person whom we regard. 
 Every new affection opens new channels by which grief can 
 invade us ; but, you will say, by which joy also can flow in 
 granted. But in human life is there not more grief than 
 joy ? What is it that renders the balance even ? What makes 
 the staple of our happiness endearing to us the life at 
 which we should otherwise repine ? It is the mere passive, yet 
 stirring, consciousness of life itself of the sun and the air of 
 the physical being ; but this consciousness every emotion dis- 
 turbs. Yet could you add to its tranquillity an excitement that 
 never exhausts itself that becomes refreshed, not sated, with 
 every new possession then you would obtain happiness. There 
 is only one excitement of this divine order that of intellectual 
 culture. Behold now my theory ! Examine it it contains no 
 flaw. But if," renewed Aram, after a pause, "a man is subject 
 to fate solely in himself, not in others, he soon hardens his mind 
 against all fear, and prepares it for all events. A little philosophy 
 enables him to bear bodily pain, or the common infirmities of 
 flesh : by a philosophy somewhat deeper, he can conquer the 
 ordinary reverses of fortune, the dread of shame, and the last 
 calamity of death. But what philosophy could ever thoroughly
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 console him for the ingratitude of a friend, the worthlessness of 
 a child, the death of a mistress ? Hence, only, when he stands 
 alone, can a man's soul say to Fate, ' I defy thee.' " 
 
 "You think, then," said the earl, reluctantly diverting the 
 conversation into a new channel, "that in the pursuit of know- 
 ledge lies our only active road to real happiness. Yet here how 
 eternal must be the disappointments even of the most success- 
 ful ! Does not Boyle tell us of a man who, after devoting his 
 whole life to the study of one mineral, confessed himself at last, 
 ignorant of all its properties ? " 
 
 " Had the object of his study been himself, and not the 
 mineral, he would not have been so unsuccessful a student," 
 said Aram, smiling. " Yet," added he, in a graver tone, "we do 
 indeed cleave the vast heaven of Truth with a weak and crippled 
 wing : and often we are appalled in our way by a dread sense 
 of the immensity around us, and of the inadequacy of our own 
 strength. .But there is a rapture in the breath of the pure and 
 difficult air, and in the progress by which we compass earth, the 
 while we draw nearer to the stars, that again exalts us beyond 
 ourselves, and reconciles the true student unto all things, even 
 to the hardest of them all the conviction how feebly our per- 
 formance can ever imitate the grandeur of our ambitipn ! As 
 you see the spark fly upward, sometimes not falling to earth 
 till it be dark and quenched, thus soars, whither it recks not, 
 so that the direction be above, the luminous spirit of him who 
 aspires to Truth ; nor will it back to the vile ar d heavy clay 
 from which it sprang, until the light which bore it upward be 
 no morel"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A DEEPER EXAMINATION INTO THE STUDENT'S HEART. THE VISIT TO THE 
 CASTLE. PHILOSOPHY PUT TO THE TRIAL, 
 
 I weigh not Fortune's frown or smile, 
 
 I joy not much in earthly joys, 
 I seek not state, I seek not style, 
 
 I am not fond of Fancy's toys ; 
 I rest so pleased with what I have, 
 I wish no more, no more I crave. Joshua Sylvester. 
 
 THE reader will pardon me if I somewhat clog his interest 
 in my tale by the didactic character of brief conversations I have 
 just given, and which I am compelled to renew. It is not only 
 the history of his life, but the character and tone of Aram's 
 mind, that I wish to stamp upon my page. Fortunately, how- 
 ever, the path my story assumes is of such a nature, that, in 
 order to effect this object, I shall never have to desert, and 
 scarcely again even to linger by, the way. 
 
 Every one knows the magnificent moral of Goethe's Faust. 
 Every one knows that sublime discontent that chafing at the 
 bounds of human knowledge that yearning for the intellectual 
 Paradise beyond, which " the svvorded angel " forbids us to 
 approach that daring, yet sorrowful state of mind that sense 
 of defeat, even in conquest, which Goethe has embodied a 
 picture of the loftiest grief of which the soul is capable, and 
 which may remind us of the profound and august melancholy 
 which the Great Sculptor breathed into the repose of the noblest 
 of mythological heroes, when he represented the god resting 
 after his labours, as if more convinced of their vanity than 
 elated with their extent ! 
 
 In this portrait, the grandeur of which the wild scenes that 
 follow in the drama we refer to, do not (strangely wonderful as 
 they are) perhaps altogether sustain, Goethe has bequeathed to 
 the gaze of a calmer and more practical posterity the burning 
 and restless spirit the feverish desire for knowledge more vague 
 than useful, which characterised the exact epoch in the intel- 
 lectual history of Germany in which the poem was inspired 
 and produced.
 
 144 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 At these bitter waters, the Marah of the streams of Wisdom, 
 the soul of the man whom we have made the hero of these 
 pages had also, and not lightly, quaffed. The properties of a 
 mind more calm and stern than belonged to the visionaries of 
 the Hartz and the Danube might indeed have preserved him 
 from that thirst for the Impossible which gives so peculiar a 
 romance, not only to the poetry, but the philosophy, of the 
 German .people. But if he rejected the superstitions, he did not 
 also reject the bewilderments, of the mind. He loved to plunge 
 into the dark and metaphysical subtleties which human genius 
 has called daringly forth from the realities of things : 
 
 " to $pin 
 
 A shroud of thought, to hide him from the sun 
 Of this familiar life, which seems to be, 
 But is not or is but quaint mockery 
 Of all we would believe ; or sadly blame 
 The jarring and inexplicable frame 
 Of this wrong world : and then anatomise 
 The purposes and thoughts of man, whose eyes 
 Were closed in distant years ; or widely guess 
 The issue of the earth's great business, 
 When we shall be, as we no longer are ; 
 Like babbling gossips, safe, who hear the war 
 Of winds, and sigh ! but tremble not I " 
 
 Much in him was a type, or rather forerunner, of the intel- 
 lectual spirit that broke forth among our countrymen, when we 
 were children, and is now slowly dying away amidst the loud 
 events and absorbing struggles of the awakening world. But in 
 one respect he stood aloof from all his tribe in his hard in- 
 difference to worldly ambition and his contempt of fame. As 
 some sages have considered the universe a dream, and self the 
 only reality, so in his austere and collected reliance upon his 
 own mind the gathering in, as it were, of his resources, he 
 appeared to regard the pomps of the world as shadows, and the 
 life of his own spirit the only substance. He had built a city 
 and a tower within the Shinar of his own heart, whence he might 
 look forth, unscathed and unmoved, upon the deluge that broke 
 over the rest of earth. 
 
 Only in one instance, and that, as we have seen, after much 
 struggle, he had given way to the emotions that agitate his kind, 
 had surrendered himself to the dominion of another. This
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 145 
 
 was against his theories but what theories ever resist love ? In 
 yielding, however, thus far, he seemed more on his guard than 
 ever against a broader encroachment. He had admitted one 
 " fair spirit " for his " minister," but it was only with a deeper 
 fervour to invoke " the desert " as " his dwelling-place." Thus, 
 when the earl, who, like most practical judges of mankind, loved 
 to apply to each individual the motives that actuate the mass, 
 and who only unwillingly, and somewhat sceptically, assented to 
 the exceptions, and was driven to search for peculiar clues to the 
 eccentric instance, finding, to his secret triumph, that Aram 
 had admitted one intruding emotion into his boasted circle of 
 indifference, imagined that he should easily induce him (the spell 
 once broken) to receive another, he was surprised and puzzled 
 to discover himself in the wrong. 
 
 Lord * * * at that time had been lately called into the 
 administration, and he was especially anxious to secure the 
 support of all the talent that he could enlist on his behalf. The 
 times were those in which party ran high, and in which indi- 
 ( vidual political writings were honoured with an importance 
 which the periodical press in general has now almost wholly 
 monopolised. On the side opposed to government, writers of 
 great name and high attainments had shone with peculiar effect, 
 and the earl was naturally desirous that they should be opposed 
 by an equal array of intellect on the side espoused by himself. 
 The name alone of Eugene Aram, at a day when scholarship' 
 was renown, would have been no ordinary acquisition to the cause 
 of the earl's party ; but that judicious and penetrating nobleman- 
 perceived that Arajn's abilities, his various research, his extended 
 views, his facility of argument, and the heat and energy of his- 
 eloquence, might be rendered of an importance which could not 
 have been anticipated from the name alone, however eminent, of 
 a retired and sedentary scholar. He was not, therefore, without 
 an interested motive in the attentions he now lavished upon the 
 student, and in his curiosity to put to the proof the disdain of all* 
 worldly enterprise and worldly temptation which Aram affected 1 .: 
 He could not but think that, to a man poor and lowly of circum- 
 stance, conscious of superior acquirements, about to increase his 
 wants by admitting to them a partner, and arrived at that age 
 
 K
 
 146 EUGENE AK iM. 
 
 when the calculations of interest and the whispers of ambition 
 have usually most weight ; he could not but think that to such 
 a man the dazzling prospects of social advancement, the hope 
 of the high fortunes and the powerful and glittering influence 
 which political life in England offers to the aspirant, might be 
 rendered altogether irresistible. 
 
 He took several opportunities, in the course of the next week, 
 of renewing his conversation with Aram, and of artfully turning 
 it into the channels which he thought most likely to produce the 
 impression he desired to create. He was somewhat baffled, but 
 by no means dispirited, in his attempts ; but he resolved to defer 
 his ultimate proposition until it could be made to the fullest 
 advantage. He had engaged the Lesters to promise to pass a 
 day at the castle ; and with great difficulty, and at the earnest 
 intercession of Madeline, Aram was prevailed upon to accompany 
 them. So extreme was his distaste to general society, and, from 
 some motive or another more powerful than mere constitutional 
 reserve, so invariably had he for years refused all temptations to 
 enter it, that, natural as this concession was rendered by his 
 approaching marriage to one of the party, it filled him with a 
 sort of terror and foreboding of evil. It was as if he were 
 passing beyond the boundary of some law, on which the very 
 tenure of his existence depended. After he had consented, a 
 trembling came over him ; he hastily left the room, and, till the 
 day arrived, was observed by his friends of the manor-house to 
 be more gloomy and abstracted than they ever had known him, 
 even at the earliest period of acquaintance. 
 
 On the day itself, as they proceeded to the castle, Madeline 
 perceived, with a tearful repentance of her interference, that he 
 sat by her side cold and rapt ; and that once or twice, when his 
 eyes dwelt upon her, it was with an expression of reproach and 
 distrust 
 
 It was not till they entered the lofty hall of the castle, when a 
 vulgar diffidence would have been most abashed, that Aram 
 recovered himself. The earl was standing the centre of a group 
 in the recess of a window in the saloon, opening upon an exten- 
 sive and stately terrace. He came forward to receive them with 
 the polished and warm kindness which he bestowed upon all his
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 147 
 
 inferiors in rank. He complimented the sisters ; he jested with 
 Lester ; but to Aram only he manifested less the courtesy of 
 kindness than of respect He took his arm, and leaning on it 
 with a light touch, led him to the group at the window. It was 
 composed of the most distinguished public men in the country, 
 and among them (the earl himself was connected, through an 
 illegitimate branch, with the reigning monarch) was a prince of 
 the blood royal. 
 
 To these, whom he had prepared for the introduction, he 
 severally, and with an easy grace, presented Aram, and then 
 falling back a few steps, he watched, with a keen but seemingly 
 careless eye, the effect which so sudden a contact with royalty 
 itself would produce on the mind of the shy and secluded student, 
 whom it was his object to dazzle and overpower. It was at this 
 moment that the native dignity of Aram, which his studies, 
 unworldly as they were, had certainly tended to increase, dis- 
 played itself, in a trial which, poor as it was in abstract theory, 
 was far from despicable in the eyes of the sensible and practised 
 courtier. He received with his usual modesty, but not with his 
 usual shrinking and -embarrassment on such occasions, the com- 
 pliments he received ; a certain and far from ungraceful pride 
 was mingled with his simplicity of demeanour ; no fluttering of 
 manner betrayed that he was either dazzled or humbled by the 
 presence in which he stood, and the earl could not but confess 
 that there was never a more favourable opportunity for com- 
 paring the aristocracy of genius with that of birth ; it was one of 
 those homely every-day triumphs of intellect which please us 
 more than they ought to do, for, after all, they are more common 
 than the men of courts are willing to believe. 
 
 Lord * * * did not, however, long leave Aram to the support 
 of his own unassisted presence of mind 1 and calmness of nerve ; 
 he advanced, and led the conversation, with his usual tact, into a 
 course which might at once please Aram, and afford him the 
 opportunity to shine. The earl had imported from Italy some 
 of the most beautiful specimens of classic sculpture which this 
 country now possesses. These were disposed in niches around 
 the magnificent apartment in which the guests were assembled, 
 and as the earl pointed them out, and illustrated each from the 
 
 K 2
 
 I4S EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 beautiful anecdotes and golden allusions of antiquity, he felt that 
 he was affording to Aram a gratification he could never have 
 experienced before ; and in the expression of which the grace 
 and copiousness of his learning would find vent. Nor was he 
 disappointed. The cheek, which till then had retained its steady 
 paleness, now caught the glow of enthusiasm ; and in a few 
 moments there was not a person in the group who did not feel, 
 and cheerfully feel, the superiority of the one who, in birth and 
 fortune, was immeasurably the lowest of all. 
 
 The English aristocracy, whatever be the faults of their 
 education, have at least the merit of being alive to the possession, 
 and easily warmed to the possessor, of classical attainments : . 
 perhaps too much so ; for they are thus apt to judge all talent 
 by a classical standard, and all theory by classical experience. 
 Without save in very rare instances the right to boast of any 
 deep learning, they are far more susceptible than the nobility oi 
 any other nation to the spiritum Cam&nce. They are easily and 
 willingly charmed back to the studies which, if not eagerly 
 pursued in their youth, are still entwined with all their youth's 
 brightest recollections, the schoolboy's prize, and the master's 
 praise, the first ambition, and its first reward. A felicitous 
 quotation, a delicate allusion, are never lost upon their ear ; and 
 the veneration which, at Eton, they bore to the best verse-maker 
 in the school, tinctures their judgment of others throughout life, 
 mixing I know not what both of liking ana esteem, with their 
 admiration of one who uses his classical weapons with a scholar's 
 dexterity, not a pedant's inaptitude : for such a one there is a 
 sort of agreeable confusion in their respect ; they are inclined, 
 unconsciously, to believe that he must necessarily be a high 
 gentleman ay, and something of a good fellow into the bargain. 
 
 It happened, then, that Aram could not have dwelt upon a 
 thcnic more likely to arrest the spontaneous interest of those 
 with whom he now conversed men themselves of more culti- 
 vateJ minds than usual, and more capable than most (from that 
 acute perception of real talent, which is produced by habitual 
 political warfare) of appreciating not only his endowments, but 
 his facility in applying them. 
 
 "You are right, my lord," said Sir , the whipper-in of
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 149 
 
 the * * * * party, taking the earl aside; "he would be an 
 inestimable pamphleteer." 
 
 " Could you get him to write us a sketch of the state of 
 parties ; luminous, eloquent ? " whispered a lord of the bed- 
 chamber. 
 
 The earl answered by a bon mot, and turned to a bust of 
 Caracalla. 
 
 The hours at that time were (in the country at least) not late, 
 and the earl was one of the first introducers of the polished 
 fashion of France, by which we testify a preference of the society 
 of the women to that of our own sex ; so that, in leaving the 
 dining-room, it was not so late but that the greater part of the 
 guests walked out upon the terrace, and admired the expanse of 
 country which it overlooked, and along which the thin veil of the 
 twilight began now to hover. 
 
 Having safely deposited his royal guest at a whist table, and 
 thus left himself a free agent, the earl, inviting Aram to join him, 
 sauntered among the loiterers on the terrace for a few moments, 
 and then descended a broad flight of steps which brought them 
 into a more shaded and retired walk ; on either side of which 
 rows of orange-trees gave forth their fragrance, while, to the 
 right, sudden and numerous vistas were cut amidst the more 
 regular and dense foliage, affording glimpses now of some 
 rustic statue now of some lonely temple now of some quaint 
 fountain, on the play of whose waters the first stars had begun 
 to tremble. 
 
 It was one of those magnificent gardens, modelled from the 
 stately glories of Versailles, which it is now the mode to deer}-, 
 but which breathe so unequivocally of the palace. I grant that 
 they deck Nature with somewhat too prolix a grace; but is 
 Beauty always best seen in deshabille ? And with what asso- 
 ciations of the brightest traditions connected with Nature they 
 link her more luxuriant loveliness ! Must we breathe only the 
 malaria of Rome to be capable of feeling the interest attached 
 to the fountain or the statue ? 
 
 " I am glad," said the earl, " that you admired my bust of 
 Cicero it is from an original very lately discovered. What 
 grandeur in the brow ! what energy in the mouth and down-
 
 150 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 ward bend of the head ! It is pleasant even to imagine we gaze 
 upon the likeness of so bright a spirit : and confess, at least of 
 Cicero, that in reading the aspirations and outpourings of his 
 mind, you have felt your apathy to fame melting away ; you 
 have shared the desire to live in the future age, 'the longing 
 after immortality 1 ' " 
 
 " Was it not that longing," replied Aram, " which gave to the 
 character of Cicero its poorest and most frivolous infirmity? 
 Has it not made him, glorious as he is despite of it, a byword in 
 the mouth of every schoolboy ? Whenever you mention his 
 genius, do you not hear an appendix on his vanity ? " 
 
 " Yet without that vanity, that desire for a name with posterity, 
 would he have been eqfually great would he equally have 
 cultivated his genius ? " 
 
 " Probably, my lord, he would not have equally cultivated his 
 genius, but in reality he might have been equally great. A man 
 often injures his mind by the means that increase his genius. 
 You think this, my lord, a paradox ; but examine it. How 
 many men of genius have been but ordinary men, take them 
 from the particular objects in which they shine ! Why is this, 
 but that in cultivating one branch of intellect they neglect the 
 rest ? Nay, the very torpor of the reasoning faculty has often 
 kindled the imaginative. Lucretius is said to have composed his 
 sublime poem under the influence of a delirium. The suscep- 
 tibilities that we create or refine by the pursuit of one object 
 weaken our general reason ; and I may compare with some 
 justice the powers of the mind to the faculties of the body in 
 which squinting is occasioned by an inequality of strength in ihe 
 eyes, and discordance of voice by the same inequality in the 
 ears." 
 
 " I believe you are right," said the earl ;-"yet I own I willingly 
 forgive Cicero for his vanity, if it contributed to the production 
 of his orations and his essays. And he is a greater man, even 
 with l:is vanity unconquered, than if he had conquered his 
 foible, and, in doing so, taken away the incitements to his 
 genius." 
 
 'A greater man in the world's eye, my lord, but scarcely in 
 reality. Had Homer written his ///Wand then burned it, would
 
 EL 1 GENE ARAM. 151 
 
 his genius have been less ? The world would have known 
 nothing of him ; but would he have been a less extraordinary 
 man on that account ? We are too apt, my lord, to confound 
 greatness and fame." 
 
 "There is one circumstance," added Aram, after a pause, 
 " that should diminish our respect for renown. Errors of life, as 
 well as foibles of character, are often the real enhancers ot" 
 celebrity. Without his errors, I doubt whether Henri Quatre 
 would have become the idol of a people. How many Whartons 
 has the world known, who, deprived of their frailties, had been 
 inglorious ! The light that you so admire reaches you only 
 through the distance of time, on account of the angles and un- 
 even ness of the body whence it emanates. Were the surface 
 of the moon smooth it would be invisible," 
 
 " I admire your illustrations," said the earl; "but I reluctantly 
 submit to your reasonings. You would then neglect your powers, 
 lest they should lead you into errors ? " 
 
 " Pardon me, my lord ; it is because I think all the powers 
 should be cultivated, that I quarrel with the exclusive cultiva- 
 tion of one. And it is only because I would strengthen the 
 whole mind that I dissent from the reasonings of those who tell 
 you to consult your genius." 
 
 " But your genius may serve mankind more than this general 
 cultivation of intellect ? " 
 
 "My lord," replied Aram, with a mournful cloud upon his 
 countenance, "that argument may have weight with those who 
 think mankind can be effectually served, though they may be 
 often dazzled, by the labours of an individual. But, indeed, this 
 perpetual talk of ' mankind ' signifies nothing : each of us 
 consults his proper happiness, and we consider him a madman 
 who ruins his own peace of mind by an everlasting fretfulness 
 of philanthropy." 
 
 This was a doctrine that half pleased, half displeased the earl : 
 it shadowed forth the most dangerous notions which Aram 
 entertained. 
 
 " Well, well," said the noble host, as, after a short contest on 
 the ground of his guest's last remark, they left off where they 
 began, " let us drop these general discussions : I have a particular
 
 i S a EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 proposition to unfold. We have, I trust, Mr. Aram, seen enough 
 of each other to feel that we can lay a sure foundation for mutual 
 esteem. For my part, I own frankly, that I have never met 
 with one who has inspired me with a sincerer admiration. I am 
 desirous that your talents and great learning should be known in 
 the widest sphere. You may despise fame, but you must permit 
 your friends the weakness to wish you justice, and the.nselves 
 triumph. You know my post in the present administration : 
 the place of my secretary is one of great trust some influence, 
 and fair emolument I offer it to you accept it, and you will 
 confer upon me an honour and an obligation. You will have 
 your own separate house ; or apartments in mine, solely appro- 
 priated to your use. Your privacy will never be disturbed. 
 Every arrangement shall be made for yourself and your bride 
 that either of you can suggest. Leisure for your own pursuits 
 you will have, too, in abundance there are others who will 
 perform all that is toilsome in the mere details of your office. 
 In London, you will see around you the most eminent living 
 men of all nations, and in all pursuits. If you contract (which 
 believe me is possible it is a tempting game !) any inclination 
 towards public life, you will have the most brilliant opportunities 
 afforded you, and I foretell you the most signal success. Stay 
 yet one moment : for this you will owe me no thanks. Were I 
 not sensible that I consult my own interests in this proposal, I 
 should be courtier enough to suppress it." 
 
 " My lord," said Aram, in a voice which, in spite of its calmness, 
 betrayed that he was affected, " it seldom happens to a man of 
 my secluded habits, and lowly pursuits, to have the philosophy 
 he affects put to so severe a trial. I am grateful to you -deeply 
 grateful for an offer so munificent so undeserved. I am yet 
 more grateful that it allows me to sound the strength of my own 
 heart, and to find that I did not too highly rate it. Look, my 
 lord, from the spot where we now stand " (the moon had risen, 
 and they hatl now returned to the terrace) : " in the vale below, 
 and far amonjj those trees, lies my home. More than two years 
 ago I came thither to fix the resting-place of a sad and troubled 
 spirit. There have I centred all my wishes and my hopes ; and 
 there may I breathe my last : My lord, you will not think me
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 153 
 
 ungrateful that my choice is made ; and you will not blame my 
 motive, though you may despise my wisdom." 
 
 " But," said the earl, astonished, " you cannot foresee all the 
 advantages you would renounce ? At your age with your 
 intellect to choose the living sepulchre of a hermitage it was 
 wise to reconcile yourself to it, but it is not wise to prefer it ! Nay, 
 nay ; consider pause. I am in no haste for your decision; and 
 what advantages have you in your retreat, that you will not possess 
 in a greater degree with me ? Quiet ? I pledge it to you under 
 my roof. Solitude ? you shall have it at your will. Books ? 
 what are those which you, which any individual may possess, to the 
 public institutions, the magnificent collections, of the metropolis ? 
 "What else is it you enjoy yonder, and cannot enjoy with me ? " 
 
 "Liberty!" said Aram, energetically. "Liberty! the wild 
 sense of independence. Could I exchange the lonely stars and 
 the free air, for the poor lights and feverish atmosphere of worldly 
 life ? Could I surrender my mood, with its thousand eccentricities 
 and humours its cloud and shadow to the eyes of strangers, 
 or veil it from their gaze by the irksomeness of an eternal hypo- 
 crisy ? No, my lord ! I am too old to turn disciple to the 
 world ! You promise me solitude and quiet. What charm 
 would they have for me, if I felt they were held from the 
 generosity of another ? The attraction of solitude is only in its 
 independence. You offer me the circle, but not the magic which 
 made it holy. Books ! T/uy, years since, would have tempted 
 me ; but those whose wisdom I have already drained, have 
 taught me now almost enough : and the two books, whose 
 interest can never be exhausted Nature and my own heart 
 will suffice for the rest of life. My lord, I require no time for 
 consideration." 
 
 " And you positively refuse me ? " 
 
 " Gratefully refuse you." 
 
 The earl peevishly walked away for one moment ; but it was 
 not in his nature to lose himself for more. 
 
 " Mr. Aram," said he, frankly, and holding out his hand, "you 
 have chosen nobly, if not wisely ; and though I cannot forgive 
 you for depriving me of such a companion, I thank you for 
 teaching me such a lesson. Henceforth I will believe that philo-
 
 154 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 sophy may exist in practice, and that a contempt for wealth and 
 for honours is not the mere profession of discontent This is the 
 first time, in a various and experienced life, that I have found a 
 man sincerely deaf to the temptations of the world, and that man 
 of such endowments ! If ever you see cause to alter a theory 
 that I still think erroneous, though lofty remember me ; and at 
 all times, and on all occasions," he added, with a smile, " when a 
 friend becomes a necessary evil, call to mind our starlight walk 
 on the castle terrace." 
 
 Aram did not mention to Lester, or even Madeline, the above 
 conversation. The whole of the next day he shut himself up at 
 home; and when he again appeared at the manor-house he 
 heard, with evident satisfaction, that the earl had been suddenly 
 summoned on state affairs to London. 
 
 There was an unaccountable soreness in Aram's mind, which 
 made him feel a resentment a suspicion against all who sought 
 to lure him from his retreat. "Thank Heaven!" thought he, 
 when he heard of the earl's departure ; " we shall not meet for 
 another year I" He was mistaken. Another year I 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IK WHICH THE STORY RETURNS TO WALTER AND THE CORPORA!. THE REN- 
 CONTRE WITH A STRANGER, AND HOW THE STRANGER PROVES TO BE NOT 
 ALTOGETHER A STRANGER. 
 
 Being got out of town in the road to Penaflor, master of my own action, and forty 
 good ducats, the first thing I did was to give my mule her head, and to go at what 
 [ace the pleased. 
 
 
 
 1 Icfc them in the inn, and continued my journey ; I wa$ hardly got half a mile 
 farther, when I met a cavalier very yenteel, &c. Gil Blot. 
 
 IT was broad and sunny noon on the second day of their 
 journey, as Walter Lester, and the valorous attendant with whom 
 it had pleased Fate to endow him, rode slowly into a small town 
 in which the corporal, in his own heart, had resolved to bait his 
 Roman-nosed horse and refresh himself. Two comely inns had 
 the younger traveller of the two already passed with an indifle-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 155 
 
 rent air, as if neither bait nor refreshment made any part of the 
 necessary concerns of this habitable world. And in passing each 
 of the said hostelries, the Roman-nosed horse had uttered a snort 
 of indignant surprise, and the worthy corporal had responded to 
 the quadrupedal remonstrance by a loud " hem ! " It seemed, how- 
 ever, that Walter heard neither of the above significant admoni- 
 tions ; and now the town was nearly passed, and a steep hill, that 
 seemed winding away into eternity, already presented itself to 
 the rueful gaze of the corporal. 
 
 " The boy's clean mad," grunted Bunting to himself " must 
 do my duty to him give him a hint." 
 
 Pursuant to this notable and conscientious determination, 
 Bunting jogged his horse into a trot, and coming alongside of 
 Walter, put his hand to his hat and said, 
 
 " Weather warm, your honour horses knocked up next town 
 as far as hell ! halt a bit here augh ! " 
 
 " Ha ! that is very true, Bunting ; I had quite forgotten the 
 length of our journey. But see, there is a sign-post yonder, we 
 will take advantage of it." 
 
 " Augh ! and your honour's right fit for the forty-second," 
 said the corporal, falling back ; and in a few moments he and 
 his charger found themselves, to their mutual delight, entering 
 the yard of a small but comfortable-looking inn. 
 
 The host, a man of a capacious stomach and a rosy cheek in 
 short, a host whom your heart warms to see, stepped forth 
 immediately, held the stirrup for the young squire (for the cor- 
 poral's movements were too stately to be rapid), and ushered him 
 with a bow, a smile, and a flourish of his napkin, into one of 
 those little quaint rooms, with cupboards bright with high 
 glasses and old china, that it pleases us still to find extant in 
 the old-fashioned inns in our remoter roads and less Londonized 
 districts. 
 
 Mine host was an honest fellow, and not above his profession : 
 he stirred the fire, dusted the table, brought the bill of fare, and a 
 newspaper seven days old, and then bustled away to order the 
 dinner, and chat with the corporal. That accomplished hero had 
 already thrown the stables into commotion, and frightening the 
 two ostlers from their attendance on the steeds of more peaceable
 
 I 5 6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 men, had set them both at leading his own horse and his master's 
 to and fro the yard, to be cooled into comfort and appetite. 
 
 He was now busy in the kitchen, where he had seized the 
 reins of government, sent the scullion to see if the hens had laid 
 any fresh eggs, and drawn upon himself the objurgations of a very 
 thin cook with a squint 
 
 " Tell you, ma'am, you are wrong quite wrong seen the 
 world old soldier and know how to fry eggs better than 
 any she in the three kingdoms hold jaw mind your own 
 business where's the frying-pan ? baugh ! " 
 
 So completely did the corporal feel himself in his element, 
 while he was putting everybody else out of the way ; and so 
 comfortable did he find his new quarters, that he resolved that 
 the " bait " should be at all events prolonged until his good 
 cheer had been deliberately digested, and his customary pipe 
 duly enjoyed. 
 
 Accordingly, but not till Walter had dined, for our man "of 
 the world knew that it is the tendency of that meal to abate 
 our activity, while it increases our good-humour, the corporal 
 presented himself to his master, with a grave countenance. 
 
 "Greatly vexed, your honour who'd have thought it? But 
 those large animals are bad on long march." 
 
 "Why, what's the matter now, Bunting?" 
 
 "Only, sir, that the brown horse is so done up, that I think it 
 would be as much as life's worth to go any farther for several 
 hours." 
 
 " Very well ; and if I propose staying here till the evening ? 
 We have ridden far, and are in no great hurry." 
 
 " To be sure not sure and certain not," cried the corporal. 
 " Ah, master, you know how to command, I see. Nothing like 
 discretion discretion, sir, is a jewel. Sir, it is more than a jewel 
 it's a pair of stirrups ! " 
 
 "A what, Bunting ?" 
 
 " Pair of stirrups, your honour. Stirrups help us to get on, so 
 docs discretion ; to get off, ditto discretion. Men without stirrups 
 lock fine, ride bold, tire soon : men without discretion cut dash, 
 
 but knock up all of a crack. Stirrups but what signifies? 
 
 Could say much more, your honour, but don't love chatter."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 157 
 
 " Your simile is ingenious enough, if not poetical," said Walter : 
 " but it does not hold good to the last. When a man falls, his 
 discretion should preserve him ; but he is often dragged in the 
 mud by his stirrups." 
 
 " Beg pardon you're wrong," quoth the corporal, nothing 
 taken by surprise ; " spoke of the new-fangled stirrups that 
 open, crank, when we fall, and let us out of the scrape." l 
 
 Satisfied with this repartee, the corporal now (like an ex- 
 perienced jester) withdrew to leave its full effect on the admiration 
 of his master. A little before sunset the two travellers renewed 
 their journey. 
 
 " I have loaded the pistols, sir," said the corporal, pointing to 
 the holsters on Walter's saddle. " It is eighteen miles off to the 
 next town will be dark long before we get there." 
 
 " You did very right, Bunting, though I suppose there is not 
 much danger to be apprehended from the gentlemen of the 
 highway." 
 
 " Why, the landlord do say the revarse, your honour, been 
 many robberies in these here parts." 
 
 '' Well, we are fairly mounted, and you are a formidable- 
 looking fellow, Bunting." 
 
 " Oh ! your honour," quoth the corporal, turning his head 
 stiffly away, with a modest simper, "you makes me blush; 
 though, indeed, bating that I have the military air, and am more 
 in the prime of life, your honour is well-nigh as awkward a 
 gentleman as myself to come across." 
 
 " Much obliged for the compliment ! " said Walter, pushing 
 his horse a little forward : the corporal took the hint and fell 
 back. 
 
 It was now that beautiful hour of twilight when lovers grow 
 especially tender. The young traveller every instant threw his 
 dark eyes upward, and thought not of Madeline, but her sister. 
 The corporal himself grew pensive, and in a few moments his 
 whole soul was absorbed in contemplating the forlorn state of 
 the abandoned Jacobina. 
 
 In this melancholy and silent mood they proceeded onward 
 
 1 Of course th- corporal does not speak of the patent stirrup ; that would be an 
 anact.ronism.
 
 I 5 8 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 till the shades began to deepen ; and by the light of the first 
 Walter beheld a small, spare gentleman riding before him 
 on an ambling nag with cropped ears and mane. The rider, as 
 he now came up to him, seemed to have passed the grand 
 climacteric, but looked hale and vigorous ; and there was a 
 certain air of staid and sober aristocracy about him, which 
 involuntarily begat your respect. 
 
 He looked hard at Walter as the latter approached, and still 
 more hard at the corporal. He seemed satisfied with the 
 survey. 
 
 " Sir," said he. slightly touching his hat to Walter, and with 
 an agreeable though rather sharp intonation of voice, " I am 
 very glad to see a gentleman of your appearance travelling my 
 road. Might I request the honour of being allowed to join you 
 so far as you go ? To say the truth, I am a little afraid of 
 encountering those industrious gentlemen who have been lately 
 somewhat notorious in these parts ; and it may be better for all 
 of us to ride in as strong a party as possible." 
 
 " Sir," replied Walter, eying in his turn the speaker, and in 
 his turn also feeling satisfied with the scrutiny, " I am going to 
 *, where I shall pass the night on my way to town, and 
 sha'l be very happy in your company." 
 
 The corporal uttered a loud " hem ! " that penetrating man of the 
 world was not too well pleased with the advances of a stranger. 
 
 " What fools them boys be ! " thought he, very discontentedly. 
 " Howsomever, the man does seem like a decent country gentle- 
 man, and we are two to one : besides, he's old, little, and augh, 
 baugh I dare say we are safe enough, for all that he can do." 
 
 The stranger possessed a polished and well-bred demeanour ; 
 he talked freely and copiously, and his conversation was that of 
 a shrewd and cultivated man. He informed Walter, that not 
 only the roads had been infested by those more daring riders 
 common at that day, and to whose merits we ourselves have 
 endeavoured to do justice in a former work of blessed memory, 
 but that several houses had been lately attempted, and two 
 absolutely plundered. 
 
 " For myself," he added, " I have no money to signify about 
 my person : my watch is only valuable to me for the time it has
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 159 
 
 been in my possession ; and if the rogues robbed one civilly, I 
 should not so much mind encountering them : but they are a 
 desperate set, and use violence when there is nothing to be got 
 by it. Have you travelled far to-day, sir ? " 
 
 "Seme six or seven-and-t\venty miles," replied Walter. "I 
 am proceeding to London, and not willing to distress my horses 
 by too rapid a journey." 
 
 " Very right, very good ; and horses, sir, are not now what 
 they used to be when I was a young man. Ah, what wagers 
 I used to win then ! Horses galloped sir, when I was 
 twenty; they trotted when I was thirty-five; but they only 
 amble now. Sir, if it does not tax your patience too severely, 
 let us give our nags some hay and water at the half-way house 
 yonder." 
 
 Walter assented ; they stopped at a little solitary inn by the 
 side of the road, and the host came out with great obsequiousness 
 when he heard the voice of Walter's companion. 
 
 "Ah, Sir Peter !" said he, "and how be'st your honour 3 fine 
 night, Sir Peter hope you'll get home safe, Sir Peter." 
 
 " Safe ay ! indeed, Jock, I hope so too. Has all been quiet 
 here this last night or two ? " 
 
 "Whish, sir!" whispered my host, jerking his thumb back 
 towards the house ; " there be two ugly customers within I does 
 not know : they have got famous good horses, and are drinking 
 hard. I can't ay as I knows anything agen 'em, but I think 
 your honours had better be jogging." 
 
 " Aha ! thank ye, Jock, thank ye. Never mind the hay now," 
 said Sir Peter, pulling away the reluctant mouth of his nag ; and 
 turning to Walter, " Come, sir, let us move on. Why, zounds ! 
 where is that servant of yours ? " 
 
 Walter now perceived, with great vexation, that the corporal 
 had disappeared within the alehouse ; and looking through the 
 casement, on which the ruddy light of the fire played cheerily, 
 he saw the man of the world lifting a little measure of " the pure 
 creature " to his lips ; and close by the hearth, at a small, round 
 table, covered with glasses, pipes, &c., he beheld two men eying 
 the tall corporal very wistfully, and of no prepossessing appear- 
 ance themselves. One, indeed, as the fire played full on his
 
 160 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 countenance, was a person of singularly rugged and sinister 
 features ; and this man, he now remarked, was addressing himself 
 with a grim smile to the corporal, who, setting down his little 
 " noggin," regarded him with a stare, which appeared to Walter 
 to denote recognition. This survey was the operation of a 
 moment; for Sir Peter took it upon himself to despatch the 
 landlord into the house, to order forth the unseasonable carouser ; 
 and presently the corporal stalked out, and having solemnly 
 remounted, the whole trio set onwards in a brisk trot. As soon 
 as they were without sight of the alehouse, the corporal brought 
 the aquiline profile of his gaunt steed on a level with his master's 
 horse. 
 
 "Augh, sir!" said he, with more than his usual energy of 
 utterance, " I see'd him 1 " 
 
 Him ! whom ? " 
 
 44 Man with ugly face what drank at Peter Dealtry's, and went 
 to Master Aram's, knew him in a crack, sure he's a Tartar!" 
 
 " What ! does your servant recognise one of those suspicious 
 fellows whom Jock warned us against ? " cried Sir Peter, pricking 
 up his ears. 
 
 "So it seems, sir," said Walter: "he saw him once before, 
 many miles hence ; but I fancy he knows nothing really to his 
 prejudice." 
 
 " Augh ! " cried the corporal ; " he's d d ugly, anyhow ! " 
 
 " That's a tall fellow of yours," said Sir Peter* jerking up his 
 chin with that peculiar motion common to the brief in stature, 
 when they are covetous of elongation. " He looks military 
 has he been in the army? Ay, I thought so; one of the King 
 of Prussia's grenadiers, I suppose ? Faith, I hear hoofs behind I " 
 
 "Mem!" cried the corporal, again coming alongside of his 
 master. " Beg pardon, sir served in the forty-second nothing 
 like regular line stragglers always cut off; had rather not 
 straggle just now enemy behind ! " 
 
 Walter looked back and saw two men approaching them at a 
 hand-gallop. " We arc a match at least for them, sir," said he, 
 to his new acquaintance. 
 
 " I am devilish glad I met you," was Sir Peter's rather selfish 
 reply.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 161 
 
 " 'Tis he ! 'tis the devil ! " grunted the corporal, as the two men 
 now gained their side and pulled up ; and Walter recognised the 
 faces he had remarked in the ale-house. 
 
 " Your servant, gentlemen," quoth the uglier of the two ; " you 
 ride fast " 
 
 " And ready ; bother baugh ! " chimed in the corporal, 
 plucking a gigantic pistol from his holster without any further 
 ceremony. 
 
 " Glad to hear it, sir ! " said the hard-featured stranger, nothing 
 dashed. " But I can tell you a secret ! " 
 
 " What's that augh ? " said the corporal, cocking his pistol. 
 
 " Whoever hurts you, friend, cheats the gallows ! " replied the 
 stranger, laughing, and spurring on his horse, to be out of reach 
 of any practical answer with which the corporal might favour 
 him. But Bunting was a prudent man, and not apt to be 
 choleric. 
 
 " Bother ! " said he, and dropped his pistol, as the other 
 stranger followed his ill-favoured comrade. 
 
 " You see we are too strong for them ! " cried Sir Peter, gaily ; 
 " evidently highwaymen ! How very fortunate that I should 
 have fallen in with you ! " 
 
 A shower of rain now began to fall. Sir Peter looked serious 
 he halted abruptly unbuckled his cloak, which had been 
 strapped before his saddle wrapped himself up in it buried his 
 face in the collar muffled his chin with a red handkerchief, 
 which he took out of his pocket, and then turning to Walter, he 
 said to him, " What ! no cloak, sir ? no wrapper even ? Upon 
 my soul I am very sorry I have not another handkerchief to 
 lend you ! " 
 
 " Man of the world baugh ! " grunted the corporal, and his 
 heait quite warmed to the stranger he had at first taken for a 
 robber. 
 
 " And now, sir," said Sir Peter, patting his nag, and pulling up 
 his cloak-collar still higher, " let us go gently : there is no occa- 
 sion for hurry. Why distress our horses ? " 
 
 " Really, sir," said Walter, smiling, " though I have a great 
 regard for my horse, I have some for myself; and I should 
 rather like to be out of this rain as soon as possible." 
 
 L
 
 1 6a EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "Oh, ah ! you have no cloak. I forgot that : to be sure to 
 be sure, let us trot on, gently, though gently. Well, sir, as I 
 was saying, horses are not so swift as they were. The breed is 
 bought up by the French ! I remember once, Johnny Courtland 
 and I, after dining at my house till the champagne had played 
 the dancing-master to our brains, mounted our horses, and rode 
 twenty miles for a cool thousand the winner. I lost it, sir, by 
 a hairsbreadth ; but I lost it on purpose : it would have half 
 ruined Johnny Courtland to have paid me, and he had that 
 delicacy, sir, he had that delicacy, that he would not have 
 suffered me to refuse taking his money, so what could I do, 
 but lose on purpose ? You see I had no alternative ! " 
 . " Pray, sir," said Walter, charmed and astonished at so rare an 
 instance of the generosity of human friendships " pray, sir, did 
 I not hear you called Sir Peter by the landlord of the little inn ? 
 Can it be, since you speak so familiarly of Mr. Courtland, that I 
 have the honour to address Sir Peter Hales?" 
 
 " Indeed, that is my name," replied the gentleman, with some 
 surprise in his voice. But I have never had the honour of seeing 
 you before.'* 
 
 "Perhaps my name is not unfamiliar to you," said Walter. 
 " And among my papers I have a letter addressed to you from 
 my uncle, Rowland Lester." 
 
 " God bless me !" cried Sir Peter. " What ! Rowy ? -well, 
 indeed, I am overjoyed to hear of him. So you are his nephew? 
 Pray tell me all about him a wild, gay, rollicking fellow still, 
 eh ? Always fencing, sa sa ! or playing at billiards, or hot in a 
 steeple-chase; there was not a jollier, better-humoured fellow in 
 the world than Rowy Lester." 
 
 "You forget, Sir Peter," said Walter, laughing at a description 
 so unlike his sober and steady uncle, " that some years have 
 passed since the time you speak of." 
 
 " Ah, and so there have," replied Sir Peter. * And what does 
 your uncle say of vie ?" 
 
 "That when he knew you, you were all generosity, frankness, 
 hospitality." 
 
 "Humph, humph!" said Sir Peter, looking extremely dis- 
 concerted, a confusion which Walter imputed solely to modesty,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 163 
 
 "I was a hair-brained, foolish fellow then quite a boy, quite a 
 boy : but bless me, it rains sharply, and you have no cloak. But 
 we are close on the town now. An excellent inn is the ' Duke of 
 Cumberland's Head ; ' you will have charming accommodation 
 there." 
 
 "What, Sir Peter, you know this part of the country well ! " 
 
 " Pretty well, pretty well ; indeed I live near, that is to say, 
 not very far from, the town. This turn, if you please. We 
 separate here. I have brought you a little out of your way not 
 above a mile or two for fear the robbers should attack me if I 
 was left alone. I had quite forgot you had no cloak. That's 
 your road this mine. Aha ! so Rowy Lester is still alive and 
 hearty? the same excellent wild fellow, no doubt. Give my 
 kindest remembrance to him when you write. Adieu, sir." 
 
 This latter speech having been delivered during a halt, the 
 corporal had heard it : he grinned delightedly as he touched his 
 hat to Sir Peter, who now trotted off, and muttered to his young 
 master, 
 
 " Most sensible man, that, sir ! * 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 SIR PETER OTSPLAYED. ONE MAN OF THE WORLD SUFFERS FROM ANOTHER. 
 THE INCIDENT OF THE BRIDLE BEGETS THE INCIDENT OF THE SADDLE ; 
 THE INCIDENT OF THE SADDLE BEGETS THE INCIDENT OF THE WHIP ; 
 THE INCIDENT OF THE WHIP BEGETS WHAT THE READER MUST READ TO 
 SEE. 
 
 Nihil est wJiud magnum quam multa minuta. 1 Vet. Auct. 
 
 " AND so," said Walter, the next morning to the head waiter, 
 who was busied about their preparations for breakfast ; " and so 
 Sir Peter Hales, you say, lives within a mile of the town ? " 
 
 " Scarcely a mile, sir, black or green ? you passed the turn 
 to his house last night ; sir, the eggs are quite fresh this 
 morning. This inn belongs to Sir Peter." 
 
 " Oh ! Does Sir Peter see much company ? " 
 
 Nor is there anything that hath so great a power as the aggregate of small thing*. 
 
 L 2
 
 164 EUGENE A! 
 
 The waiter smiled. 
 
 " Sir Peter gives very handsome dinners, sir ; twice a-year f 
 A most clever gentleman, Sir Peter ! They say he is the best 
 manager of property in the whole 'county. Do you like York- 
 shire cake ? toast ? yes, sir ! " 
 
 "So, so," said Walter to himself, "a pretty true description 
 my uncle gave me of this gentleman. 'Ask me too often to 
 dinner, indeed ! ' ' offer me money if I want it ! ' ' spend a month 
 at his house ! ' ' most hospitable fellow in the world ! ' My 
 uncle must have been dreaming." 
 
 Walter had yet to learn that the men most prodigal when 
 they have nothing but expectations are often most thrifty when 
 they know the charms of absolute possession. Besides, Sir Peter 
 had married a Scotch lady, and was blessed with eleven children ! 
 But was Sir Peter Hales much altered ? Sir Peter Hales was 
 exactly the same man in reality that he always had been. Once 
 he was selfish in extravagance ; he was now selfish in thrift. He 
 had always pleased himself and forgot other people; that was 
 exactly what he valued himself on doing now. But the most 
 absurd thing about Sir Peter was, that while he was for ever 
 Ktracting use from every one else, he was mightily afraid of 
 being himself put to use. He was in parliament, and noted for 
 never giving a frank out of his own family. Yet withal, Sir 
 Peter Hales was still an agreeable fellow; nay, he was more 
 liked and much more esteemed than ever. There is something 
 conciliatory in a saving disposition ; but people put themselves 
 in a great passion when a man is too liberal with his own. It is 
 an insult on their own prudence. " What right has he to be so 
 extravagant ? What an example to our servants ! " But your 
 close neighbour does not humble you. You love your close 
 neighbour ; you respect your close neighbour ; you have 
 your harmless jest against him but he is a most respectable 
 man. 
 
 " A letter, sir, and a parcel, from Sir Peter Hales," said the 
 waiter, entering. 
 
 The parcel was a bulky, angular, awkward packet of brown 
 paper, sealed once and tied with the smallest possible quantity 
 of string ; it was addressed to Mr. James Holwell, Saddler,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 165 
 
 Street, * * * *. The letter was to - Lester, Esq., and ran 
 thus, written in a very neat, stiff, Italian character : 
 
 " I trust you had no difficulty in finds y* Duke of Cumber- 
 land's Head ; it is an excellent I n . 
 
 " I greatly reg' y l you are unavoidy oblig'd to go on to 
 Lond n ; for, otherwise I sh d have had the sincerest pleas" in 
 seeing you here at din r , & introducing you to L* Hales. Anoth r 
 time I trust we may be more fortunate. 
 
 "As you pass thro' y e litt e town of ...... , exactly 21 miles 
 
 hence, on the road to Lond n , will you do me the fav r to allow 
 your serv 1 to put the little parcel I send into his pock' & drop 
 it as direct d ? It is a bridle I am forc'd to return. Country 
 work 11 are such bung rs . 
 
 " I sh d most certain have had y e hon r to wait on you 
 person*, but the rain has given me a m sev e cold ; hope you 
 have escap'd, tho', by y e by, you had no cloke, nor wrapp r ! 
 
 " My kindest regards to your m excellent unc e . I am sure 
 he's the same fine merr y fell w he always was ! tell him so ! 
 " D r S r , Yours faith 
 
 " PETER GRINDLESCREW HALES. 
 
 "P.S. You know perh* y l poor Jn Court your uncle's m 
 intim 6 friend, lives in ...... , the town in which your serv 1 will 
 
 drop y* brid e . He is much alter'd, poor Jn ! " 
 
 " Altered ! alteration then seems the fashion with my uncle's 
 friends ! " thought Walter, as he rang for the corporal, and 
 consigned to his charge the unsightly parcel. 
 
 " It is to be carried twenty-one miles at the request of the 
 gentleman we met last night, a most sensible man, Bunting ! " 
 
 " Augh waugh your honour ! " grunted the corporal, thrust- 
 ing the bridle very discontentedly into his pocket, where it 
 annoyed him the whole journey, by incessantly getting between 
 his seat of leather and his seat of honour. It is a comfort to the 
 inexperienced when one man of the world smarts from the 
 sagacity of another ; we resign ourselves more willingly to our 
 fate. Our travellers resumed their journey, and in a few minutes,
 
 1<S6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 from the cause xve have before assigned, the corporal became 
 thoroughly out of humour. 
 
 " Pray, Bunting," said Walter, calling his attendant to his side, 
 " do you feel sure that the man we met yesterday at the ale- 
 house is the same you saw at Grassdale some months ago ? " 
 
 " D n it I " cried the corporal quickly, and clapping his hand 
 behind. 
 
 "How, sir I" 
 
 " Beg pardon, your honour slip tongue, but this confounded 
 parcel ! augh bother." 
 
 " Why don't you carry it in your hand ? " 
 
 " Tis so ungainsome, and be d d to it ! And how can I hold 
 parcel and pull in this beast, which requires two hands: his 
 mouth's as hard as a brickbat, augh !" 
 
 " You have not answered my question yet" 
 
 " Beg pardon, your honour. Yes, certain sure the man's the 
 same ; phiz not to be mistaken." 
 
 "It is strange," said Walter, musing, "that Aram should 
 know a man, who, if not a highwayman as we suspected, is 
 at least of rugged manner and disreputable appearance ; it 
 is strange, too, that Aram always avoided recurring to the 
 acquaintance, though he confessed it." With this he broke 
 into a trot, and the corporal into an oath. 
 
 They arrived by noon at the little town specified by Sir Peter, 
 and in their way to the inn (for Walter resolved to rest there) 
 passed by the saddler's house. It so chanced that Master 
 Holwell was an adept in his craft, and that a newly-invented 
 hunting saddle at the window caught Walter's notice. The 
 artful saddler persuaded the young traveller to dismount and 
 look at " the most convenientest and handsomest saddle that ever 
 tvas seen ; " and the corporal having lost no time in getting rid 
 of his incumbrance, Walter dismissed him to the inn with -the 
 horses, and after purchasing the saddle in exchange for his own, 
 he sauntered into the shop to look at a new snaffle. A gentle- 
 man's servant was in the shop at the time, bargaining for a 
 riding-whip ; and the shopboy, among others, showed him a large 
 old-fashioned one, with a tarnished silver handle, Grooms have 
 no taste for antiquity, and in spite of the silver handle, the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 167 
 
 servant pushed it aside with some contempt. Some jest he 
 uttered at the time chanced to attract Walter's notice to the 
 whip ; he took it up carelessly, and perceived, with great 
 surprise, that it bore his o\vn crest, a bittern, on the handle. 
 He examined it now with attention, and underneath the crest 
 were the letters G. L., his father's initials. 
 
 " How long have you had this whip ? " said he to the saddler, 
 concealing the emotion which this token of his lost parent 
 naturally excited. 
 
 " Oh, a 'nation long time, sir," replied Mr. HolwelL " It is a 
 queer old thing, but really is not amiss, if the silver was scrubbed 
 up a bit, and a new lash put on ; you may have it a bargain, sir, 
 if so be you have taken a fancy to it" 
 
 " Can you at all recollect how you came by it ? " said Walter, 
 earnestly. " The fact is, that I see by the crest and initials 
 that it belonged to a person whom I have some interest in 
 discovering." 
 
 " Why, let me think," said the saddler, scratching the tip of his 
 right ear ; " 'tis so long ago sin' I had it, I quite forget how I 
 came by it." 
 
 " Oh, is it that whip, John ? " said the wife who had been 
 attracted from the back parlour by the sight of the handsome 
 young stranger. " Don't you remember, it's a many year ago, a 
 gentleman who passed a day with Squire Courtland, when he 
 first came to settle here, called and left the whip to have a new 
 thong put to it ? But I fancies he forgot it, sir (turning to Walter) 
 for he never called for it again ; and the squire's people says as 
 how he was gone into Yorkshire : so there the whip's been ever 
 sin'. I remembers it, sir, 'cause I kept it in the little parlour 
 nearly a year to be in the way like." 
 
 " Ah ! I thinks I do remember it now," said Master Holwell. 
 " I should think it's a matter of twelve yearn ago. I suppose 
 I may sell it without fear of the gentleman's claiming it again." 
 
 " Not more than twelve years ! " said Walter, anxiously, for it 
 was some seventeen years since his father had been last heard of 
 by his family. 
 
 " Why it may be thirteen, sir, or so, more or less ; I can't say 
 exactly."
 
 1 68 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "More likely fourteen!" said the dame; "it can't be much 
 more, sir, we have only been a married fifteen year come next 
 Christmas ! But my old man here is ten years older nor I." 
 
 " And the gentleman, you say, was at Mr. Courtland's ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir, that I'm sure of," replied the intelligent Mrs. 
 Holwell : " they said he had come lately from Ingee." 
 
 Walter now despairing of hearing more, purchased the whip ; 
 and blessing the worldly wisdom of Sir Peter Hales, that had 
 thus thrown him on a clue, which, however slight, he resolved 
 to follow up, he inquired the way to Squire Courtland's, and 
 proceeded thither at once. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WALTER VISITS ANOTHER OF HIS UNCLE'S FRIENDS. MR. COURTLAND'S STRANGE 
 COMPLAINT. WALTER LEARNS NEWS OF HIS FATHER WHICH SURPRISES 
 HIM. THE CHANGE IN HIS DESTINATION. 
 
 Gad's my life, did you ever hear the like, what a strange man is this ! 
 What you hayc possessed me withal, I'll discharge it amply. 
 
 BEN JON SON, Lvay Man in his Humour. 
 
 MR. COURTLAND'S house was surrounded by a high wall, and 
 stood at the outskirts of the town. A little wooden door, buried 
 deep within the wall, seemed the only entrance. At this Walter 
 paused, and after twice applying to the bell, a footman of a 
 peculiarly grave and sanctimonious appearance opened the door. 
 
 In reply to Walter's inquiries, he informed him that Mr. 
 Courtland was very unwell, and never saw "company." Walter, 
 however, producing from his pocket-book the introductory letter 
 given him by his uncle, slipped it into the servant's hand, ac- 
 companied by half-a-crown, and begged to be announced as a 
 gentleman on very particular business. 
 
 "Well, sir, you can step in," said the servant, giving way; 
 " but my master is very poorly very poorly indeed." 
 
 * Indeed, I am sorry to hear it : has he been long so?" 
 
 "Going on for ten years, sir!" replied the servant, with
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 169 
 
 great .gravity ; and opening the door of the house, which stood 
 within a few paces of the wall, on a singularly flat and bare 
 grass-plot, he showed him into a room, and left him alone. 
 
 The first thing that struck Walter in this apartment was its 
 remarkable lightness. Though not large, it had no less than 
 seven windows. Two sides of the wall seemed indeed all 
 window! Nor were these admittants of the celestial beam 
 shaded by any blind or curtain ; 
 
 " The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day," 
 
 made itself thoroughly at home in this airy chamber. Never- 
 theless, though so light, it seemed to Walter anything but 
 cheerful. The sun had blistered and discoloured the painting 
 of the wainscot, originally of a pale sea-green ; there was little 
 furniture in the apartment ; one table in the centre, some half-a- 
 dozen chairs, and a very small Turkey carpet, which did not 
 cover one-tenth part of the clean, cold, smooth oak boards, 
 constituted all the goods and chattels visible in the room. But 
 what particularly added effect to the bareness of all within, was 
 the singular and laborious bareness of all without. From each 
 of these seven windows, nothing but a forlorn green flat of some 
 extent was to be seen ; there was neither tree, nor shrub, nor 
 flower, in the whole expanse, although by several stumps of 
 trees near the house, Walter perceived that the place had not 
 always been so destitute of vegetable life. 
 
 While he was yet looking upon this singular baldness of scene, 
 the servant re-entered with his master's compliments, and a 
 message that he should be happy to see any relation of Mr. 
 Lester. 
 
 Walter accordingly followed the footman into an apartment 
 possessing exactly the same peculiarities as the former one ; viz. 
 a most disproportionate plurality of windows, a commodious 
 scantiness of furniture, and a prospect without that seemed as ii 
 the house had been built in the middle of Salisbury Plain. 
 
 Mr. Courtland himself, a stout man, still preserving the rosy 
 hues and comely features, though certainly not the hilarious 
 expression, which Lester had attributed to him, sat in a large
 
 170 LUGKICE AUA.M. 
 
 chair, close by the centre window, which was open. He rose and 
 shook Walter by the hand with great cordiality. 
 
 " Sir, I am delighted to see you 1 How is your worthy uncle ? 
 1 only wish he were with you you dine with me, of course. 
 Thomas, tell the cook to add a tongue and chicken to the roast 
 beef no, young gentleman, I will have no excuse : sit down, 
 sit down ; pray come near the window ; do you not find it 
 dreadfully close? not a breath of air? This house is so choked 
 up ; don't you find it so, eh ? Ah, I see, you can scarcely gasp." 
 
 " My dear sir, you are mistaken : I am rather cold, on the 
 contrary : nor did I ever in my life see a more airy house than 
 yours." 
 
 " I try to make it so, sir, but I can't succeed ; if you had seen 
 what it was when I first bought it ! A garden here, sir ; a copse 
 there ; a wilderness, God wot 1 at the back ; and a row of chest- 
 nut trees in the front ! You may conceive the consequence, sir ; 
 I had not been long here, not two years, before my health was 
 gone, sir, gone the d d vegetable life sucked it out of me. 
 The trees kept away all the air; I was nearly suffocated without, 
 at first, guessing the cause. But at length, though not till I had 
 been withering away for five years, I discovered the origin of my 
 malady. I went to work, sir ; I plucked up the cursed garden, 
 I cut down the infernal chestnuts, I made a bowling-green of the 
 diabolical wilderness, but I fear it is too late. I am dying by 
 inches, have been dying ever since. The malaria has effectually 
 tainted my constitution." 
 
 Here Mr. Courtland heaved a deep sigh, and shook his head 
 with a most gloomy expression of countenance. , 
 
 * Indeed, sir," said Walter, " I should not, to look at you, 
 imagine that you suffered under any complaint. You seem still 
 the same picture of health that my uncle describes you to have 
 been when you knew him so many years ago." 
 
 "Yes, sir, yes ; the confounded malaria fixed the colour to my 
 checks : the blood is stagnant, sir. Would to Heaven I could 
 see myself a shade paler ! the blood does not flow ; I am like a 
 pool in a citizen's garden, with a willow at each corner; but a 
 truce to my complaints. You see, sir, I am no hypochondriac, 
 as my fool of u doctor wants to persuade me : a, h> pochrondriac
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 171 
 
 shudders at every breath of air, trembles when a door is open, 
 and looks upon a window as the entrance of death. But I, sir, 
 never can have enough air ; thorough draught or east wind, it is 
 all the same to me, so that I do but breathe. Is that like 
 hypochondria ? pshaw ! But tell me, young gentleman, about 
 your uncle ; is he quite well, stout hearty, does he breathe 
 easily, no oppression ? " 
 
 " Sir, he enjoys exceedingly good health ; he did please him- 
 self with the hope that I should give him good tidings of 
 yourself, and another of his old friends, whom I accidentally saw 
 yesterday, Sir Peter Hales." 
 
 " Hales ! Peter Hales ! ah ! a clever little fellow that. How 
 delighted Lester's good heart will be to hear that little Peter is 
 so improved; no longer a dissolute, harum-scarum fellow, 
 throwing away his money, and always in debt. No, no; a 
 respectable, steady character, an excellent manager, an active 
 member of parliament, domestic in private life, oh ! a very 
 worthy man, sir ; a very worthy man ! " 
 
 " He seems altered, indeed, sir," said Walter, who was young 
 enough in the world to be surprised at this eulogy ; " but is still 
 agreeable and fond of anecdote. He told me of his race with 
 you for a thousand guineas." 
 
 " Ah, don't talk of those days," said Mr. Courtland, shaking 
 his head pensively : " it makes me melancholy. Yes, Peter 
 ought to recollect that, for he has never paid me to this day ; 
 affected to treat it as a jest, and swore he could have beat me if 
 he would. But indeed it was my fault, sir ; Peter had not then 
 a thousand farmings in the world; and when he grew rich, he 
 became a steady character, and I did not like to remind him of 
 our former follies. Aha! can I offer you a pinch of snuff? 
 You look feverish, sir ; surely this room must affect you, though 
 you are too polite to say so. Pray open that door, and then this 
 window, and put your chair right between the two. You have 
 no notion how refreshing the draught is." 
 
 Walter politely declined the proffered ague, and thinking he 
 had now made sufficient progress in the acquaintance of this 
 singular non-hypochondriac to introduce the subject he had 
 most at heart, hastened to speak of his father.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "I have chanced, sir," said he, "very unexpectedly upon 
 something that once belonged to my poor father ; " here he 
 showed the whip. " I find from the saddler of whom I bought 
 it, that the owner was at your house some twelve or fourteen 
 years ago. I do not know whether you are aware that our 
 family have heard nothing respecting my father's fate for a 
 considerably longer time than that which has elapsed since you 
 appear to have seen him, if at least I may hope that he was 
 your guest, and the owner of this whip ; and any news you can 
 give me of him, any clue by which he can possibly be traced, 
 would be to us all to me in particular an inestimable obliga- 
 tion." 
 
 " Your father !" said Mr. Courtland. "Oh, ay, your uncle's 
 brother. What was his Christian name ? Henry ? " 
 
 " Geoffrey." 
 
 " Ah, exactly ; Geoffrey ! What ! not been heard of ? 
 his family not know where he is ? A sad thing, sir ; but 
 he was always a wild fellow ; now here, now there, like a flash 
 of lightning. But it is true, it is true, he did stay a day here, 
 several years ago, when I first bought the place. I can tell 
 you all about it ; but you seem agitated, do come nearer the 
 window : there, that's right. Well, sir, it is, as I said, a great 
 many years ago, perhaps fourteen, and I was speaking to 
 the landlord of the Greyhound about some hay he wished to 
 sell, when a gentleman rode into the yard full tear, as your 
 father always did ride, and in getting out of his way I recog- 
 nised Geoffrey Lester. I did not know him well far from it ; 
 but I had seen him once or twice with your uncle, and though 
 he was a strange pickle, he sang a good song, and was deuced 
 amusing. Well, sir, I accosted him ; and, for the sake of your 
 uncle, I asked him to dine with me, and take a bed at my 
 new house. Ah ! I little thought what a dear bargain it was 
 to be ! He accepted my invitation ; for I fancy no offence, 
 sir, there were few invitations that Mr. Geoffrey Lester ever 
 refused to accept. We dined tticra-tfte, I am an old bachelor, 
 sir, and very entertaining he was, though his sentiments seemed 
 to me broader than ever. He was capital, however, about 
 the tricks he had played his creditors, such manoeuvres/
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 173 
 
 such escapes ! After dinner he asked me if I ever corresponded 
 with his brother. I told him no ; that we were very good 
 friends, but never heard from each other ; and he then said, 
 'Well, I shall surprise him with a visit shortly; but in case you 
 sJiould unexpectedly have any communication with him, don't 
 mention having seen me ; for, to tell you the truth, I am just 
 returned from India, where I should have scraped up a little 
 money, but that I spent it as fast as I got it. However, you 
 know that I was always proverbially the luckiest fellow in the 
 world (and so, sir, your father was !), and while I was in India, 
 I saved an old colonel's life at a tiger-hunt: he went home 
 shortly afterwards, and settled in Yorkshire ; and the other day, 
 on my return to England, to which my ill-health drove me, 
 I learned that my old colonel had died recently, and left me a 
 handsome legacy, with his house in Yorkshire. I am now going 
 down to Yorkshire to convert the chattels into gold to receive 
 my money ; and I shall then seek out my good brother, my 
 household gods, and, perhaps, though it's not likely, settle into 
 a sober fellow for the rest of my life.' I don't tell you, 
 young gentleman, that those were your father's exact words, 
 one can't remember verbatim so many years ago ; but it was 
 to that effect. He left me the next day, and I never heard 
 anything more of him : to say the truth, he was looking 
 wonderfully yellow, and fearfully reduced. And I fancied 
 at the time he could not live long : he was prematurely old, 
 and decrepit in body, though gay in spirit; so that I had 
 tacitly imagined, in never hearing of him more, that he had 
 departed life. But, good Heavens ! did you never hear of this 
 legacy ? " 
 
 " Never: not a word !" said Walter, who had listened to these 
 particulars in great surprise. " And to what part of Yorkshire 
 did he say he was going ? " 
 
 "That he did not mention." 
 
 " Nor the colonel's name ?" 
 
 "Not as I remember; he might, but I think not. But I 
 am certain that the county was Yorkshire ; and the fjentleman, 
 whatever his name, was a colonel. Stay : I recollect one more 
 particular, which it is lucky I do remember. Your father, in
 
 174 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 giving me as I said before, in his own humorous strain, the 
 history of his adventures, his hairbreadth escapes from his duns, 
 the various disguises and the numerous aliases he had assumed, 
 mentioned that the name he had borne in India, and by which, 
 he assured me, he had made quite a good character was 
 Clarke : he also said, by the way, that he still kept to that name, 
 and was very merry on the advantages of having so common 
 a one, ' By which,' he observed, wittily, ' he could father all 
 his own sins on some other Mr. Clarke, at the same time that he 
 could seize and appropriate all the merits of all his other name- 
 sakes.' Ah, no offence, but he was a sad dog, that father of 
 yours ! So you see that, in all probability, if he ever reached 
 Yorkshire, it was under the name of Clarke that he claimed and 
 received his legacy." 
 
 "You have told me more," said Walter, joyfully, "than 
 we have heard since his disappearance ; and I shall turn my 
 horses' heads northward to-morrow, by break of day. But 
 you say, ' if he ever reached Yorkshire.' What should prevent 
 him?" 
 
 " His health ! " said the non-hypochondriac. " I should not 
 be greatly surprised if if in short, you had better look at the 
 gravestones by the way for the name of Clarke." 
 
 " Perhaps you can give me the dates, sir," said Walter, some- 
 what cast down by that melancholy admonition. 
 
 44 Ah ! I'll see I'll see after dinner ; the commonness of the 
 name has its disadvantages now. Poor Geoffrey ! I dare say 
 there are fifty tombs to the memory of fifty Clarkes between 
 this and York. But come, sir, there's the dinner-bell." 
 
 Whatever might have been the maladies entailed upon the 
 portly frame of Mr. Courtland by the vegetable life of the de- 
 parted trees, a want of appetite was not among the number. 
 Whenever a man is not abstinent from rule, or from early habit, 
 solitude makes its votaries particularly fond of their dinner. 
 They have no other event wherewith to mark their day ; they 
 think over it, they anticipate it, they nourish its soft idea in their 
 imagination : if they do look forward to anything else more 
 than dinner, it is supper! 
 
 Mr. Courtland deliberately pinned the napkin to his waist-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 175 
 
 coa*, ordered all the windows to be thrown open, and set to 
 work like the good canon in Gil Bias. He still retained enough 
 of his former self to preserve an excellent cook ; and though 
 most of his viands were of the plainest, who does not know 
 what skill it requires to produce an unexceptionable roast, or a 
 blameless broil ? 
 
 Half a tureen of strong soup, three pounds, at least, of 
 stewed carp, all the under part of a sirloin of beef, three 
 quarters of a tongue, the moiety of a chicken, six pancakes 
 and a tartlet, having severally disappeared down the jaws of the 
 invalid, 
 
 " Et cuncta terraruin subacta 
 
 Praeter atrocem animum Catonis," * 
 
 he still called for two devilled biscuits and an anchovy ! 
 
 When these were gone, he had the wine set on a little table 
 by the window, and declared that the air seemed closer than 
 ever. Walter was no longer surprised at the singular nature of 
 the non-hypochondriac's complaint. 
 
 Walter declined the bed that Mr. Courtland offered him, 
 though his host kindly assured him that it had no curtains, and 
 that there was not a shutter to the house, upon the plea of 
 starting the next morning at daybreak, and his consequent un- 
 willingness to disturb the regular establishment of the invalid ; 
 and Courtland, who was still an excellent, hospitable, friendly 
 man, suffered his friend's nephew to depart with regret. He 
 supplied him, however, by a reference to an old note-book, with 
 the date of the year, and even month, in which he had been 
 favoured by a visit from Mr. Clarke, who, it seemed, had also 
 changed his Christian name from Geoffrey to one beginning with 
 D ; but whether it was David or Daniel the host remembered 
 not. In parting with Walter, Courtland shook his head, and 
 observed, 
 
 " Entre nous, sir, I fear this may be a wild-goose chase. Your 
 father was too facetious to confine himself to fact excuse me, 
 sir ; and, perhaps, the colonel and the legacy, were merely inven- 
 tions pour passer le temps ; there was only one reason, indeed, 
 that made me fully believe the story." 
 
 1 And everything of earth subdued, except the resolute mind of Ct<x
 
 176 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "What was that, sir?" asked Walter, blushing deeply at the 
 universality of that estimation his father had obtained. 
 
 " Excuse me, my young friend." 
 
 * Nay, sir, let me press you." 
 
 " Why, then, Mr. Geoffrey Lester did not ask me to lend him 
 any money." 
 
 The next morning, instead of repairing to the gaieties of 
 the metropolis, Walter had, upon this dubious clue, altered his 
 journey northward ; and with an unquiet yet sanguine spirit, the 
 adventurous son commenced his search after the fate of a father 
 evidently so unworthy of the anxiety he had excited 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WALTER'* MEDITATIONS. THE CORPORAL'S GRIEF AND ANGER. THE CORPORAL 
 PERSONALLY DESCRIBED. AN EXPLANATION WITH HIS MASTER. THE COR- 
 PORAL OPENS HIMSELF TO THE YOUNG TRAVELLER. HIS OPINIONS OF 
 LOVE ; ON THE WORLD ; ON THE PLEASURE AND RESPECTABILITY OF 
 CHEATING; ON LADIES AND A PARTICULAR CLASS OF LADIES; ON 
 AUTHORS ; ON THE VALUE OF WORDS ; ON FIGHTING ; WITH SUNDRY 
 OTHER MATTERS OF EQUAL DELECTATION AND IMPROVEMENT. AN UNEX- 
 PECTED EVENT. 
 
 Qnale per incertam lunam sub Ince malign! 
 Est iter. 1 Virgil. 
 
 THE road prescribed to our travellers by the change in their 
 destination led them back over a considerable portion of the 
 ground they had already traversed ; and since the corporal took 
 care that they should remain some hours in the place where 
 they dined, night fell upon them as they found themselves in 
 the midst of the same long and dreary stage in which they had 
 encountered Sir Peter Hales and the two suspected highway- 
 men. 
 
 Walter's mind was full of the project on which he was bent. 
 The reader can fully comprehend how vivid were the emotions 
 
 1 Even as a journey by the unpropitious light of the uncertain moon.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 177 
 
 called up by the hope of a solution of the enigma to his father's 
 fate ; and sanguinely did he now indulge those intense medita- 
 tions with which the imaginative minds of the young always 
 brood over every more favourite idea, until they exalt the hope 
 into a passion. Everything connected with this strange and 
 roving parent had possessed for the breast of his son not only 
 an anxious, but indulgent interest. The judgment of a young 
 man is always inclined to sympathise with the wilder and more 
 enterprising order of spirits ; and Walter had been at no loss 
 for secret excuses wherewith to defend the irregular life and 
 reckless habits of his parent. Amidst all his father's evident 
 and utter want of principle, Walter clung with a natural and 
 self-deceptive partiality to the few traits of courage or generosity 
 which relieved, if they did not redeem, his character ; traits 
 which, with a character of that stamp, are so often, though 
 always so unprofitably blended, and which generally cease with 
 the commencement of age. He now felt elated by the conviction, 
 as he had always been inspired by the hope, that it was to be 
 his lot to discover one whom he still believed living, and whom 
 he trusted to find amended. The same intimate persuasion of 
 the "good luck" of Geoffrey Lester, which all who had known 
 him appeared to entertain, was felt even in a more credulous and 
 earnest degree by his son. Walter gave way now, indeed, to a 
 variety of conjectures as to the motives which could have in- 
 duced his father to persist in the concealment of his fate after 
 his return to England ; but such of those conjectures as, if the 
 more rational, were also the more despondent, he speedily and 
 resolutely dismissed. Sometimes he thought that his father, on 
 learning the death of the wife he had abandoned, might have 
 been possessed with a remorse which rendered him unwilling 
 to disclose himself to the rest of his family, and a feeling that the 
 main tie of home was broken ; sometimes he thought that the 
 wanderer had been disappointed in his expected legacy, and, 
 dreading the attacks of his creditors, or unwilling to throw 
 himself once more on the generosity of his brother, had again 
 suddenly quitted England, and entered on some enterprise or 
 occupation abroad. It was also possible, to one so reckless and 
 changeful, that even, after receiving the legacy, a proposition 
 
 M
 
 178 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 from some wild comrade might have hurried him away on any 
 continental project at the mere impulse of the moment, for 
 the impulse of the moment had always been the guide of his 
 life; and once abroad, he might have returned to India, and in 
 new connections forgotten the old ties at home. Letters from 
 abroad, too, miscarry; and it was not improbable that the 
 wanderer might have written repeatedly, and receiving no 
 answer to his communications, imagined that the dissoluteness 
 of his life had deprived him of the affections of his family ; 
 and deserving so well to have the proffer of renewed intercourse 
 rejected, believed that it actually was so. These, and a hundred 
 similar conjectures, found favour in the eyes of the young 
 traveller ; but the chances of a fatal accident, or sudden death, 
 he pertinaciously refused at present to include in the number 
 of probabilities. Had his father been seized with a mortal illness 
 on the road, was it not likely that, in the remorse occasioned in 
 the hardiest by approaching death, he would have written to his 
 brother, and, recommending his child to his care, have apprised 
 him of the addition to his fortune? Walter, then, did not 
 meditate embarrassing his present journey by those researches 
 among the dead which the worthy Courtland had so con- 
 siderately recommended to his prudence : should his expedition, 
 contrary to his hopes, prove wholly unsuccessful, it might then 
 be well to retrace his steps and adopt the suggestion. But what 
 man, at the age of twenty-one, ever took much precaution on 
 the darker side of a question in which his heart was interested ? 
 
 With what pleasure, escaping from conjecture to a more 
 ultimate conclusion, did he, in recalling those words, in which 
 his father had more than hinted to Courtland of his future 
 amendment, contemplate recovering a parent made wise by 
 years and sober by misfortunes, and restoring him to a hearth 
 of tranquil virtues and peaceful enjoyments ! He imaged to 
 himself a scene of that domestic happiness which is so perfect 
 in our dreams, because in our dreams monotony is always 
 excluded from the picture. And, in this creation of Fancy, 
 the form of Ellinor his bright-eyed and gentle cousin, was not 
 the least conspicuous. Since his altercation with Madeline, the 
 love he had once thought so ineffaceable had faded into a dim
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 179 
 
 and sullen hue; and, in proportion as the image of Madeline 
 grew indistinct, that of her sister became more brilliant. Often, 
 now, as he rode slowly onward, in the quiet of the deepening 
 night, and the mellow stars softening all on which they shone, 
 he pressed the little token of Ellinor's affection to his heart, 
 and wondered that it was only within the last few days he had 
 discovered that her eyes were more beautiful than Madeline's 
 and her smile more touching. Meanwhile the redoubted corporal, 
 who was by no means pleased with the change in his master's 
 plans, lingered behind, whistling the most melancholy tune in 
 his collection No young lady, anticipative of balls or coronets, 
 had ever felt more complacent satisfaction in a journey to London 
 than that which had cheered the athletic breast of the veteran 
 on finding himself, at last, within one day's gentle march of the 
 metropolis. And no young lady, suddenly summoned back in 
 the first flush of her ctibut by an unseasonable fit of gout or 
 economy in papa, ever felt more irreparably aggrieved than 
 now did the dejected corporal. His master had not yet even 
 acquainted him with the cause of the counter-march ; and, in 
 his own heart, he believed it nothing but the wanton levity 
 and unpardonable fickleness " common to all them 'ere boys 
 afore they have seen the world." He certainly considered 
 himself a singularly ill-used and injured man, and drawing 
 himself up to his full height, as if ii were a matter with which 
 Heaven should be acquainted at th<j earliest possible opportunity, 
 he indulged, as we before said, in the melancholy consolation of 
 a whistled death-dirge, occasionally interrupted by a long-drawn 
 interlude, half sigh, half snuffle, of his favourite augh baugh. 
 
 And here we remember that we have not as yet given to our 
 reader a fitting portrait of the corporal on horseback. Perhaps 
 no better opportunity than the present may occur ; and perhaps, 
 also, Corporal Bunting, as well as Melrose Abbey, may seem 
 a yet more interesting picture when viewed by the pale moon- 
 light. 
 
 The corporal, then, wore on his head a small cocked hat, 
 which had formerly belonged to the colonel of the forty-second 
 the prints of my uncle Toby may serve to suggest its shape ; 
 it had once boasted a feather that was gone : but the gold lace 
 
 M y
 
 I.VflENE ARAM 
 
 though tarnished, and the cockade, though battered, still re- 
 mained. From under this shade the profile of the corporal 
 assumed a particular aspect of heroism : though a good-looking 
 man in the main, it was his air, height, and complexion, which 
 made him so ; and, unlike Lucian's one-eyed prince, a side view 
 was not the most favourable point in which his features could be 
 regarded. His eyes, which were small and shrewd, were half 
 hid by a pair of thick, shaggy brows, which, while he whistled, 
 he moved to and fro, as a horse moves his ears when he gives 
 warning that he intends to shy ; his nose was straight so far 
 so good but then it did not go far enough; for though it 
 seemed no despicable proboscis in front, somehow or another 
 it appeared exceedingly short in profile: to make up for this, 
 the upper lip was of a length the more striking from being 
 exceedingly straight ; it had learned to hold itself upright, 
 and make the most of its length as well as its master; his 
 under lip, alone protruded in the act of whistling, served yet more 
 markedly to throw the nose into the background ; and, as for 
 the chin talk of the upper lip being long indeed ! the chin 
 would have made two of it ; such a chin ! so long, so broad, so 
 massive, had it been put on a dish it might have passed, without 
 discredit, for a round of beef! and it looked yet larger than it 
 was from the exceeding tightness of the stiff black-leather stock 
 below, which forced forth all the flesh it encountered into 
 another chin a remove to the round I The hat, being some- 
 what too small for the corporal, and being cocked knowingly in 
 front, left the hinder half of the head exposed. And the hair, 
 carried into a club according to the fashion, lay thick, and of a 
 grizzled black, on the brawny shoulders below. The veteran 
 was dressed in a blue coat, originally a frock ; but the skirts 
 having once, to the imminent peril of the place they guarded, 
 caught fire, as the corporal stood basking himself at Peter 
 Dealtry's, had been so far amputated as to leave only the stump 
 of a tail, which just covered, and no more, that part which 
 neither Art in bipeds nor Nature in quadrupeds loves to leave 
 wholly exposed. And that part, ah, how ample ! Had Liston 
 seen it, he would have hid for ever his diminished opposite to 
 head f No wonder the corporal had been so annoyed by the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 181 
 
 parcel of the previous day, a coat so short, and a ; but no 
 
 matter, pass we to the rest ! It was not only in its skirts that 
 this wicked coat was deficient ; the corporal, who had within the 
 last few years thriven lustily in the inactive serenity of Grass- 
 dale, had outgrown it prodigiously across the chest and girth ; 
 nevertheless he managed to button it up. And thus the mus- 
 cular proportions of the wearer bursting forth in all quarters, 
 gave him the ludicrous appearance of a gigantic schoolboy. 
 His wrists, and large sinewy hands, both employed at the bridle 
 of his hard-mouthed charger, were markedly visible ; for it was 
 the corporal's custom, whenever he came to an obscure part of 
 the road, carefully to take off, and prudently to pocket, a pair of 
 scrupulously clean white leather gloves, which smartened up his 
 appearance prodigiously in passing through the towns in their 
 route. His breeches were of yellow buckskin, and ineffably 
 tight ; his stockings were of grey worsted ; and a pair of laced 
 boots, that reached the ascent of a very mountainous calf, but 
 declined any further progress, completed his attire. 
 
 Fancy then this figure, seated with laborious and unswerving 
 perpendicularity on a demi-pique saddle, ornamented with a 
 huge pair of well-stuffed saddle-bags, and holsters revealing the 
 stocks of a brace of immense pistols, the horse with its obstinate 
 mouth thrust out, and the bridle drawn as tight as a bowstring ! 
 its ears laid sullenly down, as if, like the corporal, it complained 
 of going to Yorkshire ; and its long thick tail, not set up in a 
 comely and well-educated arch, but hanging sheepishly down, as 
 if resolved that its buttocks should at least be better covered 
 than its master's ! 
 
 And now, reader, it is not our fault if you cannot form some 
 conception of the physical perfections of the corporal and his 
 steed. 
 
 The reverie of the contemplative Bunting was interrupted by 
 the voice of his master calling upon him to approach. 
 
 " Well, well," muttered he, " the younker can't expect one as 
 close at his heels as if we were trotting into Lunnon, which we 
 
 might be at this time, sure enough, if he had not been so d d 
 
 flighty augh ! " 
 
 " Bunting I say, do you hear ? "
 
 ifa EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Yes, your honour, yes ; this 'ere horse is so 'nation sluggish." 
 
 " Sluggish I why I thought he was too much the reverse, 
 Bunting. I thought he was one rather requiring the bridle than 
 the spur." 
 
 " Augh ! your honour, he's slow when he should not, and fast 
 when he should not: changes his mind from pure whim, or pure 
 spite ; new to the world, your honour, that's all ; a different 
 thing if properly broke. There be a many like him !" 
 
 " You mean to be personal, Mr. Bunting," said Walter, laugh- 
 ing at the evident ill-humour of his attendant 
 
 "Augh! indeed and no! I daren't a poor man like me 
 go for to presume to be personal, unless I get hold of a 
 poorer ! " 
 
 " Why, Bunting, you do not mean to say that you would be so 
 ungenerous as to affront a man because he was poorer than you ? 
 fie!" 
 
 " Whaugh, your honour ! and is not that the very reason why 
 I'd affront him ? Surely, it is not my betters I should affront ; 
 that would be ill-bred, your honour, quite want of discipline." 
 
 " But we owe it to our great commander," said Walter, " to 
 love all men." 
 
 " Augh 1 sir, that's very good maxim, none better but 
 shows ignorance of the world, sir great ! " 
 
 " Bunting, your way of thinking is quite disgraceful. Do you 
 know, sir, that it is the Bible you were speaking of?" 
 
 "Augh, sir ! but the Bible was addressed to them Jew creturs ! 
 Howsomever, it's an excellent book for the poor ; keeps 'm in 
 order, favours discipline, none more so." 
 
 " Hold your tongue. I called you, Bunting, because I think I 
 heard you say you had once been at York. Do you know what 
 towns we shall pass on our road thither?" 
 
 ' N'ot I, your honour : it's a mighty long way. What would 
 the squire think ? just at Lunnon, too ! Could have learned 
 the whole road, sir, inns and all, if you had but gone on to 
 Lunnon, first. Howsomever, young gentlemen will be hasty, 
 no confidence in those older, and who are experienced in the 
 world I knows what I knows," and the corporal recommenced 
 his whistle.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 183 
 
 " Why, Bunting, you seem quite discontented at my change of 
 journey. Are you tired of riding, or were you very eager to get 
 to town ? " 
 
 " Augh ! sir ; I was only thinking of what's best for your 
 honour, I ! ' Tis not for me to like or dislike. Howsomever, 
 tlje horses, poor creturs, must want rest for some days. Them 
 dumb animals can't go on for ever, bumpety, bumpety, as your 
 honour and I do. Whaugh ! " 
 
 " It is very true, Bunting ; and I have had some thoughts of 
 sending you home again with the horses, and travelling post." 
 
 " Eh ! " grunted the corporal, opening his eyes, " hopes your 
 honour ben't serious." 
 
 " Why, if you continue to look so serious, I must be serious 
 too. You understand, Bunting ? " 
 
 " Augh ! and that's all, your honour," cried the corporal, 
 brightening up ; " shall look merry enough to-morrow, when 
 one's in, as it were, like, to the change of the road. But you see, 
 sir, it took me by surprise. Said I to myself, says I, it is an odd 
 thing for you, Jacob Bunting, on the faith of a man, it is ! to go 
 tramp here, tramp there, without knowing why or wherefore, as 
 if you were still a private in the forty-second, 'stead of a retired 
 corporal. You see, your honour, my pride was a-hurt ; but it's 
 all over now ; only spites those beneath me, I knows the world 
 at my time o' life." 
 
 " Well, Bunting, when you learn the reason of my change of 
 plan, you'll be perfectly satisfied that I do quite right. In a 
 word, you know that my father has been long missing ; I have 
 found a clue by which I yet hope to trace him. This is the 
 reason of my journey to Yorkshire." 
 
 " Augh ! " said the corporal, " and a very good reason : you're 
 a most excellent son, sir ; and Lunnon so nigh ! " 
 
 " The thought of London seems to have bewitched you. 
 Did you expect to find the streets of gold since you were 
 there last ? " 
 
 " A well, sir ; I hears they be greatly improved." 
 
 " Pshaw ! you talk of knowing the world, Bunting, and yet 
 you pant to enter it with all the inexperience of a boy. Why,, 
 even I could set you an example."
 
 184 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Tis 'cause I knows the world," said the corporal, exceedingly 
 nettled, " that I wants to get back to it. I have heard of some 
 spoonics as never kist a girl, but never heard of any one who had 
 kist a girl once that did not long to be at it again." 
 
 44 And I suppose, Mr. Profligate, it is that longing which makes 
 you so hot for London ? " 
 
 "There have been worse longings nor that," quoth the 
 corporal, gravely. 
 
 14 Perhaps you meditate marrying one of the London belles ; 
 an heiress, eh ? " 
 
 " Can't but say," said the corporal very solemnly, " but that 
 might be 'ticed to marry a fortin, if so be she was young, pretty, 
 good-tempered, and fell desperately in love with nte best 
 quality of all" 
 
 44 You're a modest fellow." 
 
 " Why, the longer a man lives, the more knows his value ; 
 would not sell myself a bargain now, whatever might at 
 twenty-one." 
 
 44 At that rate you would be beyond all price at seventy," said 
 Walter. " But now tell me, Bunting, were you ever in love, 
 really and honestly in love ? " 
 
 " Indeed, your honour," said the corporal, " I have been over 
 head and ears ; but that was afore I learnt to swim. Love's 
 very like bathing. At first we go souse to the bottom, but if 
 we're not drowned then, we gather pluck, grow calm, strike out 
 gently, and make a deal pleasanter thing of it afore we've done. 
 I'll tell you, sir, what I thinks of love : 'twixt you and me, sir, 
 'tis not that great thing in life boys and girls want to make it 
 out to be : if 'twere one's dinner, that would be summut, for one 
 can't do without that ; but lauk, sir, love's all in the fancy. One 
 docs not cat it, nor drink it : and as for the rest, why, it's 
 bother!" 
 
 44 Bunting, you're a beast," said Walter, in a rage ; for though 
 the corporal had come off with a slight rebuke for his sneer at 
 religion, we grieve to say that an attack on the sa-' redness 
 of love seemed a crime beyond all toleration to the theologian 
 of twenty-one. 
 
 The corporal bowed, and thrust his tongue in his cheek.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 185 
 
 There was a pause of some moments. 
 
 "And what," said Walter, for his spirits were raised, and he 
 liked recurring to the quaint shrewdness of the corporal, " and 
 what, after all, is the great charm of the world, that you so 
 much wished to return to it ? " 
 
 " Augh ! " replied the corporal, " 'tis a pleasant thing to look ' 
 about 'un with all one's eyes open ; rogue here, rogue there, 
 keeps one alive ; life in Lunnon, life in a village all the 
 difference 'twixt healthy walk and a doze in armchair ; by the 
 faith of a man, 'tis ! " 
 
 " What ! it is pleasant to have rascals about one ? " 
 
 " Sure/y yes," returned the corporal, dryly : " what so delight- 
 ful like as to feel one's cliverness and 'bility all set on end 
 bristling up like a porkypine ? Nothing makes a man tread so 
 light, feel so proud, breathe so briskly, as the knowledge that he 
 has all his wits about him, that he's a match for any one, that 
 the divil himself could not take him in!" 
 
 Walter laughed. 
 
 " And to feel one is likely to be cheated is the pleasantest way 
 of passing one's time in town, Bunting, eh ? " 
 
 " Augh ! and in cheating, too ! " answered the corporal ; 
 " 'cause you sees, sir, there be two ways o' living ; one to cheat 
 one to be cheated. Tis pleasant enough to be cheated for a 
 little while, as the younkers are, and as you'll be, your honour ; 
 but that's a pleasure don't last long t'other lasts all your life ; 
 dare say your honour's often heard rich gentlemen say to their 
 sons, ' You ought, for your own happiness' sake like, my lad, to 
 have summut to do ; ought to have some profession, be you 
 niver so rich : ' very true, your honour ; and what does that 
 mean ? why, it means that, 'stead of being idle and cheated, 
 the boy ought to be busy and cheat augh ! " 
 
 " Must a man who follows a profession necessarily cheat, then?" 
 
 " Baugh ! can your honour ask that ? Does not the lawyer 
 cheat ? and the doctor cheat ? and the parson cheat more than 
 any ? And that's the reason they all takes so much int'rest 
 in their profession bother ! " 
 
 " But the soldier ? you say nothing of him." 
 
 "Why, the soldier," said the corporal, with dignity, ''the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 friratc soldier, poor fellow I is only cheated ; but when he comes 
 for to get for to be as high as a corp'ral, or a sargent, he comes 
 for to get to bully others, and to cheat Augh ! then, 'tis not 
 for the privates to cheat ; that would be 'sumption indeed, 
 
 save us : 
 
 "The general, then, cheats more than any, I suppose ?" 
 
 "Course, your honour; he talks to the world 'bout honour, 
 an' glory, and love of his country, and such like ! Augh ! that's 
 proper cheating ! " 
 
 " You're a bitter fellow, Mr. Bunting. And, pray, what do you 
 think of the ladies ; are they as bad as the men ? " 
 
 " Ladies augh ! when they're married yes ! but of all them 
 'ere creturs, I respects the kept ladies the most ; on the faith of a 
 man, I do ! Gad ! how well they knows the world one quite 
 envies the she-rogues ; they beats the wives hollow ! Augh ! 
 and your honour should see how they fawns, and flatters, and 
 butters up a man, and makes him think they loves him like 
 winkey, all the time they ruins him ! They kisses money out of 
 the miser, and sits in their satins, while the wife 'drot her! 
 sulks in a gingham. Oh, they be cliver creturs, and they'll do 
 what they likes with Old Nick, when they gets there, for 'tis the 
 old gentlemen they cozens the best ; and then," continued the 
 corporal, waxing more and more loquacious, for his appetite in 
 talking grew with what it fed on, " then there be another set o* 
 queer folks you'll see in Lunnon, sir, that is, if you falls in 
 with 'em, hang all together, quite in a clink. I seed lots 
 on 'em when lived with the colonel Colonel Dysart, you knows 
 augh ! " 
 
 "And what are they?" 
 
 "Rum ones, your honour; what they calls authors." 
 
 " Authors ! what the deuce had you or the colonel to do 
 with authors ? " 
 
 " Augh ! then, the colonel was a very fine gentleman, what the 
 lamed calls a my-seen-ass ; wrote little songs himself 'cross- 
 ticks, you knows, your honour : once he made a play 'cause 
 why ? he lived with an actress !" 
 
 " A very good reason, indeed, for emulating Shakspeare : and 
 did the play succeed ? "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 187 
 
 " Fancy it did, your honour ; for the colonel was a dab with 
 the scissors." 
 
 " Scissors ! the pen, you mean ? " 
 
 " No ! that's what the dirty authors make plays with ; a lord 
 and a colonel, my-seen-asses, always takes the scissors." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " Why, the colonel's lady had lots of plays, and she marked a 
 scene here, a jest there, a line in one place, a bit of blarney in 
 t'other ; and the colonel sat by with a great paper book, cut 'em 
 out, pasted them in book. Augh ! but the colonel pleased the 
 town mightily." 
 
 " Well, so he saw a great many authors : and did not they 
 please you ? " 
 
 " Why, they be so d d quarrelsome," said the corporal ; 
 
 " wringle, wrangle, wrongle, snap, growl, scratch ; that's not 
 what a man of the world does ; man of the world niver quarrels : 
 then, too, these creturs always fancy you forgets that their 
 father was a clargyman ; they always thinks more of their 
 family like than their writings ; and if they does not get 
 money when they wants it, they bristles up and cries, ' Not 
 treated like a gentleman, by G ! ' Yet, after all, they've a 
 deal of kindness in 'em, if you knows how to manage 'em 
 augh ! but, cat-kindness, paw to-day, claw to-morrow. And, 
 then, they always marries young the poor things ! and have a 
 power of children, and live on the fame and fortin they are 
 to get one of these days ; for, my eye ! they be the most 
 sanguinest folks alive ! " 
 
 " Why, Bunting, what an observer you have been ! Who 
 could ever have imagined that you had made yourself master of 
 :;o many varieties in men ! " j^n 
 
 " Augh, your honour, I had nothing to do when I was the 
 colonel's valley but to take notes to ladies and make use of my 
 eyes. Always a 'flective man." 
 
 " It is odd that, with all your abilities, you did not provide 
 better for yourself." 
 
 " 'Twas not my fault," said the corporal, quickly ; " but, some- 
 how, do what will, 'tis not always the cliverest as foresees the 
 best. But I be young yet, your honour ! "
 
 iSS EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Walter stared at the corporal, and laughed outright: the 
 corporal was exceedingly piqued. 
 
 44 Augh ! mayhap you thinks, sir, that 'cause not so young as 
 you, not young at all ; but what's forty, or fifty, or fifty-five in 
 public life? Never hear much of men afore then, Tis the 
 autumn that reaps, spring sows augh ! bother !" 
 
 44 Very true, and very poetical I see you did not live among 
 authors for nothing." 
 
 44 I knows summut of language, your honour," quoth the 
 corporal, pedantically. 
 
 " It is evident" 
 
 44 For, to be a man of the world, sir, must know all the ins 
 and outs of speechifying ; 'tis words, sir, that makes another 
 man's mare go your road. Augh ' that must have been a cliver 
 man as invented language ; wonders who 'twas mayhap Moses, 
 your honour ? " 
 
 41 Never mind who it was," said Walter, gravely ; " use the gift 
 discreetly." 
 
 44 Umph ! " said the corporal. " Yes, your honour," renewed 
 he, after a pause, " it be a marvel to think on how much a man 
 does in the way of cheating as has the gift of the gab. Wants 
 a missis, talks her over ; wants your purse, talks you out on it ! 
 wants a place, talks himself into it. What makes the parson ? 
 words; the lawyer? words; the parliament -man ? words; 
 Words can ruin a country, in the big house ; words saves souls, 
 in the pulpits ; words make even them 'ere authors, poor creturs I 
 in every man's mouth. Augh ! sir, take note of the words, and 
 the things will take care of themselves bother !" 
 
 " Your reflections amaze me, Bunting," said Walter, smiling. 
 44 But the night begins to close in : I trust we shall not meet 
 with any misadventure." 
 
 1 'Tis an ugsome bit of road ! " said the corporal, looking round 
 him. 
 
 " The pistols ?" 
 
 44 Primed and loaded, your honour." 
 
 "After all, Bunting, a little skirmish would be no bad sport 
 eh ? especially to an old soldier like you." 
 
 "Augh ! Laugh! 'Tis no pleasant \vork fighting, without pay
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 189 
 
 at least. Tis not like love and eating, your honour : the better 
 for being what they calls ' gratis.' " 
 
 "Yet I have heard you talk of the pleasure of fighting ; not 
 for pay, Bunting, but for your king and country." 
 
 "Augh! and that's when I wanted to cheat the poor creturs 
 at Grassdale, your honour. Don't take the liberty to talk stuff 
 to my master." 
 
 They continued thus to beguile the way till Walter again sank 
 into a reverie, while the corporal, who began more and more to 
 dislike the aspect of the ground they had entered on, still rode 
 by his side. 
 
 The road was heavy, and wound down the long hill which had 
 stricken so much dismay into the corporal's stout heart on the 
 previous day, when he had beheld its commencement at the 
 extremity of the town, where but for him they had not dined. 
 They were now a little more than a mile from the said town, the 
 whole of the way was taken up by this hill, and the road, very 
 different from the smoothened declivities of the present day, 
 seemed to have been cut down the very steepest part of its 
 centre. Loose stones and deep ruts increased the difficulty of 
 the descent, and it was with a slow pace and a guarded rein that 
 both our travellers now continued their journey. On the left 
 side of the road was a thick and lofty hedge ; to the right a wild, 
 bare, savage heath sloped downward, and just afforded a glimpse 
 of the spires and chimneys of the town, at which the corporal 
 was already supping in idea. That incomparable personage was, 
 however, abruptly recalled to the present instant by a most 
 violent stumble on the part of his hard-mouthed, Roman-nosed 
 horse. The horse was all but down, and the corporal all but 
 over. 
 
 " D n it," said the corporal, slowly recovering his per- 
 pendicularity ; "and the way to Lunnon \vas as smooth as a 
 bowling-green ! " 
 
 Ere this rueful exclamation was well out of the corporal's 
 mouth, a bullet whizzed past him from the hedge. It went so 
 close to his ear, that but for that lucky stumble, Jacob Bunting 
 had been as the grass of the field, which flourisheth one moment 
 and is cut down the next
 
 190 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Startled by the sound, the corporal's horse made off full tear 
 down the hill, and carried him several paces beyond his master 
 ere he had power to stop its career. But Walter, reining up his 
 better-managed steed, looked round for the enemy, nor looked 
 in vain. 
 
 Three men started from the hedge with a simultaneous shout. 
 Walter fired, but without effect; ere he could lay hand on the 
 second pistol his bridle was seized, and a violent blow from a 
 long double-handed bludgeon brought him to the ground.
 
 BOOK IIL 
 
 O. Avrnj unXtora / f) &ia(f>0(ipov<ra fie. 
 M. AeiVT) yap fj foot, dXX' opots la<rifiaS* 
 O. Maw'at rt 
 
 * * 
 
 M. 4>avra<r|ifira)v fie ra8e vocrty irottav irrro ; 
 
 OPE2T. 398407. 
 
 O. Mightiest indeed is the grief consuming me. 
 
 M. Dreadful is the Divinity, but still placable. 
 
 O. The Furies also 
 
 * * 
 
 M. Urged by what apparitions do you rave thus ? 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FRAUD AND VIOLENCE ENTER EVEN GRASSDALE. PETER'S NEWS. THE LOVERS 1 
 WALK. THE REAPPEARANCE. 
 
 Auf. Whence comest thou ? What wouldest thou ? Coriolanut. 
 
 ONE evening Aram and Madeline were passing through the 
 village in their accustomed walk, when Peter Dealtry sallied 
 forth from The Spotted Dog, and hurried up to the lovers with 
 a countenance full of importance, and a little ruffled by fear. 
 
 " Oh, sir, sir (miss, your servant !) have you heard the news ? 
 Two houses at Checkington (a small town, some miles distant 
 from Grassdale) were forcibly entered last night robbed, your 
 honour, robbed. Squire Tibson was tied to his bed, his bureau
 
 1 9 3 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 rifled, himself shockingly confused on the head ; and the maid- 
 servant, Sally her sister lived with me, a very good girl was 
 locked up in the cupboard. As to the other house, they carried 
 off all the plate. There were no less than four men all masked, 
 your honour, and armed with pistols. What if they should come 
 here ! Such a thing was never heard of before in these parts. 
 But, sir but, miss do not be afraid ; do not ye, now, for I may 
 say with the Psalmist, 
 
 " ' For wicked men shall drink the dregs 
 
 Which thev in wrath shall wring : 
 For 7 will Hit my voice and make 
 Them flee while I do sing.' " 
 
 " You could not find a more effectual method of putting them 
 to flight, Peter," said Madeline, smiling ; " but go and talk to 
 my uncle. I know we have a whole magazine of blunderbusses 
 and guns at home ; they may be useful now. But you are well 
 provided in case of attack. Have you not the corporal's 
 famous cat, Jacobina ? surely a match for fifty robbers ! " 
 
 "Ay, miss, on the principle of set a thief to catch a thief, 
 perhaps she may be ; but, really, it is no jesting matter. I 
 don't say as how I am timbersome ; but, tho' flesh is grass, I 
 does not wish to be cut down afore my time. Ah, Mr. Aram 
 your house is very lonesome like ; it is out of reach of all your 
 neighbours. Hadn't you better, sir, take up your lodgings at 
 the squire's for the present ? " 
 
 Madeline pressed Aram's arm, and looked up fearfully in his 
 face. " Why, my good friend," said he to Dealtry, " robbers will 
 have little to gain in my house, unless they are given to learned 
 pursuits. It would be something new, Peter, to see a gang of 
 housebreakers making off with a telescope, or a pair of globes, 
 or a great folio, covered with dust." 
 
 "Ay, your honour ; but they may be the more savage for being 
 disappointed." 
 
 "Well, well, Peter, we will see," replied Aram, impatiently; 
 " meanwhile we may meet you again at the hall. Good evening 
 for the present." 
 
 " Do, dearest Eugene do, for Heaven's sake 1" said Madeline, 
 with tears in her eyes, as, turning from Dealtry, they directed
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 193 
 
 their steps towards the quiet valley, at the end of which the 
 student's house was situated, and which was now more than 
 ever Madeline's favourite walk ; " do, dearest Eugene, come up 
 to the manor-house till these wretches are apprehended. Con- 
 sider how open your house is to attack ; and surely there can 
 be no necessity to remain in it now." 
 
 Aram's calm brow darkened for a moment. " What ! dearest," 
 said he, " can you be affected by the foolish fears of yon 
 dotard ? How do we know as yet whether this improbable 
 story have any foundation in truth? At all events, it is evi- 
 dently exaggerated. Perhaps an invasion of the poultry-yard, 
 in which some hungry fox was the real offender, may be the 
 true origin of this terrible tale. Nay, love nay, do not look 
 thus reproachfully ; it will be time enough for us, when we 
 have sifted the grounds of alarm, to take our precautions ; 
 meanwhile, do not blame me if in your presence I cannot 
 admit fear. Oh, Madeline dear, dear Madeline ! could you 
 guess, could you dream, how different life has become to me 
 since I knew you ! Formerly, I will frankly own to you, that 
 dark and boding apprehensions were w6nt to lie heavy at my 
 heart : the cloud was more familiar to me than sunshine. But 
 now I have grown a child, and can see around me nothing 
 but hope ; my life was winter your love has breathed it into, 
 spring." 
 
 "And yet, Eugene yet " 
 
 " Yet what, my Madeline ? " 
 
 " There are still moments when I have no power over your 
 thoughts; moments when you break away from me; when you 
 mutter to yourself feelings in which I have no share, and- 
 which seem to steal the consciousness from your eye and the 
 colour from your lip." 
 
 "Ah, indeed!" said Aram, quickly; "what! you watch me 
 so closely ? " 
 
 " Can you wonder that I do ? " said Madeline, with an earnest 
 tenderness in her voice. 
 
 "You must not, then you must not," returned her lover, 
 almost fiercely. " I cannot bear too nice and sudden a scrutiny ; 
 consider how long I have clung to a stern and solitary inde- 
 
 N
 
 194 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 pendence of thought, which allows no watch, and forbids account 
 of itself to any one. Leave it to time and your love to win 
 their inevitable way. Ask not too much from me now. And 
 mark mark, I pray you, whenever, in spite of myself, these 
 moods you refer to darken over me, heed not listen not Leavt 
 tfu ! solitude is their only cure! Promise me this, love- 
 promise." 
 
 "It is a harsh request, Eugene; and I do not think I will 
 grant you so complete a monopoly of thought," answered 
 Madeline, playfully, yet half in earnest. 
 
 "Madeline," said Aram, with a deep solemnity of manner, "I 
 ask a request on which my very love for you depends. From 
 the depths of my soul, I implore you to grant it ; yea, to the 
 very letter." 
 
 "Why, why, this is " began Madeline, when, encountering 
 
 the full, the dark, the inscrutable gaze of her strange lover, she 
 broke off in a sudden fear, which she could not analyse ; and 
 only added, in a low and subdued voice, " I promise to obey 
 you." 
 
 As if a weight were lifted from his heart, Aram now brightened 
 at once into himself in his happiest mood. He poured forth a 
 torrent of grateful confidence, of buoyant love, that soon swept 
 from the remembrance of the blushing and enchanted Madeline 
 the momentary fear, the sudden chillness, which his look had 
 involuntarily stricken into her mind. And as they now wound 
 along the most lonely part of that wild valley, his arm twined 
 round her waist, and his low but silver voice giving magic to the 
 very air she breathed she felt, perhaps, a more entire and 
 unruffled sentiment of present, and a more credulous persuasion 
 of future happiness, than she had ever experienced before. And 
 Aram himself dwelt with a more lively and detailed fulness than 
 he was wont on the prospects they were to share, and the 
 security and peace which retirement would bestow upon their life. 
 
 " Shall it not," he said, " shall it not be that we shall look from 
 our retreat upon the shifting passions and the hollow loves of 
 the distant world ? We can have no petty object, no vain 
 allurement, to distract the unity of our affection ; we must be all 
 in all to each other : for what else can there be to engross our
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 195 
 
 thoughts and occupy our feelings hcref If, my beautiful love, 
 you have selected one whom the world might deem a strange 
 choice for youth and loveliness like yours, you have at least 
 selected one who can have no idol but yourself. The poets 
 tell you, and rightly, that solitude is the fit sphere for love ; 
 but how few are the lovers whom solitude does not fatigue ! 
 They rush into retirement with souls unprepared for its stern 
 joys and its unvarying tranquillity: they weary of each other, 
 because the solitude itself to which they fled palls upon and 
 oppresses them. But to me, the freedom which low minds call 
 obscurity is the aliment of life. I do not enter the temples ot 
 Nature as a stranger, but the priest : nothing can ever tire me ot 
 the lone and august altars on which I sacrificed my youth ; and 
 now, what Nature, what Wisdom once were to me no, no, 
 more, immeasurably more than these you are ! Oh, Madeline ! 
 methinks there is nothing under heaven like the feeling which 
 puts us apart from all that agitates, and fevers, and degrades the 
 herd of men ; which grants us to control the tenor of our future, 
 life, because it annihilates our dependence upon others ; and 
 while the rest of earth are hurried on, blind and unconscious, by 
 the hand of Fate, leaves us the sole lords of our destiny, and 
 able, from the Past, which we have governed, to become the 
 Prophets of our Future!" 
 
 At this moment Madeline uttered a faint shriek, and clung 
 trembling to Aram's arm. Amazed, and aroused from his 
 enthusiasm, he looked up, and on seeing the cause of her alarm, 
 seemed himself transfixed, as by a sudden terror, to the earth. 
 
 But a few paces distant, standing amidst the long and rank 
 fern that grew on either side of their path, quite motionless, and 
 looking on the pair with a sarcastic smile, stood the ominous 
 stranger whom the second chapter of our first Book introduced 
 to the reader. 
 
 For one instant Aram seemed utterly appalled and overcome ; 
 his cheek grew the colour of death ; and Madeline felt his heart 
 beat with a loud, a fearful force beneath the breast to which she 
 clung. But his was not the nature any earthly dread could long 
 daunt. He whispered to Madeline to come on : and slowly, and 
 with his usual firm but gliding step, continued his way. 
 
 N 2
 
 196 EUGEN'E ARAM. 
 
 * Good evening, Eugene Aram," said the stranger ; and as he 
 spoke, he touched his hat slightly to Madeline. 
 
 " I thank you," replied the student, in a calm voice, " do you 
 want aught with me ? " 
 
 " Humph I yes, if it so please you." 
 
 14 Pardon me, dear Madeline," said Aram, softly, and dis- 
 engaging himself from her, " but for one moment." 
 
 He advanced to the stranger, and Madeline could not but 
 note that, as Aram accosted him, his brow fell, and his manner 
 seemed violent and agitated : but she could not hear the words 
 of either; nor did the conference last above a minute. The 
 stranger bowed, and turning away, soon vanished among the 
 shrubs. Aram regained the side of his mistress. 
 
 " Who," cried she eagerly, " is that fearful man ? What is his 
 business ? What his name ? " 
 
 " He is a man whom I knew well some fourteen years ago," 
 replied Aram, coldly, and with ease ; " I did not then lead quite 
 so lonely a life, and we were thrown much together. Since that 
 time he has been in unfortunate circumstances rejoined the 
 army he was in early life a soldier, and had been disbanded 
 entered into business, and failed ; in short he has partaken of 
 those vicissitudes inseparable from the life of one driven to seek 
 the world. When he travelled this road some months ago, he 
 accidentally heard of my residence in the neighbourhood, and 
 naturally sought me. Poor as I am, I was of some assistance to 
 him. His route brings him hither again, and he again seeks me: 
 I suppose, too, that I must again aid him." 
 
 "And is that, indeed, all?" said Madeline, breathing more 
 freely. " Well, poor man, if he be your friend, he must be 
 inoffensive I have done him wrong. And does he want money ? 
 I have some to give him here, Eugene ! " And the simple- 
 hearted girl put her purse into Aram's hand. 
 
 14 No, dearest," said he, shrinking back ; " no, we shall not 
 require your contribution : I can easily spare him enough for the 
 present. But let us turn back, it grows chill." 
 
 " And why did he leave us, Eugene ? " 
 
 " Because I desired him to visit me at home an hour hence." 
 
 "An hour! then you will not sup with us to-night?"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 197 
 
 " No, not this night, dearest." 
 
 The conversation now ceased ; Madeline in vain endeavoured 
 to renew it. Aram, though without relapsing into one of his 
 frequent reveries, answered her only in monosyllables. They 
 arrived at the manor-house, and Aram at the garden-gate took 
 leave of her for the night, and hastened backward towards his 
 home. Madeline, after watching his form through the deepening 
 shadows until it disappeared, entered the house with a listless 
 step ; a nameless and thrilling presentiment crept to her heart ; 
 and she could have sat down and wept, though without a cause. 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN ARAM AND THE STRANGE*. 
 
 The spirits I have raised abandon me : 
 
 The spells which I have studied baffle me. Manfred. 
 
 MEANWHILE Aram strode rapidly through the village, and 
 not till he had regained the solitary valley did he relax his step. 
 
 The evening had already deepened into night. Along the 
 sere and melancholy woods the autumnal winds crept with a 
 lowly but gathering moan. Where the water held its course, 
 a damp and ghostly mist clogged the air ; but the skies were 
 calm, and chequered only by a few clouds, that swept in long, 
 white, spectral streaks over the solemn stars. Now and then the 
 bat wheeled swiftly round, almost touching the figure of the 
 student, as he walked musingly onward. And the owl l that 
 before the month waned many days would be seen no more in 
 that region, came heavily from the trees like a guilty thought 
 that deserts its shade. It was one of those nights, half dim, 
 half glorious, which mark the early decline of the year. Nature 
 seemed restless and instinct with change ; there were those signs 
 in the atmosphere which leave the most experienced in doubt 
 whether the morning may rise in storm or sunshine. And in 
 1 That species called the short-eared owL
 
 198 EUCENK ARAM. 
 
 this particular period, the skyey influences seem to tincture the 
 animal life with their own mysterious and wayward spirit of 
 change. The birds desert their summer haunts ; an unaccount- 
 able disquietude pervades the brute creation ; even men in this 
 unsettled season have considered themselves, more than at 
 others, stirred by the motion and whisperings of their genius. 
 And every creature that flows upon the tide of the Universal 
 Life of Things, feels upon the ruffled surface the mighty and 
 solemn change which is at work within its depths. 
 
 And now Aram had nearly threaded the valley, and his own 
 abode became visible on the opening plain, when the stranger 
 emerged from the trees to the right, and suddenly stood before 
 the student " I tarried for you here, Aram," said he, " instead 
 of seeking you at home, at the time you fixed : for there are 
 certain private reasons which make it prudent I should keep as 
 much as possible among the owls, and it was therefore safer, 
 if not more pleasant, to lie here amidst the fern, than to make 
 myself merry in the village yonder." 
 
 " And what," said Aram, " again brings you hither ? Did you 
 not say, when you visited me some months since, that you 
 were about to settle in a different part of the country, with a 
 relation ? " 
 
 " And so I intended ; but Fate, as you would say, or the 
 devil, as I should, ordered it otherwise. I had not long left 
 you, when I fell in with some old friends, bold spirits and true, 
 the brave outlaws of the road and the field. Shall I have any 
 shame in confessing that I preferred their society, a society not 
 unfamiliar to me, to the dull and solitary life that I might have 
 led in tending my old bedridden relation in Wales, who, after 
 all, may live these twenty years, and at the end can scarcely 
 leave me enough for a week's ill-luck at the hazard-table ? In 
 a word, I joined my gallant friends, and intrusted myself to 
 their guidance. Since then, we have cruised around the country, 
 regaled ourselves cheerily, frightened the timid, silenced the 
 fractious, and by the help of your fate, or my devil, have found 
 ourselves, by accident, brought to exhibit our valour in this very 
 district, honoured by the dwelling-place of my learned friend 
 Eugene Aram."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 199 
 
 "Trifle not with me, Houseman," said Aram sternly; "I 
 scarcely yet understand you. Do you mean to imply that 
 yourself, and the lawless associates you say you have joined, 
 are lying out now for plunder in these parts ? " 
 
 " You say it : perhaps you heard of our exploits last night, 
 some four miles hence ? " 
 
 " Ha ! was that villany yours ? " 
 
 -"Villany!" repeated Houseman, in a tone of sullen offence. 
 " Come, Mast ei Aram, these words must not pass between you 
 and me, friend. 1 ; of such date, and on such a footing." 
 
 " Talk not of the past," replied Aram, with a livid lip, " and 
 call not tho'je whom Destiny once, in despite of Nature, drove 
 down her dark tide in a momentary companionship, by the 
 name of friends. Friends we are not ; but while we live there 
 is a tie between us stronger than that of friendship." 
 
 "You speak truth and wisdom," said Houseman, sneeringly; 
 " for my part, I care not what you call us, friends or foes." 
 
 "Foes, foes!" exclaimed Aram, abruptly; "not that. Has 
 life no medium in its ties ? Pooh pooh ! not foes ; we may not 
 be foes to each other." 
 
 "It were foolish, at least at present," said Houseman, care- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Look you, Houseman," continued Aram, drawing his com- 
 rade from the path into a wilder part of the scene, and, as he 
 spoke, his words were couched in a more low and inward voice 
 than heretofore. " Look you, I cannot live and have my life 
 darkened thus by your presence. Is not the world wide enough 
 for us both ? Why haunt each other ? what have you to gain 
 from me ? Can the thoughts that my sight recalls to you be 
 brighter, or more peaceful, than those which start upon me when 
 I gaze on you ? Does not a ghastly air, a charnel breath, hover 
 about us both ? Why perversely incur a torture it is so easy to 
 avoid ? Leave me leave these scenes. All earth spreads 
 before you choose your pursuits, and your resting-place else- 
 where, but grudge me not this little spot." 
 
 " I have no wish to disturb you, Eugene Aram, but I must 
 live ; and in order to live I must obey my companions : if I 
 deserted them, it would be to starve. They will not linger long
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 in this district ; a week, it may be ; a fortnight, at most : then, 
 like the Indian animal, they will strip the leaves, and desert the 
 tree. In a word, after we have swept the country, we are gone." 
 " Houseman, Houseman ! " said Aram, passionately, and 
 frowning till his brows almost hid his eyes ; but that part of the 
 orb which they did not hide, seemed as living fire ; " I now 
 implore, but I can threaten beware ' silence, I say " (and he 
 stamped his foot violently on the ground, as he saw Houseman 
 about to interrupt him) ; " listen to me throughout. Speak not 
 to me of tarrying here speak not of days, of weeks every 
 hour of which would sound upon my ear like a death-knell. 
 Dream not of a sojourn in these tranquil shades, upon an errand 
 of dread and violence the minions of the law aroused against 
 you, girt with the chances of apprehension and a shameful 
 
 death " 
 
 " And a full confession of my past sins," interrupted House- 
 man, laughing wildly. 
 
 "Fiend! devil!" cried Aram, grasping his comrade by the 
 throat, and shaking him with a vehemence that Houseman, 
 though a man of great strength and sinew, impotently attempted 
 to resist " Breathe but another word of such import ; dare to 
 menace me with the vengeance of such a thing as thou, and, by 
 the Heaven above us, I will lay thee dead at my feet ! " 
 
 " Release my throat, or you will commit murder," gasped 
 Houseman, with difficulty, and growing already black in the face. 
 Aram suddenly relinquished his gripe, and walked away with 
 a hurried step, muttering to himself. He then returned to the 
 side of Houseman, whose flesh still quivered either with rage or 
 fear, and, his own self-possession completely restored, stood 
 gazing upon him with folded arms, and his usual deep and 
 passionless composure of countenance ; and Houseman, if he 
 could not boldly confront, did not altogether shrink from, his 
 eye. So there and thus they stood, at a little distance from 
 each other, both silent, and yet with something unutterably 
 fearful in their silence. 
 
 " Houseman," said Aram at length in a calm, yet a hollow 
 voice, "it may be that I was wrong ; but there lives no man on 
 earth, save you, who could thus stir my blood, nor you with
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 20. 
 
 ea&e. And know, when you menace me, that it is not your 
 menace that subdues or shakes my spirit ; but that which robs 
 my veins of their even tenor is, that you should deem your 
 menace could have such power, or that you, that any man, 
 should arrogate to himself the thought that he could, by the 
 prospect of whatsoever danger, humble the soul and curb the 
 \\ill of Eugene Aram. And now I am calm; say what you 
 will, I cannot be vexed again." 
 
 " I have done," replied Houseman, coldly. " I have nothing 
 to say ; farewell ! " and he moved away among the trees. 
 
 w Stay," cried Aram, in some agitation ; " stay ; we must not 
 part thus. Look you, Houseman, you say you would starve 
 should you leave your present associates. That may not be ; 
 quit them this night, this moment: leave the neighbourhood, 
 and the little in my power is at your will." 
 
 "As to that," said Houseman, dryly, "what is in your power 
 is, I fear me, so little as not to counterbalance the advantages I 
 should lose in quitting my companions. I expect to net some 
 three hundreds before I leave these parts." 
 
 " Some three hundreds ! " repeated Aram, recoiling : " that 
 were indeed beyond me. I told you when we last met that it is 
 only from an annual payment I draw the means of subsistence." 
 
 " I remember it. I do not ask you for money, Eugene Aram ; 
 these hands can maintain me," replied Houseman, smiling 
 grimly. " I told you at once the sum I expected to receive 
 somewhere, in order to prove that you need not vex your 
 benevolent heart to afford me relief. I knew well the sum I 
 named was out of your power, unless, indeed, it be part of the 
 marriage portion you are about to receive with your bride. Fie, 
 Aram ! what secrets from your old friend ! You see I pick up 
 the news of the place without your confidence." 
 
 Again Aram's face worked, and his lip quivered ; but he 
 conquered his passion with a surprising self-command, and 
 answered, mildly, 
 
 "I do not know, Houseman, whether I shall receive any 
 marriage portion whatsoever ; if I do, I am willing to make 
 some arrangement by which I could engage you to molest me no 
 more. But it yet wants several days to my marriage ; quit the
 
 22 LUGENE ARAM. 
 
 neighbourhood now, and a month hence let us meet a^nin. 
 Whatever at that time may be my resources, you shall frankly 
 know them." 
 
 "It cannot be," said Houseman. "I quit not these districts 
 without a certain sum, not in hope, but possession. But why 
 interfere with me ? I seek not my hoards in your coffer. Why 
 so anxious that I should not breathe the same air as yourself?" 
 
 "It matters not," replied Aram, with a deep and ghastly 
 voice ; " but when you are near me, I feel as if I were with the 
 dead : it is a spectre that I would exorcise in ridding me of your 
 presence. Yet this is not what I now speak of. You are 
 engaged, according to your own lips, in lawless and midnight 
 schemes, in which you may (and the tide of chances runs 
 towards that bourne) be seized by the hand of Justice." 
 
 " Ho ! " said Houseman, sullenly ; " and was it not for saying 
 that you feared this, and its probable consequences, that you 
 well-nigh stifled me but now? So truth may be said one 
 moment with impunity, and the next at peril of life ! These are 
 the subtleties of you wise schoolmen, I suppose. Your Aristotles 
 and your Zenos, your Platos and your Epicuruses, teach you 
 notable distinctions, truly !" 
 
 " Peace ! " said Aram ; " are we at all times ourselves ? Are 
 the passions never our masters ? You maddened me into 
 anger ; behold, I am now calm : the subjects discussed between 
 myself and you are of life and death; let us approach them 
 with our senses collected and prepared. What, Houseman, are 
 you bent upon your own destruction, as well as mine, that you 
 persevere in courses which must end in a death of shame ? " 
 
 " What else can I do ? I will not work, and I cannot live like 
 you in a lone wilderness on a crust of bread. Nor is my name 
 like yours, mouthed by the praise of honest men : my character 
 is marked ; those who once welcomed me shun me now. I have no 
 resource for society (for 7 cannot face myself alone), but in the 
 fellowship of men like myself, whom the world has thrust from 
 its pale. I have no resource for bread, save in the pursuits that 
 are branded by justice, and accompanied with snares and danger, 
 What would you have me do?" 
 
 "Is it not better," said Aram, "to enjoy peace and safety
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 203 
 
 upon a small but certain pittance, than to live thus from hand to 
 mouth ? vibrating from wealth to famine, and the rope around 
 your neck, sleeping and awake ? Seek your relation ; in that 
 quarter, you yourself said your character was not branded ; live 
 with him, and know the quiet of easy days, and I promise you, 
 that if aught be in my power to make your lot more suitable to 
 your wants, so long as you lead the life of honest men, it shall 
 be freely yours. Is not this better, Houseman, than a short and 
 sleepless career of dread ? " 
 
 " Aram," answered Houseman, " are you, in truth, calm enough 
 to hear me speak? I warn you that if again you forget your- 
 self, and lay hands on me " 
 
 "Threaten not, threaten not," interrupted Aram, "but proceed; 
 all within me is now still and cold as ice. Proceed without fear 
 or scruple." 
 
 " Be it so ; we do not love one another : you have affected 
 contempt for me and I I no matter I am not a stone or a 
 stick, that I should not feel. You have scorned me you have 
 outraged me you have not assumed towards me even the 
 decent hypocrisies of prudence yet now you would ask of me 
 the conduct, the sympathy, the forbearance, the concession of 
 friendship. You wish that I should quit these scenes, where to 
 my judgment a certain advantage awaits me, solely that I may 
 lighten your breast of its selfish fears. You dread the dangers that 
 await me on your own account. And in my apprehension, you 
 forebode your own doom. You ask me, nay not ask, you would 
 command, you would awe me to sacrifice my will and wishes, in 
 order to soothe your anxieties and strengthen your own safety. 
 Mark me ! Eugene Aram, I have been treated as a tool, and I 
 will not be governed as a friend. I will not stir from the vicinity 
 of your home till my designs be fulfilled, I enjoy, I hug myself 
 in your torments. I exult in the terror with which you will hear 
 of each new enterprise, each new daring, each new triumph of 
 myself and my gallant comrades. And now I am avenged for 
 the affront you put upon me." 
 
 Though Aram trembled with suppressed passions from limb 
 to limb his voice was still calm, and his lip even wore a smile as 
 he answered,
 
 304 EfGLNE ARAM. 
 
 " I was prepared for this, Houseman ; you utter nothing that 
 surprises or appals me. You hate me ; it is natural : men united 
 as we are, rarely look on each other with a friendly or a pitying 
 eye. But, Houseman,' I KNOW YOU ! you are a man of 
 vehement passions, but interest with you is yet stronger than 
 passion. If not, our conference ia over. Go and do your 
 worst." 
 
 " You are right, most learned scholar ; I can fetter the tiger 
 within, in his deadliest rage, by a golden chain." 
 
 " Well, then, Houseman, it is not your interest to betray me 
 my destruction is your own." 
 
 " I grant it ; but if I am apprehended, and to be hung for 
 robbery ? " 
 
 " It will be no longer an object to you, to care for my safety. 
 Assuredly, I comprehend this. But my interest induces me to 
 wish that you be removed from the peril of apprehension, and 
 your interest replies, that if you can obtain equal advantages in 
 security, you would forego advantages accompanied by peril. 
 Say what we will, wander as we will, it is to this point that we 
 must return at last." 
 
 " Nothing can be clearer ; and were you a rich man, Eugene 
 Aram, or could you obtain your bride's dowry (no doubt a 
 respectable sum) in advance, the arrangement might at once 
 be settled." 
 
 Aram gasped for breath, and as usual with him in emotion, 
 made several strides, muttering rapidly and indistinctly to 
 himself, and then returned. 
 
 " Even were this possible, it would be but a short reprieve ; I 
 could not trust you ; the sum would be spent, and I again in the 
 state to which you have compelled me now, but without the 
 means again to relieve myself. No, no! if the blow must fall, be 
 it so one day as another." 
 
 "As you will," said Houseman; "but ." Just at that 
 
 moment, a long shrill whistle sounded below, as from the water. 
 Houseman paused abruptly " That signal is from my comrades ; 
 I must away. Hark ngain ! Farewell, Aram." 
 
 " Farewell, if it must be so." said Aram, in a tone of dogged 
 sullenness ; " but to-morro\v, should you know of any means by
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 205 
 
 which I could feel secure, beyond the security of your own word, 
 from your future molestation, I might yet how ? " 
 
 " To-morrow," said Houseman, " I cannot answer for myself ; 
 it is not always that I can leave my comrades : a natural jealousy 
 makes them suspicious of the absence of their friends. Yet hold ; 
 the night after to-morrow, the Sabbath night, most virtuous 
 Aram, I can meet you but not here some miles hence. You 
 know the foot of the Devil's Crag, by the waterfall ; it is a spot 
 quiet and shaded enough in all conscience for our interview ; and 
 I will tell you a secret I would trust no other man (hark, again !) 
 it is close by our present lurking-place. Meet me there ! it 
 would, indeed, be pleasanter to hold our conference under shelter 
 but just at present, I would rather not trust myself beneath 
 any honest man's roof in this neighbourhood. Adieu ! on Sunday 
 night, one hour before midnight." 
 
 The robber, for such then he was, waved his hand, and hurried 
 away in the direction from which the signal seemed to come. 
 
 Aram gazed after him, but with vacant eyes ; and remained 
 for several minutes rooted to the spot, as if the very life had left 
 him. 
 
 " The Sabbath night ! " said he, at length, moving slowly on ; 
 " and I must spin forth my existence in trouble and fear till then 
 //// then ! what remedy can I tJien invent ? It is clear that I 
 can have no dependence on his word, if won ; and I have not 
 even aught wherewith to buy it. But courage, courage, my 
 heart ; and work thou, my busy brain ! ye have never failed me 
 yet!"
 
 206 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FRESH ALARM IK THB VILLAGE. LESTER'S VISIT TO ARAM. A TRAIT OF DELI. 
 GATE KINDNESS IN THE STUDENT. MADELINE. HER PRONENESS TO CON- 
 FIDE. THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN LESTER AND ARAM. THE PERSONS BY 
 WHOM IT IS INTERRUPTED. 
 
 Not my own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
 
 Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come, 
 
 Can yet the lease of my true love control. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE'S Sonnets. 
 
 Commend me to their love, and I am proud, say, 
 That my occasions have found time to use them, 
 Toward a supply of money ; let the request 
 Be fifty talents. Timon of Athens. 
 
 THE next morning the whole village was alive and bustling- 
 with terror and consternation. Another, and a yet more daring 
 robbery, had been committed in the neighbourhood, and the 
 police of the county town had been summoned, and were now 
 busy in search of the offenders. Aram had been early disturbed 
 by the officious anxiety of some of his neighbours ; and it wanted 
 yet some hours of noon when Lester himself came to seek and 
 consult with the student. 
 
 Aram was alone in his large and gloomy chamber, surrounded, 
 as usual, by his books, but not, as usual, engaged in their con- 
 tents. With his ^ce leaning on his hand, and his eyes gazing on 
 a dull fire, that crept heavily upward through the damp fuel, he 
 sat by his hearth, listless, but wrapped in thought. 
 
 "Well, my friend," said Lester, displacing the books from one 
 of the chairs, and drawing the seat near the student's "you 
 have ere this heard the news ; and, indeed, in a county so quiet 
 as ours, these outrages appear the more fearful from their being 
 so unlocked for. We must set a guard on the village, Aram, and 
 you must leave this defenceless hermitage and come down to us 
 not for your own sake, but consider you will be an additional 
 safeguard to Madeline. You will lock up the house, dismiss your 
 poor old governant to her friends in the village, and walk back 
 with me at once to the hall"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 207 
 
 Aram turned uneasily in his chair. " I feel your kindness," 
 
 said he, after a pause, " but I cannot accept it, Madeline " 
 
 he stopped short at that name, and added, in an altered voice, 
 *' no, I will be one of the watch, Lester ; I will look to her to 
 your safety ; but I cannot sleep under another roof. I am 
 superstitious, Lester superstitious. I have made a vow, a foolish 
 one, perhaps, but I dare not break it. And my vow binds me, 
 not to pass a night, save on indispensable and urgent necessity, 
 anywhere but in my own home." 
 
 " But there is necessity." 
 
 " My conscience says not," said Aram, smiling. " Peace, my 
 good friend, we cannot conquer men's foibles, or wrestle with 
 men's scruples." 
 
 Lester in vain attempted to shake Aram's resolution on this 
 head ; he found him immovable, and gave up the effort in despair. 
 
 " Well," said he, " at all events we have set up a watch, and 
 can spare you a couple of defenders. They shall reconnoitre in 
 the neighbourhood of your house, if you persevere in your deter- 
 mination ; and this will serve, in some slight measure/ to satisfy 
 poor Madeline." 
 
 " Be it so," replied Aram ; " and dear Madeline herself, is she 
 so alarmed ? " 
 
 And now, in spite of all the more wearing and haggard 
 thoughts that preyed upon his breast, and the dangers by which 
 he conceived himself beset, the student's face, as he listened with 
 eager attention to every word that Lester uttered concerning his 
 daughter, testified how alive he yet was to the least incident that 
 related to Madeline, and how easily her innocent and peaceful 
 remembrance could allure him from himself. 
 
 " This room," said Lester, looking round, " will be, I conclude, 
 after Madeline's own heart ; but will you always suffer her 
 here ? Students do not sometimes like even the gentlest 
 interruption." 
 
 " I have not forgotten that Madeline's comfort requires some 
 more cheerful retreat than this,'' said Aram, with a melancholy 
 expression of countenance. " Follow me, Lester ; I meant this 
 for a little surprise to her. But Heaven only knows if I shall 
 ever show it to herself."
 
 toS EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "Why? what doubt of that can even your boding temper 
 indulge ? " 
 
 " We are as the wanderers in the desert," answered Aram, 
 " who are taught wisely to distrust their own senses ; that which 
 they gaze upon as the waters of existence is often but a faithless 
 vapour that would lure them to destruction." 
 
 In thus speaking he had traversed the room, and opening a 
 door, showed a small chamber with which it communicated, and 
 which Aram had fitted up with evident and not ungraceful care. 
 Every article of furniture that Madeline might most fancy, he 
 had procured from the neighbouring town. And some of the 
 lighter and more attractive books that he possessed, were ranged 
 around on shelves, above which were vases, intended for flowers; 
 the window opened upon a little plot that had been lately broken 
 up into a small garden, and was already intersected with walks, 
 and rich with shrubs. 
 
 There was something in this chamber that so entirely con- 
 trasted the one it adjoined, something so light, and cheerful, and 
 even gay. in its decoration and general aspect, that Lester uttered 
 an exclamation of delight and surprise. And indeed it did appear 
 to him touching, that this austere scholar, so wrapped in thought, 
 and so inattentive to the common forms of life, should have 
 manifested so much of tender and delicate consideration. In 
 another it would have been nothing, but in Aram it was a trait 
 that brought involuntary tears to the eyes of the good Lester ; 
 Aram observed them ; he walked hastily away to the window, 
 and sighed heavily ; this did not escape his friend's notice, and 
 after commenting on the attractions of the little room, Lester said, 
 
 " You seem oppressed in spirits, Eugene : can anything 
 have chanced to disturb you, beyond, at least, these alarms, 
 which are enough to agitate the nerves of the hardiest of us ? " 
 
 " No," said Aram ; " I had no sleep last night, and my health 
 is easily affected, and with my health my mind. But let us go 
 to Madeline ; the sight of her will revive me." 
 
 They then strolled down to the manor-house, and met by the 
 way a band of the younger heroes of the village, who had 
 volunteered to act as a patrol, and who were now marshalled 
 by Peter Dealtry, in a fit of heroic enthusiasm.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 209 
 
 Although it was broad daylight, and, consequently there was 
 little cause of immediate alarm, the worthy publican carried on 
 his shoulder a musket on full cock ; and each moment he kept 
 peeping about, as if not only every bush, but every blade of 
 grass, contained an ambuscade, ready to spring up the instant 
 he was off his guard. By his side the redoubted Jacobina, who 
 had transferred to her new master the attachment she had 
 originally possessed for the corporal, trotted peeringly along, 
 her tail perpendicularly cocked, and her ears moving to and fro 
 with a most incomparable air of vigilant sagacity. The cautious 
 Peter every now and then checked her ardour, as she was about 
 to quicken her step, and enliven the march by gambols better 
 adapted to serener times. 
 
 " Soho, Jacobina, soho ! gently, girl, gently ; thou little knowest 
 the dangers that may beset thee. Come up, my good fellows, 
 come to The Spotted Dog ; I will tap a barrel on purpose for 
 you ; and we will settle the plan of defence for the night. 
 Jacobina, come in, I say ; come in, 
 
 '* ' Lest, like a lion, they thee tear, 
 
 And rend in pieces small : 
 While there is none to succour thee, 
 And rid thee out of thrall." 
 
 What ho, there ! Oh ! I beg your honour's pardon ! Your 
 servant, Mr. Aram." 
 
 " What, patrolling already ? " said the squire ; " your men will 
 be tired before they are wanted ; reserve their ardour for the 
 night/' 
 
 " Oh, your honour, I have only been beating up for recruits ; 
 and we are going to consult a bit at home. Ah ! what a pity 
 the corporal isn't here : he would have been a tower of strength 
 unto the righteous. But howsomever, I do my best to supply 
 his place Jacobina, child, be still : I can't say as I knows the 
 musket-sarvice, your honour ; but I fancies as how we can do it 
 extemporaneous-like at a pinch." 
 
 " A bold heart, Peter, is the best preparation," said the squire. 
 
 "And," quoth Peter, quickly, "what saith the worshipful 
 Mister Sternhold, in the 45th Psalm, 5th verse ? 
 
 " ' Go forth with godly speed, in meekness, truth, and might, 
 
 And thy right hand shall thee instruct in works of dreadful night' 1 *
 
 10 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Peter quoted these verses, especially the last, with a truculent 
 frown, and a brandishing of the musket, that surprisingly 
 encouraged the hearts of his little armament ; and with a 
 general murmur of enthusiasm the warlike band marched off to 
 The Spotted Dog. 
 
 Lester and his companion found Madeline and Ellinor 
 standing at the window of the hall ; and Madeline's light step 
 was the first that sprang forward to welcome their return : 
 even the face of the student brightened when he saw the 
 kindling eye, the parted lip, the buoyant form, from which 
 the pure and innocent gladness she felt on seeing him broke 
 forth. 
 
 There was a remarkable trustfulness in Madeline's disposition. 
 Thoughtful and grave as she was by nature, she was yet ever 
 inclined to the more sanguine colourings of life ; she never 
 turned to the future with fear a placid sentiment of hope slept 
 at her heart she was one who surrendered herself with a fond 
 and implicit faith to the guidance of all she loved ; and to the 
 chances of life. It was a sweet indolence of the mind, which 
 made one of her most beautiful traits of character; there is 
 something so unselfish in tempers reluctant to despond. You 
 see that such persons are not occupied with their own existence; 
 they are not fretting the calm of the present life with the 
 egotisms of care, and conjecture, and calculation ; if they learn 
 anxiety, it is for another : but in the heart of that other how 
 entire is their trust ! 
 
 It was this disposition in Madeline which perpetually charmed, 
 and yet perpetually wrung, the soul of her wild lover ; and as 
 she now delightedly hung upon his arm, uttering her joy at 
 seeing him safe, and presently forgetting that there ever had been 
 cause for alarm, his heart was filled with the most gloomy sense 
 of horror and desolation. " What," thought he, " if this poor 
 : unconscious girl could dream that at this moment I am girded 
 with peril from which I see no ultimate escape ? Delay it as I 
 will, it seems as if the blow must come at last What, if she 
 could think how fearful is my interest in these outrages, that 
 in all probability, if their authors are detected, there is one who 
 will drag me into their ruin ; that I am given over, bound and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 211 
 
 blinded, into the hands of another; and that other a man steeled 
 to mercy, and withheld from my destruction by a thread a 
 thread that a blow on himself would snap. Great God ! wher- 
 ever I turn, I see despair! And she she clings to me; and 
 beholding me, thinks the whole earth is filled with hope ! " 
 
 While these thoughts darkened his mind, Madeline drew him 
 onward into the more sequestered walks of the garden, to shew 
 him some flowers she had transplanted. And when an hour 
 afterwards he returned to the hall, so soothing had been the 
 influence of her looks and words upon Aram, that if he had 
 not forgotten the situation in which he stood, he had at least 
 calmed himself to regard with a steady eye the chances of 
 escape. 
 
 The meal of the day passed as cheerfully as usual, and when 
 Aram and his host were left over their abstemious potations, 
 the former proposed a walk before the evening deepened. Lester 
 readily consented, and they sauntered into the fields. The squire 
 soon perceived that something was on Aram's mind, of which he 
 felt evident embarrassment in ridding himself; at length the 
 student said, rather abruptly, 
 
 " My dear friend, I am but a bad beggar, and therefore let me 
 get over my request as expeditiously as possible. You said to 
 me once that you intended bestowing some dowry upon Madeline 
 a dowry I would and could willingly dispense with ; but should 
 you of that sum be now able to spare me some portion as a loan, 
 should you have some three hundred pounds with which you 
 could accommodate me " 
 
 " Say no more, Eugene, say no more," inturrepted the squire : 
 "you can have double that amount. I ought to have foreseen 
 that your preparations for your approaching marriage must 
 have occasioned you some inconvenience : you can have six 
 hundred pounds from me to-morrow." 
 
 Aram's eyes brightened. " It is too much, too much, my 
 generous friend," said he ; " the half suffices ; but but, a debt of 
 old standing presses me urgently, and to-morrow, or rather 
 Monday morning, is the time fixed for payment." 
 
 ** Consider it arranged," said Lester, putting his hand on 
 Aram's arm ; and then, leaning on it gently, he added, "And 
 
 O 2
 
 2ia EUGENE A I 
 
 now that we are on this subject, let me tell you what I intended 
 as a gift to you and my dear Madeline ; it is but small, but my 
 estates are rigidly entailed on Walter, and of poor value in them- 
 selves, and it is half the savings of many years." 
 
 The squire then named a sum, which, however small it may 
 seem to our reader, was not considered a despicable portion for 
 the daughter of a small country squire at that day, and was, in 
 reality, a generous sacrifice for one whose whole income was 
 scarcely, at the most, seven hundred a year. The sum men- 
 tioned doubled that now to be lent, and which was of course a 
 part of it ; an equal portion was reserved for Ellinor. 
 
 " And to tell you the truth," said the squire, " you must give 
 me some little time for the remainder for not thinking some 
 months ago it would be so soon wanted, I laid out eighteen hun- 
 dred pounds in the purchase of Winclose farm, six of which 
 (the remainder of your share) I can pay off at the end of the 
 year : the other twelve, Kilmer's portion, will remain a mortgage 
 on the farm itself. And between us," added the squire, " I do 
 hope that I need be in no hurry respecting her, dear girl. When 
 Walter returns, I trust matters may be arranged, in a manner, 
 and through a channel, that would gratify the most cherished 
 wish of my heart. I am convinced that Ellinor is exactly suited 
 to him ; and unless he should lose his senses for some one else 
 in the course of his travels, I trust that he will not be long 
 returned before he will make the same discovery. I think of 
 writing to him very shortly after your marriage, and making 
 him promise, at all events, to revisit us at Christmas. Ah ! 
 Eugene, we shall be a happy party then, I trust. And be assured 
 that we shall beat up your quarters, and put your hospitality 
 and Madeline's housewifery to the test." 
 
 Therewith the good squire ran on for some minutes in the 
 warmth of his heart, dilating on the fireside prospects before 
 them, and rallying the student on those secluded habits, which 
 he promised him he should no longer indulge with impunity. 
 
 " But it is growing dark," said he, awakening from the theme 
 which had carried him away, " and by this time Peter and our 
 patrol will be at the hall. I told them to look up in the evening, 
 in order to appoint their several duties and stations let us turn
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 213 
 
 back. Indeed, Aram, I can assure you, that I, for my own part, 
 have some strong reasons to take precautions against any attack ; 
 for besides the old family plate (though that's not much), I 
 have, you know the bureau in the parlour to the left of the 
 hall ? well, I have in that bureau three hundred guineas, which 
 
 I have not as yet been able to take to safe hands at , and 
 
 which, by the way, will be yours to-morrow. So, you see, it 
 would be no light misfortune to me to be robbed." 
 
 "Hist!" said Aram, stopping short; "I think I heard steps 
 on the other side of the hedge." 
 
 The squire listened, but heard nothing ; the senses of his 
 companion were, however, remarkably acute, more especially 
 that of hearing. 
 
 "There is certainly some one; nay, I catch the steps of two 
 persons," whispered he to Lester. 
 
 " Let us come round the hedge by the gap below." 
 
 They both quickened their pace ; and gaining the other side 
 of the hedge, did indeed perceive two men in carters' frocks, 
 strolling on towards the village. 
 
 "They are strangers, too," said the squire, suspiciously ; 
 " not Grassdale men. Humph ! could they have overheard us, 
 think you ? " 
 
 "If men whose business it is to overhear their neighbours 
 yes ; but not if they be honest men," answered Aram, in one of 
 those shrewd remarks which he often uttered, and which seemed 
 almost incompatible with the tenor of those quiet and abstruse 
 pursuits that generally deaden the mind to worldly wisdom. 
 
 They had now approached the strangers, who, however, 
 appeared mere rustic clowns, and who pulled off their hats with 
 the wonted obeisance of their tribe. 
 
 " Holla, my men," said the squire, assuming his magisterial 
 air ; for the mildest squire in Christendom can play the bashaw 
 when he remembers he is a justice of the peace. " Holla ! what 
 are you doing here this time of the day ? You are not after 
 any good, I fear." 
 
 " We ax pardon, your honour," said the elder clown, in the 
 peculiar accent of the country, "but we become from Gladsmuir, 
 and be going to work at Squire Nixon's, at Mowhall, on
 
 H4 EUGENE ARAM 
 
 Monday; so as I has a brother living on the green afore the 
 squire's, \ve be a-going to sleep at his house to-night and spend 
 the Sunday there, your honour." 
 
 44 Humph ! humph ! What's your name ? " 
 "Joe Wood, your honour; and this here chap is Will 
 Hutchings." 
 
 " Well, well, go along with you," said the squire ; " and mind 
 what you are about. I should not be surprised if you snared 
 one of Squire Nixon's hares by the way." 
 
 " Oh, well and indeed, your honour " 
 
 " Go along, go along," said the squire, and away went the 
 men. 
 
 "They seem honest bumpkins enough," observed Lester. 
 " It would have pleased me better," said Aram, " had the 
 speaker of the two particularised less ; and you observed that 
 he seemed eager not to let his companion speak : that is a little 
 suspicious." 
 
 " Shall I call them back ? " asked the squire. 
 
 " Why it is scarcely worth while," said Aram ; " perhaps I 
 
 over-refine. And now I look again at them, they seem really 
 
 what they affect to be. No, it is useless to molest the poor 
 
 wretches any more. There is something, Lester, humbling to 
 
 human pride in a rustic's life. It grates against the heart to 
 
 think of the tone in which we unconsciously permit ourselves to 
 
 address him. We see in him humanity in its simple state : it is 
 
 a sad thought to feel that we despise it ; that all we respect in 
 
 our species is what has been created by art ; the gaudy dress 
 
 the glittering equipage, or even the cultivated intellect ; the 
 
 mere and naked material of nature we eye with indifference or 
 
 trample on with disdain. Poor child of toil, from the grey 
 
 dawn to the setting sun, one long task ! no idea elicited no 
 
 thought awakened beyond those that suffice to make him the 
 
 machine of others the serf of the hard soil. And then, too, 
 
 mark how we scowl upon his scanty holidays, how we hedge in 
 
 liis mirth with laws, and turn his hilarity into crime ! We make 
 
 the whole of the gay world, wherein we walk and take our 
 
 pleasure, to him a place of snares and perils. If he leave his 
 
 labour for an instant, in that instant how many temptations
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 215 
 
 spring up to him! And yet we have no mercy for his errors; 
 the gaol the transport ship the gallows ; those are the illus- 
 trations of our lecture-books, those the bounds of every vista 
 that we cut through the labyrinth of our laws. Ah, fie on the 
 disparities of the world ! They cripple the heart, they blind the 
 sense, they concentrate the thousand links between man and 
 man, into the two basest of earthly ties servility and pride. 
 Methinks the devils laugh out when they hear us tell the boor 
 that his soul is as glorious and eternal as our own ; and yet 
 when in the grinding drudgery of his life, not a spark of that 
 soul can be called forth ; when it sleeps, walled round in its 
 lumpish clay, from the cradle to the grave, without a dream to 
 stir the deadness of its torpor." 
 
 " And yet, Aram," said Lester, " the lords of science have 
 their ills. Exalt the soul as you will, you cannot raise it above 
 pain. Better, perhaps, to let it sleep, since in waking it looks 
 only upon a world of trial." 
 
 " You say well, you say well," said Aram, smiting his heart ; 
 "and I suffered a foolish sentiment to carry me beyond the sober 
 boundaries of our daily sense." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MILITARY PREPARATIONS. THE COMMANDER AND HIS MEN. ARAM IS PER- 
 SUADED TO PASS THE NIGHT AT THE MANOR-HOUSE. 
 
 Falstaff. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. * * * * I pressed me 
 none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads. 
 -Fir:i Part of " King Henry IV." 
 
 THEY had scarcely reached the manor-house before the rain, 
 which the clouds had portended throughout the whole day, 
 began to descend in torrents, and to use the strong expression of 
 the Latin poet, the night rushed down, black and sudden, over 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 The new wat<~h were not by any means the hardy nrd
 
 ai6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 experienced soldiery by whom rain and darkness are unheeded. 
 They looked with great dismay upon the character of the night 
 in which their campaign was to commence. The valorous Peter, 
 who had sustained his own courage by repeated applications to 
 a little bottle, which he never failed to carry about him in all the 
 more bustling and enterprising occasions of life, endeavoured, 
 but with partial success, to maintain the ardour of his band. 
 Seated in the servants' hall of the manor-house, in a large arm- 
 chair, Jacobina on his knee, and his trusty musket, which, to 
 the great terror of the womankind, had never been uncocked 
 throughout the day, still grasped in his right hand, while the 
 stock was grounded on the floor; he indulged in martial 
 harangues, plentifully interlarded with plagiarisms from the 
 worshipful translations of Messrs. Sternhold and Hopkins, and 
 psalmodic versions of a more doubtful authorship. And when 
 at the hour of ten, which was the appointed time, he led his 
 warlike force, which consisted of six rustics, armed with sticks 
 of incredible thickness, three guns, one pistol, a broadsword, 
 and a pitchfork (the last a weapon likely to be more effectively 
 used than all the rest put together) ; when at the hour of ten he 
 led them up to the room above, where they were to "be passed in 
 review before the critical eye of the squire, with Jacobina leading 
 the on-guard, you could not fancy a prettier picture for a hero 
 in a little way than mine host of The Spotted Dog. 
 
 His hat was fastened tight on his brows by a blue pocket- 
 handkerchief; he wore a spencer of a light brown drugget, a 
 world too loose, above a leather jerkin , his breeches of corduroy 
 were met all of a sudden, half way up the thigh, by a detach- 
 ment of Hessians, formerly in the service of the corporal, and 
 bought some time since by Peter Dealtry to wear when employed 
 in shooting snipes for the squire, to whom he occasionally per- 
 formed the office of gamekeeper; suspended round his wrist 
 by a bit of black riband was his constable's baton : he shouldered 
 his musket gallantly, and he carried his person as erect as if the 
 least deflection from its perpendicularity were to cost him his 
 life. One may judge of the revolution that had taken place in 
 the village, when so peaceable a man as Peter Dealtry was thus 
 metamorphosed into a conimandcr-in-chief ! The rest of the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 217 
 
 regiment hung sheepishly back, each trying to get as near to the 
 door, and as far from the ladies, as possible. But Peter having 
 made up his mind that a hero should only look straight forward, 
 did not condescend to turn round to perceive the irregularity of 
 his line. Secure in his own existence, he stood truculently forth, 
 facing the squire, and prepared to receive his plaudits. 
 
 Madeline and Aram sat apart at one corner of the hearth, and 
 Ellinor leaned over the chair of the former; the mirth that she 
 struggled to suppress from being audible mantling over her arch 
 face and laughing eyes ; while the squire, taking the pipe from 
 his mouth, turned round on his easy chair, and nodded com- 
 placently to the little corps and the great commander. 
 
 " We are all ready now, your honour," said Peter, in a voice 
 that did not seem to belong to his body, so big did it sound, 
 "all hot, all eager." 
 
 " Why, you yourself are a host, Peter," said Ellinor, with 
 affected gravity ; " your sight alone would frighten an army 
 of robbers : who could have thought you could assume so 
 military an air ? The corporal himself was never so upright ! " 
 
 " I have practised my present wattitude all the day, miss," 
 said Peter, proudly; "and I believe I may now say as Mr. 
 Sternhold says or sings, in the twenty-sixth Psalm, verse 
 twelfth, 
 
 " ' My foot is stayed for all essays, 
 
 It standeth well and right ; 
 Wherefore to God will I give praiae 
 In all the people's sight ! ' 
 
 Jacobina, behave yourself, child. I don't think, your honour, 
 that we miss the corporal so much as I fancied at first, for 
 we all does very well without him." 
 
 " Indeed, you are a most worthy substitute, Peter. And no\v, 
 Nell, just reach me my hat and cloak: I will set you at your 
 posts : you will have an ugly night of it." 
 
 "Very, indeed, your honour," cried all the army, speaking for 
 the first time. 
 
 " Silence order discipline," said Peter, gruffly. " March ! " 
 
 But instead of inarching across the hall, the recruits huddled 
 up one after the other, like a flock of geese, whom Jacobina
 
 ai8 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 might be supposed to have set in motion, and each scraping 
 to the ladies, as they shuffled, sneaked, bundled, and bustled out 
 at the door. 
 
 " \Ve are well guarded now, Madeline," said Ellinor. " I fancy 
 we may go to sleep as safely as if there were not a housebreaker 
 in the world." 
 
 " Why," said Madeline, " let us trust they will be more 
 efficient than they seem, though I cannot persuade myself that 
 we shall really need them. One might almost as well conceive 
 a tiger in our arbour, as a robber in Grassdale. But dear, dear 
 Eugene, do not do not leave us this night : Walter's room is 
 ready for you, and if it were only to walk across that valley in 
 such weather, it would be cruel to leave us. Let me beseech 
 you ; come, you cannot, you dare not, refuse me such a favour." 
 
 Aram pleaded his vow, but it was overruled ; Madeline proved 
 herself a most exquisite casuist in setting it aside. One by one 
 his objections were broken down ; and how, as he gazed into 
 those eyes, could he keep any resolution that Madeline wished 
 him to break ? The power she possessed over him seemed 
 exactly in proportion to his impregnability to every one else. 
 The surface on which the diamond cuts its easy way will yield 
 to no more ignoble instrument ; it is easy to shatter it, but by 
 only one pure and precious gem can it be shaped. But if Aram 
 remained at the house this night, how could he well avoid a 
 similar compliance the next ? And on the next was his inter- 
 view with Houseman. This reason for resistance yielded to 
 Madeline's soft entreaties ; he trusted to the time to furnish 
 ' him with excuses ; and when Lester returned, Madeline, with 
 a triumphant air, informed him that Aram had consented to be 
 their guest for the night. 
 
 " Your influence is, indeed, greater than mine," said Lester, 
 wringing his hat as the delicate fingers of Ellinor loosened his 
 cloak ; " yet one can scarcely think our friend sacrifices much in 
 concession, after proving the weather without. I should pity 
 our poor patrol most exceedingly, if I were not thoroughly 
 assured that within two hours every one of them will have 
 quietly slunk home ; and even Peter himself, when he has 
 exhausted his bottle, will be the first to set the example.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 219 
 
 However, I have stationed two of the men near our house, 
 and the rest at equal distances along the village." 
 
 " Do you really think they will go home, sir ? " said Ellinor, in 
 a little alarm ; "why, they would be worse than I thought them, 
 if they were driven to bed by the rain. I knew they could not 
 stand a pistol, but a shower, however hard, I did imagine would 
 scarcely quench their valour." 
 
 " Never mind, girl," said Lester, gaily chucking her under the 
 chin, " we are quite strong enough now to resist them. You see 
 Madeline has grown as brave as a lioness. Come, girls, come, 
 let's have supper, and stir up the fire. And, Nell, where are my 
 slippers ? " 
 
 And thus on the little family scene the cheerful wood fire 
 flickering against the polished wainscot ; the supper-table 
 arranged, the squire drawing his oak chair towards it, Ellinor 
 mixing his negus ; and Aram and Madeline, though three times 
 summoned to the table, and having three times answered to 
 the summons, still lingering apart by the hearth let us drop 
 the curtain. 
 
 We have only, ere we close our chapter, to observe, that when 
 Lester conducted Aram to his chamber he placed in his hands 
 an order, payable at the county town, for three hundred pounds. 
 " The rest," he said in a whisper, " is below, where I mentioned ; 
 and there, in my secret drawer, it had better rest till the 
 morning." 
 
 The good squire then, putting his finger to his lip, hurried 
 away, to avoid the thanks ; which, indeed, whatever gratitude he 
 might feel, Aram was ill able to express.
 
 aao EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SISTERS ALONE. THE GOSSIP OF LOVK. AN ALARM, AND AN EVENT. 
 
 Juliet. My true love has grown to tuch excess, 
 I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth. Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 Eros. Oh, a man in arms : 
 HU weapon drawn too 1 The False One. 
 
 IT was a custom with the two sisters, when they repaired to 
 their chamber for the night, to sit conversing, sometimes even for 
 hours, before they finally retired to bed. This, indeed, was the 
 usual time for their little confidences, and their mutual dilations 
 over those hopes and plans for the future, which always occupy 
 the larger share of the thoughts and conversation of the young. 
 I do not know anything in the world more lovely than such 
 conferences between two beings who have no secrets to relate 
 but what arise, all fresh, from the springs of a guiltless heart, 
 those pure and beautiful mysteries of an unsullied nature which 
 warm us to hear ; and we think with a sort of wonder when we 
 feel how arid experience has made ourselves, that so much of the 
 dew and sparkle of existence still lingers in the nooks and valleys 
 which are as yet virgin of the sun and of mankind. 
 
 The sisters this night were more than commonly indifferent to 
 sleep. Madeline sat by the small but bright hearth of the 
 chamber, in her nightdress; and Ellinor, who was much prouder 
 of her sister's beauty than her own, was employed in knotting 
 up the long and lustrous hair, which fell in rich luxuriance over 
 Madeline's throat and shoulders. 
 
 " There certainly never was such beautiful hair !" said Ellinor, 
 admiringly. " And, let me see, yes, on Thursday fortnight I 
 may be dressing it, perhaps for the last time heigho!" 
 
 41 Don't flatter yourself that you are so near the end of your 
 troublesome duties," said Madeline, with her pretty smile, which 
 had been much brighter and more frequent of late than it was 
 formerly wont to be ; so that Lester had remarked, " That 
 Madeline really appeared to have become the lighter and gayer 
 of the two."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " You will often come to stay with us for weeks together, at 
 least till till you have a double right to be mistress here. Ah ! 
 my poor hair, you need not pull it so hard." 
 
 "Be quiet, then," said Ellinor, half laughing, and wholly 
 blushing. 
 
 " Trust me, I have not been in love myself without learning its 
 signs ; and I venture to prophesy that within six months you 
 will come to consult me whether or not for there is a great deal 
 to be said on both sides of the question you can make up your 
 mind to sacrifice your own wishes and marry Walter Lester. 
 Ah ! gently, gently ! Nell " 
 
 " Promise to be quiet." 
 
 " I will I will ; but you began it." 
 
 As Ellinor now finished her task, and kissed her sister's fore- 
 head, she sighed deeply. 
 
 " Happy Walter ! " said Madeline. 
 
 " I was not sighing for Walter, but for you." 
 
 "For me? impossible! I cannot imagine any part of my 
 future life that can cost you a sigh. Ah, that I were more 
 worthy of my happiness ! " 
 
 "Well, then," said Ellinor, " I sighed for myself; I sighed to 
 think we should so soon be parted, and that the continuance of 
 your society would then depend, not on our mutual love, but on 
 the will of another." 
 
 "What, Ellinor, and can you suppose that Eugene, my 
 Eugene, would not welcome you as warmly as myself? Ah! 
 you misjudge him ; I know you have not yet perceived how 
 tender a heart lies beneath all that melancholy and reserve." 
 
 " I feel, indeed," said Ellinor, warmly, " as if it were impossible 
 that one whom you love should not be all that is good and 
 noble : yet if this reserve of his should increase, as is at least 
 possible, with increasing years ; if our society should become 
 again, as it once was, distasteful to him, should I not lose you, 
 Madeline ? " 
 
 " But his reserve cannot increase : do you not perceive how 
 much it is softened already ? Ah ! be assured that I will charm 
 it away." 
 
 " But what is the cause of the melancholy that even now.; at
 
 722 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 times, evidently preys upon him ? Has he never revealed it to 
 you ? " 
 
 " It is merely the early and long habit of solitude and study, 
 Ellinor," replied Madeline : " and shall I own to you, I would 
 scarcely wish that away ? His tenderness itself seems linked 
 with his melancholy ; it is like a sad but gentle music, that 
 brings tears into our eyes, but who would change it for gayer 
 airs ? " 
 
 "Well, I must own," said Ellinor, reluctantly, "that I no 
 longer wonder at your infatuation ; I can no longer chide you as 
 I once did : there is, assuredly, something in his voice, his look, 
 which irresistibly sinks into the heart. And there are moments 
 when, what with his eyes and forehead, his countenance seems 
 more beautiful, more impressive, than any I ever beheld. 
 Perhaps, too, for you, it is better that your lover should be no 
 longer in the first flush of youth. Your nature seems to require 
 something to venerate as well as to love. And I have ever 
 observed at prayers, that you seem more especially rapt and 
 carried beyond yourself in those passages which call peculiarly 
 for worship and adoration." 
 
 "Yes, dearest," said Madeline, fervently, "I own that Eugene" 
 is of all beings, not only of all whom I ever knew but of whom 
 I ever dreamed or imagined, the one that I am most fitted to 
 love and to appreciate. His wisdom, but, more than that, the 
 lofty tenor of his mind, calls forth all that is highest and best in 
 my own nature. I feel exalted when I listen to him ; and yet, 
 how gentle, with all that nobleness ! And to think that he 
 should descend to love me, and so to love me ! It is as if a star 
 were to leave its sphere ! " 
 
 " Hark ! one o'clock," said Ellinor, as the deep voice of the 
 clock told the first hour of morning. " Heavens ! how much 
 louder the winds rave ! And how the heavy sleet drives against 
 the window ! Our poor watch without ! but you may be sure 
 my father was right, and they are safe at home by this time; 
 nor is it likely, I should think, that even robbers would be 
 abroad in such weather ! " 
 
 " I have heard," said Madeline, "that robbers generally choose 
 these dark stormy nights for their designs ; but I confess I don't
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 223 
 
 feel much alarm, and he is in the house. Draw nearer to the 
 fire, Ellinor ; is it not pleasant to see how serenely it burns, 
 while the storm howls without ? It is like my Eugene's soul, 
 luminous and lone amidst the roar and darkness of this unquiet 
 world!" 
 
 "There spoke himself," said Ellinor, smiling to perceive how 
 invariably women, who love, imitate the tone of the beloved one. 
 And Madeline felt it, and smiled too. 
 
 " Hist ! " said Ellinor, abruptly ; " did you not hear a low, 
 grating noise below ? Ah ! the winds now prevent your catching 
 the sound ; but hush, hush \ the wind pauses, there it is again ! " 
 
 "Yes, I hear it," said Madeline, turning pale; "it seems in 
 the little parlour ; a continued, harsh, but very low, noise. Good 
 Heavens ! it seems at the window below." 
 
 " It is like a file," whispered Ellinor ; " perhaps " 
 
 "You are right," said Madeline, suddenly rising ; " it is a file, 
 and at the bars my father had fixed against the window yesterday. 
 Let us go down and alarm the house." 
 
 " No, no ; for Heaven's sake, don't be so rash," cried Ellinor, 
 losing all presence of mind : " hark ! the sound ceases, there is a 
 louder noise below, and steps. Let us lock the door." 
 
 But Madeline was of that fine and high order of spirit, which 
 rises in proportion to danger, and calming her sister as well as 
 she could, she seized the light with a steady hand, opened the 
 door, and (Ellinor still clinging to her) passed the landing-place, 
 and hastened to her father's room : he slept at the opposite 
 corner of the staircase. Aram's chamber was at the extreme end 
 of the house. Before she reached the door of Lester's apart- 
 ment, the noise below grew loud and distinct a scuffle voices 
 curses and now the sound of a pistol ! in a minute more 
 the whole house was stirring. Lester in his night robe, his 
 broad sword in his hand, and his long grey hair floating behind, 
 was the first to appear : the servants, old and young, male and 
 female, now came thronging simultaneously round ; and in a 
 general body, Lester several paces at their head, his daughters 
 following next to him, they rushed to the apartment whence the 
 noise, now suddenly stilled, had proceeded. 
 
 The window was opened, evidently by force : an instrument
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 like a wedge was fixed in the bureau containing Lester's money, 
 and seemed to have been left there, as if the person using it had 
 been disturbed before the design for which it was introduced 
 bad been accomplished, and (the only evidence of life) Aram 
 stood, dressed, in the centre of the room, a pistol in his left hand, 
 a sword in his right ; a bludgeon severed in two lay at his feet, 
 and on the floor within two yards of him, towards the window, 
 drops of blood yet warm, showed that the pistol had not been 
 discharged in vain. 
 
 " And is it you, my brave friend, whom I have to thank for 
 our safety ? " cried Lester, in great emotion. 
 
 " You, Eugene ! " repeated Madeline, sinking on his breast. 
 
 " But thanks hereafter," continued Lester ; " let us now to the 
 pursuit, perhaps the villain may have perished beneath your 
 bullet." 
 
 " Ha !" muttered Aram, who had hitherto seemed unconscious 
 of all around him ; so fixed had been his eye, so colourless his 
 cheek, so motionless his posture. " Ha ! say you so ? think you 
 I have slain him? No, it cannot be the ball did not slay; I 
 saw him stagger ; but he rallied not so one who receives a 
 mortal wound ? Ha ! ha ! there is blood, you say ; that is true; 
 but what then ? it is not the first wound that kills; you must 
 strike again. Pooh, pooh ! what is a little blood ? " 
 
 While he was thus muttering, Lester and the more active of the 
 servants had already sallied through the window ; but the night 
 was so intensely dark that they could not see a step beyond 
 them. Lester returned, therefore, in a few moments ; and met 
 Aram's dark eye fixed upon him with an unutterable expression 
 of anxiety. 
 
 * You have found no one ? " said he, "no dying man ? Ha ! 
 well well well ! they must both have escaped ; the night must 
 favour them." 
 
 "Do you fancy the villain was severely wounded ?" 
 
 " Not so I trust not so" 1 , he seemed able to But stop oh 
 
 God ! stop ! your foot is dabbling in blood blood shed by me, 
 off! off!" 
 
 Lester moved aside with a quick abhorrence, as he saw that 
 his feet were indeed smearing the blood over the polished and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 slippery surface of the oak boards, and in moving he stumbled 
 against a dark lantern in which the light still burned, and which 
 the robbers in their flight had left. 
 
 " Yes," said Aram, observing it, " it was by that, their own 
 light, that I saw them saw their faces and and (bursting 
 into a loud, wild laugh) they were both strangers ! " 
 
 " Ah, I thought so, I knew so," said Lester, plucking the 
 instrument from the bureau. " I knew they could be no Grass- 
 dale men. What did you fancy they could be? But bless me, 
 Madeline what ho ! help ! Aram, she has fainted at your feet !" 
 
 And it was indeed true and remarkable that so utter had been 
 the absorption of Aram's mind, that he had been not only 
 insensible to the entrance of Madeline, but even unconscious 
 that she had thrown herself on his breast. And she, overcome 
 by her feelings, had slid to the ground from that momentary 
 resting-place, in a swoon which Lester, in the general tumult 
 and confusion, was now the first to perceive. 
 
 At this exclamation, at the sound of Madeline's name, the 
 blood rushed back from Aram's heart, where it had gathered, icy 
 and curdling ; and awakened thoroughly and at once to himself 
 he knelt down, and weaving his arms around her, supported her 
 head on his breast, and called upon her with the most passionate 
 and moving exclamations. 
 
 But when the faint bloom retinged her cheek, and her lips 
 stirred, he printed a long kiss on that cheek on those lips, and 
 surrendered his post to Ellinor; who blushingly gathering the 
 robe over the beautiful breast from which it had been slightly 
 drawn, now entreated all save the women of the house, to 
 withdraw till her sister was restored. 
 
 Lester, eager to hear what his guest could relate, therefore 
 took Aram to his own apartment, where the particulars were 
 briefly told. 
 
 Suspecting, which indeed was the chief reason that excused 
 him to himself in yielding to Madeline's request, that the men 
 Lester and himself had encountered in their evening walk might 
 be other than they seemed, and that they might have well over- 
 heard Lester's communication as to the sum in his house, and the 
 place where it was stored ; he had not undressed himself, but 
 
 r
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 kept the door of his room open to listen if anything stirred. 
 The keen sense of hearing, which we have before remarked him 
 to possess, enabled him to catch the sound of the file at the bars, 
 even before Ellinor, notwithstanding the distance of his own 
 chamber from the place, and seizing the sword which had been 
 left in his room (the pistol was his own), he had descended to the 
 room below. 
 
 "What!" said Lester, "and without a light?" 
 
 " The darkness is familiar to me," said Aram. * I could walk 
 by the edge of a precipice in the darkest night without one 
 false step, if I had but once passed it before. I did not gain 
 the room, however, till the window had been forced ; and by 
 the light of a dark lantern which one of them held, I per- 
 ceived two men standing by the bureau the rest you can 
 imagine ; my victory was easy, for the bludgeon which one of 
 them aimed at me, gave way at once to the edge of your good 
 sword, and my pistol delivered me of the other. There ends 
 the history." 
 
 Lester overwhelmed him with thanks and praises, but Aram, 
 glad to escape them, hurried away to see after Madeline, whom 
 he now met on the landing-place, leaning on Ellinor's arm, and 
 still pale. 
 
 She gave him her hand, which he for one moment pressed 
 passionately to his lips, but dropped the next, with an altered 
 and chilled air. And hastily observing that he would not now 
 detain her from a rest which she must so much require, he turned 
 away and descended the stairs. Some of the servants were 
 grouped around the place of encounter ; he entered the room, 
 and again started at the sight of the blood. 
 
 " Brinj; water," said he, fiercely : " will you let the stagnant 
 gore ooze and rot into the boards, to startle the eye and still the 
 heart with its filthy and unutterable stain ? Water, I say I water!" 
 
 They hurried to obey him, and Lester coming into the room 
 to see the window reclosed by the help of boards, &c., found 
 the student bending over the servants as they performed their 
 reluctant task, and rating them with a raised and harsh voice 
 for the hastiness with which he accused them of seeking to slut 
 it over.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 227 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ARAM ALONE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. HIS SOLILOQUY AND PROJECT. SCENR 
 
 BETWEEN HIMSELF AND MADELINE. 
 
 Luce non grati fruor ; 
 Treoidante semper corde. non mortis metu 
 
 Sed'L 
 
 SENECA, Octavia, Act I. 
 
 THE two manservants of the house remained up the rest 
 of the night ; but it was not till the morning had advanced far 
 beyond the usual time of rising in the fresh shades of Grass- 
 dale, that Madeline and Ellinor became visible; even Lester 
 left his bed an hour later than his wont ; and knocking at 
 Aram's door, found the student already abroad, while it was 
 evident that his bed had not been pressed during the whole of 
 the night. Lester descended into the garden, and was there 
 met by Peter Dealtry and a detachment of the band ; who, as 
 common sense and Lester had predicted, were indeed, at a very 
 early period of the watch" driven to their respective homes. 
 They were now seriously concerned for their unmanliness, which 
 they passed off as well as they could upon their conviction 
 " that nobody at Grassdale could ever really be robbed ; " and 
 promised, with sincere contrition, that they would be most ex- 
 cellent guards for the future. Peter was, in sooth, singularly 
 chop-fallen, and could only defend himself by an incoherent 
 mutter; from which the squire turned somewhat impatiently 
 when he heard, louder than the rest, the words, " seventy-seventh 
 psalm, seventeenth verse, 
 
 " ' The clouds that were both thick and black, 
 Did rain full plenteously.' " 
 
 Leaving the squire to the edification of the pious host, let us 
 follow the steps of Aram, who at the early dawn had quitted his 
 sleepless chamber, and though the clouds at that time still 
 
 1 I live a life of -wretchedness ; my heart perpetually trembling, not through fear ol 
 death, but 
 
 P 2
 
 228 EUGENE A: 
 
 poured down in a dull and heavy sleet, wandered away, whither 
 he neither knew nor heeded. He was now hurrying, with un- 
 abated speed, though with no purposed bourne or object, over 
 the chain of mountains that backed the green and lovely valleys 
 among which his home was cast. 
 
 "Yes!" said he, at last halting abruptly, with a desperate 
 resolution stamped on his countenance, " yes ! I will so deter- 
 mine. If, after this interview, I feel that I cannot command 
 and bind Houseman's perpetual secrecy, I will surrender Made- 
 line at once. She has loved me generously and trustingly. I 
 will not link her life with one that may be called hence in 
 any hour, and to so dread an account. Neither shall the grey 
 hairs of Lester be brought, with the sorrow of my shame, to 
 a dishonoured and untimely grave. And after the outrage of 
 last night, the daring outrage, how can I calculate on the 
 safety of a day ? Though Houseman was not present, though 
 I can scarce believe he knew or at least abetted the attack, 
 yet they were assuredly of his gang : had one been seized, the 
 clue might have traced to his detection were he detected, what 
 should I have to dread? No, Madeline! no; not while this 
 sword hangs over me will I subject'///^ to share the horror of 
 my fate ! " 
 
 This resolution, which was certainly generous, and yet no 
 more than honest, Aram had no sooner arrived at than he dis- 
 missed, at once, by one of those efforts which powerful minds 
 can command, all the weak and vacillating thoughts that 
 might interfere with the sternness of his determination. He 
 seemed to breathe more freely, and the haggard wanness of 
 his brow relaxed at least from the v or'cings that, but the 
 moment before, distorted its wonted serenity with a maniac 
 wild ness. 
 
 He now pursued his desultory way with a calmer step. 
 
 "What a night!" said he, again breaking into the low 
 murmur in which he was accustomed to hold commune with 
 himself. " Had Houseman been one of the ruffians a shot 
 might have freed me, and without a crime, for ever; and till 
 the li^ht flashed on their brows, I thought the smaller man 
 bore his aspect. Ha! out, tempting thought! out on theel"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 229 
 
 he cried aloud, and stamping with his foot ; then, recalled by 
 his own vehemence, he cast a jealous and hurried glance around 
 him, though at that moment his step was on the very height 
 of the mountains, where not even the solitary shepherd, save 
 in search of some more daring straggler of the flock, ever 
 brushed the dew from the cragged, yet fragrant soil. "Yet," 
 he said, in a lower voice, and again sinking into the sombre 
 depths of his reverie, " it is a tempting, a vvondrously tempting 
 thought. And it struck athwart me like a flash of lightning 
 when this hand was at his throat a tighter strain, another 
 moment, and Eugene Aram had not an enemy, a witness 
 against him left in the world. Ha ! are the dead no foes then ? 
 are the dead no witnesses ? " Here he relapsed into utter silence, 
 but his gestures continued wild, and his eyes wandered round, 
 with a blood-shot and unquiet glare. " Enough," at length he 
 said calmly ; and with the manner of one ' who has rolled a 
 stone from his heart ; ' 1 " Enough ! I will not so sully myself ; 
 unless all other hope of self-preservation be extinct And why 
 despond ? the plan I have thought of seems well-laid, wise, 
 consummate at all points. Let me consider forfeited the 
 moment he re-enters England not given till he has left it 
 paid periodically, and of such extent as to supply his wants, 
 preserve him from crime, and forbid the possibility of extorting 
 more : all this sounds well ; and if not feasible at fast, why fare- 
 well Madeline, and I myself leave this land for ever. Come what 
 will to me death in its vilest shape let not the stroke fall on 
 that breast And if it be," he continued, his face lighting up, 
 " if it be, as it may yet, that I can chain this hell-hound, why, 
 even then, the instant that Madeline is mine I will fly these 
 scenes ; I will seek a yet obscurer and remoter corner of earth : 
 I will choose another name 1 Fool ! why did I not so before ? 
 But matters it ? What is writ is writ. Who can struggle with 
 the invisible and giant hand that launched the world itself into 
 motion ; and at whose pre-decree we hold the dark boons of 
 life and death ? " 
 
 It was not till evening that Aram, utterly worn out and ex- 
 hausted, found himself in the neighbourhood of Lester's house. 
 
 1 Eastern saying.
 
 EUGENE AK 
 
 The sun had only broken forth at its setting, and it now glit- 
 tered, from its western pyre, over the dripping hedges, and flung 
 a brief but magic glow along the rich landscape around ; the 
 changing woods clad in the thousand dyes of autumn ; the 
 scattered and peaceful cottages, with their long wreaths of smoke 
 curling upward, and the grey and venerable walls of the manor 
 house, with the church hard by, and the delicate spire, which, 
 mixing itself with heaven, is at once the most touching and 
 solemn emblem of the faith to which it is devoted. It was a 
 Sabbath eve ; and from the spot on which Aram stood, he might 
 discern many a rustic train trooping slowly up the green village 
 lane towards the church ; and the deep bell which summoned 
 to the last service of the day now swung its voice far over the 
 sunlit and tranquil scene. 
 
 But it was not the setting sun, nor the autumnal landscape, 
 nor the voice of the holy bell, that now arrested the step of Aram. 
 At a little distance before him, leaning over a gate, and seem- 
 ingly waiting till the ceasing of the bell should announce the 
 time to enter the sacred mansion, he beheld the figure of Made- 
 line Lester. Her head, at the moment, was averted from him, as 
 if she were looking after Ellinor and her father, who were in the 
 churchyard among a little group of their homely neighbours ; 
 and he was half in doubt whether to shun her presence, when she 
 suddenly turned round, and, seeing him, uttered an exclamation 
 of joy. It was now too late for avoidance ; and calling to his aid 
 that mastery over his features which, in ordinary times, few more 
 eminently possessed, he approached his beautiful mistress with a 
 smile as serene, if not as glowing, as her own. But she had al- 
 ready opened the gate, and bounding forward, met him 
 half way. 
 
 " Ah, truant, truant," said she ;* " the whole day absent, with- 
 out inquiry or farewell ! After this, when shall I believe that 
 thou really lovest me ? But," continued Madeline, gazing on his 
 countenance, which bore witness, in its present languor, to the 
 fierce emotions which had lately raged within, "but, Heavens! 
 dearest, how pale you look ; you are fatigued ; give me your 
 hand, Eugene, it is parched and dry. Come into the house; 
 you must need rest and refreshment."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 231 
 
 " I am better here, my Madeline, the air and the sun revive 
 me : let us rest by the stile yonder. But you were going to 
 church, and the bell has ceased." 
 
 " I could attend, I fear, little to the prayers now," said 
 Madeline, " unless you feel well enough, and will come to 
 .church with me." 
 
 " To church ! " said Aram, with a half shudder. " No ; my 
 thoughts are in no mood for prayer." 
 
 " Then you shall give your thoughts to me, and I, in return, 
 will pray for you before I rest." 
 
 And so saying, Madeline, with her usual innocent frankness of 
 manner, wound her arm in his, and they walked onwards towards 
 the stile Aram had pointed out. It was a little rustic stile, with 
 chestnut trees hanging over it on either side. It stands to this 
 day, and I have pleased myself with finding Walter Lester's 
 initials, and Madeline's also, with the date of the year, carved in 
 half-worn letters on the wood, probably by the hand of the 
 former. 
 
 They now rested at this spot. All around them was still and 
 solitary ; the groups of peasants had entered the church, and 
 nothing of life, save the cattle grazing in the distant fields, or the 
 thrush starting from the wet bushes, was visible. The winds 
 were lulled to rest, and, though somewhat of the chill of autumn 
 floated on the air, it only bore a balm to the harassed brow and 
 fevered veins of the student ; and Madeline ! she felt nothing 
 but his presence. It was exactly what we picture to ourselves of 
 a Sabbath eve, unutterably serene and soft, and borrowing from 
 the very melancholy of the declining year an impressive yet a 
 mild solemnity. 
 
 There are seasons, often in the most dark or turbulent periods 
 of our life, when (why, we know not) we are suddenly called 
 from ourselves, by the remembrances of early childhood : some- 
 thing touches the electric chain, and, lo ! a host of shadowy and 
 sweet recollections steal upon us. The wheel rests, the oar 
 is suspended, we are snatched from the labour and travail of 
 present life ; we are born again, and live anew. As the secret 
 page in which the characters once written seem for ever effaced, 
 but which, if breathed upon, gives them again into view ; so the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 memory can revive the images invisible for years : but while we 
 gaze, the breath recedes from the surface, and all one moment 
 so vivid, with the next moment has become once more a blank ! 
 
 * It is singular," said Aram, " but often as I have paused at 
 this spot, and gazed upon this landscape, a likeness to the scenes 
 of my childish life, which it now seems to me to present, never, 
 occurred to me before. Yes, yonder, in that cottage, with the 
 sycamores in front, and the orchard extending behind, till its 
 boundary, as we now stand, seems lost among the woodland, I 
 could fancy that I looked upon my father's home. The clump 
 of trees that lies yonder to the right could cheat me readily to 
 the belief that I saw the little grove, in which, enamoured with 
 the first passion of study, I was wont to pore over the thrice-read 
 book through the long summer days ; a boy a thoughtful boy ; 
 yet, oh, how happy ! What worlds appeared then to me to open 
 in every page ! how exhaustless I thought the treasures and the 
 hopes of life ; and beautiful on the mountain tops seemed to me 
 the steps of Knowledge ! I did not dream of all that the musing 
 and lonely passion that I nursed was to entail upon me. There, 
 in the clefts of the valley, on the ridges of the hill, or by the 
 fragrant course of the stream, I began already to win its history 
 from the herb or flower ; I saw nothing that I did not long to 
 unravel its secrets ; all that the earth nourished ministered to one 
 desire : and what of low or sordid did there mingle with that 
 desire ? The petty avarice, the mean ambition, the debasing 
 love, even the heat, the anger, the fickleness, the caprice of other 
 men, did they allure or bow down my nature from its steep and 
 solitary eyrie ? I lived but to feed my mind ; wisdom was my 
 thirst, my dream, my aliment, my sole fount and sustenance of 
 life. And have I not sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind ? 
 The glory of my youth is gone, my veins are chilled, my frame 
 is bowed, my heart is gnawed with cares, my nerves are unstrung 
 as a loosened bow : and what, after all, is my gain ? Oh, God, 
 what is my gain ? " 
 
 " Eugene, dear, dear Eugene ! " murmured Madeline, sooth- 
 ingly and wrestling with her tears, " is not your gain great ? is it 
 not triumph that you stand, while yet young, almost alone in the 
 world, for success in all that you have attempted ? "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 333 
 
 "And what," exclaimed Aram, breaking in upon her, " what is 
 this world which we ransack but a stupendous charnel-house ? 
 Everything that we deem most lovely, ask its origin ? Decay ! 
 When we rifle nature, and collect wisdom, are we not like the 
 hags of old, culling simples from the rank grave, and extracting 
 sorceries from the rotting bones of the dead ? Everything 
 around us is fathered by corruption, battened by corruption, and 
 into corruption returns at last. Corruption is at once the womb 
 and grave of Nature, and the very beauty on which we gaze, 
 the cloud, and the tree, and the swarming waters, all are one 
 vast panorama of death! But it did not always seem to me 
 thus ; and even now I speak with a heated pulse and a dizzy 
 brain. Come, Madeline, let us change the theme." 
 
 And dismissing at once from his language, and perhaps, as he 
 proceeded, also from his mind, all of its former gloom, except 
 such as might shade, but not embitter, the natural tenderness 
 of remembrance, Aram now related, with that vividness of dic- 
 tion, which, though we feel we can very indequately convey its 
 effect, characterised his conversation, and gave something of 
 poetic interest to all he uttered, those reminiscences which belong 
 to childhood, and which all of us take delight to hear from the 
 lips of one we love. 
 
 It was while on this theme that the lights which the deepening 
 twilight had now made necessary became visible in the church, 
 streaming afar through its large oriel window, and brightening the 
 dark firs that overshadowed the graves around : and just at that 
 moment the organ (a gift from a rich rector, and the boast of the 
 neighbouring country) stole upon the silence with its swelling and 
 solemn note. There was something in the strain of this sudden 
 music that was so kindred with the holy repose of the scene, 
 chimed so exactly to the chord now vibrating in Aram's mind, 
 that it struck upon him at once with an irresistible power. He 
 paused abruptly, " as if an angel spoke ! " That sound, so pecu- 
 liarly adapted to express sacred and unearthly emotion, none 
 who have ever mourned or sinned can hear, at an unlooked-for 
 moment, without a certain sentiment that either subdues, or 
 elevates, or awes. But he, he was a boy once more ! he was 
 again in the village church of his native place : his father, with
 
 134 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 his silver hair, stood again beside him ; there \\as his mother, 
 pointing to him the holy verse ; there the half-arch, half-reverent 
 face of his little sister (she died young 1 ), there the upward eye 
 and hushed countenance of the preacher who had first raised his 
 mind to knowledge, and supplied its food, all, all lived, moved, 
 breathed, again before him, all, as when he was young and guilt- 
 less, and at peace ; hope and the future one word ! 
 
 He bowed his head lower and lower ; the hardness and hypo- 
 crisies of pride, the sense of danger and of horror, that, in 
 agitating, still supported, the mind of this resolute and scheming 
 man, at once forsook him. Madeline felt his tears drop fast and 
 burning on her hand, and the next moment, overcome by the 
 relief it afforded to a heart preyed upon by fiery and dread 
 secrets which it could not reveal, and a frame exhausted by the 
 long and extreme tension of all its powers, he laid Ills head upon 
 that faithful bosom, and wept aloud. 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 ARAM'S SECRET EXPEDITION. A SCENE WORTHY THE ACTORS. ARAM'S ADDRESS 
 AND POWERS OP PERSUASION OR HYPOCRISY. THEIR RESULT. A FEARFUL 
 MIGHT. ARAM'S SOLITARY RIUE HOMEWARD. WHOM HE MEETS BY TUB 
 WAY, AND WHAT HE SK. 
 
 Macbeth. Now o'er one half the world 
 Nature seems dead. 
 
 
 
 Donalbain. Our separated fortune 
 
 Shall keep us both the safer. 
 
 
 
 Old Man. Hours dreadful and things strange. Macbeth, 
 
 "AND you must really go to * * , to pay your impor- 
 
 tunate creditor this very evening? Sunday is a bad day for 
 such matters : but as you pay him by an order, it does not much 
 signify ; and I can well understand your impatience to feel 
 relieved from the debt. But it is already late ; and if it must 
 be t>o, you had better start."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 235 
 
 " True," said Aram, to the above remark of Lester's, as the 
 two stood together without the door ; " but do you feel quite 
 secure and guarded against any renewed attack ? " 
 
 " Why, unless they bring a regiment, yes ! I have put a body 
 of our patrol on a service where they can scarce be inefficient, 
 viz., I have stationed them in the house instead of without; and 
 I shall myself bear them company through the greater part of 
 the night ; to-morrow I shall remove all that I possess of value 
 to ***** (the county town) including those unlucky guineas, 
 which you will not ease me of." 
 
 " The order you have kindly given me will amply satisfy my 
 purpose," answered Aram. " And so there has been no clue to 
 these robberies discovered throughout the day ? " 
 
 " None : to-morrow the magistrates are to meet at ***** , 
 and concert measures : it is absolutely impossible but that we 
 should detect the villains in a few days, that is, if they remain 
 in these parts. I hope to Heaven you will not meet them this 
 evening." 
 
 " I shall go well armed," answered Aram, "and the horse you 
 lend me is fleet and strong. And now farewell for the present. 
 I shall probably not return to Grassdale this night, or if I do, it 
 will be at so late an hour that I shall seek my own domicile 
 without disturbing you." 
 
 " No, no ; you had better remain in the town, and not return 
 till morning," said the squire. " And now let us come to the 
 stables." 
 
 To obviate all chance of suspicion as to the real place of his 
 destination, Aram deliberately rode to the town he had mentioned, 
 as the one in which his pretended creditor expected him. He 
 put up at an inn, walked forth as if to meet some one in the 
 town, returned, remounted, and by a circuitous route came into 
 the neighbourhood of the place in which he was to meet House 
 man : then turning into a long and dense chain of wood, he 
 fastened his horse to a tree, and looking to the priming of his 
 pistols, which he carried under his riding cloak, proceeded to 
 the spot on foot 
 
 The night was still, and not wholly dark ; for the clouds lay 
 scattered though dense, and suffered many stars to gleam
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 through the heavy air ; the moon herself was abroad, but on 
 her decline, and looked forth with a wan and saddened aspect 
 as she travelled from cloud to cloud. It has been the necessary 
 course of our narrative to portray Aram more often in his 
 weaker moments than, to give an exact notion of his character, 
 we could have altogether wished ; but whenever he stood in the 
 presence of danger, his whole soul was in arms to cope with it 
 worthily : courage, sagacity, even cunning, all awakened to the 
 encounter ; and the mind which his life had so austerely culti- 
 vated repaid him in the urgent season with its acute address and 
 unswerving hardihood. The Devil's Crag, as it was popularly 
 called, was a spot consecrated by many a wild tradition, which 
 would not, perhaps, be wholly out of character with the dark 
 thread of this tale, did the rapidity of our narrative allow us 
 to relate them. 
 
 The same stream which lent so soft an attraction to the 
 valleys of Grassdale here assumed a different character; broad, 
 black, and rushing, it whirled along a course, overhung by shagged 
 and abrupt banks. On the opposite side to that by which Aram 
 now pursued his path, an almost perpendicular mountain was 
 covered v.ith gigantic pine and fir, that might have reminded a 
 German wanderer of the darkest recesses of the Hartz ; and 
 seemed, indeed, no unworthy haunt for the weird huntsman or 
 the forest fiend. Over this wood the moon now shimmered, 
 with the pale and feeble light we have already described ; and 
 only threw into a more sombre shade the motionless and gloomy 
 foliage. Of all the offspring of the forest, the fir bears, perhaps, 
 the most saddening and desolate aspect. Its long branches, 
 without absolute leaf or blossom ; its dead, dark, eternal hue, 
 which the winter seems to wither not, nor the spring to revive, 
 have I know not what of a mystic and unnatural life. Around 
 all woodland, there is that horror wnbrarum ] which becomes 
 more solemn and awful amidst the silence and depth of night : 
 but this is yet more especially the characteristic of that sullen 
 evergreen. Perhaps, too, this effect is increased by the sterile 
 and dreary soil on which, when in groves, it is generally found I 
 and its very hardiness, the very pertinacity with which it draws 
 
 1 Shadcnvy horror.
 
 EUGENE, ARAM. 237 
 
 its strange unfluctuating life from the sternest wastes and most 
 reluctant strata, enhance, unconsciously, the unwelcome effect it 
 is calculated tx> create upon the mind. At this place, too, the 
 waters that dashed beneath gave yet additional wildness to the 
 rank verdure of the wood, and contributed, by their rushing dark- 
 ness, partially broken by the stars, and the hoarse roar of their 
 chafed course, a yet more grim and savage sublimity to the scene. 
 
 Winding a narrow path (for the whole country was as familiar 
 as a garden to his footstep) that led through the tall wet herbage, 
 almost along the perilous brink of the stream, Aram was now 
 aware, by the increased and deafening sound of the waters, that 
 the appointed spot was nearly gained ; and presently the 
 glimmering and imperfect light of the skies revealed the 
 dim shape of a gigantic rock that rose abruptly from the 
 middle of the stream ; and which, rude, barren, vast, as it really 
 was, seemed now, by the uncertainty of night, like some monstrous 
 and deformed creature of the waters suddenly emerging from 
 their vexed and dreary depths. This was the far-famed crag, 
 which had borrowed from tradition its evil and ominous name. 
 And now, the stream, bending round with a broad and sudden 
 swoop, showed at a little distance, ghostly and indistinct through 
 the darkness, the mighty waterfall whose roar had been his 
 guide. Only in one streak a-down the giant cataract the stars 
 were reflected ; and this long train of broken light glittered pre- 
 ternaturally forth through the rugged crags and sombre verdure, 
 that wrapped either side of the waterfall in utter and rayless gloom. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the forlorn and terrific grandeur of the 
 spot ; the roar of the waters supplied to the ear what the night 
 forbade to the eye. Incessant and eternal they thundered down 
 into the gulf; and then shooting over that fearful basin, and 
 forming another, but a mimic fall, dashed on, till they were 
 opposed by the sullen and abrupt crag below ; and besieging its 
 base with a renewed roar, sent their foaming and angry spray 
 half way up the hoar ascent. 
 
 At this stern and dreary spot, well suited for such conferences 
 as Aram and Houseman alone could hold ; and which, whatever, 
 was the original secret that linked the two men thus strangely, 
 seemed of necessity to partake of a desperate and lawless
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 character, with danger for its main topic, and death itself for 
 its colouring, Aram now paused, and with an eye accustomed 
 to the darkness, looked around for his companion. 
 
 He did not wait long : from the profound shadow that girded 
 the space immediately around the fall, Houseman emerged and 
 joined the student. The stunning noise of the cataract in the 
 place where they met, forbade any attempt to converse ; and 
 they walked on by the course of the stream, to gain a spot less 
 in reach of the deafening shout of the mountain giant as he 
 rushed with his banded waters upon the valley like a foe. 
 
 It was noticeable that as they proceeded, Aram walked on 
 with an unsuspicious and careless demeanour; but Houseman 
 pointing out the way with his hand, not leading it, kept a little 
 behind Aram, and watched his motions with a vigilant and wary 
 eye. The student, who had diverged from the path at House- 
 man's direction, now paused at a place where the matted bushes 
 seemed to forbid any farther progress ; and said, for the first 
 time breaking the silence, " We cannot proceed ; shall this be 
 the place of our conference?" 
 
 " No," said Houseman, " we had better pierce the bushes. I 
 know the way, but will not lead it" 
 
 " And wherefore ? " 
 
 "The mark of your gripe is still on my throat," replied 
 Houseman, significantly: "you know as well as I, that it is 
 npt always safe to have a friend lagging behind." 
 
 " Let us rest here, then," said Aram, calmly, the darkness 
 veiling any alteration of his countenance which his comrade's 
 suspicion might have created. 
 
 "Yet it were much better," said Houseman, doubtingly, "could 
 we gain the cave below." 
 
 "The cave!" said Aram, starting, as if the word had a sound 
 of fear. 
 
 "Ay, ay: but not St. Robert's," said Houseman; and the 
 grin of his teeth was visible through the dulness of the shade. 
 " But come, give me your hand, and I will venture to conduct 
 ^you through the thicket : that is your left hand," observed 
 Houseman, with a sharp and angry suspicion in his tone; "give 
 me the right"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 239 
 
 " As you will," said Aram, in a subdued, yet meaning voice, 
 that seemed to come from his heart ; and thrilled, for an instant, 
 to the bones of him who heard it ; " as you will ; but for fourteen 
 years I have not given this right hand, in pledge of fellowship, 
 to living man ; you alone deserve the courtesy there!" 
 
 Houseman hesitated before he took the hand now extended 
 to him. 
 
 "Pshaw!" said he, as if indignant at himself; "what scruples 
 at a shadow ! Come " (grasping the hand) " that's well so, so ; 
 now we are in the thicket tread firm this way hold," con- 
 tinued Houseman, under his breath, as suspicion anew seemed 
 to cross him ; " hold ! we can see each other's face not even 
 dimly now : but in this hand, my right is free, I have a knife 
 that has done good service ere this ; and if I do but suspect 
 that you are about to play me false, I bury it in your heart. 
 Do you heed me ?" 
 
 " Fool ! " said Aram, scornfully, " I should dread you dead yet 
 more than living." 
 
 Houseman made no answer; but, continued to grope on 
 through the path in the thicket, which he evidently knew well; 
 though even in daylight, so thick were the trees, and so artfully 
 had their boughs been left to cover the track, no path could 
 have been discovered by one unacquainted with the clue. 
 
 They had now walked on for some minutes, and of late their 
 steps had been threading a rugged, and somewhat precipitous 
 descent ; all this while the pulse of the hand Houseman held, 
 beat with as steadfast and calm a throb as in the most quiet 
 mood of learned meditation ; although Aram could not but be 
 conscious that a mere accident, a slip of the foot, an entangle- 
 ment in the briars, might awaken the irritable fears of his ruffian 
 comrade, and bring the knife to his breast. But this was not that 
 form of death that could shake the nerves of Aram ; nor, though 
 arming his soul to ward off one danger, was he well sensible of 
 another, that might have seemed equally near and probable to 
 a less collected and energetic nature. Houseman now halted, 
 again put aside the boughs, proceeded a few steps, and, by a 
 certain dampness and oppression in the air, Aram rightly con- 
 jectured himself in the cavern Houseman had spoken of.
 
 :;c EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "We are landed now," said Houseman; "but wait, I will 
 strike a light. I do not love darkness, even with another sort of 
 companion than the one I have now the honour to entertain . * 
 
 In a few moments a light was produced, and placed aloft on a 
 crag in the cavern ; but the ray it gave was feeble and dull, and 
 left all, beyond the immediate spot in which they stood, in a 
 darkness little less Cimmerian than before. 
 
 "'Fore Gad, it is cold," said Houseman, shivering; "but I 
 have taken care, you see, to provide for a friend's comfort." So 
 saying, he approached a bundle of dry sticks and leaves, piled 
 at one corner of the cave, applied the light to the fuel, and 
 presently the fire rose crackling, breaking into a thousand sparks, 
 and freeing itself gradually from the clouds of smoke; in which it 
 was enveloped. It now mounted into a ruddy and cheering flame, 
 and the warm glow played picturesquely upon the grey sides 
 of the cavern, which was of a rugged shape, and small dimen- 
 sions, and cast its reddening light over the forms of the two men. 
 
 Houseman stood close to the flame, spreading his hands over 
 it, and a sort of grim complacency stealing along features 
 singularly ill-favoured, and sinister in their expression, as he 
 felt the animal luxury of the warmth. 
 
 Across his middle was a broad leathern belt, containing a 
 brace of large horse-pistols, and the knife, or rather dagger, 
 with which he had menaced Aram an instrument sharpened 
 on both sides, and nearly a foot in length. Altogether, what 
 with his muscular breadth of figure, his hard anM rugged features, 
 his weapons, and a certain reckless, bravo air which indescribably 
 marked his attitude and bearing, it was not well possible to 
 imagine a fitter habitant for that grim cave, or one from whom 
 men of peace, like Eugene Aram, might have seemed to derive 
 more reasonable cause of alarm. 
 
 The scholar stood at a little distance, waiting till his com- 
 panion was entirely prepared for the conference, and his pale 
 and lofty features, hushed in their usual deep, but at such a 
 moment almost preternatural, repose. He stood leaning with 
 folded arms against the rude wall ; the light reflected upon his 
 dark garments, -with the graceful riding-cloak of the day half 
 falling from his shoulder, and revealing also the pistols in his
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 241 
 
 belt, and the sword which, though commonly worn at that time 
 by all pretending to superiority above the lower and trading 
 orders, Aram usually waived as a distinction, but now carried as 
 a defence. And nothing could be more striking lhan the con- 
 trast between the ruffian form of his companion and the delicate 
 and chiselled beauty of the student's features, with their air 
 of mournful intelligence and serene command, and the slender 
 though nervous symmetry of his frame. 
 
 " Houseman," said Aram, now advancing, as his comrade 
 turned his face from the flame towards him ; " before we enter 
 on the main subject of our proposed commune, tell me, were 
 you engaged in the attempt last night upon Lester's house ? " 
 
 "By the fiend, no !" answered Houseman; "nor did I learn 
 it till this morning: it was unpremeditated till within a few hours 
 of the time, by the two fools who alone planned it. The fact 
 is, that I myself and the greater part of our little band were 
 engaged some miles ofif, in the western part of the country. 
 Two our general spies, had been, of their own accord, into 
 your neighbourhood, to reconnoitre. They marked Lester's 
 house during the day, and gathered from unsuspected inquiry 
 in the village, for they were dressed as mere country clowns, 
 several particulars which induced them to think the house 
 contained what might repay the trouble of breaking into it. 
 And walking along the fields, they overheard the good master 
 of the house tell one of his neighbours of a large sum at home ; 
 nay. even describe the place where it was kept : that determined 
 them ; they feared that the sum might be removed the next 
 day ; they had noted the house sufficiently to profit by the 
 description given : they determined, then, of themselves, for it 
 was too late to reckon on our assistance, to break into the room 
 in which the money was kept though from the aroused vigi- 
 lance of the frightened hamlet and the force within the house, 
 they resolved to attempt no further booty. They reckoned on r 
 the violence of the storm, and the darkness of the night, to- 
 prevent their being heard or seen: they were mistaken the 
 house was alarmed, they were no sooner in the luckless room, 
 than " 
 
 "Well, I know the rest. Was the one wounded dangerously hurt?" 
 
 Q
 
 34* EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Oh, he will recover he will recover ; our men are no 
 chickens. But I own I thought it natural that you might 
 suspect me of sharing in the attack ; and though, as I have 
 said before, I do not love you, I have no wish to embroil matters 
 so far as an outrage on the house of your father-in-law might 
 be reasonably expected to do ; at all events while the gate to 
 an amicable compromise between us is still open." 
 
 " I am satisfied on this head," said Aram, " and I can now 
 treat with you in a spirit of less distrustful precaution than 
 before. I tell you, Houseman, that the terms are no longer at 
 your control ; you must leave this part of the country, and that 
 forthwith, or you inevitably perish. The whole population is 
 alarmed, and the most vigilant of the London police have beeo 
 already sent for. Life is sweet to you, as to us all, and I cannot 
 imagine you so mad as to incur, not the risk, but the certainty, 
 of losing it. You can no longer, therefore, hold the threat of 
 your presence over my head. Besides, were you able to do so, 
 I at least have the power, which you seem to have forgotten, of 
 freeing myself from it. . Am I chained to yonder valleys ? Have 
 I not the facility of quitting them at any moment I will ? of 
 seeking a hiding-place which might baffle, not only your vigilance, 
 to discover me, but that of the law ? True, my approaching 
 marriage puts some clog upon my wing; but you know that I, 
 of all men, am not likely to be the slave of passion. And what 
 ties are strong enough to arrest the steps of him who flies from a 
 fearful death ? Am I using sophistry here, Houseman ? Have 
 I not reason on my side ? " 
 
 "What you say is true enough," said Houseman, reluctantly ; 
 " I do not gainsay it. But I know you have not sought me, in 
 this spot and at this hour, for the purpose of denying my claims : 
 the desire of compromise alone can have brought you hither." 
 
 "You speak well," said Aram, preserving the admirable cool- 
 ness of his manner : and continuing the deep and sagacious 
 hypocrisy by which he sought to baffle the dogged covetousness 
 and keen sense of interest with which he had to contend. " It 
 is got easy for either of us to deceive the other. We are men, 
 whose perception a life of danger has sharpened upon all points ; 
 I speak to you frankly, for disguise is unavailing. Though I
 
 tut/EXE ARAM. 243 
 
 can fly from your reach, though I can desert my present home 
 and my intended bride, I would fain think I have free and 
 secure choice to preserve that exact path and scene of life which 
 I have chalked out for myself: I would fain be rid of all appre- 
 hension from you. There are two ways only by which this 
 security can be won : the first is through your death ; nay, start 
 not, nor put your hand on your pistol ; you have not now cause 
 to fear me. Had I chosen that method of escape, I could have 
 effected it long since: when months ago you slept under my 
 roof, ay, slept, what should have hindered me from stabbing 
 you during the slumber ? Two nights since, when my blood 
 was up, and the fury upon me, what should have prevented me 
 tightening the grasp that you so resent, and laying you breath- 
 Jess at my feet ? Nay, now, though you keep your eye fixed on 
 my motions, and your hand upon your weapon, you would be 
 no match for a desperate and resolved man, who might as well 
 perish in conflict with you as by the protracted accomplishment 
 of your threats. Your ball might fail (even now I see your 
 hand trembles) mine, if I so will it, is certain death. No, 
 Houseman, it would be as vain for your eye to scan the dark 
 pool into whose breast yon cataract casts its waters, as for your 
 intellect to pierce the depths of my mind and motives. Your 
 murder, though in self-defence, would lay a weight upon my 
 soul which would sink it for ever : I should see in your death 
 new chances of detection spread themselves before me: the 
 terrors of the dead are not to be bought or awed into silence ; 
 I should pass from one peril into another ; and the law's dread 
 vengeance might fall upon me, through the last peril, even yet 
 more surely than through the first. Be composed, on this point. 
 From my hand, unless you urge it madly upon yourself, you are 
 wholly safe, Let us turn to my second method of attaining 
 security. It lies, not in your momentary cessation from perse- 
 cutions ; not in your absence from this spot alone ; you must 
 quit the country you must never return to it your home must 
 be cast, and your very grave dug, in a foreign soil. Are you 
 prepared for this ? If not, I can say no more ; and I again cast 
 myself passive into the arms of fate." 
 
 "You ask," said Houseman, whose fears were allayed by 
 
 Q 2
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Aram's address, though, at the same time, his dissolute and 
 desperate nature was subdued and tamed, in spite of himself, 
 by the very composure of the loftier mind with which it was 
 brought in contact : " you ask," said he, " no trifling favour of 
 a man to desert his country for ever ; but I am no dreamer, 
 that I should love one spot better than another. I might, 
 perhaps, prefer a foreign clime, as the safer and the freer from 
 old recollections, if I could live in it as a man who loves the 
 relish of life should do. Show me the advantages I am to gain 
 by exile, and farewell to the pale cliffs of England for ever!" 
 
 "Your demand is just," answered Aram. "Listen, then. I 
 am willing to coin all my poor wealth, save alone the barest 
 pittance wherewith to sustain life ; nay, more, I am prepared 
 also to melt down the whole of my possible expectations from 
 others, into the form of an annuity to yourself. But mark, it 
 will be taken out of my hands, so that you can have no power 
 over me to alter the conditions with which it will be saddled. It 
 will be so vested that it shall commence the moment you touch 
 a foreign clime ; and wholly and for ever cease the moment you 
 set foot on any part of English ground ; or, mark also, at the 
 moment of my death. I shall then know that no further hope 
 from me can induce you to risk this income ; for, as I shall have 
 spent my all in attaining it, you cannot even meditate the design 
 of extorting more. I shall know that you will not menace my 
 life ; for my death would be the destruction of your fortunes. 
 We shall live thus separate and secure from each other ; you 
 will have only cause to hope for my safety ; and I shall have no 
 reason to shudder at your pursuits. It is true that one source of 
 fear might exist for me still namely, that in dying you should 
 enjoy the fruitless vengeance of criminating me. But this chance 
 I must patiently endure ; you, if older, are more robust and 
 hardy than myself your life will probably be longer than mine; 
 and, even were it otherwise, why should we destroy one another ? 
 I will solemnly swear to respect your secret at my death-bed ; 
 why not on your part, I say not swear, but resolve, to respect 
 mine? We cannot love one another; but why hate with a 
 gratuitous and demon vengeance? No, Houseman, however 
 circumstances may have darkened or steeled your heart, it is
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 245 
 
 touched with humanity yet: you will owe to me the bread of 
 a secure and easy existence you will feel that I have stripped 
 myself, even to penury, to purchase the comforts I cheerfully 
 resign to you you will remember that, instead of the sacrifices 
 enjoined by this alternative, I might have sought only to 
 counteract your threats by attempting a life that you strove 
 to make a snare and torture to my own. You will remember 
 this ; and you will not grudge me the austere and gloomy 
 solitude in which I seek to forget, or the one solace with which 
 I, perhaps vainly, endeavour to cheer my passage to a quiet 
 grave. No, Houseman, no ; dislike, hate, menace me as you 
 will, I still feel I shall have no cause to dread the mere wanton- 
 ness of your revenge." 
 
 These words, aided by a tone of voice and an expression of 
 countenance that gave them perhaps their chief effect, took 
 even the hardened nature of Houseman by surprise ; he was 
 affected by an emotion which he could not have believed it 
 possible the man who till then had galled him by the humbling 
 sense of inferiority could have created. He extended his hand 
 to Aram. 
 
 " By ," he exclaimed, with an oath which we spare the 
 
 reader; "you are right! you have made me as helpless in your 
 hands as an infant. I accept your offer if I were to refuse it, 
 I should be driven to the same courses I now pursue. But look 
 you ; I know not what may be the amount of the annuity you 
 can raise. I shall not, however, require more than will satisfy 
 my wants ; which, if not so scanty as your own, are not at least 
 very extravagant or very refined. As for the rest, if there be 
 any surplus, in God's name keep it for yourself, and rest assured 
 that, so far as I am concerned, you shall be molested no more." 
 
 "No, Houseman," said Aram, with a half smile, "you shal] 
 have all I first mentioned ; that is, all beyond what nature craves, 
 honourably and fully. Man's best resolutions are weak : if you 
 knew I possessed aught to spare, a fancied want, a momentary 
 extravagance, might tempt you to demand it. Let us put our- 
 selves beyond the possible reach of temptation. But do not 
 flatter yourself by the hope that the income will be magnificent. 
 My own annuity is but trifling, and the half of the dowry I
 
 246 EUGENE A! 
 
 expect from my future father-in-law is all that I can at present 
 obtain. The whole of that dowry is insignificant as a sum. 
 But if this does not suffice for you, I must beg or borrow 
 elsewhere." 
 
 "This, after all, is a pleasanter way of settling business," said 
 Houseman, "than by threats and anger. And now I will tell 
 you exactly the sum on which, if I could receive it yearly, I 
 could live without looking beyond the pale of the law for more 
 on which I could cheerfully renounce England, and commence 
 ' the honest man.' But then, hark you, I must have half settled 
 on my little daughter." 
 
 "What I have you a child?" said Aram, eagerly, and well 
 pleased to find an additional security for his own safety. 
 
 "Ay, a little girl my only one in her eighth year. She 
 lives with her grandmother, for she is motherless; and that girl 
 must not be left quite destitute should I be summoned hence 
 before my time. Some twelve years hence as poor Jane 
 promises to be pretty she may be married off my hands ; but 
 her childhood must not be exposed to the chances of beggary 
 or shame." 
 
 " Doubtless not, doubtless not. Who shall say now that we 
 ever outlive feeling?" said Aram. "Half the annuity shall be 
 settled upon her, should she survive you; but on the same 
 condition, ceasing when I die, or the instant of your return to 
 England. And now, name the sum that you deem sufficing." 
 
 " Why," said Houseman, counting on his fingers, and mut- 
 tering, " twenty fifty wine and the creature cheap abroad 
 humph ! a hundred for living, and half as much for pleasure, 
 Come, Aram, one hundred and fifty guineas per annum, English 
 money, will do for a foreign life you see I am easily satisfied." 
 
 " Be it so," said Aram ; " I will engage, by one means or 
 another, to obtain what you ask. For this purpose I shall set 
 out for London to-morrow ; I will not lose a moment in seeing 
 the necessary settlement made as we have specified. But, mean- 
 while, you must engage to leave this neighbourhood, and, if 
 possible, cause your comrades to do the same ; although you 
 will not hesitate, for the sake of your own safety, immediately 
 to separate from them."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 247 
 
 " Now that we are on good terms," replied Houseman, " I will 
 not scruple to oblige you in these particulars. My comrades 
 intend to quit the country before to-morrow; nay, half are 
 alreadj gone : by daybreak I myself will be some miles hence, 
 and separated from each of them. Let us meet in London after 
 the business is completed, and there conclude our last interview 
 on earth." 
 
 "What will be your address ?" 
 
 "In Lambeth there is a narrow alley that leads to the water- 
 side, called Peveril Lane. The last house to the right, towards 
 the river, is my usual lodging ; a safe resting-place at all times, 
 and for all men." 
 
 "There then will I seek you. And now, Houseman, fare you 
 well ! As you remember your word to me, may life flow smooth 
 for your child." 
 
 " Eugene Aram," said Houseman, " there is about you some- 
 thing against which the fiercer devil within me would rise in 
 vain. I have read that the tiger can be awed by the human eye, 
 and you compel me into submission by a spell equally un- 
 accountable. You are a singular man, and it seems to me a 
 riddle how we could ever have been thus connected ; or how 
 but we will not rip up the past, it is an ugly sight, and the fire is 
 just out. Those stories do not do for the dark. But to return ; 
 were it only for the sake of my child, you might depend upon 
 me now ; better, too, an arrangement of this sort, than if I had 
 a larger sum in hand which I might be tempted to fling away, 
 and, in looking for more, run my neck into a halter, and leave 
 poor Jane upon charity. But come, it is almost dark again, and 
 no doubt you wish to be stirring : stay," I will lead you back, 
 and put you on the right track, lest you stumble on my friends." 
 
 14 Is this cavern one of their haunts ? " said Aram. 
 
 " Sometimes ; but they sleep the other side of The Devil's 
 Crag to-night. Nothing like a change of quarters for longevity 
 eh ? " 
 
 " And they easily spare you ? " 
 
 " Yes, if it be only on rare occasions, and on the plea of 
 family business. Now then, your hand, as before. 'Sdeath ! 
 how it rains ! lightning too ! I could look with less fear on a
 
 248 LUGLNE ARAM. 
 
 naked sword than those red, forked, blinding flashes. Hark I 
 thunder ! " 
 
 The night had now, indeed, suddenly changed its aspect ; the 
 rain descended in torrents, even more impetuously than on the 
 former night, while the thunder burst over their very heads, as 
 they wound upward through the brake. With every instant the 
 lightning, darting through the riven chasm of the blackness that 
 seemed suspended as in a solid substance above, brightened the 
 whole heaven into one livid and terrific flame, and showed to the 
 two men the faces of each other, rendered deathlike and ghastly 
 by the glare. Houseman was evidently affected by the fear that 
 sometimes seizes even the sturdiest criminals, when exposed to 
 those more fearful phenomena of the heavens, which seem to 
 humble into nothing the power and the wrath of man. His 
 teeth chattered, and he muttered broken words about the 
 peril of wandering near trees when the lightning was of that 
 forked character, quickening his pace at every sentence, and 
 sometimes interrupting himself with an ejaculation, half oath, 
 half prayer, or a congratulation that the rain at least diminished 
 the danger. They soon cleared the thicket, and a few minutes 
 brought them once more to the banks of the stream, and the 
 increased roar of the cataract. No earthly scene, perhaps, could 
 surpass the appalling sublimity of that which they beheld ; 
 every instant the lightning, which became more and more 
 frequent, converting the black waters into billows of living fire, 
 or wreathing itself in lurid spires around the huge crag that now 
 rose in sight ; and again, as the thunder rolled onward, darting 
 its vain fury upon the rushing cataract and the tortured breast of 
 the gulf that raved below. And the sounds that filled the air 
 were even more fraught with terror and menace than the scene; 
 the waving, the groans, the crash of the pines on the hill, the 
 impetuous force of the rain upon the whirling river, and the 
 everlasting roar of the cataract, answered anon by the yet more 
 awful voice that burst above it from the clouds. 
 
 They halted while yet sufficiently distant from the cataract to 
 be heard by each other. " My path," said Aram, as the lightning 
 now paused upon the scene, and seemed literally to wrap in a 
 lurid shroud the dark figure of the student, as he stood, with his
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 249 
 
 hand calmly raised, and his cheek pale, but dauntless and com- 
 posed, " my path now lies yonder : in a week we shall meet 
 again." 
 
 " By the fiend," said Houseman, shuddering, " I would not, for 
 a full hundred, ride alone through the moor you will pass ! 
 There stands a gibbet by the road, on which a parricide was 
 hanged in chains. Pray Heaven this night be no omen of the 
 success of our present compact ! " 
 
 "A steady heart, Houseman," answered Aram, striking into 
 the separate path, " is its own omen." 
 
 The student soon gained the spot in which he had left his 
 horse ; the animal had not attempted to break the bridle, but 
 stood trembling from limb to limb, and testified by a quick 
 short neigh the satisfaction with which it hailed the approach of 
 its master, and found itself no longer alone. 
 
 Aram remounted, and hastened once more into the main road. 
 He scarcely felt the rain, though the fierce wind drove it right 
 against his path ; he scarcely marked the lightning, though, at 
 times, it seemed to dart its arrows on his very form : his heart 
 was absorbed in the success of his schemes. 
 
 " Let the storm without howl on," thought he, " that within 
 hath a respite at last. Amidst the winds and rains I can breathe 
 more freely than I have done on the smoothest sim ner day. 
 By the charm of a deeper mind and a subtler tongue, I have 
 conquered this desperate foe ; I have silenced this inveterate spy : 
 and, Heaven be praised, he too has human ties ; and by those 
 ties I hold him ! Now, then, I hasten to London I arrange 
 this annuity see that the law tightens every cord of the com- 
 pact ; and when all is done, and this dangerous man fairly 
 departed on his exile, I return to Madeline, and devote to her a 
 life no longer the vassal of accident and the hour. But I have 
 been "taught caution. Secure as my own prudence may have 
 made me from farther apprehension of Houseman, I will yet 
 place myself ivJiolly beyond his power : I will still consummate 
 my former purpose, adopt a new name, and seek a new retreat : 
 Madeline may not know the real cause ; but this brain is not 
 barren of excuse. Ah ! " as drawing his cloak closer round him, 
 he felt the purse hid within his breast which contained the order
 
 250 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 he had obtained from Lester, "ah ! this will now add its quota 
 to purchase, not a momentary relief, but the stipend of perpetual 
 silence. I have passed through the ordeal easier than I had 
 hoped for. Had the devil at his heart been more difficult to lay, 
 so necessary is his absence, that I must have purchased it at any 
 cost. Courage, Eugene Aram ! thy mind, for which thou hast 
 lived, and for which thou hast hazarded thy soul if soul and 
 mind be distinct from each other thy mind can support thee yet 
 through every peril : not till thou art stricken into idiocy shalt 
 thou behold thyself defenceless. How cheerfully," muttered he, 
 after a momentary pause, " how cheerfully, for safety, and to 
 breathe with a quiet heart the air of Madeline's presence, shall I 
 rid myself of all save enough to defy want. And want can never 
 now come to me, as of old. He who knows the sources of every 
 science from which wealth is wrought, holds even wealth at his 
 will." 
 
 Breaking at every interval into these soliloquies, Aram con- 
 tinued to breast the storm until he had won half his journey, 
 and had come upon a long and bleak moor, which was the 
 entrance to that beautiful line of country in which the valleys 
 around Grassdale are embosomed : faster and faster came the 
 rain ; and though the thunder-clouds were now behind, the}' yet 
 followed loweringly, in their black array, the path of the lonely 
 horseman. 
 
 But now he heard the sound of hoofs making towards him : 
 he drew his horse on one side of the road, and at that instant, a 
 broad flash of lightning illumining the space around, he beheld 
 four horsemen speeding along at a rapid gallop. They were 
 armed, and conversing loudly their oaths were heard jarringly 
 and distinctly amidst all the more solemn and terrific sounds of 
 the night. They came on sweeping by the student, whose hand 
 was on his pistol, for he recognised in one of the riders the man 
 who had escaped unwounded from Lester's house. He and his 
 comrades were evidently, then, Houseman's desperate associates ; 
 and they, too, though they were borne too rapidly by Aram 
 to be able to rein in their horses on the spot, had seen the 
 solitary traveller, and already wheeled round, and called upon 
 him to halt
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 251 
 
 The lightning was again gone, and the darkness snatched the 
 robbers and their intended victim from the sight of each other. 
 But Aram had not lost a moment ; fast fled his horse across the 
 moor, and when, with the next flash, he looked back, he saw the 
 ruffians, unwilling, even for booty, to encounter the horrors of 
 the night, had followed him but a few paces, and again turned 
 round. Still he dashed on, and had now nearly passed the moor. 
 The thunder rolled fainter and fainter from behind, and the 
 lightning only broke forth at prolonged intervals, when suddenly, 
 after a pause of unusual duration, it brought the whole scene 
 into a light, if less intolerable, even more livid than before. The 
 horse, that had hitherto sped on without start or stumble, now 
 recoiled in abrupt affright ; and the horseman, looking up at the 
 cause, beheld the gibbet of which Houseman had spoken, imme- 
 diately fronting his path, with its ghastly tenant waving to and 
 fro. as the winds rattled through the parched and arid bones ; 
 and the inexpressible grin of the skull fixed, as in mockery, 
 upon his countenance.
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 H KvtrptC ov 
 
 s'O'H. Oaptrt, Zawvpiwv, y\VKtpov rof, ov Xryw aw<f>vr 
 \l06dvfTOL TV fipifof, vai rav v6rtnav 
 
 8EOKP. 
 
 Th Venus, not the vulgar ! propitiate the divinity, terming her the Uranian. 
 
 
 PEAXINOE. B of good cheer, Zopyrion, dear child ; I do not speak of thy father. 
 Go&OO. The boy comprehends, by Proserpine. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN WHICH WK *ETURN TO WALTER. HIS DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO MR. PERTINAX 
 F1LLGRAVE. THE CORPORAL'S ADVICE, AND THE CORPORAL'S VICTORY. 
 
 Let a physician be ever so excellent, there will be those that censure him. Gil Bias. 
 
 WE left Walter in a situation of that critical nature that it 
 would be inhuman to delay our return to him any longer. The 
 blow by which he had been felled stunned him for an instant; 
 but his frame was of no common strength and hardihood ; and 
 the imminent peril in xvhich he was placed served to recall him 
 from the momentary insensibility. On recovering himself, he 
 fc-lt that the ruffians were dragging him towards the hedge, and 
 the thought flashed upon him that their object was murder. 
 Nerved by this idea he collected his strength, and suddenly 
 cresting himself from the grasp of one of the ruffians who had
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 253 
 
 seized him by the collar, he had already gained his knee, and 
 now his feet, when a second blow once more deprived him of 
 sense. 
 
 When a dim and struggling consciousness recurred to him. he 
 found that the villains had dragged him to the opposite side of 
 the hedge, and were deliberately robbing him. He was on the 
 point of renewing a useless and dangerous struggle, when one 
 of the ruffians said 
 
 " I think he stirs. I had better draw my knife across his 
 throat." 
 
 "Pooh, no!" replied another voice ; "never kill if it can be 
 helped. Trust me, 'tis an ugly thing to think of afterwards. 
 Besides, what use* is it ? A robbery in these parts is done and 
 forgotten ; but a murder rouses the whole country." 
 
 " Damnation, man ! why, the deed's done already ; he's as 
 dead as a door-nail." 
 
 " Dead ! " said the other, in a startled voice ; " no, no ! " and 
 leaning down, the ruffian placed his hand on Walter's heart 
 The unfortunate traveller felt his flesh creep as the hand touched 
 him, but- prudently abstained from motion or exclamation. He 
 thought, however, as with dizzy and half-shut eyes he caught 
 the shadowy and dusky outline of the face that bent over him, 
 so closely that he felt the breath of its lips, that it was a face he 
 had seen before ; and as the man now rose, and the wan light of 
 the skies gave a somewhat clearer view of his features, the 
 supposition was heightened, though not absolutely confirmed. 
 But Walter had no farther power to observe his plunderers : 
 ajrain his brain reeled ; the dark trees, the grim shadows of 
 human forms, swam before his glazing eye ; and he sunk once 
 more into a profound insensibility. 
 
 Meanwhile the doughty corporal had, at the first sight of his 
 master's fall, halted abruptly at the spot to which his steed had 
 carried him ; and coming rapidly to the conclusion that three 
 men were best encountered at a distance, he fired his two pistols, 
 and without staying to see if they took effect which, indeed, 
 they did not galloped down the precipitous hill with as much 
 despatch as if it had been the last stage to " Lunnun." 
 
 " My poor young master ! " muttered he. " But if the worst
 
 t$4 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 comes to the worst, the chief part of the money's in the saddle- 
 bags, any how; and so, messieurs thieves, you're bit baugh !" 
 
 The corporal was not long in reaching the town, and alarming 
 the loungers at the inn-door. A posse comitatns was soon 
 formed ; and, armed as if they were to have encountered all the 
 robbers between Hounslow and the Apennines, a band of heroes, 
 with the corporal, who had first deliberately reloaded his pistols, 
 at their head, set off to succour " the poor gentleman iv/iat was 
 already murdered." 
 
 They had not got far befpre they found Walter's horse, which 
 had luckily broken from the robbers, and was now quietly regaling 
 himself on a patch of grass by the roadside. " He can get his 
 supper, the beast!" grunted the corporal, thinking of his own; 
 and bade one of the party try to catch the animal, which, how- 
 ever, would have declined all such proffers, had not a long neigh 
 of recognition from the Roman nose of the corporal's steed, 
 striking familiarly on the straggler's ear, called it forthwith to 
 the corporal's side, and (while the two chargers exchanged 
 greeting) the corporal seized its rein. 
 
 When they came to the spot from which the robbers had made 
 their sally, all was still and tranquil ; no Walter was to be seen. 
 The corporal cautiously dismounted, and searched about with as 
 much minuteness as if he were looking for a pin ; but the host 
 of the inn at which the travellers had dined the day before 
 stumbled at once on the right track. Gouts of blood on the 
 white chalky soil directed him to the hedge, and creeping 
 through a small and recent gap, he discovered the yet breathing 
 body of the young traveller. 
 
 Walter was now conducted with much care to the inn ; a 
 surgeon was already in attendance; for having heard that a 
 gentleman had been murdered without his knowledge, Mr. 
 Pertinax Fillgrave had rushed from his house, and placed 
 himself on the road, that the poor creature might not, at least, 
 be buried without his assistance. So eager was he to begin 
 that he scarce suffered the unfortunate Walter to be taken 
 within before he whipped out his instruments, and set to work 
 with the smack of an amateur. 
 
 Although the surgeon declared his patient to be in the greatest
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 255 
 
 possible danger, the sagacious corporal, who thought himself 
 privileged to kno\t more about wounds than any man of peace, 
 by profession, however destructive by practice, could possibly 
 be, had himself examined those his master had received before 
 he went down to taste his long-delayed supper; and he now 
 confidently assured the landlord and the rest of the good 
 company in the kitchen that the blows on the head had been 
 mere flea-bites, and that his master would be as well as ever 
 in a week at the farthest. 
 
 And, indeed, when Walter the very next morning woke from 
 the stupor, rather than the sleep, he had undergone, he felt 
 himself surprisingly better than the surgeon, producing his 
 probe, hastened to assure him he possibly could be. 
 
 By the help of Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, Walter was detained 
 several days in the town ; nor is it wholly improbable but that 
 for the dexterity of the corporal he might be in the town to this 
 day ; not, indeed, in the comfortable shelter of the old-fashioned 
 inn, but in the colder quarters of a certain green spot, in which, 
 despite of its rural attractions, few persons are willing to fix a 
 permanent habitation. 
 
 Luckily, however, one evening, the corporal, who had been, to 
 say truth, very regular in his attendance on his master ; for, 
 bating the selfishness consequent, perhaps, on his knowledge 
 of the world, Jacob Bunting was a good-natured man on the 
 whole, and liked his master as well as he did anything, always 
 excepting Jacobina and board-wages ; one evening, we say, the 
 corporal, coming into Walter's apartment, found him sitting up 
 in his bed, with a very melancholy and dejected expression of 
 countenance. 
 
 " And well, sir, what does the doctor say?" asked the corporal, 
 drawing aside the curtains. 
 
 "Ah ! Bunting, I fancy it's all over with me! " 
 " The Lord forbid, sir ! You're a-jesting, surely ? " 
 "Jesting ; my good fellow : ah ! just get me that phial." 
 "The filthy stuff!" said the corporal, with a wry face. "Well, 
 sir, if I had had the dressing of you been half-way to Yorkshire 
 by this. Man's a worm ; and when a doctor gets 'un on his hook, 
 he is sure to angle for the devil with the bait augh 1 "
 
 156 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 * What ! you really think that d d fellow, Fillgrave, is 
 keeping me on in this way ? " 
 
 " Is he a fool, to give up three phials a day, 4J-. 6d. item, ditto, 
 ditto ? " cried the corporal, as if astonished at the question. 
 " But don't you feel yourself getting a deal better every day ? 
 Don't you feel all this 'ere stuff revive you ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, I was amazingly better the first day than I atn 
 now ; I make progress from worse to worse. Ah ! Bunting, if 
 Peter Dealtry were here, he might help me to an appropriate 
 epitaph : as it is, I suppose I shall be very simply labelled. 
 Fillgrave will do the whole business, and put it down in his bill 
 item, nine draughts item, one epitaph." 
 
 " Lord-a-mercy, your honour ! " said the corporal, drawing out 
 a little red-spotted pocket-handkerchief; " how can jest so? 
 it's quite moving." 
 
 " I wish we were moving I " sighed the patient 
 
 "And so we might be," cried the corporal ; "so we might, if 
 you'd pluck up a bit. Just let me look at your honour's head ; 
 I knows what a confusion is better nor any of 'em." 
 
 The corporal, having obtained permission, now removed 
 the bandages wherewith the doctor had bound his intended 
 sacrifice to Pluto, and after peering into the wounds for about a 
 minute, he thrust out his under lip with a contemptuous 
 
 " Pshaugh ! augh ! And how long," said he, " does Master 
 Fillgrave say you be to be under his hands ? augh ! " 
 
 " He gives me hopes that I may be taken out an airing very 
 gently (yes, hearses always go very gently!) in about three 
 weeks ! " 
 
 The corporal started, and broke into a long whistle. He then 
 grinned from ear to ear, snapped his fingers, and said, " Man of 
 the world, sir, man of the world, every inch of him ! " 
 
 "He seems resolved that I shall be a man of another world ! " 
 said Walter. 
 
 " Tell ye what, sir take my advice your honour knows 
 I be no fool throw off them 'ere wrappers : let me put on a scrap 
 of plaster pitch phials to the devil order out horses to-rnorrow, 
 and when you've been in the air half-an-hour, won't know your- 
 self again !"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 257 
 
 " Bunting ! the horses out to-morrow ? Faith, I don't think I 
 could walk across the room." 
 
 "Just try, your honour." 
 
 " Ah ! I'm very weak, very weak my dressing-gown and 
 slippers your arm, Bunting well, upon my honour, I walk 
 very stoutly, eh ? I should not have thought this ! Leave 
 go : why, I really get on without your assistance ! " 
 
 " Walk as well as ever you did." 
 
 " Now I'm out of bed, I don't think I shall go back again 
 to it." 
 
 " Would not, if I was your honour." 
 
 "After so much exercise, I really fancy I've a sort of an 
 appetite." 
 
 " Like a beefsteak ? " 
 
 " Nothing better." 
 
 " Pint of wine ? " 
 
 " Why, that would be too much eh ? n 
 
 " Not it." 
 
 "Go then, my good Bunting: go, and make haste stop, I 
 say, that d d fellow " 
 
 " Good sign to swear," interrupted the corporal ; " swore twice 
 within last five minutes famous symptom ! " 
 
 " Do you choose to hear me ? That d d fellow Fillgrave is 
 coming back in an hour to bleed me : do you mount guard 
 refuse to let him in pay him his bill you have the money. 
 And hark ye, don't be rude to the rascal." 
 
 "Rude, your honour! not I been in the forty-second- 
 knows discipline only rude to the privates ! " 
 
 The corporal having seen his master conduct himself respect- 
 ably towards the viands with which he supplied him having set 
 his room to rights, brought him the candles, borrowed him a 
 book, and left him, for the present in extremely good spirits, and 
 prepared for the flight of the morrow ; the corporal, I say, now 
 lighting his pipe, stationed himself at the door of the inn, and 
 waited for Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave. Presently the doctor, who 
 was a little thin man, came bustling across the street, and was 
 about, with a familiar " Good evening," to pass by the corporal, 
 when that worthy, dropping his pipe, said respectfully, "Beg 
 
 R
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 pardon, sir, want to speak to you a little favour. Will your 
 honour walk into the back parlour ?" 
 
 " Oh ! another patient," thought the doctor ; * these soldiers 
 arc careless fellows often get into scrapes. Yes, friend, I'm at 
 your service." 
 
 The corporal showed the man of phials into the back parlour 
 and, hemming thrice, looked sheepish, as if in doubt how 
 to begin. It was the doctor's business to encourage the 
 bashful 
 
 " Well, my good man," said he, brushing off, with the arm of 
 his coat, some dust that had settled on his inexpressibles, " so 
 you want to consult me ? " 
 
 " Indeed, your honour, I do ; but I feel a little awkward in 
 doing so a stranger and all." 
 
 " Pooh ! medical men are never strangers. I am the friend 
 of ever)' man who requires my assistance." 
 
 "Augh! and I do require your honour's assistance very 
 sadly." 
 
 " Well well speak out. Anything of long standing ?" 
 " Why, only since we have been here, sir.' 1 
 Oh, that's all 1 Well?" 
 
 " Your honour's so good that won't scruple in telling you 
 all. You sees as how we were robbed master, at least, was 
 had some little in my pockets but we poor servants are never 
 too rich. You seems such a kind gentleman so attentive to 
 master though you must have felt how disinterested it was to 
 tend a man what had been robbed that I have no hesitation in 
 making bold to ask you to lend us a few guineas, just to help us 
 out with the bill here bother!" 
 
 " Fellow ! " said the doctor, rising, " I don't know what you 
 
 mean ; but I'd have you to learn that I am not to be cheated 
 
 out of my time and property ! I shall insist upon being paid 
 
 .my bill instantly, before I dress your master's wound once 
 
 more !" 
 
 "Augh!" said the corporal, who was delighted to find the 
 doctor come so immediately into the snare : " won't be sc 
 cruel, surely ! why, you'll leave us without a shiner to pay my 
 host here 1 "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 259 
 
 " Nonsense ! Your master, if he's a gentleman, can write 
 home for money." 
 
 " Ah, sir, all very well to say so ; but, between you and me 
 and the bed-post, young master's quarrelled with old master 
 old master won't give him a rap : so I'm sure, since your 
 honour's a friend to every man who requires your assistance 
 noble saying, sir ! you won't refuse us a few guineas, And as 
 for your bill why " 
 
 " Sir, you're an impudent vagabond ! " cried the doctor, as red 
 as a rose-draught, and flinging out of the room ; " and I warn 
 you that I shall bring in my bill, and expect to be paid within 
 ten minutes." 
 
 The doctor waited for no answer he hurried home, scratched 
 off his account, and flew back with it in as much haste as if his 
 patient had been a month longer under his care, and was conse- 
 quently on the brink of that happier world, where, since the in- 
 habitants are immortal, it is very evident that doctors, as being 
 useless, are never admitted. 
 
 The corporal met him as before. 
 
 " There, sir ! " cried the doctor, breathlessly ; and then putting 
 his arms a-kimbo, " take that to your master, and desire him to 
 pay me instantly." 
 
 " Augh ! and shall do no such thing." 
 
 "You won't?" 
 
 " No, for shall pay you myself. Where's your receipt eh ? n 
 
 And with great composure the corporal drew out a well-filled 
 purse, and discharged the bill. The doctor was so thunder- 
 stricken, that he pocketed the money without uttering a word. 
 He consoled himself, however, with the belief that Walter, whom 
 he had tamed into a becoming hypochondria, would be sure to 
 send for him the next morning. Alas for mortal expectations 1 
 The next morning Walter was once more oa the road. 
 
 R 2
 
 *6o EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 W1W TRACES OP THE FATE OF GEOFFREY LESTER. WALTER AND THE CORPORA! 
 PROCEED ON A FRESH EXPEDITION. THE CORPORAL IS ESPECIALLY SAGA- 
 CIOUS ON THE OLD TOPIC OF THE WORLD. HIS OPINIONS OF THE MI.N 
 WHO CLAIM KNOWLEDGE THEREOF ; ON THE ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY A 
 VALET ; ON THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESSFUL LOVE ; ON VIRTUE AND THE 
 CONSTITUTION; ON QUALITIES TO BE DESIRED IN A MISTRESS, ETC. A 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more 
 sedate turn. Spectator, No. III. 
 
 WALTER found, while he made search himself, that it was no 
 easy matter, in so large a county as Yorkshire, to obtain even 
 the preliminary particulars, viz. the place of residence, and the 
 name of the colonel from India whose dying gift his father had 
 left the house of the worthy Courtland to claim and receive. 
 But the moment he committed the inquiry to the care of an 
 active and intelligent lawyer, the case seemed to brighten up 
 prodigiously ; and Walter was shortly informed that a Colonel 
 Elmore, who had been in India, had died in the year 17 ; that, 
 by a reference to his will, it appeared that he had left to Daniel 
 Clarke the sum of a thousand pounds, and the house in which he 
 resided before his death ; the latter being merely leasehold, at a 
 high rent, was specified in the will to be of small value : it was 
 situated in the outskirts of Knaresborough. It was also dis- 
 covered that a Mr. Jonas Elmore, the only surviving executor of 
 the will, and a distant relation of the deceased colonel's, lived 
 about fifty miles from York, and could, in all probability, better 
 than any one, afford Walter those farther particulars of which he 
 was so desirous to be informed. Walter immediately proposed 
 to his lawyer to accompany him to this gentleman's house ; but 
 it so happened that the lawyer could not, for three or four days, 
 leave his business at York ; and Walter, exceedingly impatient 
 to proceed on the intelligence thus granted him, and disliking 
 the meagre information obtained from letters, when a personal 
 interview could be obtained, resolved himself to repair to Mr. 
 Jonas Elmore's without farther delay. And behold, therefore.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 261 
 
 our worthy corporal and his master again mounted, and com- 
 mencing a new journey. 
 
 The corporal, always fond of adventure, was in high spirits. 
 
 " See, sir," said he to his master, patting with great affection 
 the neck of his steed, " see, sir, how brisk the creturs are ; what 
 a deal of good their long rest at York city's done 'em ! Ah, 
 your honour, what a fine town that ere be ! Yet," added the 
 corporal, with an air of great superiority, " it gives you no notion 
 of Lunnon like ; on the faith of a man, no ! " 
 
 " Well, Bunting, perhaps we may be in London within a month 
 hence." 
 
 " And afore we gets there, your honour, no offence, but 
 should like to give you some advice ; 'tis ticklish place that 
 Lunnon ; and though you be by no manner of means deficient 
 in genius, yet, sir, you be young, and / be " 
 
 " Old; true, Bunting," added Walter, very gravely. 
 
 " Augh bother ! old, sir ! old, sir ! A man in the prime of 
 life, hair coal black (bating a few grey ones that have had since 
 twenty, care, and military service, sir), carriage straight, 
 teeth strong, not an ail in the world, bating the rheumatics, is 
 not old, sir, not by no manner of means baugh ! " 
 
 "You are very right, Bunting: when I said old, I meant 
 experienced. I assure you I shall be very grateful for your 
 advice; and suppose, while we walk our horses up this hill, 
 you begin lecture the first. London's a fruitful subject ; all 
 you can say on it will not be soon exhausted." 
 
 " Ah, may well say that," replied the corporal, exceedingly 
 flattered with the permission he had obtained ; " and anything 
 my poor wit can suggest, quite at your honour's sarvice, ehem, 
 hem ! You must know by Lunnon, I means the world, and by 
 the world means Lunnon ; know one know t'other. But 'tis 
 not them as affects to be most knowing as be so at bottom. 
 Begging your honour's pardon, I thinks gentlefolks what lives 
 only with gentlefolks, and calls themselves men of the world, be 
 often no wiser nor Pagan creturs, and live in a Gentile 
 darkness." 
 
 " The true knowledge of the world," said Walter, " is only then 
 for the corporals of the forty-second, eh, Bunting ? "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 * As to that, sir," quoth the corporal, " 'tis not being of this 
 calling or of that calling that helps one on ; 'tis an inborn sort 
 of genus, the talent of obsarving, and growing wise by obsarving. 
 One picks up crumb here, crumb there ; but if one has not good 
 digestion, Lord, what sinnifies a feast ? Healthy man thrives on 
 a 'tato, sickly looks pale on a haunch. You sees, your honour, 
 as I said afore, I was own sarvant to Colonel Dysart ; he was a 
 lord's nephy, a very gay gentleman, and great hand with the 
 ladies not a man more in the world ; so I had the opportunity 
 of laming what's what among the best set ; at his honour's 
 expense, too, augh ! To my mind, sir, there is not a place 
 from which a man has a better view of things than the bit carpet 
 behind a gentleman's chair. The gentleman eats, and talks, and 
 swears, and jests, and plays cards, and makes loves, and tries 
 to cheat, and is cheated, and his man stands behind with his eyes 
 and ears open augh !" 
 
 " One should go into service to learn diplomacy, I see," said 
 Walter, greatly amused. 
 
 " Does not know what 'plomacy be, sir, but knows it would be 
 better for many a young master nor all the colleges ; would not 
 be so many bubbles if my lord could take a turn now and then 
 with John. A-well, sir! how I used to laugh in my sleeve like, 
 when I saw my master, who was thought the knowingest gentle- 
 man about Court, taken in every day smack afore my face. 
 There was one lady whom he had tried hard, as he thought, to 
 get away from her husband; and he used to be so mighty 
 pleased at ever)* glance from her brown eyes and be d d to 
 them! and so careful the husband should not see so pluming 
 himself on his discretion here, and his conquest there, when, 
 Lord bless you, it was all settled 'twixt man and wife aforehand ! 
 And while the colonel laughed at the cuckold, the cuckold 
 laughed at the dupe. For you sees, sir, as how the colonel was a 
 rich man, and the jewels as he bought for the lady went half into 
 the husband's pocket he ! he ! That's the way of the world, 
 sir, that's the way of the world ! " 
 
 "Upon my word, you draw a very bad picture of the world: 
 you colour highly ; and by the way, I observe that whenever 
 you find any man committing a roguish action, instead of calling
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 263 
 
 him a scoundrel, you show those great teeth of yours, and 
 chuckle out ' A man of the world ! a man of the world ! ' ' 
 
 " To be sure, your honour ; the proper name, too. Tis your 
 greenhorns who fly into a passion, and use hard words. You 
 see, sir, there's one thing we larn afore all other things in the 
 world to butter bread. Knowledge of others means only the 
 knowledge which side bread's buttered. In short, sir, the wiser 
 grow, the more take care of oursels. Some persons make a 
 mistake, and, in trying to take care of themsels, run neck into 
 halter baugh ! they are not rascals they are would-be men of 
 the world. Others be more prudent (for, as I said afore, sir, 
 discretion is a pair of stirrups) ; they be the true men of the 
 world." 
 
 "I should have thought," said Walter, "that the knowledge of 
 the world might be that knowledge which preserves us from 
 being cheated, but not that which enables us to cheat." 
 
 "Augh!" quoth the corporal, with that sort of smile with 
 which you see an old philosopher put down a high-sounding 
 error from a young disciple who flatters himself he has uttered 
 something prodigiously fine, " augh ! and did I not tell you, 
 t'other day to look at the professions, your honour? What 
 would a laryer be if he did not know how to cheat a witness and 
 humbug a jury ? knows he is lying : why is he lying ? for love 
 of his fees, or his fame like, which gets fees ; augh ! is not 
 that cheating others ? The doctor, too Master Fillgrave, for 
 instance ? " 
 
 " Say no more of doctors ; I abandon them to your satire, 
 without a word." 
 
 " The lying knaves ! Don't they say one's well, when one's 
 ill ill when ,'s well? profess to know what don't know? 
 thrust solemn phizzes into every abomination, as if laming lay 
 
 hid in a ? and all for their neighbour's money, or their own 
 
 reputation, which makes money augh ! In short, sir, look where 
 will, impossible to see so much cheating allowed, praised, en- 
 couraged, and feel very angry with a cheat who has only made 
 a mistake. But when I sees a man butter his bread carefully 
 knife steady butter thick, and hungry fellows looking on and 
 licking chops mothers stopping their brats ; ' See, child, respect-
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 able man, how thick his bread's buttered ! pull off your hat 
 to him : ' when I sees that, my heart warms : there's the true 
 man of the world augh ! " 
 
 "Well, Bunting," said Walter, laughing, "though you are thus 
 lenient to those unfortunate gentlemen whom others call rogues, 
 and thus laudatory of gentlemen who are at best discreetly 
 selfish, I suppose you admit the possibility of virtue, and your 
 heart warms as much when you see a man of worth as when you 
 see a man of the world ? " 
 
 " Why, you knows, your honour," answered the corporal, " so 
 far as vartue's concerned, there's a deal in constitution ; but as 
 for knowledge of the world, one gets it oneself ! " 
 
 " I don't wonder, Bunting as your opinion of women is 
 much the same as your opinion of men that you are still 
 unmarried." 
 
 " Augh ! but your honour mistakes ; I am no mice-and-trope. 
 Men are neither one thing nor t'other, neither good nor bad. A 
 prudent parson has nothing to fear from 'em, nor a foolish one 
 anything to gain baugh! As to the women creturs, your 
 honour, as I said, vartue's -\ deal in the constitution. Would not 
 ask what a lassie's mind be, nor what her eddycation ; but see 
 what her habits be, that's all habits and constitution all one, 
 play into one another's hands." 
 
 " And what sort of signs, Bunting, would you mostly esteem 
 in a lady?" 
 
 " First place, sir, woman I'd marry must not mope when alone ! 
 must be able to 'muse herself, must be easily 'mused. That's a 
 great sign, sir, of an innocent mind, to be tickled with straws. 
 Besides, employment keeps "em out of harm's way. Second 
 place, should obsarve if she was very fond of places, your honour 
 sorry to move that's a sure sign she won't tire easily ; but 
 that if she like you now from fancy, she'll like you by and by 
 from custom. Thirdly, your honour, she should not beavarse to 
 dress a leaning that way shows she has a desire to please: 
 people \\ ho don't care about pleasing always sullen. Fourthly, 
 she must bear to be crossed I'd be quite sure that she might be 
 contradicted, without mumping or storming ; 'cause then, you 
 knows, your honour, if she wanted anything expensive, need not
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 265 
 
 give it augh ! Fifthly, must not set up for a saint, your honour ; 
 they pye-house she-creaturs always thinks themsels so much 
 better nor \ve men ; don't understand our language and ways, 
 your honour ; they wants us not only to belave, but to tremble 
 bother ! " 
 
 " I like your description well enough, on the whole," said 
 Walter ; " and when I look out for a wife I shall come to you 
 for advice." 
 
 " Your honour may have it already Miss Ellinor's jist the 
 thing." 
 
 Walter turned away his head, and told Bunting, with great 
 show of indignation, not to be a fool. 
 
 The corporal, who was not quite certain of his ground here, 
 but who knew that Madeline, at all events, was going to be 
 married to Aram, and deemed it, therefore, quite useless to 
 waste any praise upon her, thought that a few random shots of 
 eulogium were worth throwing away on a chance, and conse- 
 quently continued, 
 
 " Augh, your honour, 'tis not cause I have eyes, that I be's a 
 fool. Miss Ellinor and your honour be only cousins, to be sure ; 
 but more like brother and sister nor anything else. Howsomever, 
 she's a rare cretur, whoever gets her ; has a face that puts one in 
 good humour with the world, if one sees it first thing in the 
 morning ; 'tis as good as the sun in July augh ! But, as I was 
 saying, your honour, "bout the women creturs in general " 
 
 " Enough of them, Bunting ! let us suppose you have been so 
 fortunate as to find one to suit you how would you woo her ? 
 Of course there are certain secrets of courtship, which you will 
 not hesitate to impart to one who, like me, wants such assistance 
 from art, much more than you can do, who are so bountifully 
 favoured by nature." 
 
 " As to nature," replied the corporal, with considerable modesty, 
 for he never disputed the truth of the compliment, " 'tis not 
 'cause a man be six feet without 's shoes that he 's any nearer to 
 lady's heart. Sir, I will own to you, howsomever it makes 'gainst 
 your honour and myself, for that matter that don't think one is 
 a bit more lucky with the ladies for being so handsome ! Tis 
 All very well with them 'ere willing ones, your honour caught at
 
 566 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 a glance ; but as for the better sort, one's beauty's all bother 1 
 Why, sir, when we see some of the most fortunatest men among 
 she creturs what poor little minnikens they be ! One's a dwarf 
 -another knock-kneed a third squints and a fourth might be 
 shown for a //ape! Neither, sir, is it your soft, insinivating, 
 die-away youths, as seem at first so seductive ; they do very well 
 for lovers, your honour: but then it's always rejected ones! 
 Neither, your honour, does the art of succeeding with the ladies 
 'quire all those finnikin nimini-pinimis, flourishes, and maxims, 
 and saws, which the colonel, my old master, and the great 
 gentlefolks, as be knowing, call the art of love baugh ! The 
 whole science, sir, consists in these two rules ' Ax soon, and ax 
 often.'" 
 
 " There seems no great i .faculty in them, Bunting." 
 " Not to us who has gumption, sir ; but then there is summut 
 in the manner of axing one can't be too hot can't flatter too 
 much and, above all, one must never take a refusal. There, sir, 
 now, if you takes my advice may break the peace of all the 
 husbands in Lunnon bother whaugh 1" 
 
 " My uncle, little knows what a praiseworthy tutor he has 
 secured me in you, Bunting," said Walter, laughing ; " and now, 
 while the road is so* good, let us make the most of it" 
 
 As they had set out late in the day, and the corporal was 
 fearful of another attack from a hedge, he resolved that, about 
 evening, one of the horses should be seized with a sudden lame- 
 ness (which he effected by slyly inserting a stone between the 
 shoe and the hoof), that required immediate attention and a night's 
 rest ; so that it was not till the early noon of the next day that 
 our travellers entered the village in which Mr. Jones Elmore 
 resided. 
 
 It was a soft tranquil day, though one of the very last in 
 October ; for the reader will remember that time had not 
 stood still during Walter's submission to the care of Mr. Pertinax 
 Fillgrave, and his subsequent journey and researches. 
 
 The sun-li^ht rested on a broad patch of green heath, covered 
 with furze, and around it were scattered the cottages and farm- 
 houses of the little village. On the other side, as Walter 
 descended the gentle hill that led into this remote hamlet, wide
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 267 
 
 and flat meadows, interspersed with several fresh and shaded 
 ponds, stretched away towards a belt of rich woodland gorgeous 
 with the melancholy pomp by which the "regal year" seeks to 
 veil its decay. Among these meadows you might now see 
 groups of cattle quietly grazing, or standing half hid in the 
 still and sheltered pools. Still farther, crossing to the woods, a 
 solitary sportsman walked careless on, surrounded by some half- 
 a-dozen spaniels, and the shrill small tongue of one younger 
 straggler of the canine crew, who had broken indecorously 
 from the rest, and already entered the wood, might be just 
 heard, softened down by the distance, into a wild, cheery 
 sound, that animated, without disturbing, the serenity of the 
 scene. 
 
 " After all," said Walter aloud, " the scholar was right there 
 is nothing like the country ! 
 
 " ' Oh, happiness of sweet retired content, 
 To be at once secure and innocent ! ' " 
 
 " Be them verses in the Psalms, sir ? " said the corporal, who 
 was close behind. 
 
 " No, Bunting ; but they were written by one who, if I recollect 
 right, set the Psalms to verse. 1 I hope they meet with your 
 approbation ? " 
 
 " Indeed, sir, and no since they ben't in the Psalms." 
 
 "And why, Mr. Critic? *' 
 
 u 'Cause what's the use of security, if one's innocent, and does 
 not mean to take advantage of it ? baugh ! One does not lock 
 the door for nothing, your honour !" 
 
 " You shall enlarge on that honest doctrine of yours another 
 time ; meanwhile, call that shepherd, and ask the way to Mr. 
 Elmore's." 
 
 The corporal obeyed, and found that a clump of trees, at the 
 farther corner of the waste land, was the grove that surrounded 
 Mr Elmore's house: a short canter across the heath brought 
 them to a white gate, and having passed this, a comfortable brick 
 mansion, of moderate size, stood before them, 
 
 1 Denham.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A SCHOLAt, BUT OF A DIFFERENT MOULD FROM THE STUDENT OF GRASSDALE. 
 NEW PARTICULARS CONCERNING GEOFFREY LESTliR. THE JOURNEY RECOM- 
 MENCX0. 
 
 Insenuitque 
 Labris.* Horat. 
 
 Volat, amhiguis 
 Mobilis alis, Hora. 1 Sttuca. 
 
 UPON inquiring for Mr. Elmore, Walter was shown into a 
 handsome library, that appeared well stocked with books of that 
 good, old-fashioned size and solidity which are now fast passing 
 from the world, or at least shrinking into old shops and public 
 collections. The time may come when the mouldering remains 
 of a folio will attract as much philosophical astonishment as the 
 bones of the mammoth. For, behold, the deluge of writers hath 
 produced a new world of small octavo ! and in the next 
 generation, thanks to the popular libraries, we shall only vibrate 
 between the duodecimo and the diamond edition. Nay, we 
 foresee the time when a very handsome collection may be 
 carried about in one's waistcoat pocket, and a whole library 
 of the British Classics be neatly arranged in a well-compacted 
 snuff-box. 
 
 In a few minutes Mr. Elmore made his appearance: he was 
 a short, well-built man, about the age of fifty. Contrary to the 
 established mode, he wore no wig, and was very bald ; except at 
 the sides of the head, and a little circular island of hair in the 
 centre. But this defect was rendered the less visible by a 
 profusion of powder. He was dressed with evident care and 
 precision; a snuff-coloured coat was adorned with a respectable 
 profusion of gold lace; his breeches were of plum-coloured satin; 
 his salmon-coloured stockings, scrupulously drawn up, displayed 
 a very handsome calf; and a pair of steel buckles, in his high- 
 heeled and square-toed shoes, were polished into a lustre which 
 almost rivalled the splendour of diamonds. Mr. Jonas Elmore 
 
 1 And he hath grown old in book*. 
 
 * Time flies, still moving on uncertain wing.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 269 
 
 was a beau, a wit, and a scholar of the old school. He abounded 
 in jests, in quotations, in smart sayings, and pertinent anecdotes ; 
 but, withal, his classical learning (out of the classics he knew 
 little enough) was at once elegant, but wearisome ; pedantic, but 
 profound. 
 
 To this gentleman Walter presented a letter of introduction 
 which he had obtained from a distinguished clergyman in York. 
 Mr. Elmore received it with a profound salutation : 
 
 "Aha, from my friend, Dr. Hebraist," said he, glancing at the 
 seal : " a most worthy man, and a ripe scholar. I presume at 
 once, sir, from his introduction, that you yourself have cultivated 
 the literas Jiuinaniores. Pray sit down ay, I see, you take up a 
 book an excellent symptom ; it gives me an immediate insight 
 into your character. But you have chanced, sir, on light 
 reading, one of the Greek novels, I think : you must not judge 
 of my studies by such a specimen." 
 
 " Nevertheless, sir, it does not seem to my unskilful eye very 
 easy Greek." 
 
 " Pretty well, sir : barbarous, but amusing, pray, continue it. 
 The triumphal entry of Paulus Emilius is not ill told. I confess, 
 that I think novels might be made much higher works than they 
 have been yet. Doubtless, you remember what Aristotle says 
 concerning painters and sculptors, ' that they teach and re- 
 commend virtue in a more efficacious and powerful manner than 
 philosophers by their dry precepts, and are more capable of 
 amending the vicious, than the best moral lessons without such 
 aid.' But how much more, sir, can a good novelist do this, than 
 the best sculptor or painter in the world ! Every one can be 
 charmed by a fine novel, few by a fine painting. ' Docti rationem 
 artis intelligunt, indocti volnptatem! * A happy sentence that in 
 Quintilian, sir, is it not ? But, bless me, I am forgetting the 
 letter of my good friend, Dr. Hebraist. The charms of your 
 conversation carry me away. And, indeed, I have seldom the 
 happiness to meet a gentleman so well-informed as yourself. I 
 confess, sir, I confess that I still retain the tastes of my boyhood ; 
 the Muses cradled my childhood, they now smooth the pillow on 
 iy footstool Quern tu, Melpomene, &c. You are not yet subject 
 1 The learned understand the reason of art, the unlearned the pleasure.
 
 270 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 to gout, dira podagra. By the way, how is the worthy doctor, 
 since his attack ? Ah, see now, if you have not still, by your 
 delightful converse, kept me from his letter yet, positively I 
 need no introduction to you : Apollo has already presented you 
 to me. And as for the Doctor's letter, I will read it after dinner ; 
 for as Seneca " 
 
 " I beg your pardon a thousand times, sir," said Walter, who 
 began to despair of ever coming to the matter, which seemed 
 lost sight of beneath this battery of erudition, " but you will find 
 by Dr. Hebraist's letter that it is only on business of the utmost 
 importance that I have presumed to break in upon the learned 
 leisure of Mr. Jonas Elmore." 
 
 " Business ! " replied Mr. Elmore, producing his spectacles, and 
 deliberately placing them athwart his nose, 
 
 *' 'His mane edictum, post prandia Callirhoen,' &c. 
 
 Business in the morning, and the ladies after dinner. Well, sir, 
 I will yield to you in the one, and you must yield to me in the 
 other : I will open the letter, and you shall dine here, and be 
 introduced to Mrs. Elmore. What is your opinion of the modern 
 method of folding letters ? I but I see you are impatient." 
 Here Mr. Elmore at length broke the seal ; and to Walter's 
 great joy, fairly read the contents within. 
 
 " Oh ! I see, I see ! " he said refolding the epistle, and placing 
 it in his pocket-book ; " my friend, Dr. Hebraist, says you are 
 anxious to be informed whether Mr. Clarke ever received the 
 legacy of my poor cousin, Colonel Elmore ; and if so, any tidings 
 I can give you of Mr. Clarke himself, or any clue to discover him 
 will be highly acceptable. I gather, sir, from my friend's letter, 
 that this is the substance of your business with me, caput negotii; 
 although, like Timanthes, the painter, he leaves more to be 
 understood than is described, ' intelligitur plus quant piugitur^ as 
 Pliny has it." 
 
 " Sir," says Walter, drawing his chair close to Mr. Elmore. and 
 his anxiety forcing itself to his countenance, " that is indeed the 
 substance of my business with you : and so important will be 
 any information you can give me, that I shall esteem it a -" 
 
 " Not a very great favour, eh ? not very great ! "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 271 
 
 "Yes, indeed, a very great obligation." 
 
 " I hope not, sir ; for what says Tacitus that profound reader 
 of the human heart ? ' bencficia co usque loeta sunt,' &c. ; favours 
 easily repaid beget affection favours beyond return engender 
 hatred. But, sir, a truce to trifling ; " and here Mr. Elmore 
 composed his countenance, and changed, which he could do at 
 will, so that the change was not expected to last long the pedant 
 for the man of business. 
 
 " Mr. Clarke did receive his legacy : the lease of the house at 
 Knaresborough was also sold by his desire, and produced the 
 sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds ; which being added to 
 the farther sum of a thousand pounds, which was bequeathed to 
 him, amounted to seventeen hundred and fifty pounds. It so 
 happened that my cousin had possessed some very valuable 
 jewels, which were bequeathed to myself. I, sir, studious and a 
 cultivator of the Muse, had no love and no use for these baubles ; 
 I preferred barbaric gold to barbaric pearl ; and knowing that 
 Clarke had been in India, whence these jewels had been brought 
 I showed them to him, and consulted his knowledge on these 
 matters, as to the best method of obtaining a sale. He offered 
 to purchase them of me, under the impression that he could turn 
 them to a profitable speculation in London. Accordingly we came 
 to terms : I sold the greater part of them to him for a sum a little 
 exceeding a thousand pounds. He was pleased with his bargain ; 
 and came to borrow the rest of me, in order to look at them 
 more considerately at home, and determine whether or not he 
 should buy them also. .Well, sir (but here comes the remarkable 
 part of the story), about three days after this last event, Mr. 
 Clarke and my jewels both disappeared in rather a strange and 
 abrupt manner. In the middle of the night he left his lodging at 
 Knaresborough and never returned ; neither himself nor my 
 jewels were ever heard of more." 
 
 " Good Heavens ! " exclaimed Walter, greatly agitated ; 
 " what was supposed to be the cause of his disappearance ?" 
 
 "That," replied Elmore, "was never positively traced. It 
 excited great surprise and great conjecture at the time. Ad- 
 vertisements and handbills were circulated throughout the 
 country, but in vain. Mr. Clarke was evidently a man of eccentric
 
 -i EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 habits, of a hasty temper, and a wandering manner of life ; yet 
 it is scarcely probable that he took this sudden manner of leaving 
 the country either from whim or some secret but honest motive 
 never divulged. The fact is, that he owed a few debrs in the 
 town that he had my jewels in his possession, and as (pardon 
 me for saying this, since you take an interest in him) his connec- 
 tions were entirely unknown in these parts, and his character not 
 very highly estimated, whether fro:n his manner, or his con- 
 versation, or some undefined and vajue rumours, I cannot say), 
 it was considered by no means improbable that he had 
 decamped with his property in this sudden manner in order <r > 
 save himself that trouble of settling accounts which a more 
 seemly and public method of departure might have rendered 
 necessary. A man of the name of Houseman, with whom he 
 was acquainted (a resident in Knaresborough), declared that 
 Clarke had borrowed rather a considerable sum. from him, and 
 did not scruple openly to accuse him of the evident design to 
 avoid repayment. A few more dark but utterly groundless 
 conjectures were afloat ; and since the closest search, the minutest 
 inquiry, was employed without any result, the supposition that 
 he might have been robbed and murdered was strongly enter- 
 tained for some time ; but as his body was never found, nor 
 suspicion directed against any particular person, these conjectures 
 insensibly died away; and, being so complete a stranger to these 
 parts, the very circumstance of his disappearance was not likely 
 to occupy, for very long, the attention of that old gossip the 
 Public, who, even in the remotest parts, has a thousand topics to 
 fill up her time and talk. And now, sir, I think you know as 
 much of the particulars of the case as any one in these parts 
 can inform you." 
 
 We may imagine the various sensations which this unsatisfactory 
 intelligence caused in the adventurous son of the lost wanderer. 
 He continued to throw out additional guesses, and to make 
 farther inquiries concerning a tale which seemed to him so 
 mysterious, but without effect ; and he had the mortification to 
 perceive, that the shrewd Jonas was, in his own mind, fully 
 convinced that the permanent disappearance of Clarke was 
 accounted for only by the most dishonest motives.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 273 
 
 "And," added Elmore, "I am confirmed in this belief by 
 discovering afterwards, from a tradesman in York who had seen 
 my cousin's jewels, that those I had trusted to Mr. Clarke's 
 hands were more valuable than I had imagined them, and 
 therefore it was probably worth his while to make off with them 
 as quietly as possible. He went on foot, leaving his horse, a 
 sorry nag, to settle with me and the other claimants : 
 
 '* ' I, pedes quo te rapiunt et aurae ! ' " 1 
 
 " Heavens ! " thought Walter, sinking back in his chair 
 sickened and disheartened, " what a parent, if the opinions of 
 all men who knew him be true, do I thus zealously seek to 
 recover ! " 
 
 The good-natured Elmore, perceiving the unwelcome and 
 painful impression his account had produced on his young. 
 uest, now exerted himself to remove, or at least to lessen it ; 
 and, turning the conversation into a classical channel, which 
 with him was the Lethe to all cares, he soon forgot that Clarke 
 had ever existed, in expatiating on the unappreciated excellences 
 of Propertius, who, to his mind, was the most tender of all 
 elegiac poets, solely because he was the most learned. Fortu- 
 nately this vein of conversation, however tedious to Walter, 
 preserved him from the necessity of rejoinder, and left him to 
 the quiet enjoyment of his own gloomy and restless reflections. 
 
 At length the time touched upon dinner : Elmore starting up> 
 adjourned to the drawing-room, in order to present the handsome 
 stranger to the placens uxor the pleasing wife, whom, in passing 
 through the hall, he eulogised with an amazing felicity of 
 diction. 
 
 The object of these praises was a tall meagre lady, in a yellow- 
 dress carried up to the chin, and who added a slight squint to 
 the charms of red hair, ill concealed by powder, and the dignity 
 of a prodigiously high nose. "There is nothing, sir," said Elmore, 
 "nothing, believe me, like matrimonial felicity. Julia, my 
 dear, I trust the chickens will not be overdone." 
 
 * Indeed, Mr. Elmore, I cannot tell ; I did not boil them;" 
 
 " Sir," said Elmore, turning to his guest, " I do not know 
 
 1 Go, where your feet and fortune take you; 
 
 s
 
 j 7 4 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 whether you will agree with me, but I think a slight tendency 
 to gourmandism is absolutely necessary to complete the character 
 of a truly classical mind. So many beautiful touches are there 
 in the ancient poets so many delicate allusions in history and 
 in anecdote relating to the gratification of the palate, that, if 
 a man have no correspondent sympathy with the illustrious 
 epicures of old, he is rendered incapable of enjoying the most 
 beautiful passages that Come, sir, the dinner is served : 
 
 " ' Nutrimus lautis mollissima corpora mensis.' " 1 
 
 As they crossed the hall to the dining-room, a young lady, 
 whom Elmore hastily announced as his only daughter, appeared 
 descending the stairs, having evidently retired for the purpose 
 of re-arranging her attire for the conquest of the stranger. 
 There was something in Miss Elmore that reminded Walter 
 of Ellinor, and, as the likeness struck him, he felt, by the sudden 
 and involuntary sigh it occasioned, how much the image of his 
 cousin had lately gained ground upon his heart. 
 
 Nothing of any note occurred during dinner, until the appear- 
 ance of the second course, when Elmore, throwing himself back 
 with an air of content, which signified that the first edge of his 
 appetite was blunted, observed, 
 
 " Sir, the second course I always opine to be the more 
 dignified and rational part of a repast, 
 
 " Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit' "* 
 
 * Ah ! Mr. Elmore," said the lady, glancing towards a brace 
 of very fine pigeons, " I cannot tell you how vexed I am at a 
 mistake of the gardener's ; you remember my poor pet pigeons, 
 so attached to each other would not mix with the rest quite 
 an inseparable friendship, Mr. Lester well, they were killed, by 
 mistake, for a couple of vulgar pigeons. Ah 1 I could not touch 
 a bit of them for the world." 
 
 " My love," said Elmore, pausing, and with great solemnity, 
 " hear how beautiful a consolation is afforded to you in Valerius 
 Maximus : ' Ubi idem et maximus et honestissimus amor est, 
 alkjuando praestat morte jungi quam vita distrahi ! ' which, being 
 
 1 \Ve nourish softest bodies at luxurious banquet*. 
 * That which U now reason at fmt was but dowra.
 
 I 
 EUGENE ARAM. 275 
 
 interpreted, means, th^t wherever, as in the case of your pigeons, 
 a thoroughly high and sincere affection exists, it is sometimes 
 better to be joined in death than divided in life. Give me half 
 the fatter one, if you please, Julia." 
 
 " Sir," said Elmore, when the ladies withdrew, " I cannot tell 
 you how pleased I am to meet with a gentleman so deeply 
 imbued with classic lore. I remember, several years ago, before 
 my poor cousin died, it was my lot, when I visited him at 
 Knaresborough, to hold some delightful conversations on learned 
 matters with a very rising young scholar who then resided at 
 Knaresborough, Eugene Aram. Conversations as difficult 
 to obtain as delightful to remember, for he was exceedingly 
 reserved." 
 
 " Aram ! " repeated Walter. 
 
 " What ! you know him then ? and where does he live now ?" 
 
 " In , very near my uncle's residence. He is certainly 
 
 a remarkable man." 
 
 " Yes, indeed he promised to become so. At the time I refer 
 to, he was poor to penury, and haughty as poor ; but it was 
 wonderful to note the iron energy with which he pursued his 
 progress to learning. Never did I see a youth, at that time he 
 was no more, so devoted to knowledge for itself. 
 
 " ' Doctrinse pretium triste magister habit.' l 
 
 " Methinks," added Elmore, " I can see him now, stealing away 
 from the haunts of men, 
 
 " ' With even step and musing gait,' 
 
 across the quiet fields, or into the woods, whence he was certain 
 not to reappear till nightfall. Ah ! he was a strange and solitary 
 being, but full of genius, and promise of bright things hereafter.' 
 I have often heard since of his fame as a scholar, but could 
 never learn where he lived, or what was now his mode of life. 
 Is he yet married ?" 
 
 " Not yet, I believe : but he is not now so absolutely poor as 
 you describe him to have been then, though certainly far from 
 rich." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I remember that he received a legacy from a 
 
 1 The roaster has but sorry remuneration for his teaching. 
 
 S 2
 
 a;6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 relation shortly before he left Knaresborough. He had very 
 delicate health at that time: has he grown stronger with in- 
 creasing years ? " 
 
 " He does not complain of ill-health. And pray, was he 
 then of the same austere and blameless habits of life that he 
 now professes ? " 
 
 * Nothing could be so faultless as his character appeared ; the 
 passions of youth (ah ! / was a wild fellow at his age), never 
 seemed to venture near one 
 
 ** 'Quern casto erudit docta Minerva sinu. 1 * 
 
 " Well, I am surprised he has not married. We scholars, sir, 
 fall in love with abstractions, and fancy the first woman we see 
 is Sir, let us drink the ladies/* 
 
 The next day Walter, having resolved to set out for Knares- 
 borough, directed his course towards that town ; he thought it 
 yet possible that he might, by strict personal inquiry, continue 
 the clue that Elmore's account had, to present appearance, 
 broken. The pursuit in which he was engaged, combined, 
 perhaps, with the early disappointment to his affections, had 
 given a grave and solemn tone to a mind naturally ardent and 
 elastic. His character acquired an earnestness and a dignity 
 from late events ; and all that once had been hope within him 
 deepened into thought. As now, on a gloomy and clouded day, 
 he pursued his course along a bleak and melancholy road, his 
 mind was filled with that dark presentiment that shadow from 
 the coming event, which superstition believes the herald of the 
 more tragic discoveries or the more fearful incidents of life : he 
 felt steeled, and prepared for some dread dhioftment, to a journey 
 to which the hand of Providence seemed to conduct his steps ; 
 and he looked on the shroud that Time casts over all beyond 
 the present moment with the same intense and painful resolve 
 with which, in the tragic representations of life, we await the 
 drawing up of the curtain before the last act, which contains the 
 catastrophe, that, while we long, we half shudder to behold. 
 
 Meanwhile, in following the adventures of Walter Lester, we 
 have greatly outstripped the progress of events at Grassdale, 
 and thither we now return. 
 
 1 Whom wise Minerva Uught with bosom cbast*.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. '277 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ARAM'S DEPARTURE. MADELINE. EXAGGERATION OF SENTIMENT NATURAL IK 
 LOVE. MADELINE'S LETTER. WALTER'S. THE WALK. TWO VERY DIF- 
 FERENT PERSONS, YET BOTH INMATES OF THE SAME COUNTRY VILLAGE. 
 THE HUMOURS OF LIFE AND ITS DARK PASSIONS, ARE FOUND IN JUXTA- 
 POSITION EVERYWHERE. 
 
 Her thoughts as pure as the chaste morning's breath, 
 When from the Night's cold arms it creeps away. 
 Were clothed in words. 
 
 Dttraction Execrated, by SIR J. SUCKLING. 
 
 Urticse proxima saepe rosa est 1 Ovid. 
 
 "You positively leave us then to-day, Eugene?" said the 
 squire. 
 
 " Indeed," answered Aram, " I hear from my creditor (now no 
 longer so, thanks to you), that my relation is so dangerously ill, 
 that, if I have any wish to see her alive, I have not an hour to 
 lose. It is the last surviving relative I have in the world." 
 
 " I can say no more, then," rejoined the squire, shrugging his 
 shoulders. " When do you expect to return ? " 
 
 "At least, before the day fixed for the wedding," answered 
 Aram, with a grave and melancholy smile. 
 
 " Well, can you find time, think you, to call at the lodging 
 in which my nephew proposed to take up his abode my old 
 lodging I will give you the address, and inquire if Walter 
 has been heard of there ? I confess that I feel considerable alarm 
 on his account. Since that short and hurried letter which I read 
 to you, I have heard nothing of him." 
 
 "You may rely on my seeing him if in London, and faithfully 
 reporting to you all that I can learn towards removing your 
 anxiety." 
 
 "I do not doubt it; no heart is so kind as yours, Eugene. 
 You will not depart without receiving the additional sum you 
 are entitled to claim from me, since you think it may be useful 
 to you in London, should you find a favourable opportunity of 
 increasing your annuity. And now I will no longer detain you 
 from taking your leave of Madeline." 
 
 The plausible story which Aram had invented, of the illness 
 
 1 The rose is often nearest to the nettle.
 
 78 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and approaching death of his last living relation, was readily be- 
 lieved by the simple family to whom it was told ; and Madeline 
 herself checked her tears, that she might not, for his sake, 
 sadden a departure that seemed inevitable. Aram accordingly 
 repaired to London that day ; the one that followed the night 
 which witnessed his fearful visit to The Devil's Crag. 
 
 It is precisely at this part of my history that I love to pause 
 for a moment ; a sort of breathing interval between the clo id 
 that has been long gathering, and the storm that is about to 
 burst And this interval is not without its fleeting gleam of 
 quiet and holy sunshine. 
 
 It was Madeline's first absence from her lover since their vows 
 had plighted them to each other ; and that first absence, when 
 softened by so many hopes as smiled upon her, is perhaps one 
 of the most touching passages in the history of a woman's love. 
 It is marvellous how many things, unheeded before, suddenly 
 become dear. She then feels what a power of consecration 
 there was in the mere presence of the one beloved ; the spot he 
 touched, the book he read, have become a part of him are no 
 longer inanimate are inspired, and have a being and a voice. 
 And the heart, too, soothed in discovering so many new trea- 
 sures, and opening so delightful a world of memory, is not yet 
 acquainted with that weariness that sense of exhaustion and 
 solitude, which are the true pains of absence, and belong to the 
 absence, not of hope but regret 
 
 " You are cheerful, dear Madeline," said Ellinor, " though you 
 did not think it possible, and he not here ! " 
 
 " I am occupied," replied Madeline, " in discovering how much 
 I loved him." 
 
 We do wrong when we censure a certain exaggeration in the 
 sentiments of those we love. True passion is necessarily 
 heightened by its very ardour to an elevation that seems ex- 
 travagant only to those who cannot feel it. The lofty language 
 of a hero is a part of his character ; without that largeness of 
 idea he had not been a hero. With love, it is the same as with 
 glory: what common minds would call natural in sentiment, 
 merely because it is homely, is not natural, except to tamed 
 affections Tint is a very poor, nay, a very coarse, love, in
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 279 
 
 which the imagination makes not the greater part. And the 
 Frenchman who censured the love of his mistress because it it-as 
 so mixec! with the imagination, quarrelled with the body for the 
 soul which inspired and preserved it. 
 
 Yet we do not say that Madeline was so possessed by the 
 confidence of her love, that she did not admit the intrusion of a 
 single doubt or fear. When she recalled the frequent gloom and 
 moody fitfulness of her lover his strange and mysterious com- 
 munings with self the sorrow which, at times, as on that 
 Sabbath eve when he wept upon her bosom, appeared suddenly 
 to come upon a nature so calm and stately, and without a visible 
 cause ; when she recalled all these symptoms of a heart not 
 now at rest, it was not possible for her to reject altogether a 
 certain vague and dreary apprehension. Nor did she herself, 
 although to Ellinor she so affected, ascribe this cloudiness and 
 caprice of mood merely to the result of a solitary and medita- 
 tive life ; she attributed them to the influence of an early grief, 
 perhaps linked with the affections, and did not doubt but that 
 one day or another she should learn the secret. As for remorse 
 the memory of any former sin, a life so austerely blame- 
 less, a disposition so prompt to the activity of good, and so 
 enamoured of its beauty a mind so cultivated, a temper so 
 gentle, and a heart so easily moved all would have forbidden, 
 to natures far more suspicious than Madeline's, the conception of 
 such a thought. And so, with a patient gladness, though not 
 without some mixture of anxiety, she suffered herself to glide 
 onward to a future, which, come cloud, come shine, was, she 
 believed at least, to be shared with him'. 
 
 On looking over the various papers from which I have woven 
 this tale, I find a letter from Madeline to Aram, dated at this 
 time. The characters, traced in the delicate and fair Italian 
 hand coveted at that period, are fading, and in one part, wholly 
 obliterated by time; but there seems to me so much of what 
 is genuine in the heart's beautiful romance in this effusion, 
 that I will lay it before the reader without adding or altering 
 a word : 
 
 " Thank you thank you, dearest Eugene ! I have received,
 
 zSo EUGLNE ARAM. 
 
 then, the first letter you ever wrote me. I cannot tell you how 
 strange it seemed to me, and how agitated I felt on seeing it ; 
 more so, I think, than if it had been yourself who had returned. 
 However, when the first delight of reading it faded away, I 
 found that it had not made me so happy as it ought to have 
 done as I thought at first it had done. You seem sad and 
 melancholy ; a certain nameless gloom appears to me to hang 
 over your whole letter. It affects my spirits why I know not 
 and my tears fall even while I read the assurances of your 
 unaltered, unalterable love : and yet this assurance your Madeline 
 vain girl I never for a moment disbelieves. I have often read 
 and often heard of the distrust and jealousy that accompany 
 love ; but I think that such a love must be a vulgar and low 
 sentiment To me there seems a religion in love, and its very- 
 foundation is in faith. You say, dearest, that the noise and the 
 stir of the great city oppress and weary you even more than you 
 had expected. You say those harsh faces, in which business, 
 and care, and avarice, and ambition, write their lineaments, are 
 wholly unfamiliar to you ; you turn aside to avoid them ; you 
 wrap yourself up in your solitary feelings of aversion to those 
 you see, and you call upon those not present upon your 
 Madeline! And would that your Madeline were with "you ! It 
 seems to me perhaps you will smile when I say this that I 
 alone can understand you I alone can read your heart and 
 your emotions ; and, oh ! dearest Eugene, that 1 could read 
 also enough of your past history to know all that has cast so 
 habitual a shadow over that lofty heart and that calm and 
 profound nature ! You smile when I ask you ; but sometimes 
 you sigh, and the sigh pleases and soothes me better than 
 the smile. * * * 
 
 " We have heard nothing more of Walter, and my father 
 continues to be seriously alarmed about him. Your account too, 
 corroborates that alarm. It is strange that he has not yet 
 visited London, and that you can obtain no clue of him. He is 
 evidently still in search of his lost parent, and following some 
 obscure and uncertain track. Poor Walter ! God speed him 1 
 The singular fate of his father, and the many conjectures re- 
 specting him, have, I believe, preyed on Walter's mind more
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 281 
 
 than he acknowledged. Ellinor found a paper in his closet, 
 where we had occasion to search the other day for something 
 belonging to my father, which was scribbled with all the various 
 fragments of guess or information concerning my uncle, obtained 
 from time to time, and interspersed with some remarks by 
 Walter himself that affected me strangely. It seems to have 
 been, from early childhood, the one desire of my cousin to dis- 
 cover his father's fate. Perhaps the discovery may be already 
 made ; perhaps my long-lost uncle may yet be present at our 
 wedding. 
 
 "You ask me, Eugene, if I still pursue my botanical re- 
 searches ? Sometimes I do ; but the flower now has no fragrance, 
 and the herb no secret, that I c^re for ; and astronomy, which 
 you had just begun to teach me, pleases me more ; the flowers 
 charm me when you are present; but the stars speak to me of 
 you in absence. Perhaps it would not be so had I loved a be- 
 ing less exalted than you. Every one, even my father, even 
 Ellinor, smile when they observe how incessantly I think of you 
 how utterly you have become all in all to me. I could not 
 tell this to you, though I write it : is it not strange that letters 
 should be more faithful than the tongue? And even your letter, 
 mournful 3fs it is, seems to me kinder, and dearer, and more full 
 of yourself, than, with all the magic of your language, and the 
 silver sweetness of your voice, your spoken words are. I walked 
 by your house yesterday ; the windows were closed ; there was 
 a strange air of lifelessness and dejection about it. Do you 
 remember the evening in which I first entered that house ? Do 
 you or, rather, is there one hour in which it is not present to 
 you ? For me, I live in the past, it is the present (which is 
 without you) in which I have no life. I passed into the little 
 garden, that with your own hands you have planted for me, and 
 filled with flowers. Ellinor was with me, and she saw my lips 
 move. She asked me what I was saying to myself. I would 
 not tell her ; I was praying for you, my kind, my beloved 
 Eugene. I was praying for the happiness of your future years, 
 praying that I might requite your love. Whenever I feel the 
 niOEt, I am the most inclined to prayer. Sorrow, joy, tenderness, 
 all emotion, lift up my heart to God. And what a delicious
 
 a&J LIGLNE ARAM. 
 
 overflow of the heart is prayer ! When I am with you and I 
 feel that you love me my happiness would be painful, if there 
 were no God whom I might bless for its excess. Do those who 
 believe not love ? have they deep emotions ? can they feel 
 truly devotedly ? Why, when I talk thus to you, do you 
 always answer me with that chilling and mournful smile ? You 
 would rest religion only on reason, as well limit love to the 
 reason also ! what were either without the feelings ? 
 
 " When when when will you return ? I think I love you 
 now more than ever. I think I have more courage to tell you 
 so. So many things I have to say, so many events to relate. 
 For what is not an event to US ? the least incident that has 
 happened to either ; the very fading of a flower, if you have 
 worn it, is a whole history to me. 
 
 " Adieu, God bless you ; God reward you ; God keep your 
 heart with Him, dearest, dearest Eugene. And may you every 
 day know better and better how utterly you are loved by your 
 
 "MADELINE." 
 
 The epistle to which Lester referred, as received from 
 Walter, was one written on the day of his escape from Mr. 
 Pertinax Fillgrave, a short note rather than letter, which ran as 
 follows : 
 
 " MY DEAR UNCLE, 
 
 " I have met with an accident, which confined me to my bed ; 
 a rencontre, indeed, with the knights of the road; nothing serious 
 (so do not be alarmed !) though the doctor would fain have made 
 it so. I am just about to recommence my journey; but not 
 towards London ; on the contrary, northward. 
 
 " I have, partly through the information of your old friend, 
 Mr. Courtland, partly by accident, found what I hope may prove 
 a clue to the fate of my father. I am now departing to put this 
 hope to the issue. More I would fain say ; but, lest the ex- 
 pectation should prove fallacious, I will not dwell on circum- 
 stances which would, in that case, only create in you a 
 disappointment similar to my own. Only this take with you, 
 that my father's proverbial good luck seems to have visited him
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 28.; 
 
 since your latest news of his fate ; a legacy, though not a large 
 one, awaited his return to England from India : but see if I am 
 not growing prolix already ; I must break off in order to reserve 
 you the pleasure (may it be so !) of a full surprise ! 
 
 " God bless you, my dear uncle ! I write in spirits and hope. 
 Kindest love to all at home. 
 
 "WALTER LESTER. 
 
 " P.S. Tell Ellinor that my bitterest misfortune in the adven- 
 ture I have referred to was to be robbed of her purse. Will she 
 knit me another ? By the way, I encountered Sir Peter Hales : 
 such an open-hearted, generous fellow as you said ! ' thereby 
 hangs a tale.' " 
 
 This letter, which provoked all the curiosity of our little circle, 
 made them anxiously look forward to every post for additional 
 explanation, but that explanation came not ; and they were 
 forced to console themselves with the evident exhilaration under 
 which Walter wrote, and the probable supposition that he 
 delayed further information until it could be ample and satis- 
 factory. " Knights of the road," quoth Lester, one day ; " I 
 wonder if they were any of the gang that have just visited us. 
 Well, but, poor boy ! he does not say whether he has any money 
 left : yet, if he were short of the gold, he would be very unlike 
 his father (or his uncle, for that matter) had he forgotten to 
 enlarge on that subject, however brief upon others." 
 
 " Probably," said Ellinor, " the corporal carried the main sum 
 about him in those well-stuffed saddle-bags, and it was only the 
 purse that Walter had about his person that was stolen ; and it 
 is clear that the corporal escaped, as he mentions nothing about 
 that excellent personage." 
 
 " A shrewd guess, Nell ; but pray, why should Walter carry 
 the purse about him so carefully ? Ah, you blush : well, will 
 you knit him another ? " 
 
 " Pshaw, papa ! Good-by ; I am going to gather you a 
 nosegay." 
 
 But Ellinor was seized with a sudden fit of industry, and, 
 somehow or other, she grew fonder of knitting than ever.
 
 EIT.ENE ARAM. 
 
 The neighbourhood was now tranquil and at peace; the 
 nightly depredators that had infested the green valleys ot 
 Grassdale were heard of no more ; it seemed a sudden incur- 
 sion of fraud and crime, which was too unnatural to the character 
 of the spot invaded to do more than to terrify and to disappear. 
 The truditur dies die; the serene steps of one calm day chasing 
 another returned, and the past alarm was only remembered as 
 a tempting subject of gossip to the villagers, and (at the hall) a 
 theme of eulogium on the courage of Eugene Aram. 
 
 " It is a lovely day," said .Lester to his daughters as they sat 
 at the window ; u come, girls, get your bonnets, and let us take 
 a walk into the village." 
 
 " And meet the postman," said Ellinor, archly. 
 
 "Yes," rejoined Madeline, in the same vein, but in a whisper 
 that Lester might not hear : " for who knows but that we may 
 have a letter from Walter ? " 
 
 How prettily sounds such raillery on virgin lips! No, no; 
 nothing on earth is so lovely as the confidence between two 
 happy sisters, who have no secrets but those of a guileless love 
 to reveal ! 
 
 As they strolled into the village they were met by Peter 
 Dealtry, who was slowly riding home on a large ass, which 
 carried himself and his panniers to the neighbouring market in 
 a more quiet and luxurious indolence of action than would the 
 harsher motions of the equine species. 
 
 " A fine day, Peter ; and what news at market ? " said Lester. 
 
 M Corn high, hay dear, your honour," replied the clerk. 
 
 * Ah, I suppose so ; a good time to sell ours, Peter: we must 
 see about it on Saturday. But, pray, have you heard anything 
 from the corporal since his departure ? " 
 
 " Not I, your honour, not I ; though I think as he might have 
 given us a line, if it was only to thank me for my care of his cat ; 
 but 
 
 *' ' Them as comes to go to roam, 
 
 Thinks slight of they as stays at home.'* 
 
 "A notable distich, Peter ; your o\vn composition, I warrant." 
 "Mine! Lord love your honour, I has no genus, but I has 
 memory ; and when them 'ere beautiful lines of poetry-iike comes
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 285 
 
 into my head they stays there, and stays till they pops out at my 
 tongue like a bottle of ginger-beer. I do .loves poetry, sir, 
 'specially the sacred." 
 
 " We know it, we know it." 
 
 "For there be summut in it," continued the clerk, "which 
 smooths a man's heart like a clothes-brush, wipes away the dust 
 and dirt, and sets all the nap right : and I thinks as how 'tis 
 what a clerk of the parish ought to study, your honour." 
 
 " Nothing better ; you speak like an oracle." 
 
 " Now, sir, there be the corporal, honest man, what thinks 
 himself mighty clever, but he has no soul for varse. Lord love 
 ye, to see the faces he makes when I tells him a hymn or so ; 
 'tis quite wicked, your honour, for that's what the heathen did, 
 as you well know, sir. 
 
 " 'And when I does discourse of things 
 
 Most holy to their tribe, 
 What does they do ? they mocks at me 
 And makes my heart a gibe.' 
 
 " Tis not what / calls pretty, Miss Ellinor." 
 
 "Certainly not, Peter ; I wonder, with your talents for verse, 
 you never indulge in a little satire against such perverse taste." 
 
 " Satire ! what's that ? Oh, I knows ; what they writes in 
 
 elections. Why, miss, mayhap " here Peter paused, and 
 
 winked significantly " but the corporal's a passionate man, you 
 knows : but I could so sting him. Aha ! we'll see, we'll see. 
 Do you know, your honour," here Peter altered his air to one 
 of serious importance, as if about to impart a most sagacious 
 conjecture, " I thinks there be one reason why the corporal has 
 not written to me." 
 
 " And what's that, Peter ? " 
 
 " 'Cause, your honour, he's ashamed of his writing : I fancy as 
 how his spelling is no better than it should be, but mum's the 
 word. You sees, your honour, the corporal's got a tarn for con- 
 versation-like ; he be a mighty fine talker, surety ! but he be 
 shy o' the pen ; 'tis not every man what talks biggest what's the 
 best schollard at bottom. Why, there's the newspaper I saw in 
 the market (for I always sees the newspaper once a-week) says 
 as how some of them great speakers in the parliament house are
 
 556 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 no better than ninnies when they gets upon paper; and that's 
 the corporal's case I sispect : I suppose as ho\v they can't spell 
 all them 'ere long words they make use on. For my part, I 
 thinks there be mortal desate (deceit) like in that 'ere public 
 speaking ; for I knows how far a loud voice and a bold face goes, 
 even in buying a cow, your honour; and I'm afraid the country's 
 greatly bubbled in that 'ere partiklar ; for if a man can't write 
 down clearly what he means for to say, I does not thinks as how 
 he knows what he means when he goes for to speak ! " 
 
 This speech quite a moral exposition for Peter, and, doubt- 
 less, inspired by his visit to market for what wisdom cannot 
 come from intercourse? our good publican delivered with 
 especial solemnity, giving a huge thump on the sides of his ass 
 as he concluded. 
 
 44 Upon my word, Peter," said Lester, laughing, " you have 
 grown quite a Solomon ; and, instead of a clerk, you ought to be 
 a justice of the peace at the least ; and, indeed, I must say that I 
 think you shine more in the capacity of a lecturer than in that 
 of a soldier." 
 
 " Tis not for a clerk of the parish to have too great a knack at 
 the weapons of the flesh," said Peter, sanctimoniously, and turn- 
 ing aside to conceal a slight confusion at the unlucky reminiscence 
 of his warlike exploits ; " but lauk, sir, even as to that, why we 
 has frightened all the robbers away. What would you have us 
 do more ? " 
 
 " Upon my word, Peter, you say right ; and now, good day. 
 Your wife's well, I hope ? And Jacobina (is not that the cat's 
 name ?) in high health and favour ?" 
 
 " Hem, hem ! why, to be sure, the cat's a good cat ; but she 
 steals Goody Truman's cream as Goody sets for butter reg'larly 
 every night." 
 
 44 Oh ! you must cure her of that," said Lester, smiling. " I 
 hope that's the worst fault" 
 
 44 Why, your gardener do say," replied Peter, reluctantly, "as 
 how she goes artcr the pheasants in Copse-hole." 
 
 "The deuce!" cried the squire; "that will never do: she must 
 be shot, Peter, she must be shot. My pheasants ! my best pre- 
 serves ! and poor Goody Truman's cream, too ! a perfect devil '
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 287 
 
 Look to it, Peter ; if I hear any complaints again, Jacobina is 
 done for. What are you laughing at, Nell ?" 
 
 " Well, go thy ways, for a shrewd man and a clever man ; it is 
 not every one who could so suddenly have elicited my fathers 
 compassion for Goody Truman's cream." 
 
 " Pooh !" said the squire : " a pheasant's a serious thing, child ; 
 but you women don't understand matters." 
 
 They had now crossed through the village into the fields, and 
 were slowly sauntering by 
 
 " Hedge-row elms on hilfocks green," 
 
 when, seated under a stunted pollard, they came suddenly on the 
 ill-favoured person of Dame Darkmans. She sat bent (with her 
 elbows on her knees, and her hands supporting her chin), looking 
 up to the clear autumnal sky ; and as they approached, she did 
 not stir, or testify by sign or glance that she even perceived 
 them. 
 
 There is a certain kind-hearted sociability of temper that you 
 see sometimes among country gentlemen, especially not of the 
 highest rank, who knowing, and looked up to by, every one 
 immediately around them, acquire the habit of accosting all they 
 meet a habit as painful for them to break as it was painful for 
 poor Rousseau to be asked "how he did" by an applewoman. 
 And the kind old squire could not pass even Goody Darkmans 
 (coming thus abruptly upon her) without a salutation. 
 
 "All alone, dame, enjoying the fine weather? that's right. 
 And how fares it with you ?" 
 
 The old woman turned round her dark and bleared eyes, but 
 without moving limb or posture 
 
 " 'Tis well-nigh winter now ; 'tis not easy for poor folks to 
 fare well at this time o' year. Where be we to get the firewood, 
 and the clothing, and the dry bread, carse it ! and the drop o' 
 stuff that's to keep out the cold ? Ah, it's fine for you to ask how 
 we does, and the days shortening, and the air sharpening." 
 
 "Well, dame, shall I send to * * * for a warm cloak 
 for you ?" said Madeline. 
 
 " Ho ! thank ye, young lady thank ye kindly, and I'll wear it 
 at your widding, for they says you be going to git married to
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the larned man yander. Wish ye well, ma'am ; wish ye 
 well" 
 
 The old hag grinned as she uttered this benediction, that 
 sounded on her lips like the Lord's Prayer on a witch's ; which 
 converts the devotion to a crime, and the prayer to a curse. 
 
 "Ye're very winsome, young lady," she continued, eying 
 Madeline's tall and rounded figure from head to foot. "Yes, 
 very ; but I was bonny as you once, and if you lives mind that 
 fair and happy as you stand now, you'll be as withered, and 
 foul-faced, and wretched as me. Ha ! ha ! I loves to look on 
 young folk, and think o' that But mayhap ye won't live to be 
 old more's the pity ! for ye might be a widow, and childless, 
 and a lone 'oman, as I be, if you were to see sixty : an' wouldn't 
 that be nice ? ha ! ha ! much pleasure ye'll have in the fine 
 weather then, and in people's fine speeches, eh ? " 
 
 " Come, dame," said Lester, with a cloud on his benign brow, 
 "this talk is ungrateful to me, and disrespectful to Miss Lester; 
 it is not the way to " 
 
 " Hout ! " interrupted the old woman ; " I begs pardon, sir, if 
 I offended I begs pardon, young lady : 'tis my way, poor old 
 soul that I be. And you meant me kindly, and I would not be 
 uncivil now you are a-going to give me a bonny cloak ; and what 
 colour shall it be ? " 
 
 " Why, what colour would you like best, dame red ? " 
 
 " Red ! no ! like a gipsy-quean, indeed ! Besides, they all has 
 red cloaks in the village, yonder. No ; a handsome dark grey, 
 or a gay, cheersome black, an' then I'll dance in mourning at 
 your wedding, young lady ; and that's what ye'll like. But 
 what ha' ye done with the merry bridegroom, ma'am ? Gone 
 away, I hear. Ah, ye'll have a happy life on it, with a gentle- 
 man like him. I never seed him laugh once. Why does not he 
 hire me as your sarvant; would not I be a favourite, thin? I'd 
 stand on the threshold, and give ye good morrow everyday. Oh! 
 it docs me a deal of good to say a blessing to them as be younger 
 and gayer than me. Madge Darkmans' blessing ! Och I what a 
 thing to wish for!" 
 
 " Weil, good day, mother," said Lester, moving on. 
 
 "Stay a bit, stay a bit, sir; has ye any commands, miss,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 289 
 
 yonder, at Master Aram's ? His old 'oman's a gossip of mine ; 
 we were young togither ; and the lads did not know which to 
 like the best. So we often meets and talks of the old times. I 
 be going up there now. Och ! I hope I shall be asked to the 
 widding. And what a nice month to wid in ! Novimber, Novimber, 
 that's the merry month for me ! But 'tis cold bitter cold too. 
 Well, good day, good day. Ay," continued the hag, as Lester 
 and the sisters moved on, " ye all goes and throws niver a look 
 behind. Ye despises the poor in your hearts. But the poor 
 will have their day. Och ! an' I wish ye were dead, dead, dead, 
 an' I dancing in my bonny black cloak about your graves ; for 
 an't all mine dead, cold, cold, rotting, and one kind and rich man 
 might ha' saved them all ? " 
 
 Thus mumbling, the wretched creature looked after the father 
 and his daughters, as they wound onward, till her dim eyes 
 caught them no longer ; and then, drawing her rags round her, she 
 rose, and struck into the opposite path that led to Aram's house. 
 
 " I hope that hag will be no constant visitor at your future 
 residence, Madeline," said the younger sister; "it would be 
 like a blight on the air." 
 
 " And if we could remove her from the parish," said Lester, 
 " it would be a happy day for the village. Yet, strange as it may 
 seem, so great is her power over them all, that there is never 
 a marriage nor a christening in the village from which she 
 is absent ; they dread her spite and foul tongue enough, to 
 make them ,ven ask humbly for her presence." 
 
 " And the hag seems to know that her bad qualities are a 
 good policy, and obtain more respect than amiability would do," 
 said Ellinor. "I think there is some design in all she utters." 
 
 " I don't know how it is, but the words and sight of that 
 woman have struck a damp into my heart," said Madeline, 
 musingly. 
 
 " It would be wonderful if they had not, child," said Lester, 
 soothingly ; and he changed ihe conversation to other topics. 
 
 As, concluding their walk, they re-entered the village, they 
 encountered that most welcome of all visitants to a country 
 village, the postman a tall, thin pedestrian, famous for swift- 
 ness of foot, with a cheerful face, a swinging gait, and Lester's 
 
 T
 
 joo EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 bag slung over his shoulder. Our little party quickened their 
 pace one letter for Madeline Aram's handwriting. Happy 
 blush bright smile ! Ah ! no meeting ever gives the delight 
 that a letter can inspire in the short absences of a first love ! 
 
 "And none for me !" said Lester, in a disappointed tone, and 
 Ellinor's hand hung more heavily on his arm, and her step 
 moved slower. "It is very strange in Walter; but I am really 
 more angry than alarmed." 
 
 Be sure/' said Ellinor, after a pause, " that it is not his fault. 
 Something may have happened to him. Good Heavens ! if he 
 has been attacked again those fearful highwaymen ! " 
 
 " Nay," said Lester, " the most probable supposition after all 
 is, that he will not write until his expectations are realised or 
 destroyed. Natural enough, too ; it is what I should have done, 
 if I had been in his place." 
 
 " Natural ! " said Ellinor, who now attacked where she before 
 defended " natural not to give us one line, to say he is well and 
 safe ! Natural ! /could not have been so remiss !" 
 
 " Ay, child, you women are so fond of writing : 'tis not so 
 with us, especially when we are moving about : it is always 
 'Well, I must write to-morrow well. I must write when this is 
 settled well, I must write when I arrive at such a place;' and, 
 meanwhile, time slips on, till perhaps we get ashamed of writing 
 at all. I heard a great man say once, that ' Men must have 
 something effeminate about them to be good correspondents;' 
 and 'faith, I think it's true enough on the whole." 
 
 " I wonder if Madeline thinks so ? " said Ellinor, enviously 
 glancing at her sister's absorption, as, lingering a little behind, 
 she devoured the contents of her letter. 
 
 " He is coming home immediately, dear father ; perhaps he 
 maybe here to-morrow," cried Madeline, abruptly; "think of 
 that Kllinor ! Ah ! and he writes in spirits ! " and the poor girl 
 clapped her hands delightedly, as the colour danced joyously 
 over her check and neck. 
 
 " I am glad to hear it," quoth Lester ; M we shall have him at 
 last beat even Ellinor in gaiety ! " 
 
 "That may easily be," sighed Ellinor to herself, as she glided 
 past them into the house, and sought her own chamber.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 191 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A KEFLECTION NEW AND STRANGE. THE STREETS OP LONDON. A GREAT 
 MAN'S LIBRARY. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE STUDENT AND AN AC- 
 QUAINTANCE OF THE READER'S. ITS RESULTS 
 
 Here's a statesman I 
 ***** 
 
 Holla. Ask for thyself. 
 
 Lot. What more can concern me than this ? 
 
 The Tragedy of Rolla. 
 
 IT was an evening in the declining autumn of 1758 ; some 
 public ceremony had occurred during the day, and the crowd 
 which had assembled was only now gradually lessening, as the 
 shadows darkened along the streets. Through this crowd, self- 
 absorbed as usual with them, not one of them Eugene Aram 
 slowly wound his uncompanioned way. What an incalculable field 
 of dread and sombre contemplation is opened to every man who, 
 with his heart disengaged from himself, and his eyes accustomed 
 to the sharp observance of his tribe, walks through the streets 
 of a great city ! What a world of dark and troubled secrets in 
 the breast of every one who hurries by you ! Goethe has said 
 somewhere that each of us, the best as the worst, hides within 
 him something some feeling, some remembrance that, if known, 
 would make you hate him. No doubt the saying is exaggerated ; 
 but still, what a gloomy and profound sublimity in the idea ! 
 what a new insight it gives into the hearts of the common herd ! 
 with what a strange interest it may inspire us for the humblest, 
 the tritest passenger that shoulders us in the great thoroughfare 
 of life ! One of the greatest pleasures in the world is to walk 
 alone, and at night (while they are yet crowded), through the 
 long lamp-lit streets of this huge metropolis. There, even more 
 than in the silence of woods and fields, seems to me the source 
 of endless, various meditation. 
 
 " Crescit enim cum amplitudine rerum vis ingenii. 1 
 
 1 Fc* the power of the intellect is increased by the amplitude of the things that 
 feed it
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 There was that in Aram's person which irresistibly commanded 
 attention. The earnest composure of his countenance, its thought- 
 ful paleness, the long hair falling back, the peculiar and estranged 
 air of his whole figure, accompanied as it was by a mildness of 
 expression, and that lofty abstraction which characterises one 
 who is a brooder over his own heart a soothsayer to his own 
 dreams ; all these arrested from time to time the second gaze 
 of the passenger, and forced on him the impression, simple as 
 was the dress, and unpretending as was the gait of the stranger, 
 that in indulging that second gaze he was in all probability 
 satisfying the curiosity which makes us love to fix our regard 
 upon any remarkable man. 
 
 At length Aram turned from the more crowded streets, and in 
 a short time paused before one of the most princely houses in 
 London. It was surrounded by a spacious courtyard, and over 
 the porch the arms of the owner, with the coronet and supporters, 
 were raised in stone. 
 
 "Is Lord **** within?" asked Aram, of the bluff porter 
 who appeared at the gate. 
 
 " My lord is at dinner," replied the porter, thinking the answer 
 quite sufficient, and about to reclose the gate upon the unseason- 
 able visitor. 
 
 " I am glad to find he is at home," rejoined Aram, gliding past 
 the servant with an air of quiet and unconscious command, and 
 passing the court-yard to the main building. 
 
 At the door of the house, to which you ascended by a flight 
 of stone steps, the valet of the nobleman the only nobleman 
 introduced in our tale, and consequently the same whom we have 
 presented to our reader in the earlier part of this work, happened 
 to be lounging and enjoying the smoke of the evening air. 
 High-bred, prudent, and sagacious, Lord *** knew well how 
 often great men, especially in public life, obtain odium for the 
 rudeness of their domestics ; and all those, especially about 
 himself, had been consequently tutored into the habits of univer- 
 sal courtesy and deference, to the lowest stranger, as well as to 
 the highest guest. And trifling as this may seem, it was an act 
 of morality as well as of prudence. Few can guess what pain 
 may be saved to poor and proud men of merit by a similar
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 193 
 
 precaution. The valet, therefore, replied to the visitor's inquiry 
 with great politeness ; he recollected Aram's name and repute ; 
 and as the earl, taking delight in the company of men of letters, 
 was generally easy of access to all such the great man's great 
 man instantly conducted the student to the earl's library, and 
 informing him that his lordship had not yet left the dining-room, 
 where he was entertaining a large party, assured him that he 
 should be apprised of Aram's visit the moment he did so. 
 
 Lord * * * * was still in office ; sundry boxes were scattered 
 on the floor ; papers, that seemed countless, lay strewed over the 
 immense library table ; but here and there were books of a more 
 seductive character than those of business, in which the mark 
 lately set, and the pencilled note still fresh, showed the fondness 
 with which men of cultivated minds, though engaged in official 
 pursuits, will turn in the momentary intervals of more arid and 
 toilsome life to those lighter studies which perhaps they in 
 reality the most enjoy. 
 
 One of these books, a volume of Shaftesbury, Aram carefully 
 took up ; it opened of its own accord at that most beautiful and 
 profound passage, which contains perhaps the justest sarcasm 
 to which that ingenious and graceful reasoner has given 
 vent : 
 
 " The very spirit of Faction, for the greatest part, seems to be 
 no other than the abuse or irregularity of that social love and 
 common affection which is natural to mankind for the opposite 
 of sociableness is selfishness ; and of all characters, the thorough 
 selfish one is the least forward in taking party. The men of this 
 sort are, in this respect, true men of moderation. They are 
 secure of their temper, and possess themselves too well to be in 
 danger of entering warmly into any cause, or engaging deeply 
 with any side or faction." 
 
 On the margin of the page was the following note, in the 
 handwriting of Lord * * * * : 
 
 " Generosity hurries a man into party philosophy keeps him 
 aloof from it ; the Emperor Julian says in his epistle to Themis- 
 tius, ' If you should form only three or four philosophers, you 
 would contribute more essentially to the happiness of mankind 
 than many kings united.' Yet, if all men were philosophers, I
 
 >94 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 doubt whether, though more men would be virtuous, there would 
 be so many instances of an extraordinary virtue. The violent 
 passions produce dazzling irregularities." 
 
 The student was still engaged with this note when the earl 
 entered the room. As the door through which he passed was 
 behind Aram, and he trod with a soft step, he was not perceived 
 by the scholar till he had reached him, and, looking over Aram's 
 shoulder, the earl said : " You will dispute the truth of my 
 remark, will you not ? Profound calm is the element in which 
 you would place all the virtues." 
 
 " Not all, my lord," answered Aram, rising, as the earl now 
 shook him by the hand, and expressed his delight at seeing the 
 student again. Though the sagacious nobleman had no sooner 
 heard the student's name than, in his own heart, he was con- 
 vinced that Aram had sought him for the purpose of soliciting 
 a renewal of the offers he had formerly refused, he resolved to 
 leave his visitor to open the subject himself, and appeared 
 courteously to consider the visit as a matter of course, made 
 without any other object than the renewal of the mutual pleasure 
 of intercourse. 
 
 "I am afraid, my lord," said Aram, "that you are engaged. 
 My visit can be paid to-morrow if " 
 
 " Indeed," said the earl, interrupting him, and drawing a chair 
 to the table, " I have no engagements which should deprive me 
 of the pleasure of your company. A few friends have indeed 
 dined with me, but as they are now with Lady * * * *, I do not 
 think they will greatly miss me ; besides, an occasional absence 
 is readily forgiven in us happy men of office ; we, who have 
 the honour of exciting the envy of all England for being made 
 magnificently wretched." 
 
 " I am glad you allow so much, my lord," said Aram, smiling; 
 "/could not have said more. Ambition only makes a favourite 
 to make an ingrate ; she has lavished her honours on Lord 
 * * * *, and hear how he speaks of her bounty ! " 
 
 " Nay," said the earl, " I spoke wantonly, and stand corrected. 
 I have no reason to complain of the course I have chosen. 
 Ambition, like any other passion, gives us unhappy moments , 
 but it gives us also an animated life. In its pursuit, the minor
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 295 
 
 evils of the world are not felt ; little crosses, little vexations do 
 not disturb us. Like men who walk in sleep, we are absorbed 
 in one powerful dream, and do not even know the obstacles in 
 our way or the dangers that surround us : in a word, we have no 
 private life. All that is merely domestic, the anxiety and the 
 loss which fret other men, which blight the happiness of other 
 men, are not felt by us : we are wholly public ; so that if we 
 lose much comfort, we escape much care." 
 
 The earl broke off for a moment ; and then turning the subject, 
 inquired after the Lesters, and making some general and vague 
 observations about that family, came purposely to a pause. 
 
 Aram broke it : 
 
 " My lord," said he, with a slight, but not ungraceful, embar- 
 rassment, " I fear that, in the course of your political life, you 
 must have made one observation, that he who promises to-day 
 will be called upon to perform to-morrow. No man who has 
 anything to bestow, can ever promise with impunity. Some 
 time since, you tendered me offers that would have dazzled 
 more ardent natures than mine ; and which I might have 
 advanced some claim to philosophy in refusing. I do not now 
 come to ask a renewal of those offers. Public life, and the 
 haunts of men, are as hateful as ever to my pursuits : but I 
 come, frankly and candidly, to throw myself on that generosity, 
 which proffered to me then so large a bounty. Certain circum- 
 stances have taken from me the small pittance which supplied 
 my wants ; I require only the power to pursue my quiet and 
 obscure cr.reer of study your lordship can afford me that 
 power: it is not against custom for the government to grant 
 some small annuity to men of letters your lordship's interest 
 could obtain me this favour. Let me add, however, that I can 
 offer nothing in return ! Party politics sectarian interests 
 are for ever dead to me: even my common studies are of small 
 general utility to mankind. I am conscious of this would it 
 
 were otherwise ! Once I hoped it would be but " Aram 
 
 here turned deadly pale, gasped for breath, mastered his emo- 
 tion, and proceeded " I have no great claim, then, to this 
 bounty, beyond that which all poor cultivators of the abstruse 
 sciences can advance. It is well for a country that those sciences
 
 196 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 should be cultivated; they are not of a nature which is ever 
 lucrative to the possessor not of a nature that can often be left, 
 like lighter literature to the fair favour of the public ; they call, 
 perhaps, more than any species of intellectual culture, for the 
 protection of a government ; and though in me would be a poor 
 selection, the principle would still be served, and the example 
 furnish precedent for nobler instances hereafter. I have said all, 
 my lord!" 
 
 Nothing perhaps more affects a man of some sympathy with 
 those who cultivate letters than the pecuniary claims of one who 
 can advance them with justice, and who advances them also with 
 dignity. If the meanest, the most pitiable, the most heart- 
 sickening object in the world, is the man of letters, sunk into the 
 habitual beggar, practising the tricks, incurring the rebuke, 
 glorying in the shame, of the mingled mendicant and swindler ; 
 what, on the other hand, so touches, so subdues us, as the 
 first, and only petition, of one whose intellect dignifies our whole 
 kind ; and who prefers it with a certain haughtiness in his very 
 modesty ; because, in asking a favour to himself, he may be only 
 asking the power to enlighten the world ? 
 
 " Say no more, sir," said the earl, affected deeply, and 
 gracefully giving way to the feeling; "the affair is settled. 
 Consider it so. Name only the amount of the annuity you 
 desire." 
 
 With some hesitation Aram named a sum so moderate, so 
 trivial, that the minister, accustomed as he was to tne claims 
 of younger sons and widowed dowagers accustomed to the 
 hungry cravings of petitioners without merit, who considered 
 birth the only just title to the right of exactions from the public 
 was literally startled by the contrast. " More than this," 
 added Aram, " I do not require, and would decline to accept 
 We have some right to claim existence from the administrators 
 of the common stock none to claim affluence." 
 
 44 Would to Heaven !" said the earl, smiling, "that all claimants 
 were like you ; pension-lists would not then call for indignation ; 
 and ministers would not blush to support the justice of the 
 favours they conferred. But are you still firm in rejecting a 
 more; public career, with all its deserved emoluments and just
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 297 
 
 honours ? The offer I made you once, I renew with increased 
 avidity now." 
 
 " ' Despiciam dites,' " answered Aram, " and, thanks to you, I 
 may add, ' despiciainque famem! " l 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE THAMES AT NIGHT. A THOUGHT. THE STUDENT RESEEKS TH* RUFFIAN. 
 A HUMAN FEELING EVEN IN THE WORST SOIL. 
 
 Clem, 'Tis our last interview ! 
 
 Stat. Pray Heav'n it be 1 Clemanthes. 
 
 ON leaving Lord * * * *'s, Aram proceeded, with a lighter 
 and more rapid step, towards a less courtly quarter of the 
 metropolis. 
 
 He had found, on arriving in London, that in order to secure 
 the annual sum promised to Houseman, it had been necessary 
 to strip himself even of the small stipend he had hoped to retain. 
 And hence his visit, and hence his petition, to Lord * * * *. 
 He now bent his way to the spot in which Houseman had 
 appointed their meeting. To the fastidious reader these details 
 of pecuniary matters, so trivial in themselves, may be a little 
 wearisome, and may seem a little undignified ; but we are 
 writing a romance of real life, and the reader must take what is 
 homely with what may be more epic the pettiness and the 
 wants of the daily world, with its loftier sorrows and its grander 
 crimes. Besides, who knows how darkly just may be that moral 
 which shows us a nature originally high, a soul once all athirst 
 for truth, bowed (by what events ?) to the manoeuvres and the 
 lies of the worldly hypocrite ? 
 
 The night had now closed in, and its darkness was only 
 relieved by the wan lamps that vistaed the streets, and a few 
 dim stars that struggled through the reeking haze that curtained 
 
 1 "Let me despise wealth," and, thanks to you, I may add, " and let me look down 
 on famine."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the great city. Aram had now gained one of the bridges " that 
 arch the royal Thames," and, at no time dead to scenic attrac 
 tion, he there paused for a moment, and looked along the dark 
 river that rushed below. 
 
 Oh, God! how many wild and stormy hearts have stilled 
 themselves on that spot, for one dread instant of thought of 
 calculation of resolve one instant, the last of life ! Look at 
 night along the course of that stately river, how gloriously it 
 seems to mock the passions of them that dwell beside it ! Un- 
 changed unchanging all around it quick death, and troubled 
 life ; itself smiling up to the grey stars, and singing from its deep 
 heart as it bounds along. Beside it is the senate, proud of its 
 solemn triflers ; and there the cloistered tomb, in which, as the 
 loftiest honour, some handful of the fiercest of the strugglers 
 may gain forgetfulness and a grave! There is no moral to a 
 great city like the river that washes its walls. 
 
 There was something in the view before him, that suggested 
 reflections similar to these, to the strange and mysterious breast 
 of the lingering student. A solemn dejection crept over him, a 
 warning voice sounded on his ear, the fearful genius within him 
 was aroused, and even in the moment when his triumph seemed 
 complete and his safety secured, he felt it only as 
 
 " The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below. 
 
 The mist obscured and saddened the few lights scattered on 
 either side the water; and a deep and gloomy quiet brooded 
 round : 
 
 " The very houses seemed asleep, 
 And all that mighty heart was lying still." 
 
 Arousing himself from his short and sombre reverie Aram 
 resumed his way, and threading some of the smaller streets 
 on the opposite side of the water, arrived at last in the street 
 in which he was to seek Houseman. 
 
 It was a narrow and dark lane, and seemed altogether of a 
 suspicious and disreputable locality. One or two samples of the 
 lowest description of alehouses broke the dark silence of the 
 spot ; from them streamed the only lights which assisted the 
 ^ingle lamp that burned at the entrance of the alley ; and bursts
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 299 
 
 of drunken laughter and obscene merriment broke out every 
 now and then from these wretched theatres of Pleasure. As 
 Aram passed one of them, a crowd of the lowest order of ruffian 
 and harlot issued noisily from the door, and suddenly obstructed 
 his way : through this vile press, reeking with the stamp and 
 odour of the most repellent character of vice, was the lofty and 
 cold student to force his path ! The darkness, his quick step, 
 his downcast head, favoured his escape through the unhallowed 
 throng, and he now stood opposite the door of a small and 
 narrow house. A ponderous knocker adorned the door, which 
 seemed of uncommon strength, being thickly studded with large 
 nails. He knocked twice before his summons was answered, 
 and then a voice from within cried, " Who's there ? What want 
 you ? " 
 
 " I seek one called Houseman." 
 
 No answer was returned some moments elapsed. Again the 
 student knocked, and presently he heard the voice of Houseman 
 himself caii out 
 
 " Who's there Joe the Cracksman ? " 
 
 " Richard Houseman, it is I," answered Aram, in a deep tone, 
 and suppressing the natural feelings of loathing and abhorrence. 
 
 Houseman uttered a quick exclamation ; the door was hastily 
 unbarred. All within was utterly dark ; but Aram felt with a 
 thrill of repugnance the gripe of his strange acquaintance on his 
 hand. 
 
 " Ha ! it is you ! Come in, come in ! let me lead you. Have 
 a care cling to the wall the right hand now then stay. So 
 so (opening the door of a room, in which a single candle, 
 well-nigh in its socket, broke on the previous darkness) ; here we 
 are ! here we are ! And how goes it eh ? " 
 
 Houseman now bustling about, did the honours of his apart- 
 ment with a sort of complacent hospitality. He drew two rough 
 wooden chairs, that in some late merriment seemed to have been 
 upset, and lay, cumbering the unwashed and carpetless floor, in 
 a position exactly contrary to that destined them by their 
 maker ; he drew these chairs near a table strewed with drinking 
 horns, half-emptied bottles, and a pack of cards. Dingy cari- 
 catures of the large coarse fashion of the day, decorated the
 
 joo EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 walls; and carelessly thrown on another table, lay a pair of 
 huge horse-pistols, an immense shovel hat, a false moustache, a 
 rouge-pot, and a riding-whip. All this the student comprehended 
 with a rapid glance his lip quivered for a moment whether 
 with shame or scorn of himself, and then throwing himself on 
 the chair Houseman had set for him, he said 
 
 * I have come to discharge my part of our agreement." 
 
 " You are most welcome," replied Houseman, with that tone of 
 coarse, yet flippant jocularity, which afforded to the mien and 
 manner of Aram a still stronger contrast than his more 
 unrelieved brutality. 
 
 "There," said Aran, giving him a paper; "there you will 
 perceive that the sum mentioned is secured to you the moment 
 you quit this country. When shall that be ? Let me entreat 
 haste." 
 
 " Your prayer shall be granted. Before daybreak to-morrow I 
 will be on the road." 
 
 Aram's face brightened. 
 
 " There is my hand upon it," said Houseman, earnestly. 
 " You may now rest assured that you are free of me for life. Go 
 home marry enjoy your existence, as I fiave done. Within 
 four days, if the wind set fair, I am in France." 
 
 " My business is done; I will believe you," said Aram, frankly 
 and rising. 
 
 ''You may," answered Houseman. " Stay I will light you to 
 the door. Devil and death how the d d candle flickers !" 
 
 Across the gloomy passage, as the candle now flared and now 
 was dulled by quick fits and starts, Houseman, after this 
 brief conference, reconducted the student. And as Aram turned 
 from the door, he flung his arms wildly aloft, and exclaimed, in 
 the voice of one from whose heart a load is lifted, " Now, now, 
 for Madeline I I breathe freely at last !" 
 
 Meanwhile, Houseman turned musingly back, and regained his 
 room, muttering 
 
 " Yes yes my business here is also done I Competence and 
 safety abroad after all, what a bugbear is this conscience! 
 fourteen years have rolled away and lo ! nothing discovered 1 
 nothing known ! And easy circumstances the very consequence
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 301 
 
 of the deed wait the remainder of my days: my child, too 
 my Jane shall not want shall not be a beggar nor a harlot." 
 
 So musing, Houseman threw himself contentedly on the chair, 
 and the last flicker of the expiring light, as it played upward on 
 his rugged countenance, rested on one of those self-hugging 
 smiles, with which a sanguine man contemplates a satisfactory 
 future. 
 
 He had not been long alone before the door opened, and a 
 woman with a light in her hand appeared. She was evidently 
 intoxicated, and approached Houseman with a reeling and 
 unsteady step. 
 
 " How now, Bess ? drunk as usual ! Get to bed, you she 
 shark, go ! " 
 
 " Tush, man, tush ! don't talk to your betters," said the 
 woman, sinking into a chair; and her situation, disgusting as it 
 was, could not conceal the striking, though somewhat coarse 
 beauty of her face and person. 
 
 Even Houseman (his heart being opened, as it were, by the 
 cheering prospects of which his soliloquy had indulged the 
 contemplation) was sensible of the effect of the mere physical 
 attraction, and drawing his chair closer to her, he said in a tone 
 less harsh than usual 
 
 "Come, Bess, come, you must correct that d d habit of 
 yours ; perhaps I may make a lady of you after all. What if I 
 were to let you take a trip with me to France, old girl, eh ; and 
 let you set off that handsome face for you are devilish hand- 
 some, and that's the truth of it with some of the French 
 gewgaws you women love ? What if I were ? would you be a 
 good girl, eh ? " 
 
 " I think I would, Dick I think I would," replied the woman, 
 sho.ving a set of teeth as white as ivory, with pleasure partly at 
 the flattery, partly at the proposition : " you are a good fellow, 
 Dick, that you are." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Houseman, whose hard, shrewd mind was not 
 easily cajoled ; " but what's that paper in your bosom, Bess ? A 
 love-letter, I'll swear." 
 
 " Tis to you then ; came to you this morning, only somehow 
 or othej, I forgot to give it you till now ! "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Ha ! a letter to me ! " said Houseman, seizing the epistle in 
 question. " Hem ! the Knaresbro' postmark my mother-in-law's 
 crabbed hand, too ! What can the old crone want ? " 
 
 He opened the letter, and hastily scanning its Contents, 
 started up. 
 
 "Mercy, mercy!" cried he, "my child is ill dying. I may 
 never see her again, my only child, the only thing that loves 
 me, that does not loathe me as a villain ! " 
 
 "Heyday, Dickey!" said the woman, clinging to him, "don't 
 take on so ; who so fond of you as me ? what's a brat like 
 that?" 
 
 "Curse on you. hag!" exclaimed Houseman, dashing her to 
 the ground with a rude brutality: "you love me! Pah! My 
 child my little Jane, my pretty Jane my merry Jane my 
 innocent Jane I will seek her instantly instantly ! What's 
 money ? what's ease, if if " 
 
 And the father, wretch, ruffian as he was, stung to the core of 
 that last redeeming feeling of his dissolute nature, struck his 
 breast with his clenched hand and rushed from the room from 
 the house, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HER HOPES. A MILD AUTUMN CHARACTERISED. A LANDSCAPE. A 
 RETURN. 
 
 Ti late, and cold stir up the fire, 
 Sit close, and draw the table nigher ; 
 Be merry and drink wine that's old, 
 A hearty medicine 'gainrt a cold : 
 Welcome welcome shall fly round ! 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, Sung in thi Ltver>t Prograt. 
 
 As when the great poet, 
 
 " Escaped the Stygian pool, though long dctain'd 
 In that obscure sojourn ; while, in his flight, 
 Through utter and through middle darkness borne, 
 lie sang of chaos, and eternal night : " 
 
 as when, revisiting the "holy light, offspring of heaven first- 
 born," the sense of freshness and glory breaks upon him, and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 303 
 
 kindles into the solemn joyfulness of adjuring song; so rises the 
 mind from the contemplation of the gloom and guilt of life, "the 
 utter and the middle darkness," to some pure and bright redemp- 
 tion of our nature some creature of "the starry threshold," "the 
 regions mild of calm and serene air." Never was a nature more 
 beautiful and soft than that of Madeline Lester never a nature 
 more inclined to live " above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, 
 which men call earth" to commune with its own high and 
 chaste creations of thought to make a world out of the emotions 
 which this world knows not a paradise, which sin, and suspicion, 
 and fear, had never yet invaded where God might recognise no 
 evil, and angels forbode no change. 
 
 Aram's return was now daily, nay, even hourly, expected. 
 Nothing disturbed the soft, though thoughtful serenity, with 
 which his betrothed relied upon the future. Aram's letters had 
 been more deeply impressed with the evidence of love than even 
 his spoken vows ; those letters had diffused not so much an 
 agitated joy as a full and mellow light of happiness over her 
 heart. Everything, even nature, seemed inclined to smile with 
 approbation on her hopes. The autumn had never, in the 
 memory of man, worn so lovely a garment : the balmy and 
 freshening warmth which sometimes characterises that period of 
 the year was not broken, as yet, by the chilling winds, or the 
 sullen mists, which speak to us so mournfully of the change that 
 is creeping over the beautiful world. The summer visitants 
 among the feathered tribe yet lingered in flocks, showing no 
 intention of departure ; and their song but above all, the song 
 of the .skylark which, to the old English poet, was what the 
 nightingale is to the Eastern seemed even to grow more 
 cheerful as the sun shortened his daily task ; the very mulberry- 
 tree, and the rich boughs of the horse-chestnut, retained some- 
 thing of their verdure ; and the thousand glories of the woodland 
 around Grassdale were still chequered with the golden hues that 
 herald, but beautify, decay. Still no news had been received of 
 Walter; and this was the only source of anxiety that troubled 
 the domestic happiness of the manor-house. But the squire con- 
 tinued to remember that in youth he himself had been but a 
 negligent correspondent; and the anxiety he felt had lately
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 assumed rather the character of anger at Walter's forgetfulncss 
 than of fear for his safety. There were moments when Ellinor 
 silently mourned and pined ; but she loved her sister not less 
 even than her cousin ; and in the prospect of Madeline's happi- 
 ness did not too -often question the future respecting her own. 
 
 One evening the sisters were sitting at their work by the 
 window of the little parlour, and talking over various matters, 
 of which the Great World, strange as it may seem, never made 
 a part 
 
 They conversed in a low tone: for Lester sat by the hearth in 
 which a wood fire had been just kindled, and appeared to have 
 fallen into an afternoon slumber. The sun was sinking to 
 repose, and the whole landscape lay before them bathed in light, 
 till a cloud passing overhead darkened the heavens just imme- 
 diately above them, and one of those beautiful sun showers, that 
 rather characterise the spring than autumn, began to fall. The 
 rain was rather sharp, and descended with a pleasant and fresh- 
 ening noise through the boughs, all shining in the sun-light : k 
 did not, however, last long, and presently there sprang up the 
 glorious rainbow, and the voices of the birds, which a minute 
 before were mute, burst into a general chorus- -the last hymn of 
 the declining day. The sparkling drops fell fast and gratefully 
 from the trees, and over the whole scene there breathed an 
 inexpressible sense of gladness, 
 
 "The odour and the harmony cf eve." 
 
 * How beautiful ! " said Ellinor, pausing from her work. " Ah, 
 see the squirrel is that our pet one ? he is coming close to the 
 window, poor fellow ! Stay, I will get him some bread." 
 
 "Hush!" said Madeline, half rising, and turning quite pale; 
 "do you hear a step without ?" 
 
 "Only the dripping of the boughs," answered Ellinor. 
 
 "No, no it is he! it is he!" cried Madeline, the blood 
 rushing back vividly to her cheeks. " I know his step !" 
 
 And yes -winding round the house till he stood opposite the 
 window, the sisters now beheld Eugene Aram. The diamond 
 rain glittered on the locks of his lonj hair ; his cheeks were 
 flushed by exercise, or more probably the joy of return ; a smile,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 305 
 
 in which there was no shade or sadness, played over his features, 
 which caught also a fictitious semblance of gladness from the 
 rays of the setting sun which fell full upon them. 
 
 " My Madeline ! my love ! my Madeline ! " broke from his 
 lips. 
 
 "You are returned thank God thank God safe well?" 
 
 " And happy ! " added Aram, with a deep meaning in the tone 
 of his voice. 
 
 " Heyday, heyday ! " cried the squire, starting up ; " what's 
 this ? Bless me, Eugene ! wet through, too, seemingly ! Nell, 
 run and open the door more wood on the fire the pheasants 
 for supper and stay, girl, stay there's the key of the cellar 
 the twenty-one port you know it. Ah ! ah ! God willing, 
 Eugene Aram shall not complain of his welcome back to 
 Grassdale 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AFFECTION : ITS GODLIKE NATURE. THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN ARAM AND" 
 MADELINE. THE FATALIST FORGETS FATE. 
 
 Hope is a lover's staff ; walk hence with that, 
 And manage it against despairing thoughts. 
 
 Tfoo Gentlemen of Verona. 
 
 IF there be anything thoroughly lovely in the human heart it 
 is affection. All that makes hope elevated, or fear generous, 
 belongs to the capacity of loving. For my own part, I do not 
 wonder, in looking over the thousand creeds and sects of men, 
 that so many religionists have traced their theology that so 
 many moralists have wrought their system from love. The 
 errors thus originated have something in them that charms us, 
 even while we smile at the theology, or while we neglect the 
 system. What a beautiful fabric would be human nature what 
 a divine guide would be human reason if love were indeed the 
 stratum of the one and the inspiration of the other! We are 
 told of a picture by a great painter of old, in which an infant is 
 
 U
 
 306 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 represented sucking a mother wounded to the death, who, even 
 in that agony, strives to prevent the child from injuring itself 
 by imbibing the blood mingled with the milk. 1 How many 
 emotions, that might have made us permanently wiser and 
 better, have we lost in losing that picture ! 
 
 Certainly, love assumes a more touching and earnest semblance 
 when we find it in some retired and sequestered hollow of the 
 world ; when it is not mixed up with the daily frivolities and 
 petty emotions of which a life passed in cities is so necessarily 
 composed : we cannot but believe it a deeper and a more absorb- 
 ing passion ; perhaps we are not always right in the belief. 
 
 Had one of that order of angels to whom a knowledge of the 
 future, or the seraphic penetration into the hidden heart of man 
 is forbidden, stayed his wings over the lovely valley in which the 
 main scene of our history has been cast, no spectacle might have 
 seemed to him more appropriate to that pastoral spot, or more 
 elevated in the character of its tenderness above the fierce and 
 shortlived passions of the ordinary world, than the love that 
 existed between Madeline and her betrothed. Their natures 
 seemed so suited to each other ! the solemn and undiurnal mood 
 of the one was reflected back in hues x so gentle, and yet so 
 faithful, from the purer, but scarce less thoughtful, character of 
 the other. Their sympathies ran through the same channel, and 
 mingled in a common fount ; and whatever was dark and 
 troubled in the breast of Aram was now suffered not to appear. 
 Since his return his mood was brighter and more tranquil, and 
 he seemed better fitted to appreciate and respond to the peculiar 
 tenderness of Madeline's affection. There are some stars which, 
 viewed by the naked eye, seem one, but in reality are two 
 separate orbs revolving round each other, and drinking, each 
 from each, a separate yet united existence : such stars seemed a 
 type of them. 
 
 Had anything been wanting to complete Madeline's happiness, 
 the change in Aram supplied the want. The sudden starts, the 
 abrupt changes of mood and countenance, that had formerly 
 characterised him, were now scarcely, if ever, visible. He 
 seemed to have resigned himself with confidence to the prospects 
 1 " Intclligitur sentire mater et timcre, Be e mortuo lacle sanguincm lamLat"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 307 
 
 of the future, and to have forsworn the haggard recollections of 
 the past ; he moved, and looked, and smiled like other men ; he 
 was alive to the little circumstances around him, and no longer 
 absorbed in the contemplation of a separate and strange exist- 
 ence within himself. Some scattered fragments of his poetry 
 bear the date of this time : they are chiefly addressed to 
 Madeline ; and, amidst the vows of love, a spirit, sometimes of 
 a wild and bursting, sometimes of a profound and collected 
 happiness, are visible. There is great beauty in many of these 
 fragments, and they bear a stronger evidence of Jieart they 
 breathe more of nature and truth, than the poetry that belongs 
 of right to that time. 
 
 And thus day rolled on day, till it was now the eve before 
 their bridals. Aram had deemed it prudent to tell Lester that 
 he had sold his annuity, and that he had applied to th-i earl for 
 the pension which we have seen he had been promise \. As to 
 his supposed relation the illness he had created he suffered 
 now to cease ; and indeed the approaching ceremony ^ave him 
 a graceful excuse for turning the conversation away from any 
 topics that did not relate to Madeline, or to that event. 
 
 It was the eve before their marriage : Aram and Madeline 
 were walking along the valley that led to the housi of the 
 former. 
 
 "How fortunate it is," said Madeline, "that our future resi- 
 dence will be so near my father's. I cannot tell you \\ith what 
 delight he looks forward to the pleasant circle we shs'l make. 
 Indeed, I think he would scarcely have consented to our 
 wedding, if it had separated us from him." 
 
 Aram stopped, and plucked a flower. 
 
 "Ah! indeed, indeed, Madeline. Yet in the cours" of the 
 vatious changes of life, how more than probable it is that we 
 shall be divided from him that we shall leave this spot." 
 
 "It is possible, certainly; but not probable : is it, Eugene ?" 
 
 "Would it grieve thee, irremediably, dearest, were if so?" 
 rejoined Aram, evasively. 
 
 " Irremediably ! What could grieve me irremediably tli3. v did 
 not happen to you ? " 
 
 " Should, then, circumstances occur to induce us to leave Ihia 
 
 U 2
 
 30S EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 part of the country, for one yet more remote, you could submit 
 cheerfully to the change?" 
 
 "I should weep for my father I should weep for Ellinor; 
 but " 
 
 " But what ? " 
 
 "I should comfort myself in thinking that you would then be 
 yet more to me than ever ! " 
 
 "Dearest!" 
 
 " But why do you speak thus ; only to try me ? Ah ! that is 
 needless." 
 
 " No, my Madeline ; I have no doubt of your affection. 
 When you loved such as me, I knew at once how blind, how 
 devoted must be that love. You were not won through the 
 usual avenues to a woman's heart ; neither wit nor gaiety, nor 
 youth nor beauty, did you behold in me. Whatever attracted 
 you towards me, that which must have been sufficiently powerful 
 to make you overlook these ordinary allurements, will be also 
 sufficiently enduring to resist all ordinary changes. But listen, 
 Madeline. Do not yet ask me wherefore ; but I fear, that a 
 certain fatality will constrain us to leave this spot very shortly 
 after our wedding." 
 
 " How disappointed my poor father will be ! " said Madeline, 
 sighing. 
 
 " Do not, on any account, mention this conversation to him, or 
 to Ellinor: 'sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'" 
 
 Madeline wondered, but said no more. There was a pause 
 for some minutes. 
 
 "Do you remember," observed Madeline, "that it was about 
 here we met that strange man whom you had formerly known ? " 
 
 " Ha ! was it ? Here, was it ? " 
 
 "What has become of him ?" 
 
 "He is abroad, I hope," said Aram, calmly. "Yes, let me 
 think ; by this time he must be in France. Dearest, let us rest 
 here on this dry mossy bank for a little while ; " and Aram drew 
 his arm round her waist, and, his countenance brightening as if 
 with some thought of increasing joy, he poured out anew those 
 protestations of love, and those anticipations of the future, which 
 befitted the eve of a morrow so full of auspicious promise.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 309 
 
 The heaven of their fate seemed calm and glowing, and Aram 
 did not dream that the one small cloud of fear which was set 
 within it, and which he alone beheld afar, and unprophetic of 
 the storm, was charged with the thunderbolt of a doom he had 
 protracted, not escaped. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WALTER AND THE CORPORAL ON THE ROAD. THE EVENING SETS IN. THK 
 GIPSY TENTS. ADVENTURE WITH THE HORSEMAN. THE CORPORAL DIS- 
 COMFITED, AND THE ARRIVAL AT KNARESBRO*. 
 
 Long had he wandered, when from far he sees 
 A ruddy flame that gleam'd betwixt the trees. 
 
 Sir Gawaine prays him tell 
 
 "Where lies the road to princely Carduel. 
 
 The Knight of the Sword. 
 
 "WELL, Bunting, we are not far from our night's resting- 
 place," said Walter, pointing to a milestone on the road. 
 
 " The poor beast will be glad when we gets there, your 
 honour," answered the corporal, wiping his brows. 
 
 " Which beast, Bunting ? " 
 
 u Augh ! now your honour's severe ! I am glad to see you 
 so merry." 
 
 Walter sighed heavily ; there was no mirth at his heart at 
 that moment. 
 
 " Pray, sir," said the corporal, after a pause, " if not too bold, 
 has your honour heard how they be doing at Grassdale ? " 
 
 " No, Bunting ; I have not held any correspondence with my 
 uncle since our departure. Once I wrote to him on setting off 
 to Yorkshire, but I could give him no direction to write to me 
 again. The fact is, that I have been so sanguine in this search, 
 and from day to day I have been so led on in tracing a clue, 
 which I fear is now broken, that I have constantly put off 
 writing till I could communicate that certain intelligence which I 
 flattered myself I should be able ere this to procure. However, 
 if we are unsuccessful at Knaresbro', I shall write from that 
 place a detailed account of our proceedings."
 
 310 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " And I hopes you will say as how I have given your honour 
 satisfaction." 
 
 " Depend upon that." 
 
 ' Thank you, sir, thank you humbly ; I would not like the 
 squire to think I'm ungrateful ! augh, and mayhap I may 
 have more cause to be grateful by and by, whenever the squire, 
 God bless him ! in consideration of your honour's good offices, 
 should let me have the bit cottage rent free." 
 
 * A man of the world, Bunting ; a man of the world ! " 
 
 "Your honour's mighty obleeging," said the corporal, putting 
 his hand to his hat; "I wonders," renewed he, after a short 
 pause, * I wonders how poor neighbour Dealtry is. He was a 
 sufferer last year ; I should like to know how Peter be getting 
 on 'tis a good creature." 
 
 Somewhat surprised at this sudden sympathy on the part of 
 the corporal, for it was seldom that Bunting expressed kindness 
 for any one, Walter replied, 
 
 " When I write, Bunting, I will not fail to inquire how Peter 
 Dealtry is ; d^es your kind heart suggest any other message to 
 him?" 
 
 " Only to ask arter Jacobina, poor thing : she might get herself 
 into trouble if little Peter fell sick and neglected her like augh ! 
 And I hopes as how Peter airs the bit cottage now and then ; 
 but the squire, God bless him ! will see to that and the 'tato 
 garden, I'm sure." 
 
 " You may rely on that, Bunting," said Walter, sinking into a 
 reverie, from which he was shortly roused by the corporal. 
 
 " I 'spose Miss Madeline be married afore now, your honour? 
 Well, pray Heaven she be happy with that 'ere larned man!" 
 
 Walter's heart beat faster for a moment at this sudden remark, 
 but he was pleased to find that the time when the thought oi 
 Madeline's marriage was accompanied with painful emotion was 
 entirely gone by ; the reflection, however, induced a new train of 
 idea, and without replying to the corporal, he sank into a deeper 
 meditation than before. 
 
 The shrewd Bunting saw that it was not a favourable moment 
 for renewing the conversation; he therefore suffered his horse to 
 fall back, and taking a quid from his tobacco-box, was soon as
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 311 
 
 well entertained as his master. In this manner they rode on for 
 about a couple of miles, the evening growing darker as they 
 proceeded, when a green opening in the road brought them 
 within view of a gipsy's encampment ; the scene was so sudden 
 and picturesque, that it aroused the y<jung traveller from his 
 reverie, and as his tired horse walked slowly on, the bridle about 
 its neck, he looked with an earnest eye on the vagrant settlement 
 beside his path. The moon had just risen above a dark copse m 
 the rear, and cast a broad, deep shadow along the green, without 
 lessening the vivid effect of the fires which glowed and sparkled 
 in the darker recess of the waste land, as the gloomy forms of 
 the Egyptians were seen dimly cowering round the blaze. A 
 scene of this sort is perhaps one of the most striking that the 
 green lanes of old England afford, to me it has always an 
 irresistible attraction, partly from its own claims, partly from 
 those of association. When I was a mere boy, and bent on a 
 solitary excursion over parts of England and Scotland, I saw 
 something of that wild people, though not perhaps so much as 
 the ingenious George Hanger, to whose memoirs the reader may 
 be referred for some rather amusing pages on gipsy life. As 
 Walter was still eying the encampment, he in return had not 
 escaped the glance of an old crone, who came running hastily 
 up to him, and begged permission to tell his fortune, and to have 
 her hand crossed with silver. 
 
 Very few men under thirty ever sincerely refuse an offer of 
 this sort. Nobody believes in these predictions, yet every one 
 likes hearing them : and Walter, after faintly refusing the pro- 
 posal twice, consented the third time : and drawing up his horse, 
 submitted his hand to the old lady. In the meanwhile, one of 
 the younger urchins who had accompanied her had run to the 
 encampment for a light, and now stood behind the old woman's 
 shoulder, rearing on high a pine brand, which cast over the little 
 group a fed and weird-like glow. 
 
 The reader must not imagine we are now about to call his 
 credulity in aid to eke out any interest he may feel in our story ; 
 the old crone was but a vulgar gipsy, and she predicted to 
 Walter the same fortune she always predicted to those who paid 
 a shilling for the prophecy an heiress with blue eyes seven
 
 3ia EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 children troubles about the epoch of forty- three, happily soon 
 over and a healthy old age, with an easy death. Though 
 Walter was not impressed with any reverential awe for these 
 vaticinations, he yet could not refrain from inquiring whether the 
 journey on which he was at present bent was likely to prov^ 
 successful in its object. 
 
 44 Tis an ill night," said the old woman, lifting up her wild 
 face and elfin locks with a mysterious air " 'tis an ill night for 
 them as seeks, and for them as asks. He 's about " 
 
 He who?" 
 
 " No matter I you may be successful, young sir, yet wish you 
 had not been so. The moon thus, and the wind there promise 
 that you will get your desires, and find them crosses." 
 
 The corporal had listened very attentively to these predictions, 
 and was now about to thrust forth his own hand to the sooth- 
 sayer, when from ar cross road to the right came the sound of 
 hoofs, and presently a horseman at full trot pulled up beside 
 them. 
 
 " Hark ye, old she devil, or you, sirs is this the road to 
 Knaresbro' ? " 
 
 The gipsy drew "back, and gazed on the countenance of the 
 rider, on which the red glare of the pine-brand shone full. 
 
 " To Knaresbro', Richard, the dare-devil ? Ay, and what does 
 the ramping bird want in the old nest ? Welcome back to 
 Yorkshire, Richard, my ben cove ! " 
 
 "Ha!" said the rider, shading his eyes with his hand, as he 
 returned the gaze of the gipsy " is it you, Bess Airlie ? your 
 welcome is like the owl's, and reads the wrong way. But I must 
 not stop. This takes to Knaresbro', then ? " 
 
 " Straight as a dying man's curse to hell," replied the crone, 
 in that metaphorical style in which all her tribe love to speak, 
 and of which their proper language is indeed almost wholly 
 composed. 
 
 The horseman answered not, but spurred on. 
 
 " Who is that ? " asked Walter, earnestly, as the old woman 
 stretched her tawny neck after the rider. 
 
 "An old friend, sir," replied the Egyptian, drily. " I have not 
 seen him these fourteen years ; but it is not Bess Airlie who is
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 313 
 
 apt to forgit friend or foe. Well, sir, shall I tell your honour's 
 good luck ? " (here she turned to the corporal, who sat erect on 
 his saddle, with his hand on his holster,) " the colour of the 
 
 lady's hair and " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, you limb of Satan ! " interrupted the 
 corporal, fiercely, as if his whole tide of thought, so lately favour- 
 able to the soothsayer, had undergone a deadly reversion. 
 " Please your honour, it's getting late, we had better be jogging !" 
 "You are right," said Walter, spurring his jaded horse; and. 
 nodding his adieu to the gipsy, he was soon out of sight of the 
 encampment. 
 
 " Sir," said the corporal, joining his master, " that is a 
 man as I have seed afore ; I knowed his ugly face again in a 
 crack 'tis the man what came to Grassdale arter Mr. Aram, 
 and we saw arterwards the night we chanced on Sir Peter 
 Thingumebob." 
 
 "Bunting," said Walter, in a low voice, "/ too have been 
 trying to recall the face of that man, and I too am persuaded I 
 have seen it before. A fearful suspicion, amounting almost to 
 conviction, creeps over me, that the hour in which I last saw it 
 was one when my life was in peril. In a word, I do believe that 
 I beheld that face bending over me on the night when I lay 
 under the hedge, and so nearly escaped murder ! If I am right, 
 it was, however, the mildest of the ruffians ; the one who coun- 
 selled his comrades against despatching me." 
 
 The corporal shuddered. 
 
 " Pray, sir," said he, after a moment's pause, " do see if your 
 pistols are printed : so so. Tis not out o' nature that the 
 man may have some 'complices hereabout, and may think to 
 waylay us. The old gipsy, too, what a face she had ! De- 
 pend on it, they are two of a trade augh! bother! 
 whaugh ! " 
 
 And the corporal grunted his most significant grunt. 
 
 " It is not at all unlikely, Bunting ; and as we are now not far 
 from Knaresbro', it will be prudent to ride on as fast as our 
 horses will allow us. Keep up alongside." 
 
 " Certainly I'll purtect your honour," said the corporal, 
 getting on that side where the hedge being thinnest, an ambush
 
 3U EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 was less likely to be laid. " I care more for your honour's 
 safety than my own, or what a brute I should be augh ! " 
 
 The master and man trotted on for some little distance, when 
 they perceived a dark object movmg along by the grass on the 
 side of the road. The corporal's hair bristled he uttered an 
 oath, which he mistook for a prayer. Walter felt his breath 
 grow a little thick as he watched the motions of the object so 
 imperfectly beheld ; presently, however, it grew into a man on 
 horseback, trotting very slowly along the grass; and as they now 
 neared him, they recognised the rider they had just seen, whom 
 they might have imagined, from the pace at which he left them 
 before, to have been considerably ahead of them. 
 
 The horseman turned round as he saw them. 
 
 * Pray, gentlemen," said he, in a tone of great and evident 
 anxiety, * how far is it to Knaresbro' ?" 
 
 " Don't answer him, your honour," whispered the corporal. 
 
 " Probably," replied Walter, unheeding this advice, " you know 
 this road better than we do. It cannot, however, be above three 
 or four miles hence." 
 
 " Thank you, sir, it is long since I have been in these parts. 
 I used to know the country, but they have made new roads and 
 strange inclosures, and I now scarcely recognise anything 
 familiar. Curse on this brute ! curse on it, I say ! " repeated the 
 horseman through his ground teeth, in a tone of angry vehe- 
 mence : " I never wanted to ride so quick before, and the beast has 
 fallen as lame as a tree. This comes of trying to go faster than 
 other folks. Sir, are you a father ? " 
 
 This abrupt question, which was uttered in a sharp, strained 
 voice, a little startled Walter. He replied shortly in the negative, 
 and was about to spur onward, when the horseman continued 
 and there was something in his voice and manner that compelled 
 attention, 
 
 "And I am in doubt whether I have a child or not By G I 
 it is a bitter gnawing state of mind. I may reach Knaresbro' to 
 find my only daughter dead, sir ! dead ! " 
 
 Despite Walter's suspicions of the speaker, he could not but 
 feel a thrill of sympathy at the visible distress with which these 
 words were said.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 315 
 
 " I hope not," said he, involuntarily. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," replied the horseman, trying ineffectually to 
 spur on his steed, which almost came down at the effort to proceed. 
 " I have ridden thirty miles across the country at full speed, 
 for they had no post-horses at the d d place where I hired this 
 brute. This was the only creature I could get for love or money ; 
 and now the devil only knows how important every moment may 
 be. While I speak my child may breathe her last ! " And the 
 man brought his clenched fist on the shoulder of his horse in 
 mingled spite and rage. 
 
 " All sham, your honour," whispered the corporal. 
 
 " Sir," cried the horseman, now raising his voice, " I need not 
 have asked if you had been a father if you had, you would 
 have had compassion on me ere this, you would have lent me 
 your own horse." 
 
 " The impudent rogue ! " muttered the corporal. 
 
 " Sir," replied Walter, " it is not to the tale of every stranger 
 that a man gives belief." 
 
 " Belief ! ah, well, well, 'tis no matter," said the horseman, 
 sullenly. " There was a time, man, when I would have forced 
 what I now solicit ; but my heart's gone. Ride on, sir ride on, 
 and the curse of " 
 
 " If," interrupted Walter, irresolutely, "if I could believe your 
 statement: but no. Mark me, sir: I have reasons fearful 
 reasons, for imagining that you mean this but as a snare ! " 
 
 " Ha ! " said the horseman, deliberately, " have we met 
 before?" 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " And you have had cause to complain of me ? It may be it 
 may be : but were the grave before me, and if one lie would 
 smite me into it, I solemnly swear that I now utter but the naked 
 truth." 
 
 " It would be folly to trust him, Bunting ? " said Walter, turning 
 round to his attendant. 
 
 " Folly sheer madness bother ! " 
 
 "If you are the man I take you for," said Walter, "you once 
 raised your voice against the murder, though you assisted in the 
 robbery, of a traveller : that traveller was myselC I will
 
 3l6 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 remember the mercy I will forget the outrage ; and I will not 
 believe that you have devised this tale as a snare. Take my 
 horse, sir ; I will trust you." 
 
 Houseman, for it was he, flung himself instantly from his 
 saddle. " I don't ask God to bless you : a blessing in my mouth 
 would be worse than a curse. But you will not repent this : you 
 will not repent it ! " 
 
 Houseman said these few words with a palpable emotion ; and 
 it was more striking on account of the evident coarseness and 
 hardened brutality of his nature. In a moment more he had 
 mounted Walter's horse, and turning ere he sped on, inquired at 
 what place at Knaresborough the horse should be sent. Walter 
 directed him to the principal inn ; and Houseman, waving his 
 hand, and striking his spurs into the animal, wearied as it was, 
 shot out of sight in a moment. 
 
 " Well, if ever I seed the like ! " quoth the corporal. " Lira, 
 lira, la, la, la ! lira, lara, la, la, la ! augh ! waugh ! bother ! " 
 
 " So my good-nature does not please you, Bunting ! " 
 
 " Oh; sir, it does not sinnify : we shall have our throats cut 
 that's all." 
 
 " What, you don't believe the story ?" 
 
 " I ? Bless your honour, / am no fool" 
 
 41 Bunting ! " 
 
 "Sir." 
 
 " You forget yourself." 
 
 - Augh ! " 
 
 " So you don't think I should have lent the horse 1* 
 
 " Sartinly not." 
 
 " On occasions like these, every man ought to take care of 
 himself? Prudence before generosity ?" 
 
 " Of a sartainty, sir !" 
 
 " Dismount, then, I want my horse. You may shift with the 
 lame one." 
 
 " Augh, sir, baugh ! " 
 
 "Rascal, dismount, I say!" said Walter, angrily: for the 
 corjK>ral was one of those men who aim at governing their 
 masters ; and his selfishness now irritated Walter as much as his 
 impertinent tone of superior wisdom.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 317 
 
 The corporal hesitated. He thought an ambuscade by the 
 road of certain occurrence ; and he was weighing the danger of 
 riding a lame horse against his master's displeasure. Walter, 
 perceiving he demurred, was seized with so violent a resentment, 
 that he dashed up to the corporal, and grasping him by the collar, 
 swung him, heavy as he was, being wholly unprepared for such 
 force, to the ground. 
 
 Without deigning to look at his condition, Walter mounted 
 the sound horse, and throwing the bridle of the lame one over 
 a bough, left the corporal to follow at his leisure. 
 
 There is not, perhaps, a more sore state of mind than that 
 which we experience when we have committed an act we meant 
 to be generous, and fear to be foolish. 
 
 " Certainly," said Walter, soliloquising, " certainly the man is a 
 rascal ; yet he was evidently sincere in his emotion. Certainly 
 he was one of the men who robbed me ; yet, if so, he was also 
 the one who interceded for my life. If I should now have given 
 strength to a villain ; if I should have assisted him to an outrage 
 agaiast myself ! What more probable ? Yet, on the other hand, 
 if his story be true ; if his child be dying, and if, through my 
 means, he obtain a last interview with her ! Well, well, let me 
 hope so ! " 
 
 Here he was joined by the corporal, who angry as he was, 
 judged it prudent to smother his rage for another opportunity ; 
 and by favouring his master with his company, to procure himself 
 an ally immediately at hand, should his suspicions prove true. 
 But for once his knowledge of the world deceived him : no sign 
 of living creature broke the loneliness of the way. By and by 
 the lights of the town gleamed upon them ; and, on reaching the 
 inn, Walter found his horse had been already sent there, and, 
 covered with dust and foam, was submitting. itself to the tutelary 
 hands of the hostler.
 
 318 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WALTFl'S MFLECTIONS. MINE HOST. A GENTLE CHARACTER AND A GRF.KN 
 OLD AGE. THE GARDEN, AND THAT WHICH IT TEACHETH. A DIALOGUE 
 WHEREIN NEW HINTS TOWARDS THE WISHED-FOR DISCOVERY ARE SUG- 
 GESTED. THR CURATE. A VISIT TO A SPOT O DEEP INTEREST TO TUB 
 ADVENTURER. 
 
 I made a posy while the day ran by, 
 Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie 
 My life within this band. George Herbert. 
 
 ' ' ' ' The time approaches, 
 
 That will with due precision make us know 
 
 What Macbeth. 
 
 THE next morning Walter rose early, and descending into 
 the court-yard of the inn he there met with the landlord, 
 who a hoe in his hand was just about to enter a little 
 gate that led into the garden. He held the gate open for 
 Walter. 
 
 " It is a fine morning, sir ; would you like to look into 
 the garden ? " said mine host, with an inviting smile. 
 
 Walter accepted the offer, and found himself in a large and 
 well-stocked garden, laid out with much neatness and some 
 taste: the landlord halted by a parterre which required his 
 attention, and Walter walked on in solitary reflection. 
 
 The morning was serene and clear, but the frost mingled the 
 freshness with an " eager and nipping air ; " and Walter uncon- 
 sciously quickened his step as he passed to and fro the straight 
 walk that bisected the garden, with his eyes on the ground, and 
 his hat over his brows. 
 
 Now then he had reached the place where the last trace of his 
 father seemed to have vanished ; in how wayward and strange a 
 manner! If no further clue could be here discovered by the 
 inquiry he purposed, at this spot would terminate his researches 
 and his hopes. But the young heart of the traveller was buoyed 
 up with expectation. Looking back to the events of the last 
 fe\v weeks, he thought he recognised the finger of Destiny 
 guiding him from step to step, and now resting on the scene to
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 319 
 
 which it had brought his feet. How singularly complete had 
 been the train of circumstance, which, linking things seemingly 
 most trifling, most dissimilar, had lengthened into one continuous 
 chain of evidence ! the trivial incident that led him to the saddler's 
 shop ; the accident that brought the whip that had been his 
 father's to his eye ; the account from Courtland, which had 
 conducted him to this remote part of the country ; and now the 
 narrative of Elmore leading him to the spot at which all inquiry 
 seemed as yet to pause ! Had he been led hither only to hear 
 repeated that strange tale of sudden and wanton disappearance 
 to find an abrupt wall, a blank and impenetrable barrier to a 
 course hitherto so continuously guided on ? Had he been the 
 sport of Fate, and not its instrument ? No ; he was filled with a 
 serious and profound conviction that a discovery which he of all 
 men was best entitled by the unalienable claims of blood and 
 birth to achieve was reserved for him, and that this grand dream 
 of childhood was now about to be embodied and attained. He 
 could not but be sensible, too, that as he had proceeded on his 
 high enterprise, his character had acquired a weight and a 
 thoughtful seriousness which was more fitted to the nature of that 
 enterprise than akin to his earlier temper. This consciousness 
 s\*elled his bosom with a profound and steady hope. When 
 Fate selects her human agents, her dark and mysterious spirit is 
 at work within them ; she moulds their hearts, she exalts their 
 energies, she shapes them to the part she has allotted them, and 
 renders the mortal instrument worthy of the solemn end. 
 
 Thus chewing the cud of his involved and deep reflections, 
 the young adventurer paused at last opposite his host, who was 
 still bending over his pleasant task, and every now and then 
 excited by the exercise and the fresh morning air, breaking into 
 snatches of some old rustic song. The contrast in mood between 
 himself and this 
 
 " Unvex'd loiterer by the world's green ways," 
 
 struck forcibly upon him. Mine host, too, was one whose 
 appearance was better suited to his occupation than his pro- 
 fession. He might have told some three-and-sixty years, but it 
 was a comely and green old age ; his cheek was firm and ruddy,
 
 320 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 not with nightly cups, but the fresh witness of the morning 
 breezes it was wont to court ; his frame was robust, not cor- 
 pulent; and his long gray hair, which fell almost to his shoulders, 
 his clear blue eyes, and a pleasant curve in a mouth characterised 
 by habitual good humour, completed a portrait that even many 
 a dull observer would have paused to gaze upon. And, indeed, 
 the good man enjoyed a certain kind of reputation for his 
 comely looks and cheerful manner. His picture had even been 
 taken by a young artist in the neighbourhood ; nay, the likeness 
 had been multiplied into engravings, somewhat rude and some- 
 what unfaithful, which might be seen occupying no unconspicuous 
 nor dusty corner in the principal printshop of the town. Nor 
 was mine host's character a contradiction to his looks. He had 
 seen enough of life to be intelligent, and had judged it rightly 
 enough to be kind. He had passed that line so nicely given to 
 man's codes in those admirable pages which first added delicacy 
 of tact to the strong sense of English composition. " We have 
 just religion enough," it is said somewhere in The Spectator, "to 
 make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another." 
 Our good landlord, peace be with his ashes ! had never halted at 
 this limit. The country innkeeper might have furnished Gold- 
 smith with a counterpart to his country curate ; his house was 
 equally hospitable to the poor his heart equally tender, in a 
 nature wiser than experience, to error, and equally open, in its 
 warm simplicity, to distress. Peace be with thee * * * * * ! 
 Our grandsire was thy patron yet a patron thou didst not want. 
 Merit in thy capacity is seldom bare of reward. The public 
 want no indicators to a house like thine. And who requires a 
 third person to tell him how to appreciate the value of good 
 nature and good cheer ? 
 
 As Walter stood and contemplated the old man bending over 
 the sweet fresh earth (and then, glancing round, saw the quiet 
 garden stretching away on either side with its boundaries lost 
 among the thick evergreen), something of that grateful and 
 moralising stillness with which some country scene generally 
 inspires us, when we awake to its consciousness from the troubled 
 dream of dark and unquiet thought, stole over his mind ; aad 
 certain old lines which his uncle, who loved the soft and rustic
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 381 
 
 morality that pervades the ancient race of English minstrels, 
 had taught him, when a boy, came pleasantly into his re- 
 collection : 
 
 " With all, as in some rare limned book, we see 
 Here painted lectures of God's sacred will. 
 The daisy teacheth lowliness of mind ; 
 The camomile, we should be patient still ; 
 The rue, our hate of vice's poison ill ; 
 The woodbine, that we should our friendship hold ; 
 Our hope the savory in the bitterest cold." l 
 
 The old man stopped from his work, as the musing figure of 
 his guest darkened the prospect before him, and said, 
 
 " A pleasant time, sir, for the gardener ! " 
 
 " Ay, is it so ? You must miss the fruits and flowers of 
 summer." 
 
 " Well, sir, but we are now paying back the garden for the 
 good things it has given us. It is like taking care of a friend in 
 old age who has been kind to us when he was young." 
 
 Walter smiled at the quaint amiability of the idea. 
 
 " Tis a winning thing, sir, a garden ! It brings us an object 
 every day ; and that's what I think a man ought to have if he 
 wishes to lead a happy life." 
 
 " It is true," said Walter ; and mine host was encouraged to 
 continue by the attention and affable countenance of the stranger, 
 for he was a physiognomist in his way. 
 
 "And then, sir, we have no disappointment in these objects ; 
 the soil is not ungrateful, as they say men are though I have 
 not often found them so, by the by. What we sow we reap. I 
 have an old book, sir, lying in my little parlour, all about fishing, 
 and full of so many pretty sayings about a country life, and 
 meditation, and so forth, that it does one as much good as a 
 sermon to look into it. But to my mind, all those sayings are 
 more applicable to a gardener's life than a fisherman's." 
 
 " It is a less cruel life, certainly," said Walter. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and then the scenes one makes one's self, the 
 flowers one plants with one's own hand, one enjoys more than 
 all the beauties which don't owe us anything : at least so it 
 seems to me. I have always been thankful to the accident that 
 made me take to gardening." 
 
 1 Henry Peacham. 
 
 X
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " And what was that ? " 
 
 " Why, sir, you must know there was a great scholar, though 
 he was but a youth then, living in this town some years ago, and 
 he was very curious in plants, and flowers, and such like. I have 
 heard the parson say, he knew more of those innocent matters 
 than any man in this county. At that time I was not in so 
 flourishing a way of business as I am at present I kept a little 
 inn in the outskirts of the town ; and having formerly been a 
 
 gamekeeper of my Lord 's, I was in the habit of eking out 
 
 my little profits by accompanying gentlemen in fishing or snipe- 
 shooting. So one day, sir, I went out fishing with a strange 
 gentleman from London, and, in a very quiet retired spot some 
 miles off, he stopped and plucked some herbs that seemed to me 
 common enough, but which he declared were most curious and 
 rare things, and he carried them carefully away. I heard after- 
 wards he was a great herbalist, I think they call it, but he was a 
 very poor fisher. Well, sir, I thought the next morning of Mr. 
 Aram, our great scholar and botanist, and fancied it would please 
 him to know of these bits of grass: so I went and called upon 
 him, and begged leave to go and show the spot to him. So we 
 walked there ; and certainly, sir, of all the men that ever I saw, 
 I never met one that wound round your heart like this same 
 Eugene Aram. He was then exceedingly poor, but he never 
 complained ; and was much too proud for any one to dare to 
 offer him relief. He lived quite alone, and usually avoided 
 every one in his walks ; but, sir, there was something so engaging 
 and patient in his manner, and his voice, and his pale, mild 
 countenance, which, young as he was then, for he was not a year 
 or two above twenty, was marked with sadness and melancholy, 
 that it quite went to your heart when you met him or spoke to 
 him. Well, sir, we walked to the place, and very much delighted 
 he seemed with the green things I showed him ; and as I was 
 always of a communicative temper rather a gossip, sir, my 
 neighbours say I made him smile now and then by my remarks. 
 He seemed pleased with me, and talked to me going home 
 about flowers and gardening, and such like ; and sure it was 
 better than a book to hear him. And after that, when we came 
 across one another, he would not shun me as he did others, but
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 323 
 
 let me stop and talk to him ; and then I asked his advice about 
 a wee farm I thought of taking, and he told me many curious 
 things which, sure enough, I found quite true, and brought me 
 in afterwards a deal of money. But we talked much about 
 gardening, for I loved to hear him talk on those matters ; and 
 so, sir, I was struck by all he said, and could not rest till I took 
 to gardening myself, and ever since I have gone on, more 
 pleased with it every day of my life. Indeed, sir, I think these 
 harmless pursuits make a man's heart better and kinder to his 
 lellow-creatures ; and I always take more pleasure in reading 
 the Bible, specially the New Testament, after having spent the 
 day in the garden. Ah, well, I should like to know what has 
 become of that poor gentleman." 
 
 " I can relieve your honest heart about him. Mr. Aram is 
 living in * * * *, well off in the world, and universally liked ; 
 though he still keeps to his old habits of reserve." 
 
 " Ay, indeed, sir ! I have not heard anything that pleased 
 me more this many a day." 
 
 " Pray," said Walter, after a moment's pause ; " do you 
 remember the circumstance of a Mr. Clarke appearing in 
 this town, and leaving it in a very abrupt and mysterious 
 manner ? " 
 
 " Do I mind it, sir ? Yes, indeed. It made a great noise in 
 Knaresbro' there were many suspicions of foul play about it. 
 For my part, I too had my thoughts, but that's neither here 
 nor there ; " and the old man recommenced weeding with great 
 diligence. 
 
 "My friend," said Walter, mastering his emotion, "you 
 would serve me more deeply than I can express, if you would 
 give me any information, any conjecture, respecting this 
 this Mr. Clarke. I have come hither solely to make inquiry 
 after his fate : in a word, he is or was a near relative of mine ! " 
 
 The old man looked wistfully in Walter's face. " Indeed," 
 said he, slowly, " you are welcome, sir, to all I know ; but that 
 is very little, or nothing rather. But will you turn up this 
 walk, sir, it's more retired. Did you evar hear of one Richard 
 Houseman ? " 
 
 "Houseman ! yes. He knew my poor , I mean he knew 
 
 X 2
 
 3*4 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Clarke : he said Clarke was in his debt when he left the town 
 so suddenly." 
 
 The old man shook his head mysteriously, and looked round. 
 " I will tell you," said he, laying his hand on Walter's arm, 
 and speaking in his ear ; " I would not accuse any one wrong- 
 fully, but I have my doubts that Houseman murdered him." 
 
 " Great God ! " murmured Walter, clinging to a post for 
 support. " Go on heed me not heed me not for mercy's 
 sake go on." 
 
 "Nay, I know nothing certain nothing certain, believe me," 
 said the old man, shocked at the effect his words had pro- 
 duced : " it may be better than I think for, and my reasons are 
 not very strong, but you shall hear them. Mr. Clarke, you 
 know, came to this town to receive a legacy you know the 
 particulars ? " 
 
 Walter impatiently nodded assent. 
 
 " Well, though he seemed in poor health, he was a lively 
 careless man, who liked any company who would sit and tell 
 stories, and drink o' nights; not a silly man exactly, but a 
 weak one. Now of all the idle persons of this town, Richard 
 Houseman was the most inclined to this way of life. He had 
 been a soldier had wandered a good deal about the world 
 was a bold, talking, reckless fellow of a character thoroughly 
 profligate ; and there were many stories afloat about him, 
 though none were clearly made out. In short, he was sus- 
 pected of having occasionally taken to the high road ; and a 
 stranger, who stopped once at my little inn, assured me privately, 
 that though he could not positively swear to his person, he 
 felt convinced that he had been stopped a year before on the 
 London road by Houseman. Notwithstanding all this, as 
 Houseman had some respectable connections in the town 
 among his relations, by the by, was Mr. Aram as he was a 
 thoroughly boon companion a good shot a bold rider ex- 
 cellent at a song, and very cheerful and merry, he was not 
 without as much company as he pleased ; and the first night 
 he and Mr. Clarke came together, they grew mighty intimate; 
 indeed it seemed as if they had met before. On the night Mr. 
 Clarke disappeared, I had been on an excursion with some
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 325 
 
 gentlemen ; and in consequence of the snow which had been 
 heavy during the latter part of the day, I did not return to 
 Knaresbro' till past midnight. In walking through the town, 
 I perceived two men engaged in earnest conversation : one of 
 them, I am sure, was Clarke ; the other was wrapped up in a 
 greatcoat, with the cape over his face ; but the watchman had 
 met the same man alone at an earlier hour, and, putting aside 
 the cape, perceived that it was Houseman. No one else was 
 seen with Clarke after that hour." 
 
 " But was not Houseman examined ? " 
 
 "Slightly; and deposed that he had been spending the night 
 with Eugene Aram ; that on leaving Aram's house, he met 
 Clarke, and wondering that he, the latter, an invalid, should be 
 out at so late an hour, he walked some way with him, in order 
 to learn the cause ; but that Clarke seemed confused, and was 
 reserved, and on his guard, and at last wished him good-bye 
 abruptly, and turned away. That he, Houseman, had no doubt 
 he left the town that night, with the intention of defrauding his 
 creditors, and making off with some jewels he had borrowed 
 from Mr. Elmore." 
 
 "But, Aram was this suspicious, nay, abandoned character 
 this Houseman intimate with Aram ? " 
 
 "Not at all ; but being distantly related, and Houseman being 
 a familiar, pushing sort of a fellow, Aram could not, perhaps, 
 always shake him off; and Aram allowed that Houseman had 
 spent the evening with him." 
 
 " And no suspicion rested on Aram ? " 
 
 The host turned round in amazement. " Heavens above, no I 
 One might as well suspect the lamb of eating the wolf ! " 
 
 But not thus thought Walter Lester: the wild words occa- 
 sionally uttered by the student his lone habits his frequent 
 starts and colloquy with self, all of which had, even from the first, 
 it has been seen, excited Walter's suspicion of former guilt, that 
 had murdered the mind's wholesome sleep, now rushed with 
 tenfold force upon his memory. 
 
 " But no other circumstance transpired ? Is this your whole 
 ground for suspicion ; the mere circumstance of Houseman's 
 being last seen with Clarke?"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "Consider also the dissolute and bold character of House- 
 man. Clarke evidently had his jewels and money with him 
 they were not left in the house. What a temptation to one who 
 was more than suspected of having in the course of his life 
 taken to plunder ! Houseman shortly afterwards left the country. 
 He has never returned to the town since, though his daughter 
 lives here with his wife's mother, and has occasionally gone up 
 to town to see him." 
 
 * And Aram he also left Knaresbro' soon after this mysterious 
 event?" 
 
 " Yes ; an old aunt at York, who had never assisted him 
 during her life, died and bequeathed him a legacy, about a month 
 afterwards. On receiving it he naturally went to London 
 the best place for such clever scholars." 
 
 " Ha ! but are you sure that the aunt died, that the legacy 
 was left? Might this be no tale to give an excuse to the 
 spending of money otherwise acquired ? " 
 
 Mine host looked almost with anger on Walter. 
 
 " It is clear," said he, " you know nothing of Eugene Aram, 
 or you would not speak thus. But I can satisfy your doubts 
 <jn this head. I knew the old lady well, and my wife was at 
 York when she died. Besides, every one here knows something 
 of the will, for it was rather an eccentric one." 
 
 Walter paused irresolutely. "Will you accompany me," he 
 asked, "to the house in which Mr. Clarke lodged, and, in- 
 deed, to any other place where it may be prudent to institute 
 inquiry ?" 
 
 " Certainly, sir, with the biggest pleasure," said mine host ; 
 " but you must first try my dame's butter and eggs. It is time 
 to breakfast." 
 
 We may suppose that Walter's simple meal was soon over; 
 and growing impatient and restless to commence his inquiries, 
 he descended from his solitary apartment to the little back-room 
 behind the bar, in \vhich he had, on the night before, seen 
 mine host and his better half at supper. It was a snug, small, 
 wainscoted room ; fishing-rods were neatly arranged against 
 the wall, which was also decorated by a portrait of the landlord 
 himself, two old Dutch pictures of fruit and game, a long,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 327 
 
 quaint-fashioned fowling-piece, and, opposite the fire-place, a 
 noble stag's head and antlers. On the window -seat lay the 
 Isaak Walton to which the old man had referred ; the Family 
 Bible, with its green baize cover, and the frequent marks peep- 
 ing out from its venerable pages ; and, close nestling to it, re- 
 calling that beautiful sentence, " Suffer the little children to come 
 unto me, and forbid them not," several of those little volumes 
 with gay bindings, and marvellous contents of fay and giant, 
 which delight the hearth-spelled urchin, and which were "the 
 source of golden hours " to the old man's grandchildren, in their 
 respite from "learning's little tenements," 
 
 " Where sits the dame, disguised in look profound, 
 And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around." * 
 
 Mine host was still employed by a huge brown loaf and some 
 baked pike ; and mine hostess, a quiet and serene old lady, was 
 alternately regaling herself and a large brindled cat from a plate 
 of "toasten cheer." 
 
 While the old man was hastily concluding his repast, a little 
 knock at the door was heard, and presently an elderly gentle- 
 man in black put his head into the room, and, perceiving the 
 stranger, would have drawn back ; but both landlady and land- 
 lord, bustling up, entreated him to enter by the appellation of 
 Mr. Summers. And then, as the gentleman smilingly yielded to 
 the invitation, the landlady, turning to Walter, said, " Our 
 clergyman, sir : and though I say it afore his face, there is not a 
 man who, if Christian vartues were considered, ought so soon to 
 be a bishop." 
 
 " Hush ! my good lady," said Mr. Summers, laughing as he 
 bowed to Walter. " You see, sir, that it is no trifling advantage to 
 a Knaresbro' reputation to have our hostess's good word. But, 
 indeed," turning to the landlady, and assuming a grave and 
 impressive air, " I have little mind for jesting now. You know 
 poor Jane Houseman, a mild, quiet, blue-eyed creature, she 
 died at daybreak this morning! Her father had come from 
 London expressly to see her: she died in his arms, and I hear 
 he is almost in a state of frenzy." 
 
 1 Shenstone's Schoolmistrett.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 The host and hostess signified their commiseration. "Poor 
 little girl I " said the latter, wiping her eyes ; " hers was a hard 
 fate, and she felt it, child as she was. Without the care of a 
 mother and such a father ! Yet he was fond of her." 
 
 " My reason for calling on you was this," renewed the clergy- 
 man, addressing the host : " you knew Houseman formerly ; me 
 he always shunned, and, I fancy, ridiculed. He is in distress 
 now, and all that is forgotten. Will you seek him, and inquire 
 if anything in my power can afford him consolation ? He may 
 be poor : / can pay for the poor child's burial. I loved her ; she 
 was the best girl at Mrs. Summers's school." 
 
 " Certainly, sir, I will seek him," said the landlord, hesitating ; 
 and then, drawing the clergyman aside, he informed him in a 
 whisper of his engagement with Walter, and with the present 
 pursuit and meditated inquiry of his guest : not forgetting to 
 insinuate his suspicion of the guilt of the man whom he was now 
 called upon to compassionate. 
 
 The clergyman mused a little : and then, approaching Walter, 
 Dflfered his services in the stead of the publican in so frank and 
 cordial a manner, that Walter at once accepted them. 
 
 " Let us come now, then," said the good curate for he was 
 but the curate seeing Walter's impatience ; " and first we will go 
 to the house in which Clarke lodged : I know it well." 
 
 The two gentlemen now commenced their expedition. 
 Summers was no Contemptible antiquary ; and he sought to 
 beguile the nervous impatience of his companion by dilating 
 on the attractions of the ancient and memorable town to 
 which his purpose had brought him. 
 
 " Remarkable," said the curate, " alike in history ad tradition : 
 look yonder" (pointing above, as an opening in the road gave to 
 view the frowning and beetled ruins of the shattered castle) ; 
 "you would be at some loss to recognize now the truth of old 
 Leland's description of that once stout and gallant bulwark of the 
 North, when he 'numbrid n or 12 towres in the walles of the 
 castel, and one very fayre beside in the second area.' In that 
 castle, the four knightly murderers of the haughty Becket (the 
 Wolsey of his age) remained for a whole year, defying the weak 
 justice of the times. There, too. the unfortunate Richard the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 329 
 
 Second the Stuart of the Plantagenets passed some portion of 
 his bitter imprisonment. And there, after the battle of Marston 
 Moor, waved the banners of the loyalists against the soldiers of 
 Lilburne. It was made yet more touchingly memorable at that 
 time, as you may have heard, by an instance of filial piety. The 
 town was greatly straitened for want of provisions ; a youth, 
 whose father was in the garrison, was accustomed nightly to get 
 into the deep dry moat, climb up the glacis, and put provisions 
 through a hole, where the father stood ready to receive them. 
 He was perceived at length ; the soldiers fired on him. He 
 was taken prisoner and sentenced to be hanged in sight of the 
 besieged, in order to strike terror into those who might be 
 similarly disposed to render assistance to the garrison. Fortu- 
 nately, however, this disgrace was spared the memory of Lilburne 
 and the republican arms. With great difficulty, a certain lady 
 obtained his respite; and after the conquest of the place, 
 and the departure of the troops, the adventurous son was 
 released." 
 
 " A nt subject for your local poets," said Walter, whom stories 
 of this sort, from the nature of his own enterprise, especially 
 affected. 
 
 " Yes ; but we boast but few minstrels since the young Aram 
 left us. The castle then, once the residence of John of Gaunt, 
 was dismantled and destroyed. Many of the houses we shall 
 pass have been built from its massive ruins. It is singular, by 
 the way, that it was twice captured by men of the name of 
 Lilburn or Lillburne ; once in the reign of Edward II., once as 
 I have related. On looking over historical records, we are 
 surprised to find how often certain names have been fatal to 
 certain spots ; and this reminds me, by the way, that we boast 
 the origin of the English sibyl, the venerable Mother Shipton. 
 The wild rock, at whose foot she is said to have been born, is 
 worthy of the tradition." 
 
 " You spoke just now," said Walter, who had not very patiently 
 suffered the curate thus to ride his hobby, " of Eugene Aram ; 
 you knew him well ? " 
 
 " Nay : he suffered not any to do that ! He was a remarkable 
 youth. I have noted him from his childhood upward, long
 
 330 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 before he came to Knaresbro', till on leaving this place, fourteen 
 years back, I lost sight of him. Strange, musing, solitary from 
 a boy : but what accomplishment of learning he had reached ! 
 Never did I see one whom Nature so emphatically marked 
 to be GREAT. I often wonder that his name has not long ere 
 this been more universally noised abroad, whatever he attempted 
 was stamped with such signal success. I have by me some 
 scattered pieces of his poetry when a boy : they were given me 
 by his poor father, long since dead ; and are full of a dim, 
 shadowy anticipation of future fame. Perhaps, yet, before he 
 dies, he is still young, the presentiment will be realised. You, 
 too, know him, then ? " 
 
 " Yes ! I have known him. Stay dare I ask you a question, 
 a fearful question ? Did suspicion ever, in your mind, in the 
 mind of any one, rest on Aram, as concerned in the mysterious 
 disappearance of my of Clarke? His acquaintance with 
 Houseman who was suspected ; Houseman's visit to Aram that 
 night ; his previous poverty so extreme, if I hear rightly ; his 
 after riches though they perhaps may be satisfactorily accounted 
 for ; his leaving this town so shortly after the disappearance I 
 refer to ; these alone might not create suspicion in me, but I 
 have seen the man in moments of reverie and abstraction, I have 
 listened to strange and broken words, I have noted a sudden, 
 keen, and angry susceptibility to any unmeant appeal to a less 
 peaceful or less innocent remembrance. And there seems to 
 me inexplicably to hang over his heart some gloomy recollection, 
 which I cannot divest myself from imagining to be that of guilt" 
 
 Walter spoke quickly, and in great though half-suppressed 
 excitement ; the more kindled from observing that as he spoke, 
 Summers changed countenance, and listened as with painful and 
 uneasy attention. 
 
 " I will tell you," said the curate, after a short pause (lowering his 
 voice) " I will tell you : Aram did undergo examination I was 
 present at it : but from his character, and the respect universally 
 felt for him, the examination was close and secret. He was not, 
 mark me, suspected of the murder of the unfortunate Clarke, nor 
 was any suspicion of murder generally entertained until all 
 means of discovering Clarke were found wholly unavailing ; but
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 331 
 
 of sharing with Houseman some part of the jewels with which 
 Clarke was known to have left the town. This suspicion of 
 robbery could not, however, be brought home, even to Houseman, 
 and Aram was satisfactorily acquitted from the imputation. But 
 in the minds of some present at that examination, a doubt 
 lingered, and this doubt certainly deeply wounded a man so 
 proud and susceptible. This, I believe, was the real reason of 
 his quitting Knaresbro' almost immediately after that exam- 
 ination. And some of us, who felt for him, and were convinced 
 of his innocence, persuaded the others to hush up the circumstance 
 of his examination, nor has it generally transpired, even to this 
 day, when the whole business is well-nigh forgot. But as to his 
 subsequent improvement in circumstances, there is no doubt 
 of his aunt's having left him a legacy sufficient to account 
 for it." 
 
 Walter bowed his head, and felt his suspicions waver, when 
 the curate renewed : 
 
 " Yet it is but fair to tell you, who seem so deeply interested 
 in the fate of Clarke, that since that period rumours have reached 
 my ear that the woman at whose house Aram lodged, has from 
 time to time dropped words that require explanation hints that 
 she could tell a tale that she knows more than men will readily 
 believe nay, once she is even reported to have said that the life 
 of Eugene Aram was in her power." 
 
 "Father of mercy ! and did inquiry sleep on W9rds so calling 
 for its liveliest examination ? " 
 
 " Not wholly. When the words were reported to me, I went 
 to the house, but found the woman, whose habits and character 
 are low and worthless, was abrupt and insolent in her manner ; 
 and after in vain endeavouring to call forth some explanation of 
 the words she was said to have uttered, I left the house fully 
 persuaded that she had only given vent to a meaningless boast, 
 and that the idle words of a disorderly gossip could not be taken 
 as evidence against a man of the blameless character and austere 
 habits of Aram. Since, however, you have now reawakened 
 investigation, we will visit her before you leave the town ; and 
 it may be as well, too, that Houseman should undergo a further 
 investigation before we suffer him to depart."
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " I thank you ! I thank you ! I will not let slip one thread 
 of this dark clue ! " 
 
 "And now," said the curate, pointing to a decent house, " we 
 have reached the lodging Clarke occupied in the town." 
 
 An old man of respectable appearance opened the door, and 
 welcomed the curate and his companion with an air of coronal 
 respect, which attested the well-deserved popularity of the 
 former. 
 
 14 We have come," said the curate, "to ask you some questions 
 respecting Daniel Clarke, whom you remember as your lodger. 
 This gentleman is a relation of his, and interested deeply in 
 his fate." 
 
 " What, sir ! " quoth the old man ; " and have you, his relation, 
 never heard of Mr. Clarke since he left the town ? Strange ! 
 this room, this very room, was the one Mr. Clarke occupied, and 
 next to this, here (opening a door) was his bedchamber!" 
 
 It was not without powerful emotion that Walter found him- 
 self thus within the apartment of his lost father. What a painful, 
 what a gloomy, yet sacred interest everything around instantly 
 assumed ! The old-fashioned and heavy chairs the brown 
 wainscot walls the little cupboard recessed as it were to the 
 right of the fireplace, and piled with morsels of Indian china and 
 long taper wine-glasses the small window-panes set deep in 
 the wall, giving a dim view of a bleak and melancholy-looking 
 garden in the rear yea, the very floor he trod the very table 
 on which he leaned the very hearth, dull and fireless as it was, 
 opposite his gaze all took a familiar meaning in his eye, and 
 breathed a household voice into his ear. And when he entered 
 the inner room, how, even to suffocation, were those strange, 
 half-sad, yet not all bitter emotions increased. There was the 
 bed on which his father had rested on the night before - 
 what ? perhaps his murder ! The bed, probably a relic from the 
 castle, when its antique furniture was set up to public sale, was 
 hung with faded tapestry, and above its dark and polished 
 summit were hcarselike and heavy trappings. Old commodes 
 of rudely carved oak, a discoloured glass in a japan frame, a 
 ponderous arm-chair of Elizabethan fashion, and covered with 
 the same tapestry as the bed, altogether gave that uneasy and
 
 EUGENE ARAM. ^33 
 
 sepulchral impression to the mind so commonly produced by 
 the relics of a mouldering and forgotten antiquity. 
 
 "It looks cheerless, sir," said the owner; "but then we have 
 not had any regular lodger for years ; it is just the same as when 
 Mr. Clarke lived here. But bless you, sir, he made the dull 
 rooms look gay enough. He was a blithesome gentleman. He 
 and his friends, Mr. Houseman especially, used to make the 
 walls ring again when they were over their cups ! " 
 
 ." It might have been better for Mr. Clarke," said the curate, 
 " had he chosen his comrades with more discretion. Houseman 
 was not a creditable, perhaps not a safe, companion." 
 
 " That was no business of mine then," quoth the lodging- 
 letter ; " but it might be now, since I have been a married 
 man!" 
 
 The curate smiled. " Perhaps you, Mr. Moor, bore a part in 
 those revels ? " 
 
 " Why, indeed, Mr. Clarke wouM occasionally make me take 
 a glass or so, sir." 
 
 " And you must then have heard the conversations that took 
 place between Houseman and him ? Did Mr. Clarke ever, in 
 those conversations, intimate an intention of leaving the town 
 soon ? And where, if so, did he talk of going ? " 
 
 " Oh ! first to London. I have often heard him talk of going 
 to London, and then taking a trip to see some relations of his in 
 a distant part of the country. I remember his caressing a little 
 boy of my brother's : you know Jack, sir, not a little boy now, 
 almost as tall as this gentleman. 'Ah,' said he, with a sort of 
 sigh, ' ah ! I have a boy at home about this age, when shall I 
 see him again ? ' ' 
 
 " When indeed ! " thought Walter, turning away his face at this 
 anecdote, to him so naturally affecting. 
 
 " And the night that Clarke left you, were you aware of his 
 absence ? " 
 
 "No! he,went to his room at his usual hour, which was late, 
 and the next morning I found his bed had not been slept in, and 
 he was gone gone with all his jewels, money, and valuables ; 
 heavy luggage he had none. He was a cunning gentleman ; he 
 never loved paying a bill. He was greatly in debt in different
 
 334 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 parts of the town, though he had not been here long. He 
 ordered everything and paid for nothing." 
 
 Walter groaned. It was his father's character exactly ; partly 
 it might be from dishonest principles superadded to the earlier 
 feelings of his nature ; but partly also from that temperament, at 
 once careless and procrastinating, which, more often than vice, 
 loses men the advantage of reputation. 
 
 "Then in your own mind, and from your knowledge of him," 
 renewed the curate, " you would suppose that Clarke's dis- 
 appearance was intentional ; that though nothing has since 
 been heard of him, none of the blacker rumours afloat were 
 well-founded ? " 
 
 "I confess, sir, begging this gentleman's pardon, who you say 
 is a relation, I confess / see no reason to think otherwise." 
 
 " Was Mr. Aram, Eugene Aram, ever a guest of Clarke's ? 
 Did you ever see them together ? " 
 
 44 Never at this house. I fancy Houseman once presented Mr. 
 Aram to Clarke; and that they may have mettand conversed 
 some two or three times not more, I believe ; they were scarcely 
 congenial spirits, sir." 
 
 Walter, having now recovered his self-possession, entered into 
 the conversation ; and endeavoured, by as minute an examina- 
 tion as his ingenuity could suggest, to obtain some additional 
 light upon the mysterious subject so deeply at his heart. 
 Nothing, however, of any effectual import was obtained from 
 the good man of the house. He had evidently persuaded him- 
 self that Clarke's disappearance was easily accounted for, and 
 would scarcely lend attention to any other suggestion than that 
 of Clarke's dishonesty. Nor did his recollection of the meetings 
 between Houseman and Clarke furnish him with anything 
 worthy of narration. With a spirit somewhat damped and dis- 
 appointed, Walter, accompanied by the curate, recommenced 
 his expedition.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 335 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ORIEF IN A RUFFIAN. THE CHAMBER OF EARLY DEATH. A HOMELY YET 
 MOMENTOUS CONFESSION. THE EARTH'S SECRETS. THE CAVERN. TH 
 ACCUSATION. 
 
 All is not well, 
 I doubt some foul play. 
 * 
 
 Foul deeds will rise, 
 Though all the earth o'er whelm them, to men's eyes. Hamlet. 
 
 As they passed through the street, they perceived three or 
 four persons standing round the open door of a house of ordinary 
 description, the windows of which were partially closed. 
 
 "It is the house," said the curate, "in which Houseman's 
 daughter died poor poor child ! Yet why mourn for the 
 young ? Better that the light cloud should fade away into 
 heaven with the morning breath, than travel through the weary 
 day to gather in darkness and end in storm." 
 
 "Ah, sir!" said an old man, leaning on his stick, and lifting 
 his hat, in obeisance to the curate, " the father is within, and 
 takes on bitterly. He drives them all away from the room, and 
 sits moaning by the bedside, as if he was a-going out of his 
 mind. Won't your reverence go into him a bit ? " 
 
 The curate looked at Walter inquiringly. " Perhaps," said the 
 latter, " you had better go in : I will wait without." 
 
 While the curate hesitated, they heard a voice in the passage, 
 and presently Houseman was seen at the far end, driving some 
 women before him with vehement gesticulations. 
 
 " I tell you, ye hell-hags ! " shrieked his harsh and now 
 straining voice, " that ye suffered her to die. Why did ye 
 not send to London for physicians ? Am I not rich enough 
 
 to buy my child's life at any price ? By the living ! I 
 
 would have turned your very bodies into gold to have saved 
 
 her. But she's DEAD ! and I out of my sight out of my 
 
 way ! " And with his hands clenched, his brows knit, and his 
 head uncovered, Houseman sallied forth from the door, and
 
 336 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Walter recognised the traveller of the preceding night. He 
 stopped abruptly as he saw the little knot without, and scowled 
 round at each of them with a malignant and ferocious aspect 
 " Very well it's very well, neighbours ! " said he at length with 
 a fierce laugh : " this is kind ! You have come to welcome 
 Richard Houseman home, have ye ? Good, good ! Not to 
 gloat at his distress ? Lord ! no. Ye have no idle curiosity 
 no prying, searching, gossiping devil within ye, that make? 
 ye love to flock, and gape, and chatter, when poor men suffer I 
 This is all pure compassion ; and Houseman, the good, gentle, 
 peaceful, honest Houseman, you feel for him, I know you do! 
 
 Hark ye: begone away march tramp or Ha, ha ! there 
 
 they go there they go ! " laughing wildly again as the frightened 
 neighbours shrunk from the spot, leaving only Walter and the 
 clergyman with the childless man. 
 
 "Be comforted, Houseman!" said Summers, soothingly: "it 
 is a dreadful affliction that you have sustained. I knew your 
 daughter well : you may have heard her speak of me. Let us 
 in, and try what heavenly comfort there is in prayer." 
 " Prayer ! pooh ! I am Richard Houseman ! " 
 " Lives there one man for whom prayer is unavailing ? " 
 " Out, canter, out ! My pretty Jane ! and she laid her head 
 on my bosom, and looked up in my face, and so died !" 
 
 " Come," said the curate, placing his hand on Houseman's 
 arm, "come." 
 
 Before he could proceed, Houseman, who was muttering to 
 himself, shook him off roughly, and hurried away up the street ; 
 but after he had gone a few paces, he turned back, and, ap- 
 proaching the curate, said, in a more collected tone, " I pray 
 you, sir, since you are a clergyman (I recollect your face, and I 
 recollect Jane said you had been good to her) I pray you go, 
 and say a few words over her: but stay don't bring in my 
 name you understand. I don't wish God to recollect that 
 there lives such a man as he who now addresses yod. Halloo I 
 (shouting to the women), my hat, and stick too. Fal lal la ! fal 
 la ! why should these things make us play the madman ? It 
 
 is a fine day, sir : we shall have a late winter. Curse the b ! 
 
 how long she is. Yet the hat was left below. But when a death
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 337 
 
 is in the house, sir, it throws things into confusion : don't you 
 find it so ? " 
 
 Here, one of the women, pale, trembling, and tearful, brought 
 the ruffian his hat ; and, placing it deliberately on his head, and 
 bowing with a dreadful and convulsive attempt to smile, he 
 walked slowly away, and disappeared. 
 
 "What strange mummers grief makes!" said the curate. " It 
 is an appalling spectacle when it thus wrings out feeling from a 
 man of that mould ! But. pardon me, my young friend ; let me 
 tarry here for a moment." 
 
 " I will enter the house with you," said Walter. And the two 
 men walked in, and in a few moments they stood within the 
 chamber of death. 
 
 The face of the deceased had not yet suffered the last 
 withering change. Her young countenance was hushed and 
 serene; and, but for the fixedness of the smile, you might 
 have thought the lips moved. So delicate, fair, and gentle 
 were the features, that it was scarcely possible to believe such 
 a scion could spring from such a stock ; and it seemed no longer 
 wonderful that a thing so young, so innocent, so lovely, and so 
 early blighted, should have touched that reckless and dark 
 nature which rejected all other invasion of the softer emotions. 
 The curate wiped his eyes, and kneeling down prayed, if not for 
 the dead (who, as our Church teaches, are beyond human inter- 
 cession) perhaps for the father she had left on earth, more to- 
 be pitied of the two ! Nor to Walter was the scene without 
 something more impressive and thrilling than its mere pathos 
 alone. He, now standing beside the corpse of Houseman's 
 child, was son to the man of whose murder Houseman had 
 been suspected. The childless and the fatherless ! might there 
 be no retribution here ? 
 
 When the curate's prayer was over, and he and Walter escaped 
 from the incoherent blessings and complaints of the women of 
 the house, they, with difficulty resisting the impression the scene 
 had left upon their minds, once more resumed their errand. 
 
 "This is no time," said Walter, musingly, "for an exam- 
 ination of Houseman; yet it must not be forgotten." 
 
 The curate did not reply for some moments ; and then, as 
 
 Y
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 an answer to the remark, observed that the conversation they 
 anticipated with Aram's former hostess might throw some light 
 on their researches. They now proceeded to another part of 
 the town, and arrived at a lonely and desolate-looking house, 
 which seemed to wear in its very appearance something strange, 
 sad, and ominous. Some houses have an expression, as it were, 
 in their outward aspect, that sinks unaccountably into the heart 
 a dim oppressive eloquence, which dispirits and affects. You 
 say, some story must be attached to those walls ; some legendary 
 interest, of a darker nature, ought to be associated with the 
 mute stone and mortar : you feel a mingled awe and curiosity 
 creep over you as you gaze. Such was the description of the 
 house that the young adventurer now surveyed. It was of 
 antique architecture, not uncommon in old towns: gable ends 
 rose from the roof ; dull, small, latticed panes were sunk deep 
 in the grey, discoloured wall ; the pale, in part, was broken and 
 jagged ; and rank weeds sprang up in the neglected garden, 
 through which they walked towards the porch. The door was 
 open ; they entered, and found an old woman of coarse appear- 
 ance sitting by the fireside, and gazing on space with that vacant 
 stare which so often characterises the repose and relaxation of 
 the uneducated poor. Walter felt an involuntary thrill of dislike 
 come over him, as he looked at the solitary inmate of the solitary 
 house. 
 
 " Hey day, sir!" said she, in a grating voice; "and what now? 
 Oh ! Mr. Summers, is it you ? You're welcome, sir. I wishes I 
 could offer you a glass of summut, but the bottle's dry he ! 
 he ! " pointing with a revolting grin to an empty bottle that 
 stood on a niche within the hearth. " I don't know how it is, 
 sir, but I never. wants to eat; but ah! 'tis the liquor that does 
 'un good ! " 
 
 "You have lived a long time in this house ? " said the curate. 
 
 " A long time some thirty years an' more." 
 
 " You remember your lodger, Mr. Aram? * 
 
 " A well yes 1 " 
 
 " An excellent man * 
 
 " Humph." 
 
 " A most admirable man 1"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 339 
 
 " A-humph ! he ! humph ! that's neither here nor there." 
 
 " Why, you don't seem to think as all the rest of the world 
 does with regard to him ? " 
 
 " I knows what I knows." 
 
 " Ah ! by the by, you have some cock-and-a-bull story about 
 him, I fancy, but you never could explain yourself; it is merely 
 for the love of seeming wise that you invented it ; eh, Goody ? " 
 
 The old woman shook her head, and crossing her hands on 
 her knee, replied with peculiar emphasis, but in a very low and 
 whispered voice, "I could hang him !" 
 
 "Pooh!" 
 
 " Tell you I could ! " 
 
 * Well, let's have the story then ! " 
 
 " No, no ! I have not told it to ne'er a one yet ; and I won't 
 for nothing. What will you give me? Make it* worth my 
 while?" 
 
 "Tell us all, honestly, fairly, and fully, and you shall have 
 five golden guineas. There, Goody." 
 
 Roused by this promise, the dame looked up with more of 
 energy than she had yet shown, and muttered to herself, rocking 
 her chair to and fro, "Aha ! why not ? no fear now both gone 
 can't now murder the poor old cretur, as the wretch once 
 threatened. Five golden guineas five, did you say, sir, five ? " 
 
 " Ah, and perhaps our bounty may not stop there," said the 
 curate. 
 
 Still the old woman hesitated, and still she muttered to 
 herself ; but after some further prelude, and some further entice- 
 ment from the curate, the which we spare our reader, she came 
 at length to the following narration : 
 
 "It was on the /th of February, in the year '44; yes, '44, 
 about six o'clock in the evening, for I was a-washing in the 
 kitchen, when Mr Aram called to me, an' desired of me to 
 make a fire up stairs, which I did : he then walked out. Some 
 hours afterwards, it might be two in the morning, I was lying 
 awake, for I was mighty bad with the toothache, when I heard 
 a noise below, and two or three voices. On this, I was greatly 
 afeard, and got out o' bed, and, opening the door, I saw Mr. 
 Houseman and Mr. Clarke coming up stairs to Mr. Aram's 
 
 Y 2
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 room, and Mr. Aram followed them. They shut the door, and 
 stayed there, it might be an hour. Well, I could not a-think 
 what could make so shy an* resarved a gentleman as Mr. Aram 
 admit these 'ere wild madcaps like at that hour; an' I lay awake 
 a-thinking an' a-thinking till I heard the door open agin, an' I 
 went to listen at the keyhole, an' Mr. Clarke said : ' It will soor. 
 be morning, and we must get off.' They then all three left the 
 house ; but I could not sleep, an' I got up afore five o'clock, and 
 about that hour Mr. Aram an' Mr. Houseman returned, and 
 they both glowered at me, as if they did not like to find me 
 a-stirring ; an' Mr. Aram went into his room, and Houseman 
 turned and frowned at me as black as night. Lord have mercy 
 on me ! I see him now ! An* I was sadly feared, an' I listened 
 at the keyhole, an' I heard Houseman say : ' If the woman 
 comes in, she'll tell.' ' What can she tell ? ' said Mr. Aram : 
 ' poor simple thing, she knows nothing.' With that, Houseman 
 said, says he : 'If she tells that I am here, it will be enough ; 
 but however,' with a shocking oath, ' we'll take an opportunity 
 to shoot her.' 
 
 " On that I was so frighted that I went away back to my own 
 room, and did not stir till they had gone out, and then - " 
 
 " What time was that ? " 
 
 " About seven o'clock. Well, you put me out ! where was 
 I ? Well, I went into Mr. Aram's, an' I seed they had been 
 burning a fire, an' that all the ashes were taken out o' the grate ; 
 so I went an' looked at the rubbish behind the house, and there 
 sure enough I seed the ashes, and among 'em several bits o' 
 cloth and linen whicb seemed to belong to wearing apparel ; and 
 there, too, was a handkerchief which I had obsarved Houseman 
 wear (for it was a very curious handkerchief, all spotted) many's 
 the time, and there was blood on it, 'bout the size of a shilling. 
 An' afterwards I seed Houseman, an' I showed him the hand- 
 kerchief; and I said to him, 'What has come of Clarke?' an' 
 lie frowned, and, looking at me, said, ' Hark ye, I know not 
 what you mean : but, as sure as the devil keeps watch for souls, 
 I will shoot you through the head if you ever let that d d 
 tongue of yours let slip a single word about Clarke, or me, or 
 Mr. Aram ; so look to yourself! '
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 341 
 
 "An' I was all scared, and trimbled from limb to limb ; an' 
 for two whole yearn afterwards (long arter Aram and Houseman 
 were both gone) I never could so much as open my lips on the 
 matter ; and afore he went, Mr. Aram would sometimes look at 
 me, not sternly-like as the villain Houseman, but as if he would 
 read to the bottom of my heart. Oh ! I was as if you had 
 taken a mountain off o' me, when he an' Houseman left the 
 town ; for sure as the sun shines I believes, from what I have 
 now said, that they two murdered Clarke on that same February 
 night. An' now, Mr. Summers, I feels more easy than I has 
 felt for many a long day ; an' if I have not told it afore, it is 
 because I thought of Houseman's frown, and his horrid words ; 
 but summut of it would ooze out of my tongue now an' then, 
 for it's a hard thing, sir, to know a secret o' that sort and be 
 quiet and still about it; and, indeed, I was not the same cretur 
 when I knew it as I was afore, for it made me take to anything 
 rather than thinking ; and that's the reason, sir, I lost the good 
 crackter I used to have." 
 
 Such, somewhat abridged from its "says he" and "says I" 
 its involutions and its tautologies, was the story which Walter 
 held his breath to hear. But events thicken, and the maze is 
 nearly thridden. 
 
 " Not a moment now should be lost," said the curate, as they 
 left the house. " Let us at once proceed to a very able 
 magistrate, to whom I can introduce you, and who lives a little 
 way out of the town." 
 
 " As you will," said Walter, in an altered and hollow voice. 
 " I am as a man standing on an eminence, who views the whole 
 scene he is to travel over, stretched before him ; but is dizzy 
 and bewildered by the height which he has reached. I know 
 I feel that I am on the brink of fearful and dread discoveries ; 
 
 pray God that But heed me not, sir, heed me not let us 
 
 on on ! " 
 
 It was now approaching towards the evening ; and as they 
 walked on, having left the town, the sun poured his last beams 
 on a group of persons that appeared hastily collecting and 
 gathering round a spot, well known in the neighbourhood of 
 Knaresborough, called Thistle Hill.
 
 343 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Let us avoid the crowd," said the curate. " Yet what, I 
 wonder, can be its cause ? " While he spoke, two peasants 
 hurried by towards the throng. 
 
 ' What is the meaning of the crowd yonder ? " asked the 
 curate. 
 
 " I don't know exactly, your honour ; but I hears as how Jem 
 Ninnings, digging for stone for the limekiln, have dug out a big 
 wooden chest." 
 
 A shout from the group broke in on the peasant's explanation 
 a sudden simultaneous shout, but not of joy, something of 
 dismay and horror seemed to breathe in the sound. 
 
 Walter looked at the curate : an impulse a sudden instinct 
 seemed to attract them involuntarily to the spot whence that 
 sound arose ; they quickened their pace they made their way 
 through the throng. A deep chest, that had been violently 
 forced, stood before them ; its contents had been dragged to 
 day, and now lay on the sward a bleached and mouldering 
 skeleton ! Several of the bones were loose, and detached from 
 the body. A general hubbub of voices from the spectators, 
 inquiry guess fear wonder rang confusedly around. 
 
 " Yes ! " said one old man, with grey hair, leaning on a pick- 
 axe ; " it is now about fourteen years since the Jew pedlar 
 disappeared ; these are probably his bones he was supposed 
 to have been murdered I " 
 
 " Nay ! " screeched a woman, drawing back a child who, all 
 unalarmed, was about to touch the ghastly relics " nay, the 
 pedlar was heard of afterwards. I'll tell ye, ye may be sure 
 these are the bones of Clarke Daniel Clarke whom the 
 country was so stirred about, when we were young !" 
 
 " Right, dame, right ! It is Clarke's skeleton," was the 
 simultaneous cry. And Walter, pressing forward, stood over 
 the bones, and waved his hand, as to guard them from farther 
 insult. His sudden appearance his tall stature his wild 
 gesture the horror the paleness the grief of his countenance 
 struck and appalled all present. He remained speechless, 
 and a sudden silence succeeded the late clamour. 
 
 " And what do you here, fools ? " said a voice abruptly. The 
 spectators turned a new comer had been added to the throng;
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 343 
 
 it was Richard Houseman. His dress, loose and disarranged 
 his flushed cheeks and rolling eyes betrayed the source of 
 consolation to which he had flown from his domestic affliction. 
 " What do ye here?" said he, reeling forward. "Ha! human 
 bones ? and whose may they be, think ye ? " 
 
 " They are Clarke's ! " said the woman, who had first given 
 rise to that supposition. " Yes, we think they are Daniel Clarke's 
 he who disappeared some years ago!" cried two or three 
 voices in concert. 
 
 "Clarke's?" repeated Houseman, stooping down and picking 
 up a thigh-bone, which lay at a little distance from the rest ; 
 " Clarke's ? ha ! ha ! they are no more Clarke's than mine ! " 
 
 "Behold!" shouted Walter, in a voice that rang from clift 
 to plain, and springing forward, he seized Houseman with a 
 giant's grasp, "behold the murderer!" 
 
 As if the avenging voice of Heaven had spoken, a thrilling, an 
 electric conviction darted through the crowd. Each of the elder 
 spectators remembered at once the person of Houseman, and the 
 suspicion that had attached to his name. 
 
 " Seize him ! seize him ! " burst forth from twenty voices. 
 " Houseman is the murderer !" 
 
 "Murderer!" faltered Houseman, trembling in the iron hands 
 of Walter " murderer of whom ? I tell ye these are not 
 Clarke's bones ! " 
 
 " Where then do they lie ? " cried his arrester. 
 
 Pale confused conscience-stricken the bewilderment of 
 intoxication mingling with that of fear, Houseman turned a 
 ghastly look around him, and, shrinking from the eyes of all, 
 reading in the eyes of all his condemnation, he gasped out, 
 " Search St. Robert's Cave, in the turn at the entrance ! " 
 
 " Away ! " rang the deep voice of Walter, on the instant 
 " away ! to the cave to the cave ! " 
 
 On the banks of the river Nid, whose waters keep an ever- 
 lasting murmur to the crags and trees that overhang them, is a 
 wild and dreary cavern, hollowed from a rock, which, according 
 to tradition, was formerly the hermitage of one of those early 
 enthusiasts who made their solitude in the sternest recesses of 
 earth, and from the austerest thoughts, and the bitterest penance
 
 344 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 wrought their joyless offerings to the great Spirit of the lovely 
 world. To this desolate spot, called, from the name of its once^ 
 celebrated eremite, St. Robert's Cave, the crowd now swept, 
 increasing its numbers as it advanced. 
 
 The old man who had discovered the unknown remains, which 
 were gathered up and made a part of the procession, led the way ; 
 Houseman, placed between two strong and active men, went 
 next; and Walter followed behind, fixing his eyes mutely upon 
 the ruffian. The curate had had the precaution to send on before 
 for torches, for the wintry evening now darkened round them, 
 and the light from the torch-bearers, who met them at the cavern, 
 cast forth its red and lurid flare at the mouth of the chasm. 
 One of these torches Walter himself seized, and his was the first 
 step that entered the gloomy passage. At this place and time, 
 Houseman, who till then, throughout their short journey, had 
 seemed to have recovered a sort of dogged self-possession, 
 recoiled, and the big drops of fear or agony fell fast from his 
 brow. He was dragged forward forcibly into the cavern ; and 
 now as the space filled, and the torches flickered against the grim 
 walls, glaring on faces which caught, from the deep and thrilling 
 contagion of a common sentiment, one common expression ; it 
 was not well possible for the wildest imagination to conceive 
 a scene better fitted for the unhallowed burial-place of the 
 murdered dead. 
 
 The eyes of all now turned upon Houseman ; and he, after 
 twice vainly endeavouring to speak, for the words died inarticu- 
 late and choked within him, advancing a few steps, pointed 
 towards a spot on which, the next moment, fell the concentrated 
 light of every torch. An indescribable and universal murmur, 
 and then a breathless silence, ensued. On the spot which 
 Houseman had indicated, with the head placed to the right, lay 
 \\hat once had been a human body 1 
 
 " Can you swear," said the priest, solemnly, as he turned to 
 Houseman, " that these are the bones of Clarke ?" 
 
 "Before God. I can swear it!" replied Houseman, at length 
 finding his voice. 
 
 " MY FATHER !" broke from Walter's lips, as he sank upon 
 his knees ; and that exclamation completed the awe and horror
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 345 
 
 which prevailed in the breasts of all present. Stung by a sense 
 of the danger he had drawn upon himself, and despair and excite- 
 ment restoring, in some measure, not only his natural hardihood 
 but his natural astuteness ; Houseman, here mastering his 
 emotions, and making that effort which he was afterwards 
 enabled to follow up with an advantage to himself of which 
 he could not then have dreamed ; Houseman, I say, cried 
 aloud, 
 
 "But /did not do the deed : I am not the murderer." 
 
 "Speak out ! whom do you accuse ?" said the curate. 
 
 Drawing his breath hard, and setting his teeth, as with some 
 steeled determination, Houseman replied, 
 
 " The murderer is Eugene Aram ! " 
 
 " Aram ! " shouted Walter, starting to his feet : " O God, thy 
 hand hath directed me hither ! " And suddenly and at once sense 
 left him, and he fell, as if a shot had pierced through his heart, 
 beside the remains of that father whom he had thus mysteriously 
 discovered.
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 OT ovry Kaxa rtv\ti dvrfp aXXa> ra/ra rn' 
 H & KUK^ /3ouXr/ rji /SouXf taaiTi Kanianj. 
 
 'H2IOA. 
 
 Snrely the man that plotteth ill against his neighbour perpetrateth ill against himself 
 and the evil design is most evil to him that deviseth it 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 GRASSDALE. THE MORNING OF THE MARRIAGE. THE CRONES* GOSSIP. TUK 
 BRIDE AT HER TOILET. THE ARRIVAL. 
 
 Jam veniet virgo, jam dicetur Hymenxus, 
 
 Hymen, O Hymenaee ! Hymen ades, O Hymennee ! * 
 
 CATULLUS, Carmen Nuptialt. 
 
 IT was now the morning in which Eugene Aram was to be 
 married to Madeline Lester. The student's house had been set 
 in order for the arrival of the bride, 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 transplanted from Lester's 
 household, to meet the additional cares that the change of 
 circumstances brought to Aram's) had invited to assist her in 
 arranging what was already arranged, were bustling about the 
 lower apartments and making matters as they call it "tidy." 
 
 - Them flowers look but poor things after all," muttered an 
 
 1 Now ihall the Virgin arrive ; now shall be sung the Hymeneal Hyroem 
 Hjrmenxuj ! Be present, O Hymen Hymerurus!
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 347 
 
 old crone, whom our readers will recognise as Dame Darkmans, 
 placing a bowl of exotics on the table. " They does not look 
 nigh so cheerful as them as grows in the open air." 
 
 " Tush ! Goody Darkmans," said the second gossip. " They 
 be much prettier and finer to my mind ; and so said Miss Nelly, 
 when she plucked them last night and sent me down with them. 
 They says there is not a blade o' grass that the master does not 
 know. He must be a good man to love the things of the field 
 so." 
 
 "Ho! "said Dame Darkmans; "ho! when Joe Wrench was 
 hanged for shooting the 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 a tarnation ? I always 
 loved them sort o' flowers ; I wore them when I went a courting 
 Bess Lucas ; an' I would like to die with one in my hand ! ' 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 marriage day ! " 
 
 "Tally vally," returned the grim hag; "many a blessing 
 carries a curse in its arms, as the new moon carries the old. 
 This won't be one of your happy 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 on the father's knee, or the happy, still 
 smile on the mother's winsome face, some few years hence ? No, 
 Madge ! the de'il has set his black claw on 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 by the window, wliile 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 the sun was just on the rise ; and I said, when 
 I seed him stream into the wood yonder, and the ould leaves 
 splashed in the damp under his feet, and his hat was aboon his 
 brows, and his lips went so I said, says I, 'tis not the man that 
 will make a hearth bright that would walk thus on his marriage
 
 348 l.UGENE ARAM. 
 
 day. But I knows what I knows ; and I minds what I seed last 
 night." 
 
 " Why, what did you see last night ? " asked the listener, with 
 a trembling voice: for Mother Darkmans was a great teller of 
 ghost and witch tales, and a certain ineffable awe of her dark 
 gipsy features and malignant words had circulated pretty largely 
 throughout the village. 
 
 " Why, I sat up here with the ould deaf woman, and we were 
 a drinking the health 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 my cloak, and the moon was up, an* 
 I goes along by the wood, and up by Fairlegh Field, an* I was 
 singing the ballad on Joe Wrench's hanging, for the spirals 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 
 the village. And I stands still, an* I was not a bit afeared ; but 
 sure I thought it was no living cretur, at the first sight. And so 
 it comes up faster and faster, and then I sees it was not one 
 thing, but a many, many things, and they darkened the whole 
 field afore me. And what d'ye think they was ? a whole body 
 o' grey rats, thousands and thousands on 'em, and they were 
 making away from the outbuildings here. For sure they knew 
 the witch things that an ill luck sat on the spot. And so I 
 stood aside by the tree, an' I laughed to look on the ugsome 
 creturs as they swept close by me, tramp, tramp ; and they never 
 heeded me a jot ; but some on 'em looked aslant at me with 
 their glittering eyes, and showed their white teeth, as if they 
 grinned, and were saying to me, ' Ha, ha ! Goody Darkmans, the 
 house that we leave is a falling house, for the devil will have his 
 own." 
 
 In some parts of the country, and especially in that where our 
 scene is laid, no omen is more superstitiously believed evil than 
 the departure of these loathsome animals from their accustomed 
 habitation : the instinct which is supposed to make them desert 
 an unsafe tenement is supposed also to make them predict, in 
 desertion, ill fortune to the possessor. But while the ears of the 
 listening gossip were still tingling with this narration, the dark 
 figure of the student passed the window, and the old women.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 349 
 
 starting up, appeared in all the bustle of preparation, as Aram 
 now entered the apartment. 
 
 " A happy day, your honour a happy good morning," said 
 both the crones in a breath ; but the blessing of the worse- 
 natured was vented in so harsh a croak, that Aram turned 
 round as if struck by the sound ; and still more disliking 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 absorbed in a reverie, which did not bear the aspect 
 of gloom. Then, walking once or twice to and fro the apart- 
 ment, he stopped opposite the chimney-piece, over which were 
 slung the firearms, which he never omitted to keep charged and 
 primed. 
 
 " Humph ! " he said, half aloud, " ye have been but idle 
 servants ; and now ye are but little likely ever to requite the 
 care I have bestowed upon you." 
 
 With that, a faint smile crossed his features, and turning 
 away he ascended the stairs that led to the lofty chamber in 
 which he had been so often 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 the reader to the manor-house, where all was already 
 gladness and quiet but deep joy. 
 
 It wanted about three hours to that fixed for the marriage ; 
 and Aram was not expected at the manor-house till an hour 
 before the celebration of the event. Nevertheless, the bells were 
 already ringing loudly and blithely ; and the near vicinity of 
 the church to the house brought that sound, so inexpressibly 
 buoyant and cheering, to the ears of the bride, with a noisy 
 merriment that seemed like the hearty voice of an old-fashioned 
 friend who seeks in his greeting rather cordiality than discretion. 
 Before her glass stood the beautiful, the virgin, the glorious 
 form of Madeline Lester; and Elltnor, with trembling hands
 
 350 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 (and a voice between a laugh and a cry), was braiding up her 
 sister's rich hair, and uttering her hopes, her wishes, her con- 
 gratulations. The small lattice was open, and the air came 
 rather chillingly to the bride's bosom. 
 
 " It is a gloomy morning, dearest Nell," said she, shivering ; 
 * the winter seems about to begin at last." 
 
 " Stay, I will shut the window. The sun is struggling with 
 the clouds at present, but I am sure it will clear up by and by. 
 You don't you don't leave us the word must out till 
 evening." 
 
 "Don't cry!" said Madeline, half weeping herself; and sitting 
 down she drew Ellinor to her; and the two sisters, who had 
 never been parted since birth, exchanged tears that were natural, 
 though scarcely the unmixed tears of grief. 
 
 "And what pleasant evenings we shall have," said Madeline, 
 holding her sister's hands, "in the Christmas time! You will 
 be staying with us, you know ; and that pretty old room in 
 the north of the house Eugene has already ordered to be fitted 
 up for you. Well, and my dear father, and dear Walter, who 
 will be returned long ere then, will walk over to see us, 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 grey hair 
 and his good fine face, with a tear of kind feeling in his eye : 
 you know that look he has whenever he is affected ? And at 
 a little distance on the other side of the hearth will be you 
 anJ Walter I suppose we must make room for him. And 
 Eugene, who will be then the liveliest of you all, shall read to 
 us with his soft clear voice, or tell us all about the birds and 
 flowers, and strange things in other countries. And then after 
 supper we will walk half-way home across that beautiful valley 
 beautiful even in winter with my father and Walter, and 
 count the stars, and take new lessons in astronomy, and hear 
 tales about the astrologers and the alchymists, with their 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 are about, and the leaves getting green, and th- 
 flowers springing up every day, I shall be called in to help your
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 351 
 
 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 her innocent kindness of heart, to exhilarate the spirits, so 
 naturally depressed, of her doting sister, the sound of carriage- 
 wheels was heard in the distance ; nearer, nearer ; now the sound 
 stopped, as at the gate ; now fast, faster fast as the postilions 
 could ply whip, and the horses tear along while the groups in 
 the churchyard ran forth to gaze, and the bells rang merrily all 
 the \vhile, two chaises whirled by Madeline's window, and stopped 
 at the porch of the house. The sisters had flown in surprise to 
 the casement. 
 
 "It is it is good God! it is Walter," cried Ellinor; "but 
 how pale he looks ! " 
 
 "And who are those strange men with him?" faltered 
 Madeline, alarmed, though she knew not why. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE STUDENT ALONE TN HIS CHAMBER. THE INTERRUPTION. FAITHFUL LOV*. 
 
 Nequicquam thalamo graves 
 
 Hastas 
 
 Vitabis, strepitumque, et celerem sequi 
 Ajacem. HoRAT. Od. xv. lib. I. 1 
 
 ALONE in his favourite chamber, the instruments of science 
 around him, and books, some of astronomical research, some of 
 less lofty but yet abstruser lore, scattered on the tables, Eugene 
 Aram indulged the last meditation he believed likely to absorb 
 his thoughts before that great change of life which was to bless 
 solitude with a companion. 
 
 1 In vain within your nuptial chamber will you shun the deadly spears, the hostile 
 shout, and Ajax eager in pursuit.
 
 35* EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 1 Yes," said he, pacing the apartment with folded arms, "yes, 
 all is safe ! He will not again return ; the dead sleeps now with- 
 out a witness. I may lay this working brain upon the bosom 
 that loves me, and not start at night and think that the soft 
 hand around my neck is the hangman's gripe. Back to thyself, 
 henceforth and for ever, my busy heart 1 Let not thy secret 
 stir from its gloomy depth ! the seal is on the tomb ; henceforth 
 be the spectre laid. Yes, I must smooth my brow, and teach my 
 lip restraint, and smile and talk like other men. I have taken 
 to my hearth a watch, tender, faithful, anxious but a watch. 
 Farewell the unguarded hour ! the soul's relief in speech the 
 dark and broken, yet how grateful I confidence with self fare- 
 well ! And come, thou veil ! subtle, close, unvarying, the ever- 
 lasting curse of entire hypocrisy, that under thee, 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 the extended landscape that lay below. A heavy, chill, and 
 comfortless mist sat saddening over the earth. Not a leaf stirred 
 on the autumnal trees, but the moist damps fell slowly and with 
 a mournful murmur upon the unwaving grass. The outline of 
 the morning sun was visible, but it gave forth no lustre : a ring 
 of watery and dark vapour girded the melancholy orb. Far at 
 the entrance of the valley the wild fern showed red and faded, 
 and the first march of the deadly winter was already heralded 
 by that drear and silent desolation which cradles the winds and 
 storms. But amidst this cheerless scene, the distant note of the 
 merry marriage-bell floated by, like the good spirit of the wilder- 
 ness, and the student rather paused to hearken to the note than 
 to survey the scene. 
 
 " My marriage-bell 1 " said he ; " could I two short years back 
 have dreamed of this ? My marriage-bell ! How fondly my 
 poor mother, when first she learned pride for her young scholar, 
 would predict this day, and blend its festivities with the honour 
 and the wealth her son was to acquire ! Alas ! can we have no 
 science to count the stars and forebode the black eclipse of the 
 future ? But peace ! peace ! peace ! I am, I will, I shall be, 
 happy now 1 Memory, I defy thee ! "
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 353 
 
 He uttered the last words in a deep and intense tone, and 
 turning away as the joyful peal again broke distinctly on his 
 ear, 
 
 " My marriage-bell ! Oh, Madeline ! how wondrously beloved: 
 how unspeakably dear thou art to me ! What hast thou con- 
 quered ? how many reasons for resolve ; how vast an army in 
 the Past has thy bright and tender purity overthrown ! But 
 thou, no, never shalt thou repent ! " And for several minutes 
 the sole thought of the soliloquist was love. But scarce con- 
 sciously to himself, a spirit not, to all seeming, befitted to that 
 bridal-day, vague, restless, impressed with the dark and flutter- 
 ing shadow of coming change, had taken possession of his 
 breast, and did not long yield the mastery to any brighter and 
 more serene emotion. 
 
 " And why," he said, as this spirit regained its empire over 
 him, and he paused before the " starred tubes " of his beloved 
 science " and why this chill, this shiver, in the midst of hope ? 
 Can the mere breath of the seasons, the weight or lightness of 
 the atmosphere, the outward gloom or smile of the brute mass 
 called Nature, affect us thus ? Out on this empty science, this 
 vain knowledge, this little lore, if we are so fooled by the vile 
 clay and the common air from our one great empire self! 
 Great God ! hast thou made us in mercy or in disdain ? Placed 
 in this narrow world, darkness and cloud around us, no fixed 
 rule for men, creeds, morals, changing in every clime, and 
 growing like herbs upon the mere soil, we struggle to dispel 
 the shadows ; we grope around ; from our own heart and our 
 sharp and hard endurance we strike our only light, for what-? 
 to show us what dupes we are ! creatures of accident, tools of 
 circumstance, blind instruments of the scorner Fate ; the very 
 mind, the very reason, a bound slave to the desires, the weak- 
 ness of the clay ; affected by a cloud, dulled by the damps of 
 the foul marsh ; stricken from power to weakness, from sense to 
 madness, to gaping idiocy, or delirious raving, by a putrid ex- 
 halation ! a rheum, a chill, and Caesar trembles ! The world's 
 gods, that slay or enlighten millions poor puppets to the same 
 rank imp which calls up the fungus or breeds the worm, pah ! 
 How little worth is it in this life to be wise 1 Strange, strange, 
 
 Z
 
 $54 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 how my heart sinks. Well, the better sign, the better sign ! in 
 danger it never sank." 
 
 Absorbed in these reflections, Aram had not for some minutes 
 noticed the sudden ceasing of the bell ; but now. as he again 
 paused from his irregular and abrupt pacings along the chamber, 
 the silence struck him, and looking forth, and striving again to 
 catch the note, he saw a little group of men, among whom he 
 marked the erect and comely form of Rowland Lester, approach- 
 ing towards the house. 
 
 " What ! " he thought, " do they come for me ? Is it so late ? 
 Have I played the laggard ? Nay, it yet wants near an hour to 
 the time they expected me. Well, some kindness, some atten- 
 tion from my good father-in-law ; I must thank him for it. 
 What ! my hand trembles ; how weak are these poor nerves ; I 
 must rest and recall my mind to itself! " 
 
 And, indeed, whether or not from the novelty and importance 
 of the event he was about to celebrate, or from some presenti- 
 ment, occasioned, as he would fain believe, by the mournful and 
 sudden change in the atmosphere, an embarrassment, a wavering, 
 a fear, very unwonted to the calm and stately self-possession of 
 Eugene Aram, made itself painfully felt throughout his frame. 
 He sank down in his chair and strove to recollect himself; it 
 was an effort in which he had just succeeded, when a loud 
 knocking was heard at the outer door it swung open several 
 voices were heard. Aram sprang up, pale, breathless, his lips 
 apart 
 
 * Great God ! " he exclaimed, clasping his hands. " Murderer f 
 --was that the word I heard shouted forth ? The voice, too, is 
 Walter Lester's. Has he returned ? can he have learned ?" 
 
 To rush to the door, to throw across it a long, heavy, iron 
 bar, which would resist assaults of no common strength, was his 
 first impulse. Thus enabled to gain time for reflection, his active 
 and alarmed mind ran over the whole field of expedient and 
 conjecture. Again, " Murderer ! " " Stay me not," 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 
 uf flight from the casement ! the door ? he heard loud steps
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 355 
 
 already hurrying up the stairs ; his hands clutched convulsively 
 at his breast, where his fire-arms were generally concealed, they 
 were left below. He glanced one lightning glance round the 
 room : no weapon of any kind was at hand. His brain reeled 
 for a moment, his breath gasped, a mortal sickness passed over 
 his heart, and then the MIND triumphed over all. He drew up 
 to his full height, folded his arms doggedly on his breast, and 
 muttering, 
 
 " The accuser comes, I have it still to refute the charge :" 
 he stood prepared to meet, nor despairing 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 the door. 
 
 " Not so fervently, boy," said Lester, laying his hand on his 
 nephew's shoulder ; " your tale is yet co be proved I believe it 
 not : treat him as innocent, I pray I command, till you have 
 shown him guilty." 
 
 "Away, uncle!" said the fiery Walter; "he is my father's 
 murderer. God hath given justice to my hands." These words, 
 uttered in a lower key than 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, so that an angel, had one spoken, could not have 
 more deeply impressed the heart of Rowland Lester with a 
 conviction of the student's innocence, 
 
 " Who knocks so rudely ? what means this violence ? I open 
 my doors to my friends. Is it a friend who asks it ? " 
 
 "/ ask it," said Rowland Lester, in a trembling and agitated 
 voice. "There seems some dreadful mistake: come forth, 
 Eugene, and rectify it by a word." 
 
 *' Is it you, Rowland Lester ? it is enough. I was but with 
 my books, and had secured myself from intrusion. Enter. ' 
 
 The bar was withdrawn, the door was burst open, and even 
 Walter Lester even the officers of justice with him drew 
 
 Z 2
 
 $56 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 back for a moment, as they beheld the lofty bro\v, the majestic 
 presence, the features so unutterably calm, of Eugene Aram. 
 
 "What want you, sirs?" said he, unmoved and unfaltering, 
 though in the officers of justice he recognised faces he had 
 known before, and in that distant 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 the step 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 Vvhat 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 that his face was a shade more pale, though his look did 
 not quail, or his nerves tremble. Slowly he turned his gaze 
 upon Walter, and then, after one moment's survey, dropped it 
 once more on the paper. 
 
 "The name of Houseman is not unfamiliar to me," said he 
 calmly, but with effort. 
 
 "And knew you Daniel Clarke?" 
 
 " What mean these questions ? " said Aram, losing temper, 
 and stamping violently on the ground ; " is it thus that a man, 
 free and guiltless, is to 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 answer is contempt." 
 
 " Big words shall not save thee, murderer ! " cried Walter, 
 breaking from his uncle, who in vain endeavoured to hold him ; 
 and laying his powerful grasp upon Aram's shoulder. Livid 
 was the glare that shot from the student's eye upon his assailer ; 
 and so fearfully did his features work and change with the 
 passions within him, that even Walter felt a strange shudder 
 thrill through his frame. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Aram, at last, mastering his emotions, 
 and resuming some portion of the remarkable dignity that
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 357 
 
 characterised his usual bearing, as he turned towards the 
 officers of justice, " I call upon you to discharge 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 and Justice not these hands are my avengers." 
 
 " Your avengers !" said Aram; "what dark words are these? 
 This warrant accuses 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 Geoffrey Lester : that murdered Lester was 
 my father, and the brother of him whose daughter, 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 the room were on him ; and perhaps that knowledge enabled 
 him not to reveal by outward sign what must have passed 
 within during the awful trial of that moment 
 
 " It is a dreadful tale," he said, " if true ; dreadful to me, so 
 nearly allied 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 no longer contain himself, interposed : he put 
 by his nephew, and rushing to Aram, fell, weeping, upon his 
 neck. 
 
 " I do not accuse thee, Eugene my son my son I feel I 
 know thou art innocent of this monstrous crime : some horrid 
 delusion darkens that poor boy's sight. You you who would 
 walk aside to save a worm ! " and the poor old man, overcome 
 with his emotions, could literally say no more. 
 
 Aram looked down on Lester with a compassionate ex- 
 pression, and soothing him with kind words, and promises that 
 all would be explained, gently moved from his hold, and, 
 anxious to terminate the scene, silently motioned the officers to 
 proceed. Struck with the calmness and dignity of his manner.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and fully impressed by it with the notion of his innocence, the 
 officers treated him with a marked respect ; they did not even 
 walk by his side, but suffered him to follow their steps. As they 
 descended the stairs, Aram turned round to Walter, with a 
 bitter and reproachful countenance, 
 
 "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 of malice ? " retorted Walter ; though his heart yet well- 
 nigh misgave him as to the grounds on which his suspicion 
 rested. 
 
 Aram smiled, as half in scorn, half through incredulity, and, 
 shaking his head gently, moved on without farther words. 
 
 The three old women, who had remained in listening astonish- 
 ment at the foot of the stairs, gave way as the men descended ; 
 but the one who so long had been Aram's solitary domestic, and 
 who, from her deafness, was still 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 some unintelligible 
 anathema as she did so flung herself at the feet of a master, 
 whose quiet habits and constant kindness had endeared him to 
 her humble and faithful heart, and exclaimed, 
 
 " What are they doing? Have they the heart to ill-use you ? 
 O master, God bless you 1 God shield you ! I shall never see 
 you, who was my only friend who was every one's friend any 
 more ! " 
 
 Aram drew himself from her, and said with a quivering lip to 
 Rowland Lester, 
 
 " If her fears are true if if I never more return hither, see 
 that her old age does not starve does not want." 
 
 Lester could not speak for sobbing, but the request was 
 remembered. And now Aram, turning aside his proud head to 
 conceal his emotion, beheld open the door of the room so trimly 
 prepared for Madeline's reception : the flowers smiled upon him 
 from their stands. " Lead on, gentlemen," he said quickly. 
 And so Eugene Aram passed his threshold ! 
 
 " Ho, ho ! " muttered the old hag, whose predictions in the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 359 
 
 morning had been so ominous, " Ho, ho ! you'll believe Goody 
 Darkmans another time ! Providence respects the sayings of 
 the ould. 'Tvvas not for nothing the rats grinned at me last night. 
 But Jet's in and have a warm glass. He, he ! there will be all 
 the strong liquors for us now ; the Lord is merciful to 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 his eye on the prisoner, a little behind Lester 
 endeavoured to cheer the prisoner's spirits and his own, by 
 insisting on the madness of the charge, and the certainty of 
 instant acquittal from the magistrate to whom they were bound, 
 and who was esteemed the one both most acute and most just in 
 the county. Aram interrupted him somewhat abruptly, 
 
 " My friend, enough of this presently. But Madeline what 
 knows she as yet ? " 
 
 " Nothing : of course, we kept " 
 
 "Exactly exactly; you have done wisely. Why need she 
 learn anything as yet ? Say an arrest for debt a mistake an 
 absence but of a day or so at most ; you understand ? " 
 
 "Yes. W T ill you not see her, Eugene, before you go, and say 
 this yourself? " 
 
 " 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 and unavailing. No, we must not meet ! 
 But whither go we now ? Not not, surely, through all the idle 
 gossips of the village the crowd already excited to gape, and 
 stare, and speculate on the " 
 
 " No," interrupted Lester ; " the carriages await us at the 
 farther end of the valley. I thought of that for the rash boy 
 behind seems to have changed his nature. I loved Heaven 
 knows how I loved my brother ! but before I would let suspicion 
 thus blind reason, I would surfer inquiry to sleep for ever on 
 his fate." 
 
 "Your nephew," said Aram, "has ever wronged me. But 
 waste not words on him : 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."
 
 360 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Lester was about to answer, when, at a turn in the road which 
 brought the carriage within view, they perceived two figures in 
 white hastening towards them ; and ere Aram was prepared for 
 the surprise, Madeline had sunk pale, trembling, and all breathless 
 on his breast 
 
 " I could not keep her back," said Eilinor, apologetically, to 
 her father. 
 
 " Back 1 and why ? Am I not in my proper place ? " cried 
 Madeline, lifting her 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, and gradually recoiling 
 with a fear which struck dumb her voice, thrice attempted to 
 speak, and thrice failed. 
 
 " But what what is what means this ? " exclaimed Eilinor. 
 " Why do you weep, 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 and fold your arms ! You 
 you will tell me the meaning of this dreadful silence this 
 scene. Speak, cousin dear cousin, speak ! " 
 
 "Speak!" cried Madeline, finding voice at length, but in the 
 sharp and straining tone of wild terror, in which they recognised 
 no note of the natural music. The single word sounded rather 
 as a shriek than an adjuration ; and so piercingly it ran through 
 the hearts of all present, that the very officers, hardened as their 
 trade had made them, felt as if they would rather have faced 
 death than answered that command. 
 
 A dead, long, dreary pause, and Aram broke it. " Madeline 
 Lester," said he, " prove yourself worthy of the hour of trial 
 Exert yourself; arouse your heart ; be prepared ! You are the 
 betrothed of one whose soul never quailed before man's angry 
 word. Remember that, and fear not ! " 
 
 " I will not I will not, Eugene! Speak only speak 1" 
 
 " You have loved me in good report ; trust me now in ill. They 
 accuse me of a crime a heinous crime ! At first I would not 
 have told you the ical charge j pardon me, I wronged you : now, 
 know all ! They accuse me, I say, of crime. Of what crime?
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 361 
 
 you ask. Ay, I scarce know, so vague is the charge 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's exhortation, Madeline now, though she turned 
 deadly pale though the earth swam round and round yet 
 repressed the shriek upon her lips, as those 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 
 and motionless attitude, and fell senseless to the earth. Not 
 thus Madeline. As there is an exhaustion that forbids, not 
 invites repose, so when the mind is thoroughly on the rack, the 
 common relief to anguish is not allowed ; the senses are too 
 sharply strung, thus happily to collapse into forgetfulness ; the 
 dreadful inspiration that agony kindles, supports nature while it 
 consumes it. Madeline passed, without a downward glance, by 
 the lifeless body of her sister ; and walking with a steady step 
 to Walter, she laid her hand upon his arm, and fixing on his 
 countenance that soft clear eye, which was now lit with a searching 
 and preternatural glare, and seemed to pierce into his soul, she 
 said, 
 
 " Walter ! do I hear aright ? Am I awake ? Is it you who 
 accuse Eugene Aram ? 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, and covering his face with his hands. In the fire and heat 
 of vengeance, he had not recked of this. He had only thought 
 of justice to a father punishment to a villain rescue for a 
 credulous girl. The woe the horror he was about to inflict on 
 all he most loved ; this had not struck upon him 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 :
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "you could not have dreamed 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 the cousins, not uninterested tc see what effect 
 Madeline's touching words might produce on his accuser : mean- 
 while, 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 dread and 
 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 I of what ? Murder ! 
 speak, speak. Murder, ha ! ha ! murder ! nay, not so ! you 
 would not venture to come here you would not let me take your 
 hand you would not look us, your uncle, your more than sisters, 
 in the face, if you could nurse in your heart this lie this black, 
 horrid lie ! " 
 
 Walter withdrew his hands and, as he turned his face said, 
 
 M 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 1 " said Madeline, staggering back " my lost 
 uncle ! Nay, now I 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 his heart. " But this is idle now," as recollecting himself, 
 he felt that the case had gone forth from Walter's hands, and 
 that appeal to him had become vain. 
 
 " Leave us now, dearest Madeline, my beloved wife that shall 
 be, that is! I go to disprove these charges perhaps I shall 
 return to-night. Delay not my acquittal, even from doubt a 
 boy's doubt Come, sirs." 
 
 "O Eugene! Eugene !" cried Madeline, throwing herself on 
 her knees before him "do not order me tc leave you now now 
 in the hour of dread I will not Nay, look not so ! I swear 
 I will notl Father, dear father, come, and plead for me say 1
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 363 
 
 shall go with you. I ask nothing more. Do not fear for my 
 nerves cowardice is gone. I will not shame you I will not 
 play the woman. I know what is due to one who loves him 
 try me, only try 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 to count the moments till you return, 
 my very senses would leave me. What do I ask ? but to go 
 with you, to be the first to hail your triumph ! Had this 
 happened two hours hence, you could not have said me nay I 
 should have 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, and wildly kissing her face but with cold and trembling 
 lips, '' this is indeed a bitter hour ; let me not sink beneath it. 
 Yes, Madeline, ask your father if he consents ; I hail your 
 strengthening presence as that of an angel. I will not be the one 
 to sever you from my side." 
 
 "You are right, Eugene," said Lester, who was supporting 
 Ellinor, not yet recovered, " let her go with us ; it is but common 
 kindness and common mercy." 
 
 Madeline uttered a cry of joy (joy even at such a moment !), 
 and clung fast to Eugene's arm, as if for assurance that they 
 were not indeed to be separated. 
 
 By this time some of Lester's servants, who had from a dis- 
 tance followed their young mistresses, reached the spot. To 
 their care Lester gave the still scarce reviving Ellinor; and 
 then, turning round with a severe countenance to Walter, said, 
 " Come, sir, your rashness has done sufficient wrong for the 
 present ; come now, and see how soon your suspicions will end 
 in shame." 
 
 "Justice, and blood for blood!" said Walter, sternly; but 
 his heart felt as if it were broken. His venerable uncle's tears 
 Madeline's look of horror, as she turned from him Ellinor, 
 all lifeless, and he not daring to approach her this was his 
 work ! He pulled his hat over his eyes, and hastened into the 
 carriage alone. Lester, Madeline, and Aram followed in the 
 other vehicle ; and the two officers contented themselves with 
 mounting the box, certain the prisoner would attempt no escape.
 
 364 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 THE JtTSTlCE. THB DEPARTURE. THE EQUANIMITY OP 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. 
 
 Miasure/or Measure. 
 
 ON arriving at Sir 's, a disappointment, for which, had 
 
 they previously conversed with the officers, they might have 
 been prepared, awaited them. The fact was that the justice 
 had only endorsed the warrant sent from Yorkshire ; and after 
 a very short colloquy, in which he expressed his regret at the 
 circumstance, his conviction that the charge would be disproved, 
 and a few other courteous commonplaces, he gave Aram to 
 understand that the matter now did not rest with him, but 
 that it was to Yorkshire that the officers were bound, and 
 before Mr. Thornton, a magistrate of that county, that the 
 examination was to take place. " All I can do," said the magis- 
 trate, " I have already done ; but I wished for an opportunity 
 of informing you of it. I have written to my brother justice at 
 full length respecting your high character, and treating the habits 
 and rectitude of your life alone as a sufficient refutation of so 
 monstrous a charge." 
 
 For the first time a visible embarrassment came over the 
 firm nerves of the prisoner : he seemed to look with great un- 
 easiness at the prospect of this long and dreary journey, and 
 for such an end. Perhaps, the very notion of returning as a 
 suspected criminal to that part of the country where a portion 
 of his youth had been passed, was sufficient to disquiet and 
 deject him. All this while his poor Madeline seemed actuated 
 by a spirit beyond herself; she would not be separated from his 
 side she held his hand in hers she whispered comfort and 
 courage at the very moment when her own heart most sank. 
 The magistrate wiped his eyes when he saw a creature so young, 
 so beautiful, in circumstances so fearful, and bearing up with
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 365 
 
 an energy so little to be expected from her years and delicate 
 appearance. Aram said but little ; he covered his face with his 
 right hand for 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 was pale as that of one who had risen 
 from the grave ; but it was settled and composed. 
 
 " It is a hard pang, sir," said he, with a faint smile ; " so 
 many miles so many days so long a deferment of knowing 
 the best, or preparing to meet the 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 on my 
 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 
 finally settled. Lester and his two daughters that evening 
 followed Aram to the dark 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 yet learned 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 his murderer?" 
 
 Lester, despite himself, was struck by the earnestness with 
 which his nephew spoke, but the impression died away as the 
 words ceased : so strong and deep had been the fascination which 
 Eugene Aram had exercised over the hearts of all once drawn 
 within the near circle of his attraction, that had the charge of 
 murder been made against himself, Lester could not have 
 repelled it with a more entire conviction of the innocence of 
 the accused. Still, however, the deep sincerity of his nephew's 
 manner in some measure served to soften his resentment 
 towards him. 
 
 * No, no, boy ! " said he, drawing away his hand ; " Rowland
 
 366 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 Lester is not the one to desert a friend in the day of darkness 
 and the hour of need. Be silent, I say ! My brother, my poor 
 brother, you tell me, has been murdered. I will see justice done 
 to him : but, Aram ! Fie ! fie ! it is a name 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 -dread 
 and awful memory to a son ! What wonder that the thought 
 warps your judgment ? But go ! Eugene was to me both a 
 guide and a blessing ; a father in wisdom, a son in love. I can- 
 not look on his accuser's face without anguish. Go ! we shall 
 meet again. How ! Go ! " 
 
 "Enough, sir! " said Walter, partly in anger, partly in sorrow; 
 "Time be the judge between us all !" 
 
 With those words he turned from the house, and proceeded 
 on foot towards a cottage half-way between Grassdale and the 
 magistrate's house, at which, previous to his return to the former 
 place, he had prudently left the corporal not willing to trust 
 to that person's discretion, as to the tales and scandal that he 
 might propagate throughout the village, on a matter so painful 
 and so dark. 
 
 Let the world wag as it will, there are some tempers which 
 its vicissitudes never reach. Nothing makes a picture of dis- 
 tress more sad than the portrait of some individual sitting 
 indifferently looking on in the back-ground. This was a 
 secret Hogarth knew well. Mark his death-bed scenes : 
 Poverty and Vice worked up into horror and the physicians 
 in the 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 melan- 
 choly depth of humour that steeps both our fancy and Dur 
 heart in the immortal romance of Cervantes (for, how pro- 
 foundly melancholy is it to be compelled by one gallant folly to 
 laugh at all that is gentle, and brave, and wise, and generous) ! 
 nothing grates on us more than when last scene of all the 
 poor knight lies dead, his exploits for ever over for ever dumb 
 his eloquent discourses : that when, I say, we are told that, 
 despite of his grief, even little Sancho did not eat or drink the 
 less : these touches open to us the real world, it is true, but it
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 367 
 
 is not the best part of it. Certain it was, that when Walter, full 
 of contending emotions at all he had witnessed, harassed, 
 tortured, yet also elevated by his feelings stopped opposite the 
 cottage door, and saw there the corporal sitting comfortably in 
 the porch, his vile modicum Sabini before him his pipe in his 
 mouth and a complacent expression of satisfaction diffusing 
 itself over features which shrewdness and selfishness had marked 
 for their own ; certain, it was, that, at this sight, Walter experi- 
 enced a more displeasing revulsion of feeling a more entire 
 conviction of sadness a more consummate disgust of this 
 weary world and the motley masquers that walk therein, than 
 all the tragic scenes he had just witnessed had produced 
 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 chaise will be here forthwith ; we return to Yorkshire this 
 day. Ask me no more now." 
 
 " A well baugh ! " said the corporal. 
 
 There was a long silence. Walter walked to and fro the road 
 before the cottage. The chaise arrived ; the luggage was put in. 
 Walter's foot was on the step : but before the corporal mounted 
 the rumbling dickey, that invaluable domestic hemmed thrice. 
 
 "And had you time, sir, to think of poor Jacob, 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, 
 that elapsed, till the prisoner and his companions reached 
 Knaresbro'. Aram's conduct during this time was not only 
 calm but cheerful. The stoical doctrines he had affected through 
 life, he on this trying interval called into remarkable exertion. 
 He it was who now supported the spirits of his mistress and his 
 friend ; and though he no longer pretended to be sanguine of 
 acquittal though again and again he urged upon them the 
 gloomy fact first, how improbable it was that this course had 
 been entered into against him without strong presumption of 
 guilt ; and secondly, how little less improbable it was, that at 
 that distance of time he should be able to procure evidence, or
 
 3 6S EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 remember circumstances, sufficient on the instant to set aside 
 such presumption, he yet dwelt partly on the hope of ultimate 
 proof of his innocence, and still more strongly on the firmness 
 of 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 only with the eyes of the world. Reflect how poor and 
 minute a segment, in the vast circle of eternity, existence is at 
 the best Its sorrow and its shame are but moments. Always 
 in my brightest and youngest hours I have wrapped my heart in 
 the contemplation of an august futurity : 
 
 ** ' The soul, secure in its existence, smiles 
 At the drawn dagger, and defies its point* 
 
 Were it not for Madeline's dear sake, 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 begirt with snares below 
 and tempests above, the happier for that soul which looks 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 
 peculiarly calculated to render solemn and impressive, Aram 
 strove to prepare his friends for the worst, and perhaps to cheat, 
 or to steel, himself. Ever as he spoke thus, Lester or Ellinor 
 broke on him with impatient remonstrance ; but Madeline, as if 
 imbued with a deeper and more mournful penetration into the . 
 future, listened in tearless and breathless attention. She gazed 
 upon him with a look that shared the thought he expressed, 
 though it read not (yet she dreamed so) the heart from which it 
 came. In the words of that beautiful poet, to whose true nature, 
 so full 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 proclaim'd ' we will not part I* 
 Thy ' hope ' may perish, or thy friends may flee, 
 Farewell to lifehut not adieu to thee ! " * 
 
 They arrived at noon at the house of Mr. Thornton, and Aram 
 underwent his examination. Though he denied most of the 
 particulars in Houseman's evidence, and expressly the charge of 
 
 1 Lara,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 369 
 
 murder, his commitment was made out ; and that day he was 
 removed by the officers (Barker and Moor, who had arrested him 
 at Grassdale,) to York Castle, to await his trial at the assizes. 
 
 The sensation which this extraordinary event created through- 
 out the country was wholly unequalled. Not only in Yorkshire, 
 and the county in which he had of late resided, where his per- 
 sonal habits were known, but even in the metropolis, and 
 amongst men of all classes in England, it appears to have 
 caused one mingled feeling of astonishment, horror, and in- 
 credulity, which in our times has no parallel in any criminal 
 prosecution. The peculiar attributes of the prisoner his genius 
 his learning his moral life the interest that by students had 
 been for years attached to his name his approaching marriage 
 the length of time that had elapsed since the crime had been 
 committed the singular and abrupt manner, the wild and 
 legendary spot, in which the skeleton of the lost man had been 
 discovered the imperfect rumours the dark and suspicious- 
 evidence, all combined to make a tale of such marvellous 
 incident, and breeding such endless conjecture, that we cannot 
 wonder to find it afterwards received a place, not only in the 
 temporary chronicles, but even in the permanent histories of 
 the period. 
 
 Previous to Walter's departure from Knaresbro' to Grassdale r 
 and immediately subsequent to the discovery at St. Robert's- 
 Cave, the coroner's inquest had been held upon the bones so- 
 mysteriously and suddenly brought to light. Upon the witness 
 of the old woman at whose house Aram had lodged, and upon* 
 that of Houseman, aided by some circumstantial and less 
 weighty evidence, had been issued that warrant on which we 
 have seen the prisoner apprehended. 
 
 With most men there was an intimate and indignant persua- 
 sion of Aram's innocence ; and at this day, in the county where 
 he last resided, there still lingers the same belief. Firm as his- 
 gospel faith, that conviction rested in the mind of the worthy 
 Lester ; and he sought, by every means he could devise, to 
 soothe and cheer the confinement of his friend. In prison r 
 however (indeed, after his examination after Aram had made 
 himself thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstantial 
 
 A A
 
 370 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 evidence which identified Clarke with Geoffrey Lester ?. stcry 
 that till then he had persuaded himself wholly to disbelieve), a 
 change which, in the presence of Madeline or her father, he 
 vainly attempted wholly to conceal, and to which, when alone, 
 he surrendered himself with a gloomy abstraction, came over his 
 mood, and dashed him from the lofty height of philosophy from 
 which he had before looked down on the peril and the ills below. 
 
 Sometimes he would gaze on Lester with a strange and glassy 
 eye, and mutter inaudibly to himself, as if unaware of the old 
 man's presence ; at others, he would shrink from Lester's 
 proffered hand, and start abruptly from his professions of un- 
 altered, unalterable regard ; sometimes he would sit silently, 
 and, with a changeless and stony countenance, look upon Made- 
 line as she now spoke in that exalted tone of consolation which 
 had passed away from himself; and when she had done, instead 
 of replying to her 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 say that ! " 
 
 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 mere infant : him you could not love ! What was he 
 to you? Yet it is dreadful to think of dreadful, dreadful!" 
 and then again his voice ceased ; but his lips moved convulsively, 
 and his eyes seemed to speak meanings that defied words. These 
 alterations in his bearing, which belied his steady and resolute 
 character, astonished and dejected both Madeline and her father. 
 Sometimes they thought that his situation had shaken his reason, 
 or that the horrible suspicion of having murdered the uncle of 
 his intended wife made him look upon themselves with a secret 
 shudder, and that they were mingled up in his mind by no 
 unnatural, though unjust confusion, with the causes of his present 
 awful and uncertain state. With the generality of the world 
 these two tender friends believed Houseman the sole and real 
 murderer, and fancied his charge against Aram was but the last 
 expedient of a villain to ward punishment from himself by 
 imputing crime to another. Naturally, then, they frequently 
 sought to turn the conversation upon Houseman, and on the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 37' 
 
 different circumstances that had brought him acquainted with 
 Aram : but on this ground the prisoner seemed morbidly 
 sensitive, and averse to detailed discussion. His narration, how- 
 ever, such as it was, threw much light upon certain matters 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 calculcations of an 
 ordinary wickedness ; we knew each other irom our relationship, 
 but seldom met, and still more rarely held long intercourse 
 together. After we separated, when I left Knaresbro', we did 
 not meet for years. He sought me at Grassdale; he was poor, 
 and implored assistance; I gave him all within my power; he 
 sought me again nay, more than once again and rinding me 
 justly averse to yielding to his extortionate demands, he then 
 broached the purpose he has now effected. He threatened yon 
 hear me you understand ? he threatened me with this charge 
 the murder of Daniel Clarke : by that name alone I knew 
 the deceased. The menace, and the known villany of the man, 
 agitated me beyond expression. What was I ? a being who 
 lived without the world who knew not its ways who desired 
 only rest ! The menace haunted me almost maddened ! Your 
 nephew has told you, you say, of broken words, of escaping 
 emotions, which he has noted, even to suspicion, in me ; you now 
 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 fury or craft of a wretch like this ! The idea 
 was with me night and day ; to avoid it I resolved on a sacrifice. 
 You may blame me ; I was weak ; yet I thought then not 
 unwise. To avoid it, I say, I offered to bribe this man to leave 
 the country. I sold my pittance to oblige him to it. I bound 
 him thereto by the strongest ties. Nay, so disinterestedly, so 
 truly did I love Madeline, that I would not wed while I thought 
 this danger could burst upon me. I believed that, before my 
 marriage day, Houseman had left the country. It was not so : 
 Fate ordered otherwise. It seems that Houseman came to 
 Knaresbro' to see his daughter; that suspicion, by a sudden train 
 of events, fell on him perhaps justly ; to screen himself he has 
 sacrificed me. The tale seems plausible : perhaps the accuser 
 
 A A 2
 
 37* EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 may triumph. But, Madeline, you now may account for much 
 that may have perplexed you before. Let me remember ay, 
 ay I have dropped mysterious words, have I not ? have I not ? 
 owning that danger was around me owning that 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 we 
 must prepare to seek some yet more secluded spot, some deeper 
 retirement; for despite my precautions, despite the supposed 
 absence of Houseman from the country itself, a fevered and 
 restless presentiment would at some times intrude itself on me. 
 All this is now accounted for, is it not, Madeline ? Speak, 
 speak 1" 
 
 " All, love, all ! Why do you look on me with that searching 
 eye, that frowning brow ? " 
 
 " Did I ? No, no I have no frown for you ; but peace ; I 
 am not what I ought to be through this ordeal." 
 
 The above narration of Aram's did indeed account to Made- 
 line for much that had till then remained unexplained : the 
 appearance of Houseman at Grassdale ; the meeting between 
 him and Aram on the evening she walked with the latter, and 
 questioned him of his ill-boding visitor ; the frequent abstraction 
 and muttered hints of her lover; and, as he had said, his last 
 declaration of the possible necessity of leaving Grassdale. Nor 
 was it improbable, though it was rather in accordance with the 
 unworldly habits than with the haughty character of Aram, that 
 he should seek, circumstanced as he was, to silence even the 
 false accuser of a plausible tale, that might well strike horror 
 and bewilderment into a man much more, to all seeming, fitted 
 to grapple with the hard and coarse realities of life than the 
 moody and secluded scholar. Be that as it may, though Lester 
 deplored, he did not blame that circumstance, which after all 
 had not transpired, nor seemed likely to transpire; and he 
 attributed the prisoner's aversion to enter fartlrer on the matter 
 to the natural dislike of so proud a man to refer to his own 
 weakness, and to dwell upon the manner in which, in spite of 
 that weakness, he had been duped. This story Lester retailed 
 to Walter, and it contributed to throw a damp and uncertainty 
 over those mixed and unquiet feelings with which the latter
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 373 
 
 waited for the coming trial. There were many moments when 
 the young 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 his family, and which might, notwithstand- 
 ing such a verdict, leave on Walter's own mind an impression of 
 the prisoner's innocence, and an uneasy consciousness that he, 
 through his investigations, had brought him to that doom. 
 
 Walter remained in Yorkshire, seeing little of his family 
 of none, indeed, but Lester ; it was not to be expected that 
 Madeline would see him ; and once only he caught the tearful 
 eyes of Ellinor as she retreated from the room he entered : 
 and those eyes beamed kindness and pity, but something also 
 of reproach. 
 
 Time passed slowly and witheringly on. A man of the name 
 of Terry having been included in the suspicion, and indeed 
 committed, it appeared that the prosecutor could not procure 
 witnesses by the customary time, and the trial was postponed 
 till the next assizes. As this man was, however, never brought 
 up to trial, and appears no more, we have said nothing of him 
 in our narrative, until he thus became the instrument of a 
 delay in the fate of Eugene Aram. Time passed on winter, 
 spring, were gone and the glory and gloss of summer were 
 now lavished over the happy earth. In some measure the 
 usual calmness of his demeanour had returned to Aram ; he 
 had mastered those moody fits we have referred to, which had 
 so afflicted his affectionate visitors ; and he now seemed to 
 prepare and buoy himself up against that awful ordeal of life 
 and death which he was about soon to pass. Yet he the 
 hermit of Nature, who, 
 
 " Each little herb 
 
 That grows on mountain bleak, or tangled forest, 
 Had learnt to name ; " l 
 
 he could not feel, even through the bars and checks of a 
 prison, the soft summer air, "the witchery of the soft blue sky ; " 
 he could not see the leaves bud forth, and mellow into their 
 darker verdure ; he could not hear the songs of the many- 
 voiced birds, or listen to the dancing rain, calling up beauty 
 1 " Remorse." by S. T. Coleridge.
 
 374 F. IT, FAT. ARAM. 
 
 M'here it fell; or mark at night, through his high and narrow 
 casement, the stars aloof, and the sweet moon pouring in her 
 light, like God's pardon, even through the dungeon-gloom and 
 the desolate scenes where Mortality struggles with Despar; he 
 could not catch, obstructed as they were, these, the benigner 
 influences of earth, and not sicken and pant for his old and full 
 communion with their ministry and presence. Sometimes all 
 around him was forgotten the harsh cell, the cheerless solitude, 
 the approaching trial, the boding fear, the darkened hope, even 
 the spectre of a troubled and fierce remembrance all was 
 forgotten, and his spirit was abroad, and his step upon the 
 mountain top once more. 
 
 In our estimate of the ills of life we never sufficiently take 
 into our consideration the wonderful elasticity of our moral 
 frame, the unlooked-for, the startling facility with which the 
 human mind accommodates itself to all change of circumstance, 
 making an object and even a joy from the hardest and seemingly 
 the least redeemed conditions of fate. The man who watched 
 the spider in his cell may have taken, at least, as much interest 
 in the watch, as when engaged in the most ardent and ambitious 
 objects of his former life. Let any man look over his past 
 career, let him recall not moments, not hours of agony, for to 
 them Custom lends not her blessed magic ; but let him single 
 out some lengthened period of physical or moral endurance : in 
 hastily reverting to it, it may seem at first, I grant, altogether 
 wretched j a series 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 of suffering ; a thousand little things, in the 
 bustle of life dormant and unheeded, then started forth into 
 notice, and became to him objects of interest or diversion ; the 
 dreary present, once made familiar, glided away from him, not 
 less than if it had been all happiness ; his mind dwelt not on the 
 dull intervals, but the stepping-stone it had created and placed 
 at each ; and, by that moral dreaming which for ever goes on 
 within man'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 his maturity. 
 
 So wonderful in equalising all states and all times in the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 375 
 
 varying tide of life are these two rulers yet levellers of mankind, 
 Hope and Custom, that the very idea of an eternal punishment 
 includes that of an utter alteration of the whole mechanism of 
 the soul in its human state; and no effort of an imagination, 
 assisted by past experience, can conceive a state of torture 
 which Custom can never blunt, and from which the chainless and 
 immaterial spirit can never be beguiled into even a momentary 
 escape. 
 
 Among the very few persons admitted to Aram's solitude was 
 Lord * * * *. That nobleman was staying, on a visit, with a 
 relation of his in the neighbourhood, and he seized, with an 
 excited and mournful avidity, the opportunity thus afforded 
 him of seeing once more a character that had so often forced 
 itself on his speculation and surprise. He came to offer, not 
 condolence, but respect; services, at such a moment, no individual 
 could render : he gave, however, what was within his power 
 advice, and pointed out to Aram the best counsel to engage, 
 and the best method of previous inquiry into particulars yet 
 unexplored. He was astonished to find Aram indifferent on 
 these points, so important. The prisoner, it would seem, had 
 even then resolved on being his own counsel, and conducting his 
 own cause ; the event proved that he did not rely in vain on the 
 power of his own eloquence and sagacity, though he might on 
 their result. As to the rest, he spoke with impatience, and the 
 petulance of a wronged 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 be willing, indeed, that it were 
 spared, I trust it may be ; if not, I can stand face to face with 
 Death. I have now looked on him within these walls long enough 
 to have grown familiar with his terrors. But enough of me 
 Tell me, my lord, something of the world without : I have grown 
 eager about it at last I have been now so condemned to feed 
 upon myself, that I have become surfeited with the diet ; " and 
 it was with great difficulty that the earl drew Aram back to 
 speak of himself: he did so, even when compelled to it, with so 
 much qualification and reserve, mixed with some evident anger at 
 the thought of being sifted and examined, that his visitor was 
 forced finally to drop the subject ; and not liking, indeed notable,
 
 376 liVGLXE ARAM. 
 
 at such a time, to converse on more indifferent themes, the last 
 interview he ever had with Aram terminated much more abruptly 
 than he had meant it His opinion of the prisoner was not, 
 however, shaken in the least. I have seen a letter of his to a 
 celebrated personage of the day, in which, mentioning this 
 interview, he concludes with saying : " In short, there is so 
 much real dignity about the man, that adverse circumstances 
 increase it tenfold. Of his innocence I have not the remotest 
 doubt ; but if he persist in being his own counsel I tremble for 
 the result ; you know, in such cases, how much more valuable is 
 practice than genius. But the judge, you will say, is, in criminal 
 causes, the prisoner's counsel ; God grant he may here prove a 
 successful one! I repeat, were Aram condemned by five hundred 
 juries, I could not believe him guilty. No, the very essence of 
 all human probabilities is against it." 
 
 The earl afterwards saw and conversed with Walter. He was 
 much struck with the conduct of the young Lester, and much 
 impressed with compassion for a situation so harassing and 
 unhappy. 
 
 " Whatever be the result of the trial," said Walter, " I shall 
 leave the country 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 may still remain, and the sight of each 
 other be an equal bane to the accused and to myself. A volun- 
 tary exile, uiid a life that may lead to forgetfulness, are all that 
 I covet. I now find in my own person," he added with a faint 
 smile, ' how deeply Shakspeare had read the mysteries of men's 
 conduct. Hamlet, we are told, was naturally full of fire and 
 action. One dark dfscovery quells his spirit, unstrings his heart, 
 and stales to him for ever the uses of the world. I now com- 
 prehend the change. It is bodied forth even in the humblest 
 individual, who is met by a similar fate even' in myself." 
 
 " Ay," said the earl, " I do indeed remember you a wild, im- 
 petuous, headstrong youth. I scarcely recognise your very 
 appearance. The elastic spring has left your step there seems 
 a fixed furrow in your brow These clouds of life are indeed no 
 summer vapour, darkening one moment, and gene the next. 
 But, my young friend, let us hope the best. I firmly believe in
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 377 
 
 Aram's innocence firmly! more rootedly than I can express. 
 The real criminal will appear on the trial. All bitterness between 
 you and Aram must cease at his acquittal ; you will be anxious 
 to repair to him the injustice of a natural suspicion : and he 
 seems not one who could long retain malice. All will be well, 
 believe me." 
 
 " God grant it ! " said Walter, sighing deeply. 
 
 " But at the worst," continued the earl, pressing his hand in 
 parting, "if you should persist in your resolution to leave the 
 country, write to me, and I can furnish you with an honourable 
 and stirring occasion for doing so. Farewell ! " 
 
 While time was thus advancing towards the fatal day, it was 
 graving deep ravages within the pure breast of Madeline Lester, 
 She had borne up, as we have seen, for some time, against the 
 sudden blow that had shivered her young hopes, and separated 
 her by so awful a chasm from the side of Aram ; but as week 
 after week, month after month rolled on, and he still lay in 
 prison, and the horrible suspense of ignominy and death still 
 hung over her, then gradually her courage began to fail, and her 
 heart to sink. Of all the conditions to which the heart is subject, 
 suspense is the one that most gnaws, and cankers into the frame. 
 One little month of that suspense, when it involves death, we 
 are told, in a very remarkable work lately published by an eye- 
 witness, 1 is sufficient to plough fixed lines and furrows in the 
 face of a convict of five-and-twenty sufficient to dash the brown 
 hair with grey, and to bleach the grey to white. And this 
 suspense suspense of this nature for more than eight whole 
 months had Madeline to endure! 
 
 About the end of the second month, the effect upon her health 
 grew visible. Her colour, naturally delicate as the hues of the 
 pink shell or the youngest rose, faded into one marble whiteness, 
 which again, as time proceeded, flushed into that red and preter- 
 natural hectic, which, once settled, rarely yields its place but to 
 the colours of the grave. Her form shrank from its rounded and 
 noble proportions. Deep hollows traced themselves beneath 
 eyes which yet grew even more lovely as they grew less serenely 
 bright. The blessed sleep sunk not upo'n her brain with its 
 1 See Mr. Wakefield's work On the Punishment of Death,
 
 378 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 wonted and healing de\vs. Perturbed dreams, that towards 
 dawn succeeded the long and weary vigil of the night, shook 
 her frame even more than the anguish of the day. In these 
 dreams one frightful vision a crowd a scaffold and the pale 
 majestic face of her lover, darkened by unutterable pangs of 
 pride and sorrow, were for ever present before her. Till now she 
 and Ellinor had always shared the same bed : this Madeline 
 would no longer suffer. In vain Ellinor wept and pleaded. 
 
 " No," said Madeline, with a hollow voice : " at night I see 
 him. My soul is alone with his ; but but," and she burst 
 into an agony of tears "the most dreadful thought is this, I 
 cannot master my dreams. And sometimes I start and wake, 
 and find that in sleep I have believed him guilty. Nay, O God ! 
 that his lips have proclaimed the guilt ! And shatt any living 
 being shall any but God, who reads not words but hearts, hear 
 this hideous falsehood 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 of my dreams." 
 
 But not in vain, or not excluded from lier, was that elastic and 
 consoling spirit of which I have before spoken. As Aram re- 
 covered the tenor of his self-possession, a more quiet and peaceful 
 calm diffused itself over the mind of Madeline. Her high and 
 starry nature could comprehend those sublime inspirations of 
 comfort, which lift us from the lowest abyss of this world, to the 
 contemplation of all that the yearning visions of mankind have 
 painted in another. She would sit, rapt and absorbed for hours 
 together, till these contemplations assumed the colour of a gentle 
 and 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 in heaven : and oh ! there are green woods, and 
 lulling waters above, as there are on earth, and we see the 
 stars quite near, and I cannot tell you how happy their smile 
 makes those who look upon them. And Eugene never starts 
 there, nor frowns, nor walks aside, nor looks on me with an 
 estranged and chilling look ; but his face is as calm and bright 
 as the face of an angel ; and his voice ! it thrills amidst all the
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 379 
 
 music which plays there night and day softer than their softest 
 note. And we are married, Ellinor, at last. We were married 
 in heaven, and all the angels came to the marriage ! I am now so 
 happy that we were not wed before ! What ! are you weeping, 
 Ellinor ? Ah, we never weep in heaven ! but we will all go there 
 again all of us, hand in hand ! " 
 
 These affecting hallucinations terrified them, lest they should 
 settle into a confirmed loss of reason ; but perhaps without cause. 
 They never lasted long, and never occurred but after moods of 
 abstraction of unusual duration. To her they probably supplied 
 what sleep does to others a relaxation and refreshment ar 
 escape from the consciousness of life. And, indeed, it might 
 always be noted, that after such harmless aberrations of the mind 
 Madeline seemed more collected and patient in thought, and for 
 the moment even stronger in frame than before. Yet the body 
 evidently pined and languished, and each week made palpable 
 decay in her vital powers. 
 
 Every time Aram saw her, he was startled at the alteration ; 
 and kissing her cheek, her lips, her temples, in an agony of grief, 
 wondered that to him alone it was forbidden to weep. Yet after 
 all, when she was gone, and he again alone, he could not but 
 think death likely to prove to her the most happy of earthly 
 boons. He was not sanguine of acquittal ; and even in acquittal, 
 a voice at his heart suggested insuperable barriers to their union, 
 which had not existed when it was first anticipated. 
 
 " Yes, let her die," he would say, " let her die ; she at least is 
 certain of heaven." But the human infirmity clung around 
 him, and notwithstanding this seeming resolution in her absence, 
 he did not mourn the less, he was not stung the less, when he 
 saw her again, and beheld a new character from the hand of death 
 graven upon her form. No, we may triumph over all weakness, 
 but that of the affections ! Perhaps in this dreary and haggard 
 interval of time, these two persons loved each other more purely, 
 more strongly, more enthusiastically, than they had ever done at 
 any former period of their eventful history. Over the hardest 
 stone, as over the softest turf, the green moss will force its 
 verdure and sustain its life !
 
 380 r.LV.KNE ARAM. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EYENING 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. Rithard II. 
 
 IT was the evening before the trial. Lester and his daughters 
 lodged at a retired and solitary house in the suburbs of the town 
 of York ; and thither, from the village some miles distant, in 
 which he had chosen his own retreat, Walter now proceeded 
 across fields laden with the ripening corn. The last and the 
 richest month of summer had commenced ; but the harvest was 
 not yet begun, and deep and golden showed the vegetation of 
 life, bedded among the dark verdure of the hedgerows, and the 
 " merrie woods ! " The evening was serene and lulled ; at a 
 distance arose the spires and chimneys of the town, but no sound 
 from the busy hum of men reached the ear. Nothing perhaps 
 gives a more entire idea of stillness than the sight of those 
 abodes where " noise dwelleth," but where you cannot now hoar 
 even its murmurs. The stillness of a city is far more impressive 
 than that of Nature ; for the mind instantly compares the 
 present silence with the wonted uproar. The harvest-moon 
 rose slowly from a copse of gloomy firs, and infused its own 
 unspeakable magic into the hush and transparency of the night. 
 As Walter walked slowly on, the sound of voices from some 
 rustic party going homeward broke jocundly on the silence, and 
 when he paused for a moment at the stile, from which he first 
 caught a glimpse of Lester's house, he saw, winding along the 
 green hedgerow, some village pair, the " lover and the maid," 
 who could meet only at such hours, and to whom such hours 
 were therefore especially dear. It was altogether a scene of
 
 EUGENE IARVM. 381 
 
 pure and true pastoral character, and there was all around a 
 semblance of tranquillity, of happiness, which suits with the 
 poetical and the scriptural paintings of a pastoral life ; and 
 which perhaps, in a new and fertile country, may still find a 
 realisation. From this scene, from these thoughts, the young 
 loiterer turned with a sigh towards the solitary house in which 
 this night could awaken none but the most anxious feelings, and 
 that moon could beam only on the most troubled hearts. 
 
 " Terra salutiferas herbas, eademque nocente 
 Nutrit ; et urticse proxima saepe rosa est. " * 
 
 He now walked more quickly on, as if stung by his reflections, 
 and avoiding the path which led to the front of the house, gained 
 a little garden at the rear ; and opening a gate that admitted to 
 a narrow and shaded walk, over which the linden and nut trees 
 made a sort of continuous and natural arbour, the moon, piercing 
 at broken intervals through the boughs, rested on the form of 
 Ellinor Lester. 
 
 " This is most kind, most like my own sweet cousin," said 
 Walter, approaching ; " I cannot say how fearful I was lest you 
 should not meet me after all." 
 
 " Indeed, Walter," replied Ellinor, " I found some difficulty 
 in concealing your note, which was given me in Madeline's 
 -presence ; and still more in stealing out unobserved by her, 
 for she has been, as you may well conceive, unusually restless 
 the whole of this agonizing day. Ah, Walter, would to God 
 you had never left us ! " 
 
 " Rather say," rejoined Walter, "would that this unhappy man, 
 against whom my father's ashes still seem to me to cry aloud, 
 had never come into our peaceful and happy valley ! Then you 
 would not have reproached me, that I have sought justice on a 
 suspected murderer ; nor / have longed for death rather than, in 
 that justice, have inflicted such distress and horror on those 
 whom I love the best ! " 
 
 " What, Walter, you yet believe you are yet convinced that 
 Eugene Aram is the real criminal ? " 
 
 1 The same earth produces health-bearing and deadly plants ; and ofttimes the rose 
 grows nearest to the nettle.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Let to-morrow show," answered Walter. " But poor, poof 
 Madeline ! How does she bear up against this long suspense ? 
 You know I have not seen her for months." 
 
 " Oh ! Walter," said Ellinor, weeping bitterly ; " you would 
 not know her, so dreadfully is she altered. I fear" (here sobs 
 choked the sister's voice, so as to leave it scarcely audible) 
 14 that she is not many weeks for this world ! " 
 
 "Just Heaven! is it so?" exclaimed Walter, so shocked, that 
 the tree against 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 
 violent emotion of her cousin ; and the two young persons, 
 lovers, though love was at this time the least perceptible feeling 
 of their breast, mingled their emotions, and sought, at least, to 
 console and cheer each other. 
 
 " It may yet be better than our fears," said Ellinor, soothingly. 
 " Eugene may be found guiltless, and in that joy we may forget 
 all the past" 
 
 Walter shook his head despondingly. " Your heart, Ellinor, 
 was always kind to me. You now are the only one to do me 
 justice, and to see how utterly reproachless I am for all the 
 misery the crime of another occasions. But my uncle him, too, 
 I have not seen for some time : is he well ? " 
 
 " Yes, Walter, yes," said Ellinor, kindly disguising the real 
 truth, how much 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 in health at least, the same as when, 
 this time last year, we were all happy and full of hope." 
 
 Walter looked hard upon that face, once so vivid with the 
 rich colour and the buoyant and arch expression of liveliness 
 and youth, now pale, subdued and worn by the traces of con- 
 stant tears ; and, pressing his hand convulsively 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.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " 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 the town, that Madeline intends to be present at the 
 trial to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Indeed, I fear that she will. Both my father and myself 
 have sought strongly and urgently to dissuade her, but in vain. 
 You know, with all that gentleness, how resolute she is when 
 her mind is once determined on any object." 
 
 " But if the verdict should be against the prisoner, in her 
 state of health consider how terrible would be the shock ! Nay, 
 even the joy of acquittal might be equally dangerous for 
 Heaven's sake, do not suffer her.' ; 
 
 "What is to be done, Walter?" said Ellinor, wringing her 
 hands. " We cannot help it. My father has, at last, forbid me 
 to contradict the wish. Contradiction, the physician himself 
 says, might be as fatal as concession can be. And my father 
 adds, in a stern, calm voice, which it breaks my heart to hear, 
 " Be still, Ellinor. If the innocent is to perish, the sooner she 
 joins him the better: I would then have all my ties 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 an equal degree with the rest of her family. 
 
 " Ellinor ! " said Walter, who had been walking for the last 
 few moments to and fro with the rapid strides of a man debating 
 with himself, and who now suddenly paused, and laid his hand 
 on his cousin's arm "Ellinor! I am resolved. I must, for the 
 quiet of my soul, I must see Madeline this night, and win her 
 forgiveness for all I have been made the unintentional agent of 
 Providence to bring upon her. The peace of my future life may 
 depend on this single interview. What if Aram be condemned ? 
 and in short, it is no matter I must see her." 
 
 " She would not hear of it, I fear," said Ellinor, in alarm. 
 " Indeed, you cannot ; you do not know her state of mind." 
 
 ' Ellinor ! " said Walter, doggedly, " I am resolved." And so 
 saying, he moved towards the house. 
 
 "Well, then," said Ellinor, whose nerves had been .greatly
 
 384 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 shattered by the scenes and sorrow of the last several months 
 " if it jiiust be so, wait at least till I have gone in, and consulted 
 or prepared her." 
 
 " As you will, my gentlest, kindest cousin ; I know your 
 prudence and affection. I leave you to obtain me this interview; 
 you can, and will, I am convinced." 
 
 "Do not be sanguine, Walter. I can only promise to use my 
 best endeavours," 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 left him : but, growing impatient, he at length 
 wound through the overhanging trees, and the house stood 
 immediately before him, the moonlight shining full on the 
 window-panes, and sleeping in quiet shadow over the green turf 
 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, on which a form reclined, that his heart, rather 
 than his sight, told him was his once-adored Madeline. He 
 stopped, and his breath heaved thick ; he thought of their 
 common home at Grassdale, of the old manor-house, of the 
 little parlour, with the woodbine at its casement, of the group 
 within, once so happy and light-hearted, of which he had 
 formerly made the one most buoyant, and not least loved. And 
 now this strange, this desolate house, himself estranged from all 
 once regarding him (and those broken-hearted), this night 
 ushering what a morrow 1 He groaned almost aloud, and 
 retreated once more into the shadow of the trees. In a few 
 minutes the door at the right of the building opened, and 
 Ellinor came 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 paused but for one instant, and then begged me 
 to admit you." 
 
 " God bless her ! " said poor Walter, drawing his hand across 
 his eyes, and following Ellinor to the door. 
 
 "You will find her greatly changed!" whispered Ellinor, as 
 they gained the outer hall ; "be prepared !"
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 385 
 
 Walter did not reply, save by an expressive gesture ; and 
 Ellinor led him into a room, which communicated, by one of 
 those glass doors often to be seen in the old-fashioned houses of 
 country towns, with the one in which he had previously seen 
 Madeline. With a noiseless step, and almost holding his breath, 
 he followed his fair guide through this apartment, and he now 
 stood by the couch on which Madeline still reclined. She held 
 out her hand to him he pressed it to his lips, without daring to 
 look her 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 of us!" 
 
 "Fora/!/" repeated Walter, emphatically; "and for me not 
 the least!" 
 
 " We have known some sad days since we last met ! " renewed 
 Madeline : and there was another and an embarrassed pause. 
 
 ."Madeline dearest Madeline !" "said Walter, and at length 
 dropping on his knee ; " 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 dear to me say but one word to 
 me in this uncertain and dreadful epoch of our fate say but one 
 word to me say you feel you are conscious that throughout these 
 terrible events / have not been to blame I have not willingly 
 brought this affliction upon our house least of all upon that 
 heart which my own would have forfeited its best blood to pre- 
 serve from the slightest evil ; or, if you will not do me this 
 justice, say at least that 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 have felt how unreasonable it was to throw any 
 blame upon you the mere and passive instrument of fate. If I 
 have forborne to see you, it was not from an angry feeling, but 
 from a reluctant weakness. God bless and preserve you, my 
 dear cousin ! I know that your own heart has bled as profusely 
 as ours ; and it was but this day that I told my father, if we 
 never met again, to express to you some kind message as a last 
 memorial from me. Don't weep, Walter ! It is a fearful thing 
 to see men weep ! It is only once that I have seen him weep, 
 that was long, long ago 1 He has no tears in the hour of dread 
 
 B B
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and danger. But no matter: this is a bad woild, Walter, and I 
 am tired of it. Are not you ? Why do you look so at me, 
 Ellinor? I am not mad ! Has she told you that I am, Walter? 
 Don't believe her ! Look at me ! I am calm and collected ! 
 Yet to-morrow is O God ! 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, they encountered those of Walter ; as through 
 those blinding and agonised tears, which are wrung from the 
 grief of manhood, he gazed upon that face on which nothing of 
 herself, save the divine and unearthly expression 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 with him in Paradise. 
 What cause shall we then have for regret ? " 
 
 Ellinor flung herself on her sister's neck, sobbing violently. 
 " Yes, we shall regret you are not with us, Ellinor ; but you will 
 also soon grow tired of the world ; it is a sad place it is a 
 wicked place it is full of snares and pit-falls. In our walk 
 to-day lies our destruction for to-morrow ! You will find this 
 soon, Ellinor! And you, and my father, and Walter, too, 
 shall join us ! Hark ! the clock strikes ! By tin's time to- 
 morrow night, what triumph ! or to me, at least (sinking her 
 voice into a whisper, that thrilled through the very bones of her 
 listeners), what peace ! " 
 
 Happily for all parties, this distressing scene was here in- 
 terrupted. Lester entered the room with the heavy step into 
 which his once elastic and cheerful tread had subsided. 
 
 " Ha, Walter ! " said he, irresolutely glancing over the group ; 
 but Madeline had already sprung from her seat. 
 
 "You have seen him! you have seen him I And how does 
 he how does he look ? But that I know ; I know his brave 
 heart does not sink. And what message does he send to me ? 
 And and tell me all, my father; quick, quick !" 
 
 " Dear, miserable child ! and miserable old n.an!" muttered 
 Lester, folding her in his arms ; " but we ought to take courage
 
 EUGENE ARAM 387 
 
 and comfort from him, Madeline. A hero, on the eve of battle, 
 could not be more firm even more cheerful. He smiled often 
 his old smile ; and he only left tears and anxieties to us. But 
 of you, Madeline, we spoke mostly : he would scarcely let me 
 say a word on anything else. Oh, what a kind heart ! what a 
 noble spirit ! And perhaps a chance tc-morrow may quench 
 both. But, God ! be just, and let the avenging lightning fall on 
 the real criminal, and not blast 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, and falling 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 majestic and pausing moon, 
 which filled the lowly room as with the presence of a spirit, 
 witness a more impressive adjuration, or an audience more ab- 
 sorbed and wrapt. Full streamed its holy rays upon the now 
 snowy locks and upward countenance of Lester, making his 
 venerable person more striking from the contrast it afforded to 
 the dark and sunburnt cheek the energetic features, and chival- 
 ric and earnest head of the young man beside him. Just in 
 the shadow, the raven locks of Ellinor were bowed over her 
 clasped hands, nothing of her face visible ; the graceful neck 
 and heaving breast alone distinguished from the shadow ; and, 
 hushed in a death-like and solemn repose, the parted lips moving 
 inaudibly ; the eye fixed on vacancy ; the wan, transparent 
 hands crossed upon her bosom ; the light shone with a more 
 softened and tender ray, upon the faded but all-angelic form and 
 countenance of her, for whom Heaven was already preparing 
 its eternal recompense for the ills of earth 1 
 
 B B 2
 
 3 S8 EUGENE AKAM. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TRIAX. 
 
 Equal to either fortune Speech of Eugene Aram, 
 
 A THOUGHT comes over us, sometimes, in our career of 
 pleasure, or the troubled exultation of our ambitious pursuits : 
 a thought comes 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, where the inmates 
 walked along voluptuous gardens, and built palaces, and heard 
 music, and made merry : while around and within the land were 
 deep caverns, where the gnomes and the fiends dwelt : and ever 
 and anon their groans and laughter, and the sounds of their 
 unutterable toils, or ghastly revels, travelled to the upper air, 
 mixing in an awful strangeness with the summer festivity and 
 buoyant occupation of those above. And this is the picture of 
 human life ! These reflections of the maddening disparities of 
 the world are dark, but salutary : 
 
 " They wrap our thoughts at banquets in the shroud ; " l 
 
 but we are seldom sadder without being also wiser men ! 
 
 The third of August, 1759, rose bright, calm and clear ; 
 it was the morning of the trial ; and when Ellinor stole into 
 her sister's room, she found Madeline sitting before the glass, 
 and braiding her rich locks with an evident attention and 
 care. 
 
 " I wish," said she, " that you had pleased me by dressing as 
 for a holiday. See, I am going to wear the dress I was to have 
 been married in." 
 
 Ellinor shuddered ; for what is more appalling than to find 
 the signs of gaiety accompanying the reality of anguish I 
 
 "Yes," continued Madeline, with a smile of inexpressible 
 
 1 Young.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 389 
 
 sweetness, "a little reflection will convince you that this day 
 ought not to be one of mourning. It was the suspense that has 
 so worn out our hearts. If he is acquitted, as we all believe 
 and trust, think how appropriate will be the outward seeming 
 of our joy ! If not, why I shall go before him to our marriage 
 home, and in marriage garments. Ay," she added, after '. 
 moment's pause, and with a much more grave, settled, and 
 intense expression of voice and countenance "ay; do you 
 remember how Eugene once told us, that if we went at noon- 
 day to the bottom of a deep pit, 1 we should be able to see the 
 stars, which on the level ground are invisible ? Even so, from 
 the depths of grief worn, wretched, seared, and dying the 
 blessed apparitions and tokens of heaven make themselves visible 
 to our eyes. And I know I have seen I feel here," pressing 
 her hand on her heart, " that my course is run ; 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 them to me the day before before that fixed for our 
 marriage. I shall wear them to-day, as I would have worn 
 them on the wedding-day. When he gathered the poor flower, 
 how fresh it was ; and I kissed off the dew : now see 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 ; I told you I would be dressed with care to-day." 
 
 And when Madeline was dressed, though the robe sat loose 
 and in large folds over her shrunken form, yet, as she stood 
 erect, and looked with a smile 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, and Lester knock- 
 ing, asked if they were prepared. 
 
 " Come in, father," said Madeline, in a calm and even cheerful 
 voice ; and the 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, 
 
 1 The remark is in Aristotle. Buffon quotes it, with his usual adroit felicity, in, I 
 think, the first volume of his jjreat work.
 
 390 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 and its meaning was not marred by words from any one of 
 the three. 
 
 " Yes, father," said Madeline, breaking the pause, " we are 
 all ready. Is the carriage here ? " 
 
 " It is at the door, my child." 
 
 " Come then, Ellinor, come ! " and leaning on her arm, Made- 
 line walked towards the door. When she got to the threshold, 
 she paused, and looked round the room. 
 
 " What is it you want ?" asked Ellinor. 
 
 " I was but bidding all here farewell," replied Madeline, in 
 a soft and touching voice. " And now before we leave the house, 
 father, sister, one word with you ; you have ever been very, 
 very kind to me, and most of all in this bitter trial, when I 
 must have taxed your patience sadly for I know all is not 
 right here (touching her forehead), I cannot go forth this day 
 without thanking you. Ellinor, my dearest friend my fondest 
 sister my playmate in gladness my comforter in grief my 
 nurse in sickness .-since we were little children, we have talked 
 together, and laughed together, and wept together, and though 
 we knew all the thoughts of each other, we have never known 
 one thought that we would have concealed from God ; and 
 now we are going to part ! do not stop me, it must 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 ! You are formed for love and home, and for those ties 
 you once thought would be mine. God grant that / may have 
 suffered for us both, and that when we meet hereafter you may 
 tell me you have been happy here! 
 
 " But you, father," added Madeline, tearing herself from the 
 neck of her weeping sister, and sinking on her knees before 
 Lester, who leaned against the wall convulsed with his emotions, 
 and covering his face with his hands " but you, what can I 
 say to you f You, who have never, no, not in my first child- 
 hood, said one harsh word to me who have sunk all a father's 
 authority in a father's love, how can I say all that I feel for 
 you? the grateful overflowing (painful, yet oh, how sweet!) 
 remembrances which crowd around and suffocate me now ? The 
 time will come when Ellinor and Ellinor's children must be all
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 391 
 
 in all to you when of your poor Madeline nothing will be left 
 but a memory ; but they, they will watch on you and tend you, 
 and protect your grey hairs from sorrow, as I might once have 
 hoped I also was fated to cl~.' 
 
 " My child ! my child ! you break my heart ! " faltered forth 
 at last the poor old man, who till now had in vain endeavoured 
 to speak. 
 
 " Give me your blessing, dear father," said Madeline, herself 
 overcome by her feelings : " put your hand on my head and 
 bless me and say, that if I have ever unconsciously given you 
 a moment's pain, I am forgiven ! " 
 
 " Forgiven ! " repeated Lester, raising his daughter with weak 
 and trembling arms as his tears fell fast upon her cheek, 
 " never did I feel what an angel had sat beside my hearth till 
 now ! But be comforted be cheered. What if Heaven had 
 reserved its crowning mercy till this day, and Eugene be 
 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 be so if it should. And," added she, 
 in a hollow voice (the enthusiasm checked), " 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 the approaching trial had gathered along the streets, but 
 the blinds were drawn down, and the father and daughter 
 escaped that worst of tortures, the curious gaze of strangers 
 on distress. Places had been kept for them in court, and as 
 they left the carraige and entered the fatal spot, the venerable 
 figure of Lester, and the trembling and veiled forms that clung 
 to him arrested all eyes. They at length gained their seats, 
 and it was not long before a bustle in the court drew off 
 attention from them. A buzz, a murmur, a movement, a dread 
 pause ! Houseman was first arraigned on his former indictment, 
 acquitted, and admitted evidence against Aram, who was there- 
 upon arraigned. The prisoner stood at the bar ! Madeline 
 gasped for breath, and clung, with a convulsive motion, to her 
 sister's arm. But presently, with a long sigh, she recovered
 
 393 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 her self-possession, and sat quiet and silent, fixing her eyes 
 upon Aram's countenance ; and the aspect of that countenance 
 was well calculated to sustain her courage, and to mingle a sort 
 of exulting pride with all the strained and fearful acuteness 
 of her sympathy. Something, indeed, of what he had suffered 
 was visible in the prisoner's features ; the lines around the 
 mouth, in which mental anxiety generally the most deeply 
 writes its traces, were grown marked and furrowed ; grey hairs 
 were here and there scattered amongst the rich and long 
 luxuriance of his dark brown locks, and as, before his imprison- 
 ment, he had seemed considerably younger than he was, so 
 now time had atoned for its past delay, and he might have 
 appeared to have told more years than had really gone over 
 his head ; but the remarkable light and beauty of his eye was 
 .mdimmed as ever, and still the broad expanse of his forehead 
 retained its unwrinkled surface and striking expression of calm- 
 ness and majesty, High, self-collected, serene, and undaunted, 
 he looked upon the crowd, the scene, the judge, before and 
 around him ; and, even on those who believed him guilty, that 
 involuntary and irresistible respect which moral firmness always 
 produces on the mind, forced an unwilling interest in his fate, 
 and even a reluctant hope of his acquittal. 
 
 Houseman was 'called upon. No one could regard his face 
 without a certain mistrust and inward shudder. In men prone 
 to cruelty, it has generally been remarked, that there is an 
 animal expression strongly prevalent in the countenance. The 
 murderer and the lustful man are often alike in the physical 
 structure. The bull-throat, the thick lips the receding forehead 
 the fierce, restless eye, which some one or other says reminds 
 you of the buffalo in the instant before he becomes dangerous, 
 are the outward 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 this animal expression, the witness 
 of his character, was especially stamped upon Houseman's 
 rugged and harsh features ; rendered, if possible, still more 
 remarkable at that time by a mixture of sullenness and timidity 
 The conviction that his own life was saved, could not pirvenl
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 393 
 
 remorse at his treachery in accusing his comrade a confused 
 principle of honour of which villains are the most susceptible 
 when every other honest sentiment has deserted them. 
 
 With a low, choked, and sometimes a faltering tone, House- 
 man deposed, that, in the night between the /th and 8th of 
 January, 1744-5, some time before eleven o'clock, he went to 
 Aiam's house ; that they conversed on different matters ; that 
 he stayed there about an hour ; that some three hours afterwards 
 he passed, in company with Clarke, by Aram's house, and Aram 
 was outside the door, as if he were about to return home ; that 
 Aram invited them both to come in ; that they did so ; that 
 Clarke, who intended to leave the town before daybreak, in 
 order, it was acknowledged, to make secretly away with certain 
 property in his possession, was about to quit the house, when 
 Aram proposed to accompany him out of the town ; that he 
 (Aram) and Houseman then went forth with Clarke ; that when 
 they came into 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 of the cave, he saw them quarrelling ; that 
 he saw Aram strike Clarke several times, upon which Clarke 
 fell, and he never saw him rise again ; that he saw 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; that the next morning he went to Aram's house, and 
 asked what business he had with Clarke last night, and what 
 he had done with him ? Aram replied not to this question ; but 
 threatened him, if he spoke of his being in Clarke's company 
 that night ; vowing revenge, either by himself or some other 
 person, if he mentioned anything relating to the affair. This 
 was the sum of Houseman's evidence. 
 
 A Mr. Beckwith was next called, who deposed that Aram's 
 garden had been searched, owing to a vague suspicion that he 
 might have been an accomplice in the frauds of Clarke; that 
 some parts of clothing, and also some 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, that before midnight (it might be a little after eleven) 
 ke saw a person come out from Aram's house, who had a wide
 
 394 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 coat on, with the cape about his head, and seemed to shun him ; 
 whereupon he went up to him, and put by the cape of his great 
 coat, and perceived it to be Richard Houseman. He contented 
 himself with wishing him good night. 
 
 The officers who executed the warrant then gave their evidence 
 as to the arrest, and dwelt on some expressions dropped by 
 Aram before he arrived at Knaresborough, which however, were 
 felt to be wholly unimportant 
 
 After this evidence there was a short pause : and then a 
 shiver, that recoil and tremor which men feel at any exposition 
 of the relics of the dead ran through the court ; for the next 
 witness was mute it was the skull of the deceased 1 On the 
 left side there was a fracture, that from the nature of it seemed 
 as it could only have been made by the stroke of some blunt 
 instrument. The piece was broken, and could not be replaced 
 but from within. 
 
 The surgeon, Mr. Locock, who produced it, gave it as his 
 opinion that no such breach could proceed from natural decay 
 that it was not a recent fracture, by the instrument with which 
 it was dug up, but seemed to be of many years' standing. 
 
 This made the chief part of the evidence against Aram ; the 
 minor points we have omitted, and also such as, like that of 
 Aram's hostess, would merely have repeated what the reader 
 knew before. 
 
 And now closed the criminatory evidence: and now the 
 prisoner was asked the thrilling and awful question " What 
 he had to say in his own behalf?" Till now, Aram haJ not 
 changed his posture or his countenance his dark and piercing 
 eye had for one instant fixed on each witness that appeared 
 against him, and then dropped its gaze upon the ground. But 
 at this moment, a faint hectic flushed his cheek, and he seemed 
 to gather and knit himself up for defence. He glanced round 
 the court as if to see what had been the impression created 
 against him. His eye rested on the grey locks of Rowland 
 Lester, who, looking down, had covered his face with his hands. 
 But beside that venerable form was the still and marble face 
 of Madeline ; and even at that distance from him, Aram perceived 
 how intent was the hushed suspense of her emotions. But
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 395 
 
 when she caught his eye that eye which, even at such a 
 moment, beamed unutterable love, pity, regret for her a wild, 
 a convulsive smile of encouragement, of anticipated triumph, 
 broke the repose of her colourless features, and suddenly dying 
 away, left her lips apart, in that expression which the great 
 masters of old, faithful to nature, give alike to the struggle of 
 hope and the pause of terror. 
 
 " My lord," began Aram, in that remarkable defence still 
 extant, and still considered as wholly unequalled from the lips 
 of one defending his own cause ; "my lord, I know not whether 
 it is of right, or through some indulgence of your lordship, that 
 I am allowed the liberty at this bar, and at this time, to attempt 
 a defence ; incapable and uninstructed 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 with I know not what 
 expectancy, I labour, not with guilt, my lord, but with perplexity. 
 For, having never seen a court but this, being wholly unac- 
 quainted with law, the customs of the bar, and all judiciary 
 proceedings, I fear I shall be so little capable of speaking with 
 propriety, that it might reasonably be expected to exceed my 
 hope, should I be able to speak at all. 
 
 " I have heard, my lord, the indictment read, wherein I find 
 myself charged with the highest of human crimes. You will 
 grant me, then, your patience, if I, single and unskilful, destitute 
 of friends, and unassisted by counsel, attempt something, per- 
 haps, like argument, in my defence. What I have to say, will 
 be but short, and that brevity may be the best part of it. 
 
 "My lord, the tenor of my life contradicts this indictment. 
 Who can look back 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 rny 
 nights intensely studious. This egotism is not presumptuous 
 is not unreasonable. What man, after a temperate use of 
 life, a series of thinking and acting regularly, without one single 
 deviation from a sober and even tenor of conduct, ever plunged 
 into the depth of crime precipitately, and at once ? Man- 
 kind are not instantaneously corrupted. Villany is always
 
 396 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 progressive. We decline from right not suddenly, but step after 
 step. 
 
 " If my life in general contradicts the indictment, my health, 
 at that time in particular, contradicts it more. A little time 
 before, I had been confined to my bed I had suffered under a 
 long and severe disorder. The distemper left me but slowly, 
 and in part. So far from being well at the time I am charged 
 with this fact, I never, to this day, perfectly recovered. Could 
 a person in this condition execute violence against another ? 
 I, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage no 
 ability to accomplish no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such 
 a fact ; without interest, without power, without motives, with- 
 out means ! 
 
 " My lord, Clarke disappeared ; true : but is that a proof of 
 his death ? The fallibility of all conclusions of such a sort/ from 
 such a circumstance, is too obvious to require instances. One 
 instance is before you : this very 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 an immediate inquiry set on foot 
 notwithstanding all advertisements, all search, he was never seen 
 or heard of since. If this man escaped unseen, through all these 
 difficulties, how easy for Clarke, whom no difficulties opposed ! 
 Yet what would be thought of a prosecution commenced against 
 any one seen last with Thompson? 
 
 " These bones are discovered 1 Where ? Of all places in the 
 world, can we think of any one, except, indeed, the churchyard, 
 where there is so great a certainty of finding human bones, as a 
 hermitage ? In time past, the hermitage 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 con- 
 tained these relics of humanity; some mutilated some entire! 
 Give me leave to remind your lordship, that here sat SOLITARY 
 SANCTITY, and here the hermit and the anchorite hoped that 
 repose for their bones when dead, they here enjoyed when living. 
 I glance over a few of the many evidences that these cells were 
 used as repositories of the dead, and enumerate a few of the 
 many caves similar in origin to St. Robert's, in which human
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 397 
 
 bones have been found." Here the prisoner instanced, with 
 remarkable felicity, several places in which bones had been 
 found, under circumstances, and in spots, analogous to those in 
 point. 1 And the reader, who will remember that it is the great 
 principle of the law, that no man can be condemned for murder 
 unless the remains of the deceased be found, will perceive at 
 once how important this point was to the prisoner's defence, 
 After concluding his instances with two facts of skeletons found 
 in fields in the vicinity of Knaresbro', he burst forth 
 
 " Is, then, the invention of those bones forgotten or indus- 
 triously concealed, that the discovery of these in question may 
 appear the more extraordinary ? Extraordinary yet how com- 
 mon an event ! Every place conceals such remains. In fields 
 in hills in highway sides on wastes on commons, lie frequent 
 and unsuspected bones. And mark no example, perhaps, occurs 
 of 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 two skeletons been discovered, then alone might 
 the fact have seemed suspicious and uncommon. What ! Have 
 we forgotten how difficult, as in the case of Perkin Warbec and 
 Lambert Symnell, it has been sometimes to identify the living ; 
 and shall we now assign personality to bones bones which may 
 belong to either sex ? How know you that this is even the 
 skeleton 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 answer- 
 able for all the bones that earth has concealed, and chance 
 exposed ? The skull that has been produced has been declared 
 fractured. But who can surely tell whether it was the cause or 
 the consequence of death ? In May, 1732, the remains of William 
 Lord Archbishop of this province were taken up by permission 
 in their cathedral ; the bones of the skull were found broken, 
 as these are : yet he died by no violence ! by no blow that 
 could have caused that fracture. Let it be considered how 
 easily the fracture on the skull is accounted for. At the 
 dissolution of religious houses, the ravages of the times affected 
 
 1 See his published defence.
 
 398 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 both the living and the dead. In search after imaginary treasures, 
 coffins were broken, graves and vaults dug open, monuments 
 ransacked, shrines demolished ; parliament itself was called in 
 to restrain these violations. And now, are the depredations, the 
 iniquities of those times, to be visited on this ? But here, above 
 all, was a castle vigorously besieged ; every spot around was 
 the scene of a sally, a conflict, a flight, a pursuit. Where the 
 slaughtered fell, there were they buried. What place is not burial 
 earth in war? How many bones must still remain in the vicinity 
 of that siege, for futurity to discover ! Can you, then, with so 
 many probable circumstances, choose the one least probable? 
 Can you impute to the living what zeal in its fury may have 
 done ; what nature may have taken off and piety interred ; or 
 what war alone may have destroyed, alone deposited ? 
 
 "And now glance over the circumstantial evidence how weak 
 how frail ! I almost scorn to allude to it. I will not con- 
 descend to dwell upon it. The witness of one man, arraigned 
 himself! Is there no chance, that, to save his own life, he might 
 conspire against mine ? no chance, that he might have com- 
 mitted this murder, if murder hath indeed been done ? that 
 conscience betrayed to his first exclamation? that craft suggested 
 his throwing that guilt on me, to the knowledge of which he 
 had unwittingly confessed ? He declares that he saw me strike 
 Clarke that he saw him fall ; yet he utters no cry, no reproof. 
 He calls for no aid ; he returns quietly home ; he declares that 
 he knows not what became of the body, yet he tells where the 
 body is laid. He declares that he went straight home, and 
 alone; yet the woman with whom I lodged deposes that House- 
 man and I returned to my house in company together ; what 
 evidence is this? and from 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 at night. What more 
 probable but what less connected with the murder, real or 
 supposed, of Clarke ? Some pieces of clothing are found buried 
 in my garden ; but how can it be shown that they belonged to 
 Clarke ? Who can swear to who can prove anything so vague ? 
 And if found there, even if belonging to Clarke, what proof that 
 they were there deposited by me ? How likely that the real
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 399 
 
 criminal may, in the dead of night, have preferred any spot, 
 rather than that round his own home, to conceal the evidence 
 of his crime ? 
 
 " How impotent such evidence as this ! and how poor, how 
 precarious, even the strongest of mere circumstantial evidence 
 invariably is ! Let it rise to probability, to the strongest degree 
 of probability ; it is but probability still Recollect the case of 
 the two Harrisons, recorded by Dr. Howell ; both suffered on 
 circumstantial evidence on account of the disappearance of a 
 man, who, like Clarke, contracted debts, borrowed money, and 
 went off unseen. And this man returned several years after 
 their execution. Why remind you of Jacques du Moulin, in the 
 reign of Charles the Second why of the unhappy Coleman, 
 convicted, though afterwards found innocent, and whose children 
 perished for want, because the world believed the father guilty ? 
 Why should I mention the perjury of Smith, who, admitted 
 king's evidence, screened himself by accusing Fainloth and 
 Loveday of the murder of Dunn ? The first was executed, the 
 second was about to share the same fate, when the perjury of 
 Smith was incontrovertibly proved. 
 
 "And now, my lord, having endeavoured to show that the 
 whole of this charge is altogether repugnant to every part of my 
 life ; that it is inconsistent with my condition of health about 
 that time ; that no rational inference of the death of a person 
 can be drawn from his disappearance ; that hermitages were the 
 constant repositories of the bones of the recluse ; that the proofs 
 of these are well aruthenticated ; that the revolution in religion, 
 or the fortunes of war, have mangled or buried the dead ; that 
 the strongest circumstantial evidence is often lamentably falla- 
 cious ; that in my case, that evidence, so far from being strong, 
 is weak, disconnected, contradictory ; what remains ? A con- 
 clusion, perhaps, no less reasonably than impatiently wished for. 
 I, at last, after nearly a year's confinement, equal to either 
 fortune, intrust myself to the candour, the justice, the humanity 
 of your lordship, and to yours, my countrymen, gentlemen of 
 the jury." 
 
 The prisoner ceased ; and the painful and choking sensations 
 of sympathy, compassion, regret, admiration, all uniting, all
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 mellowing into one fearful hope for his acquittal, made them- 
 selves felt through the crowded court 
 
 In two persons only an uneasy sentiment remained a senti- 
 ment that the prisoner had not completed that which they would 
 have asked from him. The one was Lester; he had expected 
 a more warm, a more earnest, though, perhaps, a less ingenious 
 and artful defence. He had expected Aram to dwell far more 
 on the improbable and contradictory evidence of Houseman ; 
 and above all, to have explained away all that was still left unac- 
 counted for in his acquaintance with Clarke (as we will still call 
 the deceased), and the allegation that he had gone out with him 
 on the fatal night of the disappearance of the latter. At every 
 word of the prisoner's defence, he had waited almost breath- 
 lessly, in the hope that the next sentence would begin an 
 explanation or denial on this point ; and when Aram ceased, 
 a chill, a depression, a disappointment, remained vaguely on his 
 mind. Yet so lightly and so haughtily had Aram approached 
 and glanced over the immediate evidence of the witnesses 
 against him, that his silence here might have been but the 
 natural result of a disdain that belonged essentially to his calm 
 and proud character. The other person we referred to, and 
 whom his defence had not impressed with a belief in its truth, 
 equal to an admiration for its skill, was one far more important 
 in deciding the prisoner's fate it was the judge ! 
 
 But Madeline ! alas! alas ! how sanguine is a woman's heart, 
 when the innocence, the fate of the one she loves is concerned ! 
 a radiant flush broke over a face so colourless before ; and with a 
 joyous look, a kindled eye, 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 no minute and detailed memorial of the trial, except only 
 the prisoner's defence. The summing up of the judge was 
 considered at that time scarcely less remarkable than the speech 
 of the prisoner. He stated the evidence with peculiar care and 
 at great length to the jury. He observed how the testimony of 
 the other deponents confirmed that of Houseman; and then, 
 touching on the contradictory parts of the latter, he made them
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 401 
 
 understand how natural, how inevitable, was some such contra- 
 diction in a witness who had not only to give evidence against 
 another, but to refrain from criminating himself. There could 
 be no doubt but that Houseman was an accomplice in the crime ; 
 and all therefore that seemed improbable in his giving no alarm 
 when the deed was done, &c. &c., was easily rendered natural 
 and reconcilable with the other parts of his evidence. Com- 
 menting then on the defence of the prisoner (who, as if disdaining 
 to rely on aught save his own genius or his own innocence, had 
 called no witnesses, as he had employed no counsel), and eulo- 
 gising its eloquence and art till he destroyed their effect, by 
 guarding the jury against that impression which eloquence and 
 art produce in defiance of simple fact, he contended that Aram 
 had yet alleged nothing to invalidate the positive evidence 
 against him. 
 
 I have often heard, from men accustomed to courts of law, 
 that nothing is more marvellous than the sudden change in the 
 mind of a jury which the summing up of the judge can pro- 
 duce ; and in the present instance it was like magic. That fatal' 
 lock of a common intelligence, of a common assent, was 
 exchanged among the doomers of the prisoner's life and death, 
 as the judge concluded. 
 
 They found the prisoner guilty. 
 
 * 
 
 The judge drew on the black cap. 
 
 * 
 
 Aram received his sentence in profound composure. Before 
 he left the bar he drew himself up to his full height, and looked 
 slowly around the court with that thrilling and almost sublime 
 unmovedness of aspect which belonged to him alone of all men, 
 and which was rendered yet more impressive by a smile slight 
 but eloquent beyond all words of a soul collected in itself : no 
 forced and convulsive effort vainly 'masking the terror or the 
 pang ; no mockery of self that would mimic contempt for 
 
 c c
 
 403 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 others, but more in majesty than bitterness ; rather as daring 
 fate than defying the judgment of others ; rather as if he 
 wrapped himself in the independence of a quiet, than the 
 disdain of a despairing, heart ! 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DEATH. THE PRISON. AN INTERVIEW. ITS RESOT.T. 
 
 ' * Lay her i' the earth ; 
 
 And from her fair und 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, quite well, presently." 
 
 Ellinor let down the carriage window to admit the air ; and 
 she took the occasion to tell the coachman to drive faster. 
 There was that change in Madeline's voice which alarmed her. 
 
 "How noble was his look! you saw him smile!" continued 
 Madeline, talking to herself: "and they will murder him after 
 all. Let me see ; this day week, ay, ere this day week we shall 
 meet again." 
 
 " Faster ; for God's sake, Ellinor, tell them to drive faster ! " 
 cried Lester, as he felt the form that leaned on his bosom wax 
 heavier and heavier. They sped on ; the house was in sight ; 
 that lonely and cheerless house ; not their sweet home at Grass- 
 dale, with the ivy round its porch, and the quiet 'church behind. 
 The sun was setting slowly, and Ellinor drew the blind to shade 
 the glare from her sister's eye. 
 
 Madeline felt the kindness, and smiled. Ellinor wiped her 
 eyes and tried to smile again. The carriage stopped, and 
 Madeline was lifted out; she stood, supported by her father and 
 Ellinor, for a moment on the threshold. She looked on the 
 golden sun and the gentle earth, and the little motes dancing
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 403 
 
 in the western ray all was steeped in quiet, and full of the 
 peace and tranquillity of the pastoral life ! " No, no," she 
 muttered, grasping her father's hand. " How is this ? this is 
 not his hand ! Ah, no, no ; I am not with him 1 Father," she 
 added, in a louder and deeper voice, rising from his breast, and 
 standing alone and unaided ; " father, bury this little packet 
 with me, they are his letters ; do not break the seal, and and 
 tell him that I never felt how deeply I loved him till all the 
 world had deserted him! " 
 
 She uttered a faint cry of pain, and fell at once to the 
 ground ; she lived a few hours longer, but never made speech 
 or sign, or evinced token of life but its breath, which died at 
 last gradually imperceptibly away. 
 
 On the following evening Walter obtained entrance to Aram's 
 cell : that morning the prisoner had seen Lester ; that morning 
 he had heard of Madeline's death. He had shed no tear; "he 
 had, in the affecting language of Scripture, " turned his face to 
 the wall ;" none had seen his emotions; yet Lester felt in that 
 bitter interview that his daughter was duly mourned. 
 
 Aram did not lift his eyes when Walter was admitted, and 
 the young man stood almost at his knee before he perceived 
 him. Aram then looked up, and they gazed on each other 
 for a moment, but without speaking, till Walter said in a hollow 
 voice, 
 
 " Eugene Aram ! " 
 
 "Ay!" 
 
 " Madeline Lester is no more." 
 
 "I have heard it! Lam reconciled. Better now than later." 
 
 " Aram ! " said Walter, in a tone trembling with emotion, and 
 passionately clasping his hands, "I entreat, I implore you, at 
 this awful time, if it be within your power, to lift from my heart 
 a load that weighs it to the dust, that, if left there, will make 
 me through life a crushed and miserable man : I implore you, 
 in the name of common humanity, by your hopes of heaven, to 
 remove it ! The time now has irrevocably passed when your 
 denial or your confession could alter your doom ; your days are 
 numbered ; there is no hope of reprieve ; I implore you, then, if 
 you were led I will not ask how, or wherefore to the execution 
 
 C C 2
 
 404 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 of the crime for the charge of which you die, to say, to whisper 
 to me but one word of confession, and I, the sole child of the 
 murdered man, will forgive you from the bottom of my soul." 
 
 Walter paused, unable to proceed. 
 
 Aram's brow worked ; he turned aside ; he made no answer ; 
 his head dropped on his bosom, and his eyes were unmovedly 
 fixed on the earth. 
 
 " Reflect," continued Walter, recovering himself, " reflect I 
 I have been the involuntary instrument in bringing you to this 
 awful fate, in destroying the happiness of my own house, in 
 in in breaking the heart of the woman whom I adored even 
 as a boy. If you be innocent, what a dreadful remembrance is 
 left to me ! Be merciful, Aram ! be merciful : and if this deed 
 was done by' your hand, say to me but one word to remove the 
 terrible uncertainty that now harrows up my being. What now 
 is earth, is man, is opinion, to you ? God only now can judge 
 you. The eye of God reads your heart while I speak ; and, in 
 the awful hour when eternity opens to you, if the guilt has been 
 indeed committed, think, oh, think how much lighter will be 
 your offence if, by vanquishing the stubborn heart, you can 
 relieve a human being from a doubt that otherwise will make 
 the curse the horror of an existence. Aram, Aram, if the 
 father's death came from you, shall the life of the son be made 
 a burthen to him through you also?" 
 
 " What would you have of me ? speak ! " said Aram, but 
 without lifting his face from his breast. 
 
 " Much of your nature belies this crime. You are wise, calm, 
 beneficent to the distressed. Revenge, passion, nay, the sharp 
 pangs of hunger may have urged you to one criminal deed : but 
 your soul is not wholly hardened : nay, I think I can so far 
 tiust you, that if at this dread moment the clay of Madeline 
 Lester scarce yet cold, woe busy and softening at your breast, 
 and the son of the murdered dead before you ; if at this 
 moment you can lay your hand on your heart, and say, ' Before 
 God, and at peril of my soul, I am innocent of this deed,' I 
 will depart, I will believe you, and bear, as bear I may, the 
 reflection, that I have been one of the unconscious agents in 
 condemning to a fearful death an innocent man! If innocent
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 405 
 
 in this how good, how perfect, in all else . But, if you cannot 
 at so dark a crisis take that oath, then ! oh then ! be just be 
 generous, even in guilt, and let me not be haunted throughout 
 life 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 the breast of one naturally bold and fiery, when it thus 
 humbled the very son of 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 ; not once in that 
 trial had he taken his eyes from the prisoner, and he had felt, 
 like a bolt of ice through his heart, that the sentence passed on 
 the accused, his judgment could not have passed ! How dreadful 
 must, then, have been the state of his mind when, repairing to 
 Lester's house, he found it the house of death the pure, the 
 beautiful spirit gone the father mourning for his child, and not 
 to be comforted and Ellinor ? No ! scenes like these, thoughts 
 like these, pluck the pride from a man's heart ! 
 
 " Walter Lester ! " said Aram, after a pause ; but raising his 
 head with dignity, though on the features there was but one 
 expression woe, unutterable woe; "Walter Lester! I had 
 thought to quit life with my tale untold ; but you have not 
 appealed to me in vain ! I tear the self from my heart ! I 
 renounce the last haughty dream in which I wrapt myself from 
 the ills around me. You shall learn all, and judge accordingly. 
 But to your ear the tale can scarce be told : the son cannot 
 hear in silence that which, unless I too unjustly, too wholly 
 condemn myself, I must say of the dead ! But time," continued 
 Aram, mutteringly, and with his eyes on vacancy, " time does 
 not press too fast. Better let the hand speak than the 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 the day after to-morrow, about seven in the evening 
 the eve before that morn fated to be my last come to me. 
 At that time I will place in your hands a paper containing the 
 whole history that connects myself with your father. On the 
 word of a man on the brink of another world, no truth that 
 imports your interest therein shall be omitted. But read it not
 
 406 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 till I am no more ; and when read, confide the tale to none rill 
 Lester's grey hairs have gone to the grave. This swear ! 'tis an 
 oath difficult perhaps to 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 his turn. " The 
 time is near when you will know all ! Tarry that time, and 
 leave me ! Yes, leave me now at once leave me." 
 
 To dwell lingenngly over those passages which excite pain 
 without satisfying curiosity, is scarcely the duty of the drama, or 
 of that province even nobler than the drama ; for it requires 
 minuter care indulges in more complete description yields to 
 more elaborate investigation of motives commands a greater 
 variety of chords in the human heart to which, with poor and 
 feeble power for so high, yet so ill-appreciated a task we now, 
 not irreverently if rashly, aspire ! 
 
 We glance not around us at the chamber of death at the 
 broken heart of Lester at the twofold agony of his surviving 
 child the agony which mourns and yet seeks to console another 
 the mixed emotions of Walter, in which an unsleeping eager- 
 ness to learn the fearful all formed the main part the solitary 
 cell and solitary heart of the convicted we glance not at these ; 
 we pass at once to the evening in which Aram again saw Walter 
 Lester, and for the last time. 
 
 " You are come, punctual to the hour," said he, in a low clear 
 voice : " I have not forgotten my word ; the fulfilment of that 
 promise has been a victory over myself which no man can 
 appreciate : but I owed it to you. I have discharged the debt. 
 Enough ! I have done more than I at first purposed. I have 
 extended my narration, but superficially in some parts, over my 
 life: that prolixity, perhaps, I owed to myself. Remember your 
 promise : this seal is not broken till the pulse is stilled in the 
 hand which now gives you these papers ! " 
 
 Walter renewed his oath, and Aram, pausing for a moment, 
 continued in an altered and softening voice, 
 
 "Be kind to Lester: soothe, console him ; never by a hint 
 let him think otherwise of me than he does. For his sake more
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 407 
 
 than mine I ask this. Venerable, kind old man ! the warmth 
 of human affection has rarely glowed for me. To the few who 
 loved me, how deeply I have repaid the love ! But these are 
 not words to pass between you and me. Farewell ! Yet, before 
 we part, say this much : whatever I have revealed in this con- 
 fession, whatever has been my wrong to you, or whatever (a 
 less offence) the language 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 bring. 1 ; the death that to-morrow 
 awaits me," said Aram, in a deep tone, " be that forgiveness 
 accorded to yourself! Farewell In that untried variety of 
 being which spreads beyond us, who knows but that, in our 
 several progress from grade to grade, and world to world, our 
 souls, though in far distant ages, may meet again ! one dim 
 and shadowy memory of this hour the link between us : farewell 
 farewell!" 
 
 For the reader's interest we think it better (and certainly it is 
 more immediately in the due course of narrative, if not of actual 
 events) to lay 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 a confession, not of deeds 
 alone, but of thoughts how wild and entangled of feelings how 
 strange and dark of a starred soul that had wandered from how 
 proud an orbit, to what perturbed and unholy regions of night 
 and chaos ! For me, I have not sought to derive the reader's 
 interest from the vulgar sources that such a tale might have 
 afforded ; I have suffered him, almost from the beginning, to 
 pierce into Aram's secret; and I have prepared him for that 
 guilt, with which other narrators of this story might have only 
 sought to surprise.
 
 405 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 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 woeful ages long ago betid : 
 
 And ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief, 
 
 Tell them the lamentable fall of me. Kuhard //. 
 
 " I WAS born at Ramsgill, a little village in Netherdale. My 
 family had originally been of some rank ; they were formerly 
 lords of the town of Aram, on the southern banks of the Tees. 
 But time had humbled these pretensions to consideration ; though 
 they were still fondly cherished by the inheritors of an ancient 
 name, and idle but haughty recollections. My father resided on 
 a small farm, and was especially skilful in horticulture, a taste I 
 derived from him. When I was about thirteen, the deep and 
 intense passion that has made the demon of my life, first stirred 
 palpably within me. I had always been, from my cradle, of a 
 solitary disposition, and inclined to reverie and musing ; these 
 traits of character heralded the love that now seized me the 
 love of knowledge. Opportunity or accident first directed my 
 attention to the abstruser sciences. I poured my soul over that 
 noble study, which is the be^t foundation of all true discovery; 
 and the success I met with soon turned my pursuits into more 
 alluring channels. History, poetry, the mastery of the past, 
 and the spell that admits us into the visionary world, took the 
 place which lines and numbers had done before. I became 
 gradually more and more rapt and solitary in my habits ; know- 
 ledge assumed a yet more lovely and bewitching character, and 
 every day the passion to attain it increased upon me ; I do not, 
 I have not now the heart to do it enlarge upon what I 
 acquired without assistance, and with labour sweet in proportion 
 to its intensity. 1 The world, the creation, all things that lived, 
 
 1 We le.irn from a letter of Eugene Aram's now extant, that his method of acquiring 
 the learned langtiages was to linger over five lines at a time, an-1 neTor to quit a 
 nil he ihuuglit he had comprehended its meaning.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 409 
 
 moved, and were, became to me objects contributing to one pas- 
 sionate, and I fancied, one exalted end. I suffered the lowlier 
 pleasures of life, and the charms of its more common ties, to 
 glide away from me untasted and unfelt As you read, in the 
 East, of men remaining motionless for days together, with their 
 eyes fixed upon the heavens, my mind, absorbed in the contem- 
 plation of the things above its reach, had no sight of what passed 
 around. My parents died, and I was an orphan. I had no home, 
 and no wealth ; but wherever the field contained a flower, or the 
 heavens a star, there was matter of thought, 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 that part 
 of God's works from which I could learn the least. I came to 
 Knaresbro' ; the beauty of the country, a facility in acquiring 
 books from a neighbouring library that was open to me, made 
 me resolve to settle there. And now, new desires opened upon 
 me with new stores : I became haunted with the ambition to 
 enlighten and instruct my race. At first, I had loved knowledge 
 solely for itself; I now saw afar an object grander than know- 
 ledge. To what end, said I, are these labours ? Why do I feed 
 a lamp which consumes itself in a desert place ? Why do I heap 
 up riches, without asking who shall gather them ? I was restless 
 and discontented. What could I do ? I was friendless ; I was 
 strange to my kind ; I saw my desires checked when their aim 
 was at the highest : all that was aspiring in my hopes, and ardent 
 in my nature, was cramped and chilled. I exhausted the learn- 
 ing within my reach. Where, with my appetite excited, not 
 slaked, was I, destitute and penniless, to search for more ? My 
 abilities, by bowing them to the lowliest tasks, but kept me from 
 famine : was this to be my lot for ever ? And all the while I 
 was grinding down my soul in order to satisfy the vile physical 
 wants, what golden hours, what glorious advantages, what open- 
 ings into new heavens of science, what chance of illuminating 
 mankind were for ever lost to me ! Sometimes, when the young, 
 to whom I taught some homely elements of knowledge, came 
 around me ; when they looked me in the face with their laughing 
 eyes ; when, for they all loved me, they told me their little 
 pleasures and their petty sorrows, I have wished that I could
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 have gone back again into childhood, and, becoming as one of 
 them, enter into that heaven of quiet which was denied me now. 
 Yet it was more often with an indignant than a sorrowful spirit 
 that I looked upon my lot. For, there, lay my life imprisoned 
 in penury as in the walls of a gad Heaven smiled and earth 
 blossomed around, but how scale the stern barriers ? how steal 
 through the inexorable gate ? True, that by bodily labour I 
 could give food to the body to starve by such labour the craving 
 wants of the mind. Beg I could not. When ever 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 show the sores of my pride, and strip my heart from its 
 clothing, and ask the dull fools of wealth not to let a scholar 
 starve ? No ! he whom the vilest poverty ever stooped to this, 
 may be the quack, but never the true disciple of Learning. What 
 did I then ? I devoted the meanest part of my knowledge to 
 the procuring the bare means of life, and the knowledge that 
 pierced to the depths of earth, and numbered the stars of heaven 
 why, that was valueless in the market ! 
 
 " In Knarsbro', at this time, I met a distant relation, Richard 
 Houseman. Sometimes in our walks we encountered each other ; 
 for he sought me, and I could 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 mystery to 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. Why is this ? The world is my treasury. I live 
 upon my kind. Society is my foe. Laws order me to starve ; 
 but self-preservation is an instinct more sacred than society, and 
 more imperious than laws.' 
 
 " The audacity of his discourse revolted me. At first I turned 
 away in disgust ; then I stood and heard to ponder and inquire. 
 Nothing so tasks the man of books as his first blundering guess 
 at the problems of a guilty heart! Houseman had been a 
 soldier ; he had seen the greatest part of Europe ; he possessed a 
 strong, shrewd sense ; he was z\ villain ; but a villain bold, 
 adroit, and not then thoroughly unredeemed. Trouble seized 
 me as I heard him, and the shadow of his life s'/retched
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 4" 
 
 farther and darker over the wilderness of mine. When House- 
 man asked me, ' What law befriended the man without money ? 
 to what end I had cultivated my mind ? or what good the 
 voice of knowledge could effect while Poverty forbade it to be 
 heard ? ' the answer died upon my lips. Then I sought to 
 escape from these terrible doubts. I plunged again into my 
 books. I called upon my intellect to defend, and my intellect 
 betrayed me. For suddenly as I pored over my scanty books, 
 a gigantic discovery in science gleamed across me. I saw the 
 means of effecting a vast benefit to truth and to man of adding 
 a new conquest to that only empire which no fate can overthrow, 
 and no time wear away. And in this discovery I was stopped 
 by the total inadequacy of my means. The books and imple- 
 ments I required were not within my reach a handful of gold 
 would buy them I had not wherewithal to buy bread for the 
 morrow's meal ! In my solitude and misery this discovery 
 haunted me like a visible form it smiled upon me a fiend 
 that took the aspect of beauty it wooed me to its charms 
 that it might lure my soul into its fangs. I heard it murmur, 
 ' One bold deed and I am thine ! Wilt thou lie down in the 
 ditch and die the dog's death, or hazard thy life for the means 
 that may serve and illumine the world ? Shrinkest thou from 
 men's laws, though the laws bid thee rot on their outskirts ? Is 
 it not for the service of man that thou shouldst for once break 
 the law on behalf of that knowledge from which all laws take 
 their source ? If thou wrongest the one, thou shalt repay it in 
 boons to the million. For the ill of an hour thou shalt give 
 a blessing to ages ! ' So spoke to me the tempter. And one 
 day, when the tempter spoke loudest, Houseman met me, accom- 
 panied by a stranger who had just visited our town, for what 
 purpose you know already. His name supposed name was 
 Clarke. Man, I am about to speak plainly of that stranger 
 his character and his fate. And yet yet you are his son ! I 
 would fain soften the colouring ; but I speak truth of myself, 
 and I must not, unless I would blacken my name yet deeper 
 than it deserves, varnish truth when I speak of others. House- 
 man joined, and presented to me this person. From the first I 
 felt a dislike of the stranger, which indeed it was easy to account
 
 4 t a EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 for. He was of a careless and somewhat insolent manner. His 
 countenance was impressed with the lines and characters of a 
 thousand vices : you read in the brow and eye the history of a 
 sordid yet reckless life. His conversation was repellent to me 
 beyond expression. He uttered the meanest sentiments, and he 
 chuckled over them as the maxims of a superior sagacity ; he 
 avowed himself a knave upon system, and upon the lowest scale. 
 To overreach, to deceive, to elude, to shuffle, to fawn, and to lie, 
 were the arts to which he confessed with so naked and cold a 
 grossness, that one perceived that in the long habits of debase- 
 ment he was unconscious of what was not debased. Houseman 
 seemed to draw him out : Clarke told us anecdotes of his ras- 
 cality, and the distresses to which it had brought him ; and he 
 finished by saying : ' Yet you see me now almost rich, and 
 wholly contented. I have always been the luckiest of human 
 beings : no matter what ill chances to-day, good turns up 
 to-morrow. I confess that I bring on myself the ill, and Pro- 
 vidence sends me the good.' We met accidentally more than 
 once, and his conversation was always of the same strain his 
 luck and his rascality: he had no other theme, and no other 
 boast And did not this aid the voice of the tempter ? Was 
 it not an ordination that called upon men to take fortune in 
 their own hands, when Fate lavished her rewards on this low 
 and creeping thing, that could only enter even Vice by its sewers 
 and alleys ? Was it worth while to be virtuous and look on, 
 while the bad seized upon the feast of life ? This man was but 
 moved by the basest passions, the pettiest desires ; he gratified 
 them, and Fate smiled upon his daring. I, who had shut out 
 from my heart the poor temptations of sense I, who fed only 
 the most glorious visions, the most august desires I, denied 
 myself their fruition, trembling and spellbound in the cere- 
 ments of human laws, without hope, without reward losing the 
 very powers of virtue because I would not stray into crime ! 
 
 "These thoughts fell on me darkly and rapidly; but they led 
 as yet 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 my growth of 
 mind. Strange that while I upbraided Fate, I did not cease
 
 U.LGENE ARAM. 4>3 
 
 to love mankind. I coveted what ? the power to serve them. 
 I had been kind and loving to all things from a boy ; there was 
 not a dumb animal that would not single me from a crowd as its 
 protector, 1 and yet I was doomed but I must not forestall the 
 dread catastrophe of my life. In returning, at night, to my own 
 home, from my long and solitary walks, I often passed the house 
 in which Clarke lodged ; and sometimes I met him reeling by 
 the door, insulting all who passed ; and yet their resentment was 
 absorbed in their disgust. 'And this loathsome and grovelling 
 thing,' said I, inly, ' squanders on low excesses, wastes upon out- 
 rages to society, that with which I could make my soul as a 
 burning lamp that should shed a light over the world ! ' 
 
 "There was that in the man's vices which revolted me far more 
 than the villany of Houseman. The latter had possessed few 
 advantages of education ; he descended to no minutiae of sin ; 
 he was a plain, blunt, coarse wretch, and his sense threw 
 something respectable around his vices. But in Clarke you saw 
 the traces of happier opportunities ; of better education ; it was 
 in him not the coarseness of manner that displeased, it was the 
 lowness of sentiment that sickened me. Had Houseman money 
 in his purse, he would have paid a debt and relieved a friend 
 from mere indifference ; not so the other. Had Clarke been 
 overflowing with wealth, he would have slipped from a creditor 
 and duped a friend ; there was a pitiful cunning in his nature, 
 which made him regard the lowest meanness as the subtlest wit. 
 His mind, too, was not only degraded, but broken by his habits 
 of life; he had the laugh of the idiot at his own debasement. 
 Houseman was young ; he might amend ; but Clarke had grey 
 hairs and dim eyes ; was old in constitution, if not years ; and 
 everything in him was hopeless and confirmed : the leprosy was 
 in the system. Time, in this, has made Houseman what Clarke 
 was then. 
 
 1 All the authentic anecdotes of Aram corroborate the fact of his natural gentleness 
 to all things. A clergyman (the Kev. Mr. Hinton) sa : d that he used frequently to 
 observe Aram, when walking in the garden, stoop down to remove a snail or worm 
 from the path, to prevent i's being destroyed. Mr. Hinton ingeniously conjectured 
 that Aram wished to atone for his crime by showing mercy to every animal and insect ; 
 but the fact is, that there are several anecdotes to show that he was equally humane 
 bcjore the crime was committed. Such are the strange contradictions of the human 
 heart.
 
 4i 4 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " One day, in passing through the street, though it was broad 
 noon, I encountered Clarke in a state of intoxication, and 
 talking to a crowd he had collected around him. I sought to 
 pass in an opposite direction ; he would not suffer me ; he, 
 whom I sickened to touch, to see, threw himself in my way, and 
 affected gibe and insult, nay, even threat. But when he came 
 near, he shrank before the mere glance of my eye, and I passed 
 on, unheeding him. The insult galled me ; he had taunted 
 my poverty poverty was a favourite jest with him ; it galled 
 me : anger ? revenge ? no ! those passions I had never felt for 
 any man. I could not rouse them for the first time at such 
 a cause ; yet I was lowered in my own eyes, I was stung. 
 Poverty ! he taunt me ! I wandered from the town, and paused 
 by the winding and shagged banks of the river. It was a gloomy 
 winter's day, the waters rolled on black and sullen, and the dry 
 leaves rustled desolately beneath my feet. Who shall tell us 
 that outward nature has no effect upon our mood ? All around 
 seemed to frown upon my lot. I read in the face of heaven and 
 earth a confirmation of the curse which man hath set upon 
 poverty. I leaned against a tree that overhung the waters, and 
 suffered my thoughts to glide on in the bitter silence of their 
 course. I heard my name uttered I felt a hand on my arm, I 
 turned, and Houseman was by my side. 
 
 "' What ! moralising ?' said he, with his rude smile. 
 
 44 1 did not answer him. 
 
 44 'Look/ said he, pointing to the waters, 'where yonder fish 
 lies waiting his prey, that prey his kind. Come, you have read 
 Nature, is it not so universally ? ' 
 
 * Still I did not answer him. 
 
 44 ' They who do not as the rest,' he renewed, ' fulfil not the 
 object of their existence ; they seek to be wiser than their tribe 
 and are fools for their pains. Is it not so ? I am a plain man, 
 and would learn. 
 
 44 Still I did not answer him. 
 
 44 ' You are silent,' said he : ' do I offend you ? ' 
 
 44 'No!' 
 
 44 4 Now, then/ he continued, 'strange as it may seem, we, so 
 different in mind, are at this moment alike in fortunes. I have
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 415 
 
 not a guinea in the wide world ; you, perhap", are equally 
 destitute. But mark the difference. I the ignorant man, ere 
 three days have passed, will have filled my purse ; you, the wise 
 man, will be still as poor. Come, cast away your wisdom, and 
 do as I do.' 
 
 " ' How ? ' 
 
 " ' Take from the superfluities of others what your necessities 
 crave. My horse, my pistol, a ready hand, a stout heart, these 
 are to me what coffers are to others. There is the chance of 
 detection and death ; I allow it ; but is not this chance better 
 than some certainties ? ' 
 
 " The tempter with the glorious face and the demon fangs rose 
 again before me and spoke in the robber's voice. 
 
 "'Will you share the danger and the booty?' renewed 
 Houseman, in a low voice. 
 
 " ' Speak out,' said I ; ' explain your purpose ! ' 
 
 " Houseman's looks brightened. 
 
 " ' Listen ! ' said he ; ' Clarke, despite his present wealth law- 
 fully gained, is about to purloin more ; he has converted his 
 legacy into jewels; he has borrowed other jewels on false 
 pretences ; he intends to make these also his own, and to leave 
 the town in the dead of night ; he has confided to me his purpose, 
 and asked my aid. He and I, be it known to you, were friends 
 of old ; we have shared together other dangers and other spoils. 
 Now do you guess my meaning ? Let us ease him of his burden ! 
 I offer to you the half; share the enterprise and its fruits.' 
 
 " I rose, I walked away, I pressed my hands on my heart. 
 Houseman saw the conflict : he followed me ; he named the 
 value of the prize he proposed to gain ; that which he called my 
 share placed all my wishes within my reach ! Leisure, inde- 
 pendence, knowledge. The sub'ime Discovery the possession 
 of the glorious Fiend. All, all within my grasp and by a single 
 deed no frauds oft repeated no sins long continued a single 
 deed ! I breathed heavily but the weight still lay upon my 
 heart. I shut my eyes and shuddered the mortal shuddered, 
 but still the demon smiled. 
 
 " ' Give me your hand,' said Houseman. 
 
 " ' No, no,' I said, breaking away from him. ' I must pause
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 I must consider I do not yet refuse, but I will not no\v 
 decide.' 
 
 " Houseman pressed, but I persevered in my determination ; 
 he would have threatened 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 the next night was the one on 
 which the robbery was to be committed. We parted I returned 
 an altered man to my home. Fate had woven her mesh around 
 me a new incident had occurred which strengthened the web: 
 there was a poor girl whom I had been accustomed to see in my 
 walks. She supported her family by her dexterity in making 
 lace, a quiet, patient-looking, gentle creature. Clarke had, a few 
 days since, under pretence of purchasing lace, decoyed her to his 
 house (when all but himself were from home), where he used the 
 most brutal violence towards her. The extreme poverty of the 
 parents had enabled him easily to persuade them to hush up the 
 matter, but something of the story got abroad ; the poor girl 
 was marked out for that gossip and scandal which among the 
 very lowest classes are as coarse in the expression as malignant 
 in the sentiment ; and in the paroxysm of shame and despair 
 the unfortunate girl had that day destroyed herself. This 
 melancholy event wrung forth from the parents the real 
 story : the event and the story reached my ears at the very hour 
 in which my mind was wavering to and fro. ' And it is to such 
 uses,' said the tempter, ' that this man puts his gold ! ' 
 
 " Houseman came punctual to our dark appointment. I gave 
 him my hand in silence. The tragic end of his victim, and the 
 indignation it caused, made Clarke yet more eager to leave the 
 town. He had settled with Houseman that he would abscond 
 that very night, not wait for the next, as at first he had intended. 
 His jewels and property were put in a small compass. He had 
 arranged that he would, towards midnight or later, quit his 
 lodging ; and about a mile from the town, Houseman had 
 engaged to have a chaise in readiness. For this service Clarke 
 had promised Houseman a reward, with which the latter appeared 
 contented. It was agreed that I should meet Houseman and 
 Clarke at a certain spot in their way from the town. Houseman 
 appeared at first fearful, lest I should relent and waver in my
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 417 
 
 purpose. It is never so with men whose thoughts are deep and 
 strong. To resolve was the arduous step once resolved, 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 the abodes of men. Nature never 
 seemed to me to make so dread a pause. 
 
 "The moon came out, but with a pale and sickly countenance. 
 It was winter; the snow, which had been falling towards eve, 
 lay deep upon the ground ; and the frost seemed to lock tha 
 universal nature into the same dread tranquillity which had 
 taken possession of my soul. 
 
 " Houseman was to have come to me at midnight, just before 
 Clarke left his house, but it was nearly two hours after that time 
 ere he arrived. I was then 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 just going home. You 
 were engaged, I recollect, at some distance from the town, and 
 have, I suppose, just returned. Will you admit Mr. Clarke and 
 myself for a short time ? for to tell you the truth,' said he, in a 
 lower voice ' the watchman is about, and we must not be seen 
 by him ! I have told Clarke that he may trust you, we are 
 relatives ! ' 
 
 " Clarke, who seemed strangely credulous and indifferent, 
 considering the character of his associate, but those whom 
 Fate destroys she first blinds, made the same request in a 
 careless tone, assigning the same cause. Unwillingly, I opened 
 the door and admitted them. We went up to my chamber. 
 Clarke spoke with the utmost unconcern of the fraud he 
 purposed, and with a heartlessness that made my veins boil, of 
 the poor wretch his brutality had destroyed. They stayed for 
 nearly an hour, for the watchman remained some time in that 
 beat and then Houseman asked me to accompany them a little 
 way out of the town. Clarke seconded the request. We walked 
 forth : the rest why need I tell ? I cannot O God, I cannot ! 
 Houseman lied in the court. I did not strike the blow I never 
 designed a murder. Crime enough in a robber's deed ! He fell 
 
 D D
 
 4i8 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 he grasped my hand, raised not to strike but to shield him ! 
 Never more has the right hand cursed by that dying clasp been 
 given in pledge of human faith and friendship. But the deed 
 was done, and the robber's comrade, in the eyes of man and law, 
 was the murderer's accomplice. 
 
 " Houseman divided the booty : my share he buried in the 
 earth, leaving me to withdraw it when I chose. There, perhaps, 
 it lies still. I never touched what I had murdered my own life 
 to gain. His share, by the aid of a gipsy hag with whom he 
 had dealings, Houseman removed to London. And now, mark 
 what poor strugglers we are in the eternal web of destiny ! 
 Three days after that deed, a relation who neglected me in 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 a thunderbolt. Had I waited but three little days ! 
 Just Heaven ! when they told me I thought I heard the devils 
 laugh out at the fool who had boastdd wisdom ! Had I waited 
 but three days, three little days ! Had but a dream been sent 
 me, had but my heart cried within me, ' Thou hast suffered 
 long, tarry yet!' 1 No, it was for this, for the guilt and its 
 penance, for the wasted life and the shameful death 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 ex- 
 citement ; those whom he had overreached had naturally an 
 interest in discovering him. Some vague surmises that he might 
 have been made away with were rumoured abroad. Houseman 
 and I, owing to some concurrence of circumstance, were 
 examined, not that suspicion attached to me before or after the 
 
 1 Aram has hitherto been suffered to tell his own tale without comment or inter- 
 ruption. The chain of reasonings, the metaphysical labyrinth of defence and motive, 
 which he wrought around his guilt, it was, in justice to him necessary to give at length, 
 jn order to throw a clearer light on his character and lighten, perhaps, in some 
 measure, the colours of his crime. No moral can be more impressive than that which 
 teaches huw man can entangle himself in his own sophisms that moral is better, 
 viewed aright, than volumes of homilies. But here I must pause for one moment, to 
 bid the reader remark, that that event which confirmed Aram in the bewildering 
 doctrines of his pernicious fatalism, ought rather 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 
 that probably coniinced the mind of Aram, and blinded him to his crime, may be 
 found in tiie change of feelings by which the crime was followed. I must apologise for 
 this mterriiptiun it seemed to me advisable in this place.
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 419 
 
 examination. Tha{ ceremony ended in nothing. Houseman 
 did not betray himself; and I, who from a boy had mastered my 
 passions, could master also the nerves, by which passions are 
 betrayed : but I read in the face of the woman with whom I 
 lodged that I was suspected. Houseman told me that she had 
 openly expressed her suspicion to him ; nay, he entertained some 
 design against her life, which he naturally abandoned on quitting 
 the town. This he did soon afterwards. I did not linger long 
 behind him. I received my legacy, and departed on foot to 
 Scotland. And now I was above want was I at rest ? Not 
 yet. I felt urged on to wander Cain's curse descends to Cain's 
 children. I travelled for some considerable time, I saw 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 a child, despite my knowledge, might have 
 duped me. The moment after it, a light 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 of arms, 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 at war. 
 
 "And what became of the superb ambition which had undone 
 me ? Where vanished that Grand Discovery which was to 
 benefit the world ? The ambition died in remorse, and the 
 vessel that should have borne me to the far Land of Science lay 
 rotting piecemeal on a sea of blood. The Past destroyed my 
 old heritage in the Future. The consciousness that at any hour, 
 in the possession of honours, by the hearth of love, I might be 
 dragged forth and proclaimed a murderer ; that I held my life, 
 my reputation, at the breath of accident; that in the moment I 
 least dreamed of, the earth might yield its dead, and the gibbet 
 demand its victim : this could I feel all this and not see a 
 spectre in the place of science ? a spectre that walked by my 
 side, that slept in my bed, that rose from my books, that glided 
 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 
 
 D D 2
 
 420 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 the reach of fortune, but tliou art her veriest minion ! ' Yes ; I 
 paused at last from my wanderings, and surrounded myself with 
 books, and knowledge became once more to me what it had 
 been, a thirst ; but not what it had been, a reward. I occupied 
 my thoughts, I laid up new hoards within my mind, I looked 
 around, and I saw few whose stores were like my own ; but 
 gone for ever the sublime desire of applying wisdom to the 
 service of mankind ! Mankind had grown my foes. I looked 
 upon them with other eyes. I knew that I carried within me 
 that secret which, if bared to day, would make them loathe and 
 hate me, yea, though I coined my future life into one series of 
 benefits to them and their posterity! Was not this thought 
 enough to quell my ardour to chill activity into rest ? The 
 brighter the honours I might win the greater the services I 
 might bestow on the world, the more dread and fearful might 
 be my fall at last ! I might be but piling up the scaffold from 
 which I was to be hurled ! Possessed by these thoughts, a new 
 view of human affairs succeeded to my old aspirings; the 
 moment a man feels that an object has ceased to charm, his 
 reasonings reconcile himself to his loss. 'Why/ said I; 'why 
 flatter myself that / can serve, that I can enlighten mankind ? 
 Are we fully sure that individual wisdom has ever, in reality, 
 done so? Are we really better because Newton lived, and 
 happier because Bacon thought ? These freezing reflections 
 pleased the present state of my mind more than the warm and 
 yearning enthusiasm it had formerly nourished. Mere worldly 
 ambition from a boy I had disdained ; the true worth of 
 sceptres and crowns, the disquietude of power, the humiliations 
 of vanity had never been disguised from my sight. Intellectual 
 ambition had inspired me. I now regarded it equally as a 
 delusion. I coveted light solely for my own soul to bathe in. 
 
 " Rest now became to me the sole to kalon, the sole charm of 
 existence. I grew enamoured of the doctrine of those old 
 mystics who have placed happiness only in an even and balanced 
 quietude. And where but in utter loneliness was that quietude 
 to be enjoyed ? I no longer wondered that men in former times, 
 when consumed by the recollection of some haunting guilt, fled 
 to the desert and became hermits. Tranquillity and solitude arc
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 421 
 
 the only soothers of a memory deeply troubled light griefs fly 
 to the crowd, fierce thoughts must battle themselves to rest. 
 Many years had flown, and I had made my home in many 
 places. All that was turbulent, if not all that was unquiet, in 
 my recollections, had died away. Time had lulled me into a 
 sense of security. I breathed more freely. I sometimes stole 
 from the past. Since I had quitted Knaresbro' chance had often 
 thrown it in my potver to serve my brethren not by wisdom, 
 but by charity or courage by individual acts that it soothed me 
 to remember. If the grand aim of enlightening a world was 
 gone, if to so enlarged a benevolence had succeeded apathy or 
 despair, still the man, the human man, clung to my heart ; still 
 was I as prone to pity, as prompt to defend, as glad to cheer, 
 whenever the vicissitudes of life afforded me the 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 his 
 door! One tender act and how many black designs, struggling 
 into life within, you may crush for ever ! He who deems the 
 world his foe, convince Jam that he has one friend, and it is like 
 snatching a dagger from his hand ! 
 
 " I came to a beautiful and remote part of the country. 
 Walter Lester, I came to Grassdale ! the enchanting scenery 
 around, the sequestered and deep retirement of the place, arrested 
 me at once. ' And among these valleys,' I said, ' will I linger out 
 the rest of my life, and among these quiet 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, and a deep quiet, almost amounting to content, fell like 
 a sweet sleep upon my soul ! 
 
 " In this state of mind, the most free from memory that I had 
 known for twelve years, I first saw Madeline Lester. Even with 
 that first time a sudden and heavenly light seemed to dawn upon 
 me. Her face its still, its serene, its touching beauty shone 
 down on my desolation like a dream of mercy like a hope of 
 pardon. My heart warmed as I beheld it, my pulse woke 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
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 But I then only saw, or spoke to her scarce knew her not 
 loved her nor was it often that we met. The south wind stirred 
 the dark waters of my mind, but it passed and all became hushed 
 again. It was not for two years from the time we first saw each 
 other that accident brought us closely together. I pass over the 
 rest. We loved ! Yet, oh ! what struggles were mine during the 
 progress of that love! How unnatural did it seem to me to 
 yield to a passion that united me to my kind ; and as I loved 
 her more, how far more torturing grew my fear of the future ! 
 That which had almost slept before awoke again to terrible life. 
 The soil that covered the past might be riven, the dead awake, 
 and that ghastly chasm separate me for ever from HER ! What 
 a doom, too, might I bring upon that breast which had begun 
 so confidingly to love me ! Often often I resolved to fly to 
 forsake 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 bird flutters in the net, as the hare doubles from its 
 pursuers, I did but wrestle, I did but trifle, with an irresistible 
 doom. Mark how strange are the coincidences of Fate Fate 
 that gives us warnings, and takes away the power to obey them 
 the idle prophetess, the juggling fiend ! On the same 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 night I opened the door of my lonely home to 
 his summons, and by the light of that moon which had witnessed 
 so never-to-be-forgotten a companionship between us, beheld my 
 accomplice in murder after the lapse of so many years. Time 
 and a course of vice, had changed, and hardened, and lowered his 
 nature : and in the power, at the will of that nature, I beheld 
 myself abruptly placed. He passed that night under my roof. 
 He was poor. I gave him what was in my hands. He promised 
 to leave that part of England to seek me no more. 
 
 "The next day I could not bear my own thoughts, the 
 revulsion was too sudden, too full of turbulent, fierce torturing 
 emotions ; I fled for a short relief to the house to which Madeline's 
 father had invited me. But in vain I sought, by wine, by converse, 
 by human voices, human kindness, to fly the ghost that had been
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 423 
 
 /aised from the grave of time. I soon returned to my own 
 thoughts. I resolved to wrap myself once more in the solitude 
 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 wither beneath the poison tree of mine. House- 
 man sought me again ; and now came on the humbling part of 
 crime, its low calculations, its poor defence, its paltry trickery, 
 its mean hypocrisy ! They made my chiefest penance ! I was 
 to evade, to beguile to buy into silence, this rude and despised 
 ruffian. No matter now to repeat how this task was fulfilled : 
 I surrendered nearly my all on the condition of his leaving 
 England for ever : not till I thought that condition already 
 fulfilled, till the day had passed on which he should have left 
 England, did I consent to allow Madeline's fate to be irrevocably 
 woven with mine. 
 
 " How often, when the soul sins, are her loftiest feelings 
 punished through her lowest ! To me, lone, rapt, for ever on 
 the wing to unearthly speculation, galling and humbling Avas it, 
 indeed, to be suddenly called from the eminence of thought, to 
 barter in pounds and pence for life, and with one like Houseman ! 
 These are the curses that deepen the tragedy of life, by grinding 
 down our pride. But I wander back to what I have before said. 
 I was to marry Madeline, I was once more poor, but want did 
 not rise before me ; I had succeeded in obtaining the promise of a 
 competence from one whom you know. For that which I had 
 once sought to force from my kind, I asked now, not with the 
 spirit of the beggar, but of the just claimant, 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 
 to be mine ; I surrendered myself to love, and, blind ad deluded, 
 I wandered on, and awoke on the brink of that precipice into 
 which I am about to plunge. You know the rest. But oh ! 
 what now was my horror ! It had not been a mere worthless, 
 isolated unit in creation that I had seen blotted out of the sum of 
 life, the murder done in my presence, and of which Law would 
 deem me the accomplice, had been done upon the brother of 
 him whose child was my betrothed ! M) sterious avenger
 
 424 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 relentless Fate! How, when I deemed myself the farthest 
 from her, had I been sinking into her grasp ! How incalculable 
 -how measureless how viewless the consequences of one crime, 
 even when we think we have weighed them all with scales that 
 have turned with a hair's weight ! Hear me as the voice of 
 a man who is on the brink of a world, the awful nature of which 
 reason cannot pierce hear me ! when your heart tempts to some 
 wandering from the line allotted to the rest of men, and whispers, 
 4 This may be crime in others, but is not so in thee ; or, it is but 
 one misdeed, it shall entail no other/ tremble ; cling fast, fast 
 to the path you are lured to leave. Remember me 1 
 
 " But in this state of mind I was yet forced to play the 
 hypocrite. Had I been alone in the world had Madeline and 
 Lester not been to me what they were, I might have disproved 
 the charge of fellowship in murder I might have wrung from 
 the pale lips of Houseman the actual truth but though I might 
 clear myself as the murderer, I must condemn myself as the 
 robber and in avowal of that lesser guilt, though I might have 
 lessened the abhorrence of others, I should have inflicted a blow, 
 worse than that of my death itself, on the hearts of those who 
 deemed me sinless as themselves. Their eyes were on me ; their 
 lives were set on my complete acquittal, less even of life than 
 honour ; my struggle against truth was less for myself than 
 them. My defence fulfilled its end : Madeline died without 
 distrusting the innocence of him she loved. Lester, unless you 
 betray me, will die in the same belief. In truth, since the arts of 
 hypocrisy have been commenced, the pride of consistency would 
 have made it sweet to me to leave the world in a like error, or at 
 least in doubt. For you I conquer that desire, the proud man's 
 last frailty. And now my tale is done. From what passes at 
 this instant within my heart, I lift not the veil ! Whether beneath 
 be despair, 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 death I will not play the dastard, and tremble at the 
 Dim Unknown. Perhaps I am not without hope that the Great 
 Unseen Spirit, whose emanation within me I have nursed and 
 worshipped, though erringly and in vain, may see in his fallen 
 creature one bewildered by his reason rather than yieldiag to his
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 425 
 
 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 guilty deed, some good, and much suffering may be 
 set; and dim and afar off from my allotted bourn, I may behold 
 in her glorious home the face of her who taught me to love, and 
 who, even there, could scarce be blessed 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 inspirings that have lifted me so often from 
 sense and clay, these tell me, that, whether for good or ill, I am 
 the thing of an Immortality, and the creature of a God ! As 
 men of the old wisdom drew their garments around their face, 
 and sat down collectedly to die, I wrap myself in the settled 
 resignation of a soul firm to the last, and taking not from man's 
 vengeance even the method of its dismissal. The courses of my 
 life I swayed with my own hand ; from mine own hand shall 
 come the manner and moment of death ! 
 
 "EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "August, 1759." 
 
 On the day after that evening in which Aram had given -the 
 above confession to Walter Lester on the day of execution, 
 when they entered the condemned cell, they found the prisoner 
 lying on the bed j'and when they approached to take off the irons, 
 they found that he neither stirred nor answered to their call. 
 They attempted to raise him, and he then uttered some words 
 in a faint voice. They perceived that he was covered with blood. 
 He had opened his veins in two places in the arm with a sharp 
 instrument which he had contrived to conceal. A surgeon was 
 instantly sent for, and by the customary applications the prisoner 
 in some measure was brought to himself. Resolved not to 
 defraud the law of its victim, they bore him, though he appeared 
 unconscious of all around, to the fatal spot. But when he 
 arrived at that dread place, his sense suddenly seemed to re- 
 turn. He looked hastily round the throng that swayed and 
 mumured below, and a faint flush rose to his cheek : he cast 
 his eyes impatiently above, and breathed hard and convulsively,
 
 426 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 The dire preparations were made, completed ; but the prisoner 
 drew back for an instant was it from mortal fear ? He motioned 
 to the clergyman to approach, as if about to whisper some last 
 request in his ear. The clergyman bowed his head, there was 
 a minute's awful pause Aram seemed to struggle as for words, 
 when, suddenly throwing himself back, a bright triumphant 
 smile flashed over his whole face. With that smile the haughty 
 spirit passed away, and the law's last indignity was wreaked 
 upon a breathless corpse t 
 
 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. THK 
 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 i 
 Times goes by turns, and chances change by course 
 From foul to fair. Robert Southwell. 
 
 SOMETIMES, towards the end of a gloomy day, the sun, be- 
 fore but dimly visible, breaks suddenly out, and where before 
 you had noticed only the sterner outline of the mountains, you 
 turn with relief to the lowlier features of the vale. So in this 
 record of crime and sorrow, the ray that breaks forth at the 
 close, brings into gentle light the shapes which the earlier 
 darkness had obscured. 
 
 It was some years after the date of the last event we have 
 recorded, and it was a fine warm noon in the happy month of 
 May, when a horseman rode slowly thnugh the long, straggling 
 village of Grassdale. He was a man, though in the prime of 
 youth (for he might yet want some two years of thirty), who 
 bore the steady and earnest air of one who has wrestled with 
 the world ; his eye keen but tranquil ; his sunburnt though hand- 
 some features, which thought, or care, had despoiled of llie 
 roundness of their early contour, leaving the cheek somewhat
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 427 
 
 sunken, and the lines somewhat marked, were characterised by 
 a grave, and at that moment by a melancholy and soft expres- 
 sion ; and now, as his horse proceeded slowly through the green 
 lane, which at every vista gave glimpses of rich verdant valleys, 
 the sparkling river, or the orchard ripe with the fragrant blos- 
 soms of spring, his head drooped upon his breast, and the tears 
 started to his eyes. The dress of the horseman was of foreign 
 fashion, and at that day, when the garb still denoted the calling, 
 sufficiently military to show the profession he had belonged to. 
 And well did the garb become the short dark moustache, the 
 sinewy chest, and length of limb, of the young horseman ; 
 recommendations, the two latter, not despised in the court of 
 the great Frederick of Prussia, in whose service he had borne 
 arms. He had commenced his career in that battle terminating 
 in the signal defeat of the bold Daun, when the fortunes of that 
 gallant general paled at last before the star of the greatest of 
 modern kings. The peace of 1763 had left Prussia in the quiet 
 enjoyment of the glory she had obtained, and the young 
 Englishman took the advantage it afforded him of seeing, as 
 a traveller, not despoiler, the rest of Europe. 
 
 The adventure and the excitement of travel pleased, and 
 left him even now uncertain 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 country he had hastened at once. 
 
 He checked his horse as he now passed the memorable sign 
 that yet swung before the door of Peter Dealtry ; and there, 
 under the shade of the broad tree, now budding into all its 
 tenderest verdure, a pedestrian wayfarer sat enjoying the rest 
 and coolness of his shelter. Our horseman cast a look at the 
 open door, across which, in the bustle of housewifery, female 
 forms now and then glanced and vanished, and presently he saw 
 Peter himself saunter forth to chat with the traveller beneath 
 his tree. And Peter Dealtry was the same as ever, only he 
 seemed perhaps shorter and thinner than of old, as if Time did 
 not so much break as gradually wear away mine host's slender 
 person. 
 
 The horseman gazed for a moment, but observing Peter 
 return the gaze, he turned aside his head, and, putting his horse
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 into a canter, soon passed out of cognisance of The Spotted 
 Dog. 
 
 He now came in sight of the neat white cottage cf the old 
 corporal, and there, leaning over the pale, a crutch under one 
 arm, and his friendly pipe in one corner of his shrewd mouth, 
 was the corporal himself. Perched upon the railftig in a semi- 
 doze, the ears down, the eyes closed, sat a large brown cat : 
 poor Jacobina, it was not thyself! death spares neither cat nor 
 king; but thy virtues lived in thy grandchild ; and thy grand- 
 child (as age brings dotage) was loved even more than thee 
 by the worthy corporal. Long may thy race flourish ! for at 
 this day it is not extinct. Nature rarely inflicts barrenness on 
 the feline tribe ; they are essentially made for love, and love's 
 soft cares ; and a cat's lineage outlives the lineage of kaisers ! 
 
 At the sound of hoofs, the corporal turned his head, and he 
 looked long and 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 horse- 
 man, as he gazed on the figure of the stalwart corporal. 
 
 " He eyes me hard," thought he; "yet he does not seem to 
 remember me. I must be greatly changed. 'Tis fortunate, 
 however, that I am not recognised : fain, indeed, at this time, 
 would I come and go unnoticed and alone." 
 
 The horseman fell into a reverie, which >vas broken by the 
 murmur of the sunny rivulet, fretting over each little obstacle 
 it met, the happy and spoiled child of Nature ! That murmur 
 rang on the horseman's ear like a voice from his boyhood ; how 
 familiar was it, how dear ! No haunting tone of music efrer 
 recalled so rushing a host of memories and associations, as 
 that simple, restless, everlasting sound! Everlasting! all had 
 changed, the trees had sprung up or decayed some cottages 
 around were ruins, some new and unfamiliar ones supplied 
 their place ; and, on the stranger himself on all those whom 
 the sound recalled to his heart Time had been, indeed, at 
 work ; but, with the same exulting bound and happy voice, that 
 little brook leaped along its way. Ages hence, may the course
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 be as glad, and the murmur as full of mirth ! They are 
 blessed things, those remote and unchanging streams !- they 
 fill us with the same love as if they were living creatures ! 
 and in a green corner of the world there is one that, 
 for my part, I never see without forgetting myself to tears 
 tears that I would not lose for a king's ransom ; tears that 
 no other sight or sound could call from their source ; tears 
 of what affection, what soft regret ; tears through the soft 
 mists of which I behold what I have lost on earth and hope 
 to regain in heaven ! 
 
 The traveller, after a brief pause, continued his road ; and 
 now he came full upon the old manor-house. The weeds were 
 grown up in the garden, the mossed paling was broken in many 
 places, the house itself was shut up, and the sun glanced on the 
 deep -sunk casements, without finding its way into the desolate 
 interior. High above the old hospitable gate hung a board, 
 announcing that the house was for sale, and referring the curious 
 or the speculating to the attorney of the neighbouring town. 
 The horseman sighed heavily, and muttered to himself; then, 
 turning up the road that led to the back entrance, he came into 
 the court-yard, and, leading his horse into an empty stable, he 
 proceeded on foot through the dismantled premises, pausing with 
 every moment, and holding a sad and ever-changing commune 
 with himself. An old woman, a stranger to him, was the sole 
 inmate of the house ; and, imagining he came to buy, or, at 
 least, examine, she conducted him through the house, pointing 
 out its advantages, and lamenting its dilapidated state. Our 
 traveller scarcely heard her ; but when he came to one room, 
 which he would not enter till the last (it was the little parlour in 
 which the once happy family had been wont to sit), he sank 
 down in the chair that had been Lester's honoured seat, and, 
 covering his face with his hands, did not move or look up 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 agian it must be so the house of my
 
 430 EL'GENE ARAM. 
 
 forefathers must pass into a stranger's hands." With this reflec- 
 tion he hurried from the house, and, re-entering the garden, 
 turned through a little gate that swung half open on its shat- 
 tered hinges, and led into the green and quiet sanctuaries of the 
 dead. The same touching character of deep and undisturbed 
 repose that hallows the country churchyard, and that one more 
 than most, yet brooded there, as when, years ago, it woke his 
 young mind to reflection, then unmingled 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 was not yet discoloured by the dews and 
 seasons, and the short inscription traced upon it was strikingly 
 legible in comparison with those around : 
 
 ROWLAND LESTER. 
 
 Obiit 1760, set. 64. 
 
 Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. 
 
 By that tomb the traveller remained in undisturbed contem- 
 plation for some time ; 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 a soldier's bearing 
 was gone from his mien. 
 
 As he looked up, his eye caught afar, embedded among the 
 soft verdure of the spring, one lone and grey house, from whose 
 chimney there rose no smoke sad, inhospitable, dismantled as 
 that beside which he now stood ; as if the curse which had 
 fallen on the inmates of either mansion still clung to either roof. 
 One hasty glance only, the traveller gave to the solitary and 
 distant abode, and then started and quickened his pace. 
 
 On re-entering the stables, the traveller found the corporal 
 examining his horse from head to foot with great care and 
 attention. 
 
 " Good hoofs too, humph ! " quoth the corporal, as he released 
 the front leg; and, turning round, saw, with some little confusion,
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 431 
 
 the owner of the 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 your honour might want some intel- 
 ligent person to show you the premises, if so be you have come 
 to buy ; nothing but an old 'oman there ; dare say your honour 
 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 but Lord bless me ! sure no, it can't be yes, now you 
 turn it is it is .ny young master ! " So saying, the corporal, 
 roused into affection, hobbled up to the wanderer, and seized 
 and kissed his hand. "Ah, sir, we shall be glad, indeed, to see 
 you back after such doings. But's all forgotten now, and gone 
 by augh, poor Miss Ellinor, how happy she'll be to 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 the corporal, smacking his lips ; " I seed her the week 
 
 afore last, when I went over to , for I suppose you knows 
 
 as she lives there, all alone like, in a small house, with a green 
 rail afore it, and a brass knocker on the door 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 thinner than 
 she was ; but, for all that, she be greatly changed." 
 
 " How ! for the worse ? " 
 
 " For the worse, indeed," answered the corporal, assuming an 
 air .of melancholy and grave significance ; " she be grown so 
 religious, sir, think of that augh bother whaugh ! " 
 
 " Is that all ? " said Walter, relieved, and with a slight smile 
 *' And she lives alone ? " 
 
 " Quite, poor young lady, as if she had made up her mind to be 
 an old maid ; though I know as how she refused Squire Knyvett 
 of the Grange ; waiting for your honour's return, mayhap ! " 
 
 " Lead out the horse, Bunting ; but stay, I am sorry to see 
 you with a crutch ; what's the cause ? no accident, I trust ? " 
 
 " Merely rheumatics will attack the youngest of us ; never 
 been quite myself since I went a travelling with your honour
 
 4ja EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 augh! without going to 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 very footsteps. She does a power of good : she gave me 
 half-a-guinea last Tuesday fortnight : an excellent young lady, 
 so sensible like ! " 
 
 " Thank you ; I can tighten the girths ! so ! there, Bunting 
 there's something for old companionship's sake." 
 
 "Thank your honour; you be too good, always was baugh ! 
 But I hopes your honour be a coming to live here now; 'twill 
 make things smile again ! " 
 
 " No, Bunting, I fear not," said Walter, spurring through the 
 gates of the yard. " Good day." 
 
 "Augh, then," cried the corporal, hobbling breathlessly after 
 him, " if so be as I sha'n't see your honour agin, at which I am 
 extramely consarned, will your honour recollect your promise, 
 touching the 'tato ground ? The steward, Master Bailey, 'od rot 
 him ! has clean forgot it augh ! " 
 
 " The same old man, Bunting, eh ? Well, make your mind 
 easy ; it shall be done." 
 
 " Lord bless your honour's good heart ; thank ye ; and and " 
 laying his hand on the bridle "your honour did say the bit cot 
 should be rent-free ? You see, your honour," quoth the corporal, 
 drawing up with a grave smile, " I may marry some day or 
 other, and have a large family ; and the rent won't sit 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 of the corporal died in empty air. 
 
 "A good day's work, too," muttered Jacob, hobbling home- 
 ward. " What a green '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 he did so at the descent of a steep hill, a small 
 country town lay before him, the sun glittering on its single
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 433 
 
 spire, and lighting up the long, clean, centre street, with the 
 good old-fashioned garden stretching behind each house, and 
 detached cottages around, peeping forth here and there from 
 the blossoms and verdure of the young May. He rode into the 
 yard of the principal inn, and putting up his horse, inquired, in 
 a tone that he persuaded himself was the tone of indifference, 
 for Miss Lester's house. 
 
 " John," said the landlady (landlord there was none), summon- 
 ing a little boy of about ten years old " run on and show this 
 gentleman the good lady's house; and stay his honour will 
 excuse you a moment just take up the nosegay you cut for her 
 this morning : she loves flowers. Ah ! sir, an excellent young 
 lady is Miss Lester," continued the hostess as the boy ran back 
 for the nosegay ; " so charitable, so kind, so meek to all. Adver- 
 sity, they say, softens some characters ; but she must always 
 have been good. Well, God bless her ! and that every one 
 must say. My boy John, sir, he is not eleven yet, come next 
 August a 'cute boy, calls her the good lady : we now always 
 call her so here. Come, John, that's right. You stay to dine 
 here, sir ? Shall I put down a chicken ? " 
 
 At the farther extremity of the town stood Miss Lester's 
 dwelling. It was the house in which her father had spent his 
 last days ; and there she had continued to reside, when left by 
 his death to a small competence, which Walter, then abroad, had 
 persuaded her (for her pride was of the right kind) to suffer him, 
 though but slightly, to increase. It was a detached and smal! 
 building, standing a little from the road ; and Walter paused for 
 some moments at the garden-gate and gazed round him before 
 he followed his young guide, who, tripping lightly up the gravel 
 walk to the door, rang the bdl, and inquired if Miss Lester was 
 within. 
 
 Walter was left for some moments alone in a little parlour : 
 he required these moments to recover himself from the past that 
 rushed sweepingly over him. And was it yes, it was Ellinor 
 that now stood before him ! Changed she was, indeed ; the 
 slight girl had budded into woman ; changed she was indeed ; the 
 bound had for ever left that step, once so elastic with hope ; the 
 vivacity of the quick dark eye was soft and quiet : the rich colour 
 
 E E
 
 434 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 had given place to a hue fainter, though not less lovely. But to 
 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 flowers since then : 
 O'er her fair cheek a paler lustre spread, 
 As if the white rose triumph'd o'er the red. 
 No more she walk'd exulting on the air ; 
 Light though her step, there was a languor there. 
 No more Tier 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 ! M 
 
 All reserve, all consciousness fled in the delight of that 
 moment; and Ellinor leaned her head upon his shoulder and 
 scarcely felt the kiss that he 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 had stricken from you all thoughts of love had divided us 
 for ever ? And what, Ellinor, was England or home without you ?" 
 
 "Ah!" said Ellinor,. recovering herself, and a deep paleness 
 succeeding to the warm and delighted flush that had been con- 
 jured to her cheek, " do not revive the past ; I have sought for 
 years long, solitary, desolate years 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 lots. 
 Never, through all I have seen and felt in the starry night- 
 watch of camps in the blaze of courts 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 has linked itself 
 indissolubly with all I conceived of home and happiness, and a 
 tranquil and peaceful future; and now I return, and see you, and 
 find you changed, but oh, how lovely! Ah, let us not part 
 again ! A consoler, a guide, a soother, father, brother, husband 
 all this my heart whispers I could be to you !" 
 
 Ellinor turned away her face, but her heart was very full. The 
 solitary years that had passed over her since they last met 
 rose up before her. The only living image that had mingled 
 through those years with the dreams of the departed, was his
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 43$ 
 
 who now knelt at her feet ; her sole friend her sole relative 
 ner first her last love ! Of all the world, he was the only one 
 with whom she could recur to the past ; on whom she might 
 repose her bruised but still unconquered affections. And Walter 
 knew b}' that blush that sigh that tear, that he was remem- 
 bered that he was beloved that his cousin was his own at last ! 
 
 " But before you end," said my friend, to whom I showed the 
 above pages, originally concluding my tale with the last sen- 
 tence, "you must it is a comfortable and orthodox old fashion 
 tell us about the fate of the other persons to whom you have 
 introduced us the wretch Houseman." 
 
 " True, in the mysterious course of mortal affairs, the greater 
 villain had escaped, the more generous fallen. But though 
 Houseman died without violence died in his bed, as honest 
 men die we can scarcely believe that his life was not punish- 
 ment enough. He lived in strict seclusion the seclusion of 
 poverty, and maintained himself by dressing flax. His life was 
 several times attempted by the mob, for he was an object of 
 universal execration and horror ; and even ten years afterwards, 
 when he died, his body was buried in secret at the dead of night, 
 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 younger than himself, played him certain sorry pranks 
 with a rakish squire in the neighbourhood : the said Jacob 
 knowing nothing thereof, but furnishing great oblectation unto 
 his neighbours by boasting that he turned an excellent penny by 
 selling poultry to his honour above market prices, " for Bessy, 
 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 at Grassdale churchyard a small tombstone inscribed to 
 his memory, with the following sacred posy thereto appended : 
 
 4 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.' " l 
 
 1 Verbatim.
 
 436 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "And his namesake, Sir Peter Grindlescrevv Hal 
 
 " Went through a long life, honoured and respected, but met 
 with domestic misfortunes in old age. His eldest son married a 
 servant maid, and his youngest daughter " 
 
 44 Eloped with the groom ? " 
 
 44 By no means : with a young spendthrift the very picture of 
 what Sir Peter was in his youth. They were both struck out of 
 their father's will, and Sir Peter died in the arms of his eight 
 remaining children, seven of whom never forgave his memory tor 
 not being the eighth, viz., chief heir." 
 
 44 And his contemporary, John Courtland the non-hypo- 
 chondriac ? " 
 
 "Died of sudden suffocation as he was crossing Hounslow 
 Heath." 
 
 "But Lord * * * *?" 
 
 41 Lived to a great age ; his last days, owing to growing 
 infirmities, were spent out of the world ; every one pitied him, 
 it was the happiest time of his life. " 
 
 " Dame Darkmans ? " 
 
 44 Was found dead in her bed ; from over fatigue, it was 
 supposed, in making merry at the funeral of a young girl on the 
 previous day." 
 
 14 Well ! hem, and so Walter and his cousin were really 
 married 1 And did they never return to the old manor-house ?" 
 
 44 No ; the memory that is allied only to melancholy grows 
 sweet with years, and hallows the spot which it haunts ; not so 
 the memory allied to dread, terror, and something too of shame. 
 Walter sold the property with some pangs of natural regret ; 
 after his marriage with Ellinor he returned abroad for some 
 time, but finally settling in England, engaged in active life, and 
 left to his posterity a name they still honour; and to his 
 country, the memory of some services that will not lightly pass 
 a way. 
 
 " But one dread and gloomy remembrance never forsook his 
 mind, and exercised the most powerful influence over the actions 
 and motives of his life. In every emergency, in every temptation, 
 there rose to his eyes the fate of him so gifted, so noble in much, 
 so formed for greatness in all things, blasted by one crime a 
 crime, the offspring of bewildered reasonings all the while
 
 EUGENE ARAM. 437 
 
 speculating upon virtue. And that fate, revealing the darker 
 secrets of our kind, in which the true science of morals is chiefly 
 found, taught him the twofold lesson, caution for himself, and 
 charity for others. He knew henceforth that even the criminal 
 is not all evil ; the angel within us is not easily expelled ; it 
 survives sin, ay, and many sins, and leaves us sometimes in 
 amaze and marvel at the good that lingers round the heart even 
 of the hardiest offender. 
 
 "And Ellinor clung with more than revived affection to one 
 with whose lot she was now allied. Walter was her last tie upon 
 earth, and in him she learned, day by day, more lavishly to 
 treasure up her heart. Adversity and trial had ennobled the 
 character of both ; and she who had so long seen in her cousin 
 all she could love, beheld now in her husband all that she could 
 venerate and admire. A certain religious fervour, in which, after 
 the calamities of her family, she had indulged, continued with her 
 to the last ; but (softened by human ties, and the reciprocation of 
 earthly duties and affections), it was fortunately preserved either 
 from the undue enthusiasm or the undue austerity into which it 
 would otherwise, in all likelihood, have merged. What remained, 
 however, uniting her most cheerful thoughts with something 
 serious, and the happiest moments of the present with the dim 
 and solemn forecast of the future, elevated her nature, not 
 depressed, and made itself visible rather in tender than in 
 sombre hues. And it was sweet, when the thought of 
 Madeline and her father came across her, to recur at once for 
 consolation to that heaven in which she believed their tears were 
 dried, and their past sorrows but a forgotten dream ! There is, 
 indeed, a time of life when these reflections make our chief, 
 though a melancholy, pleasure. As we grow older, and some- 
 times a hope, sometimes a friend, vanishes from our path, the 
 thought of an immortality will press itself forcibly upon us ; 
 and there, by little and little, as the ant piles grain after grain, 
 the garners of a future sustenance, we learn to 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 physical pain and extreme poverty, the ills
 
 438 EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 of life fall wkh 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 to this our parting spot, thou hast suffered thy 
 companion to win the mastery over thine interest, to flash now 
 on thy convictions, to touch now thy heart, to guide thy hope, 
 to excite thy terror, to gain, it may be, to the sources of thy 
 tears then is there a tie between thee and me which cannot 
 readily be broken! And when thou hearest the malice that 
 wrongs affect the candour which should judge, shall he not find 
 in thy sympathies the defence, or in thy charity the indulgence, 
 of a friend ?
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IN the Preface to this Novel it was stated that the original 
 intention of its Author was to compose, upon the facts of 
 Aram's gloomy history, a tragedy instead of a romance. It 
 may now be not altogether without interest for the reader if I 
 submit to his indulgence the rough outline of the earlier scenes 
 in the fragment of a drama, which, in all probability, will never 
 be finished. So far as I have gone, the construction of the 
 tragedy differs, in some respects, materially from that of the 
 tale, although the whole of what is now presented to the reader 
 must be considered merely as a copy from the first hasty sketch 
 of an uncompleted design. 
 
 November, 1833.
 
 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 A TRAGEDY. 
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. 
 
 Aram's Apartment, Books, Maps, and Scientific Instruments scattered around. In 
 everything else the appearance of the greatest poi'erty. 
 
 ist Creditor (behind the scenes], I must be paid. Three moons 
 
 have flitted since 
 You pledged your word to me. 
 
 2d Cred. And me ! 
 
 ^d Cred. And me ! 
 
 Aram (entering). Away, I tell ye! Will ye rend my garb? 
 Away ! to-morrow. Gentle sirs, to-morrow. 
 
 \st Cred. This is your constant word. 
 
 2d Cred. We'll wait no more. 
 
 Aram. Ye'll wait no more ? Enough ! be seated, sirs. 
 Pray ye, be seated. Well ! with searching eyes 
 Ye do survey these walls ! Contain they aught 
 Nay, take your leisure to annul your claims ? 
 (Turning to 1st Cred?) See, sir, yon books they're yours, if you 
 
 but tear 
 
 That fragment of spoiled paper be not backward, 
 I give them with good will. This one is Greek ; 
 A golden work sweet sir a golden work ; 
 It teaches us to bear what I have borne ! 
 And to forbear men's ills, as you have done.
 
 44* EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 1st Cred. You mock me. Well 
 
 Aram. Mock! mock! Alas! my 
 
 friend, 
 
 Do rags indulge in jesting ? Fie, sir, fie ! 
 (Turning to 2d Cred) You will not wrong me so? On your 
 
 receipt 
 
 Take this round orb ; it miniatures the world, 
 And in its study I forgot the world ! 
 Take this yon table ; a poor scholar's fare 
 Needs no such proud support ; yon bed, too ! (Sleep 
 Is Night's sweet angel, leading fallen Man 
 Thro' yielding airs to Youth's lost paradise ; 
 But Sleep and I have quarrell'd) ; take it, sir ! 
 
 id Cred. (muttering to tlte otJiers). Come, we must leave him to 
 
 the law, or famine. 
 You see his goods were costly at a groat ! 
 
 1st Cred. Well, henceforth I will grow more wise 1 'Tis said 
 Learning is better than a house or lands. 
 Let me be modest ! Learning shall go free; 
 Give me security in house and lands. 
 
 $d Cred. {lingering after the other two depart, offers a piece of 
 money to A ram). There, man ; I came to menace you 
 with law 
 
 And gaols. You're poorer than I thought you I there 
 
 Aram (looking at tlu money}. What ! and a beggar, too 1 'Tis 
 
 mighty well. 
 
 Good sir, I'm grateful I will not refuse you ; 
 'Twill win back Plato from the crabbed hands 
 Of him who lends on all things. Thank you, sir ; 
 Plato and I will thank you. 
 
 ^d Cred. Crazed, poor scholar I 
 
 I'll take my little one from school this day 1 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 Aram. Rogues thrive in ease ; and fools grow rich with toil ; 
 Wealth's wanton eye on Wisdom coldly dwells, 
 And turns to dote upon the green youth, Folly
 
 A TRAGEDY. 443 
 
 life, vile life, with what soul-lavish love 
 
 We cling to thee when all thy charms are fled- 
 Yea, the more foul thy withering aspect grows 
 The steadier burns our passion to possess thee. 
 To die ; ay, there's the cure the plashing stream 
 That girds these walls the drug of the dank weeds 
 That rot the air below ; these hoard the balm 
 For broken, pining, and indignant hearts. 
 But the witch Hope forbids me to be wise ; 
 And, when I turn to these, Woe's only friends [Pointing to kit bookt 
 And with their weird and eloquent voices, soothe 
 The lulled Babel of the world within, 
 
 1 can but dream that my vexed years at last 
 Shall find the quiet of a hermit's cell, 
 
 And far from men's rude malice or low scorn, 
 Beneath the loved gaze of the lambent stars ; 
 And with the hollow rocks, and sparry caves, 
 And mystic waves, and music-murmuring winds- 
 My oracles and co-mates watch my life 
 Glide down the stream of knowledge, and behold 
 Its waters with a musing stillness glass 
 The smiles of Nature and the eyes of Heaven 1 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 Enter BOTELER, slowly watching him ; as he remains silent and in thtnight, BOTELER 
 touches him on 
 
 Boteler. How now ! what ! gloomy ? and the day so bright ! 
 Why, the old dog that guards the court below 
 Hath crept from out his wooden den, and shakes 
 His grey hide in the fresh and merry air ; 
 Tuning his sullen and suspicious bark 
 Into a whine of welcome as I pass'd. 
 Come, rouse thee, Aram ; let us forth. 
 
 Aram. Nay, friend, 
 
 My spirit lackeys not the moody skies, 
 Nor changes bright or darkling with their chancre.
 
 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 Farewell, good neighbour ; I must work this day ; 
 Behold my tools and scholars toil alone ! 
 
 Boteler. Tush ! a few minutes wasted upon me 
 May well be spared from this long summer day. 
 Hast heard the news ? Monson ? thou know'st the man ? 
 
 Aram. I do remember. He was poor. I knew him. 
 
 Boteler. But he is poor no more. The all-changing wheel 
 Roll'd round, and scatter'd riches on his hearth. 
 A distant kinsman, while he lived a niggard, 
 Generous in death hath left his grateful heir 
 In our good neighbour. Why, you seem not glad ; 
 Does it not please you ? 
 
 A ram. Yes. 
 
 Boteler. And so it should ; 
 
 'Tis a poor fool, but honest. Had dame Fate 
 Done this for you for me ; 'tis true our brains 
 Had taught us better how to spend the dross ; 
 But earth hath worse men than our neighbour. 
 
 Aram. Ay, 
 
 " Worse men ! " it may be so ! 
 
 Bolder. Would I were rich! 
 
 What loyal service, what complacent friendship, 
 What gracious love upon the lips of Beauty, 
 Bloom into life beneath the beams of gold. 
 Venus and Bacchus, the bright Care-dispellers, 
 Are never seen but in the train of Fortune. 
 Would I were rich ! 
 
 Aram. Shame on thy low ambition I 
 
 Would /were rich, too ; but for other aims. 
 Oh ! what a glorious and time-hallow'd world 
 Would I invoke around me : and wall in 
 A haunted solitude with those bright souls, 
 That, with a still and warning aspect, gaze 
 Upon us from the hallowing shroud of books ! 
 By Heaven, there should not be a seer who left 
 The world one doctrine, but I'd task his lore, 
 And commune with his spirit ! All the truths 
 Oi all the tongues of earth I'd have them all,
 
 A TRAGEDY. 443 
 
 Had I the golden spell to raise their ghosts ! 
 
 I'd build me domes, too; from whose giddy height 
 
 My soul would watch the night stars, and unsphere 
 
 The destinies of man, or track the ways 
 
 Of God from world to world ; pursue the winds, 
 
 The clouds that womb the thunder to their home ; 
 
 Invoke and conquer Nature share her throne 
 
 On earth, and ocean, and the chainless air ; 
 
 And on the Titan fabrics of old truths 
 
 Raise the bold spirit to a height with heaven ! 
 
 Would would my life might boast one year of wealth 
 
 Though death should bound it ! 
 
 Boteler. Thou mayst have thy wish* 
 
 Aram (rapt, and abstractedly). Who spoke? Methought I 
 
 heard my genius say 
 My evil genius "Thou mayst have thy wish ! " 
 
 Boteler. Thou heard'st aright ! Monson this eve will pass 
 By Nid's swift wave ; he bears his gold with him ; 
 The spot is lone untenanted remote ; 
 And, if thou hast but courage, one bold deed, 
 And one short moment thou art poor no more ! 
 
 Aram (after a pause, turning Jus eyes slowly on Boteler). 
 Boteler, was that thy voice ? 
 
 Boteler. How couldst thou doubt it ? 
 
 Aram. Methought its tone seem'd changed; and now 
 
 methinks, 
 
 Now, that I look upon thy face, my eyes 
 Discover not its old familiar aspect. 
 Thou'rt very sure thy name is Boteler ? 
 . Boteler. Pshaw, 
 
 Thou'rt dreaming still : awake, and let thy mind 
 And heart drink all I breathe into thy ear. 
 I know thee, Aram, for a man humane, 
 Gentle, and musing; but withal of stuff 
 That might have made a warrior ; and desires, 
 Though of a subtler nature than my own, 
 As high, and hard to limit. Care and want 
 Have made thee what they made thy friend long since.
 
 446 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 And when I wound my heart to a resolve, 
 Dangerous, but fraught with profit, I did fix 
 On thee as one whom Fate and Nature made 
 A worthy partner in the nameless deed. 
 
 Aram. Go on. I pray thee pause not. 
 
 Boteler. There remain 
 
 Few words to body forth my full design. 
 Know that at my advice this eve the gull'd 
 And credulous fool of Fortune quits his home. 
 Say but one word, and thou shalt share with me 
 The gold he bears about him. 
 
 Aram. At what price? 
 
 Boteler. A little courage. 
 
 Aram. And my soul ! No more. 
 
 I see your project 
 
 Boteler. And embrace it ? 
 
 A ram. Lo 1 
 
 How many deathful, dread, and ghastly snares 
 Encompass him whom the stark hunger gnaws, 
 And the grim demon Penury shuts from out 
 The golden Eden of his bright desires ! 
 To-day, I thought to slay myself, and die, 
 No single hope once won ! and now I hear 
 Dark words of blood, and quail not, nor recoil. 
 Tis but a death in either case ; or mine 
 Or that poor dotard's! And the guilt the guilt, 
 Why, what is guilt ? A word ! We are the tools. 
 From birth to death, of destiny ; and shaped, 
 For sin or virtue, by the iron force 
 Of the unseen, but unresisted, hands 
 Of Fate, the august compeller of the world. 
 
 Boteler (aside}. It works. Behold the devil at all hearts I 
 I am a soldier, and inured to blood ; 
 Hut he hath lived with moralists forsooth. 
 And yet one word to tempt him, and one sting 
 Of the food-craving clay, and the meek sage 
 Grasps at the crime he shuddered at before. 
 
 Aram {abruptly}. Thou hast broke thy fast this morning?
 
 A TRAGEDY. 447 
 
 Boteler. Ay, in truth- 
 
 Aram. But /have not since yestermorn, and ask'd 
 In the belief that certain thoughts unvvont 
 To blacken the still mirror of my mind 
 Might be the phantoms of the sickening flesh 
 And the faint nature. I was wrong ; since you 
 Share the same thoughts, nor suffer the same ills. 
 
 Boteler. Indeed, I knew not this. Come to my roof: 
 'Tis poor, but not so bare as to deny 
 A soldier's viands to a scholar's wants. 
 Come, and we'll talk this over. I perceive 
 That your bold heart already is prepared, 
 And the details alone remain. Come, friend, 
 Lean upon me, for you seem weak ; the air 
 Will breathe this languor into health. 
 
 Aram. Your hearth 
 
 Is widow'd, we shall be alone ? 
 
 Boteler. Alone. 
 
 Aram. Come, then; the private way. We'll shun the 
 
 crowd. 
 I do not love the insolent eyes of men. 
 
 SCENE. 
 
 {Night a -wild and gloomy Forest the River at a distance.) 
 Enter ARAM slowly. 
 
 Aram. Were it but done, methinks 'twould scarce bequeath 
 Much food for that dull hypocrite, Remorse. 
 'Tis a fool less on earth ! a clod a grain 
 From the o'er-rich creation ; be it so. 
 But I, in one brief year, could give to men 
 More solid, glorious, undecaying good 
 Than his whole life could purchase.: yet without 
 The pitiful and niggard dross he wastes, 
 And / for lacking starve, my power is nought,
 
 443 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 And the whole good undone ! Where, then, the crime, 
 Though by dread means, to compass that bright end ? 
 And yet and yet I falter, and my flesh 
 Creeps, and the horror of a ghastly thought 
 Makes stiff my hair, my blood is cold, my knees 
 Do smite each other, and throughout my frame 
 Stern manhood melts away. Blow forth, sweet air, 
 Brace the mute nerves, release the gathering ice 
 That curdles up my veins, call forth the soul, 
 That, with a steady and unfailing front, 
 Hath look'd on want, and woe, and early death 
 And walk'd with thee, sweet air, upon thy course 
 Away from earth through the rejoicing heaven I 
 Who moves there ? Speak ! who art thou ? 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 Enter BOTELER. 
 
 Boteler. Murdoch Boteler I 
 
 Hast thou forestall'd me ? Come, this bodeth well : 
 It proves thy courage, Aram. 
 
 Aram. Rather say 
 
 The restless fever that does spur us on 
 From a dark thought unto a darker deed. 
 
 Boteler. He should have come ere this. 
 
 Aram. I pray thce, Boteler, 
 
 Is it not told of some great painter whom 
 Rome bore, and earth yet worships that he slew 
 A man a brother man and without ire, 
 But with cool heart and hand, that he might fix 
 His gaze upon the wretch's dying pangs ; 
 And by them learn what mortal throes to paint 
 On the wrung features of a suffering god ? 
 
 Bolder. Ay : I have heard .the tale. 
 
 Aram. And Jic is honour'd. 
 
 Men vaunt his glory, but forget his guilt
 
 A TRAGEDY. 449 
 
 They see the triumph ; nor, with wolfish tongues, 
 Feed on the deed from which the triumph grew. 
 Is it not so ? 
 
 Boteler. Thou triflest : this no hour 
 For the light legends of a gossip's lore 
 
 Aram. Peace, man ! I did but question of the fact. 
 Enough. I marvel why our victim lingers ? 
 
 Boteler. Hush ! dost thou hear no footsteps ? Ha, he comes, 
 I see him by yon pine-tree. Look, he smiles ; 
 Smiles as he walks, and sings 
 
 Aram. Alas! poor fool I 
 
 So sport we all, while over us the pall 
 Hangs, and Fate's viewless hands prepare our shroud. 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 
 Enter MoNSON. 
 
 Monson. Ye have not waited, sirs ? 
 
 Boteler. Nay, name it not 
 
 Monson. The nights are long and bright : an hour the less 
 Makes little discount from the time. 
 
 Aram. An hour ! 
 
 What deeds an hour may witness ! 
 
 Monson. It is true. 
 
 (To Boteler?) Doth he upbraid ? he has a gloomy brow : 
 I like him not. 
 
 Boteler. The husk hides goodly fruit. 
 
 'Tis a deep scholar, Monson ; and the gloom 
 Is not of malice, but of learned thought. 
 
 Monson. Say'st thou ? I love a scholar. Let us on : 
 We will not travel far to-night ? 
 
 Aram. Not far ! 
 
 Boteler. Why, as our limbs avail ; thou hast the gold ? 
 
 Monson. Ay, and my wife suspects not. \Laughfag. 
 
 Boteler. Come, that's well. 
 
 I'm an old soldier, Monson, and I love 
 This baffling of the Church's cankering ties.
 
 450 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 We'll find thce other wives, my friend ! Who holds 
 The golden lure shall have no lack of loves. 
 
 Moiison. Ha! ha! both wise and merry. (To Aram.} 
 Come, sir, on. 
 
 Aram, I follow. 
 (Aside.} Can men sin thus in a dream ? 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 Seetu (Aanges to a different part of the Forest a Cave, orerMuttf nith ftn and 
 other trees tht Moon is at her full t but thuds art rolling swiftly mr her disc 
 ARAM rushes from the Cavern. 
 
 Aram. Tis done ! 'tis done ! 'tis done ! 
 
 A life is gone 
 
 Out of a crowded world ! / struck no more 1 
 Oh, God ! I did not slay him ! 'twas not // 
 
 (Enter BOTELER more slowly from the Cave, and looking round.) 
 
 Boteler. Why didst thou leave me ere our task was o'er ? 
 
 Aram. Was he not dead then ? Did he breathe again? 
 
 Or cry, " Help, help ? " / did not strike the blow ! 
 
 Boteler. Dead ! and no witness, save the blinded bat 1 
 But the gold, Aram ! thou didst leave the gold ? 
 
 A ram. The gold ! I had forgot Thou hast the gold. 
 Come, let us share, and part 
 
 Bolder. Not here ; the spot 
 
 Is open, and the rolling moon may light 
 Some wanderer's footsteps hither. To the deeps 
 Which the stars pierce not of the inmost wood 
 We will withdraw and share and weave our plans, 
 So that the world may know not of this deed. 
 
 Aram. Thou sayest well ! I did not strike the blowl 
 How red the moon looks! let us hide from her!
 
 A TRAGEDY. 451 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 {Time, Ttn Ye.irs after the da'e of the first Act.) 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 (Peasants dancing a beautiful Wood Scene a Cottage in t 'he front.) 
 
 MADELINE LAMBOURN MICHAEL, 
 
 (LAMBOURN comes fat-ward.) 
 
 COME, my sweet Madeline, though our fate denies 
 The pomp by which the great and wealthy mark 
 The white days of their lot, at least thy sire 
 Can light with joyous faces and glad hearts 
 The annual morn which brought so fair a boon, 
 And blest his rude hearth with a child like thee. 
 
 Madeline. My father, my dear father, since that tnorn 
 The sun hath call'd from out the depth of time 
 The shapes of twenty summers ; and no hour 
 That did not own to Heaven thy love thy care ! 
 
 Lamboum. Thou hast repaid me ; and mine eyes 
 With tears that tell thy virtues, my sweet child ; 
 For ever from thy cradle thou wert fill'd 
 With meek and gentle thought ; thy step was soft 
 And thy voice tender ; and within thine eyes, 
 And on thy cloudless brow, lay deeply glass'd 
 The quiet and the beauty of thy soul. 
 As thou didst grow in years, the love and power 
 Of nature wax'd upon thee ; thou wouldst pore 
 On the sweet stillness of the summer hills, 
 Or the hush'd face of waters, as a book 
 Where God had written beauty ; and in turn 
 Books grew to thee, as Nature's page had grown, 
 And study and lone musing nursed thy youth, 
 
 F F 2
 
 452 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 Yet wert thou ever woman in thy mood, 
 
 And soft, though serious ; nor in abstract thought 
 
 Lost household zeal, or the meek cares of love. 
 
 Bless thee, my child. Thou look'st around for one 
 
 To chase the/d&r rose from that pure cheek, 
 
 And the vague sadness from those loving eyes. 
 
 Nay, turn not, Madeline, for I know, in truth, 
 
 No man to whom I would so freely give 
 
 Thy hand as his no man so full of wisdom, 
 
 And yet so gentle in his bearing of it ; 
 
 No man so kindly in his thoughts of others 
 
 So rigid of all virtues in himself; 
 
 As this same learned wonder, Eugene Aram. 
 
 Madeline. In sooth his name sounds lovelier for thy praise ; 
 Would he were by to hear it ! for methinks 
 His nature given too much to saddening thought, 
 And words like thine would cheer it. Oft he starts 
 And mutters to himself, and folds his arms, 
 And traces with keen eyes the empty air ; 
 Then shakes his head, and smiles no happy smile ! 
 
 Lambourn. It is the way with students, for they live 
 In an ideal world, and people this 
 With shadows thrown from fairy forms afar. 
 Fear not ! thy love, like some fair morn of May, 
 Shall chase the dreams in clothing earth with beauty. 
 But the noon wanes, and yet he does not come. 
 Neighbours, has one amongst you seen this day 
 The scholar, Aram ? 
 
 Michael. By the hoary oak 
 
 That overhangs the brook, I mark'd this mom 
 A bending figure, motionless and lonely. 
 I near'd it, but it heard it saw me not ; 
 It spoke I listen'd and it said, " Ye leaves 
 That from the old and changeful branches fall 
 Upon the waters, and are borne away 
 Whither none know, ye are men's worthless lives; 
 Nor boots it whether ye drop off by time, 
 Or the rude anger of some violent wind
 
 A TRAGEDY. 453 
 
 Scatter ye ere your hour. Amidst the mass 
 Of your green life, \vho misses one lost leaf?" 
 He said no more ; then I did come beside 
 The speaker : it was Aram. 
 
 Madeline (aside). Moody ever ! 
 
 And yet he says, he loves me and is happy ! 
 
 Michael. But he seem'd gall'd and sore at my approach ; 
 And when I told him I was hither bound, 
 And ask'd if aught I should convey from him, 
 He frown'd, and coldly turning on his heel, 
 Answer'd that "he should meet me." I was pain'd 
 To think that I had vex'd so good a man. 
 
 1st Neighbour. Ay, he is good as wise. All men love Aram. 
 
 2nd Neighbour. And with what justice! My old dame's 
 
 complaint 
 
 Had baffled all the leeches ; but his art, 
 From a few simple herbs, distill'd a spirit 
 Has made her young again. 
 
 yd Neighbour. By his advice, 
 
 And foresight of the seasons, I did till 
 My land, and now my granaries scarce can hold 
 Their golden wealth ; while those who mock'd his words 
 Can scarcely from hard earth and treacherous air 
 Win aught to keep the wolf from off their door. 
 
 Michael. And while he stoops to what poor men should know 
 They say that in the deep and secret lore 
 That scholars mostly prize he hath no peer. 
 Old men, who pale and care-begone have lived 
 A life amidst their books, will, at his name, 
 Lift up their hands, and cry, "The wondrous man !" 
 
 Lambourn. His birth-place must thank Fortune for the fame 
 That he one day will win it. 
 
 Michael. Dost thou know 
 
 Whence Aram came, ere to these hamlet scenes 
 Ten summers since he wander'd ? 
 
 Lambourn. Michael, no I 
 
 'Twas from some distant nook of our fair isle. 
 But he so sadly flies from what hath chanced
 
 454 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 In his more youthful life, and there would seem 
 So much of winter in those April days, 
 That I have shunn'd vain question of the past 
 Thus much I learn : he hath no kin alive ; 
 No parent to exult in such a son. 
 
 Michael. Poor soul ! You spake of sadness. Know you why 
 So good a man is sorrowful ? 
 
 Lambourn. Methinks 
 
 He hath been tried not lightly by the sharp 
 And everlasting curse to learning doom'd, 
 That which poor labour bears, without a sigh, 
 But whose mere breath can wither genius Want ! 
 Want the harsh, hoary beldame the obscene 
 Witch that hath power o'er brave men's thews and nerves, 
 And lifts the mind from out itself. 
 
 Michael. Why think you 
 
 That he hath been thus cross'd ? His means appear 
 Enough, at least for his subdued desires. 
 
 Lambourn. I'll tell thee wherefore. Do but speak of want, 
 And lo ! he winces, and his nether lip 
 Quivers impatient, and he sighs, and frowns, 
 And mutters " Hunger is a fearful thing; 
 And it is terrible that man's high soul 
 Should be made barren in its purest aims 
 By the mere lack of the earth's yellow clay." 
 Then will he pause and pause and come at last 
 And put some petty moneys in my hand, 
 And cry, " Go, feed the wretch ; he must not starve, 
 Or he will sin. Men's throats are scarcely safe, 
 While Hunger prowls beside them ! " 
 
 Michael. The kind man! 
 
 But this comes only from a gentle heart, 
 Not from a tried one. 
 
 Lambourn. Nay, not only so ; 
 
 For I have heard him, as he turn'd away, 
 Mutter, in stifled tones, " No man can tell 
 What want is in his brother man, unless 
 Want's self hath taught him, as the fiend taught me!"
 
 A TRAGEDY. 455 
 
 Michael. And hath he ne'er enlarged upon these words, 
 Nor lit them into clearer knowledge by 
 A more pronounced detail ? 
 
 Lambourn. No ; nor have I 
 
 Much sought to question. In my younger days 
 I pass'd much time amid the scholar race, 
 The learned lamps which light the unpitying world 
 By their own self-consuming. They are proud 
 A proud and jealous tribe and proud men loathe 
 To speak of former sufferings : most of all 
 Want's suffering, in the which the bitterest sting 
 Is in the humiliation ; therefore I 
 Cover the past with silence. But whate'er 
 His origin or early fate, their lives 
 None whom I hold more dearly, or to whom 
 My hopes so well could trust my Madeline's lot 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 (The crmvd at the back of the Stage gives -way ARAM slowly enters The Neighbour 
 greet him with respect, several appear to thank him for various benefits or charities. 
 He returns the greeting in dumb show, with great appearance of modesty.) 
 
 A ram. Nay, nay, good neighbours, ye do make me blush 
 To think that to so large a store of praise 
 There goes so poor desert. My Madeline ! Sweet, 
 I see thee, and all brightens ! 
 
 Lambourn. You are late 
 
 But not less welcome. On my daughter's birthday 
 You scarce should be the last to wish her joy. 
 
 Aram. Joy joy ! Is life so poor and harsh a boon 
 That we should hail each year that wears its gloss 
 And glory into winter ? Shall we crown 
 With roses Time's bald temples, and rejoice 
 For what ? that we are hastening to the grave ? 
 No, no ! I cannot look on thy young brow, 
 Beautiful Madeline ! nor, upon the day 
 Which makes thee one year nearer unto Heaven, 
 Feel sad for Earth, whose very soul thou art ;
 
 4S6 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 Or art, at least, to me ! for wert thou not, 
 Earth would be dead and wither'd as the clay 
 Of her own offspring when the breath departs. 
 
 Lambourn. I scarce had thought a scholar's dusty tomes 
 Could teach his lips the golden ways to woo, 
 Howbeit, in all times, man never learns 
 To love, nor learns to flatter. 
 
 Weil, my friends, 
 
 Will ye within ? our simple fare invites. 
 Aram, when thou hast made thy peace with Madeline, 
 We shall be glad to welcome thee. (To Michael.") This love 
 Is a most rigid faster, and would come 
 To a quick ending in an epicure. 
 
 [Exeunt LAMBOURN, tfu Neighbours, 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 MADELINE ami ARAM. 
 
 Aram. Alone with thee ! Peace comes to earth again, 
 Beloved ! would our life could, like a brook 
 Watering a desert, glide unseen away, 
 Murmuring our own heart's music, which is love, 
 And glassing only Heaven, which is love's life I 
 I am not made to live among mankind ; 
 They stir dark memory from unwilling sleep, 
 
 And but no matter. Madeline, it is strange 
 
 That one like thee, for whom, methinks, fair Love 
 Should wear its bravest and most gallant garb, 
 Should e'er have cast her heart's rich freight upon 
 A thing like me, not fashion'd in the mould 
 Which wins a maiden's eye, austere of life, 
 And grave and sad of bearing, and so long 
 Inured to solitude, as to have grown 
 A man that hath the shape, but not the soul, 
 Of the world's inmates. 
 
 Madeline. Tis for that I loved. 
 
 The \\orld I love not therefore I love thee I 
 Conic, shall I tell thee, 'tis an oft-told tale,
 
 A TRAGEDY. 457 
 
 Yet never wearies, by what bright degrees 
 Thy empire rose, till it o'erspread my soul, 
 And made my all of being love ? Thou know'st 
 When first thou earnest into these lone retreats, 
 My years yet dwelt in childhood ; but my thoughts 
 Went deeper than my playmates'. Books I loved, 
 But not the books that woo a woman's heart ; 
 I loved not tales of war and stern emprise, 
 And man let loose on man dark deeds, of which 
 The name was glory, but the nature crime, 
 Nor themes of vulgar love of maidens' hearts 
 Won by small worth, set off by gaudy show ; 
 Those tales which win the wilder hearts, in me 
 Did move some anger and a world of scorn. 
 All that I dream'd of sympathy was given 
 Unto the lords of Mind the victor chiefs 
 Of Wisdom or of Wisdom's music Song; 
 And as I read of them, I dream'd and drew 
 In my soul's colours, shapes my soul might love, 
 And, loving, worship, they were like to thee ! 
 Thou earnest unknown and lonely, and around 
 Thy coming, and thy bearing, and thy mood 
 Hung mystery, and in guessing at its clue, 
 Mystery grew interest, and the interest love ! 
 
 Aram (aside). O woman ! how from that which she should 
 
 shun, 
 Does the poor trifler draw what charms her most ! 
 
 Madeline. Then, as Time won thee frequent to our hearth, 
 Thou from thy learning's height didst stoop to teach me 
 Nature's more gentle secrets the sweet lore 
 Of the green herb and the bee-worshipp'd flower; 
 And when the night did o'er this nether earth 
 Distil meek quiet, and the heart of Heaven 
 With love grew breathless, thou wert wont to raise 
 My wild thoughts to the weird and solemn stars; 
 Tell of each orb the courses and the name ; 
 And of the winds, the clouds, th' invisible air, 
 Make eloquent discourse ; until methought
 
 458 EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 No human life, but some diviner spirit 
 
 Alone could preach such truths of things divine. 
 
 And so and so 
 
 Aram. From heaven we turn'd to eartl^ 
 
 And Thought did father Passion ? Gentlest love 1 
 If thou couldst know how hard it is for one 
 Who takes such feeble pleasure in this earth 
 To worship aught earth-born, thou'dst learn how wild 
 The wonder of my passion and thy power. 
 But ere three days are past thou wilt be mine 1 
 And mine for ever ! Oh, delicious thought 1 
 How glorious were the future, could I shut 
 
 The past the past from Ha ! what stirr'd ? didst near, 
 
 Madeline, didst hear ? 
 
 Madeline. Hear what ? the very air 
 
 Lies quiet as an infant in its sleep. 
 
 Aram (looking round). Methought I heard 
 
 Madeline. What, love ? 
 
 Aram. It was a cheat 
 
 Of these poor fools, the senses. Come, thy hand ; 
 I love to feel thy touch, thou art so pure 
 So soft so sacred in thy loveliness, 
 That I feel safe with thee ! Great God himself 
 Would shun to launch upon the brow of guilt 
 His bolt while thou wert by ! 
 
 Madeline. Alas, alas ! 
 
 Why dost thou talk of guilt ? 
 
 Aram. Did I, sweet love, 
 
 Did I say guilt ? it is an ugly word. 
 Why, sweet, indeed did I say guilt, my Madeline? 
 
 Madeline. In truth you did. Your hand is dry the pulse 
 Beats quick and fever'd : you consume too much 
 Of life in thought you over-rack the nerves 
 And thus a shadow bids them quell and tremble; 
 But when I queen it, Eugene, o'er your home, 
 I'll see this fault amended. 
 
 Aram. Ay, thou shalt 
 
 In sooth thou shall.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 459 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 Enter MICHAEL. 
 
 Michael. Friend Lambourn sends his greeting, 
 And prays you to his simple banquet. 
 
 Madeline. Come ! 
 
 His raciest wine will in my father's cup 
 Seem dim till you can pledge him. Eugene, come. 
 
 Aram. And if I linger o'er the draught, sweet love, 
 Thou'lt know I do but linger o'er the wish 
 For thee, which sheds its blessing on the bowl. 
 
 SCENE. 
 
 Sunset a Wood scent a Collage at a distance in the foreground a Woodman felling 
 
 wood. 
 
 Enter ARAM. 
 
 Wise men have praised the peasant's thoughtless lot, 
 And learned pride hath envied humble toil : 
 If they were right, why, let us burn our books, 
 And sit us down, and play the fool with Time, 
 Mocking the prophet Wisdom's grave decrees, 
 And walling this trite PRESENT with dark clouds, 
 Till night becomes our nature, and the ray 
 Ev'n of the stars but meteors that withdraw 
 The wandering spirit from the sluggish rest 
 Which makes its proper bliss. I will accost 
 This denizen of toil, who, with hard hands, 
 Prolongs from day to day unthinking life, 
 And ask if he be happy. Friend, good eve. 
 
 Woodman. 'Tis the great scholar ! Worthy sir, good eve. 
 
 Aram. Thou seem'st o'erworn : through this long summer 
 
 day. 
 Hast thou been labouring in the lonely glen ?
 
 <6o EUGENE ARAM, A TRAGEDY. 
 
 Woodman. Ay, save one hour at noon. 'Tis weary work ; 
 But men like me, good sir, must not repine 
 At work which feeds the craving mouths at home. 
 
 Aram. Then thou art happy, friend, and with content 
 Thy life hath made a compact. Is it so ? 
 
 Woodman. Why, as to that, sir, I must surely feel 
 Some pangs when I behold the ease with which 
 The wealthy live ; while I, through heat and cold, 
 Can scarcely conquer Famine. 
 
 la this scene Boteler (the Houseman of the novel) is again introduct 
 
 THE EXIX
 
 DEC 1 1 1979
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 CAYLOBD 
 
 FRINTCOINU