Part 26 (1/2)

Eustace answered that the worthy Esculapius was returning in the King's suite, being appointed one of his physicians, and he hinted the probability of his aunt's medical pre-eminence destroying the effect of her personal attractions. ”At least,” said he, ”the Doctor has never intimated a wish for the alliance, though he speaks with admiration of her fort.i.tude and maternal affection for us children of her love and care. And severely as you accuse me for want of gallantry to your s.e.x, I will not even allow a spinster of seventy to volunteer her hand, when the honour is not pa.s.sionately desired.”

Dr. Beaumont now inquired what dreadful tale was connected with the convent of St. Bernard, and he soon found his own predictions were realized respecting the fate of those who seek security by the paths of crooked policy and selfish cunning. Those dreary walls inclosed the wretched heir of the Waverly family. Overwhelmed with horror at having deprived his father of life, the unhappy man abjured a country whose civil wars had given birth to such tremendous crimes. Long the victim of despair, he at last sought a quietus to his ever-gnawing remorse, by flying to the bosom of that church which barters salvation for pecuniary mulcts, and represents penance and subserviency to its schemes of worldly aggrandis.e.m.e.nt to be the wings which will waft the soul over the gulph of purgatory, and securely lodge it in Abraham's bosom. Not content with becoming a convert to the Romish church, the young Baronet determined upon expiating his unintentional parricide, by taking the cowl, and entering into its strictest order of monachism. Eustace and his friends, when they travelled over the Alps, were lodged one night at this convent, and in the midnight service De Vallance recognized the well-remembered tones of his powerful voice. They afterwards saw him in the garden labouring at his future grave, according to the prescribed rules of his order. His hood was fallen off, and gave to view his face, in which the deepest lines of sorrow were combined with the gloom of sullen superst.i.tion. All intercourse was forbidden by that law which chained his tongue to eternal silence, except when employed as the organ of devotion. Eustace wept with true commiseration; the unhappy monk threw on him a look, which showed he too well remembered England, drew his cowl over his face, and with a groan of the deepest melancholy solemnly returned to his cell.

Dr. Beaumont's remarks on this narrative were pious and affecting; but there was a heavy gloom in the eye of Neville, which indicated a mind too much absorbed by its own feelings to enjoy the badinage of happy lovers, or to listen to the suggestions of wisdom and devotion. ”Is our dear father ill?” was the alarmed inquiry of Isabel. ”Has the surprise of my return overpowered him?” said Eustace. ”Will not affliction allow her victim a few years respite, before the effects of her early visitations conduct him to the grave?”

It was the privilege of that true minister of Heaven who tranquillized his youthful impatience, to penetrate into the secret feelings of the man of sorrows. Inattentive to every other subject, Dr. Beaumont perceived that he was roused by the name of Walter De Vallance, and therefore led Eustace to describe his present situation. The tortures of a guilty conscience, added to his const.i.tutional timidity, had totally extinguished those faint beams of hope and ambition which led him, in every previous change of affairs, to project his own security or advancement. To usurpers and mal-contents of every description he thought he might either be useful or formidable; but from the returning King, welcomed with rapture by a repentant nation, a versatile traitor, who had betrayed the counsels of the royal martyr, could not expect even mercy. Too well known both for his rank and his provocations, to hope to shelter in obscurity, he had no resource but to fly to some distant land; and he proposed retreating to those colonies in America which were peopled under the influence of republican principles. But he had not proceeded many stages from London before he fell sick. His perturbed mind so far betrayed him to his host as to show he was one of those whom the happy change in public affairs compelled to fly from England, and he was immediately suspected to be one of the late King's judges, who, having imbrued their hands in royal blood, were, by the consent of all parties, reserved as an atonement to public justice. He was therefore seized, hurried back to London, and thrown into close confinement. His son and Eustace learned these particulars by stopping at the inn which had been the scene of his arrest; and the former, from some circ.u.mstances discovering the prisoner to be his father, deputed Eustace to plead his unchanged love and ardent hopes to his dearest Isabel, while he himself hastened to protect and solace his wretched parent with a hope, that by interposing his own unquestioned loyalty as a surety, he might preserve his life, if not obtain his liberty.

Not all the courtly blandishments of gallantry, nor even the heart-breathed vows of true love could have been half so acceptable to Isabel as this sacrifice of self-indulgence to filial duty. Even Neville could not refrain from commending his nephew's conduct, while brus.h.i.+ng a tear from his eye he attempted to revive the expiring flame of vindictive indignation. ”The villain, then,” said he, ”knows now what it is to want the service of a worthy child. Tell me, Eustace, does he suffer deeply? Is his soul ground down with compunction by recollecting the inhumed Neville, doomed by him and his rebel partizans to shelter with the dead. Shut for years from the light of the sun, excluded from human converse, and daily fed by that dear girl with the bread of affliction, though born to stand before Kings, and sit as judge among Princes! Walter De Vallance now suffers what I never endured. The gnawing worm of remorse must inflict on him the agonies of despair, but conscious innocence illumined my dungeon with hope. Yes, the spirits of my ancestors, offended at the foul pollution of their pure ermine, point at my son as the restorer of their tarnished honours, and bid me exult in the agonies which await the death-bed of a villain!”

A look of grave rebuke from Dr. Beaumont recalled the much-agitated Neville from this delirium of indulged malevolence. ”My brother and my friend,” he exclaimed; ”supporter of my frail existence, and guide of my soul! I have sinned, pray for me.” ”May Almighty mercy,” replied the pious minister of Heaven, ”grant you that peace which only those can feel who are in charity with all mankind!--If years of affliction have not so taught you the comparative worthlessness of temporal possessions as to prevent your making them a pretext for eternal enmity; if calamity has steeled your heart to pity instead of melting it to contrition, I must bid you fear, lest some more terrible trials should visit you, or what is worse, lest the sinner who will not pardon an offending brother should be suddenly called to account for his own unrepented transgressions against the G.o.d, not then of infinite compa.s.sion, but of most righteous vengeance.”

Neville trembled violently. His affectionate children intreated Dr.

Beaumont to spare his infirmities, but he answered, that regard for the mortal body must not, in this instance, make him overlook the more important concerns of the never-dying soul, endangered by his thus cheris.h.i.+ng implacable resentment. The termination of the struggle proved Neville a true hero. He not only confessed but abjured his errors. ”I have,” said he, ”brooded too deeply over my injuries, and thus have added to my plagues by inflicting on myself more torments than even my enemies designed I should feel. Born with too exquisite sensibility of ill-treatment, proceeding possibly from inordinate self-esteem, disposed to ardent attachment and unbounded confidence, I measured the hearts of others by my own, and supposed that they equally revered the claims of generosity and friends.h.i.+p; for never did I expect a service, which in a change of situations, I would not have rendered unasked; never have I condemned a fault but those so abhorrent to my nature that, I would have died rather than have committed them. Condemned by the triumphant treachery of a man, in all things my inferior, to indigence and obscurity; all the liberal feelings I so dearly cherished palsied by my inability to expand the social charities beyond the narrow limits of my own family, I ruminated on the glorious indulgences resulting from, the possession of that power and affluence I was born to inherit. But, instead of enjoying the means of patronising merit, raising the oppressed, or succouring calamity, I beheld myself doomed to the anxious routine of a life consumed in the care of procuring a sufficiency for its own support, pondering how the claims of a creditor could be discharged, and the disgrace of injustice averted by the sacrifice of every generous gratification--I pa.s.sed my days in a silent sacrifice of my wishes and comforts, in concealing my own wants, and steeling my heart to those of others, and it was during this mental torture of restrained liberality that I nourished in my soul a deadly thirst for revenge, an extreme desire of seeing the arm that smote me to the earth withered and powerless as my own. Oh, my children! there is guilt and danger in an excessive indulgence of even the most laudable feelings, and my crime brought on its punishment.--The loss of reason; the death of your adored mother, deserving infinitely more than the highest earthly honours, and therefore early translated to an angelical throne; these were my chastis.e.m.e.nts. In respect to what I have since suffered for my King, the testimonies of a good conscience were my support and my reward. And may the favours of a grateful monarch enable my Eustace to enjoy those n.o.blest privileges of greatness for which I pined with ineffectual desire! I am now old and helpless, tottering on the brink of eternity, a blank, as far as respects this world. May I then divest my soul of those pa.s.sions which will unfit it for the abodes of peace! The injuries of Walter De Vallance are not irremediable. Still do I clasp my son to my heart. Affliction has tried the virtues of my children, and brought me to a sense of my own errors. Let not short-sighted man, who cannot see the remote consequences of events, cherish revenge. Let not dust and ashes value its imperfect shows of goodness. Our greatest conquest is a victory over ourselves. Our n.o.blest t.i.tle is to be called obedient servants of the Most High.”

Dr. Beaumont wept with pious delight, while Neville, leaning on his children in a posture of penitent adoration, besought Heaven to pardon his own sins, and the sins of his brother De Vallance. So entire was his abstraction, that he was not interrupted by the entrance of Barton, whose countenance expressed a degree of depression ill suited to the joyous character of the times. Dr. Beaumont accosted him by the t.i.tle of his worthy friend, and the a.s.sociate of his future fortunes. He introduced him to Eustace, of whose preservation from the ma.s.sacre at Pembroke he was till then ignorant. Barton blessed the protecting hand of Providence, and explained his apparent dejection, by stating that he had just witnessed a most awful and impressive scene--a grievous sinner wounded alike in body and in soul, with no hope of escaping punishment either in this world or in that which is to come. He soon discovered that he meant the miserable De Vallance, whom, as he had served in prosperity, he would not desert in his utmost need, though he alike detested his private and despised his public character. He described him as alone, pennyless, comfortless, without resources in himself, or help from others. His worthy son had not yet discovered the place of his confinement; he knew not what was become of his son, and among all the crimes which tortured his conscience, the supposed death of Eustace was most insupportable. Hopeless of pity, yet desperate from remorse, he had commissioned Barton to intreat the greatly-injured Neville to forgive him. Christian principles had already obtained a victory over the agonizing resentments of wounded honour, and the eloquence of Barton only served to hasten its effect. Neville was calmly resolved, not moved by pathetic description, to act as he ought. ”Go, my child,” said he to Eustace, ”bear my forgiveness to our unhappy kinsman, and by convincing him of your own existence, foil the tempter's efforts to overwhelm him with despair. I would see him, but we are both, weak in body, and frail in purpose. An interview might revive violent animosities. Envy and resentment are irritable pa.s.sions; 'tis best we meet no more till our mortal failings are deposited in our graves. Then may our purified spirits enter upon a state where avarice and ambition cannot tempt, nor impatience and anger dispose us to offend! There may we meet as pardoned sinners, alike rejoicing in redemption!--Mine shall not be a mere verbal reconciliation. My King can refuse nothing to Allan Neville, the faithful Loyalist. t.i.tle and fortune will be restored to me as my right; but the only reward I will ask for my services shall be the pardon of my enemies. The punishment of a state-criminal must not disgrace my Isabel's nuptials. She has been to me the angel of consolation, and she shall carry forgiveness and honour as a dower to her husband. And now, Beaumont, while the relentings of my soul can refuse nothing to thy admonitions, tell me, is there aught more that I ought to perform?”

From one of less acute sensibility, Dr. Beaumont would possibly have required that he should have been the interpreter of his own purposes to De Vallance, but he rightly considered, that very susceptible and ardent characters, after they have forgiven, find it impossible to forget. When such persons are brought to that proper state of mind, to return good for evil, without either boasting of their lenity, or enumerating their wrongs, the best way of inducing an oblivion of the past, is to avoid such intercourse as may revive painful retrospection. It is impossible for those who have minds capable of appreciating the delicacies of friends.h.i.+p, to re-unite the bonds of esteem and confidence, when they have been violently rent asunder by cunning or treachery. Beside, Barton admitted that he saw in the behaviour of De Vallance more of the apprehensions of timorous guilt than the renovated spirit of self-abased contrition.

Eustace inherited the deep sensibilities of his father, but a train of happy years rose in perspective before him. Unbroken health, unclouded fame, successful love, wealth, and greatness--at the hour of his restoration to all these blessings, he must have been a monster who could have withheld cordial forgiveness from a humiliated miserable enemy. Eustace visited the man who had doomed him to a premature grave, with a sincere desire to prolong his life, and restore his peace. To the relief afforded by a conviction that the guilt of his nephew's murder did not lie upon his soul, De Vallance received the additional consolation of knowing that his own son was alive, and acknowledged by Eustace as a most beloved friend and future brother. The forgiveness of Neville, and the a.s.surance of his powerful intercession with the King in his favour, changed the horrors of the wretched man into transports of joy. Lost to all n.o.bler feelings, and penitent only from terror, apprehensions of the future had increased the sickness which fatigue and anxiety had occasioned, and his recovery was expedited by the confidence he now felt, that he should be permitted to spend the remnant of his days in security, protected by the virtues of the son whom he had neglected, and the clemency of the victims he had wronged.

CHAP. XXVIII.

All friends shall taste The wages of their virtues, and all foes The cup of their deservings.

Shakspeare.

The restoration of the King was speedily followed by the re-instatement of Neville in his family-honours, and the marriage of his son and daughter. Mrs. Mellicent had the unspeakable satisfaction of arranging the ceremony, selecting the dress of the brides, and ordering the nuptial banquet. History does not warrant me in adding, that she afterwards consummated the happiness of Dr. Lloyd, by completing the liberal tokens of regard which his grateful friends showered upon him.

But whether this was owing to her own obduracy, or to somewhat of that enmity which often subsists between professors of the same liberal art, I have no means of discovering. It is certain that they continued to be sincere friends, which possibly might not have been the case if Mrs.

Mellicent's confidence in the superiority of her own cordials and ointments to the recipes prescribed by the regularly educated pract.i.tioner, had not induced her to pa.s.s on, ”in maiden meditation fancy free,” preferring the privileges of ”blessed singleness” to the mortification of subscribing to the efficacy of those medical nostrums which were not found in the British herbal.