Part 34 (1/2)
It was plain that all the sentiments of woman were not extinguished in her heart. She summoned the servants and seemed preparing to take such measures as the occasion prescribed. I now saw the folly of supposing that these measures would be neglected, and that my presence could not essentially contribute to the benefit of the sufferer. Still, however, I lingered in the room, till the infant was covered with a cloth, and the still senseless parent was conveyed into an adjoining chamber. The woman then, as if she had not seen me before, fixed scowling eyes upon me, and exclaimed, ”Thief! villain! why do you stay here?”
”I mean to go,” said I, ”but not till I express my grat.i.tude and pleasure at the sight of your attention to this sufferer. You deem me insolent and perverse, but I am not such; and hope that the day will come when I shall convince you of my good intentions.”
”Begone!” interrupted she, in a more angry tone. ”Begone this moment, or I will treat you as a thief.” She now drew forth her hand from under her gown, and showed a pistol. ”You shall see,” she continued, ”that I will not be insulted with impunity. If you do not vanish, I will shoot you as a robber.”
This woman was far from wanting a force and intrepidity worthy of a different s.e.x. Her gestures and tones were full of energy. They denoted a haughty and indignant spirit. It was plain that she conceived herself deeply injured by my conduct; and was it absolutely certain that her anger was without reason? I had loaded her house with atrocious imputations, and these imputations might be false. I had conceived them upon such evidence as chance had provided; but this evidence, intricate and dubious as human actions and motives are, might be void of truth.
”Perhaps,” said I, in a sedate tone, ”I have injured you; I have mistaken your character. You shall not find me less ready to repair, than to perpetrate, this injury. My error was without malice, and----”
I had not time to finish the sentence, when this rash and enraged woman thrust the pistol close to my head and fired it. I was wholly unaware that her fury would lead her to this excess. It was a sort of mechanical impulse that made me raise my hand and attempt to turn aside the weapon. I did this deliberately and tranquilly, and without conceiving that any thing more was intended by her movement than to intimidate me.
To this precaution, however, I was indebted for life. The bullet was diverted from my forehead to my left ear, and made a slight wound upon the surface, from which the blood gushed in a stream.
The loudness of this explosion, and the shock which the ball produced in my brain, sunk me into a momentary stupor. I reeled backward, and should have fallen, had not I supported myself against the wall. The sight of my blood instantly restored her reason. Her rage disappeared, and was succeeded by terror and remorse. She clasped her hands, and exclaimed, ”Oh! what! what have I done? My frantic pa.s.sion has destroyed me.”
I needed no long time to show me the full extent of the injury which I had suffered and the conduct which it became me to adopt. For a moment I was bewildered and alarmed, but presently perceived that this was an incident more productive of good than of evil. It would teach me caution in contending with the pa.s.sions of another, and showed me that there is a limit which the impetuosities of anger will sometimes overstep.
Instead of reviling my companion, I addressed myself to her thus:--
”Be not frighted. You have done me no injury, and, I hope, will derive instruction from this event. Your rashness had like to have sacrificed the life of one who is your friend, and to have exposed yourself to infamy and death, or, at least, to the pangs of eternal remorse. Learn from hence to curb your pa.s.sions, and especially to keep at a distance from every murderous weapon, on occasions when rage is likely to take place of reason.
”I repeat that my motives in entering this house were connected with your happiness as well as that of Clemenza Lodi. If I have erred in supposing you the member of a vile and pernicious trade, that error was worthy of being rectified, but violence and invective tend only to confirm it. I am incapable of any purpose that is not beneficent; but, in the means that I use and in the evidence on which I proceed, I am liable to a thousand mistakes. Point out to me the road by which I can do you good, and I will cheerfully pursue it.”
Finding that her fears had been groundless as to the consequences of her rashness, she renewed, though with less vehemence than before, her imprecations on my intermeddling and audacious folly. I listened till the storm was nearly exhausted, and then, declaring my intention to revisit the house if the interest of Clemenza should require it, I resumed my way to the city.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI.
”Why,” said I, as I hasted forward, ”is my fortune so abundant in unforeseen occurrences? Is every man who leaves his cottage and the impressions of his infancy behind him ushered into such a world of revolutions and perils as have trammelled my steps? or is my scene indebted for variety and change to my propensity to look into other people's concerns, and to make their sorrows and their joys mine?
”To indulge an adventurous spirit, I left the precincts of the barn-door, enlisted in the service of a stranger, and encountered a thousand dangers to my virtue under the disastrous influence of Welbeck.
Afterwards my life was set at hazard in the cause of Wallace, and now am I loaded with the province of protecting the helpless Eliza Hadwin and the unfortunate Clemenza. My wishes are fervent, and my powers shall not be inactive in their defence; but how slender are these powers!
”In the offers of the unknown lady there is, indeed, some consolation for Clemenza. It must be my business to lay before my friend Stevens the particulars of what has befallen me, and to entreat his directions how this disconsolate girl may be most effectually succoured. It may be wise to take her from her present abode, and place her under some chaste and humane guardians.h.i.+p, where she may gradually lose remembrance of her dead infant and her specious betrayer. The barrier that severs her from Welbeck must be high as heaven and insuperable as necessity.
”But, soft! Talked she not of Welbeck? Said she not that he was in prison and was sick? Poor wretch! I thought thy course was at an end; that the penalty of guilt no longer weighed down thy heart; that thy misdeeds and thy remorses were buried in a common and obscure grave; but it seems thou art still alive.
”Is it rational to cherish the hope of thy restoration to innocence and peace? Thou art no obdurate criminal; hadst thou less virtue, thy compunctions would be less keen. Wert thou deaf to the voice of duty, thy wanderings into guilt and folly would be less fertile of anguish.
The time will perhaps come, when the measure of thy transgressions and calamities will overflow, and the folly of thy choice will be too conspicuous to escape thy discernment. Surely, even for such transgressors as thou, there is a salutary power in the precepts of truth and the lessons of experience.
”But thou art imprisoned and art sick. This, perhaps, is the crisis of thy destiny. Indigence and dishonour were the evils to shun which thy integrity and peace of mind have been lightly forfeited. Thou hast found that the price was given in vain; that the hollow and deceitful enjoyments of opulence and dignity were not worth the purchase; and that, frivolous and unsubstantial as they are, the only path that leads to them is that of honesty and diligence. Thou art in prison and art sick; and there is none to cheer thy hour with offices of kindness, or uphold thy fainting courage by the suggestions of good counsel. For such as thou the world has no compa.s.sion. Mankind will pursue thee to the grave with execrations. Their cruelty will be justified or palliated, since they know thee not. They are unacquainted with the goadings of thy conscience and the bitter retributions which thou art daily suffering.
They are full of their own wrongs, and think only of those tokens of exultation and complacency which thou wast studious of a.s.suming in thy intercourse with them. It is I only that thoroughly know thee and can rightly estimate thy claims to compa.s.sion.
”I have somewhat partaken of thy kindness, and thou meritest some grat.i.tude at my hands. Shall I not visit and endeavour to console thee in thy distress? Let me, at least, ascertain thy condition, and be the instrument in repairing the wrongs which thou hast inflicted. Let me gain, from the contemplation of thy misery, new motives to sincerity and rect.i.tude.”
While occupied by these reflections, I entered the city. The thoughts which engrossed my mind related to Welbeck. It is not my custom to defer till to-morrow what can be done to-day. The destiny of man frequently hangs upon the lapse of a minute. ”I will stop,” said I, ”at the prison; and, since the moment of my arrival may not be indifferent, I will go thither with all possible haste.” I did not content myself with walking, but, regardless of the comments of pa.s.sengers, hurried along the way at full speed.
Having inquired for Welbeck, I was conducted through a dark room, crowded with beds, to a staircase. Never before had I been in a prison.
Never had I smelt so noisome an odour, or surveyed faces so begrimed with filth and misery. The walls and floors were alike squalid and detestable. It seemed that in this house existence would be bereaved of all its attractions; and yet those faces, which could be seen through the obscurity that encompa.s.sed them, were either void of care or distorted with mirth.