[Alfred wrote], such statements as these failed, as far as I was concerned. Mr. Mainwaring also declined to accept them as evidence. However, the gentlemen who brought them forward are of undoubted respectability, and, though some facts were brought out rather damaging to that of their friend, it was pleaded that a neglected youth offered much extenuation for venial offences. Suspicion of more serious delinquencies, though coming from diverse quarters, failed to establish a case. **** Perhaps this is the best [Alfred concluded], as his course is sure to be closely followed. We have heard where the Irish property lies. Mr. Devonshire takes his yacht there, and has asked me to accompany him. Mr. Boradaile also goes. I trust we may soon hear tidings of the suspected vessel, and, unless others are beforehand, succeed in rescuing your friend." CHAP. L. TURNED BACK. Early on the following morning I was told by Mrs. Cargill that a man from the Rood Farm had asked to speak to me. "You need not be afraid of him, ma'am." she said, "though he has a bit of a craze, he is quite harmless." It was Joe Barnes, whom I had before heard spoken of as "half an idiot." I found a great fellow with a stoop in the shoulders, and a silly face, who stared hard at me and shuffled with his feet: I told him to follow me into the parlour, and closed the door. "You don't know me, ma'am," he began. "I'm called Joe Barnes; and I've got something I'm going to show you presently: did you know Sandy Maclean, as has gone off?” I had heard that Grant's servant-the same man who had been set to watch Mr. Brown on his first coming to Dingleton-had been missing since Thursday evening, and I asked if he was not an Irishman. Joe nodded several times. "I said so myself, ma'am, and I see you're knowing. Master hired him in Scotland, and took him for a Scot; you and I is more knowing. Hasn't he been a courting your young woman, Barbara Charnley?" "Not with my leave," I answered. "He don't ask leave, bless your heart ma'am. He's been a courting Peggy at the Hall this long while; and what I say is, they'll find that woman as was always coming after him is his wife. She had'nt much of a sweetheart-look about her, the old fortune-telling tramp; she promised to bring me a lucky sixpence on Friday, but she's gone off too, I'm thinking." It did not occur to me until afterwards that this might be the woman we had twice met in the neighbourhood. I was impatient to see what thing he had brought to show me. One of the bed-room candlesticks was missing, and I had ordered a search for it in the lane in front of the Hall, but hitherto without result. I thought it might be that. A wandering look came over his face when I reminded him he had something to show me. Putting his hand in his pocket, however, he presently drew from it a red cotton handkerchief, unfolded it, and held up to my view a long shred of black lace. Grey Randal was at his stable door that master. I took his saddle off and when daynight when the police came asking about my light came I picked up that. I thought it would make a cap for my sweetheart, but when I came to think about it again, I said I know that's a bit of a woman's fine gown, and it must have been Miss Helen's-" "Yes, Yes!" I said, "it is; give it to me." I thought of the pleasure Alice had had in dressing Helen in the old silk her ingenuity had made to look so pretty. The pattern of the lace I could still recognize, but its rent condition struck my mind so painfully, that I was scarce capable of listening further to the rambling ideas of the poor lad. I only gathered that he conceived his master had given Helen to the charge of this servant Maclean and his supposed wife, and that consequently he inferred that the Black Band had no part in the matter. On talking over the possibilities with Alice and her uncle, Mr. Littington, who came to see us the same morning, we recalled that this fortune-telling woman was most likely to be the one already under suspicion of connection with the, Black Band; and though the absence of the servant Maclean argued that Grant had desired some one he had trust in should be with Helen, it was very probable such trust was mistaken. Mrs. Wellwood and many other friends and neighbours called to make inquiries after Mr. Wainright's health, and to cheer our spirits with hopeful language, but no new light was thrown by any of them on the subject of our anxieties; only Mr. Ainslie's occasional messages gave us the comfort of knowing that neither Witham nor Grant Wainwright had succeeded in evading pursuit. Alice's self-assumed duties were certainly numerous for one so young, and her mamma having expressed some fear that she would over. task her strength, I had promised she should not be confined too closely to the invalid's room, but have every day a walk towards the sea. On this evening I sent Peggy with her, with injunc tions not to go far from a certain field, where I was told some of the farm labourers were likely to be still at work. Mr. Wainwright had fallen asleep, and I was reading, when I heard Mrs. Cargill's name called from the hall. The voice was Sarah's, and had a tone of alarm in it, which, nervous as I was from recent events, sent me speedily down stairs. Here I found Nanny wringing her hands and uttering ejaculations of terror and despair. "Oh Mrs. Gainsborough, he'll shoot himself! I'm sure he's gone to do it! I'll stop my ears or I shall hear the gun." "What; Grant returned ?" I asked. "Yes, ma'am," said Sarah, who was looking pale and scared herself. "He's been and took the double-barrelled gun from over the housechimney; and he spoke to nobody; and if ever I saw a man as looked like shooting himself, it's Grant Wainwright!" "Which direction did he take?" "Along the orchard wall. He has maybe gone to the rocks, or the cop-" I hastily followed in the direction indicated, choosing the shorter way by the orchard. From thence I could see he was walking quickly towards the embankment bounding the farmland on the sea-side, and I rightly judged he was making for a particular spot; that where the trampled grass had indicated a boat's crew had landed on the night of the event. He never looked back. I hurried on with all the speed I could command, but the distance was not inconsiderable, and he had passed from my sight over the embankment many minutes before I could commence its ascent. | Shut up, and burning, burning, without help or comfort from human sympathy. Had that fire of passions consumed all humanity within him? Had he a heart yet to touch? The heart that is utterly, irremediably hopeless, has ceased to be human-and so he looked. But he had come back to Darliston. What had driven him there? Instinct or hope? If I could but speak to him: if I could but lift him out of this perilous state. But what could I say? What did he deserve that I should say? What claim had he on the sympathy of any? Only this: though he deserved none, he greatly needed it. He looked, indeed, dangerous to approach. I could not see the gun; it was probably on the ground beside him. I changed my position; running under cover of the embankment till I was able to cross it without being perceived by him. Alice saw me, but wisely did not show it. I now saw where his gun rested; it was within his arms length, but a little behind him. To reach this without his being aware of my approach was now my aim. Treading carefully every step I drew near. The breeze rustling among the tufts of grass, aided in concealing the sound of my approach; only when within two paces he heard me, and then, fortunately, his first impulse was to start to his feet, the next thought to seize his gun. He was too late for that; I had hurled it into a pit of water at the back of the rock we stood on. All the way between the higher rocks, which I have been accustomed to call Helen's, and the cleft, there are low ridges and spurs of rocks jutting towards the sea. These have been in some places used as foundation for the embankment which protects the land from the tide. Between these spurs of rocks, when the water is highest, there appear many little bays along the shore, but no boat of ordinary draught could approach the embankment, although here and there are holes deep enough to float a large one. It had been conjectured that a spur of rock projecting from the embankment near the spot II have alluded to, served as a sort of jetty; since it was possible to proceed along it to a depth of water sufficient for a boat to put off in, when, as was then the case, the tide favoured. I had been so full of poor Nanny's fear-that I should hear the gun-that only when I had reached the bank was I conscious of any other. Now the idea of possible danger to myself occurring, I ascended cautiously; and, taking advantage of some long tufts of sea-grass, and bending to my knees, I looked over the top of the bank. To my surprise I beheld two figures; for, while on my right hand Grant sat on the rock, looking indeed an image of gloomy despair, there stood facing him at a little distance, not more than twelve yards, but across a steep of rugged rock, the dear girl Alice. She was steadying herself on one of the boulders of rock with her eyes intently fixed upon him; and oh, what a contrast her fresh, fair looks presented! That she should look pityingly upon him I did not wonder, but that she should have found courage to take up and maintain such a position, did surprise me: for I never saw a man with so fearful an aspect. What dread thoughts must have passed in the world within to have brought Grant Wainwright to such a strange stillness? From under his brows a stony gaze was fixed on Alice, but his eyes looked as the eyes of a wild animal, devoid of human recognition. It was as if his soul were shut up within him. Oh, the look with which he regarded me! was prepared for mad wrath, but it was more the wildness of fear. There was recognition in his look; recognition not merely of myself, but of the past; of the evil he had wrought. For a moment he glanced round as if he would have fled, but the sound of voices told him others were approaching, and throwing easily off the weak resistance of my grasp on his arm, he dashed himself headlong down the rock. Not the depth to which he had fallen, but the desperate violence with which he had flung himself, gave those who witnessed it fears for his life. Alice screamed, and clambered down to assist me to raise him. Fortunally stronger help was at hand. Will Harper, Richard Wilcox, and Peggy, had appeared over the bank. He lay partly in the water. Blood was flowing from his head: his right arm was broken. Together we bore him over the embankment and laid him on the grass, while with our handkerchiefs I bound his head. Old Wilcox meanwhile ran to the Hall, sent his son thence to Dingleton for Doctor Crutchley, and brought a litter, on which Grant was carried to the house, and laid on the bed Dick Wilcox had occupied. The room was on the ground-floor at the back of the house, and adjoining that which was called Mrs. Cargill's. nurse in Poor Nanny had shut herself in the parlour in a very hysterical state, and the only attendance on her master was the young girl who came daily from one of the cottages to assist in the house duties. Doctor Crutchley soon came, bringing an assistant with him. I waited in the parlour to receive the report. He had not a very clear way of stating it, but I understood that the arm was badly fractured, and no other very serious hurt apparent, the wounds of his head not being of a dangerous character. "If his mind were at rest," he said, "I should not doubt to bring him through safely, but as it evidently is with him, inflammatory action is much to be dreaded. You must do all you can to soothe him. He will require constant watching. I am inclined to think there is something in the presence of Mrs. Cargill that is irritating to him. It is certainly expedient that one of the men should be in attendance, but I should recommend that he sit in the next room, and that yourself, or some other person capable of talking with him, should be as much beside him as possible." "Do you apprehend brain-fever?" I asked. "It does seem to me that something like brain-fever menaces him," he replied, "but not as a result of the injuries his head has received; on the contrary, the severe loss of blood he has sustained may prove beneficial." "Is he quite in his senses, do you think?" "I incline to say he is; but his mind seems indeed in a very troubled state. No doubt the recent unfortunate affair has induced it. If you could get him to speak of it, possibly, some relief might result. He will surely work himself into fever unless some relief does come; and it is impossible to say how imminent a fatal result might prove to be." Thoughts of Helen had been busy about my head as I sat alone in the twilight. There was a feeling of aversion to the presence of Grant Wainwright which made my steps slow in ap. proaching the room wherein he lay; but pity gained the mastery when I saw him. The bed, a wretched pallet enough, had been drawn under the window, for the better convenience of the surgeon, and the evening light fell upon his pale features now relaxed in weakness. Haggard and woe-begone he looked; but he looked human again. He turned his head on the pillow with a quick, nervous movement as I drew near, and opened his eyes upon me. "What have you to do here? What do you want with me? Speak!" he cried. His voice was weak from physical exhaustion, but there was a tone of passion in it. "Grant Wainwright," I said, "you have done very wickedly, but I want to tell you that even for you there is hope. Once you told me you would have shot yourself if-" "Oh, would that I had!" he interrupted. "Better, a thousand times better for me, for her!" "You cannot tell," I replied; "there is yet hope for Helen: there is yet hope for you. Was it not even then in your heart to do the evil you have done, sooner than bend your will to the will of Heaven? Nay, you talked of murder as if it were right in your eyes. I do not think it had been better you had shot yourself then. You have lived to see how poor 66 "And her husband, the proud doctor. He will take care she has nothing to do with such as I. Better a short disgrace than a long-" Oh, Grant, life is precious, even though we suffer in it. Is it not an awful thought to you that you have been so near to losing the hope of Heaven? You are not a heathen, Grint; you know what your danger has been: be thankful that you are spared." After a short silence he said, "You are a kind woman, Mrs. Gainsborough, but you had better go you don't know what I am: you would not come near me if you did. Go; leave me!" "No, no, you shall not send me away. You have need of some one to be with you. I will not think of what you have done: I will only remember that you are my poor Helen's cousin ; and as you lie there you have a look of her: I saw it directly I came in." "Oh, would that I had died!" he cried vehemently. vehemently. "Why stop me shooting myself? You should have been glad to see me do it! You should have shot me yourself! Oh, Helen; my dear little Helen!" and he burst into passionate tears. What could I do but weep too? I told him I knew he had taken her; I knew who had led him on, tempted him, betrayed him. He acknowledged that it was so. He said Witham had long before suggested to him that it would be a better thing to take her by force than to suffer her to be married to one who had no love for her. "He fooled me every way," poor Grant continued, "and I trusted him. I gave her, I betrayed her into his hands. I would rather have been hacked limb from limb than have done it! What devil possessed me? And the poor girl would not believe I could be such a villain: to the last she thought I must relent and bring her back." "Grant, did she tell you she was married?" He was silent: I answered for him. "She told you: Oh, Grant, you were far gone on the same road as that wretch, Witham, if even that could not stay you!" "If I had known it earlier it must. Why was I kept in the dark? Why did not your friend Brown tell me?" "He did not know it: I went as far as I could towards revealing it. Helen was very desirous you should be told, but Mr. Wainwright feared your violence, and would not permit it." "He should have written when I was in London. He has not acted well to me. You will say I have no right to complain: I have acted worse towards him? I know it. Even Witham, scoundrel as he is, looks clean beside me: he has not been a traitor in his home. And who would believe he could so lead me? He is so cunning he will make men believe anything he pleases. Mark if he does not make out he snatched her out of my hands to preserve her; he will tell her so." "You think she will be well treated ?" "He must keep up appearances towards her. It is her money he wants: he will keep her out of sight until my uncle is dead-perhaps he has had her conveyed to a convent." "In Ireland, do you suppose?" "No, she would hardly be safe there; if they would take her at all under such circumstances; more likely in Spain. I know he has had dealings abroad: but what can the poor girl do? She hates him, I know; but when he comes forward with some well-got-up story offering to bring her back to England, she must go with him. He will make her consent to a divorce, and the man who has married her will be too glad to be clear again, even if he has to pay back her fortune." I rightly surmised that evil as Grant's experience of Witham's conduct had been, he did not take that extreme view of his depravity which the belief entertained of his complicity with the Black Band had induced in myself and others. It seemed undesirable at this time to acquaint him with our reasons for so believing; my only object, apart from that of soothing him, being to obtain information likely to be useful. "Had you," I inquired, any personal knowledge of the men to whom you gave poor Helen up?" "Two of them I had spoken with, and a woman who was to attend on her." "Your servant, I suppose, went with her in the vessel ?" "My servant? Which servant? None of my servants knew anything of the matter!" "Not Sandy Maclean?" "No, he is I believe a very honest fellow: 1 could not have asked him to take part in it." "The Chaffinch, it is said, is the vessel that must have carried her from the coast. It is said the master, Malone, was the person who testified in favour of that horse dealer, Benson; the man who obstructed Helen's road on the marsh." Could "I know nothing of that: was it so ? Witham have had part in that-have wished then to carry her off? Benson, Malone, Witham? Benson appeared for Witham, did he not, when he was before the magistrates? That Kirby recommended Benson to me, I remember. Kirby was a bad one: I found that out in London." Grant had lately drunk from a cup placed beside him-there was something to induce sleep in it. He went on for awhile commenting on the "bad lot," as he rightly styled them, but his words became incoherent, and he presently fell into a slumber, THE MARTYR. BY LILY SHORTHOUSE. Upon the stately Capitol The glorious day-it lingered still, As if it knew the sunset ray Could come no more to one. By gate, and tower, and prison door, Their watch the soldiers kept, The City of the Seven Hills In all her beauty slept. And in one silent prison-cell A few more hours of life were all Her high-born sisters wept for her Long days and nights they wearied her With vain and ceaseless prayer; And from her faithful heart the words "What shall I render to the Lord, The morrow came-they brought her forth, A Christian's death to die. They offered life, she wavered not; But raised her earnest eyes, She gazed, while like a flood Unheeding, in that burst of light, The shouts are hushed-o'er Tiber's flood She wears the martyr's crown. The place is vacant where she stood, To Christ, her Lord, remains. And, speaking from the dust, its voice LETTERS, &c., OF LORD BYRON. You see I have got to Milan. We came by the Simplon, escaping all perils of precipices and robbers, of which last there was some talk and apprehension, a chain of English carriages having been stopped near Cesto a few weeks ago, and handsomely pilfered of various chattels. We were not molested .... The Simplon, you know, is the most stupid of all possible routes, so I shall not describe it. I also navigated the Lago Maggiore, and went over the Borromian Islands. The latter are fine, but too artificial, as indeed is the whole country from Geneva hither, and the Alpine part most magnificent. Close to Milan is the beginning of an unfinished triumphal arch for Napoleon, so beautiful as to make one regret its noncompletion. As we only reached Milan last night, I can say little about it, but will write in a few days. The Jerseys are here. Madame de Staël is gone to Paris, or going, from Coppet. I was more there than elsewhere during my stay at Diodoti, and she has been particularly kind and friendly towards me the whole time. When you write address to Geneva still, Poste-Restante, and my banker (Monsieur Hentesh) will forward your letters. I have written to you so often lately that you will not regret the brevity of this. I hope that you received safely my presents for the children (by Scrope), and that you also have by the post a little journal of a journey in and on the Alps, which I sent you early this month, having kept it on purpose for .-Ever my own dearest, yours. you. a Verona, Nov. 6th, 1816. MY DEAREST ——,¦ I am thus far on my way to Venice, and shall stay here day to see the place, the paintings, the "tomb of all the Capulets," which they show (at least a tomb which they call so after the story from which Shakespeare drew the plot of his play), and all the sights and so-forths at which it is usual to gape in passing. I left Milan on Sunday, and have travelled but slowly over some celebrated ground; but Lombardy is not a beautiful country, at least in autumn, excepting, however, the Lago di Garda and its outlines, which are mountainous on one side, and it is a very fine stormy lake throughout, never quiet, and I had the pleasure of seeing it in all its vexation, foaming like a little sea, as Virgil has described it, but (thank God!) you are not a blue-stocking, so I won't inflict the appropriate bit of Latin upon you. ... I wrote to you a few scraps of letterets-I may call them, they were so short-from Milan, just to keep you out of (or in) a fuss about Dr. whom I parted with before I left Genoa, not for any great harm, but because he was always in squabbles, and had no kind of conduct, contrived at Milan, which he reached before me, to get into a quarrel with an Austrian, and to be ordered out of the city by the government. I did not even see his adventure, nor had anything to do with it, except getting him out of arrest, and trying to get him altogether out of the scrape. This I mention because I know, in England, someone or other will probably transfer his adventures to me. After what has been said already, I have a right to suspect everything and everybody, so I state all this for your satisfaction, that you may be able to con tradict any such report. Mr. Hobhouse and Trevanion, and indeed everybody Italian and English then at Milan, can contradict this if necessary. It occurred several days before Mr. H- and myself left it. When we reach So much for this Venice I shall write to thee again. I had received the acknowledgment of the journal and the trinkets by Scrope, of which I delight to hear the reception. In health I am pretty well, except that the confounded Lombardy rains of this season (the autumn) have given me a flying rheumatism, which is troublesome at times, and makes me feel ancient. I am also growing grey and giddy, and I cannot help thinking my head will decay-I wish my memory would, at least my remembrance Ever my own, thy own. P.S.-I forgot to tell you that my dog ("Mutz" by name and Swiss by nation) shuts a door when he is told-there, that's more than Tip can do!. I hope she likes her seals, and all her share of Mont Blanc. I have had so much of mountains, that I am not yet reconciled to the plains; but they improve. Verona seems a fine city. P.S., Nov. 7.-I have been over Verona. The amphitheatre is superb, and in high preservation. Of the truth of the story of Juliet they seem very tenacious, giving the date (1303), and * the story was true. * Lord Byron evidently leaned to the opinion that To its reality it has been objected that the oldest narrator (Masuccio) relates it as having happened at Sienna; but since he represents it as related by a Siennese, it is highly probable that he heard the history at Verona, but took the liberty of transferring the scene to Sienna, to suit his own purposes. Other authors mention it as being un doubtedly true. |