"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 real charge. Pardon me, I wronged you,--now, know all! They accuse me, I say, of crime. Of what crime? you ask. Ay, I scarce know, so vague is 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 att.i.tude, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 reeked 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; "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 to see what effect Madeline"s touching words might produce on his accuser. Meanwhile she continued: "Speak to me, Walter, dear Walter, speak to me". Are you, my cousin, my playfellow,--are you the one to blight our hopes, to dash our joys, to bring 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! 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,--
"Let him prove his innocence. Pray G.o.d he do! I am not his accuser, Madeline. His accusers are the bones of my dead father! Save these, Heaven alone and the revealing earth are witness against him!"
"Your father!" said Madeline, staggering back,--"my lost uncle! Nay, 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 G.o.d!" 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 hint, "do not order me to leave you now, now in the hour of dread! I will not. Nay, look not so! I swear I will not! Father, dear father, come and plead for me,--say I shall go with you. I ask nothing more. 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 a.s.surance that they were not indeed to be separated.
By this time some of Lester"s servants, who had from a distance 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.
CHAPTER III.
THE JUSTICE--THE DEPARTURE--THE EQUANIMITY OF THE CORPORAL IN BEARING THE MISFORTUNES OF OTHER PEOPLE.--THE EXAMINATION; ITS RESULT.--ARAM"S CONDUCT IN PRISON.--THE ELASTICITY OF OUR HUMAN NATURE.--A VISIT FROM THE EARL.--WALTER"S DETERMINATION.--MADELINE.
Bear me to prison, where I am committed.
--Measure for Measure.
On arriving at Sir--"s, a disappointment, for which, had they 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 circ.u.mstance, his conviction that the charge would be disproved, and a few other courteous common-places, 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 country, that the examination was to take place. "All I can do," said the magistrate, "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 rect.i.tude of your life alone as a sufficient refutation of so monstrous a charge."
For the first time a visible embarra.s.sment came over the firm nerves of the prisoner: he seemed to look with great uneasiness 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 pa.s.sed, 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 circ.u.mstances so fearful, and bearing up with 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 pa.s.sing emotion, a sudden weakness. When he removed it, all vestige of colour had died away; his face was pale as that of one who has 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 learnt 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 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 cannot 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 Gra.s.sdale 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 distress 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 deathbed 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 melancholy depth of humour that steeps both our fancy and our heart in the immortal Romance of Cervantes (for, how profoundly 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: than 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 is not the best part of it. What a pensive thing is true humour! Certain it was, that when Walter, full of contending emotions at all he had witnessed,--hara.s.sed, tortured, yet also elevated, by his feelings, stopped opposite the cottage door, and saw there the Corporal sitting comfortably in the porch,--his vile modic.u.m 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 experienced 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 thereon, than all the tragic scenes he had just witnessed had excited within him.
"And well, Sir," said the Corporal, slowly rising, "how did it go off?--Wasn"t the villain bash"d to the dust?--You"ve nabbed him safe, I hope?"
"Silence," said Walter, sternly, "prepare for our departure. The 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 d.i.c.key, that invaluable domestic hemmed thrice.
"And had you time, Sir, to think of poor Jacob, and look at the cottage, and slip in a word to your uncle about the bit tato ground?"
We pa.s.s over the s.p.a.ce 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 remember circ.u.mstances, 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 wrapt my heart in the contemplation of an august futurity.
""The soul, secure in its existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point."
"If I die even the death of the felon, it is beyond the power of fate to separate us for long. It is but a pang, and we are united again for ever; for ever in that far and shadowy clime, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." 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 n.o.bility of love--we have begun slowly to awaken,