"About four and twenty. He was the son of my wife"s sister; therefore my relation only by marriage. He was certainly the most extraordinary child I ever beheld. I cannot recollect him but with inconceivable emotions of affection. Of all the sportive little creatures I ever met with, he was the most active, the most undaunted, and the most winning. Heaven bless the sweet boy! He was my delight. My eyes overflow whenever I recall to mind the feats of his childhood, which can never be long forgotten by me. My wife and her sister had been at variance, and the first time I saw him was at a fair; when he was not five years old. I found him placed on a table, where he stood reading the newspaper to country farmers; who were collected round him, and hearing him with astonishment. They seemed to doubt if he could possibly be a child, born of a woman; and were more inclined to think him a supernatural being. His flaxen curly hair, his intelligent eyes, his rosy cheeks, his strong and proportioned limbs, and his cheerful animated countenance, rendered him the most beautiful and most endearing of human creatures. The discriminating sensibility which he displayed was enchanting. Oh should he be living, should I find him, and should he be at present all that his infancy promised, G.o.d of heaven and earth! I should expire. The pleasure would be too mighty for my years. But, should I survive it, I should once again before I die feel the animating fervor of youth."
I listened in amazement. I was not then acquainted with all the incidents of my childhood so perfectly as, by hearing them repeated, I since have been: but I knew enough of them to be persuaded the discourse that I had heard could relate only to me. I paused. I gazed.
My eyes were riveted upon the narrator. At length I exclaimed--"What I have just heard, sir, has excited very strange ideas. They seem almost impossible: and yet I am persuaded they are true. Pardon a question which I cannot refrain to ask. Surely I cannot be mistaken! Your name is Elford?"
"Sir!"
"You are my--"
"Speak! Go on! What am I?"
"My uncle!"
"Heavens! Mr. Trevor! Is that your name?"
"It is."
"Oh! G.o.d! Oh! G.o.d! Oh! G.o.d!--Hugh! Little Hugh! My boy! My sweet boy!"
Mr. Elford was almost overcome. In a moment he again cried--"My saviour too! Still the same! Courageous, humane, generous! All that my soul could desire! Oh shield me, deliver me from this excess of joy!"
CHAPTER XVII
_The conclusion_
One event only excepted, little remains to be told of my story; and that one is doubtless antic.i.p.ated by the imagination of the reader.
To describe the enquiries that pa.s.sed between me and my uncle, the various fortunes we had encountered, and the feelings they excited, would be to write his history and tediously repeat my own. My difficulties now disappeared. I was the acknowledged heir of a man of great wealth: therefore, I myself am become a great man. Heaven preserve me from becoming indolent, proud, and oppressive! I have not yet forgotten that oppression exists, that pride is its chief counsellor, that activity and usefulness are the sacred duties of both rich and poor, that the wealth entrusted to my distribution is the property of those whom most it can benefit, that I am a creature of very few wants, but that those few in others as well as in myself are imperious, and that I have felt them in all their rigour. Neither have I yet shut my doors on one of my former friends. But I am comparatively young in prosperity. How long I shall be able to persevere in this eccentric conduct time must tell. At present I must proceed, and mention the few remaining circ.u.mstances with which the reader may wish to be acquainted.
After my uncle had heard me describe Olivia, and mention the motives which induced me to wish to aid her brother, he immediately determined on taking the journey we had before proposed. We neither of us wished to separate. Robust in "a green old age," he had no fear of fatigue from travelling this distance; and it would be a pleasure to revisit, in my company, scenes which would bring my former sports and pranks to his recollection. He heard from me a confirmation of the death of Mrs.
Elford; and heard it with the same tokens of melancholy in his face which he had betrayed, when he spoke of her himself.
That I should have wished before I took this journey, short as it was, to have seen Olivia, related all my good fortune and partaken in the pleasure it would excite in her, may well be imagined: but forms, and delicacies, and I know not what habitual feelings, forbad me the enjoyment of this premature bliss. I wrote however, and not only to her but to those tried and invaluable friends who were not to be neglected.
We found Hector in a lamentable state. Instead of the bluff robust form, which but shortly before he had worn, his limbs were shrunk, his cheeks formerly of a high red were wan and hollow, his voice was gone, his lungs were affected, and his cough was incessant. He had himself at last begun to think his life in danger; and was preparing to return to town for advice: consequently our stay was short. His reception of me however was friendly. The increasing debility which he felt softened his manners; and, when he understood the good fortune that had befallen me, he seemed sincerely to rejoice.
And now let me request the reader to call to mind, not only my first emotions of love for Olivia, and the violence of the pa.s.sion that preyed upon me while struggling between hope and despair, but those late testimonies of affection, such as a mind so dignified as hers could bestow; and then let him imagine what our meeting must be.
Should he expect me to describe her, such as she was and is, in all her attractions, all her beauties, and all her various excellence, he expects an impossible task. To be beloved by her, to be found worthy of her, and to call her mine, are blessings that infinitely exceed momentary rapture: they are lasting and indubitable happiness.
I know not if it will give him pleasure to be told that, could I have delighted in revenge, I might have satiated myself with that unworthy and destructive pa.s.sion. The committee, appointed to decide on the election, voted the Idford candidate guilty of bribery and corruption. The fortune of the Earl, like that of Hector, has suffered depredations which half a century will probably not repair. The new-made peer and his party daily became so obnoxious to the nation, by the destructive tendency of their measures, that they were and continue to be haunted by terrors that deprive them of the faculties common to man. My heart bears witness for me that I do not speak this in triumph. I should be no less vicious than unworthy, could I triumph in the misfortunes of any human being: but I were a wretch indeed, were I to make mistakes that are the scourge of mankind a subject of exultation.
Must I repeat more names? Is it necessary to say the virtues of Turl and Wilmot are too splendid to need my praise: or that my social hours are most beneficially and delightfully spent in their society? That I have amply provided for the generous-minded Clarke? That Philip is once more the good and faithful servant of a kind mistress? That Mary and her son are equally objects of my attention? And that I do not mean to boast of these things as acts of munificence: but as the performance of duties?
This were unnecessary. Neither shall I be required to particularize the present happiness of Lydia, now Mrs. Wakefield; and of that man of brilliant and astonishing faculties who is her affectionate companion and friend, and from whose exertions, if I am not strangely mistaken, the world has so much to profit and so much to expect. Like me, he is in the enjoyment of affluence; and he enjoys it with a liberal and munificent spirit. Are there any who hate him, because he once was guilty of hateful crimes? I hope not. It is a spirit that would sweep away half the inhabitants of the "peopled earth." For my own part, I delight in his conversation, am enlivened by his wit, and prompted to enquiry by the acuteness of his remarks. He is a man whom I am proud to say I love.
I have told my tale. If it should afford instruction, if it should inspire a love of virtue, briefly, if it should contribute to the happiness of mankind, I shall have gained my purpose. My labours will be most richly rewarded.