""Tut!" said Mountford, "do you eat macaroni--""
[At this place had the greatest depredations of the curate begun.
There were so very few connected pa.s.sages of the subsequent chapters remaining, that even the partiality of an editor could not offer them to the public. I discovered, from some scattered sentences, that they were of much the same tenor with the preceding; recitals of little adventures, in which the dispositions of a man, sensible to judge, and still more warm to feel, had room to unfold themselves. Some instruction, and some example, I make no doubt they contained; but it is likely that many of those, whom chance has led to a perusal of what I have already presented, may have read it with little pleasure, and will feel no disappointment from the want of those parts which I have been unable to procure. To such as may have expected the intricacies of a novel, a few incidents in a life undistinguished, except by some features of the heart, cannot have afforded much entertainment.
Harley"s own story, from the mutilated pa.s.sages I have mentioned, as well as from some inquiries I was at the trouble of making in the country, I found to have been simple to excess. His mistress, I could perceive, was not married to Sir Harry Benson; but it would seem, by one of the following chapters, which is still entire, that Harley had not profited on the occasion by making any declaration of his own pa.s.sion, after those of the other had been unsuccessful.
The state of his health, for some part of this period, appears to have been such as to forbid any thoughts of that kind: he had been seized with a very dangerous fever, caught by attending old Edwards in one of an infectious kind. From this he had recovered but imperfectly, and though he had no formed complaint, his health was manifestly on the decline.
It appears that the sagacity of some friend had at length pointed out to his aunt a cause from which this might be supposed to proceed, to wit, his hopeless love for Miss Walton; for, according to the conceptions of the world, the love of a man of Harley"s fortune for the heiress of 4,000 pounds a year is indeed desperate.
Whether it was so in this case may be gathered from the next chapter, which, with the two subsequent, concluding the performance, have escaped those accidents that proved fatal to the rest.]
CHAPTER LV--HE SEES MISS WALTON, AND IS HAPPY
Harley was one of those few friends whom the malevolence of fortune had yet left me; I could not therefore but be sensibly concerned for his present indisposition; there seldom pa.s.sed a day on which I did not make inquiry about him.
The physician who attended him had informed me the evening before, that he thought him considerably better than he had been for some time past. I called next morning to be confirmed in a piece of intelligence so welcome to me.
When I entered his apartment, I found him sitting on a couch, leaning on his hand, with his eye turned upwards in the att.i.tude of thoughtful inspiration. His look had always an open benignity, which commanded esteem; there was now something more--a gentle triumph in it.
He rose, and met me with his usual kindness. When I gave him the good accounts I had had from his physician, "I am foolish enough,"
said he, "to rely but little, in this instance, upon physic: my presentiment may be false; but I think I feel myself approaching to my end, by steps so easy, that they woo me to approach it.
"There is a certain dignity in retiring from life at a time, when the infirmities of age have not sapped our faculties. This world, my dear Charles, was a scene in which I never much delighted. I was not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the dissipation of the gay; a thousand things occurred, where I blushed for the impropriety of my conduct when I thought on the world, though my reason told me I should have blushed to have done otherwise.--It was a scene of dissimulation, of restraint, of disappointment. I leave it to enter on that state which I have learned to believe is replete with the genuine happiness attendant upon virtue. I look back on the tenor of my life, with the consciousness of few great offences to account for. There are blemishes, I confess, which deform in some degree the picture. But I know the benignity of the Supreme Being, and rejoice at the thoughts of its exertion in my favour. My mind expands at the thought I shall enter into the society of the blessed, wise as angels, with the simplicity of children." He had by this time clasped my hand, and found it wet by a tear which had just fallen upon it.--His eye began to moisten too--we sat for some time silent.--At last, with an attempt to a look of more composure, "There are some remembrances," said Harley, "which rise involuntary on my heart, and make me almost wish to live. I have been blessed with a few friends, who redeem my opinion of mankind. I recollect, with the tenderest emotion, the scenes of pleasure I have pa.s.sed among them; but we shall meet again, my friend, never to be separated. There are some feelings which perhaps are too tender to be suffered by the world.--The world is in general selfish, interested, and unthinking, and throws the imputation of romance or melancholy on every temper more susceptible than its own. I cannot think but in those regions which I contemplate, if there is any thing of mortality left about us, that these feelings will subsist;- -they are called,--perhaps they are--weaknesses here;--but there may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve the name of virtues." He sighed as he spoke these last words. He had scarcely finished them, when the door opened, and his aunt appeared, leading in Miss Walton. "My dear," said she, "here is Miss Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you herself." I could observe a transient glow upon his face. He rose from his seat--"If to know Miss Walton"s goodness," said he, "be a t.i.tle to deserve it, I have some claim." She begged him to resume his seat, and placed herself on the sofa beside him. I took my leave. Mrs. Margery accompanied me to the door. He was left with Miss Walton alone. She inquired anxiously about his health. "I believe," said he, "from the accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no great hopes of my recovery."- -She started as he spoke; but recollecting herself immediately, endeavoured to flatter him into a belief that his apprehensions were groundless. "I know," said he, "that it is usual with persons at my time of life to have these hopes, which your kindness suggests; but I would not wish to be deceived. To meet death as becomes a man, is a privilege bestowed on few.--I would endeavour to make it mine;-- nor do I think that I can ever be better prepared for it than now: - -It is that chiefly which determines the fitness of its approach."
"Those sentiments," answered Miss Walton, "are just; but your good sense, Mr. Harley, will own, that life has its proper value.--As the province of virtue, life is enn.o.bled; as such, it is to be desired.- -To virtue has the Supreme Director of all things a.s.signed rewards enough even here to fix its attachment."
The subject began to overpower her.--Harley lifted his eyes from the ground--"There are," said he, in a very low voice, "there are attachments, Miss Walton"--His glance met hers.--They both betrayed a confusion, and were both instantly withdrawn.--He paused some moments--"I am such a state as calls for sincerity, let that also excuse it--It is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet. I feel something particularly solemn in the acknowledgment, yet my heart swells to make it, awed as it is by a sense of my presumption, by a sense of your perfections"--He paused again--"Let it not offend you, to know their power over one so unworthy--It will, I believe, soon cease to beat, even with that feeling which it shall lose the latest.--To love Miss Walton could not be a crime;--if to declare it is one--the expiation will be made."--Her tears were now flowing without control.--"Let me intreat you," said she, "to have better hopes--Let not life be so indifferent to you; if my wishes can put any value on it--I will not pretend to misunderstand you--I know your worth--I have known it long--I have esteemed it--What would you have me say?--I have loved it as it deserved."--He seized her hand-- a languid colour reddened his cheek--a smile brightened faintly in his eye. As he gazed on her, it grew dim, it fixed, it closed--He sighed and fell back on his seat--Miss Walton screamed at the sight- -His aunt and the servants rushed into the room--They found them lying motionless together.--His physician happened to call at that instant. Every art was tried to recover them--With Miss Walton they succeeded--But Harley was gone for ever.
CHAPTER LVI--THE EMOTIONS OF THE HEART
I entered the room where his body lay; I approached it with reverence, not fear: I looked; the recollection of the past crowded upon me. I saw that form which, but a little before, was animated with a soul which did honour to humanity, stretched without sense or feeling before me. "Tis a connection we cannot easily forget:- I took his hand in mine; I repeated his name involuntary;--I felt a pulse in every vein at the sound. I looked earnestly in his face; his eye was closed, his lip pale and motionless. There is an enthusiasm in sorrow that forgets impossibility; I wondered that it was so. The sight drew a prayer from my heart: it was the voice of frailty and of man! the confusion of my mind began to subside into thought; I had time to meet!
I turned with the last farewell upon my lips, when I observed old Edwards standing behind me. I looked him full in the face; but his eye was fixed on another object: he pressed between me and the bed, and stood gazing on the breathless remains of his benefactor. I spoke to him I know not what; but he took no notice of what I said, and remained in the same att.i.tude as before. He stood some minutes in that posture, then turned and walked towards the door. He paused as he went;--he returned a second time: I could observe his lips move as he looked: but the voice they would have uttered was lost.
He attempted going again; and a third time he returned as before.--I saw him wipe his cheek: then covering his face with his hands, his breast heaving with the most convulsive throbs, he flung out of the room.
THE CONCLUSION
He had hinted that he should like to be buried in a certain spot near the grave of his mother. This is a weakness; but it is universally incident to humanity: "tis at least a memorial for those who survive: for some indeed a slender memorial will serve;-- and the soft affections, when they are busy that way, will build their structures, were it but on the paring of a nail.
He was buried in the place he had desired. It was shaded by an old tree, the only one in the church-yard, in which was a cavity worn by time. I have sat with him in it, and counted the tombs. The last time we pa.s.sed there, methought he looked wistfully on the tree: there was a branch of it that bent towards us waving in the wind; he waved his hand as if he mimicked its motion. There was something predictive in his look! perhaps it is foolish to remark it; but there are times and places when I am a child at those things.
I sometimes visit his grave; I sit in the hollow of the tree. It is worth a thousand homilies; every n.o.ble feeling rises within me!
every beat of my heart awakens a virtue!--but it will make you hate the world--No: there is such an air of gentleness around, that I can hate nothing; but, as to the world--I pity the men of it.
Footnotes:
{16} The reader will remember that the Editor is accountable only for scattered chapters and fragments of chapters; the curate must answer for the rest. The number at the top, when the chapter was entire, he has given as it originally stood, with the t.i.tle which its author had affixed to it.
{61} Though the Curate could not remember having shown this chapter to anybody, I strongly suspect that these political observations are the work of a later pen than the rest of this performance. There seems to have been, by some accident, a gap in the ma.n.u.script, from the words, "Expectation at a jointure," to these, "In short, man is an animal," where the present blank ends; and some other person (for the hand is different, and the ink whiter) has filled part of it with sentiments of his own. Whoever he was, he seems to have caught some portion of the spirit of the man he personates.