Eugene Aram Part 39

"The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below."

The mist obscured and saddened the few lights scattered on either side the water. And a deep and gloomy quiet brooded round;

"The very houses seemed asleep, And all that mighty heart was lying still."

Arousing himself from his short and sombre reverie, Aram resumed his way, and threading some of the smaller streets on the opposite side of the water, arrived at last in the street in which he was to seek Houseman.

It was a narrow and dark lane, and seemed altogether of a suspicious and disreputable locality. One or two samples of the lowest description of alehouses broke the dark silence of the spot;--from them streamed the only lights which a.s.sisted the single lamp that burned at the entrance of the alley; and bursts of drunken laughter and obscene merriment broke out every now and then from these wretched theatres of Pleasure As Aram pa.s.sed one of them, a crowd of the lowest order of ruffian and harlot issued noisily from the door, and suddenly obstructed his way; through this vile press reeking with the stamp and odour of the most repellent character of vice was the lofty and cold Student to force his path! The darkness, his quick step, his downcast head, favoured his escape through the unhallowed throng, and he now stood opposite the door of a small and narrow house. A ponderous knocker adorned the door, which seemed of uncommon strength, being thickly studded with large nails. He knocked twice before his summons was answered, and then a voice from within, cried, "Who's there? What want you?"

"I seek one called Houseman."

No answer was returned--some moments elapsed. Again the Student knocked, and presently he heard the voice of Houseman himself call out, "Who's there--Joe the Cracksman?"

"Richard Houseman, it is I," answered Aram, in a deep tone, and suppressing the natural feelings of loathing and abhorrence.

Houseman uttered a quick exclamation; the door was hastily unbarred All within was utterly dark; but Aram felt with a thrill of repugnance, the gripe of his strange acquaintance on his hand.

"Ha! it is you!--Come in, come in!--let me lead you. Have a care--cling to the wall--the right hand--now then--stay. So--so"--(opening the door of a room, in which a single candle, wellnigh in its socket, broke on the previous darkness;) "here we are! here we are! And, how goes it--eh!"

Houseman, now bustling about, did the honours of his apartment with a sort of complacent hospitality. He drew two rough wooden chairs, that in some late merriment seemed to have been upset, and lay, c.u.mbering the unwashed and carpetless floor, in a position exactly contrary to that destined them by their maker;--he drew these chairs near a table strewed with drinking horns, half-emptied bottles, and a pack of cards. Dingy caricatures of the large coa.r.s.e fashion of the day, decorated the walls; and carelessly thrown on another table, lay a pair of huge horse-pistols, an immense shovel hat, a false moustache, a rouge-pot, and a riding-whip. All this the Student comprehended with a rapid glance--his lip quivered for a moment--whether with shame or scorn of himself, and then throwing himself on the chair Houseman had set for him, he said, "I have come to discharge my part of our agreement."

"You are most welcome," replied Houseman, with that tone of coa.r.s.e, yet flippant jocularity, which afforded to the mien and manner of Aram a still stronger contrast than his more unrelieved brutality.

"There," said Aram, giving him a paper; "there you will perceive that the sum mentioned is secured to you, the moment you quit this country.

When shall that be? Let me entreat haste."

"Your prayer shall be granted. Before day-break to-morrow, I will be on the road."

Aram's face brightened.

"There is my hand upon it," said Houseman, earnestly. "You may now rest a.s.sured that you are free of me for life. Go home--marry--enjoy your existence--as I have done. Within four days, if the wind set fair, I am in France."

"My business is done; I will believe you," said Aram, frankly, and rising.

"You may," answered Houseman. "Stay--I will light you to the door. Devil and death--how the d--d candle flickers."

Across the gloomy pa.s.sage, as the candle now flared--and now was dulled--by quick fits and starts,--Houseman, after this brief conference, reconducted the Student. And as Aram turned from the door, he flung his arms wildly aloft, and exclaimed in the voice of one, from whose heart a load is lifted--"Now, now, for Madeline. I breathe freely at last."

Meanwhile, Houseman turned musingly back, and regained his room, muttering, "Yes--yes--my business here is also done! Competence and safety abroad--after all, what a bugbear is this conscience!--fourteen years have rolled away--and lo! nothing discovered! nothing known! And easy circ.u.mstances--the very consequence of the deed--wait the remainder of my days:--my child, too--my Jane--shall not want--shall not be a beggar nor a harlot."

So musing, Houseman threw himself contentedly on the chair, and the last flicker of the expiring light, as it played upward on his rugged countenance--rested on one of those self-hugging smiles, with which a sanguine man contemplates a satisfactory future.

He had not been long alone, before the door opened; and a woman with a light in her hand appeared. She was evidently intoxicated, and approached Houseman with a reeling and unsteady step.

"How now, Bess? drunk as usual. Get to bed, you she shark, go!"

"Tush, man, tush! don't talk to your betters," said the woman, sinking into a chair; and her situation, disgusting as it was, could not conceal the rare, though somewhat coa.r.s.e beauty of her face and person.

Even Houseman, (his heart being opened, as it were, by the cheering prospects of which his soliloquy had indulged the contemplation,) was sensible of the effect of the mere physical attraction, and drawing his chair closer to her, he said in a tone less harsh than usual.

"Come, Bess, come, you must correct that d--d habit of yours; perhaps I may make a lady of you after all. What if I were to let you take a trip with me to France, old girl, eh? and let you set off that handsome face, for you are devilish handsome, and that's the truth of it, with some of the French gewgaws you women love. What if. I were? would you be a good girl, eh?"

"I think I would, d.i.c.k,--I think I would," replied the woman, showing a set of teeth as white as ivory, with pleasure partly at the flattery, partly at the proposition: "you are a good fellow, d.i.c.k, that you are."

"Humph!" said Houseman, whose hard, shrewd mind was not easily cajoled, "but what's that paper in your bosom, Bess? a love-letter, I'll swear."

"'Tis to you then; came to you this morning, only somehow or other, I forgot to give it you till now!"

"Ha! a letter to me?" said Houseman, seizing the epistle in question.

"Hem! the Knaresbro' postmark--my mother-in-law's crabbed hand, too!

what can the old crone want?"

He opened the letter, and hastily scanning its contents, started up.

"Mercy, mercy!" cried he, "my child is ill, dying. I may never see her again,--my only child,--the only thing that loves me,--that does not loath me as a villain!"

"Heyday, d.i.c.ky!" said the woman, clinging to him, "don't take on so, who so fond of you as me?--what's a brat like that!"

"Curse on you, hag!" exclaimed Houseman, dashing her to the ground with a rude brutality, "you love me! Pah! My child,--my little Jane,--my pretty Jane,--my merry Jane,--my innocent Jane--I will seek her instantly--instantly; what's money? what's ease,--if--if--" And the father, wretch, ruffian as he was, stung to the core of that last redeeming feeling of his dissolute nature, struck his breast with his clenched hand, and rushed from the room--from the house.

CHAPTER VII.

MADELINE, HER HOPES.--A MILD AUTUMN CHARACTERISED.

--A LANDSCAPE.--A RETURN.

'Tis late, and cold--stir up the fire, Sit close, and draw the table nigher; Be merry and drink wine that's old, A hearty medicine 'gainst a cold, Welcome--welcome shall fly round!

--Beaumont and Fletcher: Song in the Lover's Progress.

As when the Great Poet,--

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained In that obscure sojourn; while, in his flight Through utter and through middle darkness borne, He sang of chaos, and eternal night:--

As when, revisiting the "Holy Light, offspring of heaven first-born,"

the sense of freshness and glory breaks upon him, and kindles into the solemn joyfulness of adjuring song: so rises the mind from the contemplation of the gloom and guilt of life, "the utter and the middle darkness," to some pure and bright redemption of our nature--some creature of "the starry threshold," "the regions mild of calm and serene air." Never was a nature more beautiful and soft than that of Madeline Lester--never a nature more inclined to live "above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, which men call earth"--to commune with its own high and chaste creations of thought--to make a world out of the emotions which this world knows not--a paradise, which sin, and suspicion, and fear, had never yet invaded--where G.o.d might recognise no evil, and Angels forebode no change.

Aram's return was now daily, nay, even hourly expected. Nothing disturbed the soft, though thoughtful serenity, with which his betrothed relied upon the future. Aram's letters had been more deeply impressed with the evidence of love, than even his spoken vows: those letters had diffused not so much an agitated joy, as a full and mellow light of happiness over her heart. Every thing, even Nature, seemed inclined to smile with approbation on her hopes. The autumn had never, in the memory of man, worn so lovely a garment: the balmy and freshening warmth, which sometimes characterises that period of the year, was not broken, as yet, by the chilling winds, or the sullen mists, which speak to us so mournfully of the change that is creeping over the beautiful world.

The summer visitants among the feathered tribe yet lingered in flocks, showing no intention of departure; and their song--but above all, the song of the sky-lark--which, to the old English poet, was what the nightingale is to the Eastern--seemed even to grow more cheerful as the sun shortened his daily task;--the very mulberry-tree, and the rich boughs of the horse chesnut, retained something of their verdure; and the thousand glories of the woodland around Gra.s.sdale were still chequered with the golden hues that herald, but beautify Decay. Still, no news had been received of Walter: and this was the only source of anxiety that troubled the domestic happiness of the Manor-house. But the Squire continued to remember, that in youth he himself had been but a negligent correspondent; and the anxiety he felt, a.s.sumed rather the character of anger at Walter's forgetfulness, than of fear for his safety. There were moments when Ellinor silently mourned and pined; but she loved her sister not less even than her cousin; and in the prospect of Madeline's happiness, did not too often question the future respecting her own.

One evening, the sisters were sitting at their work by the window of the little parlour, and talking over various matters of which the Great World, strange as it may seem, never made a part.

They conversed in a low tone, for Lester sat by the hearth in which a wood fire had been just kindled, and appeared to have fallen into an afternoon slumber. The sun was sinking to repose, and the whole landscape lay before them bathed in light, till a cloud pa.s.sing overhead, darkened the heavens just immediately above them, and one of those beautiful sun showers, that rather characterize the spring than autumn, began to fall; the rain was rather sharp, and descended with a pleasant and freshening noise through the boughs, all shining in the sun light; it did not, however, last long, and presently there sprang up the glorious rainbow, and the voices of the birds, which a minute before were mute, burst into a general chorus, the last hymn of the declining day. The sparkling drops fell fast and gratefully from the trees, and over the whole scene there breathed an inexpressible sense of gladness--

"The odour and the harmony of eve."

"How beautiful!" said Ellinor, pausing from her work--"Ah, see the squirrel, is that our pet one? he is coming close to the window, poor fellow! Stay, I will get him some bread."