St. Ronan's Well Part 59

"How!--hang Trimmer?--your favourite Trimmer, that has beat the whole country?--and it was only this morning you were half-crying because he was amissing, and like to murder man and mother's son?"

"The better I like any living thing," answered Mowbray, "the more reason I have for wishing it dead and at rest; for neither I, nor any thing that I love, will ever be happy more."

"You cannot frighten me, John, with these flights," answered Clara, trembling, although she endeavoured to look unconcerned--"You have used me to them too often."

"It is well for you then; you will be ruined without the shock of surprise."

"So much the better--We have been," said Clara,

"'So constantly in poort.i.th's sight, The thoughts on't gie us little fright.'

So say I with honest Robert Burns."

"D--n Barns and his trash!" said Mowbray, with the impatience of a man determined to be angry with every thing but himself, who was the real source of the evil.

"And why d.a.m.n poor Burns?" said Clara, composedly; "it is not his fault if you have not risen a winner, for that, I suppose, is the cause of all this uproar."

"Would it not make any one lose patience," said Mowbray, "to hear her quoting the rhapsodies of a hobnail'd peasant, when a man is speaking of the downfall of an ancient house! Your ploughman, I suppose, becoming one degree poorer than he was born to be, would only go without his dinner, or without his usual potation of ale. His comrades would cry 'poor fellow!' and let him eat out of their kit, and drink out of their bicker without scruple, till his own was full again. But the poor gentleman--the downfallen man of rank--the degraded man of birth--the disabled and disarmed man of power!--it is he that is to be pitied, who loses not merely drink and dinner, but honour, situation, credit, character, and name itself!"

"You are declaiming in this manner in order to terrify me," said Clara: "but, friend John, I know you and your ways, and I have made up my mind upon all contingencies that can take place. I will tell you more--I have stood on this tottering pinnacle of rank and fashion, if our situation can be termed such, till my head is dizzy with the instability of my eminence; and I feel that strange desire of tossing myself down, which the devil is said to put into folk's heads when they stand on the top of steeples--at least, I had rather the plunge were over."

"Be satisfied, then; if that will satisfy you--the plunge _is_ over, and we are--what they used to call it in Scotland--gentle beggars--creatures to whom our second, and third, and fourth, and fifth cousins may, if they please, give a place at the side-table, and a seat in the carriage with the lady's maid, if driving backwards will not make us sick."

"They may give it to those who will take it," said Clara; "but I am determined to eat bread of my own buying--I can do twenty things, and I am sure some one or other of them will bring me all the little money I will need. I have been trying, John, for several months, how little I can live upon, and you would laugh if you heard how low I have brought the account."

"There is a difference, Clara, between fanciful experiments and real poverty--the one is a masquerade, which we can end when we please, the other is wretchedness for life."

"Methinks, brother," replied Miss Mowbray, "it would be better for you to set me an example how to carry my good resolutions into effect, than to ridicule them."

"Why, what would you have me do?" said he, fiercely--"turn postilion, or rough-rider, or whipper-in?--I don't know any thing else that my education, as I have used it, has fitted me for--and then some of my old acquaintances would, I dare say, give me a crown to drink now and then for old acquaintance' sake."

"This is not the way, John, that men of sense think or speak of serious misfortunes," answered his sister; "and I do not believe that this is so serious as it is your pleasure to make it."

"Believe the very worst you can think," replied he, "and you will not believe bad enough!--You have neither a guinea, nor a house, nor a friend;--pa.s.s but a day, and it is a chance that you will not have a brother."

"My dear John, you have drunk hard--rode hard."

"Yes--such tidings deserved to be carried express, especially to a young lady who receives them so well," answered Mowbray, bitterly. "I suppose, now, it will make no impression, if I were to tell you that you have it in your power to stop all this ruin?"

"By consummating my own, I suppose?--Brother, I said you could not make me tremble, but you have found a way to do it."

"What, you expect I am again to urge you with Lord Etherington's courtship?--That _might_ have saved all, indeed--But that day of grace is over."

"I am glad of it, with all my spirit," said Clara; "may it take with it all that we can quarrel about!--But till this instant I thought it was for this very point that this long voyage was bound, and that you were endeavouring to persuade me of the reality of the danger of the storm, in order to reconcile me to the harbour."

"You are mad, I think, in earnest," said Mowbray; "can you really be so absurd as to rejoice that you have no way left to relieve yourself and me from ruin, want, and shame?"

"From shame, brother?" said Clara. "No shame in honest poverty, I hope."

"That is according as folks have used their prosperity, Clara.--I must speak to the point.--There are strange reports going below--By Heaven!

they are enough to disturb the ashes of the dead! Were I to mention them, I should expect our poor mother to enter the room--Clara Mowbray, can you guess what I mean?"

It was with the utmost exertion, yet in a faltering voice, that she was able, after an ineffectual effort, to utter the monosyllable, "_No!_"

"By Heaven! I am ashamed--I am even _afraid_ to express my own meaning!--Clara, what is there which makes you so obstinately reject every proposal of marriage?--Is it that you feel yourself unworthy to be the wife of an honest man?--Speak out!--Evil Fame has been busy with your reputation--speak out!--Give me the right to cram their lies down the throats of the inventors, and when I go among them to-morrow, I shall know how to treat those who cast reflections on you! The fortunes of our house are ruined, but no tongue shall slander its honour.--Speak--speak, wretched girl! why are you silent?"

"Stay at home, brother!" said Clara; "stay at home, if you regard our house's honour--murder cannot mend misery--Stay at home, and let them talk of me as they will,--they can scarcely say worse of me than I deserve!"[II-F]

The pa.s.sions of Mowbray, at all times ungovernably strong, were at present inflamed by wine, by his rapid journey, and the previously disturbed state of his mind. He set his teeth, clenched his hands, looked on the ground, as one that forms some horrid resolution, and muttered almost unintelligibly, "It were charity to kill her!"

"Oh! no--no--no!" exclaimed the terrified girl, throwing herself at his feet; "Do not kill me, brother! I have wished for death--thought of death--prayed for death--but, oh! it is frightful to think that he is near--Oh! not a b.l.o.o.d.y death, brother, nor by your hand!"

She held him close by the knees as she spoke, and expressed, in her looks and accents, the utmost terror. It was not, indeed, without reason; for the extreme solitude of the place, the violent and inflamed pa.s.sions of her brother, and the desperate circ.u.mstances to which he had reduced himself, seemed all to concur to render some horrid act of violence not an improbable termination of this strange interview.

Mowbray folded his arms, without unclenching his hands, or raising his head, while his sister continued on the floor, clasping him round the knees with all her strength, and begging piteously for her life and for mercy.

"Fool!" he said, at last, "let me go!--Who cares for thy worthless life?--who cares if thou live or die? Live, if thou canst--and be the hate and scorn of every one else, as much as thou art mine!"

He grasped her by the shoulder, with one hand pushed her from him, and, as she arose from the floor, and again pressed to throw her arms around his neck, he repulsed her with his arm and hand, with a push--or blow--it might be termed either one or the other,--violent enough, in her weak state, to have again extended her on the ground, had not a chair received her as she fell. He looked at her with ferocity, grappled a moment in his pocket; then ran to the window, and throwing the sash violently up, thrust himself as far as he could without falling, into the open air. Terrified, and yet her feelings of his unkindness predominating even above her fears, Clara continued to exclaim.

"Oh, brother, say you did not mean this!--Oh, say you did not mean to strike me!--Oh, whatever I have deserved, be not you the executioner!--It is not manly--it is not natural--there are but two of us in the world!"

He returned no answer; and, observing that he continued to stretch himself from the window, which was in the second story of the building, and overlooked the court, a new cause of apprehension mingled, in some measure, with her personal fears. Timidly, and with streaming eyes and uplifted hands, she approached her angry brother, and, fearfully, yet firmly, seized the skirt of his coat, as if anxious to preserve him from the effects of that despair, which so lately seemed turned against her, and now against himself.

He felt the pressure of her hold, and drawing himself angrily back, asked her sternly what she wanted.

"Nothing," she said, quitting her hold of his coat; "but what--what did he look after so anxiously?"

"After the devil!" he answered, fiercely; then drawing in his head, and taking her hand, "By my soul, Clara--it is true, if ever there was truth in such a tale!--He stood by me just now, and urged me to murder thee!--What else could have put my hunting-knife into my thought?--Ay, by G.o.d, and into my very hand--at such a moment?--Yonder I could almost fancy I see him fly, the wood, and the rock, and the water, gleaming back the dark-red furnace-light, that is shed on them by his dragon wings! By my soul, I can hardly suppose it fancy--I can hardly think but that I was under the influence of an evil spirit--under an act of fiendish possession! But gone as he is, gone let him be--and thou, too ready implement of evil, be thou gone after him!" He drew from his pocket his right hand, which had all this time held his hunting-knife, and threw the implement into the court-yard as he spoke, then, with a sad quietness, and solemnity of manner, shut the window, and led his sister by the hand to her usual seat, which her tottering steps scarce enabled her to reach. "Clara," he said, after a pause of mournful silence, "we must think what is to be done, without pa.s.sion or violence--there may be something for us in the dice yet, if we do not throw away our game. A blot is never a blot till it is. .h.i.t--dishonour concealed, is not dishonour in some respects.--Dost thou attend to me, wretched girl?" he said, suddenly and sternly raising his voice.

"Yes, brother--yes, indeed, brother!" she hastily replied, terrified even by delay again to awaken his ferocious and ungovernable temper.

"Thus it must be, then," he said. "You must marry this Etherington--there is no help for it, Clara--You cannot complain of what your own vice and folly have rendered inevitable."

"But, brother!"--said the trembling girl.

"Be silent. I know all that you would say. You love him not, you would say. I love him not, no more than you. Nay, what is more, he loves you not; if he did, I might scruple to give you to him, you being such as you have owned yourself. But you shall wed him out of hate, Clara--or for the interest of your family--or for what reason you will--But wed him you shall and must."

"Brother--dearest brother--one single word!"

"Not of refusal or expostulation--that time is gone by," said her stern censurer. "When I believed thee what I thought thee this morning, I might advise you, but I could not compel. But, since the honour of our family has been disgraced by your means, it is but just, that, if possible, its disgrace should be hidden; and it shall,--ay, if selling you for a slave would tend to conceal it!"

"You do worse--you do worse by me! A slave in an open market may be bought by a kind master--you do not give me that chance--you wed me to one who"----

"Fear him not, nor the worst that he can do, Clara," said her brother.

"I know on what terms he marries; and being once more your brother, as your obedience in this matter will make me, he had better tear his flesh from his bones with his own teeth, than do thee any displeasure! By Heaven, I hate him so much--for he has outreached me every way--that methinks it is some consolation that he will not receive in thee the excellent creature I thought thee!--Fallen as thou art, thou art still too good for him."

Encouraged by the more gentle and almost affectionate tone in which her brother spoke, Clara could not help saying, although almost in a whisper, "I trust it will not be so--I trust he will consider his own condition, honour, and happiness, better than to share it with me."