The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 14

The attorney brought out a settlement in which an exorbitant sum was to be settled on Bridget, and Shan More, with a threatening air, ordered Andy to sign the deed.

"I can't," cried Andy, retreating to the fire-place, "and I won't!"

"You must sign your name!" roared Shan More.

"I can't, I tell you!" yelled Andy, seizing the poker. "I've never larned to write."

"Your lordship can make your mark," said the attorney.

"I'll make my mark with this poker," cried Andy, "if you don't all clear out!"

The noise of a frightful row brought d.i.c.k Dawson into the room, and he managed to get rid of the intruders by inducing the attorney to conduct the negotiations through Lord Scatterbrain's solicitors.

But while the negotiations were going on, a fact came to light that altered the whole complexion of the matter, and Andy went post-haste over to Ireland to the fine house in which his mother and his cousin were living.

Bursting into the drawing-room, he made a rush upon Oonah, whom he hugged and kissed most outrageously, with exclamations of the wildest affection.

When Oonah freed herself from his embraces, and asked him what he was about, Andy turned over the chairs, threw the mantelpiece ornaments into the fire, and banged the poker and tongs together, shouting! "Hurroo!

I'm not married at all!"

It had been discovered that Red Bridget had a husband living when she forced Andy to marry her, and as soon as it was legally proved that Lord Scatterbrain was a free man, Father Phil was called in, and Oonah, who had all along loved her wild cousin, was made Lady Scatterbrain.

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON

Eugene Aram

Novelist, poet, essayist, and politician, Edward Bulwer Lytton was born in London on May 25, 1805. His father was General Earle Bulwer. He a.s.sumed his mother's family name on her death in 1843, and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Lytton in 1866. At seventeen Lytton published a volume ent.i.tled, "Ismael, and Other Poems." An unhappy marriage in 1827 was followed by extraordinary literary activity, and during the next ten years he produced twelve novels, two poems, a play, "England and the English," and "Athens: Its Rise and Fall,"

besides an enormous number of shorter stories, essays, and articles for contemporary periodicals. Altogether his output is represented by nearly sixty volumes. Few books on their publication have created a greater furore than Lord Lytton's "Eugene Aram," which was published in 1832. One section of the novel-reading public hailed its moving, dramatic story with manifest delight, while the other severely condemned it on the plea of its false morality. The story takes its t.i.tle from that remarkable scholar and criminal, Eugene Aram, at one time a tutor in the Lytton family, who was executed at York in 1759, for a murder committed fourteen years before. The crime caused much consternation at the time, Aram's refined and mild disposition being apparently in direct contradiction to his real nature. The novel is an unusually successful, though perhaps one-sided psychological study. In a revised edition Lytton made the narrative agree with his own conclusion that, though an accomplice in robbery, Aram was not guilty of premeditated or actual murder. Edward Bulwer Lytton died on January 18, 1873.

_I.--At the Sign of the Spotted Dog_

In the county of ---- was a sequestered hamlet, to which I shall give the name of Gra.s.sdale. It lay in a fruitful valley between gentle and fertile hills. Its single hostelry, the Spotted Dog, was owned by one Peter Dealtry, a small farmer, who was also clerk of the parish. On summer evenings Peter was frequently to be seen outside his inn discussing psalmody and other matters with Jacob Bunting, late a corporal in his majesty's army, a man who prided himself on his knowledge of the world, and found Peter's too easy fund of merriment occasionally irritating.

On one such evening their discussion was interrupted by an unprepossessing and travel-stained stranger, who, when his wants, none too amiably expressed, had been attended to, exhibited a marked curiosity concerning the people of the locality. As the stranger paid for his welcome with a liberal hand, Peter became more than usually communicative.

He described the lord of the manor, a distinguished n.o.bleman who lived at the castle some six miles away. He talked of the squire and his household. "But," he continued, "the most noticeable man is a great scholar. There, yonder," said he, "you may just catch a glimpse of the tall what-d'ye-call-it he has built on the top of his house that he may get nearer to the stars."

"The scholar, I suppose," observed the stranger, "is not very rich.

Learning does not clothe men nowadays, eh, corporal?"

"And why should it?" asked Bunting. "Zounds! can it teach a man how to defend his country? Old England wants soldiers. But the man's well enough, I must own--civil, modest----"

"And by no means a beggar," added Peter. "He gave as much to the poor last winter as the squire himself. But if he were as rich as Lord----he could not be more respected. The greatest folk in the country come in their carriages-and-four to see him. There is not a man more talked on in the whole county than Eugene Aram----"

"What!" cried the traveller, his countenance changing as he sprang from his seat. "What! Aram! Did you say _Aram_? Great heavens! How strange!"

"What! You know him?" gasped the astonished landlord.

Instead of replying, the stranger muttered inaudible words between his teeth. Now he strode two steps forward, clenching his hands. Now smiled grimly. Then he threw himself upon his seat, still in silence.

"Rum tantrums!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the corporal. "What the devil! Did the man eat your grandmother?"

The stranger lifted his head, and addressing Peter, said, with a forced smile, "You have done me a great kindness, my friend. Eugene Aram was an early acquaintance of mine. We have not met for many years. I never guessed that he lived in these parts."

And then, directed, in answer to his inquiries, to Aram's dwelling, a lonely grey house in the middle of a broad plain, the traveller went his way.

_II.--The Squire's Guest_

The man the stranger went to seek was one who perhaps might have numbered some five-and-thirty years, but at a hasty glance would have seemed considerably younger. His frame was tall, slender, but well-knit and fair proportioned; his cheek was pale, but with thought; his hair was long, and of a rich, deep brown; his brow was unfurrowed; his face was one that a physiognomist would have loved to look upon, so much did it speak of both the refinement and the dignity of intellect.

Eugene Aram had been now about two years settled in his present retreat, with an elderly dame as housekeeper. From almost every college in Europe came visitors to his humble dwelling, and willingly he imparted to others any benefit derived from his lonely researches. But he proffered no hospitality, and shrank from all offers of friendship. Yet, unsocial as he was, everyone loved him. The peasant threw kindly pity into his respectful greeting. Even that terror of the village, Mother Darkmans, saved her bitterest gibes for others; and the village maiden, as she curtseyed by him, stole a glance at his handsome but melancholy countenance, and told her sweetheart she was certain the poor scholar had been crossed in love.

At the manor house he was often the subject of remark, but only on the day of the stranger's appearance at the Spotted Dog had the squire found an opportunity of breaking through the scholar's habitual reserve, and so persuaded him to dine with him and his family on the day following.

The squire, Rowland Lester, a man of cultivated tastes, was a widower, with two daughters and a nephew. Walter, the only son of Rowland's brother Geoffrey, who had absconded, leaving his wife and child to shift for themselves, was in his twenty-first year, tall and strong, with a striking if not strictly handsome face; high-spirited, jealous of the affections of those he loved; cheerful outwardly, but given to moody reflections on his orphaned and dependent lot, for his mother had not long survived her desertion.

Madeline Lester, at the age of eighteen, was the beauty and toast of the whole country; with a mind no less beautiful than her form was graceful, and a desire for study equalled only by her regard for those who possessed it, a regard which had extended secretly, if all but unacknowledged to herself, to the solitary scholar of whom I have been speaking. Ellinor, her junior by two years, was of a character equally gentle, but less elevated, and a beauty akin to her sister's.

When Eugene Aram arrived at the manor house in keeping with his promise, something appeared to rest upon his mind, from which, however, by the excitement lent by wine and occasional bursts of eloquence, he seemed striving to escape, and at length he apparently succeeded.

When the ladies had retired, Lester and his guest resumed their talk in the open, Walter declining to join them.

Aram was advancing the view that it is impossible for a man who leads the life of the world ever to experience content.

"For me," observed the squire, "I have my objects of interest in my children."

"And I mine in my books," said Aram.

As they pa.s.sed over the village green, the gaunt form of Corporal Bunting arrested their progress.

"Beg pardon, your honour," said he to the scholar, "but strange-looking dog here last evening--asked after you--said you were old friend of his--trotted off in your direction--hope all was right, master--augh!"

"All right," repeated Aram, fixing his eyes on the corporal, who had concluded his speech with a significant wink. Then, as if satisfied with his survey, he added, "Ay, ay; I know whom you mean. He had become acquainted with me some years ago. I don't know--I know very little of him." And the student was turning away, but stopped to add, "The man called on me last night for a.s.sistance. I gave what I could afford, and he has now proceeded on his journey. Good evening!"

Lester and his companion pa.s.sed on, the former somewhat surprised, a feeling increased when shortly afterwards Aram abruptly bade him farewell. But, recalling the peculiar habits of the scholar, he saw that the only way to hope for a continuance of that society which had so pleased him was to indulge Aram at first in his unsocial inclinations; and so, without further discourse, he shook hands with him, and they parted.

_III.--The Old Riding-Whip_