“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, Dicky!” 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 God 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 Grassdale 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, assumed 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.