The Disowned — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

Buoying himself with these reflections, and exciting the jaded current of his designs once more into an unnatural impetus, the unhappy man ceased and paced with rapid steps the narrow limits of his chamber; his eye fell upon something bright, which glittered amidst the darkening shadows of the evening. At that sight his heart stood still for a moment: it was the weapon of intended death; he took it up, and as he surveyed the shining barrel, and felt the lock, a more settled sternness gathered at once over his fierce features and stubborn heart. The pistol had been bought and prepared for the purpose with the utmost nicety, not only for use but show; nor is it unfrequent to find in such instances of premeditated ferocity in design a fearful kind of coxcombry lavished upon the means.

Striking a light, Wolfe reseated himself deliberately, and began with the utmost care to load the pistol; that scene would not have been an unworthy sketch for those painters who possess the power of giving to the low a force almost approaching to grandeur, and of augmenting the terrible by a mixture of the ludicrous. The sordid chamber, the damp walls, the high window, in which a handful of discoloured paper supplied the absence of many a pane; the single table of rough oak, the rush-bottomed and broken chair, the hearth unconscious of a fire, over which a mean bust of Milton held its tutelary sway; while the dull rushlight streamed dimly upon the swarthy and strong countenance of Wolfe, intent upon his work,—a countenance in which the deliberate calmness that had succeeded the late struggle of feeling had in it a mingled power of energy and haggardness of languor,—the one of the desperate design, the other of the exhausted body; while in the knit brow, and the iron lines, and even in the settled ferocity of expression, there was yet something above the stamp of the vulgar ruffian,—something eloquent of the motive no less than the deed, and significant of that not ignoble perversity of mind which diminished the guilt, yet increased the dreadness of the meditated crime, by mocking it with the name of virtue.

As he had finished his task, and hiding the pistol on his person waited for the hour in which his accomplice was to summon him to the fatal deed, he perceived, close by him on the table, the letter which the woman had spoken of, and which till then, he had, in the excitement of his mind, utterly forgotten. He opened it mechanically; an enclosure fell to the ground. He picked it up; it was a bank-note of considerable amount. The lines in the letter were few, anonymous, and written in a hand evidently disguised. They were calculated peculiarly to touch the republican, and reconcile him to the gift. In them the writer professed to be actuated by no other feeling than admiration for the unbending integrity which had characterized Wolfe’s life, and the desire that sincerity in any principles, however they might differ from his own, should not be rewarded only with indigence and ruin.

It is impossible to tell how far, in Wolfe’s mind, his own desperate fortunes might insensibly have mingled with the motives which led him to his present design: certain it is that wherever the future is hopeless the mind is easily converted from the rugged to the criminal; and equally certain it is that we are apt to justify to ourselves many offences in a cause where we have made great sacrifices; and, perhaps, if this unexpected assistance had come to Wolfe a short time before, it might, by softening his heart and reconciling him in some measure to fortune, have rendered him less susceptible to the fierce voice of political hatred and the instigation of his associates. Nor can we, who are removed from the temptations of the poor,—temptations to which ours are as breezes which woo to storms which “tumble towers,”—nor can we tell how far the acerbity of want, and the absence of wholesome sleep, and the contempt of the rich, and the rankling memory of better fortunes, or even the mere fierceness which absolute hunger produces in the humours and veins of all that hold nature’s life, nor can we tell how far these madden the temper, which is but a minion of the body, and plead in irresistible excuse for the crimes which our wondering virtue—haughty because unsolicited—stamps with its loftiest reprobation!

The cloud fell from Wolfe’s brow, and his eye gazed, musingly and rapt, upon vacancy. Steps were heard ascending; the voice of a distant clock tolled with a distinctness which seemed like strokes palpable as well as audible to the senses; and, as the door opened and his accomplice entered, Wolfe muttered, “Too late! too late!”—and first crushing the note in his hands, then tore it into atoms, with a vehemence which astonished his companion, who, however, knew not its value.

“Come,” said he, stamping his foot violently upon the floor, as if to conquer by passion all internal relenting, “come, my friend, not another moment is to be lost; let us hasten to our holy deed!”

“I trust,” said Wolfe’s companion, when they were in the open street, “that we shall not have our trouble in vain; it is a brave night for it! Davidson wanted us to throw grenades into the ministers’ carriages, as the best plan; and, faith, we can try that if all else fails!”

Wolfe remained silent: indeed he scarcely heard his companion; for a sullen indifference to all things around him had wrapped his spirit,—that singular feeling, or rather absence from feeling, common to all men, when bound on some exciting action, upon which their minds are already and wholly bent; which renders them utterly without thought, when the superficial would imagine they were the most full of it, and leads them to the threshold of that event which had before engrossed all their most waking and fervid contemplation with a blind and mechanical unconsciousness, resembling the influence of a dream.

They arrived at the place they had selected for their station; sometimes walking to and fro in order to escape observation, sometimes hiding behind the pillars of a neighbouring house, they awaited the coming of their victims. The time passed on; the streets grew more and more empty; and, at last, only the visitation of the watchman or the occasional steps of some homeward wanderer disturbed the solitude of their station.

At last, just after midnight, two men were seen approaching towards them, linked arm in arm, and walking very slowly.