Jack Hinton: The Guardsman

by Charles James Lever

'Stop, sir! stop!' cried he, hoarse with rage. 'Ring that bell!' I hesitated, and he called out again, 'Ring that bell, sir!'

I approached the chimney, and did as he desired. The butler immediately made his appearance.

'Nicholas,' cried the sick man, 'bring in the servants—bring them in here; you hear me well. I want to show them something they have never seen. Go!'

The man disappeared at once, and as I met the scowling look of hate that fixed its glare upon me, once more I felt myself to waver. The struggle was but momentary. I sprang to the window, and leaped into the garden. A loud curse broke from Burke as I did so; a cry of disappointed wrath, like the yell of a famished wolf, followed. The next moment I was beyond the reach of his insolence and his invective.

The passionate excitement of the moment over, my first determination was to gain the approach, and return to the house by the hall door; my next, to break the seal of the letter which I held in my hand, and see if its contents might not throw some light upon the events which somehow I felt were thickening around me, but of whose nature and import I knew nothing.

The address was written in a stiff, old-fashioned hand; but the large seal bore the arms of the Bellew family, and left no doubt upon my mind that it had come from Sir Simon. I opened it with a trembling and throbbing heart, and read as follows:—

'My dear Sir,—The event of last night has called back upon a failing and broken memory the darkest hour of a long and blighted life, and made the old man, whose steadfast gaze looked onward to the tomb, turn once backward to behold the deepest affliction of his days—misfortune, crime, remorse. I cannot even now, while already the very shadow of death is on me, recount the sad story I allude to; enough for the object I have in view if I say, that, where I once owed the life of one I held dearest in the world, the hand that saved lived to steal, and the voice that blessed me was perjured and forsworn. Since that hour I have never received a service of a fellow-mortal, until the hour when you rescued my child. And oh! loving her as I do, wrapped up as my soul is in her image, I could have borne better to see her cold and dripping corpse laid down beside me than to behold her, as I have done, in your arms. You must never meet more. The dreadful anticipation of long-suffering years is creeping stronger and stronger upon me; and I feel in my inmost heart that I am reserved for another and a last bereavement ere I die.

'We shall have left before this letter reaches you. You may perhaps hear the place of our refuge, for such it is; but I trust that to your feelings as a gentleman and a man of honour I can appeal, in the certain confidence that you will not abuse my faith—you will not follow us.

'I know not what I have written, nor dare I read it again. Already my tears have dimmed my eyes, and are falling on the paper; so let me bid you farewell—an eternal fare well. My nephew has arrived here. I have not seen him, nor shall I; but he will forward this letter to you after our departure.—Yours, S. Bellew.'

The first stunning feeling past, I looked round me to see if it were not some horrid dream, and the whole events but the frightful deception of a sleeping fancy. But bit by bit the entire truth broke upon me; the full tide of sorrow rushed in upon my heart. The letter I could not comprehend further than that some deep affliction had been recalled by my late adventure. But then, the words of the hag—the brief, half-uttered intimations of the priest—came to my memory. 'Her mother,' said I—'what of her mother?' I remembered Louisa had never mentioned or even alluded to her; and now a thousand suspicions crossed my mind, which all gave way before my own sense of bereavement and the desolation and desertion I felt, in my own heart. I threw myself upon the ground where she walked so often beside me, and burst into tears. But a few brief hours, and how surrounded by visions of happiness and lovet Now, bereft of everything, what charm had life for me! How valueless, how worthless did all seem! The evening sun I loved to gaze on, the bright flowers, the waving grass, the low murmur of the breaking surf that stole like music over the happy sense, were now but gloomy things or discordant sounds. The very high and holy thoughts that used to stir within me were changed to fierce and wrathful passions or the low drooping of despair. It was night, still and starry night, when I arose and wended my way towards the priest's cottage.