Hugh Crichton's Romance

by Christabel R. Coleridge

“Oh, not now, Arty; not till this wretched business is over. Stay here and rest till then. I’ll call you in time.”

Arthur yielded; he even drank some tea and ate a little at James’s entreaty; and the latter was wondering whether to leave him alone, when he caught sight of Hugh coming up the path. Arthur saw him too, and the presence of another actor in the terrible scene effectually roused him.

“Go to him,” he said. “Go to him; leave me alone; no one can do anything for me. I shall be ready when you want me—don’t be afraid.”

James’s anxiety could endure no longer, and he hurried out to meet his brother, upon whom no merciful boon of unconsciousness had descended; who had had no period of uncertainty in which to grow accustomed to the shadow of the truth.

He had turned his head as he fired, and had seen her fall; and in a moment his ill-tempered disregard of Arthur’s warning flashed back on him, never again to be forgotten. To risk his own life in saving hers was his one thought, and his self-possession and power of judgment had failed him entirely, so that his efforts, even had there been a chance for her, would have been utterly useless. He stood by and heard the doctor’s verdict, and Arthur’s steady “Yes, she is dead;” felt Arthur push him away, and took the unconscious action as a proof of the horror with which Arthur must henceforth regard him, of the horror with which he must regard himself. He stood still, and saw the boat start on its sad and awful way, saw them all follow, forgetful of everything but the freight that it contained.

“Poor, sweet young lady!” groaned Wood, as he followed.

“Poor boy—poor boy; it’s a life ruined,” sighed the doctor. But Hugh stood still, and thought—

“I have done it. Was ever such a fate as mine?”

He slunk away back into the wood, and stood looking at the lock, there from the spot where that last shot had been fired. He repeated over to himself those words exchanged between himself and Arthur; he saw the rabbit lying dead on the ground. “It’s the first I’ve hit to-day,” he thought. A moment’s hastiness, a moment’s want of thought, and this is the result! Oh, it is cruel! Then such an anguish of horror at the desolation that he had caused came over him that it was with a start of something like satisfaction that he caught sight of Arthur’s gun where it had been thrown aside on the grass. He took it up, but it had been discharged; and he remembered that Arthur had not reloaded it after his last shot. “There is always the canal,” thought Hugh. “My life was blank enough and hard enough before; but now—” It was at this point in his meditations that George had encountered him, and that the boy’s inquiry for Arthur had so maddened him that he had rushed off, unheeding where he went; maddened not only—not so much at the thought that Mysie had died a frightful death and that Arthur’s life was ruined, as that he himself had been the cause of it all. Filled with a wild, exaggerated sense of blood-guiltiness, he counted up every aggravating circumstance, his old jealousy of his cousins’ happiness—his impatience of their laughter and their love, the fact that he was Mysie’s guardian, and so responsible for her lot, and that he had been hardly willing to trust her happiness to Arthur’s care. He made out the case against himself as no one else would have made it out against him; and then, with a not uncommon inconsistency, ascribed to a cruel chance the wretched result, and felt that he was the sport of circumstances. The deeps of faithless, bitter rebellion rose up to overwhelm him, and he did not cry out of them for help. But the image of Violante came before him, fair and sweet, yet full of reproach for his harsh judgment and hasty desertion. He pushed the thought away from him—was not he one who could never indulge in such thoughts again? Yet he stopped in his wild wrath, and threw himself down on the heath, and, in the midst of a remorse and despair that threatened to drive him mad, he wept for his lost love. They were terrible hours, so terrible as to blot out to Hugh the thought of all the other sufferers; so absorbing that he never paused to wonder what was passing at Redhurst; and they were succeeded by a sort of passive exhaustion, in which the acute pain was dulled, and from which he roused himself with a start and sat upright. It was quite dark, clouds had come up over the sunny sky, and neither moon nor stars lighted up the wild waste of moorland. The night was still and absolutely silent. Hugh did not know where he was as his outer life came back upon him with a strange incongruous sense of the necessity of Mr Spencer Crichton’s presence on the scene of action; and, chilled and over-excited as he was, a consciousness of physical discomfort that made him get to his feet and look about him. No, he could not kill himself, nor even lie there to die; all Oxley would be wondering what had become of him—an odd consideration at such a moment; but it brought the further thought of all the painful business to be got through; and who but himself to do it? Somehow, the habit of being forced to consider such necessities did more to bring Hugh to his senses than anything else, and he made up his mind to go home. What right had he to shirk the sight of Arthur’s misery? It was part of his punishment. He was, however, so much exhausted as to be hardly able to support himself, and, moreover, where was he? He looked about, and saw far off a red light, which he knew must shine from Fordham Station. He must make for that. With fatigue and weariness such as he had never known before he stumbled over the heather, and came at last into Fordham village as the church clock struck half-past eleven. He knew that he could not get home without rest, and went into the inn, making some slight excuse of having lost his way—an excuse which he knew would be scattered to the winds to-morrow. However, the hostess knew him, and gave him supper—which he scarcely touched—and a fire; and he lay down for a little, meaning to start as soon as it was light. All sorts of other schemes passed through his mind; of disappearance, of never going home any more or inflicting the sight of himself on his friends; but, somehow, custom and common-sense turned his steps the next morning in the direction of Redhurst, dragging more and more as he drew near, dreading to come up to the house or to show himself; till James rushed out, to his utter surprise, with a cry of relief.

“Thank Heaven, you’re here at last! Where have you been? We were so anxious!”