Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXX.

We must go back to Stephen Gimlet's cottage and the preceding night. Beauchamp and Captain Hayward stood together by the table, when their two fair visitors had left them, waiting for the return of the gamekeeper, and they both remained silent for several minutes. There are times, when great things just accomplished, of whatever kind, or character, seem to oppress the spirit and keep it down, as it were, under a heavy weight. Nor is it altogether uninteresting to inquire what is the cause of this oppression--the remote, often unseen, even indistinct cause. It is not sorrow, it is not regret; for the weight of thought seems cast upon us as often by a joyful as a sorrowful event; and I speak not at all of the effect of misfortune, but simply of that which is produced upon the mind by a great deed done--great, at least, to the person who has performed it. I am inclined to think, that the sort of load which I speak of, may be traced to the consciousness of all the vast multitude of consequences of which every act is the source. Not the slightest thing we do that does not send a thrill vibrating along the endless chains of cause and effect to the utmost limit of time through the whole grand machine of future existence. Man dies, but not one of his acts ever dies, each perpetuated and prolonged for ever by interminable results, affecting some beings in every age to come--ay, even the slightest. But that which is to follow only becomes a question with man when the deed is to his own cognizance important as affecting himself and those around him. The eye of God sees all; but it is merely when the consequences are visible to our own limited ken, that we feel the strange involution of our destiny with that of others, and, when what we have just done is in its immediate results likely to affect us and those we love profoundly, that we pause to consider all the wide extent of the future which that act implies. Then we feel as if we had plunged headlong into an ocean of endless waves, and the weight of the waters oppresses the heart and spirit. We ask, what next? and then, what will follow? And in the game of chess that we are playing against Fate, look for the next move of our great adversary, and all the consequences of that which we have ourselves just made.

Both Beauchamp and Hayward had done an important thing that night. The latter had stripped himself for a friend's benefit of the treasured resource of after-life. Never rich, he had left himself but a scanty pittance which was not likely to be increased by any means but his own personal exertions. From that moment, he felt that his course of life must be changed, that his views, his feelings, his habits, must undergo a severe scrutiny, and be subjected to a hard discipline; that the careless ease, the light-hearted indifference to the morrow was at an end; that the small cares he had never yet known, the looking to shillings and to pence, and all the sordid minutia; of difficult economy were to be his companions for life, as inseparable from his footsteps as his shadow. Honest poverty may be a very fine thing in contemplation, but let its admirers understand that it is a difficult thing in practice; for honesty and poverty are like Adam and the devil in the garden, ill-suited tenants of one house, the latter of whom is always laying out snares to reduce his companion to his own level. If such be the case where the circumstances of birth have made the evils of poverty habitual, and given its temptations no factitious advantages, how much more is it so, when a knowledge of, a taste for, and a long education in ease and comfort, have both engendered a habit of expense, and rendered the restraints of poverty privations. It is then that honesty has to struggle with a host of foes, and too often a murder and suicide are committed: honesty killing itself after an attempt to get rid of its comrade.

But Ned Hayward was a very honest man, and his first thought was how to bear his poverty rightly. He gave not one thought to the money he had just given away--for so he believed it to be--he would have performed the same act over and over again a dozen times if he had had the means and the motives to do so; and would each time have done it willingly; but that did not prevent his feeling the painful situation in which he had left himself; and he contemplated with deep thought and stern resolution all that was to issue from the deed he had done.

With Beauchamp, the feelings might be different, but the sources from which they sprang were the same. He, too, had taken a step, which was to influence the whole of his future life. He had said words to Isabella Slingsby, of which he felt all the import at the moment they were spoken--which he spoke purposely, that there might be no doubt or hesitation on her mind in regard to his sensations or purposes, and yet which, as soon as they were uttered, filled him with a vague feeling of apprehension. Yet Beauchamp was a resolute man in character; and had performed acts of persisting resolution, which few men would have had the determination to carry through. He loved Isabella too dearly; and had the whole world been subject to his choice would have selected her. He was anxious, likewise, to call her his own, for he was not without the fire of passion, and was very different from those idle triflers, in whom love is a vanity lighted up by the cold ignis fatuus of a volatile and fugitive desire. But his previous history furnished materials for doubt and alarm; and when he paused to contemplate all the innumerable consequences of the few words he had spoken, there was a mist over one part of that sea of many waves, and he asked himself, with awe, "What is beneath?" The thought, however, that he was loved in return, was consolation and courage; and though, for his part, Ned Hayward did not venture to indulge in any such sweet dream, yet the image of Mary Clifford, like that of the Virgin in the old legend, shed a light which dispelled the darkness along one bright path, through the obscure future, for him also.

The contemplations of both gentlemen, however, were speedily broken through by the return of Ste Gimlet, who, turning to Mr. Beauchamp, inquired,

"Please, Sir, what shall we do with the man locked up in the vestry?"

"Oh, have him out," cried Ned Hayward, "and hand him over to a constable."

Beauchamp did not reply so quickly; but at length he said, "There may be difficulty, Hayward, in finding a constable at this time of night; and not only difficulty, but also danger to ourselves, if we take any part in the business. Is the place where the man is confined secure?" he continued, addressing the gamekeeper.

"Pretty well, Sir, I think," answered Gimlet; "there are bars to the windows, and the door is locked tight enough. Then we can lock the church-door too."