Morley Ernstein; or, the Tenants of the Heart

by G. P. R. James

At length, he shut the windows and lighted the candles, and in about ten minutes after, a gentleman, dressed in the very height of fashion, with a large blue military cloak, of the finest cloth, hanging from his shoulders, entered the room, and advancing to the fire, gazed into it for a minute or two in silence. The other personage whom we have mentioned, stood at a respectful distance, without saying a single word, till at length his master, for so it was, turned round and gave him his hat and wet cloak, saying, "Here, Martini, take these, and then go down to the beach. It is a terrible night, and I am uneasy about the ship--one can see the surf running upon the sands quite plain. There was a vessel too, apparently coming into the Downs, but I could make nothing of it myself, and the jargon of these pilots I do not pretend to understand. I suppose the boy will come ashore directly, of course."

"If he can, sir," replied the man, with a strong foreign accent; "but I should not like to trust myself, I know, in an open boat, on such a night as this."

"There are several boats out," said Lieberg, for it was our friend who spoke; and then making a sign for the man to leave him, he sat till nearly eleven o'clock at night in that worst of all states of idleness; the idleness of a strange inn, which is the next thing to solitary confinement. Lieberg, on most occasions, had plenty of means of employing and amusing himself, but at the present moment his mind was evidently not at ease. He gazed during the greater part of the evening into the fire, and one might have supposed that it was the thought of being baffled in his pursuit, by the destruction of the ship which bore William Barham, that troubled him, had not a word or two escaped from his lips towards the end of the period we have mentioned, which shewed that, in reality, some better feelings were mingled with his emotions, and that it was about the youth himself, and the risk he ran for the time, he was anxious. The words indeed, dear reader, to which I allude, were all harsh, and, apparently, unfeeling; but still they shewed that Lieberg was occupied rather with the boy's fate than with his own plans and purposes.

"Curse him!" he said, rising from his chair, towards eleven o'clock--"he may as well die that way as any other. He would be hanged, that's certain, sooner or later, if he escaped the water. So it is as well if he be drowned after all. There is no reason for my making myself uneasy about him. It might be as well, indeed, if he had some other business in hand when called upon to join the world of spirits; but I dare say, let him live as long as a patriarch, he would be engaged in some rascality at the day of his death, and as well this as anything else; so good bye to him!"

Thus saying, Lieberg rang the bell and ordered supper to be brought, of which, when it did appear, he partook moderately, and then retired to bed, his valet having by that time returned without any tidings whatsoever of William Barham, or the ship that bore him. If the truth must be told, however, Lieberg did not sleep much, for while he was undressing, a dull, distant peal came from the sea, loud, but heavy.

"'Tis some ship firing for a pilot, sir," said his valet.

Lieberg took out his watch and listened; ere the minute was quite done, there came the roar of another gun, and then another, and another. For near an hour the same sounds went on, when all became still, except the rushing of the wind, and the heavy, thunder-like fall of the sea upon the beach. Stoicism may do its utmost, but the human heart generally finds a time to speak, and Lieberg was so evidently uneasy, that his valet de chambre--who had about as much feeling as that race of created beings generally have, and no more--evidently saw that his master was very much more moved than was usually the case with him, and went to bed, wondering what could be the occasion thereof--that is to say, not asking himself exactly what was the object of Lieberg's emotion, but what possibly could induce him to give way to any emotion at all.

Perceiving, however, that such was the case, and wishing, as all well-disposed valets de chambre are expected to do, to set his master's mind at ease, his tap was heard at Lieberg's door towards six o'clock on the following morning, and his voice exclaimed--"He is arrived, sir! The ship has gone to pieces, but all the crew are saved."

Lieberg instantly started up, threw on his brocaded dressing-gown, and opened the door. The man, who was standing there, pointed to the sitting-room, which was on the opposite side of the passage, and his master instantly crossed over and entered the room.

Certainly never on earth did a more disconsolate object present itself to the eyes of man, than that which was offered to Lieberg's sight by the unfortunate William Barham. He was seated on a chair by the fire--which had just been relighted and had not well burnt up--without a coat or waistcoat; his long, silky, light hair drenched with water, and hanging upon his cheeks and neck; his countenance, previously pallid with licentiousness and habits of vice, now ten times paler than ever, and purplish at the extremes, with the cold and terror he had undergone; his eyes languid, his teeth chattering, and his whole limbs trembling, while a bad cut upon his forehead, received in getting into one of the boats, made him look still more miserable, and a stain or two of blood oozing through the breast of his shirt, shewed that he must have received some other blow upon the chest.