Morley Ernstein; or, the Tenants of the Heart

by G. P. R. James

Not long after, he reached a village, which stood upon his own property; the cottagers were all people who had known him in his youth, and though they had not seen him for six years, they all remembered him well. It was, by this time, the peasant's hour of dinner, but some one caught a sight of the young landlord as he entered the place, and the tiding spread like lightning. Every door had its occupants, and low courtesies and respectful bows greeted him as he advanced. There was a kindliness in Morley's heart, that would not let him deal coldly with any one; and, though he would fain have gone on, thinking of the engrossing subject that had taken hold of him, he could not resist the good cottagers' looks of recognition; and, dismounting from his horse, he called a boy to lead it through the village, while, walking from door to door, he spoke a few words to his humble friends.

"God bless him!" cried one, as soon as he had gone on; "he is a nice young gentleman."

"He is very like his father," observed another. "I remember his father well."

"He has got his mother's beautiful eyes, though," said a third. "Well, I do think she was the prettiest creature I ever yet did see!"

At the fourth or fifth cottage an idea seemed to strike Morley Ernstein suddenly, and he asked if any of the inhabitants thereof had seen a lady and a gentleman pass through the place on horseback, intending to follow up that enquiry by demanding who they were. But he got no satisfaction there. The cottager had been out in the fields, his wife had been cooking the dinner, and no such persons as the young gentleman described had been seen by either. He put the same question again and again at other houses, but no tidings were to be obtained; and, vexed and disappointed, he returned to his home and made enquiries there.

To the old servants he described the gentleman he had met with accurately enough; on the lady he would not venture to say much, for like all Englishmen he was keenly sensitive to a laugh, and feared to awaken the least feeling of ridicule, even in the mind of a dependent. He dwelt upon the person and dress of the horseman at large; but in regard to the lady, added only that she was young and handsome.

Human nature is very obtuse to description, and we seldom if ever find any one who either attends to or applies the details that we give, respecting any object which we wish to call up before the mind's eye by means of the ear. Do not let poets or historians ever believe that, by the lengthened descriptions they give, the reader ever becomes impressed with the very scene or person that they themselves behold. Oh, no! the reader manufactures a scene of his own, out of some of the writer's words and many of his own imaginations or memories; or fabricates a personage out of his own fancies and predilections; but both scene and personage as unlike that which we have wished to represent as possible. Thus was it, too, with Morley Ernstein and his servants. One declared that the persons he had seen must be Mr. Ferdinand Beckford and his young wife. Mr. Beckford was the good priest of a neighbouring parish, and was just six-and-twenty years of age. Another vowed that the horseman must be Mr. Thomas Ogden, Member of Parliament for the town hard by, and the lady must be his wife. Mrs. Ogden was somewhere between forty and fifty, and though she still preserved a pretty face, her person was as round as a tub of Dutch butter. A third insisted that it was Lawyer Chancery; but Ernstein knew the lawyer, and replied--"Why he is six feet high, and I told you this person was short."

He saw that it was in vain to enquire further in that quarter, at least; and he now resolved to pursue another plan, to reverse the course of proceeding which he had proposed to follow, when he had first arrived, and to visit immediately every gentleman's house within twenty miles. His eager spirit would bear no delay, and before night he had called on five or six of the principal personages in the neighbourhood. All the gentlemen around declared that it was evident Sir Morley Ernstein intended to be very sociable; and all the ladies, who had daughters to marry, pronounced him a very charming young man; but Morley did not find what he sought.

He dined, wandered out through his beautiful park, hurried here and there till bed-time, and then cast himself down to repose, but found it not, thinking only of the places where he would call the next day, and the chances of his finding the fair girl who had so much excited his imagination. In short, the spirit of the animal was triumphant in his bosom for the time. Let us guard, however, the expression well against mistake. Do not let it be supposed that one evil thought found place in his bosom at that moment. He was far too young, and fresh in heart, to admit aught to the council chamber of his bosom, which the fair girl ho had seen might not herself have witnessed and approved, even supposing her to be all that her countenance bespoke her--pure, and bright, and holy, as the spirits of a better world. No! but we still say that the spirit of the animal was triumphant--the eager, active, impetuous spirit, the same that leads the lion to rush after his prey, the same that carries the warrior through the battle field--the spirit of this world's things, of mortal hopes, and passions, and affections--the spirit which, in all its shapes, in all its forms, in camps and cities, courts and cabinets, gaining both high worldly renown and the visionary immortality of fame, is still but an animal energy--the spirit of dust and ashes.

Early the next morning he rose and pursued his eager course; another and another round of hours and visits succeeded, till at length he had called on every one that he could hear or think of, within the reach of a lady's riding, and yet he had neither seen, nor obtained the least intelligence of the horseman and his fair companion. The disappointment but excited him the more for some days, and he left no means untried to relieve himself from the irritable curiosity into which he had wrought himself.