"Must I plead in vain, Colonel Manners?" said Isadore, really apprehensive for his safety, and desirous of persuading him, but blushing at the same time from feeling conscious that she was more apprehensive for him than she had often before felt for any one. "Must I plead in vain? or must I ask you for my sake, if you will not for Heaven's sake? But consider what we should do if we were to lose your aid and assistance at such a moment. Take two or three of our servants with you also."
"For your sake, Miss Falkland, I would do much more difficult things," replied Manners, earnestly; "but listen to my reasons. It would delay me long to wait till fresh horses are saddled, and longer to take men on foot with me. In many cases speed is everything: I have lost more time than I can well excuse already; and I can assure you, that with the two strong and trustworthy fellows who accompany me, there is nothing on earth to fear. Adieu! I doubt not soon, very soon, to bring you not only news, but good news."
Thus saying, he left the room, and sprang upon horseback, while Isadore returned to the apartment of her cousin, who was now in bed by the orders of the village apothecary, and in the act of taking such medicines as he judged most likely to calm and sooth the mind by their sedative effect upon the body. Here Isadore communicated in a low voice to her mother all that she had gathered from Colonel Manners; and placing herself at the window of her fair cousin's room, watched the dark edge of the hill where it cut upon the sky, till at length she saw the figures of three horses straining with their riders up the steep ascent. The next moment they came upon the level ground at the top, changed their pace into a quick gallop, were seen for a minute or two flying along against the clear blue behind, and then, passing on, were lost entirely to her sight.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
We must now beg leave to retrograde a little in regard to time: and, in order to bring every character in our story to the same point, must turn for a while to a personage of whom we have heard nothing since the day after Edward de Vaux's arrival at Morley House.
The beautiful world in which we live, the multitude of blessings by which we are surrounded, and that beneficent ordination by which the human mind in its natural state is rendered capable of resting satisfied with whatever portion is allotted to it, would make the earth that we inhabit an Eden indeed, if Satan had not supplied us with easy steps to lead us to misery. Our passions form the first round of the ladder; then come our follies close above them; then follow next our vices; these, with brief intervals, are succeeded by crimes; and all beyond is wretchedness. Every crime, too, is prolific in miseries--its legitimate children--who not only return to prey upon their proper parent, but ravage far and wide the hearts of thousands of others. Not only is it on the grand scale when the glory-seeking felon calls the dogs of war to tear the prostrate carcass of some peaceful country, and, by his individual fault, render millions wretched; but each petty individual crime, like the one small seed from which mighty forests spring, is but the germ of gigantic and incalculable consequences; and no one knows to what remote and unforeseen events each trifling action may ultimately lead: no one can tell to whose bosom the error he commits may not bring despair, or how many hearts may be laid desolate by the sin or the folly of the moment.
The father of Edward de Vaux--for to him we must now turn--had gone on in the usual road by which small errors grow into great crimes. He had committed follies, and yielded to passions. Passions had hardened into vices, and vices had ultimately hurried him beyond what he would at first have dreamed possible for a reasonable creature to perpetrate. In the story we have heard told by the gipsy, the part that he had acted was in no degree overdrawn by the narrator, though there were some secrets in Lord Dewry's breast alone, which neither, indeed, justified nor even palliated his crime--for such deeds admit not of palliation,--but which showed, at least, that the crowning act itself was not accompanied by many of the circumstances which seemed to aggravate it. Overwhelmed by a debt that he could not pay, disappointed of relief from a source that had never before failed, Mr. De Vaux had set out from London to meet his brother in a state of mind which approached insanity, and was, in fact, despair. Hardened by many years of vice, he had retained very few of those Christian principles which had not been wanting in his early education; and there remained, certainly, not sufficient virtue of any kind to make him view an escape from disgrace, by an act of suicide, as any thing unmanly or infamous in itself. He had determined, then, either to obtain from his brother the full sum he demanded, by whatever means might suggest themselves at the moment--threats, supplications, or remonstrances--or to terminate his own existence on the spot,--principally with a view to avoid the shame he anticipated in London if he could not discharge his obligations, but partly, also, with a savage desire of inflicting bitter regrets upon his brother for the obduracy of his refusal.
As the most retired spot for executing this purpose, he had chosen the point where we have seen that he had waited his brother's coming; and there a busy devil, that had been stirring at his heart all the way down, renewed its suggestions with tenfold importunity. He saw before him some of the rich lands of Lord Dewry; he saw them smiling with the promise of abundance; all seemed happy in the world but his own heart; all seemed prosperous but himself. His brother, notwithstanding his late loss, appeared in his eyes peculiarly blessed; and again and again the fiend within asked him what right by nature had his brother, because he was the elder, to the sole possession of all those advantages which, the same evil spirit lyingly told him, would have kept him from vice and misery, had they been equally divided between them? His brother arrived while he was in this mood. The first means he employed to obtain what he wanted were entreaty and persuasion; and when these failed, he had recourse to threats and violence. Lord Dewry retorted with reproach and reprehension; and his brother, in a moment of frantic passion, brought the curse of Cain upon his own head.
The agony of remorse was the first thing that succeeded; but self-preservation and the enjoyment of that which he had so dearly purchased, became the next considerations, and he bent all the energies of a keen and daring mind to that purpose. He mastered his own feelings, both bodily and mental; and, after returning to London with a degree of speed and perseverance that killed the horse which bore him, he overcame both personal fatigue and anguish of heart, and showed himself on the evening of his return at two private parties and one public place; and, what is more, he showed himself with a smiling countenance and an unembarrassed air. But when it was all over--the examination of the facts, the taking possession of the property, and the removal of those who could betray him--the excitement which had been caused by danger passed away; that bubble, the hope of happiness without virtue, burst under his rude touch, and left his heart to remorse for ever.
Knowing that he must often see his brother's child, though at first the sight was full of agony, he forced himself, by a great effort, to endure it, till he had overcome the pain by habit; and at the same time the lingering remains of some better feelings in his heart made him look upon every generous or kindly thing that he could do towards her as an act of atonement for the crime he had committed.