The Robber, A Tale.

by G. P. R. James

Perceiving his lips move, and seeing that he was evidently much affected by what had passed, Langford, who had spoken with some degree of emphasis, added, with apparent indifference, "Yes, oh yes; I know his whole history well. He was an English gentleman of a brave, daring, and enterprising disposition, who, having been driven from his own country, and deprived for the time of his own possessions, pursued a wild and fitful course of life; now serving with gallant distinction in the armies of foreign countries, now becoming a rover on the high seas, and acquiring for himself a fearful and redoubtable fame, till the restoration of the king suddenly recalled him to fortunes and honours in his own land."

Lord Danemore made no direct reply; but putting his hand to his head, he said, "It is very hot; I have seldom known a more oppressive night."

As he spoke, the storm, which had been long coming up, burst forth with a bright flash, which blazed with a blue and ghastly light round the dark wainscotted chamber in which they sat, lighting up every cornice and ornament in the carved oak, and seeming absolutely to play amidst the papers on the table. At that very instant both Lord Danemore and Langford raised their eyes each to the countenance of his companion, and gazed upon each other with a firm and questioning glance.

"That was a bright flash," said the Earl, with a lip that curled slightly as he spoke; "I do not know that I ever saw a brighter--except in the Gulf of Florida!"

He added nothing more, nor waited for any reply, but rose as he spoke, and abruptly quitted the room. He trod the stairs down to his own private apartments with a heavy but irregular step, and paused at the bottom for several moments ere he opened the door which gave entrance to his own dressing-room, thinking, with a gloomy brow and eyes bent steadfast, sightless, upon the ground. At length, he entered and cast himself into a chair, clasping his strong bony hands firmly over each other; and oh! what a wild chaos of mingled feelings, and strong passions, and memories, and regrets, and dreads, and expectations, did his bosom at that moment contain.

All those passions were now called up in his bosom: and the struggle between them was the more tremendous, inasmuch as they were, in many points, arrayed nearly equally against each other. Henry Langford had in a few words laid before him the picture of his life, and had shown a deep and intimate knowledge of that darker part of his history which he had believed to be buried in profound oblivion. For more than twenty years he had heard no allusion to those days of wild and roving adventure, when, driven forth, as he fancied, for ever from his native land, stripped of his rank and his possessions, he had given way to the impulses of a rash, daring, and fierce spirit, had piled upon his own head many a heavy remorse, and seared his own heart with many a deed of evil. He had believed that all the companions of those days were either gone or scattered far from the high and lordly path in which he now trod; he had imagined that he had removed every trace of that bond of fate which united the proud, cold, wealthy Earl of Danemore, the domineering spirit of the country round, to the wild rover of the western seas, whose deeds of daring and of blood were still remembered with awe and fear in a land fertile of strong passions and great crimes.

There were many who remembered him in exile, indeed, but in that part of his exile when his daring courage and great powers had been employed in noble warfare and in an honourable cause; but he thought that the very fact of being so remembered would be an additional safeguard against all suspicion in regard to another period. There was, indeed, a lapse of several years in which his history was unknown to all such companions of his brighter days; and he had more than once been asked where he was when some great event had happened on which the conversation at the moment turned. But Lord Danemore was not a man to be interrogated closely by any one; and, as we have said, he firmly believed that all those who could have answered such questions by pointing to the dark and evil events which had been crowded into a few short years of his life, were far removed, plunged beneath the rolling waves of the ocean, buried upon the sandy beach of distant lands, or with their bones whitening--a public spectacle--in the sun.

Now, however, suddenly, after a long and sunshiny lapse of peaceful years, the memories of former acts were recalled when he least expected them--recalled by one who seemed to have a perfect knowledge of every fact he could have desired to hide; and the dark train of images conjured up from the past: the regret, the remorse, the shame, which he had banished long and carefully, were now linked hand in hand with apprehensions for the future, with the fear of exposure, if not the dread of punishment. His mind, however, was in no unfit state for receiving gloomy impressions, his heart was already excited for the entertainment of fierce and angry passions. Through the whole of that day, from a very early hour in the morning, he had been torn with grief and anger, now mourning over the loss of his son with the deep anguish of wounded affection, now vowing vengeance against that son's murderer, while his heart felt scorched and seared by the burning thirst for revenge.

Disappointment, too, deep and bitter disappointment, had had its share--the disappointment of a proud and ambitious heart. On the son now lost he had fixed all his hopes and all his aspirations, in him had he trusted to see his life prolonged, through him had he expected that future generations would carry on his name with increasing wealth and greatness. Now all was over; the son on whom he had relied was gone; he was childless, lonely, cut off from hope and expectations, to live in darkness and solitude through the chill autumnal twilight of his age, and then to die, leaving all the vast possessions which he had obtained to a distant kinsman, whom he hated and despised.

Such had been, in some degree, the state of his feelings, so shaken, so agitated, when he suddenly found that shame was likely to be added to the other burdens cast upon him, and that the vice and crimes of other years were rising up in judgment against him even at the latest hour. The drop thus cast in was sufficient to make the cup overflow. Never through life had he been accustomed to put any restraint upon the fierce passions of his heart, and now what was there that could act as any check upon them? what was there to prevent him from seeking their gratification? what was there to oppose the desire which instantly sprang up within his heart, of silencing for ever the voice which might tell the dark secrets of other years?