Thus had the presence of Lydia Hutchinson,—once despised, scorned, and trampled on,—brought desolation and misery into that lordly dwelling.
O Adeline, Adeline! thou wast now taught a bitter lesson illustrative of the terrible consequences of ingratitude!
The aristocracy conceives that it may insult the democracy with impunity. The high-born and the wealthy never stop to consider, when they put an affront upon the lowly and the poor, whether a day of retribution may not sooner or later come. The peer cannot see the necessity of conciliating the peasant: the daughter of the nobility knows not the use of making a friend of the daughter of the people.
But the meanest thing that crawls upon the earth may some day be in a position to avenge the injuries it has received from a powerful oppressor; and the mightiest lord or the noblest lady may be placed in that situation when even the friendship of the humblest son or the most obscure daughter of industry would be welcome as the drop of water to the lost wanderer of the desert.
Yes! Most solemnly do I proclaim to you, O suffering millions of these islands, that ye shall not always languish beneath the yoke of your oppressors! Individually ye shall each see the day when your tyrant shall crouch at your feet; and as a mass ye shall triumph over that proud oligarchy which now grinds you to the dust!
That day—that great day cannot be far distant; and then shall ye rise—not to wreak a savage vengeance on those who have so long coerced you, but to prove to them that ye know how to exercise a mercy which they never manifested towards you;—ye shall rise, not to convulse the State with a disastrous civil war, nor to hurry the nation on to the deplorable catastrophe of social anarchy, confusion, and bloodshed;—but ye shall rise to vindicate usurped rights, and to recover delegated and misused power, that ye may triumphantly assert the aristocracy of mind, and the aristocracy of virtue!
CHAPTER CCVIII.
THE RESURRECTION MAN'S HOUSE IN GLOBE
TOWN.
Return we to the house of the Resurrection Man in Globe Town,—that house where we have already seen such diabolical mischief concocted, and much of which was actually perpetrated,—that house where the gloomy subterraneans had echoed to the moans of Viola Chichester!
It was about seven o'clock in the evening, when the Resurrection Man suddenly emerged from that very same cell in which Viola had once been confined.
He held a lantern in his hand; and the feeble rays glanced upon a countenance convulsed and distorted with deep, malignant rage.