The striking incident which had marked the day—the sudden discovery that those whom he had hitherto looked upon as his uncle and his aunt, were in reality his parents,—the assurance which he had received respecting the honour of his mother and the legitimacy of his birth,—then the mysterious fact that his parentage was still to remain a secret to the world,—all these circumstances combined to torment him with doubts and misgivings—to excite his curiosity to a painful degree—and to animate him with an ardent longing to penetrate into all that was so obscure and suspicious.
It was true that he had promised his mother never to question her relative to a subject that might be disagreeable to her;—for the moment, too, he had been satisfied with the assurances of his legitimacy which he had received from the lips of his father. But when he found himself alone in his own bed-chamber—surrounded by the stillness of night—he could no longer check the natural current of his reflections:—the deep silence in which the mansion was enveloped—the secluded position of his apartment—and the slightly romantic turn of his mind,—all united to give an impulse to thoughts which were so intimately associated with subjects of mysterious and strange import.
Then, many circumstances, remembered in connexion with his early boyhood, but until now never before pondered upon with serious attention,—recollections, hitherto vague and disjointed,—gradually assumed a more intelligible aspect to his mental contemplation:—memory exerted herself with all her energy, to fill up blanks and bring vividly forward those reminiscences that until this moment had been like dim and misty vapours floating before the mind’s eye:—he fixed his gaze intently on the past, until the feeblest glimmerings assumed a bolder and more comprehensible light;—and by degrees the confusion of his ideas relative to his early being, yielded to something like order—so that he became enabled to fit incidents into their proper places, and even make some accurate calculations with regard to the dates of particular occurrences.
In a word, a light had streamed in upon his soul—illuminating many of the hitherto unexplored cells of his memory,—giving significancy to recollections on which he had never before paused to ponder, and investing with importance various reminiscences that had not until this period engaged his serious attention.
Naturally of a happy—cheerful disposition,—and intent on soaring aspirations relative to the future, rather than on speculations and wanderings connected with the past,—he had never until now been struck with certain facts which, though having a dwelling-place in his memory, had failed to occupy his meditations or excite any thing like suspicions in his mind.
But the incident of the day had set him to work, in the silence of his chamber and the depth of night, to call forth all those sleeping reminiscences—examine them one by one—connect them together—make them up as well as he could into a continuous history—and from the aggregate deduce a variety of truths intimately regarding himself.
All this was not done through any disrespect for his mother or his father—any change of fueling in reference to them. No:—he loved them the more tenderly—the more fervently, now that he knew they were his parents, and not mere relations. But if he fell into the train of thought in which we now find him engaged, it was that he could no more help yielding to that current of reflections than a child could avoid being carried whirlingly along the rapids of the Canadian stream which had engulphed it.
And now let us see into what connected form the meditations and recollections of Charles Hatfield had settled themselves?
Seating himself at the table, on which he leant his elbows, and supporting his head on his hands, in which he buried his face, he pondered in the ensuing manner:—