"But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair's crew,
O'er the dark wave I flew
With the marauders;
Wild was the life we led,
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled
By our stern orders."—Longfellow.
Captain L'Estrange had proceeded with his troop by slow stages to the Preston barracks, situated a short distance out of Brighton, on the Lewes road. His faith in Ellen was still secure, though it had been somewhat rudely shaken by her singular conduct since the arrival of Lord Wentworth. He could not but have noticed that a kind of gêne had sprung up between them; but he paid little attention to his mind's suggestions, and thought that in a short time all would run smooth again. With this idea, one of the first things he did after his arrival was to write a long and affectionate letter to his betrothed. It was long, very long ere he received an answer; and when at last it came it was calculated in no way to alleviate his apprehensions, but consisted chiefly of a very brilliant description of the election ball, Lord Wentworth's attentions, and also their day at the Towers. L'Estrange was deeply annoyed, and in the heat of his excitement wrote an ill-judged and hasty reply, blaming her for coldness, rallying her about setting her cap at the young peer, and concluding with a remonstrance, telling her that she was unjustified in allowing any one to share so much of her affections. Had his evil genius instigated him, he could hardly have been urged to a worse course. At once it touched Ellen's pride and honour, and stirred up all her slumbering dislike to L'Estrange into actual hatred; and flushed with rage she sat down and wrote an angry letter, in which she told him that she was not the girl to brook such conduct; that a passion, never very strong in her, had long been lessening; that his letter had smothered the last spark!—she now considered herself free as air, and he might do the same; if that was a prelude to their future married life, she thanked heaven it had not come too late: and in conclusion begged all communication might for ever cease between them. In an agony of rage and despair, L'Estrange threw the fatal epistle behind the fire: he saw he had gone too far, and resolved, if possible, to turn the tide. But it was to no purpose he now penned an apology; it was too late to urge his expiring suit—too late to beseech her to forgive and forget all; the bird was free! and rejoicing in her newly-acquired freedom, was in no hurry to become again a captive. He only received a cold and polite note, saying her refusal was final, and the more he burned the colder would her bosom grow.
It was not only L'Estrange's love, which was really great, but his pride that now suffered. He had boasted to his fellow-officers of his beautiful fiancée—he had even shown them her miniature; he had heard them praise it and call him a lucky fellow; he had pictured to himself the pride with which he would introduce his elegant partner; he had spoken of their union as a thing fixed and certain;—and now to be spurned, jilted by her thus, because a young lord was showing her attention!—the thought was maddening; and in his wrath he swore eternal hatred to the false fair one, and eternal, dreadful vengeance on him who had stolen her heart! He hoped that she might yet have mistaken her object—that the Earl's attentions were mere flirtations; but on making inquiry he daily learned that the worst results were to be feared, and he now began to devise means to frustrate them. His whole character seemed changed. Instead of the gay, lighthearted man he used to be, he became silent, morose, vindictive; and his fellow-officers, having learned the reason, looked forward in anticipation to some dreadful catastrophe.
Before proceeding further, however, as Edward L'Estrange is to play a most conspicuous part in this story, a few details of his early life may not be wholly uninteresting.
Shrouded in the deepest mystery was Edward L'Estrange's infancy. His first recollections were of a dark and romantic kind, and went to a time when, with a young man of fiendish character, he sailed the Spanish main in a fast schooner with raking masts, and terribly black teeth! The captain of this ship—the young man we have already alluded to—was half a pirate, half a smuggler, and one of the fiercest and most sanguinary monsters that ever disgraced the annals of the sea. In this life of wildness and iniquity the first eight years of L'Estrange's life passed away. Brought up from infancy to be acquainted with revolting scenes of murder and debauchery, and taught to lisp oaths ere he could speak plainly, he was however snatched from an existence of crime before his heart was utterly hardened. One evening—or rather late in the afternoon—as the Black Mail was running under a press of canvas for the island of Cuba a British frigate hove in sight which, as soon as she ascertained the character of the schooner, immediately gave chase. A brisk wind swelled out the sails of both ships, and they seemed rather to fly than sail over the waves. In an hour it became however manifestly evident that the man-of-war was slowly but surely bearing down on her foe, and had already shortened the distance between them from five miles to barely three. The pirate crowded on all sail, hoping, if she could prolong the chase till darkness came, she might yet give her pursuer a wide berth. With anxious face did her skipper watch the globe of light sinking gradually into the ocean's embrace, and with loud oaths anathematized the faithless wind lessening every minute; and what was more provoking was the fact that the frigate from her superior height of masts caught the expiring breeze long after he lost it, and he had the mortification of seeing his enemy keep on till within a quarter of a mile of him, whilst his ship "lay idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean." Still an hour of light remained. He now ordered his hands to arm, and prepare to die like men, neither giving nor taking quarter. Up ran the black flag, and simultaneously each vessel poured a broadside of grape upon her antagonist. For half an hour the deadly shower was hailed "fast and well" until the schooner had lost both masts, and was gradually settling down in the deep. The English man-of-war then sent out three boats to board the pirate, which they succeeded in doing, despite the deadly resistance of the desperadoes, who, knowing that no quarter would be given, were determined to sell their lives dearly. Hand to hand was the combat continued with cutlasses till the whole of the pirates were either killed or overpowered. At that moment the schooner began to sink into the waters, bow foremost, scarcely giving the victors time to regain their boats with one prisoner, a boy of nine, who had fought like a born fiend, and so ferocious was his resistance that even after he had been made captive, they had to put him in irons. In time, however, kindness overcame ferocity, and the young pirate grew the pet of the whole crew of the Arethusa, especially the captain's, who adopted him for his own son, and gave him the name we now know him by—Edward L'Estrange—his own name. After cruising for some time he was brought home to England, where his guardian gave him a liberal education, and when he died,—which was not before he had seen the foundling an officer in the king's army,—he left all the property to which he had succeeded entirely to Edward L'Estrange. The young savage changed to the dauntless soldier, though we are not prepared to say how much his evil bringing up influenced his future career, but will leave the reader to judge for himself.
Young L'Estrange, whilst serving with his regiment in America, became intimate with an officer quartered in the same garrison, named George Ravensworth; intimacy strengthened into the closest friendship, and the two young men were like brothers till death severed the bond, and L'Estrange had the grief of attending the deathbed of his friend, following his cold remains to the grave, and hearing the volley fired over his tomb! A few sad relics—the young soldier's sword, his watch, and his Bible—were entrusted to him by his friend to carry home to his bereaved family.
An early opportunity of doing this was offered to L'Estrange by his exchange into a regiment ordered home, and he hastened to Edinburgh to fulfil his errand. When he presented himself at Seaview only Ellen Ravensworth was at home, and to her the young officer confided the sad relics of her brother, and his dear and lamented friend. It was the most natural thing in the world that L'Estrange's affections should be transferred to the sister of one so dear. She was young and attractive, and long after his first interview did the vision of the fair girl in the garb of woe which so well becomes that style of beauty, cling to his memory. An acquaintance so romantically begun soon ripened into affection, and deep love not only to Ellen, but the whole family. They were all much interested in his strange early history, and as it suited Ellen's turn of mind she allowed her lover to engross her affections. Edward L'Estrange was possessed of an ample fortune, and Mr. Ravensworth saw nothing to hinder their union when Ellen was a year or two older, and time had robbed their grief at George's death of its first poignancy.
During the next year or more from the circumstance of his regiment being quartered at Piershill he had full opportunity of seeing his sweetheart, in fact had grown like one of the family; and strange to say was regarded rather in this light by Ellen than as a lover—for to do the girl justice she loved him really as a brother only. Being considerably older than Ellen she looked up to him rather than mingled her mind with his; there was something too about him which, while it forced admiration, ay, and even love, repelled it too. That love was mingled with fear, with restraint, and became a duty rather than a pleasure, and while she told him with her lips she loved, her heart within denied it. Long engagements are known to be the worst things in the world,—hope deferred sickens the heart, the flame of love burns lower and lower, and then let some rival appear, and the last spark is extinguished! It would be vain, and useless as vain, to strive to trace back to its source the first declination—the earliest seeds of that fatal upas tree which strengthened and grew, till its baneful shadow destroyed the very vitality of love! "A word unkind or wrongly taken" the poet has averred to be often the first symptom of decline, and he then adds—
"Ruder words will yet rush in
To spread the breach that words begin!"
Perhaps such were the germs of the hatred—shall we say the word, but it is true?—that had now sprung up between the lovers. L'Estrange swore eternal hatred to whom? Ellen! He swore vengeance on whom? Lord Wentworth!