"A world of sorrow, indeed!" repeated Neville; "a world of ignominy and wo, such as ought never to have visited you, even in a dream. Its duration will be prolonged also beyond all fortitude or patience. Of course Mr. Falkner's legal advisers will insist on the necessity of Osborne's testimony—he must be sent for, and brought over. This demands time; it will be spring before the trial takes place."
"And all this time my father will be imprisoned as a felon in a jail," cried Elizabeth, tears, bitter tears springing into her eyes. "Most horrible! Oh how necessary that I should be with him, to lighten the weary, unending hours. I thought all would soon be over—and his liberation at hand; this delay of justice is indeed beyond my fears.
"Thank God, that you are thus sanguine of the final result," replied Neville. "I will not say a word to shake your confidence, and I fervently hope it is well placed. And now indeed good-night, I will not detain you longer. All good angels guard you—you cannot guess how bitterly I feel the necessity that disjoins us in this hour of mutual suffering."
"Forgive me," said Elizabeth, "but my thoughts are with my father. You have conjured up a whole train of fearful anticipations; but I will quell them, and be patient again—for his, and all our sakes."
They separated, and at the moment of parting, a gush of tenderness smoothed the harsher feelings inspired by their grief—despite herself, Elizabeth felt comforted by her friend's faithful and earnest attachment; and a few minutes passed in self-communion restored her to those hopes for the best, which are the natural growth of youth and inexperience. Neville left the inn immediately on quitting her; and she, unable to sleep, occupied by various reveries, passed a few uneasy, and yet not wholly miserable, hours. A hallowed calm at last succeeded to her anxious fears; springing from a reliance on Heaven, and the natural delight of being loved by one so dear; it smoothed her wrinkled cares and blunted her poignant regrets.
At earliest dawn she sprung from her bed, eager to pursue her journey—nor did she again take rest till she arrived at Carlisle.
[CHAPTER XLI]
In the best room that could be allotted to him consistently with safe imprisonment, and with such comforts around as money might obtain, Falkner passed the lingering days. What so forlorn as the comforts of a prison! the wigwam of the Indian is more pleasing to the imagination—that is in close contiguity with Nature, and partakes her charm—no barrier exists between it and freedom—and Nature and freedom are the stanch friends of unsophisticated man. But a jail's best room sickens the heart in its very show of accommodation. The strongly-barred windows, looking out on the narrow court, surrounded by high frowning walls; the appalling sounds that reach the ear, in such close neighbourhood to crime and wo; the squalid appearance given to each inhabitant by the confined air—the surly, authoritative manners of the attendants—not dependant on the prisoner, but on the state—the knowledge that all may come in, while he cannot get out—and the conviction that the very unshackled state of his limbs depends upon his tame submission and apparent apathy; there is no one circumstance that does not wound the free spirit of man, and make him envy the meanest animal that breathes the free air, and is at liberty.
Falkner, by that strange law of our nature which makes us conceive the future, without being aware of our foreknowledge, had acquainted his imagination with these things—and while writing his history amid the far-stretched mountains of Greece, had shrunk and trembled before such an aspect of slavery; and yet now that it had fallen on him, he felt in the first instance more satisfied, more truly free, than for many a long day before.
There is no tyranny so hard as fear; no prison so abhorrent as apprehension; Falkner was not a coward, yet he feared. He feared discovery—he feared ignominy, and had eagerly sought death to free him from the terror of such evils, with which, perhaps—so strangely are we formed—Osborne had infected him. It had come—it was here—it was his life, his daily bread; and he rose above the infliction calmly, and almost proudly. It is with pride that we say that we endure the worst—there is a very freedom in the thought, that the animosity of all mankind is roused against us—and every engine set at work for our injury—no more can be done—the gulf is passed—the claw of the wild beast is on our heart—but the spirit soars more freely still. To this was added the singular relief which confession brings to the human heart. Guilt hidden in the recesses of the conscience assumes gigantic and distorted dimensions. When the secret is shared by another, it falls back at once into its natural proportion.