Juxon listened to this rhapsody with awe and pain; and not without an effort to shake the strong delusion, which was evidently taking a fast hold upon the mind of Cuthbert.
“My dear friend,” he said, laying his hand gently upon his arm, “I confess that you greatly alarm me. Consider that, for the first two months after your wound, you were very weak in body; you were often obliged to have recourse to opiates to procure rest; and you was not in a state to examine the impressions made on your mind, and to separate illusion from reality. There is nothing wonderful in these phantasma having floated past your mind’s eye: it is with sounds as with sights; the music of a dream is often clear and ravishing to the mind’s ear; and our name may be thus, to our sleeping fancy, very distinctly called and connected with some message or charge of solemn import spoken as by a voice from Heaven. Or, it may be, Cuthbert, that the enemy of your soul, knowing that you can only be led aside from the path of duty and peace by the fair semblance of true religion and freedom, hath assumed these angel shapes to lure you to your ruin.
“I can understand the plain and manly language of a Hampden, but this I cannot. It is unhealthy; it is the false fire of the fanatic. Rouse your intellect, and turn away from these notions, or you will be entangled and overcome: strangle the serpent while you have strength to do so.”
Cuthbert replied only by the grave smile of one so firmly persuaded of the truth of his own convictions as rather to pity than resent the very unwelcome effort to disturb them. However, he now communicated to Juxon that, in another month (it being then the end of September), he should accompany his pupil to enter at Oxford, and should there leave him, and proceed himself to join a friend in London. This arrangement, he observed, would enable him to reach the capital about the time when the new parliament was to assemble; for it had been just resolved by the King, in his great council of peers held at York, that a parliament should be called to sit on the third of November following.
George Juxon was truly concerned to find that Cuthbert was so far gone in his views, that to reclaim him seemed hopeless; but there were so many amiable and engaging points in his character, that he could not allow any one chance of recovering him from a course which he truly thought would distress his father and destroy his own peace of mind, altogether neglected.
He was aware that Cuthbert maintained a scrupulous silence on the subjects on which he had just spoken in his intercourse with the family; but he had often observed that, whatever was the matter of discourse at table, or elsewhere, the opinion of Mistress Katharine had great weight with him. He determined, therefore, to make a full disclosure to her of the state of Cuthbert’s mind, and to engage her good offices to dissipate, if possible, the cloud of illusions which obscured or dazzled his present judgment. He was, however, obliged to defer this step by the sudden arrival of Sophia and Jane Lambert; the latter of whom instantly joined Sir Oliver and the ladies in the gallery, to communicate the arrival of their brother at the Grange, and his intention of again presenting himself at Milverton that evening, to express his sorrow to Sir Oliver for what had passed in the spring, and to acknowledge duly the frank and Christian forgiveness of Cuthbert Noble.
Juxon learned from Sophia Lambert that Sir Charles having met with Sir Philip Arundel at some place of public amusement, had demanded satisfaction of him for the insulting words which Sir Philip had addressed to him on the evening when they last parted at Milverton; that they had retired to an adjoining tavern with their friends; and Sir Philip having been wounded, the quarrel was amicably adjusted, and the parties shook hands.
By this duel, Sir Charles at once succeeded in stopping the mouth of one who would have reported the occurrence at Milverton more to his disadvantage and shame than it was yet considered among his London acquaintance, and knew that he should in some degree recover his lost ground with Sir Oliver and his neighbours in Warwickshire. For the credit of their family the sisters were naturally desirous of this; and, therefore, they had preceded their brother with cheerfulness, and with an earnest anxiety to secure him a good reception. Jane, indeed, well knew the feelings of Katharine Heywood, and loved her happiness far before that of Sir Charles; but still he was a brother, and the head of their house; and though she secretly determined to divert his attentions and his hopes from Katharine, she wished that the two families should resume their old footing of neighbourhood and frequent intercourse.
The various projects devised by the kind heart of Jane Lambert were always most readily aided by an acute and contriving mind.
She had already rendered Katharine a most important service in the matter of George Juxon’s suit, which she had put an end to before any declaration of it distressing to the fair and noble object of it had been made.