‘“‘Alas!’ said Tyrrel, ‘is it come to this?’
‘“‘To this,’ she replied, speaking from the rapid and irregular train of her own ideas, rather than comprehending the purport of his sorrowful exclamation—‘it must ever come, while immortal souls are wedded to the perishable substance of which our bodies are composed. There is another state, Tyrrel, in which it will be otherwise; God grant our time of enjoying it were come!’”
[414]
]‘I cannot imagine anything more exquisite,’ said Mrs. Banneret, ‘than the portraiture of the ill-fated lovers, whose lives the arts of an unscrupulous villain had ruined, almost at their entrance into the paradise of wedded love. But the characters depicted throughout the novel are masterpieces of humour and descriptive accuracy. Lord Etherington, the fashionable, dissipated nobleman of the period, might have issued from a London Club. Touchwood, egotistical, kind-hearted, interfering, is the nabob, common enough in old-fashioned fiction. Lady Binks, John Mowbray, Sir Bingo, the choleric Highland half-pay Captain MacTurk, Winterblossom, the dilettante art critic, and the man of law, are exactly the denizens of a fourth-rate Spa; not to mention Meg Dods, the very flower and crown of Scottish provincial landladies. Then the dramatic incidents of the climax: Clara fleeing through storm and snow, from her brother’s house in the night, to escape the forced and hateful marriage; the duel; the late appearance of Touchwood on the scene.’
‘“He was stopped by Touchwood, who had just alighted from a carriage, with an air of stern anxiety on his features very different from their usual expression. ‘Whither would ye?’—stopping him by force.
‘“‘For revenge—for revenge!’ said Tyrrel. ‘Give way, I charge you, on your peril!’
‘“‘Vengeance belongs to God,’ replied the old man, ‘and His bolt has fallen. This way—this [415] ]way,’ he continued, dragging Tyrrel into the house. ‘Know,’ he said, ‘that Mowbray of St. Ronan’s has met Bulmer within this half-hour, and killed him on the spot.’
‘“‘Killed!—whom?’ answered the bewildered Tyrrel.
‘“‘Valentine Bulmer, the titular Earl of Etherington.’
‘“‘You bring tidings of death to the house of death,’ answered Tyrrel; ‘and there is nothing in this world left that I should live for!’”’