Thirty Years Since; or, The Ruined Family. A Tale

by Unknown

At the door his servant, while holding the stirrup, demanded, in a peculiarly humble tone, "Pray, sir, may I expect to see you at Emberton to-night, for there are several things--"

"I shall be at Ryebury, but certainly not at Emberton," answered Beauchamp. "If there be any thing unsettled when you come to London, it must be done afterward."

The man bowed low, perfectly satisfied; and Beauchamp and his horse went off at a gallop. "That will do it!" said Harding, as he saw his master depart; and, mounting his own beast, he returned calmly to Emberton, calculating to a nicety at what hour his master would have paid the money into the hands of Mr. Tims.

In the mean time, Beauchamp rode on, with a light hand and an easy seat. He was one of those men who bring in their horses quite fresh, when every other horse in the field is dead beat; and feeling confident that he could arrange the whole business and return to Ryebury before night, he did not put Martindale to the top of his speed. What was his surprise, however, on passing a village church, after an hour and a half's riding, to find the hand of the dial--that fatal indicator, which, in every land, has pointed out from age to age the dying moment of hopes, and wishes, and enjoyments--demonstrating, beyond a doubt, that the hour was past, and his journey of no avail.

He rode on to the town of ----, however, but the bank was shut. He inquired for the partners, but there was only one in the town, and he was nowhere to be found.

Beauchamp bit his lip, and asked himself, "What is to be done now?" Some men would have thought, that, having exerted themselves so far, they had done enough, and would have let matters take their course; but he was not one of that class. The idea crossed his mind, indeed; and, to use one of his own expressions, he let it strike against his heart, to see whether it would ring with the sharp, cold, brazen sound of worldly feelings; but his heart was of a different metal, a great deal too soft to respond to such hard selfishness. "For his sake, for her sake, for all their sakes," he thought, "I must save them from disappointment and disgrace. This Ryebury miser may very likely have the money with him, and if not, he is, as he informed me, a proprietor in the neighboring bank, and therefore can easily arrange the matter. I will tell him who I really am, and give him a power of attorney to sell out and pay himself."

With this resolution, he gave his horse half an hour's rest, and then turned his rein once more toward Ryebury, where, we have already seen that the way was prepared for his purpose, by the previous knowledge of his rank and fortune which the miser had obtained from Lord Ashborough's lawyer. As we have endeavored to show in the preceding pages, Henry Beauchamp had his full share of weaknesses, among which was a very tolerable portion of irritable pride. A certain modification of this feeling had made him determine, from the first, not to set his foot in the streets of Emberton again. That place, it is true, had likewise, in his mind, a painful association of ideas as connected with a bitter disappointment; and although he was always ready to meet such regrets boldly, if they came alone, yet as they were mingled, in this case, with mortified pride, his resolution gave way. He was a rejected suitor--a disappointed lover. He who had fancied that his heart was proof, had been captivated by a simple country girl, had danced attendance upon her for several weeks, and had ultimately been rejected. From the words that his servant had purposely let fall, he felt sure that the whole town of Emberton were by this time aware of his disappointment; and if ever you have been skinned alive, reader, you may have some idea of the irritable fear which he felt of running against the rough and rasping pity, even of the insignificant animals of a country town.

Two miles, therefore, before he reached Emberton, he turned off from the high-road, and having by this time refreshed all his boyish recollections of the country round, he directed his course to a hamlet, which lay at a distance of about a mile and a half from Ryebury, and which was possessed of a little public-house, in the stable of which he could put up his horse, while he himself proceeded on foot to the dwelling of the miser. The sun was just down as he reached the hamlet; and after having examined, with habitual care, the accommodation for his horse, he walked out, and took his way toward Ryebury, in the midst of as splendid an evening as ever poured through the autumnal sky. A flood of rich purple was gushing from the west, with two or three soft clouds of rose color and gold, hanging about the verge of the sky, while all the rest was blue, "with one star looking through it, like an eye." On his right lay the rich cultivated lands between Emberton and Ryebury: so full of tall trees, hedgerows, masses of planting and park, that the yellow stubble fields, or the fresh ploughed fallow, could hardly be perceived amidst the warm, though withering greens of the foliage. On his left lay a high, wooded bank, above which peered up the edge of a more distant field; and beyond it again the hills, and wide downs, that stretched away toward the sea-side, in the dim purple shadow that covered all that part of the prospect, taking an aspect of wide and dreary solitude, very different from the gay, sunshiny look the whole assumed in the daytime. Yet the scene though full of repose, was any thing but melancholy. The partridges were calling in the fields round about, the blackbirds were flying on, from bush to bush, before the passenger, with that peculiar note, something between a twitter and a song, with which they conclude their melody for the year, and some gay, laughing voices in the hamlet which he had just left behind, came mellowed by the distance, and seemed to speak of hearts at rest, and the day's labor done. As Beauchamp walked slowly on, with feelings in his bosom which harmonized indeed with the scene, but which carried all that was solemn in the aspect of the dying day into a sense of profound dejection, the light waned; and though the purple became of a still richer hue, the blue assumed also a deeper shade; the stars looked out as if to supply the place of the glory teat was passing away, and the long shadows of the high grounds around, spread something more than twilight through the valley.

I wish it were possible to tell all the mingled feelings that were then to be found in the wayfarer's heart, as he walked on; and to point out how weaknesses, and virtues, and fine and generous sentiments, and human perversities, all linked arm-in-arm together, walked along with him on the way; how he felt that life was to him a blank--that the heart had grown old--that the bubble had burst--that the toy had lost its splendor; how he felt a pride in the very idea of serving her and hers, whose conduct had dashed the cup of happiness from his lip forever--and how he thought that his affection might have been worthy of a higher estimation; and how he cursed his own folly for ever suffering his heart to become the debased thing that a woman could trample upon. But his feelings were infinite, and not to be defined; for in the rainbow of the human heart, the colors and the shades are so blended together, and softened away into each other, that it is impossible to say where one ends and the other begins.

Deep thoughts are most beguiling companions. Why wilt thou write such truisms, oh, my pen? But deep thoughts are most beguiling companions, and Beauchamp found himself within a hundred and fifty yards of the miser's house, ere he thought that he had threaded half the way. It was just where the path he had been following joined the little wooded lane that led from Emberton, and rose up the high bank on which the house was situated. The increasing elevation brought a little more light; and as Henry Beauchamp advanced, he saw a man and woman--who had been apparently walking together--part as he came near. The male figure turned hastily toward the little town; the woman glided away in the direction of the miser's house, and was lost in the obscurity. All was again still; but a moment after there was a low, plaintive whistle, which called his attention for an instant. He heard it again, but at a greater distance, and thought, "It is the curlews upon the downs;" and, without giving it any further heed, he walked on, and rang the bell of Mr. Tims's house, in such a manner as to insure that his visit would not be long unknown to the inmates.