When one happens to be left per se in a provincial town, where he is alike unknowing and unknown—where there is no theatre or other place of amusement in which to spend the evening—it almost invariably happens that he pays a visit to the churchyard, and delights himself, for an hour or so, with deciphering the tombstones—a recreation extremely healthful to the body, and soothing to the mind. It was to the churchyard on that evening I bent my steps, thinking, as I went along, seriously of Mary.
"What is she to me?" I involuntarily exclaimed; "I have no time to waste upon women: I am a wanderer, with no great portion of worldly gear. In my present circumstances it is impossible I can marry her; and to think of her in any other light were villanous. No, no! I will no longer cherish a dream which can never be realized."
And I determined that, on the morrow, I should fly the fatal spot for ever. Who or what Mary's relations had been, she seemed to feel great reluctance in disclosing to me. All I could glean from her was, that she was an orphan—that she had had a sister who had formed an unfortunate attachment, and broken their mother's heart—that all of her kindred that now remained was a brother, and he was in a foreign land.
The sun was resting above the summits of the far-off mountains, and the yew trees were flinging their dusky shadows over the graves, as I entered the burial-place of Altonby. The old church was roofless and in ruins; and within its walls were many tombstones over the ashes of those who, having left more than the wherewithal to bury them, had been laid there by their heirs, as if in token of respect. In a distant corner, I observed one little mound over which no stone had been placed to indicate who lay beneath: it was evidently the grave of a stranger, and seemed to have been placed in that spot more for the purpose of being out of the way than for any other. At a short distance from it was another mound, overtopped with grass of a fresher kind. As I stood leaning over a marble tombstone, gazing around me, a figure slowly entered at the farther end of the aisle, and, with folded arms and downcast eyes, passed on to those two graves. It was that of a young man of perhaps five-and-twenty, though a settled melancholy, which overspread his countenance, made him look five years older. I crouched behind the stone on which I had been leaning, fearful of disturbing him with my presence, or rousing his attention by my attempting to leave the place.
After gazing with a vacant eye for a few moments upon the graves, he knelt down between them. His lips began to move, but I heard not what he said. I thought he was praying for the souls of the departed; and I was confirmed in this by hearing him at last say, with an audible voice:—
"May all good angels guard thee, Clara Douglas, and thou, my mother!"
As he uttered these last words, he turned his eyes to the newer grave. I thought he was about to continue his prayer; but, as if the sight of the grave had awakened other feelings, he suddenly started up, and, raising his hands to heaven, invoked curses on the head of one whom he termed their "murderer!" That done, he rushed madly from the church. All this was very strange to me; and I determined, if possible, to ascertain whose remains those graves entombed.
On leaving the churchyard, I was fortunate enough to orgather with an old man, from whom I learned the melancholy story of her who occupied the older-looking grave. She was young and beautiful. Accident had deprived her father of that wealth which a long life of untiring industry had enabled him to lay past for his children; and he did not long survive its loss. Fearful of being a burden to her mother, who had a son and another daughter besides herself to provide for out of the slender pittance which remained to her on her husband's death, Clara Douglas accepted a situation as a governess, and sought to earn an honourable independence by those talents and accomplishments which had once been cultivated for mere amusement. The brother of Clara, shortly afterwards, obtained an appointment in the island of Madeira. Unfortunately for Clara, a young officer, a relative of the family in which she resided, saw her, and was smitten with her charms. He loved and was beloved again. The footing of intimacy on which he was in the house, procured him many interviews with Clara. Suddenly his regiment was ordered to the Continent; and when the young ensign told the sorrowful tidings to Clara, he elicited from her a confession of her love.
Months passed away—Waterloo was fought and won—and Ensign Malcolm was among those who fell.
When the death-list reached Scotland, many were the hearts it overpowered with grief; but Clara Douglas had more than one grief to mourn: sorrow and shame were too much to bear together, and she fled from the house where she had first met him who was the cause of all. None could tell whither she had gone. Her mother and sister were agonized, when the news of her disappearance reached them. Every search was made, but without effect. A year all but two weeks passed away, and still no tidings of her, till that very day, two boys seeking for pheasant's nests upon the top of a hillock overgrown with furze—which the old man pointed out to me at a short distance from the place where we stood—accidently stumbled upon an object beneath a fir-tree. It was the remains of a female in a kneeling posture. Beneath her garments, by which she was recognised as Clara Douglas, not a vestige of flesh remained. There was still some upon her hands, which had been tightly clasped together; and upon her face, which leant upon them. Seemingly she had died in great agony. It was supposed by some that she had taken poison.