O ye moments! that I can now recall with so little sadness in the mellow and sweet remembrance, rest ever holy and undisclosed in the solemn recesses of the heart. Yes!—whatever confession of weakness was interchanged, we were not unworthy of the trust that permitted the mournful consolation of the parting. No trite love-tale—with vows not to be fulfilled, and hopes that the future must belie—mocked the realities of the life that lay before us. Yet on the confines of the dream, we saw the day rising cold upon the world: and if—children as we wellnigh were—we shrunk somewhat from the light, we did not blaspheme the sun, and cry "There is darkness in the dawn!"
All that we attempted was to comfort and strengthen each other for that which must be: not seeking to conceal the grief we felt, but promising, with simple faith, to struggle against the grief. If vow were pledged between us—that was the vow—each for the other's sake would strive to enjoy the blessings Heaven left us still. Well may I say that we were children! I know not, in the broken words that passed between us, in the sorrowful hearts which those words revealed—I know not if there were that which they who own, in human passion, but the storm and the whirlwind, would call the love of maturer years—the love that gives fire to the song, and tragedy to the stage; but I know that there was neither a word nor a thought which made the sorrow of the children a rebellion to the heavenly Father.
And again the door unclosed, and Fanny walked with a firm step to her mother's side, and, pausing there, extended her hand to me, and said, as I bent over it, "Heaven WILL be with you!"
A word from Lady Ellinor; a frank smile from him—the rival; one last, last glance from the soft eyes of Fanny, and then Solitude rushed upon me—rushed, as something visible, palpable, overpowering. I felt it in the glare of the sunbeam—I heard it in the breath of the air: like a ghost it rose there—where she had filled the space with her presence but a moment before? A something seemed gone from the universe for ever; a change like that of death passed through my being; and when I woke to feel that my being lived again, I knew that it was my youth and its poet-land that were no more, and that I had passed with an unconscious step, which never could retrace its way, into the hard world of laborious man!
[THE GAME LAWS IN SCOTLAND.]
Those who have been accustomed to watch the tactics of the Manchester party cannot have overlooked or forgotten the significant coincidence, in point of time, between Mr Bright's attack on the Game Laws, and the last grand assault upon the barrier which formerly protected British agriculture. That wily lover of peace among all orders of men saw how much it would assist the ultimate designs of his party to excite distrust and enmity between the two great divisions of the protectionist garrison—the owners and the cultivators of land; and the anti-game-law demonstration was planned for that purpose. The manœuvre was rendered useless by the sudden and unconditional surrender of the fortress by that leader, whose system of defence has ever been, as Capefigue says—"céder incessamment." It is impossible, however, to disguise the true source of the sudden sympathy for the farmers' grievances, which in 1845 and 1846 yearned in the compassionate bowels of the agrarian leaders, and led to the lengthened inquiries of Mr Bright's committee.
But it seems we are not yet done with the game-law agitation. It is true the last rampart of protection is levelled to the ground: but the subjugation of the country interest to the potentates of the factory is not yet accomplished. The owners of the soil have not yet bowed low enough to the Baal of free trade; their influence is not altogether obliterated, nor their privileges sufficiently curtailed; and therefore Mr Bright and the Anti-Game-Law Association have buckled on their armour once more, and the tenantry are again invited to join in the crusade against those who, they are assured, have always been their inveterate oppressors; and, to cut of as much as possible the remotest chance of an amicable settlement, it is proclaimed that no concession will be accepted—no proposal of adjustment listened to—short of the total and immediate abolition of every statute on the subject of game.
The truth is, that this branch of the agitation trade is too valuable to be lost sight of by those who earn their bread or their popularity in that line of business. Hundreds of honest peasants, rotting in unwholesome gaols, their wives and children herded in thousands to the workhouse—hard-working tenants sequestrated by a grasping and selfish aristocracy—these are all too fertile topics for the platform philanthropist to be risked by leaving open any door for conciliation; and therefore the terms demanded are such as it is well known cannot be accepted.