“You had an uncle. He was thrown upon the world unwisely when a boy, left to his own guidance, and subjected to more temptation than youth can conquer. Need I tell you, who have learned the lesson practically, how easily intimacies are formed, which, when unchecked, prove ruinous? By the ill-judging liberality of his father, young Clifford obtained the means to follow the bent of his inclination. His temper was ardent—his passions strong—he had no friend to counsel—no Mentor to direct—his life became a whirlwind of dissipation—and with rapid strides he hurried to destruction. Too late, the film was removed from his parent’s eyes; and unfortunately, the steps he took to stay that course of folly in his child, which himself had first encouraged, were injudicious. Money was suddenly withheld; could the wild youth’s career be thus arrested? No; false villains surrounded him, who pointed out easy means by which a large supply was raised, only, when obtained, to be wasted upon knaves, or lavished with reckless prodigality on those whose beauty had been their bane. Oh! woman—thou art a blessing or a curse—and as both, this withered heart has proved thee!”
Mr. Hartley sprang from his chair—strode aeross the room—stopped at the window—and then, as if he had subdued a violent outbreak of secret feeling, he resumed his seat and thus continued:
“A vicious career soon finds its termination. The mode by which young Clifford had hitherto obtained supplies at last became unavailing, and criminal means were cautiously proposed by his villanous confederates. From these the youth recoiled with horror—his guardian angel had not yet deserted him; and, like another prodigal, he half determined to fall at his father’s feet, and ask him to bless and pardon. That blessing was ready had he sought it—but the moment of penitence had passed. One, with an angel form and demon heart, had thrown her spells around him; and all that remained of moral principle, she, the foul temptress, gradually extinguished. In a desperate emergency young Clifford committed forgery, affixing to securities of immense amount, his father’s name. In due time the criminal act was discovered, and to the agonized parent one alternative alone was left—to pay an enormous sum to the villains who had demoralized him, or denounce his child a felon, and consign him to a felon’s doom. He sacrificed the money. Did the mischief end there? No;—the misguided young man was now the victim of a gang of swindlers—the puppet of a coldblooded courtesan. Deeper and deeper they involved him, and at last, when their own detection was impending, they made him a scapegoat to their safety, and denounced their dupe for crimes which they had themselves committed, and of which he, poor wretch, was guiltless.
“The fallen have no friends; and your uncle was obliged to evade the penalty which the law would have then exacted, by abandoning the country of his birth, to seek ignominious safety in a foreign land. There—he lived and died—a nameless fugitive. Heaven knows in what misery the remnant of his few and evil days were passed,—or, when the hour of deliverance came, under what fearful circumstances death claimed a willing victim.”
Mr. Hartley paused; the story of my unfortunate relative had affected me, and I expressed strong sympathy for the offender.
“Well,” continued he, “it is probable that his punishment was greater than his crime; but of that none but himself could tell. To proceed:—from the moment young Clifford quitted England, his father, by a mental exertion that almost appeal’s incredible, seemed to forget that he had ever had a son, and centered all his hopes and his affections in the child still spared him; and your mother became the object that he lived for. There, too, it was decreed that his hopes and plans should be disappointed. He had resolved to ally her nobly; but his air-built castle was levelled to the earth. She eloped with a soldier of fortune; and worse still, in the estimation of one so deeply bigoted to his own faith, the husband she had selected was a Protestant.
“As he had banished from his heart the memory of a guilty son, so, also, he appears to have forgotten that a daughter, whose sole offence was love, has often sued for pardon, and sued in vain. Dead, apparently, to human passions, and wrapped in gloomy reveries of religion without any thing of its charities, he mistakes ascetic indifference for submission to that Will which rules the fate of mortals. In every thing he is directed by his confessor, and report affirms that he has bequeathed his fortune and estates to the uses of the Church of Rome. I have heard that you bear a striking likeness to your mother. Could you but meet this cold old man, possibly some spark of kindred love might still be latent in the heart, and in the living child, he might happily be forced to recollect the long-estranged mother. But to obtain that meeting is the difficulty. Surrounded by priests and spies, your very name, if known, would bar you from his presence. I have taken measures to ascertain what are the old man’s habits, and how an interview might be accomplished. The experiment may fail—but still it is worth the trial.
“Why have I enlarged on what you knew partially already?—the fall of William Clifford. Only to show, by startling truths, that imprudence is too generally the path to crime; and that your career, unless arrested as it was by me, might have ended fatally as your uncle’s did.”
“Never!” I exclaimed, passionately; “a fool I might be—a villain, never.”
“And so thought young Clifford once—but no more of this. I feel convinced that your fancy for play and dangerous acquaintances is ended.”