A touching and an awful story, whose dread reality had a haggard, haunting shadow, more dreadful than itself. For the man’s childish imagination had been unnaturally wrought upon, and his tale involved a flickering and ghostly sense that he had been in Hell, and that his tormentors were not men but devils. He did not aver it, but it was strangely and indefinably implied in his grotesque narration, and reached the minds of his auditors. Was he wrong? He had suffered much; his reason had been a little shaken by his awful experiences; his superstitious, childish fancy had been insanely stirred. And yet—was he wrong?
As people emerging from some dark cavern into the glad light of day, so from the room of the fugitive, came the five again into the cheerful library. Muriel’s face was grave and dreamful; Harrington was sad and silent; Mrs. Eastman wore a disturbed look; Emily seemed a little frightened, and Wentworth was red with indignation.
They took their seats again without speaking, and for a minute or two nothing was said.
“Well, Richard,” said Harrington, at length, “what do you think now of Hungarian fugitives as objects of sympathy, compared with fugitives like that up-stairs?”
“Oh bother Hungarian fugitives!” blurted Wentworth. “Here’s Hungarians, as John Randolph said of the Greeks, at our very doors. After hearing that man’s story, I can’t help losing my admiration for Kossuth. You know he censured the editor Gyurman, his countryman, for writing against slavery, and I thought once he was right; but, by Jupiter, a man who knows anything about slavery, as I do now, and doesn’t become a red-hot Abolitionist, has a stone in the place where his heart ought to be, or I’m a Dutchman.”
“Well,” returned Harrington, laughing at Richard’s vehemence, “don’t go too far the other way, dear Raffaello. We must feel for the Hungarians too, you know. As for Kossuth, his only fault is, that he’s so much of a patriot, that he’s willing to flatter American tyranny to serve Hungary. It’s wrong and weak, but let us still aspire for Hungarian independence as for American liberty.”
“I agree,” replied Wentworth. “But how did you come across this poor fellow, Harrington?”
“I was out on a nocturnal ramble,” replied Harrington, “and I found him in the street, just escaped from the brig, and took him home with me.”
“Yes, Richard,” said Mrs. Eastman, quickly; “but you don’t know all John did for him. He”—
“Now, mother,” pleaded Harrington, coloring, “don’t mention that—please don’t.”