Rank and Talent; A Novel, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by William Pitt Scargill

"Your lordship will pardon me, if I know not how to reply to your very kind offer; and your lordship will be pleased to hear that under present circumstances it is superfluous. I had but little professional practice to lose, and that I trust is not altogether lost; besides, if I begin again it will be under better auspices, with a little more experience and a little more knowledge."

The nobleman was not offended at the young man's proper feeling of independence. Markham's confusion and hesitation arose from not considering the immense difference in station between himself and his patron; his patron was aware of the feeling, and instead of resenting it, regarded it with complacency as a good symptom of a sound and an honest ambition. There are indeed arts by which a man may rise to almost any eminence in political station, but many of them are low creeping arts. It has been pointedly said, that the highest stations in society are like the summits of the Pyramids, accessible only to eagles and reptiles. Markham's aspiring was more of the eagle than the reptile cast. The nobleman with whom he was conversing was aware of this, and glad for the sake of human nature to see it. He had had much intercourse with aspirants, but he had found them for the most part of the creeping sycophantic character, stooping to any body and to any thing which might seem to favor their schemes. It was not so with Markham. The spirit of high station was in his mind long before he reached it; and that kept him in the true feeling of independence and self-esteem. Independence quite free from affectation and conceit, is too uncommon to pass unnoticed. To be at once independent of the great and also independent of the noisy multitude is an acquirement of great value, only to be attained by self converse and reflection. True independence is in and from the mind.

After Markham's interview with his patron, he went down into the country to spend a few weeks with his parents, and in his native air he soon regained what he had lost in point of health. It is not to be supposed that all this time no thought of Clara should have entered his mind. But if our readers imagine that he came home as love-sick as he went abroad, they greatly mistake. Love is not the most rational and reasonable thing in the world, but still it must in ordinarily-constructed minds have some little ground of hope and probability to rest upon. If there had been at parting any expressions on the part of Markham and of Clara that there was a mutual understanding between them, however faint and few those expressions might have been, something would have been afforded for their love to build upon. But they were mutually ignorant of each other's feelings; and though in their separation they thought one of the other, yet those thoughts were rather a species of aerial castle-building, than any regular, calm, deliberate anticipation of probability. Clara thought much of Markham, but knew not that he thought any thing of her; Markham thought much of Clara, but knew not that she had any thoughts to spare for him. They merely thought how delightful, if it should prove eventually that the regard was mutual; but on that point they were ignorant.

Markham had in his situation much business to attend to. New scenes were around him, and new faces were presented to him, and new acquaintances were forming around him. And when his health failed him, and he had thoughts that life might soon be sacrificed to his change of climate, there came into his mind thoughts of real and actual interests which supplanted his consideration of imaginary and possible interests. His mind looked towards the place of his birth, and towards his kind and revered parents; and he thought of their sorrows, and of the bitterness of their bereavement, should he be removed from them. He had not formed such an acquaintance as Clara had with Miss Henderson. He had not met with any thing to keep alive in his mind a romantic or passionate feeling; but, on the contrary, every thing contributed to sober down his thoughts to the level of literal truth and solidity of real life. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that when he returned to England his romantic tenderness should be a little abated, and that he should think rather more of the actual than the possible. We are sorry for the romantically-disposed that it did so happen. It would have been far more agreeable for them to read, and far more pleasant for us to write, a very tender pathetic scene of the meeting of Clara and Horatio. We should have been very glad of an opportunity to display our eloquence in describing the emotion of Markham as soon as he arrived in England, at the thought that now he was breathing the same air as his beloved and beautiful Clara Rivolta. It would have gratified us mightily to have described the eagerness with which, forgetting every relative, friend, duty, or other consideration, he hurried to pay his respects to his good friend Mr. Martindale, that he might have an opportunity of throwing himself at Clara's feet. It would also have gratified us to have described the emotions, feelings, doubts, tremblings, and fears, at the supposition, the dreaded supposition, that Clara might in his absence have given her heart to another. All this would have been very pretty, but nothing of this kind occurred. Markham soon after he had left England, or at least in a very short time after he had settled down soberly to the duties of his situation, had, comparatively speaking, forgotten Clara. Not that her image was quite erased from the tablet of his memory, or that the lineaments of her pleasant countenance could no more be recollected; but the recollection was more placid, and the memory of her as an ordinary acquaintance supplanted the thought of her as a beloved one: and when, therefore, he returned to England, though he had not quite forgotten that such a person existed, yet his most powerful thoughts were certainly not at that moment with her. After first paying his respects, as in duty bound, to his patron, he next sought the roof of his parents, and gladdened their eyes with the sight of their beloved son in far better health than their fears had anticipated. It may be very well supposed that the good people were proud of their son. Parents mostly are proud of their children, and especially if they hear any thing of a respectable character for moral and intellectual eminence. That certainly was the case with Horatio Markham. He had always borne a high character for integrity and good principle and good understanding. And there was one peculiar satisfaction that the good people enjoyed; namely, that they had absolutely been favored with a letter from Markham's kind friend and patron, the nobleman above alluded to, in which he expressed his approbation of their son's conduct and character, and gave them hopes that he would certainly rise in his profession. And as Markham's parents were vain beyond measure of all this high flattery, they were considerate enough for a length of time to withhold from their son all knowledge of this letter, lest they might fill his mind with too great a conceit of himself. But the gratification of communicating it was too great to be resisted; fortunately, however, for the young man, no very great harm came of it: perhaps it acted as a stimulus, morally as well as intellectually. To be praised for mental powers by a man of talent only, may excite vanity in the heart of a young man; but to be praised and commended morally by a man of high moral character and pure principle, is also a stimulus and excitement to moral diligence. We will not stop to enter very minutely into the inquiry, how far pride may be a component part or prompting motive to high moral principle and dignified integrity of conduct; nor, supposing such to be the case, will we minutely and scrupulously weigh the value of that quality thus supported. It is very well that there is in the world such a virtue as high principle; that there exists in many minds that firm, obstinate, haughty independence, which disdains aught that is morally base and mean. The existence of such a principle is good; and we will not cavil at it, if it be accompanied with a little pride, or even with a great deal. We are indeed very much of opinion that a lack of pride is in many cases an injury, or the cause of injury. But to proceed with our history.

Our observant readers will observe, that we have not said that Markham had absolutely forgotten Clara, but only that he had not preserved a romantic and passionate remembrance of her. As soon, however, as the more important demands on his first thoughts and attentions had been complied with, there came into his mind a recollection of Brigland and its magnificent Abbey, and of the whimsical old John Martindale. A few days, therefore, after his arrival home, he rode over to Brigland to see his old friend, the rich cousin of the Earl of Trimmerstone.

When he came to Brigland, he found the magnificent building still shining in all its splendor, and the broad expanse of water spreading its smooth mirror to the fields and to the sky; but when he came to the old gentleman's cottage, he found it desolate and deserted. There was in it only one elderly female domestic, who had been left to take care of it till she was quite tired of her task. Markham was hardly able to gain admittance at all, but after much knocking and ringing this old lady made her appearance. To the inquiry, whether Mr. Martindale was at home, she only returned a short pettish answer, saying,

"At home! no; and never will be, I think. He is running about all over the country, nobody knows where."

"Then you can't tell me," said Markham again, "where I can find him?"

"No, that I can't; but perhaps they can tell you at the Abbey: that fellow Oliver knows all their movements, but they never condescend to honor me with any information."