"----never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fix'd a soul:"[[1]]
"He hallowed the very air she breathed; doated on the very hem of her garments; worshipped the very ground she trod on. This child, this innocent child (for she was no more), guided the wild ungovernable creature as absolutely and as easily as a mother guides her infant: and, if Captain Nicholas had always been under such guidance, no tongue (as I will warrant) would ever have had any cause to make free with his name: there is no such a safeguard in this world to a young man under the temptations which life presents as deep love for a virtuous woman. The misery is--that for every thousand such women there is hardly one man capable of such a love. No: men in this respect are brutal creatures.
"But to return to Miss Walladmor: you will not wonder that, under the circumstances I have mentioned, she did not discontinue her rides in the woods of Tre Mawr: child as she was, her own heart told her that, from a man animated by love so tender and profound, she could no more have any thing to fear than she could from any third person whilst under his protection. Hence she did not refuse to meet him: and, for more than a year and a half, they carried on a clandestine correspondence. Clandestine I call it with regard to the mode in which it was conducted, and with regard to Sir Morgan Walladmor: for else it was known to all the country beside. How it was that nobody spoke of it to Sir Morgan, I cannot say: you will wonder that I did not. The truth is--that, when it came to my knowledge, it was too late (as I saw) to interfere without misery to both parties, and ruin to one. The chief objections to the connexion were of course the want of adequate rank and prospects on the part of Captain Nicholas, and the uncertainty of his birth. These, in any common case, were no doubt sufficient objections: still, as Captain Nicholas had raised himself at so very early an age to the rank of a gentleman, I did not see that they were insuperable: or, however valid against such an attachment in its first origin, were less entitled to attention when it had reached its present stage.
"Miss Walladmor was nearly eighteen, when Sir Morgan came to know of the affair. He was grieved, and seemed to view it as one of the judgments upon himself, but did not express any displeasure. Just about that time Sir Charles Davenant was introduced to Miss Walladmor in the character of suitor. From the first she declined his addresses with a firmness that should naturally have at once discouraged a man of his discernment. But he had encouragement from other quarters:--Sir Morgan gave him no encouragement; but others amongst Miss Walladmor's relatives did. Edward Nicholas was too noble to harbour so mean a passion as jealousy: still he trembled for the effect of a long persecution upon so gentle a nature as Miss Walladmor's: but in this he was wrong: for, though the gentlest of creatures, she is one of the firmest in any point which she conceives essential to her honor. And this he now found unhappily in a case too nearly affecting himself.
"All at once many stories of outrages, scandalous and even bloody acts, were revived against the company of smugglers with whom Captain Nicholas had passed his youth: and with these stories the name of Edward Nicholas, as the name of their leader, was studiously coupled. Both Miss Walladmor and her lover being generally favourites amongst the country people about Walladmor, it was a matter of some wonder to me whence such stories, which were clearly devised for their persecution, could arise; and at length I traced them to Gillie Godber. However they got into some circulation; and, now that the rank of Miss Walladmor and the universal interest in the romantic part of the story had drawn the attention of the county and the whole local gentry upon the character of Edward Nicholas, they could not but affect his pretensions very disadvantageously with all Miss Walladmor's connexions. With the sincerity of real love, Captain Nicholas had not concealed from Miss Walladmor the circumstances of his early education amongst smugglers and sea-rovers: but these she justly regarded as the palliations of any youthful levities he might have committed, and as his great misfortune, and not as any part of his offences. Neither had he concealed the obscurity of his birth; so that, with regard to that, she had nothing to learn. The worst part of the charges, as it soon came out, were easily repelled by the mere dates of the transactions to which they referred: of all the cruel and bloody part every man, who knew his nature, acquitted him; for, howsoever he may choose to talk ferociously since he has become desperate, he has nothing cruel in his disposition. But, when these were disposed of, there still remained many wild infractions of law which left a taint behind, such as ought not to attach to the name of him who was a candidate for Miss Walladmor's hand. If Miss Walladmor in the tenderness of her affection steadily refused to believe these stories, others (she saw) did not. Something was due to her family; and to Sir Morgan, the head of it, more especially, from the unlimited confidence he had reposed in her discretion. However it were palliated by his extreme youth and the connexions upon which his misfortunes had thrown him, still some part of what had been alleged against Captain Nicholas appeared to be true: for even, with such an interest at stake, the nobility of his mind would not stoop to the meanness of falsehood. Miss Walladmor was greatly shocked; suffered much in mind and in health; and discovered in her countenance the agitations to which she was now a prey. She knew, she could not but know, that she was consigning him to despair: her woman's heart relented again and again in behalf of the man who had loved her so long and so fervently: but at length she told him calmly and yet firmly that it was necessary they should part. Whatever she could do by tenderness of manner to mitigate the bitterness of this parting--she did; her affections, there was no need to tell him, were wholly his: and she assured him that, if he would in any way efface the stains upon his name, her heart should remember only his misfortunes.
"But in what way was he to do this? He was a friendless man for any views of advancement in England; any thing he might do in South America, would avail him little at home: and thus, being without hope, he became frantic--and began to tamper with criminal enterprizes.
"What follows is still more painful; nor am I accurately acquainted with the particulars. Political disturbances at that time prevailed in various parts of the country; amongst others, in this. These he fomented; and, according to the charges against him, committed some overt acts of treason. The best excuse for him, over and above that general excuse which applies to all that he has done since his parting with Miss Walladmor, namely, his state of utter distraction (some say positive aberration) of mind,--the best excuse for him, I say, in all his political conduct, is this; that, having lived so much of his life in foreign and convulsed states of society, where every body was engaged in active hostilities to some party or other that was--had been--or pretended to be the government, he had not been trained to look with much horror on a charge which he has heard so much tossed about as that of treason: in fact he thinks of it with more levity than you can imagine. I may add that, having seen so little comparatively of England, he is really under the greatest delusions as to our true political state--and does sincerely believe in the existence of oppressions which are altogether imaginary. This must be borne in mind in speaking of what remains. After the disturbances were quelled in this neighbourhood, he escaped; went to South America; served again in various quarters of that agitated continent; but was still pursued by his old distraction of mind in regard to Miss Walladmor; came back; connected himself, it is said, with some of those who were parties to the Cato-street conspiracy: I know not how, or with what result. He talks of himself as though he had shared in all their designs: but he often talks worse of himself than he deserves; and government have certainly abandoned the Cato-street charges against him: though, if he were taken, he would still be tried on those which arise out of his transactions in this county."
"But with what purpose," said Bertram, "can he linger in this neighbourhood, where his haunts and his person are so well known--that it is impossible he can long escape apprehension?"
"Still, no doubt, as heretofore, from the blindness and infirmity of his passion for Miss Walladmor: merely to see her--is perhaps some relief to his unhappy mind: that however is a gratification he can seldom have; for she now rarely stirs out of the castle. His old anxieties too may be again awakened by the re-appearance of Sir Charles Davenant at Walladmor. Then, as to the intimacy of his connexions with this neighbourhood, you must remember that, if that exposes him to some risque, he is also indebted to it for much kindness and assistance. Just now indeed, when the smugglers are returned to this coast, what with the open assistance he receives from them, and the underhand support and connivance he meets with from the country people, he contrives effectually to baffle the pursuit of the police."