This lord and lady, with an ample fortune, both by inheritance and their sovereign's favour, had never yet the economy to be exempt from debts; still, over their splendid, their profuse table, they could contrive and plan excellent schemes "how the poor might live most comfortably with a little better management."

The wages of a labouring man, with a wife and half a dozen small children, Lady Bendham thought quite sufficient if they would only learn a little economy.

"You know, my lord, those people never want to dress—shoes and stockings, a coat and waistcoat, a gown and a cap, a petticoat and a handkerchief, are all they want—fire, to be sure, in winter—then all the rest is merely for provision."

"I'll get a pen and ink," said young Henry, one day, when he had the honour of being at their table, "and see what the rest amounts to."

"No, no accounts," cried my lord, "no summing up; but if you were to calculate, you must add to the receipts of the poor my gift at Christmas—last year, during the frost, no less than a hundred pounds."

"How benevolent!" exclaimed the dean.

"How prudent!" exclaimed Henry.

"What do you mean by prudent?" asked Lord Bendham. "Explain your meaning."

"No, my lord," replied the dean, "do not ask for an explanation: this youth is wholly unacquainted with our customs, and, though a man in stature, is but a child in intellects. Henry, have I not often cautioned you—"

"Whatever his thoughts are upon the subject," cried Lord Bendham, "I desire to know them."

"Why, then, my lord," answered Henry, "I thought it was prudent in you to give a little, lest the poor, driven to despair, should take all."

"And if they had, they would have been hanged."

"Hanging, my lord, our history, or some tradition, says, was formerly adopted as a mild punishment, in place of starving."

"I am sure," cried Lady Bendham (who seldom spoke directly to the argument before her), "I am sure they ought to think themselves much obliged to us."

"That is the greatest hardship of all," cried Henry.

"What, sir?" exclaimed the earl.

"I beg your pardon—my uncle looks displeased—I am very ignorant—I did not receive my first education in this country—and I find I think so differently from every one else, that I am ashamed to utter my sentiments."

"Never mind, young man," answered Lord Bendham; "we shall excuse your ignorance for once. Only inform us what it was you just now called the greatest hardship of all."

"It was, my lord, that what the poor receive to keep them from perishing should pass under the name of gifts and bounty. Health, strength, and the will to earn a moderate subsistence, ought to be every man's security from obligation."

"I think a hundred pounds a great deal of money," cried Lady Bendham; "and I hope my lord will never give it again."

"I hope so too," cried Henry; "for if my lord would only be so good as to speak a few words for the poor as a senator, he might possibly for the future keep his hundred pounds, and yet they never want it."

Lord Bendham had the good nature only to smile at Henry's simplicity, whispering to himself, "I had rather keep my—" his last word was lost in the whisper.



CHAPTER XX.

In the country—where the sensible heart is still more susceptible of impressions; and where the unfeeling mind, in the want of other men's wit to invent, forms schemes for its own amusement—our youths both fell in love: if passions, that were pursued on the most opposite principles, can receive the same appellation. William, well versed in all the licentious theory, thought himself in love, because he perceived a tumultuous impulse cause his heart to beat while his fancy fixed on a certain object whose presence agitated yet more his breast.

Henry thought himself not in love, because, while he listened to William on the subject, he found their sensations did not in the least agree.

William owned to Henry that he loved Agnes, the daughter of a cottager in the village, and hoped to make her his mistress.

Henry felt that his tender regard for Rebecca, the daughter of the curate of the parish, did not inspire him even with the boldness to acquaint her with his sentiments, much less to meditate one design that might tend to her dishonour.

While William was cautiously planning how to meet in private, and accomplish the seduction of the object of his passion, Henry was endeavouring to fortify the object of his choice with every virtue. He never read a book from which he received improvement that he did not carry it to Rebecca—never heard a circumstance which might assist towards her moral instruction that he did not haste to tell it her; and once when William boasted

"He knew he was beloved by Agnes;"

Henry said, with equal triumph, "he had not dared to take the means to learn, nor had Rebecca dared to give one instance of her partiality."

Rebecca was the youngest, and by far the least handsome daughter of four, to whom the Reverend Mr. Rymer, a widower, was father. The other sisters were accounted beauties; and she, from her comparative want of personal charms, having been less beloved by her parents, and less caressed by those who visited them, than the rest, had for some time past sought other resources of happiness than the affection, praise, and indulgence of her fellow-creatures. The parsonage house in which this family lived was the forlorn remains of an ancient abbey: it had in later times been the habitation of a rich and learned rector, by whom, at his decease, a library was bequeathed for the use of every succeeding resident. Rebecca, left alone in this huge ruinous abode, while her sisters were paying stated visits in search of admiration, passed her solitary hours in reading. She not merely read—she thought: the choicest English books from this excellent library taught her to think; and reflection fashioned her mind to bear the slights, the mortifications of neglect, with a patient dejection, rather than with an indignant or a peevish spirit.

This resignation to injury and contumely gave to her perfect symmetry of person, a timid eye, a retiring manner, and spread upon her face a placid sweetness, a pale serenity indicating sense, which no wise connoisseur in female charms would have exchanged for all the sparkling eyes and florid tints of her vain and vulgar sisters. Henry's soul was so enamoured of her gentle deportment, that in his sight she appeared beautiful; while she, with an understanding competent to judge of his worth, was so greatly surprised, so prodigiously astonished at the distinction, the attention, the many offices of civility paid her by him, in preference to her idolised sisters, that her gratitude for such unexpected favours had sometimes (even in his presence, and in that of her family) nearly drowned her eyes with tears. Yet they were only trifles, in which Henry had the opportunity or the power to give her testimony of his regard—trifles, often more grateful to the sensible mind than efforts of high importance; and by which the proficient in the human heart will accurately trace a passion wholly concealed from the dull eye of the unskilled observer.

The first cause of amazement to Rebecca in the manners of Henry was, that he talked with her as well as with her sisters; no visitor else had done so. In appointing a morning's or an evening's walk, he proposed her going with the rest; no one had ever required her company before. When he called and she was absent, he asked where she was; no one had ever missed her before. She thanked him most sincerely, and soon perceived that, at those times when he was present, company was more pleasing even than books.

Her astonishment, her gratitude, did not stop here. Henry proceeded in attention; he soon selected her from her sister to tell her the news of the day, answered her observations the first; once gave her a sprig of myrtle from his bosom in preference to another who had praised its beauty; and once—never-to-be-forgotten kindness—sheltered her from a hasty shower with his parapluie, while he lamented to her drenched companions,

"That he had but one to offer."

From a man whose understanding and person they admire, how dear, how impressive on the female heart is every trait of tenderness! Till now, Rebecca had experienced none; not even of the parental kind: and merely from the overflowings of a kind nature (not in return for affection) had she ever loved her father and her sisters. Sometimes, repulsed by their severity, she transferred the fulness of an affectionate heart upon birds, or the brute creation: but now, her alienated mind was recalled and softened by a sensation that made her long to complain of the burthen it imposed. Those obligations which exact silence are a heavy weight to the grateful; and Rebecca longed to tell Henry "that even the forfeit of her life would be too little to express the full sense she had of the respect he paid to her." But as modesty forbade not only every kind of declaration, but every insinuation purporting what she felt, she wept through sleepless nights from a load of suppressed explanation; yet still she would not have exchanged this trouble for all the beauty of her sisters.



CHAPTER XXI.

Old John and Hannah Primrose, a prudent hardy couple, who, by many years of peculiar labour and peculiar abstinence, were the least poor of all the neighbouring cottagers, had an only child (who has been named before) called Agnes: and this cottage girl was reckoned, in spite of the beauty of the elder Miss Rymers, by far the prettiest female in the village.

Reader of superior rank, if the passions which rage in the bosom of the inferior class of human kind are beneath your sympathy, throw aside this little history, for Rebecca Rymer and Agnes Primrose are its heroines.

But you, unprejudiced reader, whose liberal observations are not confined to stations, but who consider all mankind alike deserving your investigation; who believe that there exists, in some, knowledge without the advantage of instruction; refinement of sentiment independent of elegant society; honourable pride of heart without dignity of blood; and genius destitute of art to render it conspicuous—you will, perhaps, venture to read on, in hopes that the remainder of this story may deserve your attention, just as the wild herb of the forest, equally with the cultivated plant in the garden, claims the attention of the botanist.

Young William saw in young Agnes even more beauty than was beheld by others; and on those days when he felt no inclination to ride, to shoot, or to hunt, he would contrive, by some secret device, the means to meet with her alone, and give her tokens (if not of his love) at least of his admiration of her beauty, and of the pleasure he enjoyed in her company.

Agnes listened, with a kind of delirious enchantment, to all her elevated and eloquent admirer uttered; and in return for his praises of her charms, and his equivocal replies in respect to his designs towards her, she gave to him her most undisguised thoughts, and her whole enraptured heart.

This harmless intercourse (as she believed it) had not lasted many weeks before she loved him: she even confessed she did, every time that any unwonted mark of attention from him struck with unexpected force her infatuated senses.

It has been said by a celebrated writer, upon the affection subsisting between the two sexes, "that there are many persons who, if they had never heard of the passion of love, would never have felt it." Might it not with equal truth be added, that there are many more, who, having heard of it, and believing most firmly that they feel it, are nevertheless mistaken? Neither of these cases was the lot of Agnes. She experienced the sentiment before she ever heard it named in the sense with which it had possessed her—joined with numerous other sentiments; for genuine love, however rated as the chief passion of the human heart, is but a poor dependent, a retainer upon other passions; admiration, gratitude, respect, esteem, pride in the object. Divest the boasted sensation of these, and it is not more than the impression of a twelve- month, by courtesy, or vulgar error, termed love.

Agnes was formed by the rarest structure of the human frame, and destined by the tenderest thrillings of the human soul, to inspire and to experience real love: but her nice taste, her delicate thoughts, were so refined beyond the sphere of her own station in society, that nature would have produced this prodigy of attraction in vain, had not one of superior education and manners assailed her affections; and had she been accustomed to the conversation of men in William's rank of life, she had, perhaps, treated William's addresses with indifference; but, in comparing him with her familiar acquaintance, he was a miracle! His unremitting attention seemed the condescension of an elevated being, to whom she looked up with reverence, with admiration, with awe, with pride, with sense of obligation—and all those various passions which constitute true, and never-to-be-eradicated, love.

But in vain she felt and even avowed with her lips what every look, every gesture, had long denoted; William, with discontent, sometimes with anger, upbraided her for her false professions, and vowed, "that while one tender proof, which he fervently besought, was wanting, she did but aggravate his misery by less endearments."

Agnes had been taught the full estimation of female virtue; and if her nature could have detested any one creature in a state of wretchedness, it would have been the woman who had lost her honour; yet, for William, what would not Agnes forfeit? The dignity, the peace, the serenity, the innocence of her own mind, love soon encouraged her to fancy she could easily forego; and this same overpowering influence at times so forcibly possessed her, that she even felt a momentary transport in the contemplation "of so precious a sacrifice to him." But then she loved her parents, and their happiness she could not prevail with herself to barter even for his. She wished he would demand some other pledge of her attachment to him; for there was none but this, her ruin in no other shape, that she would deny at his request. While thus she deliberated, she prepared for her fall.

Bred up with strict observance both of his moral and religious character, William did not dare to tell an unequivocal lie even to his inferiors; he never promised Agnes he would marry her; nay, even he paid so much respect to the forms of truth, that no sooner was it evident that he had obtained her heart, her whole soul entire—so that loss of innocence would be less terrifying than separation from him—no sooner did he perceive this, than he candidly told her he "could never make her his wife." At the same time he lamented "the difference of their births, and the duty he owed his parents' hopes," in terms so pathetic to her partial ear, that she thought him a greater object of compassion in his attachment even than herself; and was now urged by pity to remove the cause of his complainings.

One evening Henry accidentally passed the lonely spot where William and she constantly met; he observed his cousin's impassioned eye, and her affectionate yet fearful glance. William, he saw, took delight in the agitation of mind, in the strong apprehension mixed with the love of Agnes. This convinced Henry that either he or himself was not in love; for his heart told him he would not have beheld such emotions of tenderness, mingled with such marks of sorrow, upon the countenance of Rebecca, for the wealth of the universe.

The first time he was alone with William after this, he mentioned his observation on Agnes's apparent affliction, and asked "why her grief was the result of their stolen meetings."

"Because," replied Williams, "her professions are unlimited, while her manners are reserved; and I accuse her of loving me with unkind moderation, while I love her to distraction."

"You design to marry her, then?"

"How can you degrade me by the supposition?"

"Would it degrade you more to marry her than to make her your companion? To talk with her for hours in preference to all other company? To wish to be endeared to her by still closer ties?"

"But all this is not raising her to the rank of my wife."

"It is still raising her to that rank for which wives alone were allotted."

"You talk wildly! I tell you I love her; but not enough, I hope, to marry her."

"But too much, I hope, to undo her?"

"That must be her own free choice—I make use of no unwarrantable methods."

"What are the warrantable ones?"

"I mean, I have made her no false promises; offered no pretended settlement; vowed no eternal constancy."

"But you have told her you love her; and, from that confession, has she not reason to expect every protection which even promises could secure?"

"I cannot answer for her expectations; but I know if she should make me as happy as I ask, and I should then forsake her, I shall not break my word."

"Still she will be deceived, for you will falsify your looks."

"Do you think she depends on my looks?"

"I have read in some book, Looks are the lover's sole dependence."

"I have no objection to her interpreting mine in her favour; but then for the consequences she will have herself, and only herself, to blame."

"Oh! Heaven!"

"What makes you exclaim so vehemently?"

"A forcible idea of the bitterness of that calamity which inflicts self- reproach! Oh, rather deceive her; leave her the consolation to reproach you rather than herself."

"My honour will not suffer me."

"Exert your honour, and never see her more."

"I cannot live without her."

"Then live with her by the laws of your country, and make her and yourself both happy."

"Am I to make my father and my mother miserable? They would disown me for such a step."

"Your mother, perhaps, might be offended, but your father could not. Remember the sermon he preached but last Sunday, upon—the shortness of this life—contempt of all riches and worldly honours in balance with a quiet conscience; and the assurance he gave us, that the greatest happiness enjoyed upon earth was to be found under a humble roof, with heaven in prospect."

"My father is a very good man," said William; "and yet, instead of being satisfied with a humble roof, he looks impatiently forward to a bishop's palace."

"He is so very good, then," said Henry, "that perhaps, seeing the dangers to which men in exalted stations are exposed, he has such extreme philanthropy, and so little self-love, he would rather that himself should brave those perils incidental to wealth and grandeur than any other person."

"You are not yet civilised," said William; "and to argue with you is but to instruct, without gaining instruction."

"I know, sir," replied Henry, "that you are studying the law most assiduously, and indulge flattering hopes of rising to eminence in your profession: but let me hint to you—that though you may be perfect in the knowledge how to administer the commandments of men, unless you keep in view the precepts of God, your judgment, like mine, will be fallible."



CHAPTER XXII.

The dean's family passed this first summer at the new-purchased estate so pleasantly, that they left it with regret when winter called them to their house in town.

But if some felt concern in quitting the village of Anfield, others who were left behind felt the deepest anguish. Those were not the poor—for rigid attention to the religion and morals of people in poverty, and total neglect of their bodily wants, was the dean's practice. He forced them to attend church every Sabbath; but whether they had a dinner on their return was too gross and temporal an inquiry for his spiritual fervour. Good of the soul was all he aimed at; and this pious undertaking, besides his diligence as a pastor, required all his exertion as a magistrate—for to be very poor and very honest, very oppressed yet very thankful, is a degree of sainted excellence not often to be attained, without the aid of zealous men to frighten into virtue.

Those, then, who alone felt sorrow at the dean's departure were two young women, whose parents, exempt from indigence, preserved them from suffering under his unpitying piety, but whose discretion had not protected them from the bewitching smiles of his nephew, and the seducing wiles of his son.

The first morning that Rebecca rose and knew Henry was gone till the following summer, she wished she could have laid down again and slept away the whole long interval. Her sisters' peevishness, her father's austerity, she foresaw, would be insupportable now that she had experienced Henry's kindness, and he was no longer near to fortify her patience. She sighed—she wept—she was unhappy.

But if Rebecca awoke with a dejected mind and an aching heart, what were the sorrows of Agnes? The only child of doating parents, she never had been taught the necessity of resignation—untutored, unread, unused to reflect, but knowing how to feel; what were her sufferings when, on waking, she called to mind that "William was gone," and with him gone all that excess of happiness which his presence had bestowed, and for which she had exchanged her future tranquillity?

Loss of tranquillity even Rebecca had to bemoan: Agnes had still more—the loss of innocence!

Hal William remained in the village, shame, even conscience, perhaps, might have been silenced; but, separated from her betrayer, parted from the joys of guilt, and left only to its sorrows, every sting which quick sensibility could sharpen, to torture her, was transfixed in her heart. First came the recollection of a cold farewell from the man whose love she had hoped her yielding passion had for ever won; next, flashed on her thoughts her violated person; next, the crime incurred; then her cruelty to her parents; and, last of all, the horrors of detection.

She knew that as yet, by wariness, care, and contrivance, her meetings with William had been unsuspected; but, in this agony of mind, her fears fore-boded an informer who would defy all caution; who would stigmatise her with a name—dear and desired by every virtuous female—abhorrent to the blushing harlot—the name of mother.

That Agnes, thus impressed, could rise from her bed, meet her parents and her neighbours with her usual smile of vivacity, and voice of mirth, was impossible: to leave her bed at all, to creep downstairs, and reply in a faint, broken voice to questions asked, were, in her state of mind, mighty efforts; and they were all to which her struggles could attain for many weeks.

William had promised to write to her while he was away: he kept his word; but not till the end of two months did she receive a letter. Fear for his health, apprehension of his death during this cruel interim, caused an agony of suspense, which, by representing him to her distracted fancy in a state of suffering, made him, if possible, still dearer to her. In the excruciating anguish of uncertainty, she walked with trembling steps through all weathers (when she could steal half a day while her parents were employed in labour abroad) to the post town, at six miles' distance, to inquire for his long-expected, long-wished-for letter.

When at last it was given to her, that moment of consolation seemed to repay her for the whole time of agonising terror she had endured. "He is alive!" she said, "and I have suffered nothing."

She hastily put this token of his health and his remembrance of her into her bosom, rich as an empress with a new-acquired dominion. The way from home, which she had trod with heavy pace, in the fear of renewed disappointment, she skimmed along on her return swift as a doe: the cold did not pierce, neither did the rain wet her. Many a time she put her hand upon the prize she possessed, to find if it were safe: once, on the road, she took it from her bosom, curiously viewed the seal and the direction, then replacing it, did not move her fingers from their fast grip till she arrived at her own house.

Her father and her mother were still absent. She drew a chair, and placing it near to the only window in the room, seated herself with ceremonious order; then gently drew forth her treasure, laid it on her knee, and with a smile that almost amounted to a laugh of gladness, once more inspected the outward part, before she would trust herself with the excessive joy of looking within.

At length the seal was broken—but the contents still a secret. Poor Agnes had learned to write as some youths learn Latin: so short a time had been allowed for the acquirement, and so little expert had been her master, that it took her generally a week to write a letter of ten lines, and a month to read one of twenty. But this being a letter on which her mind was deeply engaged, her whole imagination aided her slender literature, and at the end of a fortnight she had made out every word. They were these—

"Dr. Agnes,—I hope you have been well since we parted—I have been very well myself; but I have been teased with a great deal of business, which has not given me time to write to you before. I have been called to the bar, which engages every spare moment; but I hope it will not prevent my coming down to Anfield with my father in the summer.

"I am, Dr. Agnes, "With gratitude for all the favours you have conferred on me, "Yours, &c. "W. N."

To have beheld the illiterate Agnes trying for two weeks, day and night, to find out the exact words of this letter, would have struck the spectator with amazement, had he also understood the right, the delicate, the nicely proper sensations with which she was affected by every sentence it contained.

She wished it had been kinder, even for his sake who wrote it; because she thought so well of him, and desired still to think so well, that she was sorry at any faults which rendered him less worthy of her good opinion. The cold civility of his letter had this effect—her clear, her acute judgment felt it a kind of prevarication to promise to write and then write nothing that was hoped for. But, enthralled by the magic of her passion, she shortly found excuses for the man she loved, at the expense of her own condemnation.

"He has only the fault of inconstancy," she cried; "and that has been caused by my change of conduct. Had I been virtuous still, he had still been affectionate." Bitter reflection!

Yet there was a sentence in the letter, that, worse than all the tenderness left out, wounded her sensibility; and she could not read the line, gratitude for all the favours conferred on me, without turning pale with horror, then kindling with indignation at the commonplace thanks, which insultingly reminded her of her innocence given in exchange for unmeaning acknowledgments.



CHAPTER XXIII.

Absence is said to increase strong and virtuous love, but to destroy that which is weak and sensual. In the parallel between young William and young Henry, this was the case; for Henry's real love increased, while William's turbulent passion declined in separation: yet had the latter not so much abated that he did not perceive a sensation, like a sudden shock of sorrow, on a proposal made him by his father, of entering the marriage state with a young woman, the dependent niece of Lady Bendham; who, as the dean informed him, had signified her lord's and her own approbation of his becoming their nephew.

At the first moment William received this intimation from his father, his heart revolted with disgust from the object, and he instantly thought upon Agnes with more affection than he had done for many weeks before. This was from the comparison between her and his proposed wife; for he had frequently seen Miss Sedgeley at Lord Bendham's, but had never seen in her whole person or manners the least attraction to excite his love. He pictured to himself an unpleasant home, with a companion so little suited to his taste, and felt a pang of conscience, as well as of attachment, in the thought of giving up for ever his poor Agnes.

But these reflections, these feelings, lasted only for the moment. No sooner had the dean explained why the marriage was desirable, recited what great connections and what great patronage it would confer upon their family, than William listened with eagerness, and both his love and his conscience were, if not wholly quieted, at least for the present hushed.

Immediately after the dean had expressed to Lord and Lady Bendham his son's "sense of the honour and the happiness conferred on him, by their condescension in admitting him a member of their noble family," Miss Sedgeley received from her aunt nearly the same shock as William had done from his father. For she (placed in the exact circumstance of her intended husband) had frequently seen the dean's son at Lord Bendham's, but had never see in his whole person or manners the least attraction to excite her love. She pictured to herself an unpleasant home, with a companion so little suited to her taste; and at this moment she felt a more than usual partiality to the dean's nephew, finding the secret hope she had long indulged of winning his affections so near being thwarted.

But Miss Sedgeley was too much subjected to the power of her uncle and aunt to have a will of her own, at least, to dare to utter it. She received the commands of Lady Bendham with her accustomed submission, while all the consolation for the grief they gave her was, "that she resolved to make a very bad wife."

"I shall not care a pin for my husband," said she to herself; "and so I will dress and visit, and do just as I like; he dare not be unkind because of my aunt. Besides, now I think again, it is not so disagreeable to marry him as if I were obliged to marry into any other family, because I shall see his cousin Henry as often, if not oftener than ever."

For Miss Sedgeley—whose person he did not like, and with her mind thus disposed—William began to force himself to shake off every little remaining affection, even all pity, for the unfortunate, the beautiful, the sensible, the doating Agnes; and determined to place in a situation to look down with scorn upon her sorrows, this weak, this unprincipled woman.

Connections, interest, honours, were powerful advocates. His private happiness William deemed trivial compared to public opinion; and to be under obligations to a peer, his wife's relation, gave greater renown in his servile mind than all the advantages which might accrue from his own intrinsic independent worth.

In the usual routine of pretended regard and real indifference—sometimes disgust—between parties allied by what is falsely termed prudence, the intended union of Mr. Norwynne with Miss Sedgeley proceeded in all due form; and at their country seats at Anfield, during the summer, their nuptials were appointed to be celebrated.

William was now introduced into all Lord Bendham's courtly circles. His worldly soul was entranced in glare and show; he thought of nothing but places, pensions, titles, retinues; and steadfast, alert, unshaken in the pursuit of honours, neglected not the lesser means of rising to preferment—his own endowments. But in this round of attention to pleasures and to study, he no more complained to Agnes of "excess of business." Cruel as she had once thought that letter in which he thus apologised for slighting her, she at last began to think it was wondrous kind, for he never found time to send her another. Yet she had studied with all her most anxious care to write him an answer; such a one as might not lessen her understanding, which he had often praised, in his esteem.

Ah, William! even with less anxiety your beating, ambitious heart panted for the admiration of an attentive auditory, when you first ventured to harangue in public! With far less hope and fear (great as yours were) did you first address a crowded court, and thirst for its approbation on your efforts, than Agnes sighed for your approbation when she took a pen and awkwardly scrawled over a sheet of paper. Near twenty times she began, but to a gentleman—and one she loved like William—what could she dare to say? Yet she had enough to tell, if shame had not interposed, or if remaining confidence in his affection had but encouraged her.

Overwhelmed by the first, and deprived of the last, her hand shook, her head drooped, and she dared not communicate what she knew must inevitably render her letter unpleasing, and still more depreciate her in his regard, as the occasion of encumbrance, and of injury to his moral reputation.

Her free, her liberal, her venturous spirit subdued, intimidated by the force of affection, she only wrote—

"SIR,—I am sorry you have so much to do, and should be ashamed if you put it off to write to me. I have not been at all well this winter. I never before passed such a one in all my life, and I hope you will never know such a one yourself in regard to not being happy. I should be sorry if you did—think I would rather go through it again myself than you should. I long for the summer, the fields are so green, and everything so pleasant at that time of the year. I always do long for the summer, but I think never so much in my life as for this that is coming; though sometimes I wish that last summer had never come. Perhaps you wish so too; and that this summer would not come either.

"Hope you will excuse all faults, as I never learnt but one month.

"Your obedient humble servant, "A. P."



CHAPTER XXIV.

Summer arrived, and lords and ladies, who had partaken of all the dissipation of the town, whom opera-houses, gaming-houses, and various other houses had detained whole nights from their peaceful home, were now poured forth from the metropolis, to imbibe the wholesome air of the farmer and peasant, and disseminate, in return, moral and religious principles.

Among the rest, Lord and Lady Bendham, strenuous opposers of vice in the poor, and gentle supporters of it in the rich, never played at cards, or had concerts on a Sunday, in the village, where the poor were spies—he, there, never gamed, nor drank, except in private, and she banished from her doors every woman of sullied character. Yet poverty and idiotism are not the same. The poor can hear, can talk, sometimes can reflect; servants will tell their equals how they live in town; listeners will smile and shake their heads; and thus hypocrisy, instead of cultivating, destroys every seed of moral virtue.

The arrival of Lord Bendham's family at Anfield announced to the village that the dean's would quickly follow. Rebecca's heart bounded with joy at the prospect. Poor Agnes felt a sinking, a foreboding tremor, that wholly interrupted the joy of her expectations. She had not heard from William for five tedious months. She did not know whether he loved or despised, whether he thought of or had forgotten her. Her reason argued against the hope that he loved her; yet hope still subsisted. She would not abandon herself to despair while there was doubt. She "had frequently been deceived by the appearance of circumstances; and perhaps he might come all kindness—perhaps, even not like her the less for that indisposition which had changed her bloom to paleness, and the sparkling of her eyes to a pensive languor."

Henry's sensations, on his return to Anfield, were the self-same as Rebecca's were; sympathy in thought, sympathy in affection, sympathy in virtue made them so. As he approached near the little village, he felt more light than usual. He had committed no trespass there, dreaded no person's reproach or inquiries; but his arrival might prove, at least to one object, the cause of rejoicing.

William's sensations were the reverse of these. In spite of his ambition, and the flattering view of one day accomplishing all to which it aspired, he often, as they proceeded on their journey, envied the gaiety of Henry, and felt an inward monitor that told him "he must first act like Henry, to be as happy."

His intended marriage was still, to the families of both parties (except to the heads of the houses), a profound secret. Neither the servants, nor even Henry, had received the slightest intimation of the designed alliance; and this to William was matter of some comfort.

When men submit to act in contradiction to their principles, nothing is so precious as a secret. In their estimation, to have their conduct known is the essential mischief. While it is hid, they fancy the sin but half committed; and to the moiety of a crime they reconcile their feelings, till, in progression, the whole, when disclosed, appears trivial. He designed that Agnes should receive the news from himself by degrees, and in such a manner as to console her, or at least to silence her complaints; and with the wish to soften the regret which he still felt on the prudent necessity of yielding her wholly up when his marriage should take place, he promised to himself some intervening hours of private meetings, which he hoped would produce satiety.

While Henry flew to Mr. Rymer's house with a conscience clear, and a face enlightened with gladness—while he met Rebecca with open-hearted friendship and frankness, which charmed her soul to peaceful happiness—William skulked around the cottage of Agnes, dreading detection; and when, towards midnight, he found the means to obtain the company of the sad inhabitant, he grew so impatient at her tears and sobs, at the delicacy with which she withheld her caresses, that he burst into bitter upbraidings at her coyness, and at length (without discovering the cause of her peculiar agitation and reserve) abruptly left her vowing "never to see her more."

As he turned away, his heart even congratulated him "that he had made so discreet a use of his momentary disappointment, as thus to shake her off at once without further explanation or excuse."

She, ignorant and illiterate as she was, knew enough of her own heart to judge of his, and to know that such violent affections and expressions, above all, such a sudden, heart-breaking manner of departure, were not the effects of love, nor even of humanity. She felt herself debased by a ruffian—yet still, having loved him when she thought him a far different character, the blackest proof of the deception could not cause a sentiment formed whilst she was deceived.

She passed the remainder of the night in anguish: but with the cheerful morning some cheery thoughts consoled her. She thought "perhaps William by this time had found himself to blame; had conceived the cause of her grief and her distant behaviour, and had pitied her."

The next evening she waited, with anxious heart, for the signal that had called her out the foregoing night. In vain she watched, counted the hours, and the stars, and listened to the nightly stillness of the fields around: they were not disturbed by the tread of her lover. Daylight came; the sun rose in its splendour: William had not been near her, and it shone upon none so miserable as Agnes.

She now considered his word, "never to see her more," as solemnly passed: she heard anew the impressive, the implacable tone in which the sentence was pronounced; and could look back on no late token of affection on which to found the slightest hope that he would recall it.

Still, reluctant to despair—in the extremity of grief, in the extremity of fear for an approaching crisis which must speedily arrive, she (after a few days had elapsed) trusted a neighbouring peasant with a letter to deliver to Mr. Norwynne in private.

This letter, unlike the last, was dictated without the hope to please: no pains were taken with the style, no care in the formation of the letters: the words flowed from necessity; strong necessity guided her hand.

"SIR,—I beg your pardon—pray don't forsake me all at once—see me one time more—I have something to tell you—it is what I dare tell nobody else—and what I am ashamed to tell you—yet pray give me a word of advice—what to do I don't know—I then will part, if you please, never to trouble you, never any more—but hope to part friends—pray do, if you please—and see me one time more.

"Your obedient, "A. P."

These incorrect, inelegant lines produced this immediate reply

"TO AGNES PRIMROSE.

"I have often told you, that my honour is as dear to me as my life: my word is a part of that honour—you heard me say I would never see you again. I shall keep my word."



CHAPTER XXV.

When the dean's family had been at Anfield about a month—one misty morning, such as portends a sultry day, as Henry was walking swiftly through a thick wood, on the skirts of the parish, he suddenly started on hearing a distant groan, expressive, as he thought, both of bodily and mental pain. He stopped to hear it repeated, that he might pursue the sound. He heard it again; and though now but in murmurs, yet, as the tone implied excessive grief, he directed his course to that part of the wood from which it came.

As he advanced, in spite of the thick fog, he discerned the appearance of a female stealing away on his approach. His eye was fixed on this object; and regardless where he placed his feet, he soon shrunk back with horror, on perceiving they had nearly trod upon a new-born infant, lying on the ground!—a lovely male child, entered on a world where not one preparation had been made to receive him.

"Ah!" cried Henry, forgetting the person who had fled, and with a smile of compassion on the helpless infant, "I am glad I have found you—you give more joy to me than you have done to your hapless parents. Poor dear," continued he, while he took off his coat to wrap it in, "I will take care of you while I live—I will beg for you, rather than you shall want; but first, I will carry you to those who can, at present, do more for you than myself."

Thus Henry said and thought, while he enclosed the child carefully in his coat, and took it in his arms. But proceeding to walk his way with it, an unlucky query struck him, where he should go.

"I must not take it to the dean's," he cried, "because Lady Clementina will suspect it is not nobly, and my uncle will suspect it is not lawfully, born. Nor must I take it to Lord Bendham's for the self-same reason, though, could it call Lady Bendham mother, this whole village, nay, the whole country round, would ring with rejoicings for its birth. How strange!" continued he, "that we should make so little of human creatures, that one sent among us, wholly independent of his own high value, becomes a curse instead of a blessing by the mere accident of circumstances."

He now, after walking out of the wood, peeped through the folds of his coat to look again at his charge. He started, turned pale, and trembled to behold what, in the surprise of first seeing the child, had escaped his observation. Around its little throat was a cord entwined by a slipping noose, and drawn half way—as if the trembling hand of the murderer had revolted from its dreadful office, and he or she had heft the infant to pine away in nakedness and hunger, rather than see it die.

Again Henry wished himself joy of the treasure he had found; and more fervently than before; for he had not only preserved one fellow-creature from death, but another from murder.

Once more he looked at his charge, and was transported to observe, upon its serene brow and sleepy eye, no traces of the dangers it had passed—no trait of shame either for itself or its parents—no discomposure at the unwelcome reception it was likely to encounter from a proud world! He now slipped the fatal string from its neck; and by this affectionate disturbance causing the child to cry, he ran (but he scarcely knew whither) to convey it to a better nurse.

He at length found himself at the door of his dear Rebecca—for so very happy Henry felt at the good luck which had befallen him, that he longed to bestow a part of the blessing upon her he loved.

He sent for her privately out of the house to speak to him. When she came, "Rebecca," said he (looking around that no one observed him), "Rebecca, I have brought you something you will like."

"What is it?" she asked.

"You know, Rebecca, that you love deserted birds, strayed kittens, and motherless lambs. I have brought something more pitiable than any of these. Go, get a cap and a little gown, and then I will give it you."

"A gown!" exclaimed Rebecca. "If you have brought me a monkey, much as I should esteem any present from you, indeed I cannot touch it."

"A monkey!" repeated Henry, almost in anger: then changing the tone of his voice, exclaimed in triumph,

"It is a child!"

On this he gave it a gentle pinch, that its cry might confirm the pleasing truth he spoke.

"A child!" repeated Rebecca in amaze.

"Yes, and indeed I found it."

"Found it!"

"Indeed I did. The mother, I fear, had just forsaken it."

"Inhuman creature!"

"Nay, hold, Rebecca! I am sure you will pity her when you see her child—you then will know she must have loved it—and you will consider how much she certainly had suffered before she left it to perish in a wood."

"Cruel!" once more exclaimed Rebecca.

"Oh! Rebecca, perhaps, had she possessed a home of her own she would have given it the best place in it; had she possessed money, she would have dressed it with the nicest care; or had she been accustomed to disgrace, she would have gloried in calling it hers! But now, as it is, it is sent to us—to you and me, Rebecca—to take care of."

Rebecca, soothed by Henry's compassionate eloquence, held out her arms and received the important parcel; and, as she kindly looked in upon the little stranger,

"Now, are not you much obliged to me," said Henry, "for having brought it to you? I know no one but yourself to whom I would have trusted it with pleasure."

"Much obliged to you," repeated Rebecca, with a very serious face, "if I did but know what to do with it—where to put it—where to hide it from my father and sisters."

"Oh! anywhere," returned Henry. "It is very good—it will not cry. Besides, in one of the distant, unfrequented rooms of your old abbey, through the thick walls and long gallery, an infant's cry cannot pass. Yet, pray be cautious how you conceal it; for if it should be discovered by your father or sisters, they will take it from you, prosecute the wretched mother, and send the child to the parish."

"I will do all I can to prevent them," said Rebecca; "and I think I call to mind a part of the house where it must be safe. I know, too, I can take milk from the dairy, and bread from the pantry, without their being missed, or my father much the poorer. But if—" That instant they were interrupted by the appearance of the stern curate at a little distance. Henry was obliged to run swiftly away, while Rebecca returned by stealth into the house with her innocent burthen.



CHAPTER XXVI.

There is a word in the vocabulary more bitter, more direful in its import, than all the rest. Reader, if poverty, if disgrace, if bodily pain, even if slighted love be your unhappy fate, kneel and bless Heaven for its beneficent influence, so that you are not tortured with the anguish of—remorse.

Deep contrition for past offences had long been the punishment of unhappy Agnes; but, till the day she brought her child into the world, remorse had been averted. From that day, life became an insupportable load, for all reflection was torture! To think, merely to think, was to suffer excruciating agony; yet, never before was thought so intrusive—it haunted her in every spot, in all discourse or company: sleep was no shelter—she never slept but her racking dreams told her—"she had slain her infant."

They presented to her view the naked innocent whom she had longed to press to her bosom, while she lifted up her hand against its life. They laid before her the piteous babe whom her eyeballs strained to behold once more, while her feet hurried her away for ever.

Often had Agnes, by the winter's fire, listened to tales of ghosts—of the unceasing sting of a guilty conscience; often had she shuddered at the recital of murders; often had she wept over the story of the innocent put to death, and stood aghast that the human mind could premeditate the heinous crime of assassination.

From the tenderest passion the most savage impulse may arise: in the deep recesses of fondness, sometimes is implanted the root of cruelty; and from loving William with unbounded lawless affection, she found herself depraved so as to become the very object which could most of all excite her own horror!

Still, at delirious intervals, that passion, which, like a fatal talisman, had enchanted her whole soul, held out the delusive prospect that "William might yet relent;" for, though she had for ever discarded the hope of peace, she could not force herself to think but that, again blest with his society, she should, at least for the time that he was present with her, taste the sweet cup of "forgetfulness of the past," for which she so ardently thirsted.

"Should he return to me," she thought in those paroxysms of delusion, "I would to him unbosom all my guilt; and as a remote, a kind of unwary accomplice in my crime, his sense, his arguments, ever ready in making light of my sins, might afford a respite to my troubled conscience."

While thus she unwittingly thought, and sometimes watched through the night, starting with convulsed rapture at every sound, because it might possibly be the harbinger of him, he was busied in carefully looking over marriage articles, fixing the place of residence with his destined bride, or making love to her in formal process. Yet, Agnes, vaunt!—he sometimes thought on thee—he could not witness the folly, the weakness, the vanity, the selfishness of his future wife, without frequently comparing her with thee. When equivocal words and prevaricating sentences fell from her lips, he remembered with a sigh thy candour—that open sincerity which dwelt upon thy tongue, and seemed to vie with thy undisguised features, to charm the listener even beyond the spectator. While Miss Sedgeley eagerly grasped at all the gifts he offered, he could not but call to mind "that Agnes's declining hand was always closed, and her looks forbidding, every time he proffered such disrespectful tokens of his love." He recollected the softness which beamed from her eyes, the blush on her face at his approach, while he could never discern one glance of tenderness from the niece of Lord Bendham: and the artificial bloom on her cheeks was nearly as disgusting as the ill-conducted artifice with which she attempted gentleness and love.

But all these impediments were only observed as trials of his fortitude—his prudence could overcome his aversion, and thus he valued himself upon his manly firmness.

'Twas now, that William being rid, by the peevishness of Agnes, most honourably of all future ties to her, and the day of his marriage with Miss Sedgeley being fixed, that Henry, with the rest of the house, learnt what to them was news. The first dart of Henry's eye upon his cousin, when, in his presence, he was told of the intended union, caused a reddening on the face of the latter: he always fancied Henry saw his thoughts; and he knew that Henry in return would give him his. On the present occasion, no sooner were they alone, and Henry began to utter them, than William charged him—"Not to dare to proceed; for that, too long accustomed to trifle, the time was come when serious matters could alone employ his time; and when men of approved sense must take place of friends and confidants like him."

Henry replied, "The love, the sincerity of friends, I thought, were their best qualities: these I possess."

"But you do not possess knowledge."

"If that be knowledge which has of late estranged you from all who bear you a sincere affection; which imprints every day more and more upon your features the marks of gloomy inquietude; am I not happier in my ignorance?"

"Do not torment me with your ineffectual reasoning."

"I called at the cottage of poor Agnes the other day," returned Henry: "her father and mother were taking their homely meal alone; and when I asked for their daughter, they wept and said—Agnes was not the girl she had been."

William cast his eyes on the floor.

Henry proceeded—"They said a sickness, which they feared would bring her to the grave, had preyed upon her for some time past. They had procured a doctor: but no remedy was found, and they feared the worst."

"What worst!" cried William (now recovered from the effect of the sudden intelligence, and attempting a smile). "Do they think she will die? And do you think it will be for love? We do not hear of these deaths often, Henry."

"And if she die, who will hear of that? No one but those interested to conceal the cause: and thus it is, that dying for love becomes a phenomenon."

Henry would have pursued the discourse farther; but William, impatient on all disputes, except where his argument was the better one, retired from the controversy, crying out, "I know my duty, and want no instructor."

It would be unjust to William to say he did not feel for this reported illness of Agnes—he felt, during that whole evening, and part of the next morning—but business, pleasures, new occupations, and new schemes of future success, crowded to dissipate all unwelcome reflections; and he trusted to her youth, her health, her animal spirits, and, above all, to the folly of the gossips' story of dying for love, as a surety for her life, and a safeguard for his conscience.



CHAPTER XXVII.

The child of William and Agnes was secreted, by Rebecca, in a distant chamber belonging to the dreary parsonage, near to which scarcely any part of the family ever went. There she administered to all its wants, visited it every hour of the day, and at intervals during the night viewed almost with the joy of a mother its health, its promised life—and in a short the found she loved her little gift better than anything on earth, except the giver.

Henry called the next morning, and the next, and many succeeding times, in hopes of an opportunity to speak alone with Rebecca, to inquire concerning her charge, and consult when and how he could privately relieve her from her trust; as he now meant to procure a nurse for wages. In vain he called or lurked around the house; for near five weeks all the conversation he could obtain with her was in the company of her sisters, who, beginning to observe his preference, his marked attention to her, and the languid, half-smothered transport with which she received it, indulged their envy and resentment at the contempt shown to their charms, by watching her steps when he was away, and her every look and whisper while he was present.

For five weeks, then, he was continually thwarted in his expectation of meeting her alone: and at the end of that period the whole design he had to accomplish by such a meeting was rendered abortive.

Though Rebecca had with strictest caution locked the door of the room in which the child was hid, and covered each crevice, and every aperture through which sound might more easily proceed; though she had surrounded the infant's head with pillows, to obstruct all noise from his crying; yet one unlucky night, the strength of his voice increasing with his age, he was heard by the maid, who slept the nearest to that part of the house.

Not meaning to injure her young mistress, the servant next morning simply related to the family what sounds had struck her ear during the night, and whence they proceeded. At first she was ridiculed "for supposing herself awake when in reality she must be dreaming." But steadfastly persisting in what she had said, and Rebecca's blushes, confusion, and eagerness to prove the maid mistaken, giving suspicion to her charitable sisters, they watched her the very next time she went by stealth to supply the office of a mother; and breaking abruptly on her while feeding and caressing the infant, they instantly concluded it was her own; seized it, and, in spite of her entreaties, carried it down to their father.

That account which Henry had given Rebecca "of his having found the child," and which her own sincerity, joined to the faith she had in his word, made her receive as truth, she now felt would be heard by the present auditors with contempt, even with indignation, as a falsehood. Her affright is easier conceived than described.

Accused, and forced by her sisters along with the child before the curate, his attention to their representation, his crimson face, knit brow, and thundering voice, struck with terror her very soul: innocence is not always a protection against fear—sometimes less bold than guilt.

In her father and sisters she saw, she knew the suspicions, partial, cruel, boisterous natures by whom she was to be judged; and timid, gentle, oppressed, she fell trembling on her knees, and could only articulate,

"Forgive me."

The curate would not listen to this supplication till she had replied to this question, "Whose child is this?"

She replied, "I do not know."

Questioned louder, and with more violence still, "how the child came there, wherefore her affection for it, and whose it was," she felt the improbability of the truth still more forcibly than before, and dreaded some immediate peril from her father's rage, should she dare to relate an apparent lie. She paused to think upon a more probable tale than the real one; and as she hesitated, shook in every limb—while her father exclaimed,

"I understand the cause of this terror; it confirms your sisters' fears, and your own shame. From your infancy I have predicted that some fatal catastrophe would befall you. I never loved you like my other children—I never had the cause: you were always unlike the rest—and I knew your fate would be calamitous; but the very worst of my forebodings did not come to this—so young, so guilty, and so artful! Tell me this instant, are you married?"

Rebecca answered, "No."

The sisters lifted up their hands!

The father continued—"Vile creature, I thought as much. Still I will know the father of this child."

She cast up her eyes to Heaven, and firmly vowed she "did not know herself—nor who the mother was."

"This is not to be borne!" exclaimed the curate in fury. "Persist in this, and you shall never see my face again. Both your child and you I'll turn out of my house instantly, unless you confess your crime, and own the father."

Curious to know this secret, the sisters went up to Rebecca with seeming kindness, and "conjured her to spare her father still greater grief, and her own and her child's public infamy, by acknowledging herself its mother, and naming the man who had undone her."

Emboldened by this insult from her own sex, Rebecca now began to declare the simple truth. But no sooner had she said that "the child was presented to her care by a young man who had found it," than her sisters burst into laughter, and her father into redoubled rage.

Once more the women offered their advice—"to confess and be forgiven."

Once more the father raved.

Beguiled by solicitations, and terrified by threats, like women formerly accused of witchcraft, and other wretches put to the torture, she thought her present sufferings worse than any that could possibly succeed; and felt inclined to confess a falsehood, at which her virtue shrunk, to obtain a momentary respite from reproach; she felt inclined to take the mother's share of the infant, but was at a loss to whom to give the father's. She thought that Henry had entailed on himself the best right to the charge; but she loved him, and could not bear the thought of accusing him falsely.

While, with agitation in the extreme, she thus deliberated, the proposition again was put,

"Whether she would trust to the mercy of her father by confessing, or draw down his immediate vengeance by denying her guilt?"

She made choice of the former—and with tears and sobs "owned herself the mother of the boy."

But still—"Who is the father?"

Again she shrunk from the question, and fervently implored "to be spared on that point."

Her petition was rejected with vehemence; and the curate's rage increased till she acknowledged,

"Henry was the father."

"I thought so," exclaimed all her sisters at the same time.

"Villain!" cried the curate. "The dean shall know, before this hour is expired, the baseness of the nephew whom he supports upon charity; he shall know the misery, the grief, the shame he has brought on me, and how unworthy he is of his protection."

"Oh! have mercy on him!" cried Rebecca, as she still knelt to her father: "do not ruin him with his uncle, for he is the best of human beings."

"Ay, ay, we always saw how much she loved him," cried her sisters.

"Wicked, unfortunate girl!" said the clergyman (his rage now subsiding, and tears supplying its place), "you have brought a scandal upon us all: your sisters' reputation will be stamped with the colour of yours—my good name will suffer: but that is trivial—your soul is lost to virtue, to religion, to shame—"

"No, indeed!" cried Rebecca: "if you will but believe me."

"Do not I believe you? Have you not confessed?"

"You will not pretend to unsay what you have said," cried her eldest sister: "that would be making things worse."

"Go, go out of my sight!" said her father. "Take your child with you to your chamber, and never let me see either of you again. I do not turn you out of my doors to-day, because I gave you my word I would not, if you revealed your shame; but by to-morrow I will provide some place for your reception, where neither I, nor any of your relations, shall ever see or hear of you again."

Rebecca made an effort to cling around her father, and once more to declare her innocence: but her sisters interposed, and she was taken, with her reputed son, to the chamber where the curate had sentenced her to remain, till she quitted his house for ever.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

The curate, in the disorder of his mind, scarcely felt the ground he trod as he hastened to the dean's house to complain of his wrongs. His name procured him immediate admittance into the library, and the moment the dean appeared the curate burst into tears. The cause being required of such "very singular marks of grief," Mr. Rymer described himself "as having been a few moments ago the happiest of parents; but that his peace and that of his whole family had been destroyed by Mr. Henry Norwynne, the dean's nephew."

He now entered into a minute recital of Henry's frequent visits there, and of all which had occurred in his house that morning, from the suspicion that a child was concealed under his roof, to the confession made by his youngest daughter of her fall from virtue, and of her betrayer's name.

The dean was astonished, shocked, and roused to anger: he vented reproaches and menaces on his nephew; and "blessing himself in a virtuous son, whose wisdom and counsel were his only solace in every care," sent for William to communicate with him on this unhappy subject.

William came, all obedience, and heard with marks of amazement and indignation the account of such black villainy! In perfect sympathy with Mr. Rymer and his father, he allowed "no punishment could be too great for the seducer of innocence, the selfish invader of a whole family's repose."

Nor did William here speak what he did not think—he merely forgot his own conduct; or if he did recall it to his mind, it was with some fair interpretations in his own behalf; such as self-love ever supplies to those who wish to cheat intruding conscience.

Young Henry being sent for to appear before this triumvirate, he came with a light step and a cheerful face. But, on the charge against him being exhibited, his countenance changed—yet only to the expression of surprise! He boldly asserted his innocence, plainly told the real fact, and with a deportment so perfectly unembarrassed, that nothing but the asseverations of the curate, "that his daughter had confessed the whole," could have rendered the story Henry told suspected; although some of the incidents he related were of no common kind. But Mr. Rymer's charge was an objection to his veracity too potent to be overcome; and the dean exclaimed in anger—

"We want not your avowal of your guilt—the mother's evidence is testimony sufficient."

"The virtuous Rebecca is not a mother," said Henry, with firmness.

William here, like Rebecca's sisters, took Henry aside, and warned him not to "add to his offence by denying what was proved against him."

But Henry's spirit was too manly, his affection too sincere, not to vindicate the chastity of her he loved, even at his own peril. He again and again protested "she was virtuous."

"Let her instantly be sent for," said the dean, "and this madman confronted with her." Then adding, that as he wished everything might be conducted with secrecy, he would not employ his clerk on the unhappy occasion: he desired William to draw up the form of an oath, which he would administer as soon as she arrived.

A man and horse were immediately despatched to bring Rebecca: William drew up an affidavit as his father had directed him—in Rebecca's name solemnly protesting she was a mother, and Henry the father of her child. And now, the dean, suppressing till she came the warmth of his displeasure, spoke thus calmly to Henry:—

"Even supposing that your improbable tale of having found this child, and all your declarations in respect to it were true, still you would be greatly criminal. What plea can you make for not having immediately revealed the circumstance to me or some other proper person, that the real mother might have been detected and punished for her design of murder?"

"In that, perhaps, I was to blame," returned Henry: "but whoever the mother was, I pitied her."

"Compassion on such an occasion was unplaced," said the dean.

"Was I wrong, sir, to pity the child?"

"No."

"Then how could I feel for that, and yet divest myself of all feeling for its mother?"

"Its mother!" exclaimed William, in anger: "she ought to have been immediately pursued, apprehended, and committed to prison."

"It struck me, cousin William," replied Henry, "that the father was more deserving of a prison: the poor woman had abandoned only one—the man, in all likelihood, had forsaken two pitiable creatures."

William was pouring execrations "on the villain if such there could be," when Rebecca was announced.

Her eyes were half closed with weeping; deep confusion overspread her face; and her tottering limbs could hardly support her to the awful chamber where the dean, her father, and William sat in judgment, whilst her beloved Henry stood arraigned as a culprit, by her false evidence.

Upon her entrance, her father first addressed her, and said in a stern, threatening, yet feeling tone, "Unhappy girl, answer me before all present—Have you, or have you not, owned yourself a mother?"

She replied, stealing a fearful look at Henry, "I have."

"And have you not," asked the dean, "owned that Henry Norwynne is the father of your child?"

She seemed as if she wished to expostulate.

The curate raised his voice—"Have you or have you not?"

"I have," she faintly replied.

"Then here," cried the dean to William, "read that paper to her, and take the Bible."

William read the paper, which in her name declared a momentous falsehood: he then held the book in form, while she looked like one distracted—wrung her hands, and was near sinking to the earth.

At the moment when the book was lifted up to her lips to kiss, Henry rushed to her—"Stop!" he cried, "Rebecca! do not wound your future peace. I plainly see under what prejudices you have been accused, under what fears you have fallen. But do not be terrified into the commission of a crime which hereafter will distract your delicate conscience. My requesting you of your father for my wife will satisfy his scruples, prevent your oath—and here I make the demand."

"He at length confesses! Surprising audacity! Complicated villainy!" exclaimed the dean; then added, "Henry Norwynne, your first guilt is so enormous; your second, in steadfastly denying it, so base, this last conduct so audacious; that from the present hour you must never dare to call me relation, or to consider my house as your home."

William, in unison with his father, exclaimed, "Indeed, Henry, your actions merit this punishment."

Henry answered with firmness, "Inflict what punishment you please."

"With the dean's permission, then," said the curate, "you must marry my daughter."

Henry started—"Do you pronounce that as a punishment? It would be the greatest blessing Providence could bestow. But how are we to live? My uncle is too much offended ever to be my friend again; and in this country, persons of a certain class are so educated, they cannot exist without the assistance, or what is called the patronage, of others: when that is withheld, they steal or starve. Heaven protect Rebecca from such misfortune! Sir (to the curate), do you but consent to support her only a year or two longer, and in that time I will learn some occupation, that shall raise me to the eminence of maintaining both her and myself without one obligation, or one inconvenience, to a single being."

Rebecca exclaimed, "Oh! you have saved me from such a weight of sin, that my future life would be too happy passed as your slave."

"No, my dear Rebecca, return to your father's house, return to slavery but for a few years more, and the rest of your life I will make free."

"And can you forgive me?"

"I can love you; and in that is comprised everything that is kind."

The curate, who, bating a few passions and a few prejudices, was a man of some worth and feeling, and felt, in the midst of her distress, though the result of supposed crimes, that he loved this neglected daughter better than he had before conceived; and he now agreed "to take her home for a time, provided she were relieved from the child, and the matter so hushed up, that it might draw no imputation upon the characters of his other daughters."

The dean did not degrade his consequence by consultations of this nature: but, having penetrated (as he imagined) into the very bottom of this intricate story, and issued his mandate against Henry, as a mark that he took no farther concern in the matter, he proudly walked out of the room without uttering another word.

William as proudly and silently followed.

The curate was inclined to adopt the manners of such great examples: but self-interest, some affection to Rebecca, and concern for the character of his family, made him wish to talk a little more with Henry, who new repeated what he had said respecting his marriage with Rebecca, and promised "to come the very next day in secret, and deliver her from the care of the infant, and the suspicion that would attend her nursing it."

"But, above all," said the curate, "procure your uncle's pardon; for without that, without his protection, or the protection of some other rich man, to marry, to obey God's ordinance, increase and multiply is to want food for yourselves and your offspring."



CHAPTER XXIX.

Though this unfortunate occurrence in the curate's family was, according to his own phrase, "to be hushed up," yet certain persons of his, of the dean's, and of Lord Bendham's house, immediately heard and talked of it. Among these, Lady Bendham was most of all shocked and offended: she said she "never could bear to hear Mr. Rymer either pray or preach again; he had not conducted himself with proper dignity either as a clergyman or a father; he should have imitated the dean's example in respect to Henry, and have turned his daughter out of doors."

Lord Bendham was less severe on the seduced, but had no mercy on the seducer—"a vicious youth, without one accomplishment to endear vice." For vice, Lord Bendham thought (with certain philosophers), might be most exquisitely pleasing, in a pleasing garb. "But this youth sinned without elegance, without one particle of wit, or an atom of good breeding."

Lady Clementina would not permit the subject to be mentioned a second time in her hearing—extreme delicacy in woman she knew was bewitching; and the delicacy she displayed on this occasion went so far that she "could not even intercede with the dean to forgive his nephew, because the topic was too gross for her lips to name even in the ear of her husband."

Miss Sedgeley, though on the very eve of her bridal day with William, felt so tender a regard for Henry, that often she thought Rebecca happier in disgrace and poverty, blest with the love of him, than she was likely to be in the possession of friends and fortune with his cousin.

Had Henry been of a nature to suspect others of evil, or had he felt a confidence in his own worth, such a passion as this young woman's would soon have disclosed its existence: but he, regardless of any attractions of Miss Sedgeley, equally supposed he had none in her eyes; and thus, fortunately for the peace of all parties, this prepossession ever remained a secret except to herself.

So little did William conceive that his clownish cousin could rival him in the affections of a woman of fashion, that he even slightly solicited his father "that Henry might not be banished from the house, at least till after the following day, when the great festival of his marriage was to be celebrated."

But the dean refused, and reminded his son, "that he was bound both by his moral and religious character, in the eyes of God, and still more, in the eyes of men, to show lasting resentment of iniquity like his."

William acquiesced, and immediately delivered to his cousin the dean's "wishes for his amendment," and a letter of recommendation procured from Lord Bendham, to introduce him on board a man-of-war; where, he was told, "he might hope to meet with preferment, according to his merit, as a sailor and a gentleman."

Henry pressed William's hand on parting, wished him happy in his marriage, and supplicated, as the only favour he would implore, an interview with his uncle, to thank him for all his former kindness, and to see him for the last time.

William repeated this petition to his father, but with so little energy, that the dean did not grant it. He felt himself, he said, compelled to resent that reprobate character in which Henry had appeared; and he feared "lest the remembrance of his last parting from his brother might, on taking a formal leave of that brother's son, reduce him to some tokens of weakness, that would ill become his dignity and just displeasure."

He sent him his blessing, with money to convey him to the ship, and Henry quitted his uncle's house in a flood of tears, to seek first a new protectress for his little foundling, and then to seek his fortune.



CHAPTER XXX.

The wedding-day of Mr. William Norwynne with Miss Caroline Sedgeley arrived; and, on that day, the bells of every parish surrounding that in which they lived joined with their own, in celebration of the blissful union. Flowers were strewn before the new-married pair, and favours and ale made many a heart more gladsome than that of either bridegroom or bride.

Upon this day of ringing and rejoicing the bells were not muffled, nor was conversation on the subject withheld from the ear of Agnes! She heard like her neighbours; and sitting on the side of her bed in her little chamber, suffered, under the cottage roof, as much affliction as ever visited a palace.

Tyrants, who have embrued their hands in the blood of myriads of their fellow-creatures, can call their murders "religion, justice, attention to the good of mankind." Poor Agnes knew no sophistry to calm her sense of guilt: she felt herself a harlot and a murderer; a slighted, a deserted wretch, bereft of all she loved in this world, all she could hope for in the next.

She complained bitterly of illness, nor could the entreaties of her father and mother prevail on her to share in the sports of this general holiday. As none of her humble visitors suspected the cause of her more than ordinary indisposition, they endeavoured to divert it with an account of everything they had seen at church—"what the bride wore; how joyful the bridegroom looked;"—and all the seeming signs of that complete happiness which they conceived was for certain tasted.

Agnes, who, before this event, had at moments suppressed the agonising sting of self-condemnation in the faint prospect of her lover one day restored, on this memorable occasion lost every glimpse of hope, and was weighed to the earth with an accumulation of despair.

Where is the degree in which the sinner stops? Unhappy Agnes! the first time you permitted indecorous familiarity from a man who made you no promise, who gave you no hope of becoming his wife, who professed nothing beyond those fervent, though slender, affections which attach the rake to the wanton; the first time you interpreted his kind looks and ardent prayers into tenderness and constancy; the first time you descended from the character of purity, you rushed imperceptibly on the blackest crimes. The more sincerely you loved, the more you plunged in danger: from one ungoverned passion proceeded a second and a third. In the fervency of affection you yielded up your virtue! In the excess of fear, you stained your conscience by the intended murder of your child! And now, in the violence of grief, you meditate—what?—to put an end to your existence by your own hand!

After casting her thoughts around, anxious to find some bud of comfort on which to fix her longing eye; she beheld, in the total loss of William, nothing but a wide waste, an extensive plain of anguish. "How am I to be sustained through this dreary journey of life?" she exclaimed. Upon this question she felt, more poignantly than ever, her loss of innocence: innocence would have been her support, but, in place of this best prop to the afflicted, guilt flashed on her memory every time she flew for aid to reflection.

At length, from horrible rumination, a momentary alleviation came: "but one more step in wickedness," she triumphantly said, "and all my shame, all my sufferings are over." She congratulated herself upon the lucky thought; when, but an instant after, the tears trickled down her face for the sorrow her death, her sinful death, would bring to her poor and beloved parents. She then thought upon the probability of a sigh it might draw from William; and, the pride, the pleasure of that little tribute, counterpoised every struggle on the side of life.

As she saw the sun decline, "When you rise again," she thought, "when you peep bright to-morrow morning into this little room to call me up, I shall not be here to open my eyes upon a hateful day—I shall no more regret that you have waked me!—I shall be sound asleep, never to wake again in this wretched world—not even the voice of William would then awake me."

While she found herself resolved, and evening just come on, she hurried out of the house, and hastened to the fatal wood; the scene of her dishonour—the scene of intended murder—and now the meditated scene of suicide.

As she walked along between the close-set tree, she saw, at a little distance, the spot where William first made love to her; and where at every appointment he used to wait her coming. She darted her eye away from this place with horror; but, after a few moments of emotion, she walked slowly up to it—shed tears, and pressed with her trembling lips that tree, against which she was accustomed to lean while he talked with her. She felt an inclination to make this the spot to die in; but her preconcerted, and the less frightful death, of leaping into a pool on the other side of the wood, induced her to go onwards.

Presently, she came near the place where her child, and William's, was exposed to perish. Here she started with a sense of the most atrocious guilt; and her whole frame shook with the dread of an approaching, an omnipotent Judge, to sentence her for murder.

She halted, appalled, aghast, undetermined whether to exist longer beneath the pressure of a criminal conscience, or die that very hour, and meet her final condemnation.

She proceeded a few steps farther, and beheld the very ivy-bush close to which her infant lay when she left him exposed; and now, from this minute recollection, all the mother rising in her soul, she saw, as it were, her babe again in its deserted state; and bursting into tears of bitterest contrition and compassion, she cried—"As I was merciless to thee, my child, thy father has been pitiless to me! As I abandoned thee to die with cold and hunger, he has forsaken, and has driven me to die by self-slaughter."

She now fixed her eager eyes on the distant pond, and walked more nimbly than before, to rid herself of her agonising sensations.

Just as she had nearly reached the wished-for brink, she heard a footstep, and saw, by the glimmering of a clouded moon, a man approaching. She turned out of her path, for fear her intentions should be guessed at, and opposed; but still, as she walked another way, her eye was wishfully bent towards the water that was to obliterate her love and her remorse—obliterate, forever, William and his child.

It was now that Henry, who, to prevent scandal, had stolen at that still hour of night to rid the curate of the incumbrance so irksome to him, and take the foundling to a woman whom he had hired for the charge—it was now that Henry came up, with the child of Agnes in his arms, carefully covered all over from the night's dew.

"Agnes, is it you?" cried Henry, at a little distance. "Where are you going thus late?"

"Home, sir," said she, and rushed among the trees.

"Stop, Agnes," he cried; "I want to bid you farewell; to-morrow I am going to leave this part of the country for a long time; so God bless you, Agnes."

Saying this, he stretched out his arm to shake her by the hand.

Her poor heart, trusting that his blessing, for want of more potent offerings, might, perhaps, at this tremendous crisis ascend to Heaven in her behalf, she stopped, returned, and put out her hand to take his.

"Softly!" said he; "don't wake my child; this spot has been a place of danger to him, for underneath this very ivy-bush it was that I found him."

"Found what?" cried Agnes, with a voice elevated to a tremulous scream.

"I will not tell you the story," replied Henry; "for no one I have ever yet told of it would believe me."

"I will believe you—I will believe you," she repeated with tones yet more impressive.

"Why, then," said Henry, "only five weeks ago—"

"Ah!" shrieked Agnes.

"What do you mean?" said Henry.

"Go on," she articulated, in the same voice.

"Why, then, as I was passing this very place, I wish I may never speak truth again, if I did not find" (here he pulled aside the warm rug in which the infant was wrapped) "this beautiful child."

"With a cord?—"

"A cord was round its neck."

"'Tis mine—the child is mine—'tis mine—my child—I am the mother and the murderer—I fixed the cord, while the ground shook under me—while flashes of fire darted before my eyes!—while my heart was bursting with despair and horror! But I stopped short—I did not draw the noose—I had a moment of strength, and I ran away. I left him living—he is living now—escaped from my hands—and I am no longer ashamed, but overcome with joy that he is mine! I bless you, my dear, my dear, for saving his life—for giving him to me again—for preserving my life, as well as my child's."

Here she took her infant, pressed it to her lips and to her bosom; then bent to the ground, clasped Henry's knees, and wept upon his feet.

He could not for a moment doubt the truth of what she said; her powerful yet broken accents, her convulsive embraces of the child, even more than her declaration, convinced him she was its mother.

"Good Heaven!" cried Henry, "and this is my cousin William's child!"

"But your cousin does not know it," said she; "I never told him—he was not kind enough to embolden me; therefore do not blame him for my sin; he did not know of my wicked designs—he did not encourage me—"

"But he forsook you, Agnes."

"He never said he would not. He always told me he could not marry me."

"Did he tell you so at his first private meeting?"

"No."

"Nor at the second?"

"No; nor yet at the third."

"When was it he told you so?"

"I forget the exact time; but I remember it was on that very evening when I confessed to him—"

"What?"

"That he had won my heart."

"Why did you confess it?"

"Because he asked me and said it would make him happy if I would say so."

"Cruel! dishonourable!"

"Nay, do not blame him; he cannot help not loving me, no more than I can help loving him."

Henry rubbed his eyes.

"Bless me, you weep! I always heard that you were brought up in a savage country; but I suppose it is a mistake; it was your cousin William."

"Will not you apply to him for the support of your child?" asked Henry.

"If I thought he would not be angry."

"Angry! I will write to him on the subject if you will give me leave."

"But do not say it is by my desire. Do not say I wish to trouble him. I would sooner beg than be a trouble to him."

"Why are you so delicate?"

"It is for my own sake; I wish him not to hate me."

"Then, thus you may secure his respect. I will write to him, and let him know all the circumstances of your case. I will plead for his compassion on his child, but assure him that no conduct of his will ever induce you to declare (except only to me, who knew of your previous acquaintance) who is the father."

To this she consented; but when Henry offered to take from her the infant, and carry him to the nurse he had engaged, to this she would not consent.

"Do you mean, then, to acknowledge him yours?" Henry asked.

"Nothing shall force me to part from him again. I will keep him, and let my neighbours judge of me as they please."

Here Henry caught at a hope he feared to name before. "You will then have no objection," said he, "to clear an unhappy girl to a few friends, with whom her character has suffered by becoming, at my request, his nurse?"

"I will clear any one, so that I do not accuse the father."

"You give me leave, then, in your name, to tell the whole story to some particular friends, my cousin William's part in it alone excepted?"

"I do."

Henry now exclaimed, "God bless you!" with greater fervour than when he spoke it before; and he now hoped the night was nearly gone, that the time might be so much the shorter before Rebecca should be reinstated in the esteem of her father, and of all those who had misjudged her.

"God bless you!" said Agnes, still more fervently, as she walked with unguided steps towards her home; for her eyes never wandered from the precious object which caused her unexpected return.



CHAPTER XXXI.

Henry rose early in the morning, and flew to the curate's house, with more than even his usual thirst of justice, to clear injured innocence, to redeem from shame her whom he loved. With eager haste he told that he had found the mother, whose fall from virtue Rebecca, overcome by confusion and threats, had taken on herself.

Rebecca rejoiced, but her sisters shook their heads, and even the father seemed to doubt.

Confident in the truth of his story, Henry persisted so boldly in his affirmations, that if Mr. Rymer did not entirely believe what he said, he secretly hoped that the dean and other people might; therefore he began to imagine he could possibly cast from his family the present stigma, whether or no it belonged to any other.

No sooner was Henry gone than Mr. Rymer waited on the dean to report what he had heard; and he frankly attributed his daughter's false confession to the compulsive methods he had adopted in charging her with the offence. Upon this statement, Henry's love to her was also a solution of his seemingly inconsistent conduct on that singular occasion.

The dean immediately said, "I will put the matter beyond all doubt; for I will this moment send for the present reputed mother; and if she acknowledges the child, I will instantly commit her to prison for the attempt of putting it to death."

The curate applauded the dean's sagacity; a warrant was issued, and Agnes brought prisoner before the grandfather of her child.

She appeared astonished at the peril in which she found herself. Confused, also, with a thousand inexpressible sensations which the dean's presence inspired, she seemed to prevaricate in all she uttered. Accused of this prevarication, she was still more disconcerted; said, and unsaid; confessed herself the mother of the infant, but declared she did not know, then owned she did know, the name of the man who had undone her, but would never utter it. At length she cast herself on her knees before the father of her betrayer, and supplicated "he would not punish her with severity, as she most penitently confessed her fault, so far as is related to herself."

While Mr. and Mrs. Norwynne, just entered on the honeymoon, were sitting side by side enjoying with peace and with honour conjugal society, poor Agnes, threatened, reviled, and sinking to the dust, was hearing from the mouth of William's father the enormity of those crimes to which his son had been accessory. She saw the mittimus written that was to convey her into a prison—saw herself delivered once more into the hands of constables, before her resolution left her, of concealing the name of William in her story. She now, overcome with affright, and thinking she should expose him still more in a public court, if hereafter on her trial she should be obliged to name him—she now humbly asked the dean to hear a few words she had to say in private, where she promised she "would speak nothing but the truth."

This was impossible, he said—"No private confessions before a magistrate! All must be done openly."

She urged again and again the same request: it was denied more peremptorily than at first. On which she said—"Then, sir, forgive me, since you force me to it, if I speak before Mr. Rymer and these men what I would for ever have kept a secret if I could. One of your family is my child's father."

"Any of my servants?" cried the dean.

"No."

"My nephew?"

"No; one who is nearer still."

"Come this way," said the dean; "I will speak to you in private."

It was not that the dean, as a magistrate, distributed partial decrees of pretended justice—he was rigidly faithful to his trust: he would not inflict punishment on the innocent, nor let the guilty escape; but in all particulars of refined or coarse treatment he would alleviate or aggravate according to the rank of the offender. He could not feel that a secret was of equal importance to a poor as to a rich person; and while Agnes gave no intimation but that her delicacy rose from fears for herself, she did not so forcibly impress him with an opinion that it was a case which had weighty cause for a private conference as when she boldly said, "a part of his family, very near to him, was concerned in her tale."

The final result of their conversation in an adjoining room was—a charge from the dean, in the words of Mr. Rymer, "to hush the affair up," and his promise that the infant should be immediately taken from her, and that "she should have no more trouble with it."