Meanwhile Hewson, springing forward like a cat, and disengaging the child from Pat’s death-grasp, cried, “Fire on him, boys!—beat him down,” and re-mounted his horse, intending to pass Eliot, aware that his policy was to get off 217before the attacking party should, as he anticipated, be reenforced. Eliot, however, prevented this movement by placing himself before him, drawing his sword, and putting Hewson on the defence.
Hewson felt himself shackled by the child, and he was casting her off, when, changing his purpose, he placed her as a shield before his person, and again ordered his men to fire. They had been ridding themselves of the spoils that encumbered them, and now obeyed. Both missed their mark.
“D—n your luck, boys!” cried Hewson, who was turning his horse to the right and left to avoid a side stroke from Eliot, “out with your knives—cut him down!”
To defend himself and prevent Hewson from passing him, was now all that Eliot attempted; but this he did with coolness and consummate adroitness, till his horse received a wound in his throat that was aimed at his master, and fell dead under him.
“That’s it, boys!” screamed Hewson, “finish him and follow me.” But before the words had well passed his lips, a bullet fired from behind penetrated his spine. “I am a dead man!” he groaned.
His men saw him reeling; they saw Eliot’s auxiliaries close upon them; and without waiting to take advantage of his defenceless condition, they fled and left their comrade-captain to his fate.
The general was instantly beside Eliot. Coit received the child from the ruffian’s relaxed hold. “Oh, help me!” he supplicated; “for the love of God, help me!”
“Poor little one,” said Coit, laying Lizzy’s cheek gently to his, “she’s gone.”
“Oh, I have not killed her! I did not mean she should be harmed—I swear I did not,” continued Hewson. “Oh, help me! I’ll give you gold, watches, silver, and jewels—I’ll give them all to you.”
218“You are wounded, my dear boy, you are covered with blood,” said the general to Eliot, as he succeeded in disengaging him from the super-incumbent burden of his horse.
“It’s nothing, sir; is the child living?”
“Nothing! bless your soul, the blood is dripping down here like rain.” While he was drawing off Eliot’s coat-sleeve, and stanching his wound, Hewson continued his abject cries.
“Oh, gentlemen,” he said, “take pity on me; my life is going—I’ll give you heaps of gold—it’s buried in—in—in—” His utterance failed him.
“Can nothing be done for the poor creature?’ said Eliot, turning to Hewson, after having bent over Lizzy, lifted her lifeless hand, and again mournfully dropped it.
“We will see,” replied the general, “though it seems to me, my friend, you are in no case to look after another; and this car’on is not worth looking after; but come, we’ll strip him and examine his wound—life is life—and he’s asked for mercy, what we must all ask for sooner or later. Ah,” he continued, after looking at the wound, “he’s called to the general muster—poorly equipped to answer the roll. But come, friends—there’s no use in staying here—there’s no substitute in this warfare—every man must answer for himself.”
“Oh!” groaned the dying wretch, “don’t leave me alone.”
“’Tis a solitary business to die alone,” said Coit, looking compassionately at Hewson as he writhed on the turf.
“It is so, Coit; but he that has broken all bonds in life can expect nothing better than to die like a dog, and go to the devil at last. I must be back at my post, you at yours, and our young friend on his way to the camp, if he is able. General Washington a’n’t fond of his envoys’ striking out of the highway when they are out on duty. There’s no use—there’s no use,” he continued to Eliot, who had kneeled beside the dying man, and was whispering such counsel as a compassionate being would naturally administer to a man in his extremity.
219“Repent!” cried Hewson, grasping Eliot’s arm as he was about to rise; “repent!—what’s that? Mercy, mercy—Oh, it’s all dark; I can’t see you. Don’t hold that dead child so close to me!—take it away! Mercy, is there?—speak louder—I can’t hear you—oh, I can’t feel you!—Mercy! mercy!”
“He’s done—the poor cowardly rascal,” said the general, who, inured to the spectacle of death, felt no emotion excited by the contortions of animal suffering, and who, deeming cowardice the proper concomitant of crime, heard without any painful compassion those cries of the wretched culprit, as he passed the threshold to eternal justice, which contracted Eliot’s brow, and sent a shuddering through his frame.
“There’s something to feel for,” said the general, pointing to Eliot’s prostrate horse; “if ever I cried, I should cry to see a spereted, gentle beast like that cut off by such villanous hands.”
“Poor Rover!” thought Eliot, as he loosed his girth, and removed the bits from his mouth, “how Sam and Hal will cry, poor fellows, when they hear of your fate. Ah, I could have wished you a longer life and a more glorious end; but you have done well your appointed tasks, and they are finished.—Would to God it were thus with that wretch, my fellow-creature!”
“You’re finding this rather a tough job, I’m thinking,” said the general, stooping to assist Eliot; “our horses, especially in these times, are friends; and it’s what Coit would call a solitary business to have to mount into that rogue’s seat. But see how patiently the beast stands by his master, and how he looks at him! Do you believe,” he added, in a lowered voice, “that the souls of these noble critters, that have thought, affection, memory—all that we have, save speech, will perish; and that low villain’s live for ever?—I don’t.”
Eliot only smiled in reply; but he secretly wondered who this strange being should be, full of generous feeling and bold speculation, who had the air of accustomed authority, and the voice and accent indicating rustic education. It was evident 220he meant to maintain his incognito; for when they arrived at a road which, diverging from that they were in, led more directly to Coit’s (the same road that had proved fatal to poor Kisel), he said, “that he must take the shortest cut; and that if Eliot felt equal to carrying the poor child the distance that remained he should be particularly glad, as Coit’s attendance was important to him.”
Eliot would far rather have been disabled than to have witnessed the mother’s last faint hope extinguished; but he was not, and he received the child from Coit, who had carried her as tenderly as if she had been still a conscious, feeling, and suffering being.
Coit charged Eliot with many respectful messages to Mrs. Archer, such as, that his house was at her disposal—he would prepare it for the funeral, or see that she and her family were safely conveyed to a British frigate which lay below, in case she preferred, as he supposed she would, laying her child in the family vault of Trinity Church. Eliot remembered the messages, but he delivered them as his discretion dictated.
As he approached Mrs. Archer’s grounds, he inferred from the diminished light that the flames had nearly done their work; and when he issued from the thick wood that skirted her estate, he saw in the smouldering ruins all that was left of her hospitable and happy mansion. “Ah,” thought he, “a fit home for this lifeless little body!”
He turned towards the office where he had left the mother. She was awaiting him at the door. It seemed to her that she had lived a thousand years in the hour of his absence. She asked no questions—a single glance at the still, colourless figure of her child had sufficed. She uttered no sound, but stretching forth her arms, received her, and sunk down on the doorstep, pressing her close to her bosom.
Edward had sprung to the door at the first sound of the horse’s hoofs. He understood his mother’s silence. He heard 221the servants whispering, in suppressed voices, “She’s dead!” He placed his hand on Lizzy’s cheek: at first he recoiled at the touch; and then again drawing closer, he sat down by his mother, and dropped his head on Lizzy’s bosom, crying out, “I wish I were dead too!” His bursts of grief
were frightful. The servants endeavoured to sooth him—he did not hear them. Her mother laid her face to his, and the touch of her cheek, after a few moments, tranquillized him. He became quiet; then suddenly lifting his head, he shrieked, “Her heart beats, mother! her heart beats!—Lay your hand there—do you not feel it?—It does, it does, mother; I feel it, and hear it too!”
Eliot had dismounted from his horse, and stood with folded arms, watching with the deep sympathy of his affectionate nature the progress of this family tragedy, while he awaited a moment when he might offer such services as Mrs. Archer needed. He thought it possible that the sharpened senses of the blind boy had detected a pulsation not perceptible to senses less acute. He inquired of the servants for salts, brandy, vinegar, any of the ordinary stimulants; nothing had been saved—nothing was left but the elements of fire and water. These suggested to his quick mind the only and very best expedient. In five minutes a warm bath was prepared, and the child immersed in it. Mrs. Archer was re-nerved when she saw others acting from a hope she scarcely dared admit. “Station yourself here, my dear madam,” said Eliot; “there, put your arm in the place of mine—let your little boy go on the other side and take her hand—let her first conscious sensation be of the touch most familiar and dear to her—let the first sounds she hears be your voices—nothing must be strange to her. I do believe this is merely the overpowering effect of terror; I am sure she has suffered no violence. Put your hand again on her bosom, my dear little fellow—do you feel the beats now?”
222“Oh yes, sir! stronger and quicker than before.”
“I believe you are right; but be cautious, I entreat you—make no sudden outcry nor exclamation.”
Mrs. Archer’s face was as colourless as the child’s over whom she was bending; and her fixed eye glowed with such intensity, that Eliot thought it might have kindled life in the dead. Suddenly, he perceived the blood gush into her cheeks—he advanced one step nearer, and he saw that a faint suffusion, like the first almost imperceptible tinge of coming day, had overspread the child’s face. It deepened around her lips—there was a slight distention of the nostrils—a tremulousness about the muscles of the mouth—a heaving of the bosom, and then a deep-drawn sigh. A moment passed, and a faint smile was perceptible on the quivering lip. “Lizzy!” said her mother.
“Dear Lizzy!” cried her brother.
“Mother!—Ned!” she faintly articulated.
“Thank God, she is safe!” exclaimed Eliot.
The energies of nature, once aroused, soon did their beneficent work; and the little girl, in the perfect consciousness of restored safety and happiness, clung to her mother and to Edward.
The tide of gratitude and happiness naturally flowed towards Eliot. Mrs. Archer turned to express something of all she felt, but he was already gone, after having directed one of the servants to say to her mistress that Coit would immediately be at her bidding.
It was not strange that the impression Eliot left on Mrs. Archer’s mind was that of the most beautiful personation of celestial energy and mercy.
END OF VOL. I.
223VOLUME II
225CHAPTER XIX.
“Ignomy in ransom, and free pardon, Are of two houses.”
It is reasonable to suppose that the disclosures which occurred in Sir Henry Clinton’s library would be immediately followed by their natural sequences: that love declared by one party, and betrayed by the other, would, according to the common usages of society, soon issue in mutual affiancing. But these were not the piping times of peace, and the harmony of events was sadly broken by the discords of the period.
The conflict of Mr. Linwood’s political with his natural affections, at his eventful meeting with his son, was immediately followed by a frightful attack of gout in the stomach—a case to verify the theories of our eminent friend of the faculty, who locates the sensibility in the mucous tissue of that organ. Isabella, afflicted on all sides, and expecting her father’s death at every moment, never left his bedside. In vain Meredith besieged the house, and sent her message after message; not he, even, could draw her from her post. “My life depends on you, Belle,” said her father: “the doctor says I must keep tranquil—he might as well say so to a ship in a squall—but my child, you are my polar star—my loadstone—my sheet-anchor—my everything; don’t quit me, Belle!” She did not, for an instant.
“Bless me! Mr. Meredith,” said Helen Ruthven, on entering Mrs. Linwood’s drawing-room, and finding Meredith 226walking up and down, with an expression of impatience and disappointment, “what is the matter—is Mr. Linwood worse?”
“Not that I know.”
“How happens it that you are alone, then?”
“The family are with Mr. Linwood.”
“The family! the old lady surely can take care of him; is Isabella invisible?—invisible to you?”
“I have not seen her since her father’s illness.”
“My heavens! is it possible! well, some people are better than others.”
“I do not comprehend you, Miss Ruthven.”
“My meaning is simple enough; a woman must be an icicle or an angel to hang over an old gouty father, without allowing herself a precious five minutes with her lover.”
“Miss Linwood is very dutiful!” said Meredith, half sneeringly, for his vanity was touched.
“Dutiful!—she may be—she is undoubtedly—a very, very sweet creature is Isabella Linwood; but I should not have imagined her a person, if her heart were really engaged, to deny its longings and sit down patiently to play the dutiful daughter. I judge others by myself. In her situation—precisely in hers,” she paused and looked at Meredith with an expression fraught with meaning, “I should know neither scruple nor duty.”
There was much in this artful speech of Helen Ruthven to feed Meredith’s bitter fancies when he afterward pondered on it.—“If her heart were engaged!” he said, “it is—I am sure of it—and yet, if it were, she is not, as Helen Ruthven said, a creature to be chained down by duty. If it were!—it is—it shall be—her heart is the only one I have, invariably desired—the only one I have found unattainable. I believe—I am almost sure, she loves me; but there is something lacking—I do not come up to her standard of ideal perfection!—others do not find me deficient. There’s poor Bessie, a sylvan maiden she—but there’s Helen Ruthven—the love, the just appreciation of 227such a woman, so full of genius, and sentiment, and knowledge of the world, would be—flattering.”
These were after-thoughts of Meredith, for at the time his interview with Miss Ruthven was interrupted by Rose putting a note into his hand, addressed to Sir Henry Clinton, and requesting him, in Miss Linwood’s name, to deliver it as soon as possible.
“Pray let me see that!” said Miss Ruthven; and after examining it closely on both sides, she returned it, saying, “Strange! I thought to have found somewhere, in pencil, some little expressive, world-full-of-meaning word; as I said some people are very different from others!”
Meredith bit his lips and hastened away with the note. It contained a plain statement to Sir Henry Clinton of the motives of Herbert’s return, and every fact attending it. The note was thus finished:—
“I have told you the unvarnished and unextenuated truth, my dear Sir Henry. I think that justice will dictate my brother’s release, or, at least, require that he be treated as a prisoner of war; but if justice (justice perverted by artificial codes and traditionary abuses) cannot interpose in his behalf, I commend him to your mercy; think of him as if he were your own son, and then mete out to him, for the rashness of his filial affection, such measure as a father would allot to such offence.
“If my appeal is presuming, forgive me. My father is suffering indescribably, and we are all wretched. Send us, I beseech you, some kind word of relief.”
Late in the afternoon, after many tedious hours, the following reply was brought to Isabella, written by Sir Henry’s secretary:—
“Sir Henry Clinton directs me to present his best regards 228to
Miss Linwood, and inform her that he regrets the impossibility of complying with her wishes,—that he has no absolute power by which he can remit, at pleasure, the offences of disloyal subjects. Sir Henry bids me add, that he is seriously concerned at his friend Mr. Linwood’s illness, and that he shall continue to send his servant daily to inquire about him.”
“Yes, no doubt,” said Isabella, in the bitterness of her disappointment, throwing down the note, “these empty courtesies will be strictly paid, while not a finger is raised to save us from utter misery!”
“My dearest child!” said her mother, who had picked up the note and reverently perused it, “how you are hurried away by your feelings! Sir Henry, or rather his secretary, which is the same thing, says as much as to say, that Sir Henry would aid us if he could; and I am sure I think it is extremely attentive of him to send every day to inquire after your poor father. I do wonder a little that Sir Henry did not sign his name; it would have seemed more polite, and Sir Henry is so strictly polite! I am afraid, my dear, you were not particular enough about your note. Was it written on gilt paper and sealed with wax? Isabella, do you hear me, child?”
“Indeed, mamma, I did not observe the paper, and I forget whether I sealed it at all. ‘Remit at pleasure the offences of disloyal subjects!’ Herbert has transferred his loyalty to his country, and is no longer amenable to his sovereign in another hemisphere.”
“Feminine reasoning!” interposed Meredith, who entered at this moment. He stopped and gazed at Isabella, and thought he had never seen her so perfectly lovely. Watching and anxiety had subdued her brilliancy, and had given a depth of tenderness, a softness to her expression, bordering on feminine weakness. When a man has a dread, however slight it may be, that a woman is superior to him, her attractions 229are enhanced by whatever indicates the gentleness and dependance of her sex.
The Linwoods Page 21