“My dear aunt!” exclaimed Lady Anne, throwing down her knotting, “I—I—” do love you dearly, she was on the point of adding, but she was too honest to indulge her good-nature at the expense of truth, and she said, “I feel your kindness to me—I should be most ungrateful if I did not.”
“Grateful, undoubtedly, you are; and so you would have been to any faithful guardian; but the heart asks something more. You manifest neither to me nor to Jasper more than the affection of a common relative. Whatever place I may take in the scale of your friends, your cousin is certainly no common person.”
“No, indeed, that he is not,” said Lady Anne, charmed that she could sooth her aunt and speak sincerely. “Jasper is by far the most agreeable gentleman you have introduced to me here. He is a little abstracted now and then; but when he knows what he is saying, he is perfectly delightful. I told 332Isabella Linwood last evening that it was a mystery to me—une veritable merveille—that she had never fallen in love with Jasper.”
“What did she say?” asked Mrs. Meredith, eagerly, and off her guard.
“I do not remember. I believe she said nothing.”
“A provoking, inscrutable person she is,” thought Mrs. Meredith; and then made a remark which she meant to be what the lawyers call leading:—“There was a report before we came of an attachment between Jasper and Miss Linwood.”
“Bless me! was there?”
“Why are you surprised?”
“For the best reason in the world, aunt—neither seems to fancy the other. As for Isabella, whenever I praise cousin Jasper, she is either quite silent, or turns the conversation, as if she did not like to appear to disagree with me.”
“Ah, my young lady,” thought the aunt, “you do not see quite through a millstone.”
Jasper at this moment entered. “Come here, cousin,” said Lady Anne; and when he had approached, she added, in a playful voice, putting her hand (the prettiest hand in the world) on his arm, “Were you ever in love with—” her mischievous pause nearly suspended the pulsations of Meredith’s heart, “with—don’t be scared—the most loveable person in the world?”
He had recovered himself. “If I never have been,” he replied, seizing her hand and kissing it, “I shall soon be—irretrievably.”
The past, the future, rushed upon him, and overpowered his self-command. He turned from Lady Anne and left the apartment. “Oh, Jasper! Jasper!” cried Lady Anne, blushing, laughing, and springing after him, “stop one minute—you did not understand me.” But before she reached the stairs, 333the outer door closed after Meredith. Mrs. Meredith clasped her hands. Jasper was won—Lady Anne must of course be!—and she seemed to herself to have reached the summit of her Pisgah, and thence to descry the promised land for which she had come to the wilderness. That “there is many a slip between the cup and the lip” is a proverb somewhat musty; but it pithily indicates the sudden mutations to which poor humanity is liable.
335CHAPTER XXX.
“I would to Heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel! should it then be thus?
No! I would tell what ’
twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.”
We change the scene from Mrs. Meredith’s drawing-room to the gloomiest cell in the city prison, where, stretched on a heap of straw, lay a poor wretch condemned to be hung at four o’clock in the afternoon of that day. The door opened, and Isabella entered, attended by Rose, and escorted by a turnkey, who, having set down a candle to aid the feeble light of the cell, went out himself and locked the door upon them.
“Take up the light, Rose,” said Isabella, who was shivering, not so much from the unsunned air of the apartment, as at the presence of a fellow-creature in such circumstances; “hold it near him, Rose, so that I can see his face.”
Rose approached close to him and said, as if announcing the visit of an angel, “Here’s a lady come to see you.” He made no reply; and, after an eager survey, she turned to her young mistress and said, “His senses are clean gone!” Isabella held Rose’s arm while she gazed at him. His face was ashen, his hair was in matted masses, and his pale blue eye wandered inexpressively. “Who are you?” asked Isabella. The music of her voice for an instant fixed his uncertain gaze, 336but he made no reply; and again his eye was bent on vacancy. “Who are you, friend?” she repeated.
“I a’n’t nobody,” he replied, in a broken voice, between a laugh and a sob.
“Have you no friend?” He turned his face to the straw, and muttered something inaudibly. “What does he say, Rose?”
“Turn up your face so the lady can hear,” said Rose. He obeyed; but Rose’s voice seemed to have broken the spell of her mistress’s, and he remained silent.
“Rouse yourself, my good friend,” said Isabella, “I wish to be of service to you. Can you give me any reason why you should not die the death to which you are sentenced?”
“No—lief as not.”
“It cannot be—you must have something—some friend for whom you would like to live and come out of this place.”
“Had!—had!” the poor creature sobbed like a child.
“Tell me,” said Isabella, eagerly, “the name of this friend?” But the obstinate mood had again seized him, and, though she varied the question and put it in every possible form, he gave no sign of answer.
“Try him upon some other hook, Miss Belle,” whispered Rose.
“How long had you been with the skinners when you were taken?”
Now he answered promptly—“Years!—years!”
“Years?—that cannot be.”
“Cannot? A’n’t the minutes years to the child that’s crying for its mammy, hey?” He had risen on his elbow; but he again sunk back on the straw, and renewed his piteous crying.
“What does this mean? What can be done for him?” exclaimed Isabella. “My poor friend, death is very near to you—do you know it?”
“Yes, yes, lady. Ha’n’t they brought me a new suit?” He pointed to the execution suit that was folded up and lying 337beside him. “There be three times in every one’s life when they’re sure of a new suit:—when they’re born, when they’re married, and when they die. I’ve got my last and prettiest, I’m thinking, for I remember granny reading about the angels being in white robes.”
His mind seemed now more collected, and Isabella ventured to ask him if he were willing to die?
“Glad on’t—don’t look at me, lady, with that bright watery eye—I am glad on’t.”
“Have you prayed for the pardon of your sins?”
“Haven’t any—never had—never wronged anybody—nor wished it—nor thought on’t.”
“Merciful Heaven!” exclaimed Isabella, “what is to be done?”
“For me, lady?—nothing.”
“Do you not wish to live?”
“Yes—with him. ’Out him?—no.”
“Who?” Isabella spoke too eagerly. He looked at her, shook his head, then broke into an exulting laugh like a boy who has seen a trap and escaped it.
“Miss Belle,” said Rose, “you are wasting your tears and your feelings—we must all die once, and the stroke can’t come in better time to him than now, when he’s so willing to go.”
“Willing? glad, hey! nobody cares for me, and I cares for nobody but him; I think he be dead; but,” he added, laying his hand on Isabella’s arm, “be he dead or be he living, you’ll see him—your soul is kin to his, lady—and mind you tell him how the skinners kept me till the reg’lars came—did not tell ’em I was not a skinner—cheated ’em, hey!”
Isabella waited till he was through, and then said quietly, “Who did you tell me to give your message to?”
“Misser Eliot.” At the utterance of this name poor Kisel sunk back on the straw, laughed and cried, and attempted to whistle, but he was too weak to control the muscles of his 338lips. By degrees his voice subsided into low moanings, and his eye wandered without light or direction from his mind. The name had produced
its effect upon Isabella also. She had been incited to this visit to the prison by Herbert, who had communicated to her the previous evening some particulars he had received from a sub-keeper in the prison, in relation to this condemned man, which had excited a fear in his (Herbert’s) mind that there was some mistake in relation to the culprit. Herbert had not, however, the slightest suspicion that the poor victim was Kisel. One or two particulars of the convict’s apparent innocence and simplicity had touched Isabella’s heart, and all night she had been disturbed by the impression that he was unjustly condemned. Some young ladies would have rested satisfied with dropping a few pitiful tears over such a mischance; but Isabella Linwood was of another temper; and having no male friend on whom she could rely, she went herself to the prison, and easily obtained access to the prisoner’s cell. The moment Kisel pronounced Eliot’s name, she was convinced the condemned must be the half-witted attendant of Captain Lee, whom she had often heard Herbert describe; and she doubted not that by going to Sir Henry Clinton and communicating her convictions, she might obtain an order for having him identified by confronting him with Herbert, or at any rate, that she should procure a respite of his sentence. Her carriage was awaiting her; and having communicated her intentions to Rose, she directed her to walk home, saying she should go immediately to Sir Henry’s. Rose remonstrated. “What if he be the poor man you think for, Miss Belle? life is nothing to him—he can do nothing with it—he would not thank you for it.”
“But, Rose, the life of an innocent man is sacred.”
“La, Miss Belle, they don’t stand on such trifles as innocence in war-times—please don’t go to Sir Henry’s. He won’t think the man belonging to Captain Lee alters the case 339much, and you don’t love to be denied, and—I don’t love to have you.”
Rose was right. Her young mistress did not “love to be denied,” but the discipline of events was fast subduing her self-will, and counteracting the indulgence and flattery of her friends. A common nature is not taught by experience, and may therefore be either the tool or victim of circumstances; but a creature like Isabella Linwood, composed of noble elements (if, as with her, these elements are sustained by religious principle), has within herself a self-rectifying and all-controlling power. “Rose little dreams,” said she, as the carriage door closed upon her, “how my fondest wishes and expectations have been denied and defeated! God grant that the affections thus cast back upon me may not degenerate to morbid sensibility or pining selfishness, but that they may be employed vigorously for the good of my fellow-beings! This poor, harmless, broken creature, if I could but save him!—save him and render Eliot Lee a service—Herbert’s friend—poor Bessie’s brother—and the preserver of my dear little pet, Lizzy!”
In the midst of these meditations she was shown into Sir Henry’s library, where she perceived Jasper Meredith seated at the table, reading, in the identical spot where, a few weeks before, she had received so passionate a declaration from him. A most embarrassing reminiscence of the scene struck them both. He started from the table, and she asked the servant to show her to the drawing-room. “The drawing-room was occupied;” and thus, though the awkwardness of entering was increased tenfold by the effort to avoid it, enter she must.
Seldom have two persons been placed in a more singular position in relation to each other. Their destiny, while it was governed by inflexible principles, seemed to have been at the mercy of the merest accidents. “If,” as Meredith had thought a thousand times, while pursuing his retrospections, 340“if Isabella had not hesitated, and while she hesitated, Helen Ruthven had not broken in upon us, our fate would then have been fixed; or if, on the second occasion, when I urged her decision, she had not again hesitated till her impatient father called her, I should not now be wavering between my inclination and my better judgment!”
But Isabella did hesitate, and that hesitation, proceeding from the demands of her pure and lofty nature, was her salvation, and a fatal rebuke and spur to his vanity.
They exchanged the ordinary salutations. Isabella sat down. They were in the same chairs they had occupied at that memorable moment of their lives; the same table was before them—the same books on the table. Feelings have their habits, and so easily revert to their customary channels! A spell seemed to have been cast over them. Neither spoke nor moved, till Isabella, starting as one starts from a thrilling dream, rose and walked to the window. “Ah,” thought she, “what memories, hopes, dreams, ‘poor fancy’s followers,’ has this place conjured up!”
Jasper, moved by an irresistible impulse, followed her, and was arrested in his half-formed purpose by the vision of Helen Ruthven, who, as she was passing on the opposite side of the street, had seen Isabella come forward, and had vainly tried to catch her eye. She was smiling and bowing. When she saw Meredith, she beckoned. “You had best go to Miss Ruthven,” said Isabella; “I have some business with Sir Henry.”
“I will go, Miss Linwood,” he replied; and adding bitterly, “‘the will of man is by his reason swayed,’” he disappeared. Isabella burst into tears. Was ever a woman disinthralled from such a sentiment as Isabella had felt, without efforts repeated and repeated, and many such pangs as she now suffered, secretly endured. The struggle is a hard one—the conquest worth it.
341Sir Henry entered. “Your pardon, my dear Miss Isabella. I believed Meredith was here, and thought you might chance to profit by the blessing promised to those who wait—but you look troubled—your father is not worse, no?—your brother has not abused his liberty?—papa does not frown upon the faithful knight?”
“Oh, no, no—nothing of all this, Sir Henry—I have again come a petitioner to you, but not now in my own cause.” Isabella then proceeded to state concisely and eloquently the case of the condemned; Sir Henry became graver as she proceeded; and as she ended, losing a good deal of his habitual courtesy, he said, “Really, Miss Linwood, these are not matters for a young lady to interfere with. The day for voluntary and romantic righters of wrongs is past. This fellow has been adjudged to death after due investigation, before the proper tribunal, and I do not see that it makes any essential difference in his favour even if he should have had the honour of once being in the service of a man who is so fortunate as to be the friend of your brother, and to have rendered an accidental service to your aunt. The poor wretch, as you allow, was one of a band of skinners when captured by a detachment of our soldiers. His comrades were hung last week, and I have already granted a respite to this man for some reason, what I do not precisely recollect, alleged by the proper officer.”
“He was ill—unable to stand, when the others suffered.”
“Ah, yes—I remember.”
Isabella urged her conviction that the prisoner had been accidentally involved with the skinners. She described his simplicity and imbecility of mind, and, as it seemed to her, his utter incapacity to commit the energetic and atrocious crimes perpetrated by a band of desperadoes. But to all her pleadings Sir Henry still returned the answer so satisfactory to an official conscience:—“His death had been decreed by the laws in such cases made and provided.”
342Isabella said that so slight seemed to be the prisoner’s tenure of life, that if he were reprieved for a week, Sir Henry might be relieved from the responsibility of taking a life perhaps not forfeited. But Sir Henry did not shrink from responsibility, and though she still reasoned, and urged, it was all in vain.
He alleged that the press of important affairs rendered it impossible for him to make a personal investigation of the business; and that indeed it was out of the question, occupying the station he did, to attend minutely to such a concern. The truth was, that Sir Henry was somewhat fortified in his present decision by a secret consciousness, that, on a former occasion, he had surrendered a point purely to the influence of a lovely young woman; and he was now resolved to maintain the invincible.
Isabella was obliged to take her leave, having failed in her errand of mercy, and feeling a just indignation at the carelessness with which a
man could make his station an apology for neglecting the rights of his fellow; and struck with the truth, that the only reason for one man’s occupying a station more elevated than another, is, that it gives him the opportunity of better protecting and serving his fellow-beings.
343CHAPTER XXXI.
“All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement,
Inhabit here! Some heavenly power guide us
Out of this fearful country.”
The hour appointed for Kisel’s execution drew nigh. The premonitory bell was already sounding, when a countryman, who had come from the other side of the Hudson, sheltering his little boat in a nook under some cedars growing where Warren-street now terminates, was proceeding towards the city with a market-basket, containing butter, eggs, &c. As he was destined to enact an important part in the drama of that day, it may not be superfluous to describe the homely habiliments in which he appeared. He had on a coarse dark-gray overcoat, a sort of dreadnaught, of domestic manufacture, double-breasted, and fastened with black mohair buttons, as large as dollars, up to his throat; his cravat was a blue and white linen handkerchief—an enduring article, then manufactured by all thrifty housewives; his stockings were blue and white yarn, ribbed; his shoes cowhide, and tied with leather thongs. A young man is rarely without a dash of coxcombry, and our humble swain’s was betrayed in a fox-skin cap, with straps of the fur that decorated his cheek, much in the mode of the brush-whisker of our own day. The cap was drawn so close over his brow as nearly to hide his dark pomatumed hair; and finally, his hands were covered by scarlet and white 344mittens, full fringed, and with his name, Harmann Van Zandt, knit in on their backs.
The storm of the morning had passed over. The sun was shining out clear and warm for the season; and as every one is eager to enjoy the last smiles of our stinted autumn, the countryman must have wondered, as he passed the few habitations on his way to the populous part of the town, not to see the usual group—the good man with his pipe, the matron knitting, and the buxom Dutch damsel leaning over the lower portal of the door. As he approached Broadway, however, the sounds of life and busy movement reached his ear, and he saw half a dozen young lads and lasses issue from a house on his left, dressed in their Sunday gear, their faces full of eager expectation, and each hurrying the other.
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