son of my dear brother? So come you home a finished gentleman from your travels do you hear, young man? and that reminds me-what day do you start from hence?' "On the very next, I answered; but only for a week, to arrange some preparatory matters with the travelling friend who was to meet me in London for that purpose; I should return into the country for some days at least before my final departure. "In expectation, therefore, of shortly seeing them again, I took no formal leave of my kind uncle and Lady de Beauvoir, and leaving only a lighthearted message for the dear Rosomond, set off the next morning, accompanied by my father, for London; where, on meeting with my friend, certain considerations connected with his business and convenience made it desirable that I should relinquish my intention of returning to Hawkwood, and start direct from London with as little delay as might be, on our foreign expedition. by any of those things but that the arrival of letters from home (that word of magic power over English hearts!) made a red letter day in my calendar, and the packet was not least welcome which contained, as was often the case by permission of the higher powers, a long, close-lined, criss-crossed epistle from dear Rosomond. Some day you shall see those charming letterscharming I call them, for inartificial and even childish as to some persons they might appear, the more discerning would trace in many a passage, or I am much mistaken, indications of no common intellect, and throughout, of a mind and heart as pure and beautiful as ever retained in this fallen state a faint impress of the divine image in which it was created. Among the little home details she entered into, with such artless assurance of reciprocal interest on my part, the progress of the new building was not forgotten; and as the work proceeded and approached its conclusion, in the last momentous concerns of furnishing and decorating, all was so graphically described to me, that I felt as if, on entering the room for the first time, I should be able immediately to single out any particular object to which my attention had been previously directed. One, at least, even without the minute description which made all so familiar to my mind's eye, could not fail of immediately attracting me. A full length portrait of the dear Rosomond, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and hung, she told me, in a most splendid "But high in health and hope and frame, at the upper end of the saloon, youth's elastic spirit, the natural fronting the bow with its three long yearning soon gave way to buoyaut French windows, opening to the seagladness and sanguine anticipation, ward terrace. As the time of your and I leapt for the first time on foreign return draws near,' wrote my sweet soil exulting in the prospect of enjoy- cousin in the last letter I ever received ment and improvement opened before from her, from Hawkwood, me by my father's liberal arrange- often I shall look out at the sea from ments for my continental travels. You those windows, and fancy every aphave read the journal I kept for that proaching sail that of the ship bringdear father's inspection, my children! ing back my dear cousin Francis. and are well acquainted with every I wish we were not going to London thing that befel me worth noting du- first-and for such an awful ceremony ring my two years' absence from Eng--my presentation. I would rather land; so I will only say on that head, that rich and varied as was the gratification I reaped from the wonders of nature and art which enriched the countries I visited, and highly as I relished the peculiar charms of many foreign circles, courtly and intellectual, my mind was never so engrossed "It added not a little to the pain of parting with my father (that parting for a length of time which seemed almost indefinite), that only through him, and by a little affectionate note, of which I made him the bearer to Rosomond, I could bid adieu to my friends at Hawkwood: dear Hawkwood! in the direction of which I cast many a wistful look, long and lingering,' as we crossed the country in our rapid journey to the place of embarkation. how this "coming out," as they call it, were delayed till next year, or till after my birthday and our promised fête, which I shall enjoy ten times more than any thing in London. But, thank Heaven, we are to come down very soon after the grand day, and then for dear Hawkwood, and the beautiful new room, and my long-engaged partner -for remember papa's promise, dear Frank! and mind you come in time, or I will never forgive you.' I have read over her letters so often, I believe I have them all by heart as well as the passage I have just repeated. One more she wrote to me from St James's Street, and that letter found me at Paris on my way homeIt is over! it is over!' begun the irregular scrawl, so unlike her usually legible and fair autograph. Wish me joy-the dreaded day is over, and our succeeding London fortnight, with all its multiplicity of engagements, crowded into that short space. I never thought I could be so tired of pleasure; but this has NOT been pleasure. All hurry and confusion, dress and bustle it has seemed to me. But perhaps that is because I am not quite well. I have so much headachsays, a little nervous fever. But Hawkwood will soon cure me, and we go down to-morrow. Remember the 10th.' and Dr "And I did remember it, and fully purposed being in England and at the hall at least a day or two before the long-talked-of anniversary; but various provoking casualties retarded my arrival at the place of embarkation, and I reached it at last, only to undergo the mortification of seeing the packet for England just disappearing on the verge of the horizon. To await her return and next departure would be to delay my arrival at Hawkwood till far too late to keep my pledge with Rosomond. This, if avoidable, was not to be thought of. My only chance was to freight a vessel for the passage; but the weather was most unfavourable, so threatening, indeed, that it required all the persuasive eloquence of high bribing to prevail with the owner and crew of a small fishing craft to venture with me. But love of lucre outweighs even love of life. Allons! puisque Monsieur le veut absolument,' terminated the captain's deliberation, and Cæsar and his fortunes' embarked in La gentille Suzette,' a cockle-shell of fifteen tons, manned by two men and a boy, in a sea that ran hills, if not mountains high, with a squally sidewind, which gave little promise of blowing us to the port we made for. A wild passage we had of it in truth. So much so, that at one time I doubted whether I had not incurred too fearful a responsibility in perilling-not my own life only-but those of my servant and of the poor Frenchmen-(perhaps husbands and fathers)—and all to keep tryst with my pretty cousin at her birthday festival. In vain we tacked and tacked to make the wished-for haven; and at last the sailors, giving up the fruitless struggle, stood out a little from the land, in hopes of making a more successful run for a landing place farther down the coast. To which proposal I assented the more readily, on making out with some difficulty, from their foreign pronunciation, that the little harbour they had in view was that of the small fishing town of Averton, in some sort a dependency of Hawkwood, and not quite a mile from the old Hall. My Gallic crew proved themselves so well acquainted with the coast, and all its most snug and convenient creeks and inlets, that it was pretty evident such knowledge could not have been acquired in the course of their lawful and ostensible calling; but that was no business of mine, and I felt I might place full confidence in men who had often risked their lives (for whatever purpose) in making the shore we were nearing under somewhat perilous circumstances, rendered more so by the fast closing darkness of a starless, moonless night. 66 My confidence was not misplaced. La gentille Suzette' proved herself a capital sea-boat, under most sailorlike management, and soon we were again standing in for shore, and my heart danced for gladness when, streaming through the now intense darkness, appeared the scattered lights of Averton, and far above, on the neighbouring height, a more brilliant and conspicuous beacon, which proceeded, I well knew, from Hawkwood, and doubtless from the long windows of the new building, where, thought I, Rose is dancing away at this moment, too surely blaming in her heart her cousin's faithlessness, little suspecting how much he has ventured to keep his engagement. But I shall still be in time for a dance at the close, if not the beginning of the evening, and how I shall surprise them all, making my sudden appearance at such an hour!' "So blithely communing with my own thoughts, when the little vessel ran in at last close to the snug conve- "Marvellous!-incomprehensible! enough, it blazed upon me in dazzling brightness. "I stood still for a moment, and as I gazed a something-a strange nervous feeling crept over me-and made me withhold my breath, and then draw it hard and quick, as, with a forced laugh at my own folly, I was again starting forward. But something stronger than myself held me back, as it were, to gaze How -to listen to conjecture. strange, that all should be so still on such a night! So still one might have heard a leaf drop. No hum of voices, not a foot-fall, not a hoof-stamp, from stabling or office. No strain of music, no sounds of revelry from that lighted ball-room, where surely the birthday guests were assembled, else wherefore But it that brilliant illumination? was only there-only those three long All on either side and windows. above was shrouded in darkness, except that from a window on the second story, which I knew to be that of Lady de Beauvoir's bed-chamber, the pale sickly rays of a watchlight played on the side wall and the lawn below, in large flickering checkers. "Then first-then first (I never shall forget that moment) crowded into my mind a confused multitude of fearful imaginings, all-all connected with those funeral preparations I had noted so carelessly in the engrossing selfishness of my own impatient gladness. My father! my dear father! My kind uncle, and Lady de Beauvoir!—(I never felt till then how well I loved her)-and Rosomond! sweet, dear Rosomond!-Oh! but to know they were all safe and well!-and if it were not so, why should that room be lit as for a festival? I shuddered at my thought's inward whisper; but, nerving myself to confront the truth, was again bounding onward, when my steps were impeded by some living creature that leapt against me with a low whine of recognition, and licked my face and hands with affectionate welcome, as stooping down, I felt the glossy head and long silken ears of Marco, Rosomond's pet spaniel. Taking it in my arms I would have proceeded, but the little creature struggled to get loose, and when I set it down, barked and whined, and intercepted my progress with such singular pertinacity, as to make me sensible of its desire to lead me straight across the lawn to the illuminated windows, from which I guessed it had issued on scenting my "I caught the closing blind. The next moment I had crossed the threshold, and stood as if turned to marble in the full ghastly glare of a profusion of immense wax-lights, set round a long and lofty apartment hung with black, at the upper end of which (the only unshrouded object) hung the splendidly framed portrait of a beautiful girl, and upon a bier immediately beneath that picture, stood a coffin half covered with its flowing pall." one arm, while his thin white locks silvered the pall, on which his face was buried. The slight noise I made on entering startled the silent mourners. My father, with a broken exclamation, stepped toward me with outstretched hands; but my poor uncle, only lifting up his head for a moment, after a single look of recognition let it fall again upon that sad resting-place, uttering, in a half smothered voice- Here Frank! here lies my Rose.' "Sacred be the remembrance of his sorrows. The light of his life was in.. deed for ever quenched; but only that a heavenly day-spring might dawn upon the darkened horizon. The bereaved father bowed his head without a murmur to the Almighty will. I am a sinful man, O Lord!' was his first heart-wrung cry when the stroke fell that made him childless; and when the sharp agony had passed away, giving place to that calm abiding sorrow which hearkens childlike to the still small voice,' he roused himself to support his more feeble partner-the far more pitiable parent of their lost darling, for she, poor woman! wept on unceasingly, mourning as one who would not be comforted;' and, broken in heart and constitution, followed her daughter within the twelve months to the vault of the De Beauvoirs. There also, with those so dear to him in life, my good uncle has long rested; but he survived them many years, living to the utmost verge of man's fourscore years and ten; ' living no useless life of unavailing sorrow or worldly forgetfulness, but so 'redeeming the time,' still added to his days; so enduring the chastening of the Lord,' that, though his dying eyes were closed by no dear filial hand, the holy dew of orphans' tears, of the fatherless and the widow,' fell upon his grave; and a few hours before his spirit departed, grasping the hands of the beloved brother, the life-long friend, the faithful counsellor (faithful to the last) who had just administered to him the cup of salvation,' he breathed out his deeply grateful assurance, that it was 'good for him to have been afflicted,' that folded arms in profound contem-the desire of his eyes' had been reMy poor uncle leant on the moved from him in mercy, that side, half embracing it with God, to save the father, took the child.'" Mr Faulkner paused for a moment, overpowered by vivid recollection. Not a word was uttered by either of his sympathizing hearers, but a halfsuppressed sob heaved Rosomond's bosom, and Lucy (stilled by profound feeling) pressed her lips softly to her father's hand, as she sat on the low ottoman at his feet. Fondly returning his daughter's caress, Mr Faulkner resumed, "You now sce, my dear children, and you especially, my volatile Lucy, by what an awful lesson your father was early and severely taught, that it becomes not mortal man to lay down plans for the future, without the submissive referential clausethis or that will I do, if it be God's leasure." Beside that coffin my father stood OTHER PAROCHIALS, AND EXTRA PAROCHIALS. IN A LETTER FROM A CURATE TO HIS FRIEND. You tell me, my dear Eusebius, that my parochials amuse you, and in some degree relieve the weariness of mind which you attribute to your uncertain and broken views; but which I verily believe to have arisen from one of those utter failures that your overstrained energy so often experiences. Confess it. You have been deluded by others, or by yourself. Your wit has either been inconvenient, or, in your gentlest sympathies, you have been too sanguine, or perhaps disgusted for a time, or at least disappointed. Your weariness is but temporary; it is a state in which you cannot long continue. "The sweet and bitter food of melancholy" will still turn to merriment in such a heart as yours, which, refreshed by whatever it receives, will take new life, and leap and bound in thankfulness for every good, and in ardent desire to remedy every evil. Your letter, Eusebius, found me in "Araby the Blest," and thence have I hastened to answer it; but as that place is "extra parochial," I should tell you somewhat of its "whereabout," and how you may reach it. It is far away in the "Land of Dreams;" the conveyance of the most simple invention, and most delightful in application. A soft-cushioned chair of Merlin, or any other enchanter, after the smallest taste of the divine "Nepenthes," with just turning the screw to the most delectable position, will take you there with a velocity and imperceptible motion unknown even to our modern locomotive engines. So was the Princess of China conveyed to Prince Camaralzaman with inconceivable swiftness. There was I cast upon a sweeter herbage than ever paid tithe or fatted bullocks, when the sudden announcement of your letter broke the spell and I was disenchanted. No longer the hero, I thought I somewhat resembled the translator of those beautiful tales, Mons. Galland, who, after his work appeared, was constantly aroused from his sleep in the dead of night by bands of boys and girls under his window, crying, "Mons. Galland, if you are not asleep, tell us one of those pretty stories." Your letter contains a similar request for my parish anecdotes. Now, I must be very cautious what I write, since you publish my letters-and yet how odious, my dear Eusebius, is the word "cautious!" Can I write to you and be cautious? Caution is a cold, hypocritical, designing knave-a malicious go-between, breaking friendships and hearts-a paltry huckster of words and deeds, weighing the human affections in his cheating scales, and turning them into "small-change." Then you tell me, that there are who charge me with levity. Oh they are of the doleful family, who speak evil of the sun when he edges his dark clouds with light. Bless their innocent hearts, they sit moaning in twilight, sad and watchful lest the corners of their mouths should relax into the sin of smiling. Levity indeed! and what then will become of my dear, kindhearted Eusebius, if ever again should be established the inquisition of soberness? I tremble for every bone in your body that would have to pay the penalty of the laughter of your lips, and of the very mirth of your heart. Who abhors levity, that badge of the unfeeling and wicked, more than you or I do? They who paint from nature must not omit the lighter parts; the sunshine flickering upon the very verge, and often into the very depth of shade, makes that shade more awful as the lighter and sweeter touches but deepen the tragedy. If I have put mockery upon sorrow, or broken in upon any sanctity with irreverence, I have indeed been guilty of levity, and my pen has belied every feeling within me. No there is no levity where there is no evil. But suspicion ever looks through the spectacles of caution. Oh the narrow mind of this liberal world! I verily believe that there are whole assemblies, and solemn ones too, where wicked gravity, that shall have just come from deeds selfish and malignant, may be admitted with a salutation; and innocent mirth, that shall have come from acts of sympathy, and relief of the wrongs that wickedness hath done, may be rejected, and passed over to the beadle for a whipping. |