Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. by Various

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At length, on the sixth day, when I really began to feel anxious, an
express announced that his lordship had arrived at a village, about
fifty miles off, on his way home, wounded, and in great danger. I
instantly broke up the convivial party, and set out to see him. To the
imagination of a boy, as I was then, nothing could be more startling
than the aspect of the habitation which now held the haughty Earl of
Mortimer. After passing through a variety of dungeon-like rooms, for the
house had once been a workhouse, or something of the kind, I was ushered
into the chamber where the patient lay. The village doctor, and one or
two of the wise people of the neighbourhood, who thought it their duty
to visit a stranger, that stranger being a man of rank, were standing
by; and the long faces of those persons, seconded by the professional
shake of the doctor's head, told me, that they at least had no hope. It
was not so with the sufferer himself, for he talked as largely and
loftily of what he was to do within the next ten years, as if he was to
survive the century. He still breathed rage and retribution against the
Chevalier, and actually seemed to regard the lady's choice as a
particular infraction of personal claims. He had pursued the fugitives
day and night, until the pursuit threw him into a kind of fever. While
under this paroxysm he had met the enamoured pair, but it was on their
way from that forge on the Border where so many heavy chains have been
manufactured. Useless as challenging was now, he challenged the husband.
The parties met, and my father received a bullet in his body, while he
had the satisfaction of lodging one in his antagonist's knee-pan. The
Chevalier was doomed to waltz no more. But his bullet was fatal.

As I looked round the wretched chamber in which this bold, arrogant, and
busy spirit was evidently about to breathe its last, Pope's lines on the
most splendid _roue_ of his day involuntarily and painfully shot across
my recollection:--

"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,
The walls of plaster, and the floor of dung;
The George and Garter dangling from the bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies; alas, how changed from him
The glass of fashion!"

I say no more of those scenes; a few days, only enough to collect the
branches of the family round the bed, terminated every thing. Grief,
they say, cannot exist where there is no love, but I was not inclined,
just then, to draw subtle distinctions. I was grieved; and paid the last
duties, without blame to myself, or, I hope, irreverence in the sight of
others. The funeral was stately, and all was over.

Matters now took a new shape at the castle. My brother returned, to find
himself its possessor. His journey had been equally unproductive with my
unfortunate father's. By dint of bribing the postilions, he had even
overpassed the fugitives on the Dover road. But, as he stopped to dine
in Canterbury, where he had prepared a posse of constables for their
reception, he had, unluckily, been accosted by an old London
acquaintance, who had accidentally fixed his quarters there for a day or
two, "seeking whom he might devour." The dinner was followed by a
carouse, the carouse by a "quiet game," or games, which lasted till the
next day; and when my brother rose, with the glow of a superb sunset
giving him the first intimation that he was among the living, he made
the discovery that he was stripped of the last shilling of five hundred
pounds, and that the Frenchman and his prize had quietly changed horses
at the same hotel half a dozen hours before.

* * * * *

The young forget quickly, but they feel keenly. The event which I had
just witnessed threw a shade over me, which, in the want of any vigorous
occupation, began to affect my health. I abjured the sports of the
field, for which, indeed, I had never felt much liking. I rambled
through the woods in a kind of dreamy idleness of mind, which took but
little note of any thing, time included. As mendicants sell tapes and
matches to escape the imputation of mendicancy, I carried a pencil and
portfolio, and seemed to be sketching venerable oaks and patches of the
picturesque, while my mind was wandering from Line to Pole. But in this
earth no one can be singular with impunity. The gentlemen were
"convinced" that my meditations were heavy with unpaid college bills;
and the ladies, from high to low, from "Tilburina, mad in white satin,"
to her "confidant, mad in white linen," were all of opinion that some
one among their peerless selves had destroyed the "five wits of young Mr
Marston." I could have fallen on them with a two-handed sword; but as
the massacre of the sex was not then in my power, I had only to escape.

There were higher matters to move me. Clouds were gathering on the
world; the times were fitful; the air was thick with rumours from
abroad; the sleep of the Continent was breaking up, and Europe lay in
the anxious and strange expectancy in which some great city might see
the signs of a coming earthquake, without the power of ascertaining at
what moment, or from what quarter, its foundations were to be flung up
in sight of the sun.--We were then in the first stage of the French
Revolution!

I resolved to linger and be libelled no more; and being ushered, by
appointment, into the library--for the new master was already all
etiquette--I promptly stated my wishes, and demanded my portion, to try
my fortune in the world.

Our conference, if it had but little of the graces of diplomacy, had
much more than its usual decision. It was abrupt and unhesitating. My
demand had evidently taken his "lordship" by surprise. He started from
the magisterial chair, in which he was yet to awe so many successions of
rustic functionaries, and with a flushed cheek asked "Whether I was
lunatic, or supposed him to be so?"

"Neither the one nor the other," was my answer. "But, to waste life here
is out of the question. I demand the means of entering a profession."

"Are you aware, sir, that our interest is lost since the last change of
ministers? that my estate is loaded with encumbrances? that every
profession is overstocked? and what can you do in the crowd?"

"What others have done--what I should do in a crowd in the streets--push
some aside, get before others; if made way for, be civil; if resisted,
trample; it has been the history of thousands, why not mine?"

The doctrine was as new to this son of indulgence, as if I had
propounded the philosopher's stone. But his courage was exhausted by a
controversy perhaps longer than he had ever ventured on before. He
walked to the glass, adjusted his raven ringlets, and having refreshed
his spirits with the contemplation, enquired, with a smile which made
the nearest possible approach to a sneer, whether I had any thing more
to say?

I had more, and of the kind that least suited his feelings. I demanded
"my property."

The effect of those two words was electrical. The apathy of the
exquisite was at an end, and in a voice of the most indignant
displeasure, he rapidly demanded whether I expected money to fall from
the moon? whether I was not aware of the expense of keeping up the
castle? whether I supposed that my mother's jointure and my sisters'
portions could ever be paid without dipping the rent-roll deeper still?
and, after various and bitter expostulation, "What right had I to
suppose that I was worth the smallest coin of the realm, except by his
bounty?"

One query answered them all. "My lord, is it not true that I am entitled
to five thousand pounds?"

"Five thousand ----?" what word was to fill up the interval I can only
guess. But the first lesson which a man learns at the clubs is, to
control his temper when its display is not likely to be attended with
effect. He saw that I stood his gaze with but few symptoms of giving
way, and he changed his tactics with an adroitness that did honour to
his training. Approaching me, he held out his hand. "Charles, why should
_we_ quarrel about trifles? I was really not acquainted with the
circumstance to which you allude, but I shall look into it without
delay. Pray, can you tell me the when, the where, the how?"

"Your questions may be easily answered. The _when_ was at the death of
our uncle, the _where_ was in his will, and the _how_--in any way your
lordship pleases." The truce was now made; he begged of me, "as I valued
_his_ feelings," to drop the formality of his title, to regard him
simply as a brother, and to rely on his wish to forward every object
that might gratify my inclination.

Our conference broke up. He galloped to a neighbouring horse-race. I
went to take a solitary ramble through the Park.

The hour and the scene were what the poet pronounces "fit to cure all
sadness but despair." Noble old trees, the "roof star-proof" overhead,
the cool velvet grass under the feet--glimpses of sunlight striking
through the trunks--the freshened air coming in gusts across the lake,
like new life, bathing my burning forehead and feverish hands--the whole
unrivalled sweetness of the English landscape softened and subdued me.
Those effects are so common, that I can claim no credit for their
operation on my mind; and, before I had gone far, I was on the point of
returning, if not to recant, at least to palliate the harshness of my
appeal to fraternal justice.

But, by this time I had reached a rising ground which commanded a large
extent of the surrounding country. The evening was one of those
magnificent closes of the year, which, like a final scene in a theatre,
seems intended to comprehend all the beauties and brilliancies of the
past. The western sky was a blaze of all colours, and all pouring over
the succession of forest, cultured field, and mountain top, which make
the English view, if not the most sublime, the most touching of the
earth!

But as I stood on the hill, gazing round to enjoy every shape and shade
at leisure, my eye turned on the Castle. It spoiled all my serenity at
once. I felt that it was a spot from which I was excluded by nature;
that it belonged to others so wholly, that scarcely by any conceivable
chance could it ever be mine; and that I could remain within its walls
no longer, but with a sense of uselessness and shame.

If I could have taken staff in hand and pack on shoulder, I would have
started at that moment on a pilgrimage that might have circled the
globe. But the most fiery resolution must submit to circumstances. One
night more, at least, I must sleep under the paternal roof, and I was
hastening home, brooding over bitter thoughts, when I suddenly rushed
against some one whom I nearly overthrew.--"Bless me, Mr Marston, is it
you?"--told me that I had run down my old tutor, Mr Vincent, the parson
of the parish. He had been returning from visiting some of his flock,
and in the exercise of the vocation which he had just been fulfilling,
he saw that something went ill with me, and taking my arm, forced me to
go home with him, for such comfort as he could give.

Parsons, above all men, are the better for wives and families; for,
without them, they are wonderfully apt to grow saturnine or stupid. Of
course there are exceptions. Vincent had a wife not much younger than
himself, to whom he always spoke with the courtiership of a _preux
chevalier_. A portrait of her in her bridal dress, showed that she had
been a pretty brunette in her youth; and her husband still evidently
gave her credit for all that she had been. They had, as is generally the
fate of the clergy, a superfluity of daughters, four or five I think,
creatures as thoughtless and innocent as their own poultry, or their own
pet-sheep. But all round their little vicarage was so pure, so quiet,
and so neat--there was such an aspect of order and even of elegance,
however inexpensive, that its contrast with the glaring and restless
tumult of the "great house" was irresistible. I never had so full a
practical understanding of the world's "pomps and vanities," as while
looking at the trimmings and trelisses of the parson's dwelling.

I acknowledge myself a worldling, but I suppose that all is not lead or
iron within me, from my sense of scenes like this. In my wildest hour,
the sight of fields and gardens has been a kind of febrifuge to me--has
conveyed a feeling of tranquillity to my mind; as if it drank the
silence and the freshness, as the flowers drink the dew. I have often
thus experienced a sudden soothing, which checked the hot current of my
follies or frenzies, and made me think that there were better things
than the baubles of cabinets. But it did not last long.

I mention this evening, because it decided my future life; or at least
the boldest, and perhaps the best portion of it. We had an hour or two
of the little variations of placid amusement which belong to all
parsonages in romances, but which here were reality; easy conversation
on the events of the county; a little political talking with the vicar;
a few details of persons and fashions at the castle, to which the ladies
listened as Desdemona might have listened to Othello's history--for the
Castle was so seldom visited by them, that it had almost the air of a
Castle of Otranto, and they evidently thought that its frowning towers
and gilded halls belonged to another race, if not to another region of
existence; we had, too, some of the last new songs, (at least half a
century old, but which were not the less touching,) and a duet of
Geminiani, performed by the two elder proficients on a spinet which
might have been among the "chamber music" of the Virgin Queen; all
slight matters to speak of, and yet which contributed to the quietude of
a mind longing for rest--sights of innocence and sounds of peace, which,
like the poet's music--

"Might take the prison'd soul
And wrap it in Elysium."

The moon shining in through panes covered with honeysuckle and fragrance
of all kinds, at length warned me that I was intruding on a household
primitive in their hours, as in every thing else, and I rose to take my
leave. But I could not be altogether parted with yet. It seems that they
had found me a most amusing guest; while, to my own conception, I had
been singularly spiritless; but the little anecdotes which were trite to
me had been novelties to them. Fashion has a charm even for
philosophers; and the freaks and follies of the high-toned sons and
daughters of fashion--who wore down my gentle mother's frame, drained my
showy father's rental, and made even myself loathe the sight of loaded
barouches coming to discharge their cargoes of beaux and belles on us
for weeks together--were nectar and ambrosia to my sportive and
rosy-cheeked audience. The five girls put on their bonnets, and looking
like a group of Titania and her nymphs, as they bounded along in the
moonlight, escorted us to the boundary of the vicar's territory.

We were about to separate, with all the pretty formalities of village
leave-taking; when their father, in the act of shaking hands with me,
fixed his eye on mine, and insisted on seeing me home. Whether the
thought occurred to him that I had still something on my mind, which was
not to be trusted within sight of a brook that formed the boundary to
the Castle grounds, I know not, but I complied; the girls were sent
homewards, and I heard their gay voices mingling, at a distance, and not
unsuitably, with the songs of the nightingale.

I took his arm, and we walked on for a while in silence. At length,
slackening his pace, and speaking in a tone whose earnestness struck me,
"Charles," said he, "has any thing peculiarly painful lately happened to
you?--if so, speak out. I know your nature to be above disguise; and
with whom can you repose your vexations, if such there be, more safely
than with your old tutor?"

I was taken unawares; and not having yet formed a distinct conception of
my own grievances, promptly denied that I had any.

"It may be so," said my friend; "and yet once or twice this evening I
saw your cheek alternately flush and grow pale, with a suddenness that
alarmed me for your health. In one of your pleasantest stories, while
you were acting the narrative with a liveliness evidently unconscious,
and giving me and mine a treat which we have not had for a long time, I
observed your voice falter, as if some spasm of soul had shot across
you; and I unquestionably saw, that rare sight in the eyes of man, a
tear."

I denied this instance of weakness stoutly; but the old man's
importunities prevailed, and, by degrees, I told him, or rather his
good-natured cross-examination moulded for me, a statement of my
anxieties at home.

The Vicar, with all his simplicity of manner, was a man of powerful and
practical understanding. He had been an eminent scholar at his
university, and was in a fair way for all its distinctions, when he
thought proper to fall desperately in love. This, of course, demolished
his prospects at once. I never heard his subsequent history in detail;
but he had left England, and undergone a long period of disheartening
and distress. Whether he had not, in those times of desolation, taken
service in the Austrian army, and even shared some of its Turkish
campaigns, was a question which I heard once or twice started at the
Castle; and a slight contraction of the arm, and a rather significant
scar which crossed his bold forehead, had been set down to the account
of the Osmanli cimeter.

* * * * *

Vincent had never told the story of either, but a rumour reached his
college of his having been seen in the Austrian uniform on the
Transylvanian frontier, during the campaigns of the Prince of Coburg and
Laudohn against the Turks. It was singular enough, that on this very
evening, in arguing against some of my whims touching destinies and
omens, he illustrated the facility of imposture on such points by an
incident from one of those campaigns.

"A friend of mine," said he, "a captain in the Lichtenstein hussars,
happened to be on the outpost service of the army. As the enemy were in
great force, and commanded by the Vizier in person, an action was daily
expected, and the pickets and videttes were ordered to be peculiarly on
the alert. But, on a sudden, every night produced some casualty. They
either lost videttes, or their patrol was surprised, or their baggage
plundered--in short, they began to be the talk of the army. The regiment
had been always one of the most distinguished in the service, and all
those misfortunes were wholly unaccountable. At length a stronger picket
than usual was ordered for the night--not a man of them was to be found
in the morning. As no firing had been heard, the natural conjecture was,
that they must all have deserted. As this was a still more disgraceful
result than actual defeat, the colonel called his officers together, to
give what information they could. The camp, as usual, swarmed with
Bohemians, fortune-tellers, and gipsies, a race who carry intelligence
on both sides; and whose performances fully accounted for the knowledge
which the enemy evidently had of our outposts. The first order was, to
clear the quarters of the regiment of those encumbrances, and the next
to direct the videttes to fire without challenging. At midnight a shot
was heard; all turned out, and on reaching the spot where the alarm had
been given, the vidette was found lying on the ground and senseless,
though without a wound. On his recovery, he said that he had seen a
ghost; but that having fired at it, according to orders, it looked so
horribly grim at him, that he fell from his horse and saw no more. The
Austrians are brave, but they are remarkably afraid of supernatural
visitants, and a ghost would be a much more formidable thing to them
than a discharge of grape-shot.

"The captain in question was an Englishman, and as John Bull is
supposed, among foreigners, to carry an unusual portion of brains about
him, the colonel took him into his special council in the emergency.
Having settled their measures, the captain prepared to take charge of
the pickets for the night, making no secret of his dispositions. At
dark, the videttes and sentries were posted as usual, and the officer
took his post in the old field redoubt, which had been the headquarters
of the pickets for the last fortnight.

"All went on quietly until about midnight; the men off duty fast asleep
in their cloaks, and the captain reading an English novel. He, too, had
grown weary of the night, and was thinking of stretching himself on the
floor of his hut, when he saw, and not without some perturbation, a tall
spectral figure, in armour, enter the works, stride over the sleeping
men without exciting the smallest movement amongst them, and advance
towards him. He drew his breath hard, and attempted to call out, but his
voice was choked, and he began to think himself under the dominion of
nightmare. The figure came nearer still, looking more menacing, and drew
its sword. My friend, with an effort which he afterwards acknowledged to
be desperate, put his hand to his side to draw his own. What was his
alarm when he found that it had vanished? At this moment his poodle,
which, against all precautions, had followed him, began barking
fiercely, and rushing alternately towards him and a corner of the
redoubt. Though his sabre was gone, a brace of English pistols lay on
the table beside him, and he fired one of them in the direction. The
shot was followed by a groan and the disappearance of the spectre. The
men started to their feet, and all rushed out in pursuit. The captain's
first step struck upon a dead body, evidently that of the spy who had
fallen by his fire. The pursuit was now joined in by the whole regiment,
who had been posted in the rear unseen, to take advantage of
circumstances. They pushed on, swept all before them, and bore down
patrol and picket until they reached the enemy's camp. The question then
was, what to do next? whether to make the best of their way back, or try
their chance onward? The Englishman's voice was for taking fortune at
the flow; and the accidental burning of a tent or two by the fugitives
showed him the Turks already in confusion. The trampling of battalions
in the rear told him at the same time that he had powerful help at hand,
and he dashed among the lines at once. The hussars, determined to
retrieve their reputation, did wonders--the enemy were completely
surprised. No troops but those in the highest state of discipline are
good for any thing when attacked at night. The gallantry of the Turk by
day, deserts him in the dark; and a night surprise, if well followed up,
is sure to end in a victory. From the random firing and shouting on
every side, it was clear that they were totally taken unawares; and the
rapid and general advance of the Austrian brigades, showed that Laudohn
was in the mind to make a handsome imperial bulletin. Day dawned on a
rout as entire as ever was witnessed in a barbarian campaign. The enemy
were flying in all directions like a horde of Tartars, and camp, cannon,
baggage, standards, every thing was left at the mercy of the pursuers."

"But the captain, the Englishman, what became of him?" I asked, slightly
glancing at the countenance of the narrator.

"Oh, very well off indeed! Foreign Governments are showy to the soldier,
and Joseph the Second, though an economist in civil matters, was liberal
to his successful officers. The captain received a pension; a couple of
orders; was made a colonel on the first opportunity; and, besides, had
his share of the plunder--no slight addition to his finances, for the
military chest had been taken in the baggage of the Seraskier."

"And by this time," said I, with an unenquiring air, "he is doubtless a
field-marshal?"

"Nothing of the kind," replied my reverend friend, "for his victory
cured him of soldiership. He was wounded in the engagement, and if he
had been ever fool enough to think of fame, the solitary hours of his
invalidism put an end to the folly. Other and dearer thoughts recurred
to his mind. He had now obtained something approaching to a competence,
if rightly managed; he asked permission to retire, returned to England,
married the woman he loved; and never for a moment regretted that he was
listening to larks and linnets instead of trumpets and cannon, and
settling the concerns of rustics instead of manoeuvring squadrons and
battalions."

"But what was the ghost, after all?"

"Oh, the mere trick of a juggler! a figure projected on the wall by some
ingenious contrivance of glasses. The instrument was found on the body
of the performer, who turned out to be the colonel's valet--of course in
the enemy's pay, and who furnished them with daily intelligence of all
our proceedings. As for the loss of the sabre, which actually startled
the ghost-seer most, he found it next morning hanging up in the hut,
where he himself had placed it, and forgotten that he had done so."

"And the captain, or rather the colonel, brought with him to England, a
cimeter-cut on his arm, and another on his forehead?" I asked, fixing my
eyes on him. A crimson flush passed over his countenance, he bit his lip
and turned away. I feared that I had offended irreparably. But his
natural kindliness of heart prevailed, he turned to me gently, laughed,
and pressing my hand in his, said, "You have my secret. It has escaped
me for the first time these thirty years. Keep it like a man of honour."

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