Chapter VI (2)

The father of George Ellis and the father of my friend were once partners in mercantile business, in a thriving town of the West. The firm was Ellis & Eagleton. It did a large business, was widely known and much respected. Mr. Ellis was a man of information and integrity, but a free liver and a man of the world. He never married. He had, however, this son, whom he seemed to love more warmly because there was a stigma upon his birth, or, perhaps, because its history was connected with associations that were painful. But whatever was the reason for his father’s blind attachment, George was humored and indulged, until, even while a child, he became the pest and terror of the neighborhood.

It is said that the offspring of illicit passion are generally marked by insanity of character. Be that as it may, it matters not here. There was enough to account for the worst traits of his disposition, in the unbridled license of his early training, and the foolish devotion of a worldly father. If ever there was an evil spirit in human shape, that spirit was George Ellis. From the very cradle the fiend showed itself. Boys of his own age fled from him as if he had been a wild beast. Eagleton, though older, was afraid of him. No one could govern him, least of all his own parent; and his reputation for mad freaks and reckless mischief soon spread far and wide, and rapidly increased as he became older. And yet with all this, with that dark, bad eye and bold air, he was as handsome a fellow as ever grew to be a man.

His father died when he was about eighteen. He died utterly bankrupt. With scrupulous honor, however, even in the excesses which had led to such a result, he had not involved his firm. On his deathbed he sent for Mr. Eagleton, told him that he died without a dollar to leave behind him, and with an earnestness which, perhaps, at such a moment, could not have been refused, committed his son to his partner’s care.

It was a terrible legacy from a ruined man. My friend’s father might have known that Mr. Ellis’s wish could not be complied with, and that it would be absolutely impossible for him to assume such a trust. It would have been happy for him if he could have felt so. It would have saved him much affliction, and have given to his life happy years that sorrow soon cut off. But the destiny was otherwise.

I never saw Mary Eagleton. I know, however, that, at the time of which I speak, she was the belle of her village, the pet and pride of her father and brother. At the date of my interview with Henry in a distant city, she was a mere shadow of what she had once been—a wreck in mind and body—oppressed with pain and increasing infirmities. These were all portions of that same fearful legacy.

Before the death of Mr. Ellis she had often seen his son. She was about his age, and had been attracted by his appearance. This was all. He was deemed a dangerous acquaintance, and a close and watchful care prevented intimacy. Now, by the last prayer of a dying parent, the profligate was brought to her very door, and sat at her very table and fireside. Her father might have prevented this, and yet have fulfilled his duty to the dead. He was blind.

They soon understood each other. But their conduct was cautious and baffled a watchfulness that was keenly awake. I need not clog my narrative with details. Her brother was away; her father could not be always near her. George was depraved and heartless, she was young and foolish. A private marriage terminated their intercourse, for the heart broken father cast the bridegroom off, at once, sternly, and forever. His wife never saw him again until, years after, in a distant city, he was brought to her bedside—an idiot. The bequest was not yet exhausted. But it might have been worse.

Ellis soon after went to sea in a merchant vessel bound for a foreign port. He was too abandoned even for such a society. On the first arrival of the ship at her destination he was set on shore. Without money, or character, yet with enough shrewdness to keep him from starving, he plunged desperately into all the temptations of a depraved city. Vice and poverty soon led to crime. It was not many months before he concealed himself, a fugitive from justice, on board of a vessel bound for his own country, and with a companion in his guilt, a Spaniard, arrived in the United States but a few days before the meeting mentioned in my friend’s letter.

A few hours after that meeting he and his companion were on their way westward. Ellis hoped to be received again. The Spaniard had nothing to lose, and some adventure in a new country might turn to his advantage. But hard want pressed them sorely. Begging was a slow and servile support. Labor was not so much as thought of. To such minds an answer to the fearful questionings of hunger was not doubtful, or long delayed. Their first adventure was the crime at ——. As Ellis turned over the letters which they had scattered in the road his eye was attracted by the address of one of them. He opened it, read it, and quietly put it in his pocket. It proved, as we have seen, the means of their arrest.

The Spaniard’s name was Antonio. I never heard any other. He was more mature than Ellis in years and in depravity. But the most striking trait of his character was one that will appear hereafter. From the moment of their arrest the prisoners preserved a dogged silence. Antonio could not speak a word of English. Ellis had his own reason for the course he pursued. The driver of the mail, whose person they had treated so unceremoniously, and who, upon their first capture, had been loud in his confidence of their identity with those who had bound him, a few days after declared that his first impressions were hasty, and declined backing his assertion by an oath. The mail which they had robbed had afforded them nothing worth having, and, at the time of their seizure, they had about them no evidence of guilt. The only grounds of suspicion against them were the fact that they were strangers; the letter found near them; their seeming alarm upon seeing the officers; their dogged and persevering silence, and their reckless and abandoned appearance.

The prisoners were confined in separate cells. The officers, who have always motives for industry appealing to them in such cases, saw, at a glance, which was the oldest and most hardened offender, and from which of them they were most likely to gain their object. Ellis was wary and knew their game, but he was without honor, and intensely selfish. His sullenness at last relaxed. He gave them, cautiously, to understand that he would convict Antonio to secure his own escape, and it was determined to use him as a witness against his accomplice.

I need not give the details of the trial. Ellis appeared in the box and gave evidence, coolly, against the accused. The Spaniard was too much a stranger to the form of the proceeding to understand the scheme at once. But light at last broke in upon him and revealed the treachery. From that moment one burning dream, overcoming all fear of punishment, and strangely composing the bitterness of solitude rested upon him. It was a delirious prayer for revenge, in a heart as malignant as was ever shut from human eye. The witness would have trembled if he could have looked within it.

The evidence was effectual. Antonio was convicted, and received the severest sentence that the law allowed—ten years imprisonment. He was taken to his cell. Ellis went at large.

A copy of Eagleton’s letter to his father had been re-mailed, several weeks after the arrest, by some person to whose hand it had come, more considerate than those who had first held it. At the foot a brief explanation was given of the circumstances which rendered it necessary to retain the original, and an apology for the delay in communicating its contents. When it reached its destination Mr. Eagleton was laboring under a second and more serious attack of the same illness which the letter mentioned. It had been brought about by mental suffering, and, so alarming were the symptoms, that his daughter had just despatched a letter to hasten her brother home.

It was at this juncture that the copy was received. As she had frequently done before since her father’s sickness, Mary opened the letter to read it aloud. It surprised her. It began as only her brother’s letters began, and yet the handwriting was not his. As she read she grew pale, her lips trembled, and at length bursting into tears, she left the room. The invalid took it from the bed, on which she had dropped it, sat up, and, much moved, read it through. The news was such as he did not wish to believe. The whole matter was singular, and with a flushed face and increased fever he dropped again upon his pillow. If it were really from his son, all reserve or secrecy toward his daughter was at an end, and all that could be done was to await her husband’s arrival.

The excitement was injurious, Mr. Eagleton became so much feebler from day to day that Mary’s greatest fear now was that her brother might not come until too late. It was as she had apprehended. Death came rapidly on, and she was alone at its crisis. In a few days she sat beside the dead body of her father, and in a few more, the only mourner, followed him to his grave.

And yet her brother did not come. Again and again she wrote to him, with an urgency which showed how lonely and unprotected she felt. There was a trial which she anticipated, and which she feared to meet without his aid. She felt assured that her first letter had not reached him, and the journey was one of many days.

A traveler arrived at last, but it was not Henry. In the hall of the mansion from which he had been thrust out with bitter curses, tattered and wretched and bleached with prison gloom, stood the outcast, the fugitive, the robber, the dishonored witness—George Ellis. His wife had pledged her word to her dying father that she would not see him again, and here he stood in her very house, her rightful husband. Her heart throbbed fearfully between returning love and religious duty. But she kept her word to the dead, refused to see him, and shutting herself in her own room, awaited the coming of her brother.

Mr. Eagleton had left a will, but it bore date before the marriage, and did not provide for the state of things which that event produced. Ellis was aware that as her husband he had legal rights, and that her father’s death had given them effect; but he was ignorant of their actual nature, and caution taught him to refrain from violence. He did not intrude upon his wife’s privacy, but, with all the coolness of villainy, he made himself at home in the house from which the dead had just been borne, and trusted to her woman’s weakness, and a love, the strength of which he knew too well, to cure her of her solitary mood.

But my friend appeared, and the face of affairs soon changed. He met Ellis on his arrival, and, surprised at his presence, soon gathered from the servants a history of what had occurred. His first impulse was to eject him forcibly, but better suggestions made him change his purpose. Without allowing them to inform his sister of his arrival, he hastened to the office of his father’s attorney and apprised himself of the precise nature of the intruder’s rights. He knew his want of money, and with a paper carefully drawn, releasing all claim to the estate of Mr. Eagleton, he returned home. He soon had an interview with Ellis, and offered him a certain sum, to be paid upon the spot, if he would sign the instrument. He refused at first, peremptorily, then asked an advance in the offer, and, at last, finding that he could do no better, put his name to the paper, coolly pocketed the money and left the house.

The estate was soon settled. Their native place was connected with associations so painful that they were glad to leave it, and in a few weeks they were quietly domiciled in the city where I found them.

It was a year, at least, after the death of Mr. Eagleton, when early one morning on the high-road leading to the village in which he had lived, the dead body of a wealthy farmer was found by some one passing by. It bore marks of violence which none could doubt. A murder had been committed.

Excitement burned in the town and in the neighborhood. Within the memory of the oldest inhabitant no similar act of violence had been committed. Suspicion first ran riot, then settled, as if by common agreement, upon George Ellis. It was not strange that conjecture should have taken that course.

Ellis did not leave the town when he last turned from the door which had twice cast him off. He remained, for the simple reason that he knew not where else to go. He lurked about its vilest places and made low friends by his ill-gotten money. But he soon lost both, and yet he stayed. No one knew how he lived. He crossed the paths of citizens in strange places and unusual hours. He went in and came out like no one else. His worst companions had shaken him off. He was the very one upon whom any crime would have been first cast.

He felt the suspicion and tried to live it down. His efforts gave it a new stimulus. He braved public opinion, sought public places, became noisy and obtrusive. Many thought this sudden change of manner justified his arrest, and so strong became at last the feeling against him that the suggestion was followed. He was seized without oath, examined without effect, and committed in the end to await his trial upon evidence that would have convicted half of the community. Public opinion is hard law.

New facts came out. The prisoner had been seen abroad much later than usual on the night before the murder. He had mentioned it to some one early on the morning after it had been committed. His manner, it was said, had been more hurried and excited for a day or two before it occurred. What a silly thing suspicion is. How easy to feed it. And yet these and a dozen other like stories were passed about by grave men in eager gossip. The net was cast and brought in of every kind.

An indictment was found; who dare have said nay. The trial drew near—it came too slowly. Yet all this while nothing serious or substantial had come to light in any way connecting Ellis with the deed.

He protested his innocence firmly and without contradiction. His counsel encouraged him. Public opinion was not to try him. The flimsy rumors that had ruled the market-house and the tavern door would be winnowed and sifted. No conviction could be had upon such testimony.

The day came, and in a court-room thronged as it had never been before, a jury was sworn with much difficulty—for few had not formed or expressed an opinion. This done, the trial proceeded.

The testimony began after a short opening. First in order, in grave detail of examination and cross-examination, came that which bore upon the finding of the body—its appearance—the wounds it showed—the opinion of medical men that such wounds caused the death, and the nature of the weapon used. It was in evidence that a small and peculiar pistol had been found not far off from the place where the murdered man lay. It had no doubt been fired close to his head, for the upper part of it was entirely blown away. The pockets had been rifled, and all that was valuable about his person had been removed.

Then followed the proof connecting the prisoner with the crime. It consisted entirely of such facts as those we have given, and even these presented with doubt and contradiction. The last witness had retired from the box, and the counsel for the state was about to close his case, when a bustle was heard in the crowd, and a pedlar with his pack upon his back, forced on by the crowd, made his way toward the bar. A bailiff stopped him, when a citizen well known in the town, and who had from the first been earnest in his voice against the accused, stepped forward and spoke to the officer. The pack was removed, and the pedlar was admitted within the enclosure in which the prosecuting attorney sat. An earnest conversation followed. Ellis and his counsel were anxious, but not more so than their professional opponent, who was a gentleman of high principle, and a humanity unusual in such a station. The latter now rose and asked permission to be absent for a short time, and taking the pistol from the table, he beckoned the new comer to follow him, and left the court-room. They were absent some twenty minutes, and when they returned the stranger was put at once into the witness box.

His story was simple, and no severity of cross-examination could baffle its force or procure a contradiction. He had sold that very pistol to the prisoner, whom he had met in the public road two days before the murder. Ellis he could not mistake—the weapon he could swear to on his deathbed. He was in the village now by accident, had come to the trial from curiosity, had made an unguarded explanation when he first saw the accused, and in spite of his unwillingness to give testimony in a case of life and death, he had been forced up by those around. This was simple, but direct and damning.

The witness had one of those heavy faces which are the most difficult to decipher. Ellis scrutinized him closely. He was confident he had never seen him before. Sick at heart, and bewildered by what he deemed a gratuitous and wanton effort to swear away his life, yet powerless in the grasp of villainy, he turned from him, and as he did so his eye fell on another face, whose glance drove the blood throbbing to his heart. It was the face of Antonio. With a fevered brow and a dry tongue he leaned toward his counsel, and hastily whispered his fears. It was too late now to ferret out a conspiracy, and when he turned again the Spaniard was gone, and that impenetrable witness stood coolly in the box awaiting his dismissal. God of compassion! he was taken in the snare.

An agony to be loose when no hand was on him; a frenzy to be free when no bars were round him. Was he going mad? Then a film came over his mind thicker—thicker. He buried his face in his hands, and the veins upon his forehead were swollen and knotted. Memories went over him like the rushing of a host.

The evidence on the part of the state now closed. None was offered on behalf of the prisoner. The counsel summed up the evidence;—the charge of the court followed;—the jury retired, soon returned, and their foreman gave in a verdict. Guilty!

Ellis had undermined his constitution by excesses. But from the instant when that word fell upon his ear a decay, far less gradual, began in mind and body. He did not faint or weep; he did not reason, resist, or complain. The withering blight of years came upon him in a few short days, but no eye saw the change.

It was some weeks after the trial that as Eagleton glanced over one of the morning papers, a paragraph met his eye which riveted his attention. It was an announcement of the execution of George Ellis, to take place in a month from that time.

He was deeply shocked. Feelings struggled in his breast that were never there before. He asked himself questions until then never suggested. Might not this result have been averted? Had his conscience no one weak point in all the history of his course toward one over whom a parent had thrown the sacred protection of a dying trust? Had they done the outcast a justice that could bear the light of humanity as well as of reason? Was there no shadow of selfishness in the motives that had twice cast him upon the world?

One duty, however, was clear. He could not let the wretched man die alone. He must see him if it were only to stand by him on the scaffold. That over, a dying parent’s prayer would no longer appeal to him, except perhaps to bury the dead out of sight.

He plead business to his sister, and started on his way. Night and day he traveled, those solemn questions still communing with his spirit. He was a deep-hearted man, and sorrow had made his sensibilities sore. Night and day—night and day. If he dreamed, George Ellis was there, straight and handsome, his dark eye softened into sympathy, and Mary on his arm—a lovely bride; and suddenly the scene changed, and a creature bloated and miserable stood upon a scaffold, with a sea of heads heaving before it, and its bloodshot gaze upon him, not in anger, but in mournful rebuke;—and again it was George Ellis.

He reached the town, and was admitted to his cell. The prisoner was pale and emaciated, and a sluggish apathy was in his air, which seemed indifference to life. He recognized Eagleton, but greeted him coldly, and declined all his proffered visits. And yet there was no resentment in his manner. The misery of life had burnt away the wished for rest and quiet sleep. Before Henry left him, however,—abruptly, and without question, but with an energy that appeared to wake up for the purpose, and a call upon God to attest his truth—he swore that he was innocent of the crime he was to expiate.

Eagleton left him in deep emotion. He busied himself at once in collecting information as to the murder, the trial, and the ground of conviction. He made diligent search for the strange witness, and strove for a pardon or reprieve. It was in vain. A sentence was a sterner thing then than now, and the verdict of twelve men more inviolable.

The day fixed for the execution arrived. It was near noon when a gloomy procession left the prison gate and wound through the opening crowd to the foot of the gallows. The scaffold bore at last the prisoner, the sheriff, a deputy, found at the last moment to relieve him from the hateful duty of taking life, a clergyman, and Eagleton. The first was still, stupid, and indifferent. No sound escaped him as his irons were removed, and his hands bound; no voice passed his lips as time was given him to bid those around farewell. The man of God knelt in prayer, then rose and fell back. The executioner approached.

My friend watched him with intense interest. He was masked. His manner was singular, and a deep excitement pervaded his movements. A strange and unaccountable suspicion of the man crept over Eagleton, he knew not why.

He raised the cap which was to shut out the world forever from the wretched being by his side. But before it rested on the head for which it was intended, he who held it seemed to have a purpose to fulfil. He leaned quickly forward, whispered in that passive ear, and for a single instant raised his mask. Eyes of fire glared from under it. It was Antonio once more. What he said no mortal knows; but if ages of burning malignity and pent passion can be distilled into one word, that word, no doubt, was in the prisoner’s ear. He started and looked up, and a shudder passed over his frame. Then, in one instant, all his apathy was gone, and he struggled like a madman to free his hands. The Spaniard saw his error, and strove to retrieve it. But the frantic exertions of the prisoner foiled him.

Eagleton himself could be passive no longer. He had seen it all, and felt that the sudden change that had passed upon Ellis was not the mere change of fear grown riotous at the last. He seized the stranger, tore off his mask, and called for aid. Quicker than thought the executioner drew a pistol from his breast and fired it. The prisoner fell upon the scaffold. He then quietly surrendered himself. As the sheriff, until now transfixed by the scene, approached and drew from the hand of his strange deputy the weapon just used, he started at its resemblance to the one which had been produced at the trial, the peculiar marks of which were strongly impressed upon his memory.

The intervention of those who could act with authority was procured. There was clearly a plot against the prisoner’s life, in which the strange witness was the first actor, and the executioner the second. Humanity rode down the sharp points of legal form. The scaffold was soon cleared. The multitude retired. The gallows fell beneath axe and hammer; and the only evidence of that stirring scene was the grass trampled by the eager crowd.

My friend next day visited Antonio in his cell. He asked after his victim, and being told that the wound was mortal, and that he was dying, made a full confession. He had escaped from his prison;—_he_ had been the murderer;—the witness was his tool;—he had gone upon the scaffold to finish his revenge, and to glut his passion with the agonies of a frightful death. It was singular, but for some reason best known to himself, he left Eagleton in ignorance of the cause of his malice, and of the crime at ——.

Ellis did not die. His wound was thought to be mortal—it was only severe. He recovered, but his mind was dead, and Eagleton took him to his own home, harmless and passive as a new-born child.

They are all gone now—the brother, the sister, and her idiot husband. The green sod has grown for years over their graves, and I tell their story in the full conviction that no heart will be wounded, and no delicacy hurt by a recital of facts which to me are full of interest.

* * * * *

LADY JANE GREY.

BY MRS. E. J. EAMES.

“So early wise?”

Lady fair! why linger’st thou?
Hearest not? they call thee now:—
Thy father’s park is filled to-day
With noble lords and ladies gay—
A princely band, with horn and spear,
Are out to hunt the fallow deer;
Put on thy graceful green array
And hie thee to the chase away,
Lord Guilford Dudley waits below,
Lady, close the book and go!

What! bending still above the page?
Doth _it_ thy woman-thoughts engage?
Is it ancient Plato’s classic lore
Thine eager eye is poring o’er?
Well may old Roger Ascham smile
To see thee sit amid that pile
Of musty tomes, and gravely ask
Which study next must be thy task.
Methinks he pierced futurity
When he bade thee scorn earth’s vanity!

Lady fair! go forth to-night—
The royal halls are glittering bright,
Quick—don this gorgeous robe of state—
Northumberland will on thee wait.
Wreathe the crown jewels on thy brow,
And gem with these thy neck of snow:
Now fasten down this diamond zone—
So—there thou’rt ready, trembling one!
The festival is made for thee—
Come—join the queenly pageantry!

Oh, loveliest lady! turn not pale—
Why should thy lofty courage fail?
See England’s proudest chivalrie
Wait at thy feet to bend the knee—
To raise thee to the Tudor’s throne
Their duty, and their hearts thine own!
Even haughty Mary boweth low
And offereth thee her loyal vow—
Noble and prince thy claim have owned—
Lo! there thou standest crowned and throned.

The Tower!—a cell in yon gray tower
Is the price of Edward’s fatal dower!
A bloody doom is on thee cast—
The sentence for thy death hath passed!
Yea, death for one so young and fair—
Yet wearest thou no look of care:
Still on thy book thine eye is bent,
Bespeaking wisdom and content—
Wo! that on cold Ambition’s shrine
Is sacrificed a mind like thine.

Come, lady, come! the muffled bell
Is tolling now thy husband’s knell!
Another hour, and there will be
No earthly care for him or thee!
Go—all undimmed in thy beauty go—
With holy truth upon thy brow:
A lot of glittering wretchedness
Is well exchanged for Heaven’s own bliss;
Thou’st won the martyr’s crown and wreath—
Joy to thee, peerless bride of Death!

* * * * *

THE YOUNG PAINTER.

A TALE.

BY MRS. JANE L. SWIFT.

Among the vast number of individuals continually visiting the regions of the old world, how few are prepared by an enlightened education and a cultivated taste, to appreciate its strong claims upon the admiration of the traveler. A love of the beautiful in nature, and a veneration for the ancient in art, may combine to give a glowing interest to each step that is taken upon the soil of older climes; but to minds that feel how much we owe to the early annals of those climes—how the accumulated treasures of historic lore have pointed out the quicksands of legislation—how experience has sounded its alarm from the rocks upon which nation after nation has struck and gone down; to minds that feel how time has traced upon the chart of the world’s destiny a warning record for those that come after—the government and institutions, the splendor and the decay, the rise and the downfall of the countries over which they wander, cannot fail to awaken the deepest interest, and to imbue with the holiness of truth the associations that must continually arise. It is one thing to have read the history of a country—to have a knowledge of its successive kings, emperors, or rulers; to know the results of its convulsions and its battles; to be able to date the events that have crowned with glory or branded with ignominy its name—and it is another thing to have digested the information thus obtained; to have acquired a succinct view of the bearing of social and political institutions upon the genius of the people existing under them; and to have become acquainted with the predominant influences which conducted that country to its ascent, or hastened it to its decline. A noble structure is left for us to gaze upon; a relic of by-gone ages, full of rents and fissures, and bearing upon its time-worn towers the ivy of decay. It speaks to us of the course of empire, of the march of intellect, of the sway of mind, of the abuse of power, of the horrors of war, of the extinction of nations. It stands as a beacon to enlighten the world’s rulers; to teach them that what has been shall be; and to display its warning torch for the Future in the history of the Past.

History is to the mental what Revelation is to the spiritual vision. The former clears away the darkness which rests upon our perceptions with regard to the well-being and destiny of nations; the latter dispels the cloud which hangs over the unevangelized world with regard to the well-being and destiny of man. It does not require a moment’s thought to be convinced, that he who visits classic ground with a mind conversant with and delighting in the glowing pages of ancient lore, will experience an enjoyment tenfold to that of him who finds all things new, and who, content with the attraction of novelty, neither knows nor cares to know of the mighty deeds that have cursed or consecrated its soil. True, there are sunny landscapes smiling for him, and works of art beautiful in their decay around him; but they cannot be to him as familiar things, for he had perchance never heard of their existence until he gazed upon them. The charm of association can beautify and hallow the most barren spot. What may it not do, then, when its golden hue is cast upon the monuments of former greatness—monuments crumbling to their fall, but speaking of a people, and of a grandeur, which centuries ago had passed away.

Thoughts like these were floating through the mind of a young traveler, as he gazed out of the window of the post chaise that was rapidly approaching the place of his destination. He was the eldest son of a wealthy English commoner, who, having traced in the early years of his child the bright promise of a noble intellect, had assiduously applied himself to its cultivation and improvement. A man of no inconsiderable literary attainment himself he could fully appreciate the advantages of a highly finished education, and as the mind of his son daily developed its natural endowments, it became his delight and pride to direct that young mind in its pursuit of knowledge. As Arthur Melburn advanced toward manhood, the energies of his nature seemed concentrated upon the all-absorbing love of study; and in the classic writers of Greece and Rome, he found a never failing source of interest and of pleasure. A sojourn in those regions of former splendor had been from boyhood the brightest day-dream of his young spirit; and often had that spirit taken its airy flight among the scenes described by the matchless pens of Grecian and Roman historians. In the noble, heart-stirring legends of ancient Rome, he learned to feel a veneration for the clime and for the people which had been marked out for such exalted destinies; while in the shade of the academic grove he bent with profound admiration before the master-minds of philosophers and sages. Upon his return from the University of Cambridge, at the age of three-and-twenty, he set out upon his long anticipated tour, well prepared to enjoy and to appreciate the beautiful in nature, the wonderful in art, and the mighty in mind.

Unlike the generality of earth’s gifted ones, Arthur Melburn possessed a well balanced, well regulated judgment, with a discretion beyond his years. Yet, as every character must have its own tinge of imperfection, he possessed that chilling reserve of disposition which characterizes his nation, and was too prone to seek his enjoyment in himself, without due regard to the claims of those around him. This feeling, so apt to degenerate into confirmed selfishness, had frequently been the subject of earnest expostulation between the father and son; but not until Arthur Melburn had visited the gay _salons_ of Paris, and the still gayer coteries of Vienna, was he aware how unpopular and repulsive such an _abord_ must be. The conviction thus forced upon him, soon wrought a change in the young Englishman’s address; and although the “so far shalt thou come and no further” of old England still clung to him, yet he was in every respect the accomplished scholar, the courteous and polished man.

It was a bright and lovely day in October, such an one as gives elasticity to the frame, and tinges the cheek with a ruddier glow. The sun was declining in the heavens, and streaks of golden light fell upon the landscape, which met the traveler’s eye as he reached the heights near Boccano, and looked for the first time upon the domes and towers of Rome. It is not easy to describe the varied associations that poured their tide of hallowed memories into his mind. He was not an enthusiast. He was one who felt deeply, although he felt calmly; yet an attentive observer might have marked a faint flush pass over his brow, while the veins of his temples swelled, and his eye dilated as he gazed.

A young Italian had been his companion on the route from Florence, and our traveler had become singularly interested in his new acquaintance. He was a native of Rome, possessing all the fire and passionate ardor of that clime, combined with a melancholy that seemed ill-suited to his years. He was slight, and of small stature, but with a countenance of intellectual beauty that could not be surpassed. The rich, glossy curls fell upon a brow as white as ivory; and the dark eye gleamed from beneath that brow as if it would pierce into your soul. But his cheek was very, very pale, and the chiselled lips had lost their ruby hue. He was evidently in declining health, and Arthur Melburn felt his heart warm toward the unknown but interesting companion of his journey.

“The air is chilly, too chilly I fear for you,” said Melburn kindly; “let me draw up the window, or else change seats with me.”

“Thank you,” replied the young Italian, “the air does me good—it strengthens me; and see,” he added, “we are nearly at our journey’s end.”

“I trust,” returned Melburn with a smile, “that the acquaintance so agreeably commenced between us may not be discontinued upon our arrival in Rome. I anticipate making a stay of many weeks there, and it will give me unfeigned satisfaction to renew our intercourse.”

A crimson flush passed over the pallid cheek of the Italian as he warmly grasped Melburn’s hand and said, “Yes, yes, I have felt my spirit yearn toward you with an unaccountable sympathy. I have loved but few, and fewer still have cared for me. Yours is a brighter and a happier destiny than mine. What have you to gain by knowing me? Yet I would gladly look upon you as a friend—indeed, indeed I would.”

Melburn cordially pressed the feverish hand within his own; and giving his address to the Italian, asked for his in return.

“My name is Giovanni Rosa, and—”

The Englishman uttered an exclamation of surprise, and said, “You are not, then, entirely unknown to me. I have heard of you as the most promising of the young painters of Italy.”

“Ah!” sighed the Italian, “to win immortality for the name of Giovanni Rosa would reconcile me to life, barren and blasted as it is.”

“You are too young to speak thus despondingly of life, Signor Rosa; believe me, all have their peculiar trials, and with an honorable career before you, these trials should be met and overcome. We will talk of this hereafter.”

The carriage stopped; Melburn alighted at the door of his hotel, and, after arranging an interview for the morrow, the two newly made friends separated.

It was a great disappointment to our young traveler to find, upon his arrival at Rome, that his uncle’s family, which he had expected to meet there, had left but a week or two before. He was to have joined their party; but, owing to the miscarriage of his letters, they had proceeded on their journey, leaving information for him that they should soon retrace their steps, and probably pass the winter in Rome. After some deliberation, Melburn concluded that it was as well for him to remain and wait their return, although his heart beat more quickly as he thought of his long anticipated meeting with his beautiful cousin, Alice Templeton, whom he had not seen for more than a year. He had cherished a preference for her from early boyhood; but as they had met rarely, and then at long intervals, that preference had not yet acquired the strength of love. Yet there were pure, sweet memories connected with her; for in childhood he had often smoothed her golden curls as her little head lay upon his bosom, and in later years he had seen the mantling blush overspread her countenance, as he pressed the kiss of meeting or of parting upon her brow. But he was in Rome—this reconciled him to the delay; and as his mind wandered back again to its treasured lore, he felt that he trod the courts of a temple consecrated to dead empires, and that the very dust beneath his feet was hallowed.

Accompanied by the enthusiastic Italian, with what exquisite satisfaction did he visit the ruined monuments of the ancient mistress of the world, the queen of nations! How time flew by, as from spot to spot he traced the steps of desolation and decay; and when memory reverted to the three hundred triumphs that had been celebrated within the walls of the seven-hilled city, he felt how hollow and frail a thing was the pageantry of earth. The empty sepulchres, the ruined temples, the mouldering arches, the tottering piles—these were but the scattered fragments of Rome’s glory; the broken and tarnished jewels of her matchless crown.

It was on a mild, beautiful afternoon, about a month after his arrival, that Arthur Melburn sat alone in the studio of the young painter. They had made an engagement to visit the Coliseum together by moonlight; and Melburn, not finding him at home, concluded to wait for his return. As he looked upon the pictures which the glowing pencil of Rosa had traced upon the canvas, he saw how each bore the stamp of the wild beauty that characterized the mind of the painter. In his designs there was a dreamy mystery and gloom that seemed to cast a shadow upon the sunny tints; and made you feel as if storm and calm, hope and despair, were struggling for the mastery. One picture, a mere sketch, soon attracted the attention of Melburn. There was a wild torrent rushing over dark and pointed rocks. Upon one side of the stream was a towering oak whose leaves were still green and luxuriant, although it had been riven to its very centre by the thunderbolt; while its scorched and blackened trunk stood in strong contrast with the fresh verdure that surrounded it. Upon the stream, where all was calm, there floated a little bark, moored safely in its glassy haven, with a female figure reclining listlessly at its prow; while, driving on among the rocks and whirlpools, and hurrying to destruction, was another boat, in which knelt the figure of a man. His face was turned toward the serene and quiet haven, but he was not aware of the perils that surrounded him; for his gaze was riveted upon that vision of beauty, and the oar, fallen from his hand, had already been carried over the edge of the fearful torrent. Melburn was so intent contemplating the powerful effect produced by the lights and shades of the painter’s pencil, that he did not notice his entrance until he stood with folded arms beside him.

“It is thus with life, is it not, Melburn?” murmured the soft, low tones of Giovanni. “A few sunny hours upon the glassy bosom of its stream, and then the threatening waves and foaming surges bear us wildly on. In the distance is some bright vision—the Egeria of our hearts—embodying all that youth, and hope, and love can sigh for. Alas! the unattained; how it woos and mocks, but to woo and mock again. We are but the sport of destiny; and as that destiny grows dim and dark, fate looks on with a smile, and we are hurried into the still waters of oblivion.”

Melburn turned his calm eye upon the excited countenance of the speaker. “Giovanni, life is indeed a troubled stream, and man is launched in a frail bark upon its waves; but the means to stem those waves, and to guide that bark, are given him, and if those means be cast aside, why call it destiny that hurries him to destruction? Your matchless picture has called up stern and solemn thoughts. Look at it, Giovanni; the oars are fallen overboard, the rudder is useless at the helm, the compass vibrates, but meets not the eye it was given to guide. Is the recklessness that suffers the vessel with its priceless freight to near the torrent’s brink—is that recklessness destiny?”

“Are we not what we are, Melburn, by an inevitable necessity? Can I change the course of events, which in themselves are fixed and unalterable? As soon may you gather up the burning fluid of the thunderbolt in your hand, as arrest or turn aside the decrees of fate.”

“Look, Giovanni; since you have entered, the heavens are darkened by an approaching tempest. Yonder spire out-tops the surrounding buildings, and presents a mark for the lightning’s unerring aim. But see! upon its point there is an iron rod, and that rod can preserve the magnificent structure from desolation. Would it be well to leave it unprotected, and call it destiny that would at some future day make it a heap of smouldering ruins?”

“No,” replied the Italian despondingly; “but man, man is ever fulfilling _his_ unalterable destiny.”

“You are only a superficial disciple of the fatalists,” answered Melburn, smiling; “for you have failed to cultivate the equanimity and indifference to fate which they teach. Believe me, dear Giovanni, man is not a puppet in the hands of fate. He is a rational, accountable being, destined for immortality; dependent, I admit, upon a wise over-ruling Providence for the allotment of good or evil in this life; but he may of his own free will abuse the good to his destruction, or make the evil profitable to his improvement. As the warm breeze of the south enervates the frame it blows upon, so would a life without trial rob manhood of the discipline that braces and nerves the soul to godlike strength. As each difficulty or disappointment comes upon us, we should strive to hear the voice that spoke to Constantine in his memorable vision, ‘In this, overcome.’”

The Italian grasped the hand of Melburn; “Speak on,” he murmured, “for your words fall in gentle tones upon my heart, and the slumbering memories of other years, when a mother’s voice lulled me to repose, are crowding upon my soul. Speak on, for holier thoughts come at your bidding—thoughts of a being who was not always shrouded in blackness and tempest—thoughts long buried in the ashes of a consuming ambition and a hopeless love. Yet there are moments, Melburn, when a ‘still small voice’ is heard above the storm of earthly passions, and the weary spirit yearns to catch the blessed accents as they fall; but the blast sweeps on, and the voice is drowned in the contending din.”

“It is your misfortune, Giovanni, to possess the keen sensibilities, and the finely strung nerves of genius. You worship the beautiful, and you feel the slightest discord in the harmony of your emotions with an intensity unknown to mankind in general. You perceive quickly, you appreciate vividly, you love passionately. But the pearls of existence are strung upon a slender thread, and the anxious grasp that would secure, too often scatters them in the dust. You are a child of impulse, and the same fire that kindles the flame of ambition within your soul, is searing your spirit with its fervid glow. If the dew of heaven water the parched flower, it will bloom again; and the dew of a better, purer hope will revive the blossom of happiness in your heart, Giovanni.”

“Never! never! the wilted flower may revive, but when the worm has been busy at the root, what then?”

“The broken spirit may lean upon Omnipotence, Giovanni. He who holds in his hands the destinies of worlds, and whose infinite mind originated the eternal mysteries of the universe, he supports the sparrow on the wing, and it falls not to the ground without his knowledge. Shall man, the most glorious of his works, the image of himself, the denizen of immortality, shall man pine under the weight of his earthly fetters, and find no ark of refuge? Forbid it, Heaven!”

A silence of some minutes ensued, and a burning drop fell upon Melburn’s hand, which was clasped in that of the Italian.

The rain, which had been falling in torrents, ceased, the clouds cleared away, and the last rays of the setting sun streamed in bright effulgence as it sank to its repose. Slowly faded the gorgeous tints that had robed the sky in glory, and as the drapery of heaven darkened in its hue, here and there a faint star peeped out, and then the full-orbed moon shed her pure and mystic light upon the scene. At this moment, beneath the window where they sat, appeared a young Italian girl, who, after gazing for an instant upon the face of Giovanni, struck with a master-touch the guitar which she held, and poured forth, in a voice of exquisite melody, the following wild strain:—

Weep, weep for the cheek that has paled ’neath the kiss
Given by thee;
Weep, weep for the past, with its moments of bliss,
Once shared by me.

Weep, weep for the sinless, who cast her heart’s pearl
On love’s purest shrine;
Thine, thine was the altar upon which it lay—
The offering was mine.

Smile, smile for the transplanted flower that blooms—
It blooms not for thee;
There’s death in the poisonous incense it breathes—
To thee and to me.

Weep, weep that the shroud, with its lily-white hue,
Must ere long be mine;
Aye, weep for the destiny, blighting and drear,
That made my heart thine.

The next moment she had disappeared, and Melburn turned to look at Giovanni. His head was bowed upon his hand, and he breathed quickly, as if overpowered by suppressed emotion. There was a long and heavy pause. “Melburn,” said he at last, “have you ever loved?”

A stern, cold expression passed over the countenance of the young Englishman, which did not escape the quick eye of Rosa, and he resumed; “A portion of the veil has been lifted which hides from you the secret of my unhappiness. Despise me not, Melburn, when I tell you that I have ceased to love _her_. Why, why was I born to bring blight upon others as well as upon myself? Left an orphan at an early age, penniless and friendless, I have struggled thus far through life, just earning the bread that supports me. Burning with an ambition to excel in the godlike art I worship, I have drained but one or two scanty drops of fame for years of intense study. I have seen influence and patronage draw out of obscurity talent less deserving than mine, while I have been left to grovel in the dust of neglect and poverty. With bitterness of spirit I have tasted the injustice of the world, and its bought smiles have withered almost to the root the hopes that I dared to cherish. In the midst of my loneliness and sorrow there beamed a vision of comfort upon my soul; and the impassioned being, whose song just met your ear, wreathed a charm around my heart which I mistook for love. You of a colder clime know not the fearful fire that gives intensity to every emotion, and makes the life-blood rush with the impetuosity of a torrent. Conventional prejudices would make you judge harshly of the love that overpowers reason, propriety, and prudence; but Bianca was a child of nature, and in loving me, she cast all her heart’s treasure into my arms. We were both poor—we could not marry; but she was to have been my wife. Fate threw in my way another from your own cold clime. Ah, the beautiful! how I worshiped it in her. We met at the Vatican, where she was copying a sketch by Rubens. A celebrated painter introduced me to her. She visited my pictures, and the meed of approval that fell from her lips sank into my soul. She was gentle, with all the winning gentleness of woman; but the chaste snow was not more cold. I gazed upon her beauty as we gaze upon a pure and distant star; and as each speaking lineament told of elevated desires, and proud aspirations, I bent in adoration at her shrine, and laid my offering there. We had met frequently; and although I feared that my love was hopeless, still I could not tear myself from the fascination of her presence. She saw, with a woman’s quick perception, that I loved her deeply; and she strove to destroy by coldness the illusion that might be fatal to my peace. I could not bear it; it was better to know the worst. We were left alone one evening, and with trembling lips and incoherent words, I strove to tell her of my love. She did not suffer me to proceed, but kindly took my hand in hers and said, ‘Signor Rosa, from childhood my heart has been another’s.’ Darkness came over me, and the sable pall will never be drawn aside.”