Chapter VI: Part 6

Some appearance of coldness, which he saw, or fancied he saw, in her conduct towards him, caused his proud and pure nature to shrink back from the vulgar competition which he saw going forward for the hand of “the heiress.” It was not that the fondest wishes of his heart were met with disappointment—perhaps he could have endured that—but he writhed under the reflection, that external circumstances should separate hearts that once were allied, and that no conscious purity of feeling, no hope of hereafter distinguishing himself by his abilities, was of avail against the selfish and worldly philosophy which dictated his rejection. It was only left for him to retire into the chambers of his own thoughts, and there form such solemn resolutions for improving his circumstances and distinguishing his character, as might hereafter, perhaps, enable him to prove to the cold being who now despised him, how worthy, how more than worthy, perhaps, he was of having enjoyed her affections, even upon the mean calculations by which he was now measured and found wanting.

The mother, to whom this rupture was chiefly owing, now applied herself heartily to the grand task of getting her daughter “properly disposed of.” Every month or so, her house was turned topsy-turvy, for the purpose of showing off the young lady in gay assemblies. Care was taken that no one should be invited to these assemblies who was merely of their own rank. Unless some capture could be made in a loftier, or what appeared a loftier circle, it was all as nothing. The human race hang all in a concatenation at each other’s skirts, those before kicking with all their might to drive off those behind them, at the same time that they are struggling might and main, despite of corresponding kicks, to hold fast, and pull themselves up by means of their own predecessors. This is particularly the case where a mother has a daughter to dispose of with the reversion of a few thousands. Money under these circumstances, as already explained, would be absolutely thrown away if given only to a person who estimated it at its ordinary value; it must be given to one who will appreciate it as it ought to be, and sell pounds of free-will and honourable manhood for shillings of the vile dross. At length, at a ball held in the Archers’ Hall—a kind of Almack’s in the east—the very man was met with—a genteel young spark, said to be grand-nephew to a baronet in the north, and who was hand in glove with the Greigsons, a family of _quis quis_ gentility in the New Town, but who loomed very large in the eyes of a person dwelling in the south side. This fellow, a mere loose adventurer, whose highest destiny seemed to be to carry a pair of colours if he could get them, and who positively had no claims upon consideration whatsoever, except that he kept a decent suit of clothes upon his back, and was on terms of intimacy with a family supposed to belong to the _haut ton_—this poor unanealed wretch, recommended by impudence and a moustache, which he amiably swore he would take off when married, gained the prize from which the modest merit of Russell was repelled. In a perfect fluster of delight with the attentions he paid to her daughter, terrified lest he should change his mind, or any unforeseen event prevent the consummation so devoutly to be wished, the managing mother presented no obstruction to the courtship. “Such a genteel young man!” she would say to her husband. “He is greatly taken out in good company. Just the night before last, he was at the Honourable Mrs ——’s party in Oman’s Rooms. He danced with Miss Forster, the great heiress, who, they say, is distractedly in love with him. But he says she has naething like the elegant carriage o’ our ’Liza. Indeed, between you and me, says he, jokingly, to me the other day, she’s splay-footed. He could make his fortune at once, you see, however, and I’m sure it’s really extraordinary o’ him to particulareese the like o’ us in the way he’s doing”—and so forth. The old man sat twirling his thumbs and saying nothing, but having his own fears all the time that all was not really gold that glittered. He was, however, one of those people who, upon habit and principle, never say a single word about any speculative thing that is proposed to them, till the result has been decided, and then they can tell that they all along thought it would turn out so. It was untelling the prescience and wisdom that old Farney believed himself to be thus possessed of. Suffice it to say, the managing mother, within the month, made out a mittimus of destruction in favour of her daughter, Eliza Farney, spinster, consigning her to the custody of William Dempster, Esq., blackguard by commission, and downdraught by destiny.

The fortune of Miss Farney was not exactly of the kind that suited Mr Dempster’s views. It was only payable after the death of her father. Mr Dempster, therefore, saw it to be necessary to take expedients for obtaining the use of it by anticipation. He commenced a large concern in some mercantile line, obtaining money in advance from the old gentleman, in order to set the establishment on foot. He also procured his signature to innumerable bills, to enable him to carry it on. The business, in reality, was a mere mask for obtaining the means of supporting his own depraved tastes and appetites. There was hardly any kind of extravagance, any kind of vice, which he did not indulge in at the expense of old Farney. The result was what might be expected from such premises. Exactly a twelvemonth after the marriage, Dempster stopped payment, and absconded without so much as even taking leave of his wife. His folly and profligacy together had already absorbed the whole fortune with which Mr Farney had retired from business, besides a good deal more for which the unfortunate old man was security. He was in consequence totally ruined, left destitute in old age, without the least resource; while the young elegant female, who a short year before was the admiration and envy of glittering circles, had just become a mother, upon the bed which only waited for her convalescence to be sold for behoof of her husband’s creditors.

Farney found refuge—and considered himself most fortunate in finding it—in a beneficiary institution for decayed citizens, of which he had himself, in better days, been one of the managers, but which he did not live long to enjoy. His wife, about the same time, died of one of those numberless and varied diseases which can only be traced to what is called a broken heart. The daughter—the unhappy, and, in a great measure, guiltless victim of her wretched ambition—had no eventual resource, for the support of herself and her infant, but to open a small school, in which she taught female children the elements of reading, writing, and sewing. The striking infelicity of her fate, joined to her own well-known taste and industrious habits, in time obtained for her considerable patronage in this humble occupation; and she would eventually have been restored to something like comfort, but for the unhallowed wretch whose fate had become identified with her own. Where this fellow went, or how he subsisted, for the three years during which he was absent, no one ever knew. He was heard to talk of the smugglers in the Isle of Man, but it can only be surmised that he joined that respectable corps. One day, as Mrs Dempster sat in the midst of her little flock of pupils, the door was opened, and in crawled her prodigal husband, emaciated, travel-worn, and beggar-like, with a large black spot upon one of his cheeks, the result of some unimaginably low and scoundrelly brawl. The moment she recognised him, she fainted in her chair; the children dispersed and fled from the house, like a flock of chickens at sight of the impending hawk; and when the unfortunate woman recovered, she found herself alone with this transcendant wretch, the breaker of the peace of her family, the murderer of her mother. He accosted her in the coolest manner possible, said he was glad to see her so comfortably situated, and expressed an anxiety for food and liquor. She went with tottering steps to purvey what he wanted; and while she was busied in her little kitchen, he sat down by her parlour fire, and commenced smoking from a nasty black pipe, after the manner of the lowest mendicants. When food and drink were set before him, he partook of both with voracious appetite. Mrs Dempster sat looking on in despair, for she saw that the presence of this being must entirely blight the pleasant scene which her industry had created around her. She afterwards said, however, that she could have perhaps overlooked all, and even again loved this deplorable wretch, if he had inquired for his child, or expressed a desire to see him. He did neither—he seemed altogether bent on satisfying his own gross appetites. After spending a few hours in sulky unintermitted smoking and drinking, he was conveyed to a pallet in the garret, there to sleep off his debauch.

It were needless to go through all the distressing details of what ensued. Dempster henceforth became a _downdraught_ on his wife. This forlorn woman often confessed to her friends that she was perfectly willing to support her husband, provided he would be but content with the plain fare she could offer him, and just walk about and do nothing. But he was not of a temper to endure this listlessness. He required excitement. Instead of quietly spending his forenoons in the arbour, called _the Cage_, in the Meadows, among decayed military pensioners, and other harmless old men, he prowled about the crowded mean thoroughfares, drinking where he could get liquor for nothing, and roistering in companies of the most debased description. He incurred debts in all directions on the strength of his wife’s character, and she was necessarily compelled to liquidate them. The struggles which she at this time made were very great. Like the mother of Gray the poet, she endured all kinds of ill usage, and persevered under every difficulty to give her son a respectable education, in order that he might have an opportunity of wiping away the stains of his father’s vices, and be a comfort to his mother in the decline of life. To do this, and at the same time continue paying the vile debts of her profligate husband, was altogether impossible. She exhausted the beneficence, and even tired the pity of her friends. It need hardly be mentioned, that the creditors of a husband have an undeniable claim upon the effects of his wife. It unfortunately happened that the wretches with whom Dempster contracted his debts, were as worthless as himself. After draining every resource which his wife could command, he summed up his villainy by giving a promissory note for fifteen pounds to one of his lowest associates. It is supposed that he struck the bargain for a couple of guineas, for with this sum he again absconded from Edinburgh, and, taking his way to Greenock, shipped himself on board of a vessel for America. At first, his wife was thankful for the relief; she again breathed freely; but her joy was soon turned into mourning. The promissory note made its appearance; she had just scraped up and paid her rent; she had not therefore a farthing in the world. In a fortnight, the whole of her effects were sold upon distraint. She was turned to the street a second time, almost bent to the dust with the burden of her miseries. The first night she received shelter in the house of a respectable “much-tried” widow, who was the only person she could freely speak to about her destitute condition. Next day, by the advice of this good woman, she took a room in the neighbourhood, and endeavoured to gather together her pupils, who, it seems, did not desert her, but took a deep interest in her misfortunes. She had also the good fortune to get her boy into one of the educational hospitals, and she therefore expressed herself thankful for the mercies she still received.

An interval of many years now occurs in the story of Mrs Dempster, during which she heard nothing of her husband, except a rumour that he was drowned on a lumbering excursion in the rapids of the St Lawrence. Through the influence of her pitiable tale and real merit, she obtained the situation of superintendant of a large public seminary for young ladies in a country town. Here she lived in peace, comfort, and honour, for some years, till she had almost forgot that ever such a wretch as Dempster existed. What was her horror one day, when, as she was entertaining a large party of respectable people at tea, the demon of her fate stood once more before her, not the mere squalid beggar which he formerly appeared, but a concentration of blackguardism and shabbiness, of utterly ruined and broken-down humanity, such as was never perhaps surpassed, even in the sinks of London and Parisian vice. There was now more than mendicancy in his aspect—there was robbery, murder, and every kind of desperate deed. The wan face, blackened and battered with bruises and wounds—the troubled eye, bespeaking the troubled spirit—the ropy, sooty attire, through which peeped the hardly whiter skin—the feet bare, and ulcerated with walking—every thing told but one tale of unutterable sin and misery. The guests shrunk aghast from this hideous spectre, and the hostess shrieked outright. Little regarding the alarm which he had occasioned, he exclaimed, in a hollow and scarcely earthly voice, “Give me meat—give me drink—give me clothing—I am destitute of all; there you sit in enjoyment of every luxury, while your husband, who is flesh of your flesh, has not known what it is to eat heartily, or to be covered from the piercing wind, for weeks and months. Shrink not from me. Wretched as I seem, I am still your husband. Nothing on earth can break that tie. Meat, I say—drink—I am in my own house, and will be obeyed. For you, gentles, get you gone; your company is not now agreeable.” The company dispersed without farther ceremony, leaving the unhappy woman alone with her husband.

Next day, the stranger appeared abroad in a decent suit of clothes, and Mrs Dempster seemed to have recovered a little of her equanimity. Every sacrifice, however, which she could make for this wretch, was in vain, or only encouraged him to demand greater indulgences. An unlimited supply of liquor in his own house would not satisfy him. He required large sums wherewith to treat all the _canaille_ of the town. Entreaties, indulgences, every thing that could be devised to gratify him, were unavailing to impress him with a sense of his wife’s situation. He intruded his unhallowed front into her school, and insulted her before her pupils. Those who laughed at his antics he would seize by the shoulders, and turn out of doors. He had also a most perverse desire of pushing himself into her presence, whenever he thought she was conversing with any of her employers, before whom an observance of propriety and decorum was most particularly necessary. Indeed, he just delighted to do exactly what his wife wished him not to do, the grand object of his low mind being to show how much he had her comfort and welfare in his power. At length, with every feeling of respect for Mrs Dempster, her employers, the magistrates, found it necessary to inform her, that they could not permit her to retain the school any longer under such circumstances, as it was threatened with utter annihilation by the gradual diminution of the number of pupils. She proposed to her husband to allow him regularly the full half of her earnings, if he would only stay in some other place, and never again intrude upon her. But he scorned to be bought off, as he said. He insisted rather upon her giving up the school, and accompanying him to Edinburgh, where, with the little sum she had saved, and what besides they could raise by the sale of her superfluous furniture, he would enter into business on his own account, and she should never again be obliged to work for either herself or for him. The poor woman had no alternative. She was compelled to abandon the scene, where for so many years she had enjoyed the comforts of life and the respect of society, in order to be dragged at the chariot wheels, or rather at the cart’s tail, of her husband’s vices and fortunes, through scenes to which she shuddered to look forward.

In the capital, Dempster’s design of entering into business, if he ever seriously entertained it, was no more talked of. Fleshed once again with a taste of his former indulgences, he rushed headlong into that infamous career, which already had twice ended in voluntary banishment. His wife’s finances were soon exhausted; but, with the barbarity of a demon taskmaster, he would every day leave her with a threat, which she but too well knew he would execute, of beating her, if she should not be able to produce next morning a sum necessary for the gratification of his wretched appetites. It was now in vain to attempt that mode of subsistence by which she had hitherto supported herself. So long as she was haunted by this evil genius, _that_ was impracticable. By the interest, however, of some of her former friends, she obtained a scanty and precarious employment for her needle, by which she endeavoured to supply the cravings of her husband, and her own simpler wants. From morning early, through the whole day, and till long after midnight, this modest and virtuous woman would sit in her humble lodging, painfully exerting herself at a tedious and monotonous task, that she might be able to give to her husband in the morning that sum, without which she feared he would only rush into greater mischief, if not into absolute crime. No vigils were grudged, if she only had the gratification at last of seeing him return. Though he often staid away the whole night, she never could permit herself to suppose that he would do so again, but she would sit bending over her work, or, if she could work no more from positive fatigue, gazing into the dying embers of her fire, watching and watching for the late and solitary foot, which, by a strange exertion of the sense, she could hear and distinguish long ere any sound would have been perceptible to another person. Alas, for the sleepless nights which woman so often endures for the sake of her cruel helpmate! Alas, for the generous and enduring affection which woman cherishes so often for the selfish heart by which it is enslaved!

A time at length arrived when the supplies purveyed by Mrs Dempster from her own earnings were quite incompetent to satisfy this living vampire. She saw him daily rush from her presence, threatening that he would bring her to the extremity of disgrace by the methods he would take to obtain money. She lived for weeks in the agonising fear that the next moment would bring her news of some awful crime committed by his hand, and for which he was likely to suffer the last penalty of the law. She hardly knew who or what were his associates; but occasionally she learned, from mutterings in his sleep, that his practices were of the most flagitious and debased kind. He seemed to be the leader or director of a set of wretches who made a livelihood by midnight burglary. At length, one day he came home at an unusual hour, accompanied by three strangers, with whom he entered into conversation in the next room. Between that apartment and the room in which he was sitting, there was a door, which, being never used, was locked up. Through the thin panels, she overheard a scheme laid for entering the house of ——, a villa in the neighbourhood, in order to rob the tenant, whom they described as a gentleman just returned from the East Indies, with a great quantity of plate and other valuables. One of the persons in conference had visited the house, through the kindness of a servant, to whom he had made up as a sweetheart; and he therefore was able to lead the attack through such a channel as rendered success almost certain. “The nabob,” said this person, “sleeps in a part of the house distant from the room in which his boxes are for the present deposited. But should he attempt to give us any disturbance, we have a remedy for that, you know.” And here the listener’s blood ran cold at hearing a pistol cocked. From all that she could gather, her husband was only to keep watch at the outside of the house, while the rest should enter in search of the booty. It is impossible to describe the horror with which she heard the details of the plot. Her mind was at first in such a whirl of distracted feeling, that she hardly knew where she stood; but as the scheme was to be executed that very evening, she saw it necessary to exert herself quickly and decisively, and, therefore, she immediately went to the house of a friend, and wrote an anonymous note to the person most concerned, warning him of a design (she could use no more specific language) which she knew was entertained against a certain part of his property, and recommending him to have it removed to some more secure part of his house. To make quite sure of this note being delivered in time, she took it herself to the gate, and left it with the porter, whom she strictly enjoined to give it immediately into the hands of his master. She then went home, and spent an evening of misery more bitter than the cup of death itself. She had formerly passed many a lonely night at her cheerless fireside, while waiting for the return of her wretched husband; but she never spent one like this. When she reflected upon the happiness of her early days, and the splendid prospects which were then said to lie before her, and contrasted them with the misery into which she had been so suddenly plunged, not by any fault of her own, but, as it appeared, by the mere course of destiny, she could have almost questioned the justice of that supreme power, by which she piously believed the concerns of this lower world to be adjusted. What dire calamities had sprung to her from one unfortunate step! What persecutions she had innocently endured! How hopeless was her every virtuous exertion against the perverse counteraction of a being from whom society could not permit her to be disjoined! And, finally, what an awful outburst of wretchedness was at this moment, to appearance, impending over her! Then she recalled one gentle recollection, which occasionally would steal into her mind, even in her darkest hours, and fill it with an agreeable but still painful light—the thought of Russell—Russell, the kind and good, whom, in a moment of girlish vanity, she had treated harshly, so that he vanished from her presence for ever, and even from the place where he had suffered her scorn. Had fate decreed that she should have been united to that endeared mate of her childhood, how different might have been her lot!—how different, also, perhaps, might have been his course of life!—for she feared that her ungenerous cruelty had also made shipwreck of his noble nature. These meditations were suddenly disturbed by the entrance of Dempster, who rushed into her room, holding a handkerchief upon his side, and, pale, gory, and breathless, fell upon the ground before her. Almost ere she had time to ascertain the reality of this horrid vision, quick footsteps were heard upon the stair. The open door gave free admission, and in a moment the room was half filled with watchmen, at the head of whom appeared a middle-aged gentleman, of a prepossessing though somewhat disordered exterior. “This,” he exclaimed, “is the villain; secure him, if he be yet alive, but I fear he has already met the punishment which is his due.” The watchmen raised Dempster from the ground, and, holding his face to the light, found that the glaze of death was just taking effect upon his eyes. The unhappy woman shrieked as she beheld the dreadful spectacle, and would have fallen upon the ground if she had not been prevented by the stranger, who caught her in his arms. Her eyes, when they first re-opened, were met by those of RUSSELL.

It would be difficult to describe the feelings with which these long-severed hearts again recognised each other, the wretchedness into which she was plunged, by learning that her well-intended efforts had unexpectedly led to the death of her husband, or the returning tide of grateful and affectionate emotion which possessed his bosom, on being informed that those efforts had saved his life, not to speak of the deep sensation of pity with which he listened to the tale of her life. A tenderer feeling than friendship was now impossible, and, if it could have existed, would have hardly been in good taste; but Russell, now endowed with that wealth which, when he had it not, would have been of so much avail, contented himself to use it in the pious task of rendering the declining years of Eliza Farney as happy as her past life had been miserable.

TALE OF THE SILVER HEART.

In the course of a ramble through the western part of Fife, I descended one evening upon the ancient burgh of Culross, which is situated on a low stripe of land beside the sea-shore, with a line of high grounds rising behind it, upon which are situated the old abbey church and the ruins of a very fine mansion-house, once the residence of the lords of the manor. On stepping forth next morning from the little inn, I found that the night had been stormy, and that the waves of the Forth were still rolling with considerable violence, so as to delay the usual passage of the ferry-boat to Borrowstouness. Having resolved to cross to that part of the opposite shore, I found that I should have ample time, before the boat could proceed, to inspect those remains of antiquity, which now give the burgh almost its only importance in the eyes of a traveller. The state of the atmosphere was in the highest degree calculated to increase the interest of these objects. It was a day of gloom, scarcely different from night. The sky displayed that fixed dulness which so often succeeds a nocturnal tempest; the sea was one sheet of turbid darkness, save where chequered by the breaking wave. The streets and paths of the little village-burgh showed, each by its deep and pebbly seam, how much rain had fallen during the night; and all the foliage of the gardens and woods around, as well as the walls of the houses, were still drenched with wet. Having secured the services of the official called the _bedral_, I was conducted to the abbey church, which is a very old Gothic structure, but recently repaired and fitted up as a parochial place of worship. It was fitting, in such a gloomy day, to inspect the outlines of abbots and crusaders which still deck the pavement of this ancient temple; and there was matter, perhaps, for still more solemn reflection in the view of the adjacent mansion-house. Culross Abbey, as this structure is called, was finished so lately as the reign of Charles the Second, and by the same architect with Holyrood House, which it far exceeded in magnificence. Yet, as the premature ruin of youthful health is a more affecting object than the ripe decline of age, so did this roofless modern palace, with the wallflower waving from its elegant Grecian windows, present a more dismal aspect than could have been expected from any ruin of more hoary antiquity. The tale which it told of the extinction of modern grandeur, and the decline of recently flourishing families, appealed more immediately and more powerfully to the sympathies than that of remote and more barbarous greatness, which is to be read in the sterner battlements of a border tower, or an ancient national fortress. The site had been chosen upon a lofty terrace overlooking the sea, in order that the inmates might be enlivened by the ever-changing aspect of that element, and the constant transit of its ships; but now all useless was this peculiarity of situation, except to serve to the mariner as a kind of landmark, or to supply the more contemplative voyager with the subject of a sigh. With a mind attuned by this object to the most melancholy reflections, I was conducted to what is called an aisle or burial vault, projecting from the north side of the church, and which contains the remains of the former lords of Culross. There images are shown, cut in beautiful Italian marble, of Sir —— Bruce, his lady, and several children, all of which must have been procured from the Continent at a great expense; for this honourable knight and his family flourished in the early part of the seventeenth century, when no such art was practised in Scotland. The images, however, and the whole sepulchre, had a neglected and desolate appearance, as may be expected by the greatest of personages, when their race has become unknown at the scene of their repose. In this gloomy chamber of the heirless dead, I was shown a projection from one of the side-walls, much like an altar, over which was painted on the wall the mournfully appropriate and expressive word “FUIMUS.” Below was an inscription on a brass plate, importing that this was the resting place of the heart of Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss, formerly proprietor of the princely estate of Culross; and that the story connected with it was to be found related in the Guardian, and alluded to in Clarendon’s History of the Great Rebellion. It was stated that the heart was enclosed in a silver case of its own shape, which had reposed here ever since it ceased to beat with the tide of mortal life in the year 1613, except that it was raised from its cell for a brief space in 1808, in the course of some repairs upon the sepulchre. As I had a perfect recollection of the story told by Steele, which indeed had made a deep impression upon me in boyhood, it was with no small interest that I beheld the final abode of an object so immediately connected with it. It seemed as if time had been betrayed, and two centuries annihilated, when I thus found myself in presence of the actual membrane, in bodily substance entire, which had, by its proud passions, brought about the catastrophe of that piteous tale. What! thought I, and does the heart of Edward Bruce, which beat so long ago with emotions now hardly known among men, still exist at this spot, as if the friends of its owner had resolved that so noble a thing should never find decay? The idea had in it something so truly captivating, that it was long ere I could quit the place, or return to the feelings of immediate existence. The whole scene around, and the little neglected burgh itself, had now become invested with a fascinating power over me; and I did not depart till I had gathered, from the traditions of the inhabitants, the principal materials of the following story, aiding them, after I had reached home, by reference to more authentic documents:—

Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss, the second who bore the title, was the son of the first lord, who is so memorable in history as a serviceable minister to King James the Sixth during the latter years of his Scottish reign, having been chiefly instrumental, along with the Earl of Mar, in smoothing the way for his majesty’s succession to Queen Elizabeth. After the death of his father, the young Lord Bruce continued, along with his mother, to enjoy high consideration in the English court. He was a contemporary and playmate of Henry Prince of Wales, whom he almost equalled in the performance of all noble sports and exercises, while, from his less cold character, he was perhaps a greater favourite among those who were not prepossessed in favour of youthful royalty. There was not, perhaps, in the whole of the English court, any young person of greater promise, or more endearing qualities, than Lord Bruce, though, in respect of mere external accomplishments, he was certainly rivalled by his friend Sir George Sackville, a younger son of the Earl of Dorset. This young gentleman, who was the grandson of one poet,[1] and destined to be the grandsire of another,[2] was one of those free and dashing spirits, who, according to the accounts of contemporary writers, kept the streets of London in an almost perpetual brawl, by night and by day, with their extravagant frolics, or, more generally, the feuds arising out of them. His heart and genius were naturally good, but the influence of less innocent companions gradually betrayed him into evil habits; and thus many generous faculties, which might have adorned the highest profession, were in him perverted to the basest uses. It was often a subject of wonder that the pure and elevated nature of young Lord Bruce should tolerate the reckless profligacy of Sackville; but those who were surprised did not take a very extended view of human nature. The truth is, that real goodness is often imposed upon by vice, and sees in it more to attract and delight than it does in goodness similar to itself. The gentle character of Bruce clung to the fierce and turbulent nature of Sackville, as if it found in that nature a protection and comfort which it needed. Perhaps there was something, also, in the early date of their intimacy, which might tend to fix the friendship of these dissimilar minds. From their earliest boyhood they had been thrown together as pages in the household of the prince, where their education proceeded, step by step, in union, and every action and every duty was the same. It was further remarked, that, while the character of Bruce appeared always to be bolder in the presence of Sackville than on other occasions, that of Sackville was invariably softened by juxtaposition with Bruce; so that they had something more like a common ground to meet upon than could previously have been suspected.

When the two young men were about fourteen, and as yet displayed little more than the common features of innocent boyhood, Sackville was permitted by his parents to accompany Bruce on a summer visit to the paternal estates of the young nobleman in Scotland. There they enjoyed together, for some weeks, all the sports of the season and place, which seemed to be as untiring as their own mutual friendship. One day, as they were preparing to go out a-hunting, an aged woman, who exercised the trade of _spaewife_, or fortune-teller, came up to the gate. The horses upon which they had just mounted were startled by the uncouth appearance of the stranger, and that ridden by Sackville was so very restive as nearly to throw him off. This caused the young Englishman to address her in language of not the most respectful kind; nor could all the efforts of Lord Bruce, who was actuated by different feelings, prevent him from aiming at her once or twice with his whip.

“For heaven’s sake, Sackville,” said Lord Bruce, “take care lest she make us all repent of this. Don’t you see that she is a spaewife?”

“What care I for your spaewives?” cried Sackville. “All I know is, that she is a cursed old beggar or gipsy, and has nearly caused me break my neck!”

“I tell you she is a witch and a fortune-teller,” said his gentler companion; “and there is not a man in the country but would rather have his neck broken than say any thing to offend her.”

The woman, who had hitherto stood with a face beaming with indignation, now broke out—

“Ride on to your hunting, young man,” addressing Sackville; “you will not have the better sport for abusing the helpless infirmities of old age. Some day you two will go out to a different kind of sport, and one only will come back alive; alive, but wishing that he rather had been doomed to the fate of his companion.”

Both Sackville and Bruce were for the time deeply impressed with this denunciation, to which the superstitious feelings of the age gave greater weight than can now be imagined; and even while they mutually swore that hostility between them was impossible, they each secretly wished that the doom could be unsaid. Its chief immediate effect was to deepen and strengthen their friendship. Each seemed to wish, by bestowing more and more affection upon his companion, at once to give to himself a better assurance of his own disposition to quarrel, and to his friend a stronger reason for banishing the painful impression from his mind. Perhaps this was one reason—and one not the less strong that it was in some measure unconscious—why, on the separation of their characters in ripening manhood, they still clung to each other with such devoted attachment.

In process of time, a new and more tender relation arose between these two young men, to give them mutually better assurance against the doom which had been pronounced upon them. Lady Clementina Sackville, eldest daughter of the Earl of Dorset, was just two years younger than Sir George and his friend, and there was not a more beautiful or accomplished gentlewoman in the court of Queen Anne. Whether in the walking of a minuet, or in the personation of a divine beauty in one of Ben Jonson’s court masks, Lady Clementina was alike distinguished; while her manners, so far from betraying that pride which so often attends the triumphs of united beauty and talent, were of the most unassuming and amiable character. It was not possible that two such natures as those of Lord Bruce and Lady Clementina Sackville should be frequently in communion, as was their case, without contracting a mutual affection of the strongest kind. Accordingly, it soon became understood that the only obstacle to their union was their extreme youth, which rendered it proper that they should wait for one or two years, before their fortunes, like their hearts, should be made one. It unfortunately happened that this was the very time when the habits of Sir George Sackville made their greatest decline, and when, consequently, it was most difficult for Bruce to maintain the friendship which hitherto subsisted between them. The household of Lord Dorset was one of that sober cast, which, in the next age, was characterised by the epithet puritanical. As such, of course, it suited with the temper of Lord Bruce, who, though not educated in Scotland, had been impressed by his mother with the grave sentiments and habits of his native country. Often then did he mourn with the amiable family of Dorset over the errors of his friend; and many was the night which he spent innocently in that peaceful circle, while Sir George roamed about, in company with the most wicked and wayward spirits of the time.

One night, after he had enjoyed with Lady Clementina a long and delightful conversation respecting their united prospects, Sir George came home in a state of high intoxication and excitement, exclaiming loudly against a Scotch gentleman with whom he had had a street quarrel, and who had been rescued, as he said, from his sword, only by the unfair interference of some other “beggarly Scots.” It was impossible for a Scotsman of Bruce’s years to hear his countrymen spoken of in this way without anger; but he repressed every emotion, till his friend proceeded to generalise upon the character of these “beggarly Scots,” and extended his obloquy from the individuals to the nation. Lord Bruce then gently repelled his insinuations, and said, that surely there was one person at least whom he would exempt from the charge brought against his country. “I will make no exemptions,” said the infatuated Sackville, “and least of all in favour of a cullion who sits in his friend’s house, and talks of him puritanically behind his back.” Bruce felt very bitterly the injustice of this reproach; but the difficulty of shaping a vindication rendered his answer more passionate than he wished; and it was immediately replied to by Sackville with a contemptuous blow upon the face. There, in a moment, fell the friendship of years, and deadly gall usurped the place where nothing before had been but “the milk of kindness.” Lady Clementina, to whom the whole affair seemed a freak of a hurried and unnatural dream, was shocked beyond measure by the violence of her brother; but she was partly consoled by the demeanour of Bruce, who had the address entirely to disguise his feelings in her presence, and to seem as if he looked upon the insult as only a frolic. But though he appeared quite cool, the blow and words of Sackville had sunk deep into his soul; and after brooding over the event for a few hours, he found that his very nature had become, as it were, changed. That bitterest of pains—the pain of an unrequited blow—possessed and tortured his breast; nor was the reflection that the injurer was his friend, and not at the time under the control of reason, of much avail in allaying his misery. Strange though it be, the unkindness of a friend is the most sensibly felt and most promptly resented; and we are never so near becoming the irreconcilable enemies of any fellow-creature, as at the moment when we are interchanging with him the most earnest and confiding affection. Similar feelings possessed Sackville, who had really felt of late some resentment at Lord Bruce, on account of certain references which had been made by his parents to the regret expressed by this young nobleman respecting his present course of life. To apologise for his rudeness was not to be thought of; and, accordingly, these two hearts, which for years had beat in unison, became parted at once, like rocks split by one of the convulsions of nature, and a yawning and impassable gulf was left between.

For some weeks after, the young men never met; Sackville took care never to intrude into the family circle, and Bruce did not seek his company. It appeared as if the unfortunate incident had been forgotten by the parties themselves, and totally unknown to the world. One day, however, Bruce was met in Paul’s Walk by a young friend and countryman, of the name of Crawford, a rambling slip of Scottish nobility, whose very sword seemed, from the loose easy way in which it was disposed by his side, to have a particular aptitude for starting up in a quarrel. After some miscellaneous conversation, Crawford expressed his regret at a story which had lately come to his ears, respecting a disagreement between Sackville and Bruce. “What!” he said, “one might have as well expected Castor and Pollux to rise from their graves and fall a-fighting, as that you two should have had a tussle! But, of course, the affair was confined merely to words, which, we all know, matter little between friends. The story about the batter on the face must be a neat figment clapped upon the adventure by Lady Fame.”

“Have you indeed heard,” asked Bruce, in some agitation, “that any such incident took place?”

“Oh, to be sure,” replied his companion; “the whole Temple has been ringing with it for the last few days, as I am assured by my friend Jack Topper. And I heard it myself spoken of last week to the west of Temple Bar. Indeed, I believe it was Sackville himself who told the tale at first among some of his revellers; but, for my part, I think it not a whit the more true or likely on that account.”

“It is,” said Bruce, with deep emotion, “too true. He did strike me, and I, for sake of friendship and love, did not resent it. But what, Crawford, could I do in the presence of my appointed bride, to right myself with her brother?”

“Oh, to be sure,” said Crawford, “that is all very true as to the time when the blow was given; but then, you know, there has been a great deal of time since. And, love here or love there, people will speak of such a thing in their ordinary way. The story was told the other day in my presence to the French ambassador; and Monsieur’s first question was, ‘Doth the man yet live?’ When told that he was both living and life-like, he shrugged his shoulders, and looked more than I can tell.”

“Oh, Crawford,” said Bruce, “you agonise me. I hoped that this painful tale would be kept between ourselves, and that there would be no more of it. I still hoped, although tremblingly, that my union with the woman I love would be accomplished, and that all should then be made up. But now I feel that I have been but too truly foredoomed. That union must be anticipated by a very different event.”

“You know best,” said the careless Crawford, “what is best for your own honour.” And away he tripped, leaving the flames of hell in a breast where hitherto every gentle feeling had resided.

The light talk of Crawford was soon confirmed in import by the treatment which Bruce began to experience in society. It was the fashion of the age that every injury, however trifling, should be expiated by an ample revenge; that nothing should be forgiven to any one, however previously endeared. Accordingly, no distinction was made between the case of Bruce and any other; no allowance was made for the circumstances in which he stood respecting the family of his injurer, nor for their former extraordinary friendship. The public, with a feeling of which too much still exists, seemed to think itself defrauded of something which was its right, in the continued impunity of Sackville’s insolence. It cried for blood to satisfy _itself_, if not to restore the honour of the injured party. Bruce, of course, suffered dreadfully from this sentiment wherever he appeared; insomuch that, even though he might have been still disposed to forgive his enemy, he saw that to do so would only be to encounter greater misery than could accrue from any attempt at revenge, even though that attempt were certain to end in his own destruction.

It happened that just at this time Bruce and Sackville had occasion, along with many other _attachés_ of the court, to attend the Elector Palatine out of the country, with his newly-married bride, Elizabeth, the daughter of the king and queen. The two young men kept apart till they came to Canterbury, where, as the royal train was viewing the cathedral, it chanced that they saw each other very near. The elector, who knew a little of their story, immediately called Sackville up to him, and requested his sword, enjoining him, at the same time, in a friendly manner, to beware of falling out with Bruce so long as he was in attendance upon the court. His highness said, farther, that he had heard his royal father-in-law speak of their quarrel, and express his resolution to visit any transgression of the laws by either of them with his severest displeasure. Sackville obeyed the command of the elector, and withdrew to a part of the cortege remote from the place where Bruce was standing. However, it happened, that, in surveying the curiosities of that gorgeous architectural scene, they came to the monument of a Scottish crusader, who had died here on his way back from the Holy Land. Sackville muttered something respecting this object, in which the words “beggarly Scot” were alone overheard by Bruce, who stood at no great distance, and who immediately recriminated by using some corresponding phrase of obloquy applicable to England, to which Sackville replied by striking his former friend once more upon the face. Before another word or blow could pass between them, a number of courtiers had rushed forward to separate them, and they were immediately borne back to a distance from each other, each, however, glaring upon the other with a look of concentrated scorn and hate. The elector thought it necessary, after what had taken place, that they should be confined for a time to their apartments. But no interval of time could restore amity to those bosoms where formerly it had reigned supreme. It was now felt by both that nothing but blood could wipe out the sense of wrong which they mutually felt; and, therefore, as the strictness of the king regarding personal quarrels rendered it impossible to fight in Britain, without danger of interruption, Bruce resolved to go beyond seas, and thence send a challenge requesting Sackville to follow him.

In forming this purpose, Bruce felt entirely like a doomed man. He recollected the prediction of the old woman at Culross Abbey, which had always appeared to him, somehow, as implying that Sackville should be the unhappy survivor. Already, he reflected, the least probable part of the prediction had been fulfilled by their having quarrelled. Under this impression, he found it indispensable to his peace that he should return to London, and take leave of two individuals in whom he felt the deepest interest—his mother and his once-intended bride. Notwithstanding the painful nature of his sensations, he found it would be necessary to assume a forced ease of demeanour in the presence of these beloved persons, lest he should cause them to interpose themselves between him and his purpose. The first visit was paid to his mother, who resided at his own house. He had received, he said, some news from Scotland, which rendered it necessary that he should immediately proceed thither; and he briefly detailed a story which he had previously framed in his own mind for the purpose of deceiving her. After having made some preparations for his journey, he came to take leave of her; but his first precautions having escaped from his mind during the interval, his forehead now bore a gloom as deep as the shade of an approaching funeral. When his mother remarked this, he explained it, not perfectly to her satisfaction, but yet sufficiently so to avert farther question, by reference to the pain of parting with his mistress on a long and dangerous journey, when just about to be united to her for life. As he pronounced the words “long and dangerous journey,” his voice faltered with tenderness; but there was so much truth in the real meaning of the phrase (however little there might be now), that no metaphorical interpretation occurred to the mind of Lady Bruce. He even spoke of his will without exciting her suspicions. There was but one point in it, he said, that he thought it worth while to allude to. Wherever or whensoever it might please fate to remove him from the coil of mortal life, he wished his mother, or whoever might survive him, to recollect that his dying spirit reverted to the scenes of his infancy, and that his heart wished in life that it might never in death be parted from that spot. These words, of course, communicated to Lady Bruce’s spirit that gravity which the mention of mortal things must ever carry; but yet nothing seemed amiss in what she heard. It was not till after she had parted with her son—not till she felt the blank impression of his last embrace lingering on her bosom, and thought of him as an absent being, whom it would be long before she saw again—that his final words had their full force upon her mind. Those words, like a sweet tune heard in a crowd with indifference, but which afterwards in solitude steals into and melts the soul, then revived upon her mind, and were pondered upon for days afterwards with a deep and unaccountable sadness of spirit.