Chapter IV: Part 4

When Oonah freed herself from his embraces, and asked him what he was about, Andy turned over the chairs, threw the mantelpiece ornaments into the fire, and banged the poker and tongs together, shouting! "Hurroo! I'm not married at all!"

It had been discovered that Red Bridget had a husband living when she forced Andy to marry her, and as soon as it was legally proved that Lord Scatterbrain was a free man, Father Phil was called in, and Oonah, who had all along loved her wild cousin, was made Lady Scatterbrain.

* * * * *

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON

Eugene Aram

Novelist, poet, essayist, and politician, Edward Bulwer Lytton
was born in London on May 25, 1805. His father was General
Earle Bulwer. He assumed his mother's family name on her death
in 1843, and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Lytton in
1866. At seventeen Lytton published a volume entitled,
"Ismael, and Other Poems." An unhappy marriage in 1827 was
followed by extraordinary literary activity, and during the
next ten years he produced twelve novels, two poems, a play,
"England and the English," and "Athens: Its Rise and Fall,"
besides an enormous number of shorter stories, essays, and
articles for contemporary periodicals. Altogether his output
is represented by nearly sixty volumes. Few books on their
publication have created a greater furore than Lord Lytton's
"Eugene Aram," which was published in 1832. One section of the
novel-reading public hailed its moving, dramatic story with
manifest delight, while the other severely condemned it on the
plea of its false morality. The story takes its title from
that remarkable scholar and criminal, Eugene Aram, at one time
a tutor in the Lytton family, who was executed at York in
1759, for a murder committed fourteen years before. The crime
caused much consternation at the time, Aram's refined and mild
disposition being apparently in direct contradiction to his
real nature. The novel is an unusually successful, though
perhaps one-sided psychological study. In a revised edition
Lytton made the narrative agree with his own conclusion that,
though an accomplice in robbery, Aram was not guilty of
premeditated or actual murder. Edward Bulwer Lytton died on
January 18, 1873.

_I.--At the Sign of the Spotted Dog_

In the county of ---- was a sequestered hamlet, to which I shall give the name of Grassdale. It lay in a fruitful valley between gentle and fertile hills. Its single hostelry, the Spotted Dog, was owned by one Peter Dealtry, a small farmer, who was also clerk of the parish. On summer evenings Peter was frequently to be seen outside his inn discussing psalmody and other matters with Jacob Bunting, late a corporal in his majesty's army, a man who prided himself on his knowledge of the world, and found Peter's too easy fund of merriment occasionally irritating.

On one such evening their discussion was interrupted by an unprepossessing and travel-stained stranger, who, when his wants, none too amiably expressed, had been attended to, exhibited a marked curiosity concerning the people of the locality. As the stranger paid for his welcome with a liberal hand, Peter became more than usually communicative.

He described the lord of the manor, a distinguished nobleman who lived at the castle some six miles away. He talked of the squire and his household. "But," he continued, "the most noticeable man is a great scholar. There, yonder," said he, "you may just catch a glimpse of the tall what-d'ye-call-it he has built on the top of his house that he may get nearer to the stars."

"The scholar, I suppose," observed the stranger, "is not very rich. Learning does not clothe men nowadays, eh, corporal?"

"And why should it?" asked Bunting. "Zounds! can it teach a man how to defend his country? Old England wants soldiers. But the man's well enough, I must own--civil, modest----"

"And by no means a beggar," added Peter. "He gave as much to the poor last winter as the squire himself. But if he were as rich as Lord----he could not be more respected. The greatest folk in the country come in their carriages-and-four to see him. There is not a man more talked on in the whole county than Eugene Aram----"

"What!" cried the traveller, his countenance changing as he sprang from his seat. "What! Aram! Did you say _Aram_? Great heavens! How strange!"

"What! You know him?" gasped the astonished landlord.

Instead of replying, the stranger muttered inaudible words between his teeth. Now he strode two steps forward, clenching his hands. Now smiled grimly. Then he threw himself upon his seat, still in silence.

"Rum tantrums!" ejaculated the corporal. "What the devil! Did the man eat your grandmother?"

The stranger lifted his head, and addressing Peter, said, with a forced smile, "You have done me a great kindness, my friend. Eugene Aram was an early acquaintance of mine. We have not met for many years. I never guessed that he lived in these parts."

And then, directed, in answer to his inquiries, to Aram's dwelling, a lonely grey house in the middle of a broad plain, the traveller went his way.

_II.--The Squire's Guest_

The man the stranger went to seek was one who perhaps might have numbered some five-and-thirty years, but at a hasty glance would have seemed considerably younger. His frame was tall, slender, but well-knit and fair proportioned; his cheek was pale, but with thought; his hair was long, and of a rich, deep brown; his brow was unfurrowed; his face was one that a physiognomist would have loved to look upon, so much did it speak of both the refinement and the dignity of intellect.

Eugene Aram had been now about two years settled in his present retreat, with an elderly dame as housekeeper. From almost every college in Europe came visitors to his humble dwelling, and willingly he imparted to others any benefit derived from his lonely researches. But he proffered no hospitality, and shrank from all offers of friendship. Yet, unsocial as he was, everyone loved him. The peasant threw kindly pity into his respectful greeting. Even that terror of the village, Mother Darkmans, saved her bitterest gibes for others; and the village maiden, as she curtseyed by him, stole a glance at his handsome but melancholy countenance, and told her sweetheart she was certain the poor scholar had been crossed in love.

At the manor house he was often the subject of remark, but only on the day of the stranger's appearance at the Spotted Dog had the squire found an opportunity of breaking through the scholar's habitual reserve, and so persuaded him to dine with him and his family on the day following.

The squire, Rowland Lester, a man of cultivated tastes, was a widower, with two daughters and a nephew. Walter, the only son of Rowland's brother Geoffrey, who had absconded, leaving his wife and child to shift for themselves, was in his twenty-first year, tall and strong, with a striking if not strictly handsome face; high-spirited, jealous of the affections of those he loved; cheerful outwardly, but given to moody reflections on his orphaned and dependent lot, for his mother had not long survived her desertion.

Madeline Lester, at the age of eighteen, was the beauty and toast of the whole country; with a mind no less beautiful than her form was graceful, and a desire for study equalled only by her regard for those who possessed it, a regard which had extended secretly, if all but unacknowledged to herself, to the solitary scholar of whom I have been speaking. Ellinor, her junior by two years, was of a character equally gentle, but less elevated, and a beauty akin to her sister's.

When Eugene Aram arrived at the manor house in keeping with his promise, something appeared to rest upon his mind, from which, however, by the excitement lent by wine and occasional bursts of eloquence, he seemed striving to escape, and at length he apparently succeeded.

When the ladies had retired, Lester and his guest resumed their talk in the open, Walter declining to join them.

Aram was advancing the view that it is impossible for a man who leads the life of the world ever to experience content.

"For me," observed the squire, "I have my objects of interest in my children."

"And I mine in my books," said Aram.

As they passed over the village green, the gaunt form of Corporal Bunting arrested their progress.

"Beg pardon, your honour," said he to the scholar, "but strange-looking dog here last evening--asked after you--said you were old friend of his--trotted off in your direction--hope all was right, master--augh!"

"All right," repeated Aram, fixing his eyes on the corporal, who had concluded his speech with a significant wink. Then, as if satisfied with his survey, he added, "Ay, ay; I know whom you mean. He had become acquainted with me some years ago. I don't know--I know very little of him." And the student was turning away, but stopped to add, "The man called on me last night for assistance. I gave what I could afford, and he has now proceeded on his journey. Good evening!"

Lester and his companion passed on, the former somewhat surprised, a feeling increased when shortly afterwards Aram abruptly bade him farewell. But, recalling the peculiar habits of the scholar, he saw that the only way to hope for a continuance of that society which had so pleased him was to indulge Aram at first in his unsocial inclinations; and so, without further discourse, he shook hands with him, and they parted.

_III.--The Old Riding-Whip_

When Lester regained the little parlour in his home he found his nephew sitting, silent and discontented, by the window. Madeline had taken up a book, and Ellinor, in an opposite corner, was plying her needle with an earnestness that contrasted with her customary cheerful vivacity.

The squire thought he had cause to complain of his nephew's conduct to their guest. "You eyed the poor student," he said, "as if you wished him amongst the books of Alexandria."

"I would he were burnt with them!" exclaimed Walter sharply. "He seems to have bewitched my fair cousins here into a forgetfulness of all but himself."

"Not me!" said Ellinor eagerly.

"No, not you; you are too just. It is a pity Madeline is not more like you."

Thus was disturbance first introduced into a peaceful family. Walter was jealous; he could not control his feelings. An open breach followed, not only between him and Aram, but a quarrel between him and Madeline. The position came as a revelation to his uncle, who, seeing no other way out of the difficulty, yielded to Walter's request that he should be allowed to travel.

Meanwhile, Aram, drawn out of his habitual solitude by the sweet influence of Madeline, became a frequent visitor to the manor house and the acknowledged suitor for Madeline's hand. As for Walter, when he set out for London, with Corporal Bunting as his servant, he had found consolation in the discovery that Ellinor's regard for him had gone beyond mere cousinly affection. His uncle gave him several letters of introduction to old friends; among them one to Sir Peter Hales, and another to a Mr. Courtland.

An incident that befell him on the London road revived to an extraordinary degree Walter's desire to ascertain the whereabouts of his long-lost father. At the request of Sir Peter Hales he had alighted at a saddler's for the purpose of leaving a parcel committed to him, when his attention was attracted by an old-fashioned riding-whip. Taking it up, he found it bore his own crest, and his father's initials, "G.L." Much agitated, he made quick inquiries, and learned that the whip had been left for repair about twelve years previously by a gentleman who was visiting Mr. Courtland, and had not been heard of since.

Eagerly he sought out Mr. Courtland, and gleaned news which induced him, much to Corporal Bunting's disgust, to set his back on London, and make his way with all speed in the direction of Knaresborough. It appeared that at the time the whip was left at the saddler's, Geoffrey Lester had just returned from India, and when he called on his old acquaintance, Mr. Courtland, he was travelling to the historic town in the West Riding to claim a legacy his old colonel--he had been in the army--had left him for saving his life. The name Geoffrey Lester had assumed on entering the army was Clarke.

_IV.--Hush-Money_

While Walter Lester and Corporal Bunting were passing northward, the squire of Grassdale saw, with evident complacency, the passion growing up between his friend and his daughter. He looked upon it as a tie that would permanently reconcile Aram to the hearth of social and domestic life; a tie that would constitute the happiness of his daughter and secure to himself a relation in the man he felt most inclined of all he knew to honour and esteem. Aram seemed another man; and happy indeed was Madeline in the change. But one evening, while the two were walking together, and Aram was discoursing on their future, Madeline uttered a faint shriek, and clung trembling to her lover's arm.

Amazed and roused from his enthusiasm, Aram looked up, and, on seeing the cause of her alarm, seemed himself transfixed, as by a sudden terror to the earth.

But a few paces distant, standing amidst the long and rank fern that grew on each side of their path, quite motionless, and looking on the pair with a sarcastic smile, stood the ominous stranger whom we first met at the sign of the Spotted Dog.

"Pardon me, dear Madeline," said Aram, softly disengaging himself from her, "but for one moment."

He then advanced to the stranger, and after a conversation that lasted but a minute, the latter bowed, and, turning away, soon vanished among the shrubs.

Aram, regaining the side of Madeline, explained, in answer to her startled inquiries, that the man, whom he had known well some fourteen years ago, had again come to ask for his help, and he supposed that he would again have to aid him.

"And is that indeed _all_?" said Madeline, breathing more freely. "Well, poor man, if he be your friend, he must be inoffensive. Here, Eugene." And the simple-hearted girl put her purse into Aram's hand.

"No, dearest," said he, shrinking back. "I can easily spare him enough. But let us turn back. It grows chill."

"And why did he leave us, Eugene?"

"Because," was the reply, "I desired him to visit me at home an hour hence."

There was a past shared by these two men, and Houseman--for that was the stranger's name--had come for the price of his silence. The next day, on the plea of an old debt that suddenly had to be met, Aram approached his prospective father-in-law for the loan of £300. This sum was readily placed at his disposal. Indeed, he was offered double the amount. His next action was to travel to London, where, with all the money at his command, he purchased an annuity for Houseman, falling back, for his own needs, upon the influence of Lord ---- to secure for him a small state allowance which it was in that nobleman's power to grant to him as a needy man of letters.

Houseman was surprised at the scholar's generosity when the paper ensuring the annuity was placed in his hands. "Before daybreak to-morrow," he said, "I will be on the road. You may now rest assured that you are free of me for life. Go home--marry--enjoy your existence. Within four days, if the wind set fair, I shall be in France."

The pale face of Eugene Aram brightened. He had resolved, had Houseman's attitude been different, to surrender Madeline at once.

_V.--Human Bones_

The unexpected change in her lover's demeanour, on his return to Grassdale, brought unspeakable joy to the heart of Madeline Lester. But hardly had Aram left Houseman's squalid haunt in Lambeth when a letter was put into the ruffian's hand telling of his daughter's serious illness. For this daughter Houseman, villain as he was, would willingly have given his life. Now, casting all other thoughts aside, he set forth, not for France, but for Knaresborough, where his daughter was lying, and whither, guided by his inquiries concerning his father, Walter Lester was also on his way.

It was not long ere Walter found that a certain Colonel Elmore had died in 17--, leaving £1,000 and a house to one Daniel Clarke, and that an executor of the colonel's will survived in the person of a Mr. Jonas Elmore. From Mr. Elmore, Walter learned that Clarke had disappeared suddenly, after receiving the legacy, taking with him a number of jewels with which Mr. Elmore had entrusted him. His disappearance had caused a sensation at the time, and a man named Houseman had assigned as a cause of Clarke's disappearance a loan which he did not mean to repay. It was true that Houseman and a young scholar named Eugene Aram had been interrogated by the authorities, but nothing could be proved against them, and certainly nothing was suspected where Aram was concerned. He left Knaresborough soon after Clarke had disappeared, having received a legacy from a relative at York.

This story of a legacy Walter was not inclined to believe, but proof of it was forthcoming. Another circumstance in Aram's favour was that his memory was still honoured in the town, by the curate, Mr. Summers, as well as by others.

Accompanied by Mr. Summers, Walter visited the house where Daniel Clarke had stayed and also the woman at whose house Aram had lived. It was a lonely, desolate-looking house; its solitary occupant a woman who evidently had been drinking. When the name of Eugene Aram was mentioned, the woman assumed a mysterious air, and eventually disclosed the fact that she had seen Mr. Clarke, Houseman and Aram enter Aram's room early one morning. They went away together. A little later Aram and Houseman returned. She found out afterwards that they had been burning some clothes. She also discovered a handkerchief belonging to Houseman with blood upon it. She had shown this to Houseman, who had threatened to shoot her should she say a word to anyone regarding himself or his companions.

Armed with this narrative, extracted by the promise of pecuniary reward, Walter and Mr. Summers were making their way to a magistrate's when their attention was attracted by a crowd. A workman, digging for limestone, had unearthed a big wooden chest. The chest contained a skeleton!

In the midst of the commotion caused by this discovery a voice broke out abruptly. It was that of Richard Houseman. His journey had been in vain. His daughter was dead. His appearance revealed all too plainly to what source he had flown for consolation.

"What do ye here, fools?" he cried, reeling forward. "Ha! Human bones! And whose may they be, think ye?"

There were in the crowd those who remembered the disappearance which had so surprised them years before, and more than one repeated the name of "Daniel Clarke."

"Clarke's bones!" exclaimed Houseman. "Ha, ha! They are no more Clarke's than mine!"

At this moment Walter stepped forward.

"Behold!" he cried, in a ringing voice, vibrant with emotion--"behold the murderer!"

Pale, confused, conscience-stricken, the bewilderment of intoxication mingling with that of fear, Houseman gasped out that if they wanted the bones of Clarke they should search St. Robert's Cave. And in the place he named they found at last the unhallowed burial-place of the murdered dead.

But Houseman, now roused by a sense of personal danger, denied that he was the guilty man. Drawing his breath hard, and setting his teeth as with steeled determination, he cried, "The murderer is Eugene Aram!"

_VI.--"I Murdered my Own Life"_

It was a chill morning in November. But at Grassdale all was bustle and excitement. The church bells were ringing merry peals. It wanted but an hour or so to the wedding of Eugene Aram and Madeline Lester. In this interval the scholar was alone with his thoughts. His reverie was rudely disturbed by a loud knocking, the noise of which penetrated into his study. The outer door was opened. Voices were heard.

"Great God!" he exclaimed. "'Murderer!' Was that the word I heard shouted forth? The voice, too, is Walter Lester's. Can he have learned----"

Calm succeeded to the agitation of the moment. He met the newcomers with a courageous front. But, followed by his bride who was to be, by her sister Ellinor, and by their father, all confident that Walter had made some horrible mistake, Eugene Aram was taken away to be committed to York on the capital charge.

The law's delays were numerous. Winter passed into spring, and spring into summer before the trial came on. Eugene Aram's friends were numerous. Lord ---- firmly believed in his innocence, and proffered help. But the prisoner refused legal aid, and conducted his own defence--how ably history records. Madeline was present at the closing scene, in her wedding dress. Her father was all but broken in his grief for daughter and friend. Walter was distraught by the havoc he had caused, and in doubt whether, after all, his action had not been too impetuous. The court was deeply impressed by the prisoner's defence. But the judge's summing-up was all against the accused, and the verdict was "Guilty!" Madeline lived but a few hours after hearing it.

The following evening Walter obtained admittance to the condemned cell.

"Eugene Aram," he said, in tones of agony, "if at this moment you can lay your hand on your heart, and say, 'Before God, and at peril of my soul, I am innocent of this deed,' I will depart; I will believe you, and bear as I may the reflection that I have been one of the unconscious agents in condemning to a fearful death an innocent man. But if you cannot at so dark a crisis take that oath, then, oh then, be generous, even in guilt, and let me not be haunted through life by the spectre of a ghastly and restless doubt!"

On the eve of the day destined to be his last on earth Eugene Aram placed in Walter's hands a paper which that young man pledged himself not to read till Rowland Lester's grey hairs had gone to the grave. This document set forth at length the story of Aram's early life, how he sought knowledge amidst grinding poverty, and how, when a gigantic discovery in science gleamed across his mind, a discovery which only lack of means prevented him from realising to the vast benefit of truth and man, the tempter came to him. This tempter took the form of a distant relative, Richard Houseman, with his doctrine that "Laws order me to starve, but self-preservation is an instinct more sacred than society," and his demand for co-operation in an act of robbery from one Daniel Clarke, whose crimes were many, who was, moreover, on the point of disappearing with a number of jewels he had borrowed on false pretences.

"Houseman lied," wrote the condemned man. "I did not strike the blow. I never designed a murder. But the deed was done, and Houseman divided the booty. My share he buried in the earth, leaving me to withdraw it when I chose. There, perhaps, it lies still. I never touched what I had murdered my _own_ life to gain. Three days after that deed a relative, who had neglected me in life, died and left me wealth--wealth, at least, to me! Wealth greater than that for which I had----My ambition died in remorse!"

Houseman passed away in his own bed. But he had to be buried secretly in the dead of night, for, ten years after Eugene Aram had died on the scaffold, the hatred of the world survived for his accomplice. Rowland Lester did not live long after Madeline's death. But when Walter returned from a period of honourable service with the great Frederick of Prussia, it was with no merely cousinly welcome that Ellinor received him.

* * * * *

The Last Days of Pompeii

"The Last Days of Pompeii," the most popular of Lytton's
historical romances, was begun and almost completed at Naples
in the winter of 1832-3, and was first published in 1834. The
period dealt with is that of 79 A.D., during the short reign
of Titus, when Rome was at its zenith and the picturesque
Campanian city a kind of Rome-by-the-Sea. Lytton wrote the
novel some thirty years before the excavations of Pompeii had
been systematically begun; but his pictures of the life, the
luxuries, the pastimes and the gaiety of the half-Grecian
colony, its worship of Isis, its trade with Alexandria, and
the early struggles of Christianity with heathen superstition
are exceptionally vivid. The creation of Nydia, the blind
flower-girl, was suggested by the casual remark of an
acquaintance that at the time of the destruction of Pompeii
the sightless would have found the easiest deliverance.

_I.--The Athenian's Love Story_

Within the narrow compass of the walls of Pompeii was contained a specimen of every gift which luxury offered to power. In its minute but glittering shops, its tiny palaces, its baths, its forum, its theatre, its circus--in the energy yet corruption, in the refinement yet the vice, of its people, you beheld a model of the whole Roman Empire. It was a toy, a plaything, a show-box, in which the gods seemed pleased to keep the representation of the great monarchy of earth, and which they afterwards hid from time, to give to the wonder of posterity--the moral of the maxim, that under the sun there is nothing new.

Crowded in the glassy bay were vessels of commerce and gilded galleys for the pleasures of the rich citizens. The boats of the fishermen glided to and fro, and afar off you saw the tall masts of the fleet under the command of Pliny.

Drawing a comrade from the crowded streets, Glaucus the Greek, newly returned to Pompeii after a journey to Naples, bent his steps towards a solitary part of the beach; and the two, seated on a small crag which rose amidst the smooth pebbles, inhaled the voluptuous and cooling breeze which, dancing over the waters, kept music with its invisible feet. There was something in the scene which invited them to silence and reverie.

Clodius, the aedile, who sought the wherewithal for his pleasures at the gaming table, shaded his eyes from the burning sky, and calculated the gains of the past week. He was one of the many who found it easy to enrich themselves at the expense of his companion. The Greek, leaning upon his hand, and shrinking not from that sun, his nation's tutelary deity, with whose fluent light of poesy and joy and love his own veins were filled, gazed upon the broad expanse, and envied, perhaps, every wind that bent its pinions toward the shores of Greece.

Glaucus obeyed no more vicious dictates when he wandered into the dissipations of his time that the exhilarating voices of youth and health. His heart never was corrupted. Of far more penetration than Clodius and others of his gay companions deemed, he saw their design to prey upon his riches and his youth; but he despised wealth save as the means of enjoyment, and youth was the great sympathy that united him to them. To him the world was one vast prison to which the sovereign of Rome was the imperial gaoler, and the very virtues which, in the free days of Athens, would have made him ambitious, in the slavery of earth made him inactive and supine.

"Tell me, Clodius," said the Athenian at last, "hast thou ever been in love?"

"Yes, very often."

"He who has loved often," answered Glaucus, "has loved never."

"Art thou, then, soberly and earnestly in love? Hast thou that feeling which the poets describe--a feeling which makes us neglect our suppers, forswear the theatre, and write elegies? I should never have thought it. You dissemble well."

"I am not far gone enough for that," returned Glaucus, smiling. "In fact, I am not in love; but I could be if there but be occasion to see the object."

"Shall I guess the object? Is it not Diomed's daughter? She adores you, and does not affect to conceal it. She is both handsome and rich. She will bind the door-post of her husband with golden fillets."

"No, I do not desire to sell myself. Diomed's daughter is handsome, I grant; and at one time, had she not been the grandchild of a freedman, I might have--yet, no--she carries all her beauty in her face; her manners are not maiden-like, and her mind knows no culture save that of pleasure."

"You are ungrateful. Tell me, then, who is the fortunate virgin."

"You shall hear, my Clodius. Several months ago I was sojourning at Naples, a city utterly to my own heart. One day I entered the temple of Minerva to offer up my prayers, not for myself more than for the city on which Pallas smiles no longer. The temple was empty and deserted. The recollections of Athens crowded fast and meltingly upon me. Imagining myself still alone, my prayer gushed from my heart to my lips, and I wept as I prayed. I was startled in the midst of my devotions, however, by a deep sigh. I turned suddenly, and just behind me was a female. She had raised her veil also in prayer, and when our eyes met, methought a celestial ray shot from those dark and smiling orbs at once into my soul.

"Never, my Clodius, have I seen mortal face more exquisitely moulded. A certain melancholy softened, and yet elevated, its expression. Tears were rolling down her eyes. I guessed at once that she was of Athenian lineage. I spoke to her, though with a faltering voice. 'Art thou not, too, Athenian?' said I. At the sound of my voice she blushed, and half drew her veil across her face. 'My forefathers' ashes,' she said, 'repose by the waters of Ilyssus; my birth is of Naples; but my heart, as my lineage, is Athenian.'

"'Let us, then,' said I, 'make our offerings together!' And as the priest now appeared, we stood side by side, and so followed the ceremonial prayer. Together we touched the knees of the goddess; together we laid our olive garlands on the altar. Silently we left the temple, and I was about to ask her where she dwelt, when a youth, whose features resembled hers, took her by the hand. She turned and bade me farewell, the crowd parted us, and I saw her no more; nor when I returned to Naples after a brief absence at Athens, was I able to discover any clue to my lost country-woman. So, hoping to lose in gaiety all remembrance of that beautiful apparition, I hastened to plunge myself amidst the luxuries of Pompeii. This is all my history, I do not love but I remember and regret."

So said Glaucus. But that very night, in a house at Pompeii, whither she had come from Naples during his absence, Glaucus came face to face once more with the beautiful lone, the object of his dreams. And no longer was he able to say, "I do not love."

_II.--Arbaces, the Egyptian_

Amongst the wealthy dwellers in Pompeii was one who lived apart, and was at once an object of suspicion and fear. The riches of this man, who was known as Arbaces, the Egyptian, enabled him to gratify to the utmost the passions which governed him--the passion of sensual indulgence and the blind force which impelled him to seek relief from physical satiety in the pursuit of that occult knowledge which he regarded as the heritage of his race.

In Naples, Arbaces had known the parents of Ione and her brother Apaecides, and it was under his guardianship that they had come to Pompeii. The confidence which, before their death, their parents had reposed in the Egyptian was in turn fully given to him by lone and her brother. For Apaecides the Egyptian felt nothing but contempt; the youth was to him but an instrument that might be used by him in bending lone to his will. But the mind of Ione, no less than the beauty of her form, appealed to Arbaces. With her by his side, his willing slave, he saw no limit to the heights his ambition might soar to. He sought primarily to impress her with his store of unfamiliar knowledge. She, in turn, admired him for his learning, and felt grateful to him for his guardianship. Apaecides, docile and mild, with a soul peculiarly alive to religious fervour, Arbaces placed amongst the priests of Isis, and under the special care of a creature of his own, named Calenus. It pleased his purpose best, where Ione was concerned, to leave her awhile surrounded by the vain youth of Pompeii, so that he might gain by comparison.

It fell not within Arbaces' plans to show himself too often to his ward. Consequently it was some time before he became aware of the warmth of the friendship that was growing up between Ione and the handsome Greek. He knew not of their evening excursions on the placid sea, of their nightly meetings at Ione's dwelling, till these had become regular happenings in their daily lives. But one day he surprised them together, and his eyes were suddenly opened. No sooner had the Greek departed than the Egyptian sought to poison Ione's mind against him by exaggerating his love of pleasure and by unscrupulously describing him as making light of Ione's love.

Following up the advantage he gained by this appeal to her pride, Arbaces reminded Ione that she had never seen the interior of his home. It might, he said, amuse her. "Devote then," he went on, "to the austere friend of your youth one of these bright summer evenings, and let me boast that my gloomy mansion has been honoured with the presence of the admired Ione."

Unconscious of the pollutions of the mansion, of the danger that awaited her, Ione readily assented to the proposal. But there was one who, by accident, had become aware of the nature of the spells cast by Arbaces upon his visitors, and who was to be the humble means of saving lone from his toils. This was the blind flower-girl Nydia.

Of Thessalian extraction, and gentle nurture, Nydia had been stolen and sold into the slavery of an ex-gladiator named Burbo, a relative of the false priest Calenus. To save her from the cruelty of Burbo, Glaucus had purchased her, and, in return, the blind girl had become devoted to him--so devoted that her gentle heart was torn when he made it plain to her that his action was prompted by mere natural kindness of heart, and that it was his purpose to send her to Ione.

But she cast all feeling of jealousy aside when she heard of Ione's visit to the Egyptian, and quickly apprised Glaucus and Apaecides of the fair Athenian's peril.

On her arrival, Arbaces greeted Ione with deep respect. But he found it harder than he thought to resist the charm of her presence in his house, and in a moment of forgetful passion he declared his love for her. "Arbaces," he declared, "shall have no ambition save the pride of obeying thee--Ione. Ione, do not reject my love!" And as he spoke he knelt before her.

Alone, and in the grip of this singular and powerful man, Ione was not yet terrified; the respect of his language, the softness of his voice, reassured her; and in her own purity she felt protection. But she was confused, astonished. It was some moments before she could recover the power of reply.

"Rise, Arbaces," said she at length. "Rise! and if thou art serious, if thy language be in earnest----"

"_If_----" said he tenderly.

"Well, then, listen. You have been my guardian, my friend, my monitor. For this new character I was not prepared. Think not," she added quickly, as she saw his dark eyes glitter with the fierceness of his passion, "think not that I scorn; that I am untouched; that I am not honoured by this homage; but, say, canst thou hear me calmly?"

"Ay, though the words were lightning and could blast me!"

"_I love another_!" said Ione blushingly, but in a firm voice.

"By the gods," shouted Arbaces, rising to his fullest height, "dare not tell me that! Dare not mock me! It is impossible! Whom hast thou seen? Whom known? Oh, Ione, it is thy woman's invention, thy woman's art that speaks; thou wouldst gain time. I have surprised--I have terrified thee."

"Alas!" began Ione; and then, appalled before his sudden and unlooked for violence, she burst into tears.

Arbaces came nearer to her, his breath glowed fiercely on her cheek. He wound his arms round her; she sprang from his embrace. In the struggle a tablet fell from her bosom. Arbaces perceived, and seized it; it was a letter she had received that morning from Glaucus.

Ione sank upon the couch, half-dead with terror.

Rapidly the eyes of Arbaces ran over the writing. He read it to the end, and then, as the letter fell from his hand, he said, in a voice of deceitful calmness, "Is the writer of this the man thou lovest?"

Ione sobbed, but answered not.

"Speak!" he demanded.

"It is--it is!"

"Then hear me," said Arbaces, sinking his voice into a whisper. "_Thou shalt go to thy tomb rather than to his arms_."

At this instant a curtain was rudely torn aside, and Glaucus and Apsecides appeared. There was a severe struggle, which might have had a more sinister ending had not the marble head of a goddess, shaken from its column, fallen upon Arbaces as he was about to stab the Greek, and struck the Egyptian senseless to the ground. As it was, Ione was saved, and she and her lover were then and for ever reconciled to one another.

_III.--The Love Philtre_

Clodius had not spoken without warrant when he had said that Julia, the daughter of the rich merchant Diomed, thought herself in love with Glaucus. But since Glaucus was denied to her, her thoughts were concentrated on revenge. In this mood she sought out Arbaces, presenting herself as one loving unrequitedly, and seeking in sorrow the aid of wisdom.

"It is a love charm," admitted Julia, "that I would seek from thy skill. I know not if I love him who loves me not, but I know that I would see myself triumph over a rival. I would see him who has rejected me my suitor. I would see her whom he has preferred in her turn despised."

Very quickly Arbaces discerned Julia's secret, and when he heard that Glaucus and Ione were shortly to be wedded, he gladly availed himself of this opportunity to rid himself of his hated rival. But he dealt not in love potions, he said; he would, however, take Diomed's daughter to one who did--the witch who dwelt on the slopes of Vesuvius.

He kept his promise; but the entire philtre given to Julia was one which went direct to the brain, and the effects of which--for neither Arbaces nor his creature, the witch, wished to place themselves within the power of the law--were such as caused those who witnessed them to attribute them to some supernatural agency.

But once again, though less happily than on the former occasion, Nydia was destined to be the means of thwarting the schemes of the Egyptian. The devotion of the blind flower-girl had deepened into love for her deliverer. She was jealous of Ione. Now, for Julia had taken her into confidence, and both believed in the love charm, she was confronted with another rival. By a simple ruse Nydia obtained the poisoned draught and in its place substituted a phial of simple water.

At the close of a banquet given by Diomed, to which the Greek was invited, Julia duly administered that which she imagined to be the secret love potion. She was disappointed when she found Glaucus coldly replace the cup, and converse with her in the same unmoved tone as before.

"But to-morrow," thought she, "to-morrow, alas for Glaucus!"

Alas for him, indeed!

When Glaucus arrived at his own house that evening, Nydia was waiting for him. She had, as usual, been tending the flowers and had lingered awhile to rest herself.

"It has been warm," said Glaucus. "Wilt thou summon Davus? The wine I have drunk heats me, and I long for some cooling drink."

Here at once, suddenly and unexpectedly, the very opportunity that Nydia awaited presented itself. She breathed quickly. "I will prepare for you myself," said she, "the summer draught that Ione loves--of honey and weak wine cooled in snow."

"Thanks," said the unconscious Glaucus. "If Ione loves it, enough; it would be grateful were it poison."

Nydia frowned, and then smiled. She withdrew for a few moments, and returned with the cup containing the beverage. Glaucus took it from her hand.

What would not Nydia have given then to have seen the first dawn of the imagined love! Far different, as she stood then and there, were the thoughts and emotions of the blind girl from those of the vain Pompeian under a similar suspense!

Glaucus had raised the cup to his lips. He had already drained about a fourth of its contents, when, suddenly glancing upon the face of Nydia, he was so forcibly struck by its alteration, by its intense, and painful, and strange expression, that he paused abruptly, and still holding the cup near his lips, exclaimed. "Why, Nydia--Nydia, art thou ill or in pain? What ails thee, my poor child?"

As he spoke, he put down the cup--happily for him, unfinished--and rose from his seat to approach her, when a sudden pang shot coldly to his heart, and was followed by a wild, confused, dizzy sensation at the brain.

The floor seemed to glide from under him, his feet seemed to move on air, a mighty and unearthly gladness rushed upon his spirit. He felt too buoyant for the earth; he longed for wings--nay, it seemed as if he possessed them. He burst involuntarily into a loud and thrilling laugh. He clapped his hands, he bounced aloft. Suddenly this perpetual transport passed, though only partially, away. He now felt his blood rushing loudly and rapidly through his veins.

Then a kind of darkness fell over his eyes. Now a torrent of broken, incoherent, insane words gushed from his lips, and, to Nydia's horror, he passed the portico with a bound, and rushed down the starlit streets, striking fear into the hearts of all who saw him.

_IV.--The Day of Ghastly Night_

Anxious to learn if the drug had taken effect, Arbaces set out for Julia's house on the morrow. On his way he encountered Apaecides. Hot words passed between them, and stung by the scorn of the youth, he stabbed him into the heart with his stylus. At this moment Glaucus came along. Quick as thought the Egyptian struck the already half-senseless Greek to the ground, and steeping his stylus in the blood of Apaecides, and recovering his own, called loudly for help. The next moment he was accusing Glaucus of the crime.

For a time fortune favoured the Egyptian. Glaucus, his strong frame still under the influence of the poison, was sentenced to encounter a lion in the amphitheatre, with no weapon beyond the incriminating stylus. Nydia, in her terror, confessed to the Egyptian the exchange of the love philtre. She he imprisoned in his own house. Calenus, who had witnessed the deed, sought Arbaces with the intention of using his knowledge to his own profit. He, by a stratagem, was incarcerated in one of the dungeons of the Egyptian's dwelling. The law gave Ione into the guardianship of Arbaces. But, for a third time, Nydia was the means of frustrating the plans of Arbaces.

The blind girl, when vainly endeavouring to escape from the toils of the Egyptian, overheard, in his garden, the conversation of Arbaces and Calenus; and she heard the cries of Calenus from behind the door of the chamber in which he was imprisoned. She herself was caught again by Arbaces' servant, but she contrived to bribe her keeper to take a message to Glaucus's friend, Sallust; and he, taking his servants to Arbaces' house released the two captives, and reached the arena with them, to accuse Arbaces before the multitude at the very moment when the lion was being goaded to attack the Greek, and Arbaces' victory seemed within his grasp.

Even now the nerve of the Egyptian did not desert him. He met the charge with his accustomed coolness. But the frenzied accusation of the priest of Isis turned the huge assembly against him. With loud cries they rose from their seats and poured down toward the Egyptian.

Lifting his eyes at this terrible moment, Arbaces beheld a strange and awful apparition. He beheld, and his craft restored his courage. He stretched his hand on high; over his lofty brow and royal features there came an expression of unutterable solemnity and command.

"Behold," he shouted, with a voice of thunder, which stilled the roar of the crowd, "behold how the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcus burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!"

The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld, with ineffable dismay, a vast vapour shooting from the summit of Vesuvius in the form of a gigantic pine-tree; the trunk blackness, the branches fire--a fire that shifted and wavered in its hues with every moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare. The earth shook. The walls of the theatre trembled. In the distance was heard the crash of falling roofs. The cloud seemed to roll towards the assembly, casting forth from its bosom showers of ashes mixed with fragments of burning stone. Then the burning mountain cast up columns of boiling water.

In the ghastly night thus rushing upon the realm of noon, all thought of justice and of Arbaces left the minds of the terrified people. There ensued a mad flight for the sea. Through the darkness Nydia guided Glaucus, now partly recovered from the effects of the poisoned draught, and Ione to the shore. Her blindness rendered the scene familiar to her alone.

While Arbaces perished with the majority, these three eventually gained the sea, and joined a group, who, bolder than the rest, resolved to hazard any peril rather than continue on the stricken land.

Utterly exhausted, Ione slept on the breast of Glaucus, and Nydia lay at his feet. Meanwhile, showers of dust and ashes fell into the waves, scattered their snows over the deck of the vessel they had boarded, and, borne by the winds, descended upon the remotest climes, startling even the swarthy African, and whirling along the antique soil of Syria and of Egypt.

Meekly, softly, beautifully dawned at last the light over the trembling deep! The winds were sinking into rest, the foam died from the azure of that delicious sea. Around the east thin mists caught gradually the rosy hues that heralded the morning. Light was about to resume her reign. There was no shout from the mariners at the dawning light--it had come too gradually, and they were too wearied for such sudden bursts of joy--but there was a low, deep murmur of thankfulness amidst those watchers of the long night. They looked at each other, and smiled; they took heart. They felt once more that there was a world around and a God above them!

In the silence of the general sleep Nydia had risen gently. Bending over the face of Glaucus, she softly kissed him. She felt for his hand; it was locked in that of Ione. She sighed deeply, and her face darkened. Again she kissed his brow, and with her hair wiped from it the damps of night.

"May the gods bless you, Athenian!" she murmured "May you be happy with your beloved one! May you sometimes remember Nydia! Alas! she is of no further use on earth."

With these words she turned away. A sailor, half-dozing on the deck, heard a slight splash on the waters. Drowsily he looked up, and behind, as the vessel bounded merrily on, he fancied he saw something white above the waves; but it vanished in an instant. He turned round again and dreamed of his home and children.

When the lovers awoke, their first thought was of each other, their next of Nydia. Every crevice of the vessel was searched--there was no trace of her! Mysterious from first to last, the blind Thessalian had vanished from the living world! They guessed her fate in silence, and Glaucus and Ione, while they drew nearer to each other, feeling each other the world itself, forgot their deliverance, and wept as for a departed sister.

* * * * *

The Last of the Barons

A romance of York and Lancaster's "long wars," "The Last of
the Barons" was published in 1843, shortly before the death of
Bulwer's mother, when, on inheriting the Knebworth estates, he
assumed the surname of Lytton. The story is an admirably
chosen historical subject, and in many respects is worked out
with even more than Lytton's usual power and effect. Incident
is crowded upon incident; revolutions, rebellions,
dethronements follow one another with amazing rapidity--all
duly authenticated and elaborated by powerful dialogue. It is
thronged with historical material, sufficient, according to
one critic, to make at least three novels. The period dealt
with, 1467-1471, witnessed the rise of the trading class and
the beginning of religious freedom in England. Lytton leans to
the Lancastrian cause, with which the fortunes of one of his
ancestors were identified, and his view of Warwick is more
favourable to the redoubtable "king-maker" than that of the
historians.

_I.--Warwick's Mission to France_

Lacking sympathy with the monastic virtues of the deposed Henry VI., and happy in the exile of Margaret of Anjou, the citizens of London had taken kindly to the regime of Edward IV. In 1467 Edward still owed to Warwick the support of the more powerful barons, as well as the favour of that portion of the rural population which was more or less dependent upon them. But he encouraged, to his own financial advantage, the enterprises of the burgesses, and his marriage with Elizabeth Woodville and his favours to her kinsfolk indicated his purpose to reign in fact as well as in name. The barons were restless, but the rising middle-class, jealous of the old power of the nobles, viewed with misgiving the projected marriage, at Warwick's suggestion, of the king's sister Margaret and the brother of Louis XI. of France.

This was the position of affairs when young Marmaduke Nevile came to London to enter the service of his relative the Earl of Warwick; and some points of it were explained to the young man by the earl himself when he had introduced the youth to his daughters, Isabel and Anne.

"God hath given me no son," he said. "Isabel of Warwick had been a mate for William the Norman; and my grandson, if heir to his grandsire's soul, should have ruled from the throne of England over the realms of Charlemagne! But it hath pleased Him Whom the Christian knight alone bows to without shame, to order otherwise. So be it. I forgot my just pretensions--forgot my blood--and counselled the king to strengthen his throne by an alliance with Louis XI. He rejected the Princess Bona of Savoy to marry widow Elizabeth Grey. I sorrowed for his sake, and forgave the slight to my counsels. At his prayer I followed the train of the queen, and hushed the proud hearts of the barons to obeisance. But since then this Dame Woodville, whom I queened, if her husband mismated, must dispute this royaulme with mine and me! A Neville, nowadays, must vail his plume to a Woodville! And not the great barons whom it will suit Edward's policy to win from the Lancastrians, not the Exeters and the Somersets, but the craven varlets, and lackeys, and dross of the camp--false alike to Henry and to Edward--are to be fondled into lordships and dandled into power. Young man, I am speaking hotly. Richard Neville never lies nor conceals; but I am speaking to a kinsman, am I not? Thou hearest--thou wilt not repeat?"

"Sooner would I pluck forth my tongue by the roots!" was Marmaduke's reply.

"Enough!" returned the earl, with a pleased smile. "When I come from France I will speak more to thee. Meanwhile, be courteous to all men, servile to none. Now to the king."

Warwick sought his royal cousin at the Tower, where the court exhibited a laxity of morals and a faculty for intrigue that were little to the stout earl's taste.

It was with manifest reluctance that Edward addressed himself to the object of Warwick's visit.

"Knowst thou not," said he, "that this French alliance, to which thou hast induced us, displeases sorely our good traders of London?"