Chapter VIII: Part 8

The likeness between the two wrestlers was indeed remarkable; their age, their stature, the colour of their hair, their features, were alike. Spectators could not trace a difference between the one and the other. The ensign had a small and peculiar mark below his chin; he perceived that his antagonist had the same. They approached each other, extending their arms for the contest. They stood still, they gazed upon each other; as they gazed they started; their arms dropped by their sides; they stood anxiously scrutinizing the countenance of each other, in which each saw himself as in a glass. Astonishment deprived them of strength; they forgot the purpose for which they met; they stretched forth their hands, they grasped them together, and stood eagerly looking into each other's eyes.

"Friend," said the ensign, "this is indeed singular; our extraordinary resemblance to each other fills me with amazement. What is your name? from whence do you come?"

"Whoy, master," rejoined the other, "thou art so woundy like myself, that had I met thee anywhere but in the middle o' these folk, I should have been afeared that I was agoing to die, and had zeen mysel'. My name is George Prescot, at your sarvice. I coom from three miles down the river there; and what may they call thee?"

"My name," replied the soldier, "is Charles Sim. I am an orphan; my parents I never saw. And tell me--for this strange resemblance between us almost overpowers me--do yours live?"

"Whoy," was the reply, "old Tom Prescot and his woif be alive; and they zay as how they be my vather and moother, and I zuppose they be; but zoom cast up to them that they bean't."

No wrestling match took place between them; but hand in hand they walked round the ring together, while the spectators gazed upon them in silent wonder.

The ensign presented the youth, who might have been styled his fac-simile, with the purse subscribed by his brother officers and himself; and in so doing he offered to double its contents. But the youth, with a spirit above his condition, peremptorily refused the offer, and said--

"No, master--thank you the zame--I will take nothing but what I have won."

Charles was anxious to visit "old Tom Prescot and his wife," of whom the stranger had spoken; but the company to which he belonged was to march forward to Plymouth on the following day, and there to embark. His brother officers also dissuaded him from the thought.

"Why, Sim," said they, "the likeness between you and the conqueror of the ring was certainly a very pretty coincidence, and your meeting each other quite a drama. But, my good fellow," added they, laughing, "take the advice of older heads than your own--don't examine too closely into your father's faults."

Three years passed, and Charles, now promoted to the rank of a lieutenant, accompanied the Duke of York in his more memorable than brilliant campaign in Holland. A soldier was accused of having been found sleeping on guard; he was tried, found guilty, and condemned to be shot. A corporal's guard was accompanying the doomed soldier from the place where sentence had been pronounced against him to the prison-house, from whence he was to be brought forth for execution on the following day. Lieutenant Sim passed near them. A voice exclaimed--

"Master! master!--save me! save me!"

It was the voice of the condemned soldier. The lieutenant turned round, and in the captive who called to him for assistance he recognised the Devonshire wrestler--the strange portrait of himself. And even now, if it were possible, the resemblance between them was more striking than before; for, in the stranger, the awkwardness of the peasant had given place to the smartness of the soldier. Charles had felt an interest in him from the first moment he beheld him; he had wished to meet him again, and had resolved to seek for him should he return to England; and now the interest that he had before felt for him was increased tenfold. The offence and the fate of the doomed one were soon told. The lieutenant pledged himself that he would leave no effort untried to save him; and he redeemed his pledge. He discovered, he obtained proof that the condemned prisoner, George Prescot, had been employed on severe and dangerous duties, against which it was impossible for nature longer to stand up, but in all of which he had conducted himself as a good, a brave, and a faithful soldier; and, more, that it could not be proved that he was actually found asleep at his post, but that he was stupified through excess of fatigue.

He hastened to lay the evidence he had obtained respecting the conduct and innocence of the prisoner before his Royal Highness, who, whatever were his faults, was at least the soldier's friend. The Duke glanced over the documents which the lieutenant laid before him; he listened to the evidence of the comrades of the prisoner. He took a pen; he wrote a few lines; he placed them in the hands of Lieutenant Sim. They contained the free pardon of Private Prescot. Charles rushed with the pardon in his hand to the prisoner; he exclaimed--

"Take this--you are pardoned--you are free!"

The soldier would have embraced his knees to thank him; but the lieutenant said--

"No! kneel not to me--consider me as a brother. I have merely saved the life of an innocent and deserving man. But the strange resemblance between us seems to me more than a strange coincidence. You have doubts regarding your parentage; I know but little of mine. Nature has written a mystery on our faces which we need to have explained. When this campaign is over, we shall inquire concerning it. Farewell for the present; but we must meet again."

The feelings of the reprieved and unlettered soldier were too strong for his words to utter; he shook the hand of his deliverer and wept.

A few days after this some sharp fighting took place. The loss of the British was considerable, and they were compelled to continue their retreat, leaving their dead, and many of their wounded, exposed, as they fell behind them. When they again arrived at a halting-place, Lieutenant Sim sought the regiment to which the soldier who might be termed his second self belonged. But he was not to be found; and all that he could learn respecting him was, that, three days before, George Prescot had been seen fighting bravely, but that he fell covered with wounds, and in their retreat was left upon the field.

Tears gushed into the eyes of the lieutenant when he heard the tidings. His singular meeting with the stranger in Devonshire; their mysterious resemblance to each other; his meeting him again in Holland under circumstances yet more singular; his saving his life; and the dubious knowledge which each had respecting their birth and parentage,--all had sunk deep into his heart, and thoughts of these things chased sleep from his pillow.

It was but a short time after this that the regiment of Lieutenant Sim was ordered to India, and he accompanied it; and it was only a few months after his arrival, when the Governor-General gave an entertainment at his palace, at which all the military officers around were present. At table, opposite to Lieutenant Sim, sat a man of middle age; and, throughout the evening, his eyes remained fixed upon him, and occasionally seemed filled with tears. He was a colonel in the Company's service, and a man who, by the force of merit, had acquired wealth and reputation.

"I crave your pardon, sir," said he, addressing the lieutenant; "but if I be not too bold, a few words with you in private would confer a favour upon me, and if my conjectures be right, will give us both cause to rejoice."

"You may command me, sir," said the youth.

The colonel rose from the table and left the room, and the lieutenant rose also and accompanied him. They entered an adjoining apartment. The elder soldier gazed anxiously on the face of the younger, and again addressing him, said--

"Sir, do not attribute this strange behaviour upon my part to rudeness. It has been prompted by feelings painfully, deeply, I may add tenderly, interesting to me. It may be accident, but your features bring memories before my eyes that have become a part of my soul's existence. Nor is it your features only, but I have observed that there is the mark of a rose-bud beneath your chin. I remember twins on whom that mark was manifest, and the likeness of a countenance is graven upon my heart, the lineaments of which were as yours are. Forgive me then, sir, in thus abruptly requesting your name."

The lieutenant looked surprised at the anxiety and looks of the stranger, and he answered--

"My name is Charles Sim."

"Yes! yes!" replied the colonel, gasping as he spoke; "I saw it; I felt it! Your name is Charles, but not Sim; that was your mother's name--your sainted mother's. You bear it from your grandfather You come from Cumberland?"

"I do!" was the reply, in accents of astonishment.

"My son! my son!--child of my Maria!" were the accents that broke from the colonel, as he fell upon the neck of the other.

"My father!" exclaimed Charles, "have I then found a father?" And the tears streamed down his cheeks.

Many questions were asked, many answered; and amongst others, the father inquired--

"Where is your brother--my little George? Does he live? You were the miniatures of your mother; and so strikingly did you resemble each other, that while you were infants, it was necessary to tie a blue ribbon round his arm, and a green one round yours, to distinguish you from each other."

Charles became pale; his knees shook; his hands trembled.

"Then I _had_ a brother?" he cried.

"You had," replied his father; "but wherefore do you say you _had_ a brother? Is it possible that you do not know him? He has been brought up with my father--Mr. Morris of Morris House."

"No, he has not," replied Charles; "the man you speak of, and whom you say is my grandfather, has brought up no one--none of my age. I have hated him from childhood, for he has hated me; and but that you have told me he is my grandfather, I would hate him still. But he has brought up no one that could be a brother of mine."

"Then my child has died in infancy," rejoined the colonel.

"No, no," added Charles; "I knew not that I had a brother--not even that I had a father; but you say my brother resembled me; that I from my birth had the mark beneath my chin which I have now, and that he had the same: then I know him; I have seen my brother!"

"Where, where? when, when?" breathlessly inquired the anxious parent. "Speak, my son!--oh speak!"

"Shortly after I had joined my regiment," continued Charles, "I was present in Devonshire, at what is called a revel. Our mess gave a purse towards the games. We put forward a Cumberland man belonging to the regiment, in the full confidence that he would be the victor of the day; but a youth, a mere youth, threw not only our champion, but all who dared to oppose him. I was stung for the honour of Cumberland; I was loath to see the hero carry his laurels so easily from the field. I accoutred myself in the wrestler's garb; I entered the ring. The shouting of the multitude ceased instantaneously. I gazed upon my antagonist, he gazed upon me. Our hands fell; we both shook; we were the image of each other. Three years afterwards I was in Holland. A soldier was unjustly condemned to die; I saved him; I obtained his pardon. He was my strange counterpart whom I met in Devonshire. He had the mark of the rose-bud beneath his chin that I have, and which you say my brother has."

"And where is he now?" eagerly inquired the colonel.

"Alas! I know not," answered Charles; "nor do I think he lives. Three days after I had rescued him from unmerited death, I learned that he had fallen bravely on the field; and whether he be now a prisoner or with the dead, I cannot tell."

"Surely it was thy brother," said the colonel; "yet how he should be in Devonshire, or a soldier in the ranks, puzzles me to think. No, no, Charles, it cannot be; it is a coincidence, heightened by imagination. Your grandfather has not been kind to me, but he is not capable of the cruelty which the tale you have told would imply he had exercised towards the child I entrusted to his care. He hates me, but surely he could not be cruel to my offspring. You know Morris House?" he added.

"I know it well," replied Charles; "but I never knew in it one who could be my brother, nor one of my age; neither did I know Mr. Morris to be my grandfather; nor yet have I heard of him but as one who had injured my mother while she lived, and who had been the enemy of her parents."

"Enough, enough, my son," said the colonel; "my soul is filled with words which I cannot utter. I weep for your angel-mother; I weep for my son, your brother; and I mourn for the unceasing hatred that exists between your grandsires. But, Charles, we must return to England; we must do so instantly. I have now fortune enough for you and for your brother also, if he yet live, and if we can find him. But we must inquire after and go in quest of him."

Within three months Charles Morris, or Lieutenant Sim as he has hitherto been called, and his father returned to England together. But instead of following them, I shall return to George Prescot, the prize-wrestler and the condemned and pardoned soldier. It has been mentioned that he was wounded and left upon the field by a retreating army. I have to add that he was made prisoner, and when his wounds were healed, he was, though not perceptibly, disabled for active service. Amongst his brethren in captivity was a Captain Paling, who, when an exchange of prisoners took place, hastened to join his regiment, and gave George, who was deemed unfit for service, a letter to his mother and sisters who resided in Dartmouth. The letter was all that the captain could give him, for he was penniless as George was himself.

George Prescot feeling himself once more at liberty, took his passage from Rotterdam in a sloop bound for Dartmouth, and with only the letter of Captain Paling in his pocket to pay for his conveyance. He perceived that the skipper frequently cast suspicious glances towards him, as though he were about to ask, "Where is your money, sir?" But George saw this, and he bore it down with a high hand. He knew that the certain way of being treated with the contempt and neglect which poverty always introduces in its train, was to plead being poor. He was by no means learned, but he understood something of human nature, and he knew a good deal of the ways of men--of the shallowness of society, and the depths of civility. He therefore carried his head high. He called for the best that the ship could afford, and he fared as the skipper did, though he partook but sparingly.

But the vessel arrived in Dartmouth harbour; it entered the mouth of the romantic river, on the one side of which was the fort, still bearing the name of Cromwell, and on the other Kingsbridge, which Peter Pindar hath celebrated; while on both sides, as precipitous banks, rose towering hills, their summits covered by a stunted furze, and the blooming orchard meeting it midway.

Some rather unpleasant sensations visited the disabled soldier as the vessel sailed up the river towards the town. The beauty of its situation made no impression upon him, for he had seen it a thousand times; and it was perhaps as well that it did not; for to look on it from the river, or from a distant height--like a long line of houses hung on the breast of romance--and afterwards to enter it and find yourself in the midst of a narrow, dingy street, where scarce two wheelbarrows could pass, produceth only disappointment, and that, too, of the bitterest kind. It seems, indeed, that the Devonians have conceded so much of their beautiful county to the barrenness of Dartmoor, that they grudge every inch that is occupied as a street or highway. Ere this time, George Prescot had in a great measure dropped his Devonshire dialect; and now, taking the letter of Captain Paling from his pocket, he placed it in the hands of the commander of the packet, saying, "Send your boy ashore with this to a widow lady's of the name of Paling; you will know her family, I suppose. You may tell the boy to say that the letter is from her son, Captain Paling, and that I shall wait here until I receive her answer before proceeding up the river."

The skipper stated that he knew Mrs. Paling well, who was a most respectable lady, and that he remembered also her son, who was an officer in the army, and who for some time had been a prisoner of war.

The boy went on shore with the letter, and within a quarter of an hour returned, having with him a young gentleman, accompanied by a couple of pointer dogs. The stranger was the brother of Captain Paling. He inquired for George Prescot, and on seeing him, invited him to his mother's house. The skipper, on seeing his passenger in such respectable company, let fall no hint that the passage-money was not paid; and the soldier and the brother of Captain Paling went on shore together.

In his letter the captain dwelt on many kindnesses which he had received from its bearer, and of the bravery which he had seen him evince on the field; informing them also that his pockets would be but ill provided with cash, and regretting his own inability to replenish them.

The kindness of Mrs. Paling and her family towards him knew no limits. She asked him a hundred questions respecting her son, her daughters concerning their brother; and they imagined wants for him, that they might show him a kindness. Now, however, twelve miles was all that lay between him and his home. They entreated him to remain until next day; but he refused, for

"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

It is true, he could hardly give the name of home to the house of those whom he called his parents, for it had ever been to him the habitation of oppressors; yet it was his home, as the mountain covered with eternal snow is the home of the Greenlander, and he knew no other. The usual road to it was by crossing the Dart at a ferry about a hundred yards above the house of Mrs. Paling. Any other road caused a circuit of many miles.

"If you will not remain with us to-night," said the brother of Captain Paling, who had conducted him from the vessel to his mother's house, "I shall accompany you to the ferry."

"No, I thank you--I thank you," said George, confusedly; "there is no occasion for it--none whatever. I shall not forget your kindness."

He did not intend to go by the ferry; for though the charge of the boatman was but a halfpenny, that halfpenny he had not in his possession; and he wished to conceal his poverty.

But women have sharp eyes in these matters. They see where men are blind; and a sister of Captain Paling named Caroline read the meaning of their guest's confusion, and of his refusing to permit her brother to accompany him to the shore; and, with a delicacy which spoke to the heart of him to whom the words were addressed, she said--

"Mr. Prescot, you have only now arrived from the Continent, and it is most likely that you have no small change in your pocket. The ferrymen are unreasonable people to deal with. If you give them a crown, they will row away and thank you, forgetting to return the change. The regular charge is but a halfpenny; therefore you had better take coppers with you;" and as she spoke, she held a halfpenny in her fingers towards him.

"Well, well," stammered out George, with his hand in his pocket, "I believe I have no coppers;" and he accepted the halfpenny from the hand of Caroline Paling; and while he did so, he could not conceal the tears that rose to his eyes.

But, trifling as the amount of her offer was, it must be understood that the person to whom it was tendered was one who would not have accepted more--who was ashamed of his poverty, and strove to conceal it; and there was a soul, there was a delicacy, in her manner of tendering it which I can speak of, but not describe. It saved him also from having to wander weary and solitary miles at midnight.

No sooner had the disabled soldier crossed the river, and entered the narrow lanes overshadowed by dark hedges of hazel, than he burst into tears, and his first words were, "Caroline, I will remember thee!"

It was near midnight when he approached the house which he called his home. The inmates were asleep. He tapped at the window, the panes of which were framed in lead after the form of diamonds.

"Who be there?" cried an angry voice.

"Your son! your son!" he replied. "George!"

"Zon!" repeated the voice; "we have no zon. If it be thee, go to Coomberland, lad. We have noughts to do with thee. Thy old grandfather, Zquire Morris, be now dead, and he ha'n't paid us so well for what we have done as to have oughts to zay to thee again; zo good night, lad."

"Father! mother!" cried George, striking more passionately on the window, "what do you mean?"

"Whoy, ha'n't I told thee?" answered the voice that had spoken to him before. "Thou art no zon of ours. Thou moost go to Coomberland, man, to Zquire Morris--to his zeketors,[*] I mean, for he is dead. They may tell thee who thou art; I can't. We ha'n't been paid for what we have done for thee already. However, thou may'st coom in for t'night;" and as the old man who had professed to be his father spoke, he arose and opened the door.

[note *: Executors.]

George entered the house, trembling with agitation.

"Father," he said--"for thou hast taught me to call thee father; and if thou art not, tell me who I am."

"Ha'n't I told thee, lad?" answered the old man. "Go to Coomberland; I know noughts about thee."

"To Cumberland!" exclaimed George; and he thought of the young officer whom he had twice met, who belonged to that county, and whose features were the picture of his own. "Why should I go to Cumberland?"

"Whoy, I can't tell thee whoy thou shouldst go," said the old man; "but thou was zent me from there, and there thou moost go back again, vor a bad bargain thou hast been to me. Zquire Morris zent thee here, and forgot to pay for thee; and if thou lodgest here to-night, thou won't forget to be a-moving, bag and baggage, in the morning."

George was wearied, and glad to sleep beneath the inhospitable roof of those whom he had considered as his parents; but on the following morning he took leave of them, after learning from them all that they knew of his history.

But I must again leave him, and return to Colonel Morris, and his son Charles.

They came to England together, and hastened towards Morris House; and there the long disowned son learned that his father was dead, and that his mother and his sisters knew not where his child was, or what had become of him. But his kindred had ascertained that he was now rich, and they repented of their unkindness towards him.

"Son," said his mother, "I know nothing of thy child. Thy father was a strange man--he told little to me. If any one can tell thee aught concerning thy boy, it will be John Bell, the old coachman; but he has not been in the family for six years, and where he now is I cannot tell, though I believe he is still somewhere in the neighbourhood."

With sad and anxious hearts the colonel and his son next visited the house of Mr. Sim--the dwelling-place in which the infancy, the childhood, and what may be called the youth, of the latter had been passed.

Tears gathered in the eyes of Charles as he approached the door. He knew that his grandsire and his grandmother had acted wrongly towards him, in never speaking to him of his father, or making known to him that such a person lived; but when he again saw the house which had been the scene of a thousand happy days, round which he had chased the gaudy butterfly and the busy bee, or sought the nest of the chaffinch, the yellowhammer, and the hedge-sparrow, the feelings of boyhood rose too strong in his soul for resentment; and on meeting Mr. Sim (his grandfather) as they approached the door of the house, Charles ran towards him, and, stretching out his hand, cried, "Father!"

The old man recognised him, and exclaimed, "Charles!--Charles!--child of my Maria!" and wept.

At the mention of her name, the colonel wept also.

"What gentleman is this with thee, Charles?" inquired Mr. Sim.

"It is _my father!_" was the reply.

Mr. Sim, who was now a grey-haired man, reeled back a few paces--he raised his hands--he exclaimed, "Can I be forgiven?"

"Forgiven!--ay, doubly forgiven!" answered Colonel Morris, "as the father of lost, loved Maria, and as having been more than a father to my boy, who is now by my side. But know you nothing of my other son? My Maria bore twins."

"Nothing! nothing!" replied Mr. Sim; "that question has cost me many an anxious thought. It has troubled also the conscience of my wife; for it was her fault that he also was not committed to my charge; and I would have inquired after your child long ago, but that there was no good-will between your father and me; and I was a plain, retired citizen--he a magistrate, and a justice of the peace for the county, who could do no wrong."

The colonel groaned.

They proceeded towards the villa together. Mrs. Sim met her grandson with a flood of tears, and, in her joy at meeting him, she forgot her dislike to his father and her hatred to that father's family.

The colonel endeavoured to obtain information from his father-in-law respecting his other son; and he told him all that his mother had said, of what she had spoken regarding the coachman, and also of what Charles had told him, in twice meeting one who so strongly resembled himself.

"Colonel," said Mr. Sim, "I know the John Bell your mother speaks of; he now keeps an inn near Langholm. To-morrow we shall go to his house, and make inquiry concerning all that he knows."

"Be it so, father," said the colonel. And on the following day they took a chaise and set out together--the grandfather, the father, and the son.

They had to cross the Annan, and to pass the churchyard where Maria slept. As they drew near to it, the colonel desired the driver to stop.

"Follow me, Charles," he said; and Mr. Sim accompanied them. They entered the churchyard; the colonel led them to the humble grave-stone that he had raised to the memory of his Maria. He sat down upon it, he pressed his lips to it and wept.

"Charles," said he, "look on your mother's grave. Here, on this stone, day after day, I was wont to sit with you and your brother upon my knee, fondling you, breathing your mother's name in your ears; and though neither of you knew what I said, you smiled as I wept and spoke. Oh Charles! though you then filled my whole heart (and you do now), I could only distinguish you from each other by the ribbons on your arms. Would to Heaven that I may discover my child! and, whatever be his condition, I shall forgive my father for the injustice he has done me and mine--I shall be happy. And, oh! should we indeed find your brother--should he prove to be the youth whom you have twice met--I shall say that Heaven has remembered me when I forgot myself! But come hither, Charles--come, kneel upon your mother's grave--kiss the sod where she lies, and angels will write it in their books, and show it to your mother, where she is happy. Come, my boy."

Charles knelt on his mother's grave. He had arisen, and they were about to depart; for his grandfather had accompanied them, and was a silent but tearful spectator of the scene.

They were leaving the churchyard, joined in the arms of each other, when two strangers entered it. The one was John Bell, the other George Prescot.

"Colonel! Colonel! there is John Bell that you spoke of," exclaimed Mr. Sim.

"Father! father!" at the same instant cried his son, "he is here--it is him!--my brother--or--he whom I have told you of, who so strangely resembles me."

Charles rushed forward--it was George Prescot--and he took the proffered hand of the other, and said, "Sir, I rejoice to meet thee again--it seems I belong to Cumberland as well as thou dost; and this gentleman (pointing to John Bell), who seems to know more of me than I do myself, has promised to show me here my mother's grave!"

"And where is that grave?" cried the colonel earnestly, who had been an interested spectator of all that passed.

"Even where the wife of your youth is buried, your honour," answered John Bell; "you have with you one son--behold his twin brother!"

The colonel pressed his new-found son to his breast. With his children he sat down on the stone over Maria's grave, and they wept together.

Our tale is told. Colonel Morris and his sons had met. His elder brothers died, and he became the heir of his father's property. Mr. Sim also stated that, in his will, he should divide his substance equally between the brothers; and he did so. I have but another word to add. George forgot not Caroline Paling, who had assisted him when his heart was full and his pocket empty, and within twelve months he again visited Dartmouth; but when he returned from it, Caroline accompanied him as his wife; and when he introduced her to his father and his brother--"Behold," said he, "what a halfpenny, delicately tendered, may produce."

THE STORY OF THE GIRL FORGER.

It is a common thing for writers of a certain class, when they want to produce the feeling of wonder in their readers, to introduce some frantic action, and then to account for it by letting out the secret that the actor was mad. The trick is not so necessary as it seems, for the strength of human passions is a potentiality only limited by experience; and so it is that a sane person may under certain stimulants do the maddest thing in the world. The passion itself is always true--it is only the motive that may be false; and therefore it is that in narrating for your amusement, perhaps I may add instruction, the following singular story--traces of the main parts of which I got in the old books of a former procurator-fiscal--I assume that there was no more insanity in the principal actor, Euphemia, or, as she was called, Effie Carr, when she brought herself within the arms of the law, than there is in you, when now you are reading the story of her strange life. She was the only daughter of John Carr, a grain merchant, who lived in Bristo Street. It would be easy to ascribe to her all the ordinary and extraordinary charms that are thought so necessary to embellish heroines; but as we are not told what these were in her case, we must be contented with the assurance that nature had been kind enough to her to give her power over the hearts of men. We shall be nearer our purpose when we state, what is necessary to explain a peculiar part of our story, that her father, in consequence of his own insufficient education, had got her trained to help him in keeping his accounts with the farmers, and in writing up his books; nay, she enjoyed the privilege of writing his drafts upon the Bank of Scotland, which the father contrived to sign, though in his own illiterate way, and with a peculiarity which it would not have been easy to imitate.

But our gentle clerk did not consider these duties imposed upon her by her father as excluding her either from gratifying her love of domestic habits, by assisting her mother in what at that time was denominated hussyskep or housekeeping, or from a certain other gratification, which might without a hint from us be anticipated--no other than the luxury of falling head and ears, and heart too we fancy, in love with a certain dashing young student of the name of Robert Stormonth, then attending the University, more for the sake of polish than of mere study, for he was the son of the proprietor of Kelton, and required to follow no profession. How Effie got entangled with this youth we have no means of knowing, so we must be contented with the Scotch proverb--

"Tell me where the flea may bite,
And I will tell where love may light."

The probability is, that from the difference of their stations and the retiring nature of our gentle clerk, we shall be safe in assuming that he had, as the saying goes, been smitten by her charms in some of those street encounters, where there is more of love's work done than in "black-footed" tea coteries expressly held for the accommodation of Cupid. And that the smiting was a genuine feeling we are not left to doubt; for in addition to the reasons we shall afterwards have too good occasion to know, he treated Effie not as those wild students who are great men's sons do "the light o' loves" they meet in their escapades, for he entrusted his secrets to her, he took such small counsel from her poor head as a "learned clerk" might be supposed able to give; nay, he told her of his mother, and how one day he hoped to be able to introduce her at Kelton as his wife. All which Effie repaid with the devotedness of that most wonderful affection called the first or virgin love--the purest, the deepest, the most thorough-going of all the emotions of the human heart. But as yet he had not conceded to her wish that he should consent to their love being made known to Effie's father and mother. Love is only a leveller to itself and its object: the high-born youth, inured to refined manners, shrank from a family intercourse, which put him too much in mind of the revolt he had made against the presumed wishes and intentions of his proud parents. Wherein, after all, he was only true to the instincts of that institution, apparently so inhumane as well as unchristian in its exclusiveness, called aristocracy, and yet with the excuse that its roots are pretty deeply set in human nature.

But, proud as he was, Bob Stormonth, the younger of Kelton, was amenable to the obligations of a necessity, forged by his own imprudent hands. He had, by a fast mode of living, got into debt--a condition from which his father, a stern man, had relieved him twice before, but with a threat on the last occasion, that if he persevered in his prodigality, he would withdraw from him his yearly allowance, and throw him upon his own resources. The threat proved ineffectual, and this young heir of entail, with all his pride, was once in the grasp of low-born creditors; nay, things in this evil direction had gone so far that writs were out against him, and one in the form of a caption was already in the hands of a messenger-at-arms. That the debts were comparatively small in amount, was no amelioration where the purse was all but empty; and he had exhausted the limited exchequers of his chums, which with college youths was, and is, not difficult to do. So the gay Bob was driven to his last shift, and that, as is generally the case, was a mean one; for necessity, as the mother of inventions, does not think it proper to limit her births to genteel or noble devices to please her proud consort. He even had recourse to poor Effie to help him; and, however ridiculous this may seem, there were reasons that made the application appear not so desperate as some of his other schemes. It was only the caption that as yet quickened his fears; and as the sum for which the writ was issued was only twenty pounds, it was not, after all, so much beyond the power of a clerk.

It was during one of their ordinary walks in the Meadows that the pressing necessity was opened by Stormonth to the vexed and terrified girl. He told her that, but for the small help he required in the meantime, he would be ruined. The wrath of his father would be excited once more, and probably to the exclusion of all reconciliation; and he himself compelled to flee, but whither he knew not. He had his plan prepared, and proposed to Effie, who had no means of her own, _to take a loan_ of the sum out of her father's cash-box--words very properly chosen according to the euphemistic policy of the devil; but Effie's genuine spirit was roused and alarmed.

"Dreadful!" she whispered, as if afraid that the night wind would carry her words to honest ears. "Besides," she continued, "my father, who is a hard man, keeps his desk lockit."

Words which took Stormonth aback, for even he saw there was here a necessity as strong as his own; yet the power of invention went to work again.

"Listen, Effie," said he. "If you cannot help me, it is not likely we shall meet again. I am desperate, and will go into the army."

The ear of Effie was chained to a force which was direct upon the heart. She trembled and looked wistfully into his face, even as if by that look she could extract from him some other device less fearful, by which she might have the power of retaining him for so short a period as a day.

"You draw out your father's drafts on the bank, Effie," he continued. "Write one out for me, and I will put your father's name to it. You can draw the money. I will be saved from ruin; and your father will never know."

A proposal which again brought a shudder over the girl.

"Is it Robert Stormonth who asks me to do this thing?" she whispered again.

"No," said he; "for I am not myself. Yesterday, and before the messenger was after me, I would have shrunk from the suggestion. I am not myself, I say, Effie. Ay or no; keep me or lose me--that is the alternative."

"Oh, I cannot," was the language of her innocence, and for which he was prepared; for the stimulant was again applied in the most powerful of all forms--the word farewell was sounded in her ear.

"Stop, Robert! let me think." But there was no thought, only the heart beating wildly. "I will do it; and may the penalty be mine, and mine only."

So it was: "even virtue's self turns vice when misapplied." What her mind shrank from was embraced by the heart as a kind of sacred duty of a love making a sacrifice for the object of its first worship. It was arranged; and as the firmness of a purpose is often in proportion to the prior disinclination, so Effie's determination to save her lover from ruin was forthwith put in execution; nay, there was even a touch of the heroine in her, so wonderfully does the heart, acting under its primary instincts, sanctify the device which favours its affection. That same evening Effie Carr wrote out the draft for twenty pounds on the Bank of Scotland, gave it to Stormonth, who, from a signature of the father's, also furnished by her, perpetrated the forgery--a crime at that time punishable by death. The draft so signed was returned to Effie. Next forenoon she went to the bank, as she had often done for her father before; and the document being in her handwriting, as prior ones of the same kind had also been, no scrutinizing eye was turned to the signature. The money was handed over, but _not counted_ by the recipient, as before had been her careful habit--a circumstance with its effect to follow in due time. Meanwhile Stormonth was at a place of appointment out of the reach of the executor of the law, and was soon found out by Effie, who gave him the money with trembling hands. For this surely a kiss was due. We do not know; but she returned with the satisfaction, overcoming all the impulses of fear and remorse, that she had saved the object of her first and only love from ruin and flight.

But even then the reaction was on the spring; the rebound was to be fearful and fatal. The teller at the bank had been struck with Effie's manner; and the non-counting of the notes had roused a suspicion, which fought its way even against the improbability of a mere girl perpetrating a crime from which females are generally free. He examined the draft, and soon saw that the signature was a bad imitation. Thereupon a messenger was despatched to Bristo Street for inquiry. John Carr, taken by surprise, declared that the draft, though written by his daughter, was forged--the forgery being in his own mind attributed to George Lindsay, his young salesman. Enough this for the bank, who had in the first place only to do with the utterer, against whom their evidence as yet only lay. Within a few hours afterwards Effie Carr was in the Tolbooth, charged with the crime of forging a cheque on her father's account-current.

The news soon spread over Edinburgh--at that time only an overgrown village, in so far as regarded local facilities for the spread of wonders. It had begun there, where the mother was in recurring faints, the father in distraction and not less mystery, George Lindsay in terror and pity. And here comes in the next strange turn of our story. Lindsay all of a sudden declared he was the person who imitated the name--a device of the yearning heart to save the girl of his affection from the gallows, and clutched at by the mother and father as a means of their daughter's redemption. One of those thinly-sown beings who are cold-blooded by nature, who take on love slowly but surely, and seem fitted to be martyrs, Lindsay defied all consequences, so that it might be that Effie Carr should escape an ignominious death. Nor did he take time for further deliberation: in less than half an hour he was in the procurator-fiscal's office--the willing self-criminator; the man who did the deed; the man who was ready to die for his young mistress and his love. His story, too, was as ready as it was truth-seeming. He declared that he had got Effie to write out the draft as if commissioned by John Carr; that he took it away, and with his own hands added the name; that he had returned the check to Effie to go with it to the bank, and had received the money from her on her return. The consequence was his wish, and it was inevitable. That same day George Lindsay was lodged also in the Tolbooth, satisfied that he had made a sacrifice of his life for one whom he had loved for years, and who yet had never shown him even a symptom of hope that his love would be returned.

All which proceedings soon came on the wings of rumour to the ears of Robert Stormonth, who was not formed to be a martyr even for a love which was to him as true as his nature would permit. He saw his danger, because he did not see the character of a faithful girl who would die rather than compromise her lover. He fled--aided probably by that very money he had wrung out of the hands of the devoted girl; nor was his disappearance connected with the tragic transaction; for, as we have said, the connection between him and Effie had been kept a secret, and his flight could be sufficiently accounted for by his debt.

Meanwhile the precognitions or examination of the parties went on, and with a result as strange as it was puzzling to the officials. Effie was firm to her declaration, that she not only wrote the body of the cheque, but attached to it the name of her father, and had appropriated the money in a way which she declined to state. On the other hand, Lindsay was equally staunch to his statement made to the procurator-fiscal, that he had got Effie to write the draft, had forged the name to it, and got the money from her. The authorities very soon saw that they had got more than the law bargained for or wanted; nor was the difficulty likely soon to be solved. The two parties could not both be guilty, according to the evidence, nor could one of them be guilty to the exclusion of the other; neither, when the balance was cast, was there much difference in the weight of the scales, because, while it was in one view more likely that Lindsay signed the false name, it was beyond doubt that Effie wrote the body of the document, and she had, moreover, presented it. But was it for the honour of the law that people should be hanged on a likelihood? It was a new case without new heads to decide it, and it made no difference that the body of the people, who soon became inflamed on the subject, took the part of the girl and declared against the man. It was easy to be seen that the tracing of the money would go far to solve the mystery; and accordingly there was a strict search made in Lindsay's lodgings, as well as in Effie's private repositories at home. We need not say with what effect, where the money was over the Border and away. It was thus in all views more a case for Astraea than common heads; but then she had gone to heaven. The Lord Advocate soon saw that the law was likely to be caught in its own meshes. The first glimpse was got of the danger of hanging so versatile, so inconsistent, so unsearchable a creature as a human being on a mere confession of guilt. That that had been the law of Scotland in all time, nay, that it had been the law of the world from the beginning, there was no doubt. Who could know the murderer or the forger better than the murderer or the forger himself? and would any one throw away his life on a false plea? The reasoning does not exhaust the deep subject; there remains the presumption that the criminal will, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, deny, and deny boldly. But our case threw a new light on the old law, and the Lord Advocate was slow to indict where he saw not only reasons for failure, but also rising difficulties which might strike at the respect upon which the law was founded.

The affair hung loose for a time, and Lindsay's friends, anxious to save him, got him induced to run his letters--the effect of which is to give the prosecutor a period wherein to try the culprit, on failure of which the person charged is free. The same was done by Effie's father; but quickened as the Lord Advocate was, the difficulty still met him like a ghost that would not be laid, that if he put Effie at the bar, Lindsay would appear in the witness-box; and if he put Lindsay on his trial, Effie would swear he was innocent; and as for two people forging _the same name_, the thing had never been heard of. And so it came to pass that the authorities at last, feeling they were in a cleft stick, where if they relieved one hand the other would be caught, were inclined to liberate both panels. But the bank was at that time preyed upon by forgeries, and were determined to make an example now when they had a culprit, or perhaps two. The consequence was, that the authorities were forced to give way, vindicating their right of choice as to the party they should arraign. That party was Effie Carr, and the choice justified itself by two considerations: that she, by writing and uttering the cheque, was so far committed by evidence exterior to her self-inculpation; and secondly, that Lindsay might break down in the witness-box under a searching examination. Effie was therefore indicted and placed at the bar. She pleaded guilty, but the prosecutor, notwithstanding, led evidence, and at length Lindsay appeared as a witness for the defence. The people who crowded the court had been aware from report of the condition in which Lindsay stood; but the deep silence which reigned throughout the hall when he was called to answer, evinced the doubt whether he would stand true to his self-impeachment. The doubt was soon solved. With a face on which no trace of fear could be perceived, with a voice in which there was no quaver, he swore that it was he who signed the draft and sent Effie for the money. The oscillation of sympathy, which had for a time been suspended, came round again to the thin pale girl, who sat there looking wistfully and wonderingly into the face of the witness, and the murmuring approbation that broke out, in spite of the shrill "silence" of the crier, expressed at once admiration of the man--criminal as he swore himself to be--and pity for the accused. What could the issue be? Effie was acquitted, and Lindsay sent back to gaol. Was he not to be tried? The officials felt that the game was dangerous. If Lindsay had stood firm in the box, had not Effie sat firm at the bar, with the very gallows in her eye, and would not she, in her turn, be as firm in the box? All which was too evident, and the consequence in the end came to be, that Lindsay was in the course of a few days set at liberty.

And now there occurred proceedings not less strange in the house of John Carr. Lindsay was turned off, because, though he had made a sacrifice of himself to save the life of Effie, the sacrifice was only that due to the justice he had offended. The dismissal was against the protestations of Effie, who alone knew he was innocent; and she had to bear the further grief of learning that Stormonth had left the city on the very day whereon she was apprehended--a discovery this too much for a frame always weak, and latterly so wasted by her confinement in prison, and the anguish of mind consequent upon her strange position. And so it came to pass in a few more days that she took to her bed, a wan, wasted, heart-broken creature; but stung as she had been by the conduct of the man she had offered to die to save, she felt even more the sting of ingratitude in herself for not divulging to her mother as much of her secret as would have saved Lindsay from dismissal, for she was now more and more satisfied that it was the strength of his love for her that had driven him to his great and perilous sacrifice. Nor could her mother, as she bent over her daughter, understand why her liberation should have been followed by so much sorrow; nay, loving her as she did, she even reproached her as being ungrateful to God.

"Mother," said the girl, "I have a secret that lies like a stane upon my heart. George Lindsay had nae mair to do with that forgery than you."

"And who had to do with it then, Effie, dear?"

"Myself," continued the daughter; "I filled up the cheque at the bidding o' Robert Stormonth, whom I had lang loved. It was he wha put my faither's name to it. It was to him I gave the money, to relieve him from debt, and he has fled."