“’’Tis a strange compact, still I see no better,
So by your leave we’ll sit and write this letter.”
Ye Merrie Bacheloure.

“The ancient saying is no heresy,
Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.”
Merchant of Venice.

THE heart of the wandering Swiss bounds within him at the sound of the “Ranz des Vaches,”-dear to the German exile are the soul-stirring melodies of his fatherland; but never did the ear of German or of Swiss drink in with greater delight the music that his spirit loved than did mine the transport of grunting by which Mr. Frampton welcomed his niece, the daughter of his childhood’s friend, his fondly remembered sister.

“Umph! eh! so you’ve let that rascal Cumberland slip through your fingers, Master Frank? Umph! stupid boy, stupid. I wanted to have him hanged.”

“I am afraid, sir, the law would scarcely have sanctioned such a proceeding.”

“Umph! why not, why not? He richly deserved it, the scoundrel-daring to run off with my niece. Dear child! she’s as like her poor-umph-umph! the Elliots were always reckoned a handsome race. What are you laughing at, you conceited puppy? It’s my belief that 464~ when I was your age I was a great deal better looking fellow than you are. Some people admire a snub nose; there was the Begum of Cuddleakee, splendid woman-Well, what do you want, sir, eh?”

The last words were addressed to Captain Spicer, to whom (as since our late truce he had become all amiability) I had entrusted the commission of ascertaining Wilford’s state, and who now appeared at the door, and beckoned me out of the room.

“I shall be with you again immediately,” said I, rising; and, replying to Clara’s anxious glance by a smile and a pressure of the hand, I hastened to obey the summons.

“Wilford is in a sad state, Mr. Fairlegh,” he began, as I closed the door behind me; “dreadful, ’pon my life, sir; but here’s the surgeon, you’d better speak to him yourself.”

In a little ante-room adjoining the chamber to which Wilford had been conveyed, I found the surgeon, who seemed an intelligent and gentlemanly person. He informed me that his patient had not many hours to live; the wound in the head was not mortal, but the spine had received severe injuries, and his lower extremities were already paralysed; he inquired whether I was acquainted with any of his relations; adding, that they ought to be sent for without a minute’s delay.

“Really I am not,” replied I; “I never was at all intimate with him; but I have heard, that even with those whom he admitted to his friendship, he was strangely reserved on such subjects.”

“Better question the servant,” suggested the surgeon; “the patient himself is quite incapable of giving us any information; the concussion has affected the brain, and he is now delirious.”

The only information to be gained by this means was, that the servant believed his master had no relations in England; he had heard that he had been brought up in Italy, and therefore imagined that his family resided there; he was able, however, to tell the name of his man of business in London, and a messenger was immediately despatched to summon him. Having done this, at the surgeon’s request I accompanied him to the chamber of the sufferer.

As we entered, Wilford was lying in bed supported by pillows, with his eyes half shut, apparently in a state of stupor; but the sound of our footsteps aroused him, and opening his eyes, he raised his head and stared wildly 465~ about him.  His appearance, as he did so, was ghastly in the extreme.  His beautiful black hair had been shorn away at the temples to permit his wound to be dressed, and his head was enveloped in bandages, stained in many places with blood; his face was pale as death, save a bright hectic spot in the centre of each cheek, fatal evidence of the inward fever which was consuming him.  His classical features, already pinched and shrunken, their paleness enhanced by contrast with his black whiskers, were fixed and rigid as those of a corpse; while his eyes, which burned with an unnatural brilliancy, glared on us with an expression of mingled hate and terror.  He seemed partially to recognise me, for, after watching me for a moment, his lips working convulsively, as if striving to form articulate sounds, he exclaimed in a low hoarse voice:-

“Ha! on the scent already! The staid sober lover-let him take care the pretty Clara does not jilt him. I know where she is?-not I-that’s a question you must demand of Mr. Cumberland, sir. I beg your pardon, did you say you doubted my word?-I have the honour to wish you good-morning-my friend will call upon you. What! Lizzy Maurice! who dares to say I wronged her?-’tis false. Take that old man away, with his grey hair-why does he torment me?-I tell you the girl’s safe, thanks to-to-my head’s confused-the ‘long man,’ as Curtis calls him, Harry Oaklands, handsome Harry Oak-lands. What did I hear you mutter? that he horsewhipped me?-and if he did, there was a day of retribution-ha! ha!-Sir, I shot him for it; shot him like a dog-I hated him, and he perished-the strong man died-died! and what then?-what becomes of dead men? A long-faced fool said I was dying, just now-he thought I didn’t hear him-I not hear an insult! and I consider that one-I’ll have him out for it-I’ll”-and he endeavoured to raise himself, but was scarcely able to lift his head from the pillow, and sank back with a groan of anguish. After a moment he spoke again, in a low, plaintive voice, “I am very ill, very weak-send for her-she will come-oh yes, she will come, for she loves me; she knows my fiery nature-knows my vices, as men call them, and yet she loves me-the only one who ever did-send for her-she will come, it is her son who wishes for her”. Then, in a tone of the fondest endearment he continued, “Lucia, bella madre, il tuo figlio tia chiama”.

“He has been speaking Italian for some time,” observed the surgeon in a whisper.

466~ “That man Spicer told me he thought he was of Italian extraction,” replied I.

Low as were our voices, the quick ear of the sufferer caught the name I had mentioned.

“Spicer,” he exclaimed eagerly; “has he returned? Well, man, speak! is she safely lodged? Cumberland has done his part admirably then. Oh! it was a grand scheme!-Ha! played me false-I’ll not believe it-he dares not-he knows me-knows I should dog him like his shadow till we met face to face, and I had torn his false heart out of his dastardly breast. I say he dares not do it!” and yelling out a fearful oath, he fell back in a fainting fit.

Let us draw a veil over the remainder of the scene. The death-bed of the wicked is a horrible lesson, stamped indelibly on the memory of all who have witnessed it. Happy are they whose pure hearts need not such fearful training; and far be it from me to dim the brightness of their guileless spirits by acquainting them with its harrowing details.

Shortly after the scene I have described, internal hemorrhage commenced; ere another hour had elapsed the struggle was over, and a crushed and lifeless corpse, watched by hirelings, wept over by none, was all that remained on earth of the man whom society courted while it feared, and bowed to while it despised-the successful libertine, the dreaded duellist, Wilford! I learned some time afterwards that his father had been an English nobleman, his mother an Italian lady of good family. Their marriage had been private, and performed only according to the rites of the Romish Church, although the earl was a Protestant. Availing himself of this omission, on his return to England he pretended to doubt the validity of the contract, and having the proofs in his own possession, contrived to set the marriage aside, and wedded a lady of rank in this country. Lucia Savelli, the victim of his perfidy, remained in Italy, devoting herself to the education of her son, whom she destined for the Romish priesthood. Her plans were, however, frustrated by the information that the earl had died suddenly, leaving a large fortune to the boy, on condition that he never attempted to urge his claim to the title, and finished his education in England. With his subsequent career the reader is sufficiently acquainted. On hearing of her son’s melancholy fate, Lucia Savelli, to whom the whole of his fortune was bequeathed, retired to a convent, which she endowed with her wealth.

467~ As Barstone was out of our way from M -to Heath-field, and as Clara was too much overcome by all she had gone through to bear any further agitation, we determined to proceed at once to my mother’s cottage, and despatched Peter Barnett to inform Mr. Vernor of the events of the day, and communicate to him Mr. Frampton’s resolution to leave him in undisturbed possession of Barstone, for a period sufficiently long to enable him to wind up all his affairs and seek another residence.

The return to Heathfield Cottage I shall not attempt to describe. Clara’s tears, smiles and blushes-Fanny’s tender and affectionate solicitude-my mother’s delighted, but somewhat fussy, hospitality-and my own sensations, which were an agreeable compound of those of every one else-each and all were perfect in their respective ways. But the crème de la crème, the essence of the whole affair, that on which the tongue of the poet and the pen of the romance-writer must alike rejoice to expatiate, was the conduct of Mr. Frampton; how he was seized, at one and the same moment, with two separate, irresistible, and apparently incompatible manías, one for kissing everybody, and the other for lifting and transporting (under the idea that he was thereby facilitating the family arrangements) bulky and inappropriate articles which no one required, all of which he deposited, with an air composed of equal parts of cheerful alacrity and indomitable perseverance, in the drawing-room, grunting the whole time as man never grunted before; a wild and unlooked-for course of proceeding which reduced my mother to the borders of insanity. Finding that argument was not of the least avail in checking his rash career, I seized him by the arm, just as he was about to establish on my sister’s work-table a large carpet-bag and an umbrella, which had accompanied him through the adventures of the day, and, dragging him off to his own room, forced him to begin to prepare for dinner, while I turned a deaf ear to his remonstrance, that “It was quite absurd to-umph! umph!-prevent him from making himself useful, when there was so much to be done in the house. Umph!” Having promulgated this opinion, he shook me by the hand till my arm ached, and, declaring that he was the happiest old man in the world, sat down and cried like a child.

Worn out by the fatigues and anxieties of the day, we gladly followed my mother’s suggestion of going to bed in good time, although I did not retire for the night till I had seen Harry Oaklands, and given him an account of 468~ our adventures. Wilford’s fate affected him strongly, and, shading his brow with his hand, he sat for some moments wrapped in meditation. At length he said, in a deep low tone, “These things force thought upon one, Frank. How nearly was this man’s fate my own! How nearly was I being hurried into eternity with a weight of passions unrestrained, of sins unrepented of, clinging to my guilty soul! God has been very merciful to me.” He paused; then, pressing my hand warmly, he added, “And now, good-night, Frank; to-morrow I shall be more fit to rejoice with you in your prospects of coming happiness; to-night I would fain be alone-you understand me”. My only reply was by wringing his hand in return, and we parted.

Reader, such thoughts as these working in a mind like that of Harry Oaklands, could not be without their effect; and when in after years, having by constant and unceasing watchfulness conquered his constitutional indolence, his voice has been raised in the senate of his country to defend the rights and privileges of our pure and holy faith-when men’s hearts, spell-bound by his eloquence, have been turned from evil to follow after the thing that is good, memory has brought before me that conversation in the library at Heathfield; and, as I reflected on the effect produced on the character of Oaklands by the fearful death of the homicide Wilford, I have acknowledged that the ways of Providence are indeed inscrutable.

I was roused from a deep sleep at an uncomfortably early hour on the following morning, by a sound much resembling a “view halloo,” coupled with my own name, shouted in the hearty tones of Lawless; and, flinging open the window, I perceived that indefatigable young gentleman employed in performing some incomprehensible manouvres with two sticks and a large flint stone, occasionally varying his diversion by renewing the rough music which had broken my slumbers.

“Why, Lawless, what do you mean by rousing me at this unreasonable hour? it’s not six o’clock yet. And what in the world are you doing with those sticks?”

“Unreasonable, eh? well, that’s rather good, now! Just tell me which is the most unreasonable, to lie snoring in bed like a fat pig or a fatter alderman, such a beautiful morning as this is, or to be out and enjoying it-eh?”

“You have reason on your side, so far, I must confess.”

“Eh? yes, and so I always have, to be sure. What am I doing with the sticks, did you say? can’t you see?”

469~ “I can see you are fixing one in the ground, taking extreme pains to balance the stone on the top of it, and instantly endeavouring to knock it off again with the other; in which endeavour you appear generally to fail.”

“Fail, eh? It strikes me that you are not half awake yet, or else your eyesight is getting out of condition. Six times running, except twice, when the wind or something got in the way, did I knock that blessed stone off, while I was trying to wake you. Epsom’s coming round soon, don’t you see, so I’m just getting my hand in for a slap at the snuff-boxes. But jump into your togs as fast as you can, and come out, for I’ve got such a lark to tell you.”

A few minutes sufficed to enable me to follow Lawless’s recommendation, and long before he had attained the proficiency he desired in his “snuff-box practice,” I had joined him.

“There!” he exclaimed, as he made a most spiteful shot at the stone, “that’s safe to do the business. By Jove, it has done it too, and no mistake,” he continued, as the stick, glancing against the branch of a tree, turned aside, and ruining a very promising bed of hyacinths, finally alighted on a bell-glass placed over some pet flower of Fanny’s, both of which it utterly destroyed.

“Pleasant that, eh?-ah, well, we must lay it to the cats-though if the cats in this part of the country are not unusually robust and vicious, there’s not a chance of our being believed.”

“Never mind,” remarked I, “better luck next time. But now that you have succeeded in dragging me out of bed, what is it that you want with me?”

“Want with you, eh?” returned Lawless, mimicking the half-drowsy, half-cross tone in which I had spoken; “you’re a nice young man to talk to, I don’t think. Never be grumpy, man, when I’ve got the most glorious bit of fun in the world to tell you, too. I had my adventures yesterday as well as you. Who do you think called upon me after you set out? You’ll never guess, so I may as well tell you at once; it was-but you shall hear how it happened. I was just pulling my boots on to try a young bay thoroughbred, that Reynolds thinks might make a steeple-chaser-he’s got some rare bones about him, I must say. Well, I was just in the very act of pulling on my boots, when Shrimp makes his appearance, and squeaking out, ’Here’s a gent, as vonts to see you, sir, partic’lar,’ ushers in no less a personage than Lucy Markham’s devoted admirer, the drysalter.”

470~ “What! the gentleman whose business we settled so nicely the day before yesterday? Freddy Coleman’s dreaded rival?”

Eh? yes, the very identical, and an uncommon good little follow he is too, as men go, I can tell you.  Well, you may suppose I was puzzled enough to find out what he could want with me, and was casting about for something to say to him, when he makes a sort of a bow, and begins:-

“‘The Honourable George Lawless, I believe?’

“‘The same, sir, at your service,’ replies I, giving a stamp with my foot to get my boot on.

“‘May I beg the favour of five minutes’ private conversation with you?’

“‘Eh? oh yes, certainly,’ says I. ’Get out of this, you inquisitive little imp of darkness, and tell Reynolds to tie the colt up to the pillar-reins, and let him champ the bit till I come down; that’s the way to bring him to a mouth;’ and, hastening Shrimp’s departure by throwing the slippers at his head, I continued, ’Now, sir, I’m your man; what’s the row, eh?’

“’A-hem! yes, sir, really it is somewhat a peculiar-that is a disagreeable business. I had thought of getting a friend to call upon you.’

“’A friend, eh? oh! I see the move now-pistols for two, and coffee for four; invite a couple of friends to make arrangements for getting a bullet put into you in the most gentlemanly way possible, and call it receiving satisfaction,-very satisfactory, certainly. Well, sir, you shall soon have my answer: no man can call George Lawless a coward; if he did, he’d soon find his eyesight obscured, and a marked alteration in the general outline of his features; but I never have fought a duel, and I never mean to fight one. If I’ve smashed your panels, or done you any injury, I am willing to pay for repairs, and make as much apology as one man has any right to expect from another; or, if it will be a greater ease to your mind, we’ll off coats, ring for Shrimp and Harry Oaklands’ boy to see fair play, and have it out on the spot, all snug and comfortable; but no pistoling work, thank ye.’

“Well, the little chap didn’t seem to take at all kindly to the notion, though, as I fancied he wasn’t much of a bruiser, I offered to tie my right hand behind me, and fight him with my left, but it was clearly no go; so I thought I’d better hold my tongue, and leave him to explain himself. After dodging about the bush for some time, he began to get the steam up a little, and when he 471~ did break cover, went away at a rattling pace,-let out at me in style, I can tell you. His affections had been set on Lucy Markham ever since he had had any, and I had been and destroyed the happiness of his whole life, and rendered him a miserable individual-a mark for the finger of scorn to poke fun at. Shocking bad names he did call himself, to be sure, poor little beggar! till ’pon my word, I began to get quite sorry for him. At last it came out, that the thing which chiefly aggravated him was, that Lucy should have given him up for the sake of marrying a man of rank. If it had been any one she was deeply attached to, he would not have so much minded; but it was nothing but a paltry ambition to be a peeress; she was mercenary, he knew it, and it was that which stung him to the quick.

“Well, as he said this, a bright idea flashed across me, that I could satisfy the little ‘victim,’ as he called himself, and get my own neck out of the collar, at one and the same time; so I went up to him, and giving him a slap on the back that set him coughing like a broken-winded hunter after a sharp burst, I said, ’Mr. Brown, I what the females call sympathise with you;-your thing-em-bobs-sentiments, eh? are perfectly correct, and do you credit. Now listen to me, young feller;-I’m willing to do my best to accommodate you in this matter, and, if you’re agreeable, this is the way we’ll settle it. You don’t choose Lucy should marry me, and I don’t choose she should marry you;-now if you’ll promise to give her up, I’ll do the same. That’s fair, ain’t it?’ ’Do you mean it really?’ says he. ‘Really and truly,’ says I. ’Will you swear?’ says he. ‘Like a trooper, if that will please you,’ says I. ‘Sir, you’re a gentleman-a generous soul,’ says he, quite overcome; and, grasping my hand, sobs out, ‘I’ll promise’. ’Done, along with you, drysalter,’ says I, ‘you’re a trump;’ and we shook hands till he got so red in the face, I began to be afraid of spontaneous combustion. ‘There’s nothing like striking when the iron’s hot,’ thinks I; so I made him sit down there and then, and we wrote a letter together to old Coleman, telling him the resolution we had come to, and saying, if he chose to bring an action for breach of promise of marriage against us, we would defend it conjointly, and pay the costs between us. What do you think of that, Master Frank? Eh?”

“That you certainly have a more wonderful knack of getting into scrapes, and out of them again, than any man I ever met with,” replied I, laughing.

472~ Before we had finished breakfast Peter Barnett made his appearance. On his return to Barstone, he was informed that Mr. Vernor had been seized with an apoplectic fit, probably the result of the agitation of the morning. He was still in a state of stupor when Peter started to acquaint us with the fact, and the medical man who had been sent for considered him in a very precarious condition. Under these circumstances, Mr. Frampton immediately set out for Barstone, where he remained till the following morning, when he rejoined us. A slight improvement had taken place in the patient’s health; he had recovered his consciousness, and requested to see Mr. Frampton. During the interview which ensued, he acknowledged Mr. Frampton’s rights, and withdrew all further opposition to his wishes.

After the lapse of a few days, Mr. Vernor recovered sufficiently to remove from Barstone to a small farm which he possessed in the north, where he lingered for some months, shattered alike in health and spirits. He steadily refused to see either Clara or myself, or to accept the slightest kindness at our hands; but we have since had reason to believe, that in this he was actuated by a feeling of compunction, rather than of animosity. Nothing is so galling to a proud spirit, as to receive favours from those it has injured. In less than a year from the time he quitted Barstone Priory, a second attack terminated his existence. On examining his papers after his decease, Peter Barnett’s suspicions that Richard Cumberland was Mr. Vernor’s natural son were verified, and this discovery tended to account for a considerable deficiency in Clara’s fortune, the unhappy father having been tempted to appropriate large sums of money to relieve his spendthrift son’s embarrassments. This also served to explain his inflexible determination that Clara should marry Cumberland, such being the only arrangement by which he could hope to prevent the detection of his dishonesty.

Reader, the interest of my story, always supposing it to have possessed any in your eyes, is now over.

Since the occurrence of the events I have just related the course of my life has been a smooth, and, though not exempt from some share in the “ills that flesh is heir to,” an unusually happy one.

In an address, whether from the pulpit or the rostrum, half the battle is to know when you have said enough-the same rule applies with equal force to the tale-writer. There are two errors into which he may fall-he may say too little, or he may say too much. The first is a venial 473~ sin, and easily forgiven-the second nearly unpardonable. Such, at all events, being my ideas on the subject, I shall merely proceed to give a brief outline of the fate of the principal personages who have figured in these pages ere I bring this veritable history to a close. Cumberland, after his flight from the scene at the turnpike-house, made his way to Liverpool, and, his money being secreted about his person, hastened to put his original plan into execution. A vessel was about to start for America, by which he obtained a passage to New York. In the United States he continued the same vicious course of life which had exiled him from England, and, as a natural consequence, sank lower and lower in the scale of humanity. The last account heard of him stated that, having added drinking to the catalogue of his vices, his constitution, unable to bear up against the inroads made by dissipation, was rapidly failing, while he was described to be in the most abject poverty. The captain of an American vessel with whom I am slightly acquainted, promised me that he would gain more particulars concerning him, and, if he were in actual want, leave money with some responsible person for his use, so as to ensure him against starvation. The result of his inquiries I have yet to learn.

Old Mr. Coleman was, as may be imagined, dreadfully irate on the receipt of the singular epistle bearing the joint signatures of Lawless and Mr. Lowe Brown, and was only restrained from bringing an action for breach of promise by having it strongly represented to him that the effect of so doing would be to make himself and his niece ridiculous. Freddy and Lucy Markham had the good sense to wait till Mr. Coleman had taken the former into partnership, which he fortunately inclined to do almost immediately; being then, with the aid of Lawless’s receivership, in possession of a very comfortable income, the only serious objection to the marriage was removed; and the father, partly to escape Mrs. Coleman’s very singular and not over-perspicuous arguments, partly because he loved his son better than he was himself aware, gave his consent.

George Lawless is still a bachelor. If questioned on the subject, his invariable reply is, “Eh, married? Not I! Women are a kind of cattle, don’t you see, that I never did understand. If it was anything about a horse now-” There are some, however, who attribute his celibacy to another cause, and deem that he has never yet seen any one calculated to efface the memory of his sincere though eccentric attachment to my sister Fanny.

474~ It was on a bright summer morning that the bells of the little church of Heathfield pealed merrily to celebrate a triple wedding; and fairer brides than Fanny, Clara and Lucy Markham, or happier bridegrooms than Harry Oaklands, Freddy Coleman and myself, never pronounced the irrevocable “I will”. There were smiles on all faces; and if there were a few tears also, they were such as angels might not grudge to weep-tears of pure, unalloyed happiness.

Years have passed away since that day-years of mingled light and shade; but never, as I believe, have either of the couples then linked together shown, by thought, word or deed, that they have failed in gratitude to the Giver of all good things, who in His mercy had granted them the rare and inestimable blessing of sharing the joys and sorrows of this world of trial with a loving and beloved companion.

Clara and I reside at Barstone Priory, which is also Mr. Frampton’s home, when he is at home; but his wandering habits lead him to spend much of his time in a round of visits to his friends; and Heathfield Hall and Cottage, Leatherly and Elm Grove, are in turn gladdened by the sound of his kindly laugh and sonorous grunts.

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