G. P. R. James

“ I have made you up the best bed I can, and I dare say weariness will be as good as a feather pillow. Wait, I will light you another candle; I dare say, now, you never sat with a single one before."
"I have sat through long nights with none," replied Dudley. "You forget, my good friend, what it is to be a convict in a penal colony, and cannot know what it is to be an escaped convict in the midst of wilds and deserts which the foot of man has seldom trod; but such has been my fate."
"I did forget," replied Martin Oldkirk. "You have had a hard lot, sir." And Dudley and he parted for the night. ”

“ Speak, man, speak! Do not stand there, smiling at me like a fiend, but tell me, was she guilty or not?"
"As innocent as the purest work of God," replied the priest; and as he spoke, a sharp shudder passed over the whole frame of Sir Arthur Adelon, and his face became distorted with various passions: sorrow, and rage, and remorse. "Villain, villain, villain!" he cried, "then why did you so basely deceive me?"
"What, then, you have not seen Martin Oldkirk?" said Filmer, with a look of some surprise. "He is here, in this house, and will soon tell you all." ”

“ There was an elevation in it, a sense of dignity which he might have concluded would have been totally extinguished by a criminal conviction; but Dudley had not read the character of Norries quite aright. There are men, and he was one of them, who, taking to their heart some great principle, religious, moral, or political, have their reward, their encouragement, and their consolation in following its dictates, and seeking by any means to attain the objects which it sets before them. They build a pyramid of thought, and its vastness sinks every other thing into vain insignificance. ”

“ I will sleep out here upon this soft grass."
"I do not think I can sleep," replied Edgar.
"Try, try," said Dudley; and he led him into his wild dwelling, and pointed out to him his own lowly bed of dried herbs and grass, covered with the skins of the kangaroo. "There, Edgar," he said, "rest there. It has been my couch through many a weary and restless night; but sleep should visit your eyes more readily, for kindness surely has its own balm, and he who comes to comfort and to cheer may well expect repose and peace." ”

“ I know you have never doubted my innocence, nor has Eda. Tell her, for me, that I am innocent, and that my innocence and my faith are my only support. I have quitted the colony to which I was sent: broken, in short, the bonds which they placed upon me, and I am now living in perfect, utter solitude. Tell her I love her still--shall always love her. Yet, let her forget me; for what but pain can follow remembrance of one so lost to hope and all that brightens earth as
"Edward Dudley." ”

“ It is the looking up and looking down a hill, for the perspective of time is very different from that of substantial objects. The vanishing point comes close to the eye when we gaze back; is far, far removed when we gaze forward. At every period of life, too, it changes, and with every feeling of the heart, with every passion of our nature. To the young man the two years just passed stretch far away, filled with incidents and sensations all bright in their novelty, and vivid to the eye of memory. ”

“ Dudley assuaged his thirst, and then returned the man the gourd, saying, "That is better than brandy, and take my word for it, peace is bettor than revenge. Revenge is like that brandy you talk of: you take it to assuage a thirst, and it leaves a more consuming thirst than ever. From the moment you have had it, a burning will seize upon your heart, which nought will ever cool, you will die parched up with crime upon crime, without peace in the present, peace in the past, or peace in the future." ”

“ I have scrutinized my own heart; I know and understand my own feelings, and I am ready to choose my part at once, and to act up to it to the end."
"But the question is this," said Dudley. "Can you do so, my Eda, if I think fit, on motives of my own, to give no explanations to your uncle, or any one who may be present, to let mistakes go on, and confusion work itself clear by gradual and natural means?"
"But upon what motives, Dudley?" asked Eda, in a tone of anxiety. "Why should you suffer mistakes to exist when there is an easy way of explaining them?" ”

“ He will be acquitted, to a certainty, I think: nay, I am sure."
"I do not know, Edgar," answered Eda; "but in the mean time we must do all we can to help and comfort him; and that is why I wished to speak with you so much, for I know no one but you who seem to love him here."
"Oh, yes! there is one other, Eda," answered Edgar, with a smile; "one who loves him very well, I think."
The colour rose in Eda's cheek, but she raised her eyes to his, answering at once, "There certainly is, Edgar, and I have just told your father so. ”

“ Helen Clive shall be my wife, whatever obstacles may stand in the way. She, too, would, if she could, I am sure, show sufficient justification for what Dudley did. It was an act of righteous vengeance upon as base a man as ever breathed."
"What do you mean, Edgar?" exclaimed Eda Brandon, gazing at him as he spoke, with a flushed cheek and flashing eye. "You do not really believe that Dudley did kill this unhappy young man?"
"I do, Eda," answered her cousin; "but listen to me." And he proceeded to tell her all he knew--and it was but a part--of Lord Hadley's conduct to Helen Clive. ”

“ I did not know why then; but I know now."
"It is like the race of Dudley," replied Norries, and leaning his head upon his hand, he fell into deep and seemingly bitter thought. "How men may be led into great errors!" he exclaimed at length. "Helen, your father must know of all this; but I will tell him, and tell him why you dared not. That in itself will act as a check upon him; for with high hearts like his, to see the consequences of their passions is to regret them. But fear not, little pet, I will take care to tell him when he will have time for calm thought before he can act. ”

“ Why should that deprive us of the very happiness which such love gives?"
"Because it cannot be happy, my Helen," answered her father; "because he is a gentleman of high degree, and you the daughter of no better than a yeoman."
"My father," said Helen, rising, and laying the hand that was uninjured on her father's arm, "have I not heard you say that the blood of the yeoman Clive is as pure as that of the noble house of Adelon, and perhaps of older strain? Is not the land you cultivate your own, as much or more than his that he farms to others? ”

“ The effect was great upon an enthusiastic and impressible mind, and he exclaimed, "Well, Dudley, methinks it would not be so hard to pass one's days in such a spot as this."
"This is not its only aspect," answered Dudley, laying his hand upon his arm.
"And it is so with everything in life," said Norries. "There is scarcely any object in any state so inherently beautiful, or so inherently hideous, that the light in which we view them will not render them either pleasant or repulsive to the eye."
"There is somewhat more to be said, too, Edgar," continued Dudley. ”

“ I know no more delightful sensation upon earth, than when a being whom we love, acting beneath our eyes, but unconscious that we are watching, fulfils to the utmost the bright expectations that we have formed; while in the deed, and the tone, and the manner we see the confirmation of all that we had supposed, or dreamed, or divined of excellence in heart and mind. Charles Dudley loved Eda Brandon, and all she did or said was of course a matter of deep interest to him ”

“ Injure her! I would not for the world; no, not for anything on earth."
"Well, if your father knows it, Edgar, I have nought to say," rejoined the old man; "and I will trust to your word that you do tell him. That which he does with his eyes open is his fault, not ours. All I say is, I will have no deceit."
"You will hear from himself that I have told him," replied the young man, with a glowing cheek; "but mark me, Clive, I do not always say when I go to your house any more than when I go to other places. ”

“ He caught a young kangaroo when it was quite little, and bred it up to hop about his place like a dog that had lost its fore-legs. Well, whatever he saw the kangaroo eat, he knew he might eat too, for they're a sort of human creatures, those kangaroos; I never half liked shooting one in my life."
Dudley thought how strange that a man, who, for passion or revenge, would shed his fellow's blood like water, should feel repugnance to kill a mere brute, from a fancied resemblance to the human race. Yet such are the inconsistencies of our nature, and we meet with them every day. ”

“ It seems only that the lightgiver is at the one hour in the east, at the other in the west, and no sufficient cause appears for that extraordinary difference of hue in the air and over the earth.
It was morning, and the soft early light was stealing gently over everything, amongst the leaves of the trees, through the breaks in the rocks, down into the deep basin of the hills, into the caverns of the lava, along the smooth unruffled surface of the lake; and Charles Dudley and Edgar Adelon were seated together upon the top of the bold crags which towered over the crater of the extinct volcano. ”

“ Is it not so?"
"Undoubtedly," answered Sir Arthur Adelon; "but you have not yet told me where I shall find you in Barhampton."
"You had better go to the little inn--the Rose, I think it is called," replied Norries; "there is but one. There some one shall come to lead you to us; for we are upon our guard, Sir Arthur, and resolute neither to be taken unawares, as some men have been, nor to act rashly, and bring down destruction on our own heads, as those thoughtless, weak, and poor-spirited men did in Yorkshire."
"I am very happy to hear it," said the baronet, in a tone of sincerity. ”

“ Take Helen with you, and be sure that her devotion towards you will but increase and strengthen that strong affection which she has inspired in one worthy of her, and of whom she is worthy. I have promised you, Clive, or rather I should say, I have assured you, that your daughter shall be the wife of him she loves, ay, with his father's full consent. If you follow my advice, it shall be so; but do not suppose that Sir Arthur would ever suffer his son to marry the daughter of a convict. As it is, he knows that your blood is as good as his own, and that the only real difference is in fortune ”

“ He thought he had got an advantage, and he was proceeding, gradually resuming a tone of dignity, when Norries stopped him, saying, "Sir Arthur Adelon, there are times and circumstances which of themselves, and in their own pressing nature, abridge all ceremonies. If your house were on fire, and you in danger of perishing by the flames, I should not wait for the punctilios of etiquette, but should wake you roughly, saying, 'Run, run, save your life and your family!' Sir, I tell you England is on fire, and the time is come for all men to choose their part. The days of weak indifference are over. ”

“ I saw some reason even in those views which debarred me from happiness; I felt the due value of station and fortune when I had lost them, which I never felt while they were my own. But listen to me still with patience for one moment. Expectation was not yet fully tamed. I said to myself, I will make myself a station, I will regain the fortune which has been lost; and then, perhaps, love may re-illumine the torch of hope at its own flame, and all be light once more."
"Love!" murmured Eda, in a low tone, as he paused for an instant ”

“ When he was fishing in the lake, when he was watching for the passing of game, when he was hewing out cisterns from the rock, or breaking with his axe the hard crust of the salt-pool, thought would still press heavily upon him, and daily it became more heavy and dark. To hear the tones of the sweet human voice, to tell the feelings, or give utterance to the fancies of his own breast, seemed each moment a privilege more to be coveted, and he felt bitterly that man is made for society, and that utter solitude is utter desolation. ”

“ Were it not for that chance of change below, which hope ever holds out to the man not utterly lost, and for that certainty of change in another world which faith affords to the believer, life here, to a man wronged and blasted as I have been, would be a boon not worth the keeping. What have I to look forward to?--a life of toilful solitude, struggling each day for bare subsistence, without companionship or sympathy, without speech, without object, without reward, and with the high privilege of thought unfruitful except of bitterness and ashes. ”

“ There was a surgeon sitting by the sick man's side, with his hand upon the pulse, Helen's eyes were fixed eagerly upon the face of the man of healing, but after a moment or two he raised his look to hers, and shook his head gravely.
"It is of no use, my child," said Clive, in a low and feeble tone. "I am on the eve of the long departure. I feel death gaining upon me fast; life is at an end, and with it manifold cares, sorrows, and apprehensions. ”

“ I do not despair of you at all. You have a mind free from many prejudices which affect others of your religion. You are not at all bigoted or intolerant; and you view these matters so calmly, and yet devoutly, that with my firm convictions, after much study and thought, I cannot help thinking, if you will but look into the matter fully, you will arrive at a just conclusion."
"I trust, undoubtedly, that such will be the case," was Dudley's answer; "but I believe, my dear sir, that I have arrived at a just conclusion already. ”

“ There might be, also, a certain portion of apprehension in her thus flying from the mixed crowd. She had a sort of presentiment that her uncle would seek to force some match upon her, in the idle expectation of weaning her heart from a passion which, although it had not lately been mentioned between them, she felt convinced he must see traces of each day; and as at every instant she felt that her love for Dudley could never decay, as she longed to be with him more and more, she was anxious to avoid anything which could bring on discussions equally painful to herself and to Sir Arthur. ”

“ His friend did not answer him at once, and he was darting away towards the court-yard, when Dudley laid his hand upon his arm, saying, "Do not go thither now, Edgar. Come apart with me, and I will tell you all."
"I must; I will go at once!" exclaimed Edgar Adelon, passing him; and with a rapid step he hurried on across the terrace, round the angle of the house, and towards the great gates of the court-yard. On the right was a large building, used as a billiard-room; and under shelter of the ornamental porch, Edgar saw Eda, with fair face bedewed with tears. ”

“ We are too apt to suppose that one great predominant passion or weakness swallows up all others; and yet I am convinced, that if we looked into the heart of any man, be he the most ambitious, the most avaricious, the most vain, the most proud, we should find some well of tenderness hidden under the rubbish of life, which, if opened out again, might pour forth fresh and pure waters to revivify and beautify all around."
"Oh! that we had many searchers for such wells," said Eda; "but it seems to me that men, in dealing with their fellow-men, rather labour to cover and hide them. ”