University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

John Moseley returned from L—within
the week, and appeared as if his whole
delight consisted in knocking over the inoffensive
birds. His restlessness induced him
to make a Jarvis his companion; for although
he abhorred the captain's style of pursuing
the sport, being in his opinion both out of
rule and without taste, yet he was a constitutional
fidget, and suited his own moving propensities
at the moment. Egerton and Denbigh
were both frequently at the Hall, but
generally gave their time to the ladies, neither
being much inclined to the favourite amusement
of John.

There was a little arbour within the walls
of the park, which had been for years the retreat
from the summer heats to the ladies of
the Moseley family; even so long as the youth
of Mrs. Wilson it had been in vogue, and she
loved it with a kind of melancholy pleasure,
as the spot where she had first listened to the
language of love, from the lips of her late
husband; into this arbour the ladies had one
day retired during the warmth of a noon-day
sun, with the exception of Lady Moseley,
who had her own engagements in the house.
Between Egerton and Denbigh there was
maintained a kind of courtly intercourse,

which prevented any disagreeable collision
from their evident dislike. Mrs. Wilson
thought on the part of Denbigh, it was the
forbearance of a principled indulgence to another's
weakness; while the colonel's otherwise
uniform good-breeding, was hardly able to conceal
a something, amounting to very near repugnance,
with which he admitted the association.
Egerton had taken his seat on the
ground, near the feet of Jane; and Denbigh
had stationed himself on a bench placed without
the arbour, but so near as to have the full
benefit of the shade of the noble oak, whose
branches had been trained, so as to compose
its principal covering. It might have been
accident, that gave each his particular situation;
but it is certain they were so placed,
as not to be in sight of each other, and so
that the Colonel was convenient to hand Jane
her scissors, or any other little implement
of her work that she occasionally dropped,
and so that Denbigh could read every lineament
of the animated countenance of Emily
as she listened to his description of the curiosities
of Egypt, a country in which he had
spent a few months while attached to the
army in Sicily. In this situation we will
leave them for an hour, happy in the society
of each other, while we trace the rout of John
Moseley and his companion, in their pursuit
of woodcock, on the same day.

“Do you know, Moseley,” said Jarvis, who

began to think he was a favourite with John,
“that I have taken if into my head, this Mr.
Denbigh was very happy to plead his morals
for not meeting me; he is a soldier, but I
cannot find out what battles he has been in.”

“Captain Jarvis,” said John coolly, “the
less you say about that business the better;
call in Rover.” Now another of Jarvis's recommendations
was a set of lungs that might
have been heard a half a mile with great
ease on a still morning.

“Why,” said Jarvis rather humbly, “I am
sensible, Mr. Moseley, I was very wrong as
regards your sister; but don't you think it a
little odd in a soldier not to fight when properly
called upon.”

“I suppose Mr. Denbigh did not think
himself properly called upon,” said John;
“or perhaps he had heard what a great shot
you were.”

Six months before his appearance in B—,
Captain Jarvis had been a clerk in the counting
room of Jarvis, Baxter & Co. and had
never held fire-arms of any kind in his hand,
with the exception of an old blunderbuss,
which had been a kind of sentinel over the
iron chest for years. On mounting the
cockade, he had taken up shooting as a martial
exercise, inasmuch as the burning of gunpowder
was an attendant of the recreation.
He had never killed but one bird in his life,
and that was an owl, of whom he took the
advantage of day-light and his stocking feet,

to knock off a tree in the deanery grounds
very early after his arrival. In his trials with
John, he sometimes pulled trigger at the same
moment with his companion; and as the
bird generally fell, why he had certainly an
equal claim to the honour. He was fond of
warring with crows, and birds of the larger
sort, and invariably went provided with small
balls fitted to the bore of his fowling piece for
such accidental rencontres. He had another
habit, which was not a little annoying to
John, and who had several times tried in vain
to break him of, that of shooting at marks.
If birds were not plenty, he would throw up
a chip, and sometimes his hat, by the way of
shooting on the wing.

As the day was excessively hot, and the
game kept close, John felt willing to return
from such unprofitable labour. The captain
now commenced his chip firing, which in a
few minutes was succeeded by his hat.

“See, Moseley, see, I have hit the band,”
cried the captain, delighted to find he had at
last wounded his old antagonist; “I don't
think you can beat that yourself.”

“I am not sure I can,” said John, slipping
a handful of gravel in the muzzle of his piece
slily, “but I can do as you did, try.”

“Do,” cried the captain, pleased to get
his companion down to his own level of amusement,
“are you ready?”

“Yes, throw.”

Jarvis threw, and John fired; the hat fairly

bounced—“Have I hit it?” asked John
coolly, while reloading the barrel he had discharged.

“Hit it?” said the captain, looking ruefully
at his hat, “it looks like a cullender;
but Moseley, your gun don't scatter well;
here must have been a dozen shot have gone
through in a place.”

“It does look rather like a cullender,”
said John, as he overlooked his companion's
observations on the state of his beaver, “and
by the size of some of the holes, one that has
been a good deal used.”

The reports of the fowling pieces announced
to the party in the arbour the return of
the sportsmen; it being an invariable practice
with John Moseley, to discharge his gun
before he came in, and Jarvis had imitated
him, from a wish to be, what he called, in
rules.

“Mr. Denbigh,” said John archly, as he
put down his gun, “Captain Jarvis has got
the better of his hat at last.” Denbigh smiled
without speaking; and the captain, unwilling
to have any thing to say to a gentleman to
whom he had been obliged to apologize for
his five hundred pounds, went into the arbour
to show the mangled condition of his
head-piece to the colonel, on whose sympathies
he felt a kind of claim, being of the
same corps. John complained of thirst, and
went to a little run of water, but a short distance
from them, in order to satisfy it. The

interruption of Jarvis was particularly unseasonable.
Jane was relating, in a manner peculiar
to herself, and in which was mingled
that undefinable exchange of looks lovers are
so fond of, some incident of her early life to the
colonel, that greatly interested him; knowing
the captain's foibles, he pointed with his
finger, as he said,

“There is one of your enemies, a hawk.”

Jarvis threw down his hat, and ran with
boyish eagerness to drive away the intruder.
In his haste, he caught up the gun of John
Moseley, and loading it rapidly, threw in a
ball from his usual stock; but whether it was
that the hawk saw and knew him, or whether
it saw something else it liked better, it made
a dart for the baronet's poultry yard at no
great distance, and was out of sight in a minute.
Seeing his mark had vanished, the
captain laid the piece where he had found it,
and recovering his old train of ideas, picked
up his hat again.

“John,” said Emily, as she approached
him affectionately, “you were too warm to
drink.”

“Stand off, sir,” cried John playfully, having
taken up his gun from against the body
of the tree, and dropping it towards her—

Jarvis had endeavoured to make an appeal
to the commiseration of Emily, in favour of
his neglected beaver, and was within a few
feet of them; at this moment, recoiling from
the muzzle of the gun, he exclaimed, “it is

loaded.” “Hold,” cried Denbigh, in a voice
of horror, as he sprang between John and his
sister. Both were too late; the piece was
discharged. Denbigh turning to Emily, and
smiling mournfully, gazed for a moment at
her, with an expression of tenderness, of
pleasure of sorrow, so blended, that she retained
the recollection of it for life, and then
fell at her feet.

The gun dropt from the nerveless grasp of
young Moseley. Emily sunk in insensibility
by the side of her preserver. Mrs. Wilson
and Jane stood speechless and aghast. The
colonel alone retained a presence of mind so
necessary to devise the steps to be immediately
taken. He sprung to the examination
of Denbigh; his eyes were open, and his
recollection perfect: they were fixed in intense
observation on the inanimate body
which laid by his side.

“Leave me, Colonel Egerton,” he said,
speaking with difficulty, and pointing in the
direction of the little run of water, “assist
Miss Moseley—your hat—your hat will answer.”

Accustomed to scenes of blood, and not
ignorant that time and care were the remedies
to be applied to the wounded man,
Egerton flew to the stream, and returning
immediately, by the help of her sister and
Mrs. Wilson, soon restored Emily to life.
The ladies and John had now begun to act.

The tenderest assiduities of Jane were devoted
to her sister, while Mrs. Wilson, observing
her niece to be uninjured by any thing
but the shock, assisted John in supporting the
wounded man.

He spoke, requesting to be carried to the
house; and Jarvis was despatched for help:
within half an hour, Denbigh was placed on
a couch in the mansion of Sir Edward, and
quietly waiting for that professional aid,
which could only decide on his probable fate.
The group assembled in the room, were
waiting in fearful expectation the arrival of
the surgeons, in pursuit of whom messengers
had been sent, both to the barracks in F—
and to the town itself. Sir Edward sat by
the side of the sufferer, holding one of his
hands in his own, now turning his tearful
eyes on that daughter who had so lately been
rescued as it were from the certainty of death
in mute gratitude and thanksgiving; and now
dwelling on the countenance of him, who,
by barely interposing his bosom to the blow,
had incurred in his own person, the imminent
danger of a similar fate, with a painful sense
of his perilous situation, and devout and earnest
prayers for his safety. Emily was with her
father, as with the rest of his family, a decided
favourite; and no reward would have been
sufficient, no gratitude lively enough, in the
estimation of the baronet, to compensate the
defender of such a child. She sat between

her mother and Jane, with a hand held by
each, pale and opprest with a load of gratitude,
of thanksgiving, of wo, that almost
bowed her to the earth. Lady Moseley and
Jane were both sensibly touched with the deliverance
of Emily, and manifested the interest
they took in her by the tenderest caresses,
while Mrs. Wilson sat calmly collected within
herself, occasionally giving those few directions
which were necessary under the circumstances,
and offering up her silent petitions
in behalf of the sufferer. John had
taken horse immediately for F—, and Jarvis
had volunteered to go to the rectory and
Bolton. Denbigh inquired frequently and
with much anxiety for Dr. Ives; but the rector
was absent from home on a visit to a sick
parishioner, and it was late in the evening
before he arrived. Within three hours of the
accident, however, Dr. Black, the surgeon of
the—th, reached the Hall, and immediately
proceeded to the examination of the wound.
The ball had penetrated the right breast, and
gone directly through the body; it was extracted
with very little difficulty, and his attendant
acquainted the anxious friends of
Denbigh, the heart had certainly, and he
hoped the lungs had escaped uninjured; the
ball was a very small one, and the danger to
be apprehended was from fever: he had taken
the usual precautions against it, and
should it not set in with a violence greater
than he apprehended at present, the patient
might be abroad within the month; “but,”
continued the surgeon with the hardened indifference
of his profession, “the gentleman
has had a narrow chance in the passage of
the ball itself; half an inch would have settled
his accounts with this world.” This information
greatly relieved the family, and
orders were given to preserve a silence in the
house that would favour the patient's disposition
to quiet, or, if possible, sleep.

Dr. Ives now reached the Hall. Mrs.
Wilson had never seen the rector in the agitation,
or want of self-command he was in,
as she met him at the entrance of the house—
“Is he alive?—is there hope?—where is
George?”—cried the doctor as he caught the
extended hand of Mrs. Wilson; she briefly
acquainted him with the surgeon's report,
and the reasonable ground there was to expect
Denbigh would survive the injury.---
“May God be praised,” said the rector, in a
suppressed voice, and he hastily withdrew
into a parlour. Mrs. Wilson followed him
slowly and in silence, but was checked on her
opening the door, with the sight of the rector
on his knees, and the big tear stealing down his
venerable cheeks in quick succession. “Surely,”
thought the widow, as she drew back unnoticed,
“a youth capable of exciting such
affection in a man like Dr. Ives, as he now
manifests, cannot be an unworthy one.”

Denbigh hearing of the arrival of his friend

desired to see him alone: their conference
was short, and the rector returned from it with
increased hopes of the termination of this
dreadful accident. He immediately left
the hall for his own house, with a promise
of returning early on the following
morning.

During the night, however, the symptoms
became unfavourable; and before the return
of Dr. Ives, Denbigh was in a state of delirium
from the height of his fever, and the apprehensions
of his friends renewed with additional
force.

“What, what, my good sir, do you think
of him?” said the baronet to the family physician,
with an emotion that the danger of his
dearest child would not have exceeded, and
within hearing of most of his children, who
were collected in the anti-chamber of the
room Denbigh was placed in. “It is impossible
to say, Sir Edward,” replied the physician,
“he refuses all medicines, and unless
this fever abates, there is but little hopes of
his recovery.”

Emily stood during this question and answer,
motionless, pale as death, and with
her hands clasped together; betraying by
the workings of her fingers in a kind of
convulsive motion, the intensity of her interest;
she had seen the draught prepared,
which it was so desirable for Denbigh to
take, and it now stood rejected on a table in

view through the open door of his room
---almost breathless she glided to where it
was put, and taking it in her hand, she approached
the bed, by which sat John alone,
listening with a feeling of despair to the
wanderings of the sick man; Emily hesitated
once or twice, as she drew near to
Denbigh; her face had lost the paleness
of anxiety, and glowed with some other
emotion.

“Mr. Denbigh---dear Denbigh,” said
Emily, with energy, and unconsciously dropping
her voice into the softest notes of persuasion;
“will you refuse me?—me, Emily
Moseley, whose life you have saved?” and
she offered him the salutary beverage.

“Emily Moseley!” repeated Denbigh, after
her, and in those tones so remarkable to his
natural voice, “is she safe? I thought she
was killed---dead;” and then, as if recollecting
somewhat, he gazed intently on her
countenance---his eye became less fiery---his
muscles relaxed---he smiled, and took
without opposition the prescribed medicines
from her hand. He still wandered in his language,
but his physician, profiting by the
command Emily possessed over his patient,
increased his care, and by night his fever
had abated, and before morning he was in a
profound sleep. During the whole day, it
was thought necessary to keep Emily by the
side of his bed; but at times it was no

trifling tax on her feelings to remain there;
he spoke of her by name in the tenderest
manner, although incoherently, and in terms
that restored to the blanched cheeks of the
distressed girl, more than the richness of
their native colour. His thoughts were not
confined to Emily, however; he talked of
his father---of his mother, and frequently
spoke of his poor deserted Marian---the latter
name he dwelt on in the language of the
warmest affection---condemned his own desertion
of her—and, taking Emily for her,
would beg her forgiveness---tell her, her
sufferings had been enough, and that he
would return and never leave her again. At
such moments, his nurse would sometimes
show, by the paleness of her cheeks again,
her anxiety for his health, and then, as he addressed
her by her proper appellation, all her
emotions appeared absorbed in a sense of the
shame his praises overwhelmed her with, as
he became more placid with the decrease of
his fever. Mrs Wilson succeeded her in
the charge of the patient; and she retired to
seek that repose she so greatly needed. On
the second morning after receiving the wound,
he dropped into a deep sleep, from which he
awoke perfectly refreshed and collected in
his mind. The fever had left him, and his
attendants pronounced, with the usual caution
to prevent a relapse, his recovery certain.
It were impossible to have communicated
any intelligence more grateful to all the
members of the Moseley family; for Jane
had even lost sight of her own lover, from her
sympathy in the fate of a man she supposed
to be her sister's.