University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

I was cited before the Justice, and the testimony
of William Harding delivered with
the most circumstantial minuteness, was taken
down in my presence. Never did I see a
more striking instance of conscience struggling
with feeling—never had I conceived of
so complete a conquest of one over the other.
I denied all. I denied that I had ever made
him such a statement—that we had ever
had any such conversation; and with the coolness
and composure of veteran crime, wondered
at the marvellous insanity of his representations.
He was dumb, he looked absolutely
terrified. Of course, however, in such

an examination, my own statements were unavailing;
and his were to be sustained by a
reference to the localities and such of the details
which he had made, as might ostensibly
contribute to its sustenance or overthrow.
Search was made under the tree where my
victim was alledged to have been buried.
The earth appeared never to have been disturbed
from the creation — upon digging, nothing
was found. So, with all other particulars.
Harding's representations were confuted. He
was regarded by all as a malignant wretch,
who envied the felicity, and sought to sting
the hand of him who had cherished and befriended
him. The public regard feel away
from him, and he was universally avoided. I
affected to consider him the victim of momentaryhallucination,
and the christian charity
thus manifested, became the admiration of all.
I almost dreaded that I should be deified—
made a deacon in life, and a saint after death.

Poor Harding sunk silently to his den.
Sensitively alive to public opinion, as well as
private regard, his mind reeled to and fro, like
a storm troubled vessel, beneath a shock so
terrible and unexpected. He had lived upon
the breath of fame—he was jealous of high
reputation—he was tremblingly alive to those
very regards of the multitude, which were
now succeeded by their scorn and hisses.
What a blow had I given him—but he was
not yet to escape me. I suffered a day or
two to elapse, and then sought him out in his
chamber. I entered, and looked upon him
for several minutes unobserved. His head
was between his hands, and his chin rested

upon the table. His air was that of the most
woful abandon. The nature of his feelings
might be inferred, along with his personal appearance,
from the nature of the companions
beside, and the general condition of things
around him. One boot was thrown off, and
lay upon the floor—the other, as if he had
grown incapable of further effort, was permitted
to remain upon his foot. The mirror
lay in the smallest pieces about the room;
the contemplation of his own features, blasted
as they had been with the shame of his
situation, having prompted him, as he came
from the place of trial, to dash his hand through
it. On the table, and on each side of him, lay
—strangely associated—his bible and his pistols.
He had been about to refer to one or to
the other of them for consolation. It was in
this situation, that I found him out. I brought
increased tortures—while the people, who
saw and wondered, gave me credit for christian
benevolence. How many virtues would
put on the most atrocious features, could
their true motives be pursued through the
hive of venomous purposes that so frequently
swarm and occupy the secret cells and caverns
of the human heart!

He saw me at length, and, as if the associations
which my presence had called up, were
too terrible for contemplation, he buried his
head in his hands, and again thrust them on
the table. As I approached, however, he
started from this position—a mood entirely
new, appeared to seize upon him, and snatching
the pistol which lay before him upon the
table, he rushed to meet me. He placed it

upon my bosom, and deliberately cocked it,
placing his finger at the same moment upon
the trigger. A glare of hellish desperation,
flowed out from his eyes, as with words that
seemed rather shrieked than articulated, he exclaimed—“
And what is there that keeps me
from destroying you? What should stay my
hand—what should interpose to protect you
from my just revenge—what should keep you
from the retributive wrath, which you have
roused into fury?”

I made no movement—precipitation, or any
act or gesture, on my part, at that moment,
would have been instant death. He would
have felt his superiority. I maintained my
position, and without raising a finger, I replied
with the utmost deliberation:—

“What should keep you from taking my
life! What a question! Would you be answered?—Your
own fears.—You know that I
would haunt you.”

The pistol dropped from his hands, and he
trembled all over. I proceeded.

“You should have no peace—no moment of
repose secure from my intrusion—no single
hour you should call your own. I should link
myself to you, as Mezentius' dead, to his condemned
and living victim. I would come between
you and your dearest joys, nor depart
for a solitary moment from a share in all the
unavoidable duties and performances of life.
We should sit, side by side, at the same table
—sleep in the same couch,—dwell in the same
dwelling. Would you rise to speak in the
council, I should prompt your words—I should

guide your action. Would you travel, I would
mount the box and impel in the direction of
my caprice. Would you love, I would figure
in your courtship—go between yourself and
mistress, and assist in your bridal. Your own
wife should not have one half of the communion
I should enjoy with you!”

He was paralyzed with his agony.

“Terrible man!” he exclaimed, “What
would you do with me; why am I made
your victim—why do you persecute me?
I have not wronged; I have not sought to
wrong you. You, on the contrary, have destroyed
me, and yet would pursue me further.
You have been my evil genius.”

“I know it—I deplore it!”

“You deplore it! Horrible mockery! How
shall I believe your speech after what has

happened. Why deny the story, yourself
poured into my ears as the truth.”

“It was the truth!”

“Yet you swore it was false!”

“Life is sweet—life is necessary, if not to
human joys, at least, to the opportunities of
human repentance. Would you have me give
myself to an ignominious death upon the scaffold—disgracing
my family, dishonoring myself,
and dooming all who shared in my communion
to a kindred dishonor with myself?”

“Why then did you tell me of this crime?”

“I could not help it. The impulse was native
and involuntary, and I could not disobey
it. It would not be resisted. It burned in
my bosom as it has done in yours, and, until
I had revealed it, I could hope for no relief.”

“Dreadful alternative! Hear me, Martin
Faber—hear me and pity me. You know my
history—you know my hopes—my pretensions—my
ambition. You know that for
years, from my boyhood up, in despite of poverty,
and the want of friends and relatives, I
have been contending for glory—for a name.
You know that the little world in which we
live, had begun to be friendly to my aspirations—that
they looked on my progress with
sympathy and encouragement—that they
pointed to me as one likely to do them honor—
to confer a name upon my country as well as
upon myself. You know that for years, in solitude,
and throughout the long hours of the
dark and wintery night, I have pursued my
solitary toil for these objects. That I have
shrunk from the society that has been wooing

me—that I have denied myself all the enjoyments
which are the life of other men—that I
have, in short, been sacrificing the present for
the future existence—the undying memory of
greatness, which it had been my hope, to leave
behind me. This you knew—this you know.
In one hour, you—without an object—to satisfy
a wanton caprice—you have overthrown all
these hopes—you have made all these labors
valueless—you have destroyed me. Those
who loved, hate me—those who admired, contemn—those
who praised, now curse and denounce
me as a wanton and malicious enemy,
seeking the destruction of my friend! I am not
only an exile from my species—I am banished
from that which has been the life-blood of
my being—the possession of a goodly, of a
mighty name! I have no further use in life.”

“All is true—you have said but the truth.
I am conscious of it all.”

“Oh, speak not, I conjure you—I need not
your assurances in my confirmation. I do not
ask your voice. Hear me in what I shall say,
and if you can, heal as far as you may heal,
the wounds you have inflicted.”

“Speak on!”

“I will seek to reconcile myself to the condition—to
the exile to which you have driven
me. I will struggle to give up the high hopes
which have prompted and cheered me, through
the unalleviated and unlighted labors of my
life—I will struggle to be—nothing! All I ask
is that you should give me peace—permit me
to sleep once more. Say that you have not
committed the crime, of which you have accused
yourself. Give me this assurance, and

free me from this gibbering and always present
spectre, that, roused for ever by my fancies,
refuses to be gone !”

How easy to have granted this request ! How
impossible, indeed, would it appear, to have
refused an appeal, urged under such circumstances.
But I did refuse — I reiterated the
story of my crime, as I had uttered it before,
without any variation, and the nervously susceptible
youth sunk down before me, in despair,
upon the floor. In a moment, however,
he arose, and — smile was upon his lips.
There was a fearful energy in his eye, which
had never marked it before, and which it surprised
me not a little to survey. With a strong
effort, he approached me.

“I will be no longer a child — I will shake off
this fever of feeling which is destroying me.

I will conquer these fancies—I will not be
their slave. Shall I possess a mind, so soaring
and absolute, to bow down to the tyrant of
my own imaginings? I will live for better
things. I will make an effort!”

I applauded his determination, and persuaded
him to go with me, as before, to my residence.
This, though good policy with me,
was the height of bad policy with him. The
world looked upon me as the most forgiving
and foolishly weak philanthropist—a benevolent
creation of the very finest water. The
readiness with which Harding again sought
my hospitality, after his charges against me,
was, of course, still further in evidence, against
the honesty of his intentions. They looked
upon his depravity as of the most heinous
character, and numberless were the warnings

which I hourly received, of the thousand
stings which the—so-called—serpent was
treasuring up for my bosom. But, I affected
to think differently. I put all in his conduct
down to a momentary aberration of intellect,
and urged the beauty and propriety of christian
forgiveness. Was I not of a most saint-like
temper? They thought so.