University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

The favoured individual whose talents are exercised
in developing the movements that sway the destinies
of states and empires, not only assigns to each
actor his appropriate station, and arranges his temporary

exits and entrances, but, in the progress of
events, a goodly number of his characters are constrained
to wave their final adieu to the audience,
having been summoned by a mightier power to play
their parts on the great theatre of eternity.

If such results naturally flow in the current of
historical events, it follows that those who imbody
the ideal representatives of the matter-of-fact personages
that strut and fret their hour on the world's
wide stage, may safely continue the parallel; and
when the performer has evidently fulfilled his destiny,
wrap him in becoming habiliments, and bid him,
like immortal Cæsar, “die with decency.”

Having now nearly arrived at the first stage of
our journey, it behooves us to ponder on the future
destiny of those whose advent and progress we have
chronicled, meting out to them poetic justice, nor
dismissing them from the scene until the immutable
laws of nature have enforced their departure.

True it is, that while we gaze on the lineaments
of some of the children of our own creation with unalloyed
pleasure, there are others with whom we
are nothing loath to part company; so that the lovely
images still flitting in the Eden of our imagination
may have “ample room and verge enough” in
the future pages of our history.

Those who compute time by the events that, like
mile-stones, are scattered along its track, will attest
that, to the unhappy Glenthorne, the few hours whose
flight we have recorded had assumed the importance,
and were magnified into the dimensions of

years; and will, therefore, not partake of the surprise
(however their moral feelings may be shocked)
that was pictured in the countenances of the
vast population of the city when the following paragraph
appeared in a newspaper published in the
afternoon of the day succeeding that on which the
criminal was committed.

“Appalling Suicides!—Our readers will scarcely
have recovered from the astonishment and horror
which pervaded every class of our vast population
on the recital of the scenes which led to the
apprehension of an individual named Glenthorne,
charged with the crime of murder, before their
sensibilities are aroused at the fatal dénouement
of this tragedy in real life. In addition to the details
published in our yesterday's edition, it appears
that the youth whose life is in imminent danger from
the ball of the assassin was his own child, the fruit
of a liaison with a female in this city at a very early
period of the prisoner's career. From information
which has just reached us, we learn that this miserable
criminal has consummated his guilt by the commission
of suicide; and that a wretched female with
whom he resided has also rushed unbidden into the
presence of her Maker.

“Early in the afternoon of yesterday, this unhappy
fair one, who is described as far superior to
her vile associate in every respect, applied to the
keeper of the Bridewell prison for permission to
convey some provisions to the cell of the criminal;
and after instituting a proper search, to prevent the

introduction of implements calculated to further his
escape, the request was granted.

“Nothing farther occurred during the day; and
when the keeper of the prison went his nightly
rounds, he glanced into the cell of the prisoner, who
was reclining on his straw bed.

“At the usual hour this morning the keeper
again visited the dungeon of the miscreant, and
found him stretched on the floor in the agonies of
death; and although a physician was immediately
summoned, the vital spark had fled before his arrival.
By the side of the deceased lay a vial,
which had evidently contained laudanum; and a
loaf of bread, brought him the previous afternoon,
displayed a cavity in which it had undoubtedly
been secreted.

“But a short time had elapsed after this discovery,
when information was conveyed to the police
magistrates that the dead body of the female already
alluded to was found at her lodgings in the
upper part of the city; and by the proceedings of
a coroner's inquest, subsequently held on the bodies
of both, it appears that the act was premeditated;
that they selected the same moment for its execution;
and that both consummated their purpose
through the agency of laudanum.

“The following document, in the handwriting of
the female, was found lying on the table in her
apartment; and it exhibits not only the unswerving
devotion of woman through all the vicissitudes
of guilt, penury, and wretchedness, but develops

the inevitable fate of the hapless fair one who lavishes
the treasure of her love on him in whose
breast guilty passions have attained the mastery.

“The following is the document referred to:

“ `Thursday night.

“ `Alas! alas! I tremble at the precipice that
yawns before me, and almost shrink from my dread
purpose. But why recede? Has not my oath
been registered in heaven? Fool that I am to insult
the Almighty by reverting to a vow conceived
in guilt and uttered in despair! Oh! how vivid
the retrospect that pierces the shadows of the past!
Strange! that in this awful hour, in which my soul
hangs suspended by a hair over the dismal gulf of
eternity, the green fields over which I gambolled in
the buoyancy of innocence, and the pure embrace
of my sainted mother, and the luckless, though too
happy hour in which Glenthorne first pressed me
to his bosom, should rise up before me to mock me
with their departed glories! Gone! gone! gone
for ever! Tears! precious tears! Though you
scald my eyelids with your bitterness, yet do you
show that guilt has not placed an eternal barrier
between me and penitence. But away, deceptive
cheat! Shall I plunge into the dark abyss with
the accents of false hope lingering on my lips?
Rather let my thoughts return to thee, Glenthorne.
For thee I die content; and though all
the world condemn thee, yet doth my heart cling
to thee with greater fondness.

“ `How often have I sung thee this ditty, but how
little did I anticipate the aptness of the allusion.

“ `But see! the index points to the hour of
twelve! and dear, dear Glenthorne, I come! I
come! The vial is in my hand as it is in thine.

“ `Poor, poor child, who will guard thee? Come
what will, thou canst not be more miserable than
thou wouldst have been with thy wretched protectors—

* * * * * * * *

“ `The deed is done! Oh mercy! mercy!
mercy!'

“Thus closed this record of the last throbs of a
broken heart, in which conflicting passions struggled
so fearfully. Let us draw a veil over her errors,
and leave them both in the hands of their
Creator.

“We learn that the deceased had resided in this
city but a few weeks, and that an individual
named Maddox, on whose information the murderer
was arrested, was the only person who could
have shed light on their former history; but,
strange to say, he no sooner was apprized of their
melancholy end, than he removed his baggage from
the house in which he boarded, and, after the most
diligent search, we have been unable to ascertain
his retreat, or to what circumstance to attribute
his sudden disappearance.

“The child thus left an orphan among strangers
is a beautiful and interesting boy of about three
years of age, and we are pleased to learn that an
industrious cartman named Clifton, and his wife,
who occupied apartments under the same roof
with Glenthorne, have humanely determined to
take charge of the little surviver.

“From some trinkets found in a bundle by the
side of the child, it is conjectured that either the
female or her companion, or both, are of a wealthy
family, as there are two or three ornaments of
great value, which would scarcely have been purchased
to decorate an infant, unless the parents
were at some period in the possession of abundant
worldly means.”