University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

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The good Elias, from whose judicious counsel
Balantyne soon derived all the benefits
that had been anticipated, had himself experienced
the grief which springs from the loss
of those we love. His misfortunes had not,
indeed, been attended with the peculiar horrors
which marked those of the unhappy Balantyne.
Neither was his mind of that imaginative
character, which loves to picture to
itself, in the strongest colours, whatever of good
or evil may befall it. He knew the condition
of man on earth was liability to fluctuations between
good and evil, between happiness and
misery; and that the uncertainty of the duration
of either, nay, of life itself, was so well
established, that a wise man should have the
probability of change in his condition so familiarised
to his mind, as never to be taken by
surprise, and thrown into too much elation by
good, or too much depression by bad fortune.

Early habits have, indeed, immense influence
in forming the character. It is true, they cannot
altogether eradicate the natural disposition.
They have neither the omnipotent power
ascribed to them by one set of philosophers, nor
are they so inefficient in their operation on the
mind, as is asserted by another. The feelings
of Elias were acute, his sympathies strong, and
his temper originally irritable. But early instruction
had apprised him of the evil effects
of indulging these propensities, and habit had
accustomed him to exert the power of reflection
in controlling them. But it was in resistance
to the last mentioned trait, his irritability,
that he was taught to make the greatest efforts;
and over this he had, by the time he reached the
years of manhood, acquired such an ascendency,
that no occurrence could provoke him into a
display of anger. Resentment and revenge
were, in consequence, feelings to which he had
long become a stranger. The kindlier impulses
were allowed more indulgence, as they
generally are by the prudent and peaceful community
to which he belonged, because less inimical
to that tranquillity of disposition and
evenness of conduct, on which they have
found the chief portion of human felicity in a
turbulent world, like ours, to depend.

And herein lay the great distinction between
Elias and Balantyne. The latter could reason

as well, and see as clearly the duty and advantages
of suppressing the more violent emotions,
but he had not in youth been disciplined to the
task. He had been well educated, both morally
and religiously. The theories of right and
wrong, and of wisdom and folly, he well understood,
and of the advantage of acting according
to their dictates, he was thoroughly
convinced. But discipline had not sufficiently
trained him to the practice. Habit, therefore,
had not rendered it easy.

Thus, while Balantyne was less qualified,
from previous preparation, to endure misfortune
than his friend, it had fallen upon him
with redoubled weight, and in a more aggravated
and terrible form. His calamities had
been singular, not only in kind but in severity.
Those of his more passive and imperturable
friend, trying as they were, had not been accompanied
by circumstances of such peculiarity;
nor had they been of sudden or unexpected
occurrence. He had lost the wife of his
youth on whom he doated; but she had gone
slowly and gradually away, in consumption.
He had lost his two only children; but the one
had survived its birth only a few weeks, and
the other scarcely two years. Bereft of wife
and children, he had long felt forlorn in the
world; but he had never become discontented
with it, nor withdrawn from it his countenance.

He still had comforts left for which he was
thankful; and for those of which he had been
deprived, dearly as he prized them, he dared
not murmur.

He continued a widower, for he could not
place those affections on another female, which
had been so entirely engrossed by her whom
he had lost. He possessed a competent estate,
lived in comfortable elegance, and notwithstanding
the regrets which would sometimes
obtrude upon him, his friends, who were numerous,
were never rendered uneasy in his
society, by any appearance of sullenness or
discontent.

The chief object of his solicitude, of late
years, was the son of a deceased brother, to
whom he had been appointed guardian. At
the time Mr. Balantyne established his academy,
this youth was about twelve years of age.
He resided with his mother, at a short distance
from his uncle's. His father had died when he
was but two years old; and his mother, who was
a native of England, and an Episcopalian, had
not implanted in his mind the peculiarly quiescent
sentiments, nor trained his manners to the
precise habits of his father's sect. Still, as she
was a virtuous and intelligent woman, and as all
her affections were centered in her Edward, for
that was her son's name, she took great care to
implant early in his mind, the seeds of sound

morality, and to imbue him with a strong sense
of the beauty and glory of an honourable life.

This amiable woman was a great favourite
with her discreet brother-in-law. After she
had become a widow, although young, handsome
and affluent, she had rejected several advantageous
offers of marriage, having resolved,
from respect to the memory of her
husband, to admit the addresses of no suitor
whatever, but to devote her attention to cultivating
the mind, establishing the principles,
and forming the manners of her son. Such
conduct could not but endear her to the discerning
and upright Elias; and although it
would have been a source of much satisfaction
to him, had his nephew been brought up in the
principles of his own sect, yet as he had no pretence
to interfere with the rights of so excellent
a mother, he had too much good sense, and,
towards her, too much good feeling, to make
the attempt.

Edward Meredith was one of the first pupils
placed under the care of Mr. Balantyne, when
that gentleman opened his Academy. Sprightly,
gay, and in vigorous health, in love with all the
world, and all the world in love with him, no
happier being could then exist on this perishable
globe, than the light-hearted Edward. Life
to him opened, indeed, with a sweetly vernal
dawn. Wherever he went, all was smiles and

sunshine. The flowers of existence alone caught
his attention, as if nothing else was springing
up around him—or if a weed or a thorn chanced
to obtrude itself in his way, he passed it with
heedless indifference, and soon forgot that it
had disturbed him.

Thus passed the gay morning of his life, calm
and unclouded. But in his sixteenth year, an
incident occurred which threatened greatly to
agitate the scene, and gave to his bosom the first
serious feeling of perplexity and alarm. It was a
beautiful evening in the month of May. He had
passed the afternoon in his favourite recreation,
that of fowling in the woods, and was returning
home with about twenty wild pigeons, as the trophies
of his success, when, late in the evening, in
the vicinity of his mother's residence, he overheard
some voices in a thick wood through which
he was passing. He approached them cautiously,
and heard the following alarming dialogue.

“But, Sir Robert, what if you should be
mistaken in the lady after all?”

“I tell you, Frank, it is Matilda. And we are
both once more unmarried, for I have ascertained,
that the sly Quaker, who carried her
off, has thought proper to take himself off, and
leave her a rich and buxom widow, with but
one son. She and I might yet fulfil the terms
of the nabob Colonel's will, and compel Captain
Harris to cash back the sicca rupees on which
he has so long fattened.”

“Sir Robert,” observed Frank, “think of
former times, and despair of success.”

“Hang it,” cried Sir Robert, “why rub
open old sores. She must have forgotten those
youthful sallies by this time. I dare say that
she can estimate the value of a hundred thousand
pounds too well, to reject them on account
of a little spleen.”

“I doubt it,” said Frank. “She was never
avaricious; and if this lady be really your cousin,
she already enjoys affluence, and will not
be tempted by money into a match that she
dislikes. Resorting to force will be rather a dangerous
matter. She has a strong household of
servants; and a stripling son as active as a young
colt, and who can point a gun with as good an
aim as any rifleman in your company.”

“I tell you, Frank,” returned Sir Robert,
“I'll have no more preaching about it. If she
will not comply civilly, I'll have her seized
and carried on ship-board, where I will compel
her to go through the ceremony, in spite of
all the servants and striplings, and broad-brims
and buckskins in America. Nay, I know not but
this might be the best plan to begin with. By
heavens, she looks handsome yet. I gazed at her
by stealth to-day until I imagined that my youthful
days were returned, and my youthful passions
rekindled. But a truce with sentiments.
Let us return to our tavern, where we shall remain
incog, and mature the matter.”

“An extremely wise proposal,” Sir Robert.
“I agree to it with all my heart. There is
jolly beverage at the White Buck, which will
sharpen our wits.”

The speakers departed, and in doing so, afforded
Edward a view of their persons, which,
however, did not enable him to distinguish
them, as they were both carefully muffled in
large cloaks. The apprehension of some mischief
being plotted against his mother, was naturally
excited in his mind. The object of the
conspiracy was a lady named Matilda, whose
servants were numerous, and who had a son yet
a stripling. To his mother alone, of all the
ladies he knew, did each of these circumstances
apply. He hastened to her. He informed her
of the strange dialogue and of his own fears.
She became agitated.

“Yes, my son,” said she, “you are right.
Danger threatens us from a man from whose
power I once with difficulty escaped, but from
whom I should have supposed that time and
distance had now formed an effectual protection.
I must immediately confer with your
uncle on this emergency.

Elias was sent for, and soon made his appearance.
Mrs. Meredith, after informing him
of the alarming dialogue which had been overheard
by her son, related to him the particulars
which are to be found in the next chapter.