University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

Passionate and thoughtless, Hugh Grayson had not
calculated the consequences of his imprudent and exciting
narrative upon a mind so sensitive. He was
now aware of his error, and his alarm at her situation
was extreme. He lifted her from the floor, and supported
her to a seat, endeavouring, as well as he could,
with due care and anxiety, to restore her to consciousness.
While thus employed the pastor re-entered the
apartment, and his surprise may be imagined.

“Ha! what is this—what have you done, Master
Grayson? Speak, sir—my child? Bess—Bess, dear—
look up. See—'tis thy old father that holds and
looks on thee. Look up, my child—look up and speak
to me.”

Without answering, Grayson resigned her to the
hands of the pastor, and with folded arms and a face
full of gloomy expression, stood gazing upon the scene
in silence. The father supported her tenderly, and
with a show of fervency not common to a habit which,
from constant exercise, and the pruderies of a form
of worship rather too much given to externals, had, in
progress of time, usurped dominion over a temper
originally rather passionate than phlegmatic. Exclaiming
all the while to the unconscious girl—and

now and then addressing Grayson in a series of broken
sentences, the old man proved the possession of a
degree of regard for his child which might have appeared
doubtful before. Grayson, meanwhile, stood
by,—an awed and silent spectator,—bitterly reproaching
himself for his imprudence in making such a
communication, and striving, in his own mind, to forge
or force an apology, at least to himself, for the heedlessness
which had marked his conduct.

“What, Master Grayson, has been the cause of
this? Speak out, sir—my daughter is my heart, and
you have trifled with her. Beware, sir.--I am an old
man, and a professor of a faith whose essence is
peace; but I am still a man, sir—with the feelings
and the passions of a man; and sooner than my child
should suffer wrong, slight as a word, I will even throw
aside that faith and become a man of blood. Speak,
sir, what has made all this?”

The youth grew firmer under such an exhortation,
for his was the nature to be won rather than commanded.
He looked firmly into the face of the
speaker, and his brow gathered to a frown. The old
man saw it, and saw in the confidence his glance expressed,
that however he might have erred, he had at
least intended no disrespect. As this conviction
came to his mind, he immediately addressed his companion
in a different character, while returning consciousness
in his daughter's eyes warned him also to
moderation.

“I have been harsh, Master Grayson—harsh, indeed,
my son; but my daughter is dear to me as the fresh
blood around my heart, and suffering with her is soreness
and more than suffering to me. Forbear to say,
at this time--I see that she has misunderstood you, or
her sickness may have some other cause. Look--
bring me some water, my son.”

“My son!” muttered Grayson to himself as he proceeded
to the sideboard where stood the pitcher.
Pouring some of its contents into a glass, he approached
the maiden, whose increasing sighs indicated

increasing consciousness. The old man was
about to take the glass from his hands when her unclosing
eye rested upon him. With a shriek she started
to her feet, and lifting her hand as if to prevent his approach,
and averting her eye as if to shut his presence
from her sight, she exclaimed--

“Away! thou cruel murderer—come not nigh me—
look not on me—touch me not with thy hands of blood.
Touch me not—away.”

“God of Heaven!” exclaimed Grayson, in like
horror,—“what, indeed have I done? Forgive me,
Miss Matthews, forgive me—I am no murderer. He
lives—I struck him not. Forgive me!”

“I have no forgiveness—none. Thou hast lifted
thy hand against God's image—thou hast sought to
slay a noble gentleman to whom thou art as nothing.
Away—let me not look upon thee!”

“Be calm, Bess—my daughter. Thou dost mistake.
This is no murderer—this is our young friend,
thy old playmate, Hugh Grayson.”

“Ay! he came with that old story, of how we
played together, and spoke of his love and all—and
then showed me a knife, and lifted his bloody hands
to my face, and—Oh! it was too horrible.” And she
shivered at the association of terrible objects which
her imagination continued to conjure up.

“Thou hast wrought upon her over much, Master
Grayson, and though I think with no ill intent, yet it
would seem with but small judgment.”

“True, sir—and give me, I pray you, but a few
moments with your daughter—a few moments alone,
that I may seek to undo this cruel thought which she
now appears to hold me in. But a few moments—
believe me—I shall say nothing unkind or offensive.”

“Leave me not, father—go not out—rather let him
go where I may not see him, for he has been a base
spy, and would have been a foul murderer, but that the
good spirit held back his hand.”

“Thou sayest rightly, Bess Matthews—I have been
base and foul—but thou sayest ungently and against

thy better nature, for I have scorned myself that I was
so. Give me leave—let thy father go—turn thy head
—close thine eyes. I ask thee not to look upon me,
but hear me and the quest, which I claim rather from
thy goodness than from any meritings of mine own.”

There was a gloomy despondence in his looks, and
a tone of perfect abandon in his voice, that went to
the heart of the maiden, as, while he spoke, she
turned, and her eyes were bent upon him. Looking
steadfastly upon his face for a few moments after he
had ceased speaking, she appeared slowly to deliberate;
then, as if satisfied, she turned to her father, and
with a motion of her hand signified her consent.
The old man retired, and Grayson would have led her
to a seat; but rejecting his proffered aid with much
firmness, she drew a chair, and motioning him also to
one at a little distance, she prepared to hear him.

“I needed not this, Miss Matthews, to feel how
deeply I had erred—how dreadfully I have been punished.
When you know that I have had but one stake
in life—that I have lived but for one object—and have
lived in vain and am now denied,—you will not need
to be told how completely unnecessary to my torture
and trial is the suspicion of your heart, and the coldness
of your look and manner. I came to-night and
sought this interview, hopeless of any thing beside,
at least believing myself not altogether unworthy of
your esteem. To prove this more certainly to your
mind, I laid bare my own. I suppressed nothing—
you saw my uncovered soul, and without concealment
I resolutely pointed out to you all its blots—all its deformities.
I spoke of my love for you, of its extent,
not that I might claim any from you in return—for I
saw that such hope was idle; and, indeed, knowing
what I do, and how completely your heart is in the
possession of another, were it offered to me at this
moment, could I accept of it on any terms? Base as
I have been for a moment—criminal, as at another
moment I would have been, I value still too deeply
my own affections to yield them to one who cannot

make a like return, and with as few reservations. But
I told you of my love that you should find something
in its violence—say its madness—to extenuate, if not
to excuse, the errors to which it has prompted me. I
studiously declared those errors, the better to prove to
you that I was no hypocrite, and the more certainly
therefore to inspire your confidence in one who, if he
did not avoid, was at least as little willing to defend
them. I came to you for your pardon; and, unable to
win your love, I sought only for your esteem. I have
spoken.”

“Master Hugh Grayson—I have heard you, and am
willing to believe in much that you have said; but I am
not prepared to believe that in much that you have said
you have not been practising upon yourself. You have
said you loved me, and I believe it—sorry I am that
you should love unprofitably anywhere—more sorry
still that I should be the unwitting occasion of a mispent
and profitless passion. But, look closely into
yourself—into your own thoughts, and then ask how
you have loved me? Let me answer—not as a woman
—not as a thinking and a feeling creature—but as a
plaything, whom your inconsiderate passion might
practise upon at will, and move to tears or smiles, as
may best accord with a caprice that has never from
childhood been conscious of any subjection. Even
now, you come to me for my confidence—my esteem.
Yet you studiously practise upon my affections and
emotions—upon my woman weaknesses. You saw
that I loved another—I shame not to say it, for I believe
and feel it—and you watched me like a spy. You had
there no regulating principle keeping down impulse,
but with the caprice of a bad passion, consenting to a
meanness, which is subject to punishment in our very
slaves. Should I trust the man who, under any circumstances
save those of another's good and safety,
should deserve the epithet of eaves-dropper?”

“Forbear—forbear—in mercy!”

“No, Master Grayson—let me not forbear. Were
it principle and not pride that called upon me to forbear,

I should obey it; but I have known you from
childhood, Hugh, and I speak to you now with all the
freedom—and, believe me—with all the affection of
that period. I know your failing, and I speak to it.
I would not wound your heart, I only aim at the amendment
of your understanding. I would give it a true
direction. I believe your heart to be in the right
place—it only wants that your mind should never
swerve from its place. Forgive me, therefore, if,
speaking what I hold to be just, I should say that
which should seem to be harsh also.”

“Go on—go on, Miss Matthews—I can bear it all
—any thing from you.”

“And but small return, Master Grayson, for I have
borne much from you. Not content with the one
error, which freely I forgave—so far as forgiveness
may be yielded without amendment or repentance—
you proceeded to another—to a crime, a dark, a dreadful
crime. You sought the life of a fellow-creature,
without provocation, and worse still, Master Grayson,
without permitting your enemy the common footing
of equality. In that one act there was malignity, murder,
and—”

“No more—no more—speak it not—”

“Cowardice!”

“Thou art bent to crush me quite, Bess Matthews—
thou wouldst have me in the dust—thy foot on my
head, and the world seeing it. This is thy triumph.”

“A sad one, Hugh Grayson—a sad one—for thou
hast thy good—thy noble qualities, wert thou not a
slave.”

“Slave, too—malignant, murderer, coward, slave.”

“Ay, to thy baser thoughts, and from these would I
free thee. With thee—I believe—it is but to know
the tyranny to overthrow it. Thy pride of independence
would there be active, and in that particular
most nobly exercised. But let me proceed.”

“Is there more?”

“Yes,—and thou wilt better prove thy regard for
my esteem, when thou wilt stand patiently to hear me

out. Thou didst not kill, but all the feeling of death—
the death of the mind—was undergone by thy destined
victim. He felt himself under thee, he saw no hope,
he looked up in the glance of thy descending knife,
and knew not that the good mood would so soon return
to save him from death, and thee from perdition.
In his thought thou didst slay him, though thou struck
no blow to his heart.”

“True, true—I thought not of that.”

“Yet thou camest to me, Hugh Grayson, and claimed
merit for thy forbearance. Thou wert confident, because
thou didst not all the crime thy first criminal
spirit proposed to thee. Shall I suggest that the good
angel which interposed was thy weakness—art thou
sure that the dread of punishment, and not the feeling
of good, stayed thee not?”

“No! as I live,—as I stand before thee, Bess Matthews,
thou dost me wrong. God help me, no! I
was bad enough, and base enough, without that—it
was not the low fear of the hangman—not the rope--
not the death. I am sure it was any thing but that.”

“I believe you; but what was it brought you to me
with all this story—the particulars at full,—the dreadful
incidents one upon the other, until thou saw'st my
agony under the uplifted knife aiming at the bosom of
one as far above thee, Hugh Grayson, in all that
makes the noble gentleman, as it is possible for principle
to be above passion, and the love of God and
good works superior to the fear of punishment.—
Where was thy manliness in this recital? Thou hast
no answer here.”

“Thou speakest proudly for him, Bess Matthews—
it is well he stands so high in thy sight.”

“I forgive thee that sneer, too, Master Grayson,
along with thy malignity, thy murder, and thy—manliness.
Be thou forgiven of all—but let us say no
more together. My regards are not with me to bestow--they
belong to thy doings, and thou mayst
command, not solicit, whenever thou dost deserve them.
Let us speak no more together.”

“Cruel—most heartless—am I so low in thy sight?
See, I am at thy feet—trample me in the dust—I will
not shrink—I will not reproach thee.”

“Thou shouldst shame at this practice upon my
feelings. Thou, Hugh Grayson—with thy mind, with
thy pride—shouldst not aim to do by passionate entreaty
what thou mayst not do by sense and right reason.
Rise, sir—thou canst not move me now. Thou
hast undone thyself in my sight—thou needst not sink
at my feet to have me look down upon thee.”

Had a knife gone into the heart of the young man,
a more agonizing expression could not have overshadowed
his countenance. The firmness of the maiden
had taught him her strength not less than his own
weakness. He felt his error, and with the mind for
which she had given him credit, he rose, with a new
determination, to his feet.

“Thou art right, Miss Matthews—and in all that
has passed, mine has been the error and the wrong. I
will not ask for the regards which I should command;
but thou shalt hear well of me henceforward, and wilt
do me more grateful justice when we meet again.”

“I take thy promise, Hugh, for I know thy independence
of character, and such a promise will not be
necessary now for thy good. Take my hand—I forgive
thee. It is my weakness, perhaps, to do so—but
I forgive thee.”

He seized her hand, which she had, with a girlish
frankness, extended to him, carried it suddenly to his
lips, and immediately left the dwelling.