 | Randolph |  |
RANDOLPH,
A NOVEL.
By the author of Logan—and Seventy-six.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LETTER I.
No, dear; you are mistaken in Molton. He is not the
abject creature that you believe. I have no proof to offer
you, it is true;—nothing but my bare word; and that
too, founded upon an interview of ten minutes. But, nevertheless,
I do entreat you to believe me; or, if that be too
much, Sarah, let me beg that you suspend your opinion
awhile, and not express it, to any human creature, until
you are assured that you are not wronging a noble nature.
I wish that you could have seen him, cousin, when I
handed your note to him. You would have given up all
your prejudices, I am sure, on the spot; nay—you would
have wept. As he read it, I saw a slight convulsion pass
over his broad forehead;—it contracted a little too, and
then, there was a quiet hectick; and his patient light blue
eyes flashed fire;—and, if I must tell the truth, there was
an angry fierceness in his look, for a single moment, that,
in spite of myself, made me tremble; but, when this was
followed, as it was, almost immediately, by a mortal
paleness, and a slow, calm movement of the arm and
hand, as he reached out the billet to me, it was really
appalling. It almost took my strength away. Such a
delicate creature,—so effeminate, and sickly!—it is unaccountable
to me, how his presence should so affect me.
I took the billet—I read it.—Shall I confess the truth,
Sarah? I was shocked. All that you had told me, might
be true;—he might be that consummate villain; as plausible,
and as cowardly, as you had persuaded me to believe
him;—but never did I so falter and wane before any mortal
with whom I had sought a quarrel; against whom, forgetting
my own manhood, I had volunteered so many
maledictions. Sarah—hear me!—By heaven, we have
wronged him! I care not what proof you have to offer
me;—nay, though it be that of your own senses—or mine
—I would sooner doubt them both, than believe that Edward
Molton is a scoundrel. No—the great God of
heaven would not permit a scoundrel, so to profane and
counterfeit the heroick bearing of innocence. Are you
not amazed?—I am. I read over what I have written.
I think over all that has passed since we parted; and I
look in upon myself, with a strange feeling of doubt and
perplexity. How is my opinion changed!—how have I
confirmed all your predictions, when you bade me beware
of listening to him, or looking upon him. You
foretold this;—yet I laughed at you.—You said that, if I
permitted myself to hearken to him, I was lost. I have
hearkened to him.—He has used no argument;—no expostulation;
no entreaty; no defence; yet, I declare to you,
my dear Sarah, that I am ready, at this moment, as you
said I should be, to bleed and die for Edward Molton—
for whom?—Righteous heaven! for the destroyer of Juliet—the
murderer of William.—Yes, yes!—give me more
proof—more!—I am not satisfied;—or, I shall turn apostate
to my cousin's memory; yea, battle for the man that
slew him; and bleed for him, that spoiled and blasted the
sweetest creature, by the God who made me—that ever
inhabited this earth.
O! Sarah, what is this surpassing, and mysterious
power? Is not Edward Molton fashioned like ourselves?
—feebler, it may be, in physical, and in intellectual resource?
and yet, if they, that know him, are to be believed,
so damnable a villain, that his very breath is poison,
insinuating itself, like a subtile vapour into the sound
and pure of heart; and there operating, like death, till
all is blackness and ashes. But can this be? Would our
Maker permit it? Are we to have no defence; not even
from wisdom, doubt, or experience, against the wily and
insidious? I am not old, it is true; but I have seen much
of the world; and I never yet saw a confirmed villain, in
whose lineaments, the Deity himself, had not written his
frank, open and dignified, where there is not a line,
nor a shadow, but what looks like the boundary or communication
between kingdoms, upon a map,—rather than
the secret and dark tracking of banditti; and yet, you
would have me believe that he is a magician in power,
and a devil in heart; confirmed and established, in the
most appalling and deliberate criminality. I cannot believe
this, Sarah. I choose rather to believe that we are
deceived, in some likelier way. But, if I should write
forever, I could not communicate a thousandth part of
what I feel toward that man,—that injured man. I say
this, boldly;—I am ready to meet your ridicule, perhaps
your scorn;—but, I will not stir another step in the affair—no,
not even to call him out, which I would rather
do, a hundred times, than suffer the compunction that I
now feel, for having thought of such a thing. Sarah;—
can you believe me!—I was afraid, yes, actually afraid
to tell him my errand;—and, to this moment, he does not
know that I had aught else with him, than to deliver your
note. Farewell!—I am prepared for all that you can
say. Yet I shall meet you, without trembling. I am
prepared even to be classed with the fools and coxcombs,
that are also subject to him;—nay, prepared to have my
motives, and possibly my personal courage impeached.
But no—I am wrong;—forgive me, Sarah. You will not
be so unkind;—you will only say what you believe—that
I am infatuated.
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