 | CHAPTER XVII. The forsaken |  |
16. CHAPTER XVII.
That ends this strange eventful history.
As You Like It.
The morning after the splendid entertainment of
which we have attempted a description, the gallant
ship that was to bear sir William Howe across the
Atlantic, hauled out into the stream, ready for the
voyage. She was as trim as a fair belle upon her first
entrance into the fashionable world, and to pursue the
simile, your fashionable dame, when her race is run,
may be compared to the tempest-tost vessel, after a
tedious voyage. Boats were plying between the shore
and the ship, and on the deck and aloft all hands were
busily employed. Sir William Howe was already on
board, and Jurian stood upon the deck, taking a last
melancholy look at his native land.
Near him stood the officer to whose friendly interference
he was indebted for his passage, tracing in silence
the effect of his feelings upon his pale visage.
At length he said—
“The time is fast approaching, when the land to
which you are so fondly attached will fail from your
sight, and perhaps forever.”
“Would it were already come,” he replied, but still
kept his eyes fixed upon the scene of his childhood.
“Do you not begin to repent of your rash determination?
watching by the death-bed of a parent.”
“Still the child survives those feelings. The strongest
grief is not immortal.”
“Since you are resolved,” continued the officer,
here is a man who came on board with me, this morning,
for the purpose of taking a parting leave.”
Jurian turned, and beheld M`Crea.
“Why is that man here?”
“He came under the protection of a flag,” replied
the officer, “to recover a lost son.”
“He should have thought of that sooner.”
“You will not desert him in his old age?”
“He deserted me in my youth. All human ties originate
either in interest or gratitude, and my heart recognises
towards him neither the one nor the other.”
“Though I am rejected,” said M`Crea, “remember,
Jurian, there are those who have been to you more
than parents—and have you the cruelty to embitter
the remnant of their lives, after all their kindness?”
“While I breathe I shall remember them with gratitude,
and shall not cease to pray for their happiness
even when I forget to pray for my own. Tell them
this, and conjure them, if they can, to forget me. My
mind is fixed. Farewell.”
“You shall not go alone, my son,” cried M`Crea.
“I will accompany you.”
“And by your presence keep the wound still bleeding!
No; stay where you are, for there is much that
I would forget, that your presence would only serve to
keep fresh in my memory.”
He did not turn his eyes towards his father as he
spoke, but continued looking intently in the direction
of the city.
“Why is it that you do not even look at me,” said
the humbled M`Crea, “but appear to feel deeper regret
in parting from those walls than from a father?”
“They awaken the remembrance of many joyful
no page is presented that the heart of a son would wish
to persue again. Leave me, and do not again interrupt
the melancholy enjoyment of the few moments that
remain.”
M`Crea wiped a tear from his eyes, and turned away
to conceal his emotion, while Jurian continued looking
towards the city.
A boat at this time rowed along-side of the ship, and
'squire Morton, his daughter, and Miss Rebecca ascended
to the deck. They were accompanied by another
boat, containing Balcarras and M`Druid.
“Here am I on shipboard again,” exclaimed the
old 'squire, hobbling about the deck; “I have not been
off terra firma these twenty years, but I could not resist
wishing the general a God speed you, on the very plank
that bears him from us.”
“And your fair daughter, I perceive, is as loyal as
yourself,” replied the officer, who came forward to
welcome him.
“Either loyalty or female curiosity induced her to
accompany me,” exclaimed the 'squire, “but I doubt
it is the latter. But where is the general? I must
trouble him with a few packages to my correspondents
in London, for though we live at the world's end, it is
necessary to remind them occasionally that we are not
quite out of the world yet.”
“He is in his cabin, sir, and will be at leisure in a
few moments.”
“Why do you droop, Agatha?” continued the 'squire,
addressing his daughter. “Come, rally your spirits;
all things should be joyous in spring, when nature puts
on her holyday dress to please us. Come, cheer up,
my child.”
“The revelry of yesterday still hangs as a cloud
upon her spirits,” replied Balcarras.
“Zounds, boy, how can that be,” exclaimed the
'squire, “since it has driven every thing like a cloud
the coronation of his majesty. I admit I felt a little
smoky about the brain when I arose, but that I attribute
altogether to the infernal caterwauling that you
and your bagpipers kept under my windows about daybreak.
A serenade is bad enough at any time, but it
should be an indictable offence to turn a tune before
sunrise under any sober citizen's window, who has
been up till four upon a frolic.”
“Talking of serenades, brother.” said Miss Buckley,
“there was a custom among the ancient Chaldeans—”
“Bury the Chaldeans, Becky,” exclaimed the
'squire, “and so deeply, that they may never rise
again to haunt me here. What have I done, that I
should be eternally persecuted by them!” He then
turned to the officer, and demanded whether any of his
acquaintance designed making a voyage to England.
“There stands a gentleman to whom you are possibly
known,” replied the officer, pointing at Jurian,
who still stood in the forecastle, with his face towards
the city.
'Squire Morton approached him, and Agatha, trembling,
hung upon his arm. The old man turned upon
his heel as he recognised Jurian.
“I understood that you were acquainted,” said the
officer, affecting not to perceive the change in the
'squire's deportment.
“True, I have seen the boy before, and did hope
that it was for the last time.”
“Father you hear he is about to leave us.”
“The sooner the better; the sooner the better!”
“Why is it sir,” said Jurian, “that you retain your
rancour to the last? What have I been guilty of to
excite this animosity? Have I ever wronged you, or
ever departed from that respect which your years were
entitled to? If so, it has been when you have spurned
me in your pride, and awakened a momentary sense of
honest indignation. I am humbled now, and ask you
me, I would leave no enemy.”
“When the ocean flows between us, all will be forgotten,”
replied the old man.
“Father, you loved him in his boyhood,” said Agatha.
“You must remember the delight you took in
tracing the gradual development of his mind, and how
often have you exclaimed, that he was a boy to be
proud of! You were happy in having him daily with
you, until he appeared on the footing of a companion,
in spite of the disparity of years.”
“True, he was a boy of promise,” said the 'squire,
in a milder tone.
“Has not that promise been realized?” continued
Agatha. “Is he not the man that you predicted? And
if so, what is it has changed your feelings towards
him?”
“His presumption.”
“True, I presumed to love your child,” replied Jurian,
“but my passion was as pure as that which your
own heart has conceived for her. Freed from every
thought that the disembodied spirit need reject, when
ascending to render in its last account. But before you
condemn, reflect, sir, who it was encouraged me to
presume. Your praises first taught me to know myself.
You unfolded to me the acquirements of a life of experience
and study, and taught me to know the world, at
an age when it would have been bliss to have remained
in ignorance. It was you who first kindled the spark
of ambition in my bosom, and roused me to disdain the
humble sphere in which destiny had placed me.”
“I acknowledge the folly, and have since had cause
to repent of it.”
“You knew the human heart,” continued Jurian,
“and yet allowed me unrestrained intercourse with
that fair being, at a time when no worldly calculation
could enter our minds, to check the ardour of our
hopes. We were reared together from infancy. The
between us, was not then recognised. We met as
equals, and little thought that the world would pronounce
it presumption in me, and degradation on her
part, to love.
“I have been to blame.”
“I need not advert to the injustice of proscribing
me for errors not my own, for you are too prejudiced
to call it injustice, and whether the merciless decree be
right or wrong, is now of little moment, for I go where
my name and history are unknown; still it would be a
satisfaction to learn, whether your mind was poisoned
against me—for she says you loved me once—by my
conduct, or by the stain upo me, for which another
must answer? Why do you turn from me, sir?”
“It is true, Jurian, that I did love you once,” replied
the old man, with suppressed emotion.
“Then what have I done to forfeit your esteem? I
admit that I have been guilty of both folly and crime,
but your heart was closed against me, before I was
conscious of either. Tell me your grievance. This
may be our last meeting, and before we part, I would
awaken, if possible, some feeling in the bosom that
loved me in my childhood.”
“You have succeeded,” he replied, extending his
hand, which Jurian grasped with emotion. “Go, boy,
and I shall rejoice to hear that you prosper.”
“I go with a lighter heart for this,” said Jurian.
“When the waters flow between us, you will be enabled
to reflect dispassionately upon the injustice that has
been done me, for I am no longer the moral agent that
nature intended me to be. Every feature of my mind
has been perverted by the arbitrary rules of man, which
too frequently defeat the benevolent intents of heaven,
and sit like Destiny in judgment upon their victims,
whom they lash with rods of iron, to the station they
have designed them to fill. You, sir, had the rod in
past now, and I forgive you. Farewell.”
The heart of the 'squire was mollified, and he again
stretched out his hand, which Jurian grasped, and then
turned to M`Crea—
“Father, I have brought tears into your eyes, and
sorrow to your heart, instead of smoothing the downward
pathway of your life; but I regret it, and would
part from you as father and son should part. Your
hand. Protect my mother, and God grant that your
days may close in peace.”
“Shall I not accompany you?” demanded M`Crea.
“I have said that I go alone,” he replied, and made
a few strides towards the gangway of the ship.
“Leave us not yet, Jurian, leave us not yet,” exclaimed
Agatha, who had witnessed the foregoing in
silence, and with intense interest.
“Agatha, farewell.”
“Go not yet,” she cried, seizing hold of his arm,
“we must not part. Was this world designed merely
for strangers to bustle in, and make a heartless journey,
until they sink to the earth beneath the weight of their
burden; or does it not rather become us to remove the
thorns from each others' pathway, and fly on as cheerfully
as the birds to their place of rest? Our lives have
passed thus far together, Jurian, and it is too late to
part us now.”
“You should have spared me this. Other eyes are
upon us, Agatha, and I would not be placed upon the
rack for the amusement of the multitude. Recollect
where you are; be firm, and release your hold.”
“I cannot—I cannot!”
“Agatha, my child,” cried her father, “is your brain
turned, that you speak thus wildly?”
“Not yet, father, but I fear it soon may be. I have
endured much, and patiently;—I have obeyed you in
all things, and have struggled to conceal from your
this last trial forces me to speak, lest my heart break.”
“No more of this. Come away, my child, before
your weakness betray you to greater folly.”
“Father, my feelings towards him have grown with
my heart from infancy, until they have become inseparable
from my nature. I look back, and as far as memory
can carry me, his image appears; and am I now
doomed to look forward, and never hope to see it
again!”
“Infatuated girl!”
“He has been to me more than a brother,” continued
Agatha, “and can I now see him about to depart
friendless, sorrow-stricken, and alone, and suppress
every thing like emotion! It is not for myself I speak,
for gladly would I sacrifice my own feelings to see him
happy.”
“And the feelings of your father too,” exclaimed
the old man, “and all connected with you. Say, misguided
girl, wilt thou, for a stranger to your blood, cast
off your friends and kindred, and desert him in his old
age, who has cherished you from your birth in the very
core of his heart?”
“Father, father!”
“You hesitate, and still cling to him. Ingrate, I am
answered. Go! And though I may not forget my lost
child as readily as she has forgotten me, still the grave
will prevent me from remembering long.”
“O! Jurian, I have never until now heard reproaches
from those lips,” said Agatha, and fell upon his neck
to conceal her emotion. Her father continued—
“Is this the return for all my doating fondness!—
Left in my old age, worse than childless,—the remnant
of my life embittered with the recollection of the ingratitude
of one—and the only one that could have
stung so deeply!”
“Cease your reproaches, sir,” said Jurian, “for
they are unmerited. She can never be guilty of the
perfidy of leaving you, for since she cannot part from
father, and such as you have been? Gladly would I
have prevented this trial—it would have been better for
us both. I wished not to have witnessed those tears,
nor would I have had other eyes behold them. But it
has been ordered otherwise, and all that I could endure,
I have endured. There is your child again, and may
she soon cease to mourn for the loss of one who has
occasioned her little else than anguish.” As he concluded,
he placed the almost insensible form of Agatha
in the arms of her father, who exclaimed, in amazement—
“Do you not love her still, that you relinquish her?”
“Too fondly—too devotedly—to condemn her to a
fate so dark as mine. I would not have even my worst
enemy share it, much less the being that I love. Agatha,
awake! You are in your father's arms. Banish
his fears, and tell him you will never leave him. Speak,
Agatha.”
“Father, I shall not part from you till death.”
“Thou art my own child again!” exclaimed the old
man, pressing her to his bosom.
“But how long will she remain so?” demanded the
officer, who had procured Jurian admission to the
ship. “She will not part from you till death, but unless
you act as a father should, that promise does not
insure that you will keep her long.”
“What is it that you mean?”
“Can you not read it in that rayless eye and pallid
cheek?” continued the officer, “or will you await until
death has chilled the very fountain of life before you
perceive her danger. She has abandoned all her hopes
on earth for you, and cannot you make a trifling sacrifice
to save a child?”
“What sacrifice?”
“Of pride, that would impel you to destroy her
peace and your own. You would bind her for life to
an empty name, and tell her to be happy. True, she
say whether you think she will obey you in that command.”
The old man gazed on her pale face, as it rested on
his shoulder, and tears started in his eyes, when Balcarras
approached and addressed him—
“Though late, let me do justice to the man I have
wronged. A braver never lived, and I with reason may
vouch for his chivalric sense of honour. I have loved
your daughter, but since my suit is hopeless, I shall
cease to molest her, and give place to one more fortunate,
and perhaps more deserving.”
“Brother,” said Miss Buckley, “you see even his
enemies plead for him.”
“He has no friends to plead for him!” sighed
Agatha.
“Come, old gentleman,” cried M`Druid, “do the
handsome thing at once, for it is better to heal hearts
any day than to break them. There was a time when
you loved the lad; he has talent, you say, is brave and
honourable—but then the poor fellow is unknown!
Botheration, never mind that, for with those qualifications
he will soon remove the objection. Look at me,
sir—I am, as old Adam was, the first of my race, and
the chances are even that in a few years he will be as
pretty a fellow as I am.”
“Jurian, come hither,” cried the old man, after a
struggle. “Gladly would I have kept my daughter
from you, that my ambition might have been gratified.
But that dream is over, and a father's feelings return.
Take her, she is thine.”
“Mine! An outcast—a wanderer on the face of the
earth!”
“No outcast, but my son. Take her, I say, for she
is thine.”
“Thine, Jurian, thine,” sighed Agatha, as her father
placed her in her lover's arms.
“Yes, Agatha, thou shalt be mine, when reproach
may not be ashamed to place this treasured hand in
mine—but not till then.”
“Jurian!”
“Not until then, Agatha; still, I have said, thou shalt
be mine.”
Shortly after the events related above, the British
evacuated Philadelphia, and the battle of Monmouth
put a brilliant termination to the campaign. Jurian
abandoned the idea of leaving the country, and after
remaining a short time with Agatha, he availed himself
of the first opportunity of departing for the south, where
he joined the army, soon became distinguished for his
courage, and was rapidly promoted. He served until
peace was declared, some time prior to which he was
united to Agatha, with the full consent of her father,
and after throwing up his commission, he pursued his
profession with success and distinction. All the enjoyments
that earth could proffer were spread before
him, but in the midst of all, the hapless Miriam was
not forgotten. There is no tie so powerful as that
which binds the living to the dead. All others may be
weakened in our progress through life; still, in joy or
in sorrow, that link remains the same as when first
riveted. No smile can dissolve it, and no tear corrode,
and it increases in strength, in proportion as all others
are weakened.
M`Druid, after the peace, returned to Europe, and
died, sword in hand, fighting against the French. The
first smiling face he met removed the impression made
upon his heart by the charms of Miss Buckley, but she
was more constant in her attachment, and for his sake,
died as true a virgin as queen Elizabeth. She, however,
lived long enough to become the president of a charitable
association, where she managed to get all the
widows' prayers in the bargain. The old 'squire, after
the peace, like many others, abandoned his tory principles,
and by way of setting an example to the community,
joined a temperance society. His conversion
was much talked of at the time, but on examining the
records of the society, I find that his name was on the
sick-list until the day of his death, and that his doctor
prescribed brandy, as the only medicine suited to his
disease.
Captain Swain lived long to enjoy the liberty he
had contended for, and the prosperity of Jurian.
M`Crea became an altered man, and banished from his
mind his philosophical researches, and instead of studying
how to live, devoted the remnant of his days in
studying how to die. Alice survived the death of Miriam
but a few months.
Corporal Drone, after the close of the war, became
a violent politician, and talked loudly in beer-houses of
the services he had rendered his country “in the times
that tried men's souls.” When Lafayette became the
nation's guest in 1824, the corporal was one of the old
soldiers who rode in the chariots that led the van of the
triumphal entry into Philadelphia, and when he was
afterwards introduced to the marquis in the Hall of
Independence, he endeavoured to awaken some reminiscences
about the battles of Brandywine, Germantown,
and Swedes' Ford. The corporal's memory appeared
to be more retentive than that of the other, who
was pushed so closely on that memorable occasion,
that at times he could afford nothing more than a bow
or a smile of recognition.
The corporal, we have said, was a violent politician,
and more than once was he brought forward by designing
partisans as a candidate for some petty office,
and supported on the grounds of “revolutionary services,”
but he invariably failed in his election, which
of republics. He prosecuted Ephraim Horn for
the reward offered for the apprehension of Gordon, and
the cause having finally been removed to the Supreme
Court, it remains undecided to this day, as each judge
entertains his own peculiar opinion with regard to the
law on the subject.
| CHAPTER XVII. The forsaken | |