University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FLIGHT OF TIME, AND ITS MEMORIES

Years had rolled past, and time had wrought its changes.
Susan still occupied her old demi-cottage. Ned was with
her still, a tall young man, a fine scholar, and exceedingly
poor, for his fortune was yet withheld from him. Mr. Mulvany
had long since been deposited in the silent grave.

Susan's foster-brother, honest Tim, was a near neighbour.
He cultivated a small farm in the vicinity, which he
had leased, and regularly visited the city once a week to
dispose of his vegetables, chickens, &c. He had succumbed
at last to Betty Simple. Her importunities in the end had
proved to be irresistible, and he married her, as he declared,
for the sake of peace and quietness. Mrs. Dimple,
now Mrs. Lonsdale, had promoted the match, and had
given Betty quite a handsome sum as a dowry. As for
Tim, she aided him in stocking his farm, and became security
for the payment of his rent.

When it was ascertained that nothing could be obtained,
through the promptings of justice, from Bainton and Mallex,
and that the tribunals of the country would not avail
him in his just demand, Ned had determined to quit the
college, and perhaps the town, and go in quest of some sort
of employment by which he might earn an honest livelihood.
But the good president of the institution promptly combated
the wild notion, and combated it successfully. He informed
Ned that when his deceased uncle was in Summerton
(at the time he appeared on the margin of the river
and rescued him from the assaults of the butcher's boy) he
had deposited with him a certain sum of money. The president
would not say how large a sum; but it sufficed for
the time being; and when it should be exhausted it would
be made known by the presentation of a demand for the
advance payment of an ensuing term. The same reply was
made to Susan the next year, when she tendered money to
the principal. Year after year it was the same. No demand
was made, and Ned had graduated with honour.

A situation as teacher was tendered Ned in the institution,
and he had this kind proposition under consideration
at the time when the thread of his history is resumed. It
was the beginning of a vacation, and hence he had several
weeks to meditate upon the matter.

But the anguish of poverty was not the only pang experienced
by Ned. He was, or imagined himself to be,
deeply, hopelessly, in love with Alice. He had not seen
her, however, since the completion of her education. And
even before that event, her mother, or rather her mother's
lord and master, as Mr. Lonsdale proved to be, had
acquiesced in the necessity of a most rigid adherence to the
rules of the institution, which forbade any intercourse between
the scholars of the two establishments, and indeed
between the girls and any young gentlemen whatever.
Yet this interdiction had not been enforced before the
youthful lovers had exchanged their vows of eternal constancy
and affection. And subsequently, as ever was and
will be, obstacles and absence only increased the intensity
of the supposed inextinguishable flame.

On several occasions, however, before the departure of
Alice, when Mrs. Lonsdale visited Summerton unattended
by her lord, the lovers had briefly met in her presence, at
Susan's cottage, and renewed their vows in a language the
mother had long since forgotten. Every glance of the
flashing eye was a page, every fixed gaze a volume. But
it was a sealed book to Mrs. Dimple, who had long ceased
to contemplate their union as a possible event. The loss
of Ned's fortune, by the death of his uncle, rendering it an
ineligible match, Mrs. Lonsdale dismissed the matter from
her mind, and fondly supposed that her simple determination
was equivalent to an extinction of the project. It is
ever thus. When our own light of love is extinguished, we
imagine that total darkness universally prevails. When
the fires of romance are quenched in our own hearts, and
we look upon the faces of the young and the old, the
repulsive and the beautiful, with the same emotions, how are
we to suppose that an ardent youth, familiar though he
may be with the glowing language and the electric ideas
of the classic poets of antiquity, can fall down and worship
a young dimple? We are astonished, simply because we
have become oblivious of our own youthful emotions.

Cupid seemed to have done his work, to have consummated
his mischief, and Ned Lorn, the sighing lover, often
wandered alone along the green margin of the river, or
traversed the solitudes of the meadows and silent woods,
recalling in fancy the bright form which had so frequently
accompanied him thither, and listening in imagination to
the music of her words. Every object, however insignificant,
that had ever arrested her attention, whether animate
or inanimate, whether bird, insect, tree or pebble, was hallowed
in his memory. And with such mementoes around
him, he penned many a sonnet for the village paper, which
he knew she regularly perused every week.

This was now his only means of direct communication.
The epistolary correspondence which ensued upon the departure
of Alice from Summerton, when discovered by
Mr. Lonsdale, was peremptorily forbidden, and from that
moment it had entirely ceased. Yet innocent messages
had been exchanged through the medium of Tim and Betty,
in despite of Mr. Lonsdale's vigilance. It was through
this channel that the arrangement was effected by which
Alice was to receive a sonnet once a week in the poet's
corner of the paper. They were all signed “Abelard,”
and addressed to “Heloise.” All his rambles, all his
romantic thoughts, all his throes of passion, were regularly
chronicled in these sonnets, and fully comprehended by his
sympathizing mistress. She did not deem it necessary to permit
even her mother to know the infinite delight the village
paper afforded her; and her dictatorial and pompous step-father
of course was incapable of comprehending anything of
the kind. He was familiar with all the mysteries of checks,
stocks, scrip and dividends, and could readily fancy the
advantages and enjoyments they might command in social
life; but he had never truly loved, and had never read a
poem in his life.

But although no one besides Alice could appreciate fully
the thoughts and inspirations of the poet, yet there were
many in the ancient town of Summerton, and elsewhere,
who could enjoy good poetry; and there was a depth of
feeling, and a classic felicity in the sonnets, which did not
fail to attract attention. The consequence was that the
author's real name became known to the leading inhabitants
of the place, and his society was somewhat sought after.

Summerton might very appropriately be compared to
some of the rural villages in the vicinity of London, where
many persons of rank and fortune retire to avoid the foul
air and noise of the city. At the time of which we are
writing there were several rich dowagers, and as many
wealthy old maids, who had taken up their permanent
abode in the village. There were, besides, the wives and
families of several commodores and generals absent on duty
in the public service. Thus, while a delightful rural retreat
was secured, and while from their central position, they
might, by a short travel, and in a brief space of time, be
in either Philadelphia or New York, yet the sojourners at
Summerton always found among themselves, perhaps, a
better class of society than might be met with anywhere
else within the limits of the United States. For, in addition
to the characters above enumerated, there were
resident authors of distinction, philosophers, statesmen occasionally,
professors in the literary institutions, a learned
and venerated prelate; theologians, polemics, bankers,
(whose offices were in the city,) capitalists, (fled from the
city to escape the intolerable burden of taxation,) officers
of chartered institutions, who could leave the city after
three o'clock, and get home to dinner; and tradesmen and
others, whose laudable object was economy. And Summerton
afforded the important advantage of being equally
agreeable, both as a place of summer and winter residence.
Families permanently located there escaped the annoyance
and expense of being under the necessity of dispersing once
a year.

It was not at all strange, then, that the meritorious
sonnets of “Abelard,” should have attracted some attention
in Summerton, where many of the inhabitants were
possessed of a discriminating taste, and had sufficient
leisure to indulge the delights of literature. Nor that
Ned, with his erect, tall stature, his high forehead, restless
eagle-eye, and pale, though animated face, should be invited
to the quiet little parties of the rich dowagers and
aristocratic families in retirement, who were pleased with
the society of the young and the gifted. And it must not
be denied that Ned was highly gratified at their delicate
attentions; and had it not been for his smitten heart, his

vulnus immedicabile, he might have chosen a partner
among them, and been comfortably settled for life—if not
a matrimonial partner—at least a partner at whist.