Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 405, July 1849

"You will not take my hand? Then believe me, it is not I that will give that grief to your heart."

Touched, penetrated, melted by this generosity in a man of such lofty claims, to one of my age and fortunes, I pressed that noble hand, half raising it to my lips – an action of respect that would have misbecome neither; but he gently withdrew the hand, in the instinct of his natural modesty. I had then no heart to speak further on such a subject, but, faltering out that I would go and see my uncle, I took up the light, and ascended the stairs. I crept noiselessly into Roland's room, and shading the light, saw that, though he slept, his face was very troubled. And then I thought, "What are my young griefs to his?" and – sitting beside the bed, communed with my own heart and was still!

CHAPTER LXXXII

At sunrise, I went down into the sitting-room, having resolved to write to my father to join us; for I felt how much Roland needed his comfort and his counsel, and it was no great distance from the old Tower. I was surprised to find Lord Castleton still seated by the fire; he had evidently not gone to bed.

"That's right," said he; "we must encourage each other to recruit nature," and he pointed to the breakfast things on the table.

I had scarcely tasted food for many hours, but I was only aware of my own hunger by a sensation of faintness. I eat unconsciously, and was almost ashamed to feel how much the food restored me.

"I suppose," said I, "that you will soon set off to Lord N – 's?"

"Nay, did I not tell you, that I have sent Summers express, with a note to Lady Ellinor, begging her to come here? I did not see, on reflection, how I could decorously accompany Miss Trevanion alone, without even a female servant, to a house full of gossiping guests. And even had your uncle been well enough to go with us, his presence would but have created an additional cause for wonder; so as soon as we arrived, and while you went up with the Captain, I wrote my letter and despatched my man. I expect Lady Ellinor will be here before nine o'clock. Meanwhile, I have already seen that infamous waiting-woman, and taken care to prevent any danger from her garrulity. And you will be pleased to hear that I have hit upon a mode of satisfying the curiosity of our friend Mrs Grundy – that is, 'The World' – without injury to any one. We must suppose that that footman of Trevanion's was out of his mind – it is but a charitable, and your good father would say, a philosophical supposition. All great knavery is madness! The world could not get on if truth and goodness were not the natural tendencies of sane minds. Do you understand?"

"Not quite."

"Why, the footman, being out of his mind, invented this mad story of Trevanion's illness, frightened Lady Ellinor and Miss Trevanion out of their wits with his own chimera, and hurried them both off, one after the other. I having heard from Trevanion, and knowing he could not have been ill when the servant left him, set off, as was natural in so old a friend of the family, saved her from the freaks of a maniac, who, getting more and more flighty, was beginning to play the Jack o' Lantern, and leading her, Heaven knows where! over the country; – and then wrote to Lady Ellinor to come to her. It is but a hearty laugh at our expense, and Mrs Grundy is content. If you don't want her to pity, or backbite, let her laugh. She is a she-Cerberus – she wants to eat you: well – stop her mouth with a cake."

"Yes," continued this better sort of Aristippus, so wise under all his seeming levities; "the cue thus given, everything favours it. If that rogue of a lackey quoted Shakspeare as much in the servant's hall as he did while I was binding him neck and heels in the kitchen, that's enough for all the household to declare he was moon-stricken; and if we find it necessary to do anything more, why, we must get him to go into Bedlam for a month or two. The disappearance of the waiting-woman is natural; either I or Lady Ellinor send her about her business for her folly in being so gulled by the lunatic. If that's unjust, why, injustice to servants is common enough – public and private. Neither minister nor lackey can be forgiven, if he help us into a scrape. One must vent one's passion on something. Witness my poor cane; though, indeed, a better illustration would be the cane that Louis XIV. broke on a footman, because his majesty was out of humour with a prince whose shoulders were too sacred for royal indignation.

"So you see," concluded Lord Castleton, lowering his voice, "that your uncle, amongst all his other causes of sorrow, may think at least that his name is spared in his son's. And the young man himself may find reform easier, when freed from that despair of the possibility of redemption, which Mrs Grundy inflicts upon those who – Courage, then; life is long!"

"My very words!" I cried; "and so repeated by you, Lord Castleton, they seem prophetic."

"Take my advice, and don't lose sight of your cousin, while his pride is yet humbled, and his heart perhaps softened. I don't say this only for his sake. No, it is your poor uncle I think of: noble old fellow. And now, I think it right to pay Lady Ellinor the respect of repairing, as well as I can, the havoc three sleepless nights have made on the exterior of a gentleman who is on the shady side of remorseless forty."

Lord Castleton here left me, and I wrote to my father, begging him to meet us at the next stage, (which was the nearest point from the high road to the Tower,) and I sent off the letter by a messenger on horseback. That task done, I leant my head upon my hand, and a profound sadness settled upon me, despite all my efforts to face the future, and think only of the duties of life – not its sorrows.

CHAPTER LXXXIII

Before nine o'clock, Lady Ellinor arrived, and went straight into Miss Trevanion's room. I took refuge in my uncle's. Roland was awake and calm, but so feeble that he made no effort to rise; and it was his calm, indeed, that alarmed me the most – it was like the calm of nature thoroughly exhausted. He obeyed me mechanically, as a patient takes from your hand the draught, of which he is almost unconscious, when I pressed him to take food. He smiled on me faintly when I spoke to him; but made me a sign that seemed to implore silence. Then he turned his face from me, and buried it in the pillow; and I thought that he slept again, when, raising himself a little, and feeling for my hand, he said in a scarcely audible voice, —

"Where is he?"

"Would you see him, sir?"

"No, no; that would kill me – and then – what would become of him?"

"He has promised me an interview, and in that interview I feel assured he will obey your wishes, whatever they are."

Roland made no answer.

"Lord Castleton has arranged all, so that his name and madness (thus let us call it) will never be known."

"Pride, pride! pride still!" – murmured the old soldier. "The name, the name – well, that is much; but the living soul! – I wish Austin were here."

"I have sent for him, sir."

Roland pressed my hand, and was again silent. Then he began to mutter, as I thought, incoherently, about "the Peninsula and obeying orders; and how some officer woke Lord Wellesley at night, and said that something or other (I could not catch what – the phrase was technical and military) was impossible; and how Lord Wellesley asked 'Where's the order-book?' and looking into the order-book, said, 'Not at all impossible, for it is in the order-book;' and so Lord Wellesley turned round and went to sleep again." Then suddenly Roland half rose, and said in a voice clear and firm, "But Lord Wellesley, though a great captain, was a fallible man, sir, and the order-book was his own mortal handiwork. – Get me the Bible!"

Oh Roland, Roland! and I had feared that thy mind was wandering!

So I went down and borrowed a Bible in large characters, and placed it on the bed before him, opening the shutters, and letting in God's day upon God's word.

I had just done this, when there was a slight knock at the door. I opened it, and Lord Castleton stood without. He asked me, in a whisper, if he might see my uncle. I drew him in gently, and pointed to the soldier of life "learning what was not impossible" from the unerring Order-Book.

Lord Castleton gazed with a changing countenance, and, without disturbing my uncle, stole back. I followed him, and gently closed the door.

"You must save his son," he said in a faltering voice – "you must; and tell me how to help you. That sight! – no sermon ever touched me more. Now come down, and receive Lady Ellinor's thanks. We are going. She wants me to tell my own tale to my old friend, Mrs Grundy: so I go with them. Come."

On entering the sitting-room, Lady Ellinor came up and fairly embraced me. I need not repeat her thanks, still less the praises, which fell cold and hollow on my ear. My gaze rested on Fanny where she stood apart – her eyes, heavy with fresh tears, bent on the ground. And the sense of all her charms – the memory of the tender, exquisite kindness she had shown to the stricken father; the generous pardon she had extended to the criminal son; the looks she had bent upon me on that memorable night – looks that had spoken such trust in my presence – the moment in which she had clung to me for protection, and her breath been warm upon my cheek, – all these rushed over me; and I felt that the struggle of months was undone – that I had never loved her as I loved her then – when I saw her but to lose her evermore! And then there came for the first, and, I now rejoice to think, for the only time, a bitter, ungrateful accusation against the cruelty of fortune and the disparities of life. What was it that set our two hearts eternally apart, and made hope impossible? Not nature, but the fortune that gives a second nature to the world. Ah, could I then think that it is in that second nature that the soul is ordained to seek its trials, and that the elements of human virtue find their harmonious place! What I answered I know not. Neither know I how long I stood there listening to sounds which seemed to have no meaning, till there came other sounds which indeed woke my sense, and made my blood run cold to hear, – the tramp of the horses, the grating of the wheels, the voice at the door that said "All was ready."

Then Fanny lifted her eyes, and they met mine; and then involuntarily and hastily she moved a few steps towards me, and I clasped my right hand to my heart, as if to still its beating, and remained still. Lord Castleton had watched us both. I felt that watch was upon us, though I had till then shunned his looks: now, as I turned my eyes from Fanny's, that look came full upon me – soft, compassionate, benignant. Suddenly, and with an unutterable expression of nobleness, the marquis turned to Lady Ellinor, and said – "Pardon me for telling you an old story. A friend of mine – a man of my own years – had the temerity to hope that he might one day or other win the affections of a lady young enough to be his daughter, and whom circumstances and his own heart led him to prefer from all her sex. My friend had many rivals; and you will not wonder – for you have seen the lady. Among them was a young gentleman, who for months had been an inmate of the same house – (Hush, Lady Ellinor! you will hear me out; the interest of my story is to come) – who respected the sanctity of the house he had entered, and left it when he felt he loved – for he was poor, and the lady rich. Some time after, this gentleman saved the lady from a great danger, and was then on the eve of leaving England – (Hush! again – hush!) My friend was present when these two young persons met, before the probable absence of many years, and so was the mother of the lady to whose hand he still hoped one day to aspire. He saw that his young rival wished to say, 'Farewell!' and without a witness: that farewell was all that his honour and his reason could suffer him to say. My friend saw that the lady felt the natural gratitude for a great service, and the natural pity for a generous and unfortunate affection; for so, Lady Ellinor, he only interpreted the sob that reached his ear! What think you my friend did? Your high mind at once conjectures. He said to himself – 'If I am ever to be blest with the heart which, in spite of disparity of years, I yet hope to win, let me show how entire is the trust that I place in its integrity and innocence: let the romance of first youth be closed – the farewell of pure hearts be spoken – unembittered by the idle jealousies of one mean suspicion.' With that thought, which you, Lady Ellinor, will never stoop to blame, he placed his hand on that of the noble mother, drew her gently towards the door, and, calmly confident of the result, left these two young natures to the unwitnessed impulse of maiden honour and manly duty."

All this was said and done with a grace and earnestness that thrilled the listeners: word and action suited each to each with so inimitable a harmony, that the spell was not broken till the voice ceased and the door closed.

That mournful bliss for which I had so pined was vouchsafed: I was alone with her to whom, indeed, honour and reason forbade me to say more than the last farewell.

It was some time before we recovered – before we felt that we were alone.

O ye moments! that I can now recall with so little sadness in the mellow and sweet remembrance, rest ever holy and undisclosed in the solemn recesses of the heart. Yes! – whatever confession of weakness was interchanged, we were not unworthy of the trust that permitted the mournful consolation of the parting. No trite love-tale – with vows not to be fulfilled, and hopes that the future must belie – mocked the realities of the life that lay before us. Yet on the confines of the dream, we saw the day rising cold upon the world: and if – children as we wellnigh were – we shrunk somewhat from the light, we did not blaspheme the sun, and cry "There is darkness in the dawn!"

All that we attempted was to comfort and strengthen each other for that which must be: not seeking to conceal the grief we felt, but promising, with simple faith, to struggle against the grief. If vow were pledged between us – that was the vow – each for the other's sake would strive to enjoy the blessings Heaven left us still. Well may I say that we were children! I know not, in the broken words that passed between us, in the sorrowful hearts which those words revealed – I know not if there were that which they who own, in human passion, but the storm and the whirlwind, would call the love of maturer years – the love that gives fire to the song, and tragedy to the stage; but I know that there was neither a word nor a thought which made the sorrow of the children a rebellion to the heavenly Father.

And again the door unclosed, and Fanny walked with a firm step to her mother's side, and, pausing there, extended her hand to me, and said, as I bent over it, "Heaven WILL be with you!"

A word from Lady Ellinor; a frank smile from him – the rival; one last, last glance from the soft eyes of Fanny, and then Solitude rushed upon me – rushed, as something visible, palpable, overpowering. I felt it in the glare of the sunbeam – I heard it in the breath of the air: like a ghost it rose there – where she had filled the space with her presence but a moment before? A something seemed gone from the universe for ever; a change like that of death passed through my being; and when I woke to feel that my being lived again, I knew that it was my youth and its poet-land that were no more, and that I had passed with an unconscious step, which never could retrace its way, into the hard world of laborious man!

THE GAME LAWS IN SCOTLAND

Those who have been accustomed to watch the tactics of the Manchester party cannot have overlooked or forgotten the significant coincidence, in point of time, between Mr Bright's attack on the Game Laws, and the last grand assault upon the barrier which formerly protected British agriculture. That wily lover of peace among all orders of men saw how much it would assist the ultimate designs of his party to excite distrust and enmity between the two great divisions of the protectionist garrison – the owners and the cultivators of land; and the anti-game-law demonstration was planned for that purpose. The manœuvre was rendered useless by the sudden and unconditional surrender of the fortress by that leader, whose system of defence has ever been, as Capefigue says – "céder incessamment." It is impossible, however, to disguise the true source of the sudden sympathy for the farmers' grievances, which in 1845 and 1846 yearned in the compassionate bowels of the agrarian leaders, and led to the lengthened inquiries of Mr Bright's committee.

But it seems we are not yet done with the game-law agitation. It is true the last rampart of protection is levelled to the ground: but the subjugation of the country interest to the potentates of the factory is not yet accomplished. The owners of the soil have not yet bowed low enough to the Baal of free trade; their influence is not altogether obliterated, nor their privileges sufficiently curtailed; and therefore Mr Bright and the Anti-Game-Law Association have buckled on their armour once more, and the tenantry are again invited to join in the crusade against those who, they are assured, have always been their inveterate oppressors; and, to cut of as much as possible the remotest chance of an amicable settlement, it is proclaimed that no concession will be accepted – no proposal of adjustment listened to – short of the total and immediate abolition of every statute on the subject of game.

The truth is, that this branch of the agitation trade is too valuable to be lost sight of by those who earn their bread or their popularity in that line of business. Hundreds of honest peasants, rotting in unwholesome gaols, their wives and children herded in thousands to the workhouse – hard-working tenants sequestrated by a grasping and selfish aristocracy – these are all too fertile topics for the platform philanthropist to be risked by leaving open any door for conciliation; and therefore the terms demanded are such as it is well known cannot be accepted.

Our attention has been attracted to the doings of an association which has for its professed object the abolition of all game laws, and which has recently opened a new campaign in Scotland, under the leadership of the chief magistrate of Edinburgh, and one of the representatives of the city. Of course the construction of such societies is no longer a mystery to any one; and that under our notice appears to be got up on the most approved pattern, and with all the newest improvements. A staff of active officials directs its movements, and collects funds – lecturers, pamphleteers, newspaper editors are paid or propitiated. From the raw material of Mr Bright's blue-books the most exaggerated statements and calculations of the most zealous witnesses are carefully picked out, and worked up into a picture, which is held up to a horrified public as a true representation of the condition of the rural districts; and the game laws become, in the hands of such artists, a monster pestilence, enough to have made the hair of Pharaoh himself to stand on end. It is not to be wondered at if some, who have not had the opportunity of investigating for themselves the effects of these laws, have been misled by the bold ingenuity of the professed fabricators of grievances; but it is a fact which we shall again have occasion to notice, that they have made but little impression on the tenant farmers. Of the few members of that class who have taken an active share in the agitation, we doubt if there is one who could prove a loss from game on any year's crop to the value of a five-pound note.[2 - "The game agitators are individuals who suffer a little, and see their brethren suffering more, and who have their feelings annoyed; and those who are not hurt at all by game, but will strike at any public wrong." – Speech of Mr Munro, one of the Council of the Association.] The fact is, that while no one will deny the existence of individual cases of hardship from the operation of the game laws, you will hear comparatively little about them among those who are represented as groaning under their intolerable burden. If you would learn the weight of the grievance, you must go to the burghs and town-councils; and there – among small grocers and dissenting clergymen, who would be puzzled to distinguish a pheasant from a bird-of-paradise – you will be made acquainted with the extent of the desolation of these "fearful wildfowl: " from them you will learn the true shape and dimensions of "the game-law incubus," which, as one orator of the tribe tells us, "is gradually changing the surface of this once fertile land into a desert."

But while we are willing to allow for a certain leaven of misled sincerity among the supporters of this association, it is evident that, among its most active and influential leaders, the relief of the farmer or the relaxation of penal laws is not the real object. We shall show from their own writings and speeches the most convincing proof that they contemplate far more extensive and fundamental changes than the mere abolition of the game laws. There is not, indeed, much congruity or system in the opinions which we shall have to quote; but in one point it will be seen that they all concur – a vindictive hostility to the possessors of land, and an eager desire to abridge or destroy the advantages attached, or supposed to be attached, to that description of property. Thus the system of entails – the freedom of real property from legacy and probate duty – the landlord's preferable lien for the rent of his land, figure in the debates of the abolitionist orators, along with other topics equally relevant to the game laws, as oppressive burdens on the industry of the country. The system of the tenure of land, also, is pronounced to be a crying injustice; and one gentleman modestly insists on the necessity of a law for compelling the landlord to make payment to his tenant at the expiry of every lease for any increase in the value of the farm during his occupation. The author of an "Essay on the Evils of Game-Laws," which the association rewarded with their highest premium, and which, therefore, we are fairly entitled to take as an authorised exposition of their sentiments, thus enlarges on "the withering and ruinous thraldom" to which the farmers are subjected by a system of partial legislation.

"No individual," he complains, "of this trade has ever risen to importance and dignity in the state. While merchants of every other class, lawyers, and professional men of every other class, have often reached the highest honours which the crown has to bestow, no farmer has ever yet attained even to a seat in the legislature, or to any civic title of distinction; uncertain as the trade is naturally, and harassed and weighed down by those sad enactments the game laws, to be enrolled among the class of farmers is now tantamount to saying, that you belong to a caste which is for ever excluded from the rewards of fair and honourable ambition." – (Mr Cheine Shepherd's Essay. Edinburgh, 1847.)

The association of the game laws with the scorns which "patient merit of the unworthy takes," is at least ingenious. We confess, with Mr Cheine Shepherd, that the aspect of the times is wofully discouraging to any hope that a coronet, "or even the lowest order of knighthood," will in our days become the usual reward for skill

"In small-boned lambs, the horse-hoe, or the drill."

We cannot flatter him with the prospect of becoming a Cincinnatus; or that we shall live to see the time when muck shall make marquisates as well as money; and perhaps the best advice, under the circumstances, we can tender him, is that which the old oracle gave to certain unhappy shepherds in Virgil's time —