"Or rather to be called Lady Langley? faith, like enough--there are
many women might be of her mind; and I beg your pardon, but these sudden
demands and concessions alarmed me a little on her account."

"It is only the suddenness of the proposal that embarrasses me," said
Ellieslaw; "but perhaps if she is found intractable, Sir Frederick will
consider--"

"I will consider nothing, Mr. Vere--your daughter's hand to-night, or I
depart, were it at midnight--there is my ultimatum."

"I embrace it," said Ellieslaw; "and I will leave you to talk upon our
military preparations, while I go to prepare my daughter for so sudden a
change of condition."

So saying, he left the company.



CHAPTER XIV.

     He brings Earl Osmond to receive my vows.
     O dreadful change!  for Tancred, haughty Osmond.
     --TANCRED AND SIGISMUNDA.

Mr. Vere, whom long practice of dissimulation had enabled to model his
very gait and footsteps to aid the purposes of deception, walked along
the stone passage, and up the first flight of steps towards Miss Vere's
apartment, with the alert, firm, and steady pace of one who is bound,
indeed, upon important business, but who entertains no doubt he can
terminate his affairs satisfactorily. But when out of hearing of the
gentlemen whom he had left, his step became so slow and irresolute, as
to correspond with his doubts and his fears. At length he paused in an
antechamber to collect his ideas, and form his plan of argument, before
approaching his daughter.

"In what more hopeless and inextricable dilemma was ever an unfortunate
man involved!" Such was the tenor of his reflections.--"If we now fall
to pieces by disunion, there can be little doubt that the government
will take my life as the prime agitator of the insurrection. Or, grant I
could stoop to save myself by a hasty submission, am I not, even in that
case, utterly ruined? I have broken irreconcilably with Ratcliffe, and
can have nothing to expect from that quarter but insult and persecution.
I must wander forth an impoverished and dishonoured man, without
even the means of sustaining life, far less wealth sufficient to
counterbalance the infamy which my countrymen, both those whom I
desert and those whom I join, will attach to the name of the political
renegade. It is not to be thought of. And yet, what choice remains
between this lot and the ignominious scaffold? Nothing can save me but
reconciliation with these men; and, to accomplish this, I have promised
to Langley that Isabella shall marry him ere midnight, and to Mareschal,
that she shall do so without compulsion. I have but one remedy betwixt
me and ruin--her consent to take a suitor whom she dislikes, upon such
short notice as would disgust her, even were he a favoured lover--But
I must trust to the romantic generosity of her disposition; and let
me paint the necessity of her obedience ever so strongly, I cannot
overcharge its reality."

Having finished this sad chain of reflections upon his perilous
condition, he entered his daughter's apartment with every nerve bent up
to the support of the argument which he was about to sustain. Though a
deceitful and ambitious man, he was not so devoid of natural affection
but that he was shocked at the part he was about to act, in practising
on the feelings of a dutiful and affectionate child; but the
recollections, that, if he succeeded, his daughter would only be
trepanned into an advantageous match, and that, if he failed, he himself
was a lost man, were quite sufficient to drown all scruples.

He found Miss Vere seated by the window of her dressing-room, her head
reclining on her hand, and either sunk in slumber, or so deeply engaged
in meditation, that she did not hear the noise he made at his entrance.
He approached with his features composed to a deep expression of sorrow
and sympathy, and, sitting down beside her, solicited her attention by
quietly taking her hand, a motion which he did not fail to accompany
with a deep sigh.

"My father!" said Isabella, with a sort of start, which expressed at
least as much fear, as joy or affection.

"Yes, Isabella," said Vere, "your unhappy father, who comes now as a
penitent to crave forgiveness of his daughter for an injury done to her
in the excess of his affection, and then to take leave of her for ever."

"Sir? Offence to me take leave for ever? What does all this mean?" said
Miss Vere.

"Yes, Isabella, I am serious. But first let me ask you, have you no
suspicion that I may have been privy to the strange chance which befell
you yesterday morning?"

"You, sir?" answered Isabella, stammering between a consciousness that
he had guessed her thoughts justly, and the shame as well as fear which
forbade her to acknowledge a suspicion so degrading and so unnatural.

"Yes!" he continued, "your hesitation confesses that you entertained
such an opinion, and I have now the painful task of acknowledging that
your suspicions have done me no injustice. But listen to my motives.
In an evil hour I countenanced the addresses of Sir Frederick Langley,
conceiving it impossible that you could have any permanent objections to
a match where the advantages were, in most respects, on your side. In
a worse, I entered with him into measures calculated to restore our
banished monarch, and the independence of my country. He has taken
advantage of my unguarded confidence, and now has my life at his
disposal."

"Your life, sir?" said Isabella, faintly.

"Yes, Isabella," continued her father, "the life of him who gave life to
you. So soon as I foresaw the excesses into which his headlong passion
(for, to do him justice, I believe his unreasonable conduct arises from
excess of attachment to you) was likely to hurry him, I endeavoured,
by finding a plausible pretext for your absence for some weeks, to
extricate myself from the dilemma in which I am placed. For this purpose
I wished, in case your objections to the match continued insurmountable,
to have sent you privately for a few months to the convent of your
maternal aunt at Paris. By a series of mistakes you have been brought
from the place of secrecy and security which I had destined for your
temporary abode. Fate has baffled my last chance of escape, and I have
only to give you my blessing, and send you from the castle with Mr.
Ratcliffe, who now leaves it; my own fate will soon be decided."

"Good Heaven, sir! can this be possible?" exclaimed Isabella. "O, why
was I freed from the restraint in which you placed me? or why did you
not impart your pleasure to me?"

"Think an instant, Isabella. Would you have had me prejudice in your
opinion the friend I was most desirous of serving, by communicating to
you the injurious eagerness with which he pursued his object? Could I do
so honourably, having promised to assist his suit?--But it is all over,
I and Mareschal have made up our minds to die like men; it only remains
to send you from hence under a safe escort."

"Great powers! and is there no remedy?" said the terrified young woman.

"None, my child," answered Vere, gently, "unless one which you would not
advise your father to adopt--to be the first to betray his friends."

"O, no! no!" she answered, abhorrently yet hastily, as if to reject
the temptation which the alternative presented to her. "But is there no
other hope--through flight--through mediation--through supplication?--I
will bend my knee to Sir Frederick!"

"It would be a fruitless degradation; he is determined on his course,
and I am equally resolved to stand the hazard of my fate. On one
condition only he will turn aside from his purpose, and that condition
my lips shall never utter to you."

"Name it, I conjure you, my dear father!" exclaimed Isabella. "What CAN
he ask that we ought not to grant, to prevent the hideous catastrophe
with which you are threatened?"

"That, Isabella," said Vere, solemnly, "you shall never know, until your
father's head has rolled on the bloody scaffold; then, indeed, you will
learn there was one sacrifice by which he might have been saved."

"And why not speak it now?" said Isabella; "do you fear I would flinch
from the sacrifice of fortune for your preservation? or would you
bequeath me the bitter legacy of life-long remorse, so oft as I shall
think that you perished, while there remained one mode of preventing the
dreadful misfortune that overhangs you?"

"Then, my child," said Vere, "since you press me to name what I would a
thousand times rather leave in silence, I must inform you that he will
accept for ransom nothing but your hand in marriage, and that conferred
before midnight this very evening!"

"This evening, sir?" said the young lady, struck with horror at the
proposal--"and to such a man!--A man?--a monster, who could wish to win
the daughter by threatening the life of the father--it is impossible!"

"You say right, my child," answered her father, "it is indeed
impossible; nor have I either the right or the wish to exact such a
sacrifice--It is the course of nature that the old should die and be
forgot, and the young should live and be happy."

"My father die, and his child can save him!--but no--no--my dear father,
pardon me, it is impossible; you only wish to guide me to your wishes. I
know your object is what you think my happiness, and this dreadful tale
is only told to influence my conduct and subdue my scruples."

"My daughter," replied Ellieslaw, in a tone where offended authority
seemed to struggle with parental affection, "my child suspects me of
inventing a false tale to work upon her feelings! Even this I must
bear, and even from this unworthy suspicion I must descend to vindicate
myself. You know the stainless honour of your cousin Mareschal--mark
what I shall write to him, and judge from his answer, if the danger in
which we stand is not real, and whether I have not used every means to
avert it."

He sate down, wrote a few lines hastily, and handed them to Isabella,
who, after repeated and painful efforts, cleared her eyes and head
sufficiently to discern their purport.

"Dear cousin," said the billet, "I find my daughter, as I expected, in
despair at the untimely and premature urgency of Sir Frederick Langley.
She cannot even comprehend the peril in which we stand, or how much we
are in his power--Use your influence with him, for Heaven's sake, to
modify proposals, to the acceptance of which I cannot, and will not,
urge my child against all her own feelings, as well as those of delicacy
and propriety, and oblige your loving cousin,--R. V."

In the agitation of the moment, when her swimming eyes and dizzy brain
could hardly comprehend the sense of what she looked upon, it is not
surprising that Miss Vere should have omitted to remark that this
letter seemed to rest her scruples rather upon the form and time of the
proposed union, than on a rooted dislike to the suitor proposed to her.
Mr. Vere rang the bell, and gave the letter to a servant to be delivered
to Mr. Mareschal, and, rising from his chair, continued to traverse
the apartment in silence and in great agitation until the answer was
returned. He glanced it over, and wrung the hand of his daughter as he
gave it to her. The tenor was as follows:--

"My dear kinsman, I have already urged the knight on the point you
mention, and I find him as fixed as Cheviot. I am truly sorry my fair
cousin should be pressed to give up any of her maidenly rights. Sir
Frederick consents, however, to leave the castle with me the instant
the ceremony is performed, and we will raise our followers and begin the
fray. Thus there is great hope the bridegroom may be knocked on the head
before he and the bride can meet again, so Bell has a fair chance to be
Lady Langley A TRES BON MARCHE. For the rest, I can only say, that if
she can make up her mind to the alliance at all--it is no time for mere
maiden ceremony--my pretty cousin must needs consent to marry in haste,
or we shall all repent at leisure, or rather have very little leisure
to repent; which is all at present from him who rests your affectionate
kinsman,--R. M."

"P.S.--Tell Isabella that I would rather cut the knight's throat after
all, and end the dilemma that way, than see her constrained to marry him
against her will."

When Isabella had read this letter, it dropped from her hand, and she
would, at the same time, have fallen from her chair, had she not been
supported by her father.

"My God, my child will die!" exclaimed Vere, the feelings of nature
overcoming, even in HIS breast, the sentiments of selfish policy; "look
up, Isabella--look up, my child--come what will, you shall not be
the sacrifice--I will fall myself with the consciousness I leave you
happy--My child may weep on my grave, but she shall not--not in this
instance--reproach my memory." He called a servant.--"Go, bid Ratcliffe
come hither directly."

During this interval, Miss Vere became deadly pale, clenched her hands,
pressing the palms strongly together, closed her eyes, and drew her lips
with strong compression, as if the severe constraint which she put upon
her internal feelings extended even to her muscular organization. Then
raising her head, and drawing in her breath strongly ere she spoke, she
said, with firmness,--"Father, I consent to the marriage."

"You shall not--you shall not,--my child--my dear child--you shall not
embrace certain misery to free me from uncertain danger."

So exclaimed Ellieslaw; and, strange and inconsistent beings that we
are! he expressed the real though momentary feelings of his heart.

"Father," repeated Isabella, "I will consent to this marriage."

"No, my child, no--not now at least--we will humble ourselves to obtain
delay from him; and yet, Isabella, could you overcome a dislike
which has no real foundation, think, in other respects, what a
match!--wealth--rank--importance."

"Father!" reiterated Isabella, "I have consented."

It seemed as if she had lost the power of saying anything else, or even
of varying the phrase which, with such effort, she had compelled herself
to utter.

"Heaven bless thee, my child!--Heaven bless thee!--And it WILL bless
thee with riches, with pleasure, with power."

Miss Vere faintly entreated to be left by herself for the rest of the
evening.

"But will you not receive Sir Frederick?" said her father, anxiously.

"I will meet him," she replied, "I will meet him--when I must, and where
I must; but spare me now."

"Be it so, my dearest; you shall know no restraint that I can save
you from. Do not think too hardly of Sir Frederick for this,--it is an
excess of passion."

Isabella waved her hand impatiently.

"Forgive me, my child--I go--Heaven bless thee. At eleven--if you call
me not before--at eleven I come to seek you."

When he left Isabella she dropped upon her knees--"Heaven aid me
to support the resolution I have taken--Heaven only can--O, poor
Earnscliff! who shall comfort him? and with what contempt will he
pronounce her name, who listened to him to-day and gave herself to
another at night! But let him despise me--better so than that he should
know the truth--let him despise me; if it will but lessen his grief, I
should feel comfort in the loss of his esteem."

She wept bitterly; attempting in vain, from time to time, to commence
the prayer for which she had sunk on her knees, but unable to calm her
spirits sufficiently for the exercise of devotion. As she remained in
this agony of mind, the door of her apartment was slowly opened.



CHAPTER XV.

     The darksome cave they enter, where they found
     The woful man, low sitting on the ground,
     Musing full sadly in his sullen mind.--FAERY QUEEN.

The intruder on Miss Vere's sorrows was Ratcliffe. Ellieslaw had, in the
agitation of his mind, forgotten to countermand the order he had given
to call him thither, so that he opened the door with the words, "You
sent for me, Mr. Vere." Then looking around--"Miss Vere, alone! on the
ground! and in tears!"

"Leave me--leave me, Mr. Ratcliffe," said the unhappy young lady.

"I must not leave you," said Ratcliffe; "I have been repeatedly
requesting admittance to take my leave of you, and have been refused,
until your father himself sent for me. Blame me not, if I am bold and
intrusive; I have a duty to discharge which makes me so."

"I cannot listen to you--I cannot speak to you, Mr. Ratcliffe; take my
best wishes, and for God's sake leave me."

"Tell me only," said Ratcliffe, "is it true that this monstrous match is
to go forward, and this very night? I heard the servants proclaim it as
I was on the great staircase--I heard the directions given to clear out
the chapel."

"Spare me, Mr. Ratcliffe," replied the luckless bride; "and from the
state in which you see me, judge of the cruelty of these questions."

"Married? to Sir Frederick Langley? and this night? It must not
cannot--shall not be."

"It MUST be, Mr. Ratcliff, or my father is ruined."

"Ah! I understand," answered Ratcliffe; "and you have sacrificed
yourself to save him who--But let the virtue of the child atone for the
faults of the father it is no time to rake them up.--What CAN be done?
Time presses--I know but one remedy--with four-and-twenty hours I might
find many--Miss Vere, you must implore the protection of the only human
being who has it in his power to control the course of events which
threatens to hurry you before it."

"And what human being," answered Miss Vere, "has such power?"

"Start not when I name him," said Ratcliffe, coming near her, and
speaking in a low but distinct voice. "It is he who is called Elshender
the Recluse of Mucklestane-Moor."

"You are mad, Mr. Ratcliffe, or you mean to insult my misery by an
ill-timed jest!"

"I am as much in my senses, young lady," answered her adviser, "as you
are; and I am no idle jester, far less with misery, least of all with
your misery. I swear to you that this being (who is other far than
what he seems) actually possesses the means of redeeming you from this
hateful union."

"And of insuring my father's safety?"

"Yes! even that," said Ratcliffe, "if you plead his cause with him--yet
how to obtain admittance to the Recluse!"

"Fear not that," said Miss Vere, suddenly recollecting the incident
of the rose; "I remember he desired me to call upon him for aid in
my extremity, and gave me this flower as a token. Ere it faded away
entirely, I would need, he said, his assistance: is it possible his
words can have been aught but the ravings of insanity?"

"Doubt it not fear it not--but above all," said Ratcliffe, "let us lose
no time--are you at liberty, and unwatched?"

"I believe so," said Isabella: "but what would you have me to do?"

"Leave the castle instantly," said Ratcliffe, "and throw yourself at the
feet of this extraordinary man, who in circumstances that seem to argue
the extremity of the most contemptible poverty, possesses yet an almost
absolute influence over your fate.--Guests and servants are deep in
their carouse--the leaders sitting in conclave on their treasonable
schemes--my horse stands ready in the stable--I will saddle one for you,
and meet you at the little garden-gate--O, let no doubt of my prudence
or fidelity prevent your taking the only step in your power to escape
the dreadful fate which must attend the wife of Sir Frederick Langley!"

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Miss Vere, "you have always been esteemed a man
of honour and probity, and a drowning wretch will always catch at the
feeblest twig,--I will trust you--I will follow your advice--I will meet
you at the garden-gate."

She bolted the outer-door of her apartment as soon as Mr. Ratcliffe left
her, and descended to the garden by a separate stair of communication
which opened to her dressing-room. On the way she felt inclined to
retract the consent she had so hastily given to a plan so hopeless
and extravagant. But as she passed in her descent a private door which
entered into the chapel from the back-stair, she heard the voice of the
female-servants as they were employed in the task of cleaning it.

"Married! and to sae bad a man--Ewhow, sirs! onything rather than that."

"They are right--they are right," said Miss Vere, "anything rather than
that!"

She hurried to the garden. Mr. Ratcliffe was true to his
appointment--the horses stood saddled at the garden-gate, and in a few
minutes they were advancing rapidly towards the hut of the Solitary.

While the ground was favourable, the speed of their journey was such as
to prevent much communication; but when a steep ascent compelled them to
slacken their pace, a new cause of apprehension occurred to Miss Vere's
mind.

"Mr. Ratcliffe," she said, pulling up her horse's bridle, "let us
prosecute no farther a journey, which nothing but the extreme agitation
of my mind can vindicate my having undertaken--I am well aware that this
man passes among the vulgar as being possessed of supernatural powers,
and carrying on an intercourse with beings of another world; but I would
have you aware I am neither to be imposed on by such follies, nor, were
I to believe in their existence, durst I, with my feelings of religion,
apply to this being in my distress."

"I should have thought, Miss Vere," replied Ratcliffe, "my character and
habits of thinking were so well known to you, that you might have held
me exculpated from crediting in such absurdity."

"But in what other mode," said Isabella, "can a being, so miserable
himself in appearance, possess the power of assisting me?"

"Miss Vere." said Ratcliffe, after a momentary pause, "I am bound by
a solemn oath of secrecy--You must, without farther explanation, be
satisfied with my pledged assurance, that he does possess the power, if
you can inspire him with the will; and that, I doubt not, you will be
able to do."

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Miss Vere, "you may yourself be mistaken; you ask
an unlimited degree of confidence from me."

"Recollect, Miss Vere," he replied, "that when, in your humanity, you
asked me to interfere with your father in favour of Haswell and his
ruined family--when you requested me to prevail on him to do a
thing most abhorrent to his nature--to forgive an injury and remit a
penalty--I stipulated that you should ask me no questions concerning the
sources of my influence--You found no reason to distrust me then, do not
distrust me now."

"But the extraordinary mode of life of this man," said Miss Vere; "his
seclusion--his figure--the deepness of mis-anthropy which he is said to
express in his language--Mr. Ratcliffe, what can I think of him if he
really possesses the powers you ascribe to him?"

"This man, young lady, was bred a Catholic, a sect which affords a
thousand instances of those who have retired from power and affluence to
voluntary privations more strict even than his."

"But he avows no religious motive," replied Miss Vere.

"No," replied Ratcliffe; "disgust with the world has operated his
retreat from it without assuming the veil of superstition. Thus far I
may tell you--he was born to great wealth, which his parents designed
should become greater by his union with a kinswoman, whom for that
purpose they bred up in their own house. You have seen his figure;
judge what the young lady must have thought of the lot to which she was
destined--Yet, habituated to his appearance, she showed no reluctance,
and the friends of--of the person whom I speak of, doubted not that the
excess of his attachment, the various acquisitions of his mind, his
many and amiable qualities, had overcome the natural horror which
his destined bride must have entertained at an exterior so dreadfully
inauspicious."

"And did they judge truly?" said Isabella.

"You shall hear. He, at least, was fully aware of his own deficiency;
the sense of it haunted him like a phantom. 'I am,' was his own
expression to me,--I mean to a man whom he trusted,--'I am, in spite
of what you would say, a poor miserable outcast, fitter to have been
smothered in the cradle than to have been brought up to scare the world
in which I crawl.' The person whom he addressed in vain endeavoured to
impress him with the indifference to external form which is the natural
result of philosophy, or entreat him to recall the superiority of mental
talents to the more attractive attributes that are merely personal.
'I hear you,' he would reply; 'but you speak the voice of cold-blooded
stoicism, or, at least, of friendly partiality. But look at every book
which we have read, those excepted of that abstract philosophy which
feels no responsive voice in our natural feelings. Is not personal form,
such as at least can be tolerated without horror and disgust, always
represented as essential to our ideas of a friend, far more a lover?
Is not such a mis-shapen monster as I am, excluded, by the very fiat
of Nature, from her fairest enjoyments? What but my wealth prevents
all--perhaps even Letitia, or you--from shunning me as something foreign
to your nature, and more odious, by bearing that distorted resemblance
to humanity which we observe in the animal tribes that are more hateful
to man because they seem his caricature?'"

"You repeat the sentiments of a madman," said Miss Vere.

"No," replied her conductor, "unless a morbid and excessive sensibility
on such a subject can be termed insanity. Yet I will not deny that this
governing feeling and apprehension carried the person who entertained
it, to lengths which indicated a deranged imagination. He appeared
to think that it was necessary for him, by exuberant, and not always
well-chosen instances of liberality, and even profusion, to unite
himself to the human race, from which he conceived himself naturally
dissevered. The benefits which he bestowed, from a disposition naturally
philanthropical in an uncommon degree, were exaggerated by the influence
of the goading reflection, that more was necessary from him than from
others,--lavishing his treasures as if to bribe mankind to receive him
into their class. It is scarcely necessary to say, that the bounty which
flowed from a source so capricious was often abused, and his confidence
frequently betrayed. These disappointments, which occur to all, more or
less, and most to such as confer benefits without just discrimination,
his diseased fancy set down to the hatred and contempt excited by his
personal deformity.--But I fatigue you, Miss Vere?"

"No, by no means; I--I could not prevent my attention from wandering an
instant; pray proceed."

"He became at length," continued Ratcliffe, "the most ingenious
self-tormentor of whom I have ever heard; the scoff of the rabble, and
the sneer of the yet more brutal vulgar of his own rank, was to him
agony and breaking on the wheel. He regarded the laugh of the common
people whom he passed on the street, and the suppressed titter, or yet
more offensive terror, of the young girls to whom he was introduced in
company, as proofs of the true sense which the world entertained of
him, as a prodigy unfit to be received among them on the usual terms
of society, and as vindicating the wisdom of his purpose in withdrawing
himself from among them. On the faith and sincerity of two persons
alone, he seemed to rely implicitly--on that of his betrothed bride, and
of a friend eminently gifted in personal accomplishments, who seemed,
and indeed probably was, sincerely attached to him. He ought to have
been so at least, for he was literally loaded with benefits by him whom
you are now about to see. The parents of the subject of my story died
within a short space of each other. Their death postponed the marriage,
for which the day had been fixed. The lady did not seem greatly to
mourn this delay,--perhaps that was not to have been expected; but
she intimated no change of intention, when, after a decent interval,
a second day was named for their union. The friend of whom I spoke was
then a constant resident at the Hall. In an evil hour, at the earnest
request and entreaty of this friend, they joined a general party, where
men of different political opinions were mingled, and where they drank
deep. A quarrel ensued; the friend of the Recluse drew his sword with
others, and was thrown down and disarmed by a more powerful antagonist.
They fell in the struggle at the feet of the Recluse, who, maimed and
truncated as his form appears, possesses, nevertheless, great strength,
as well as violent passions. He caught up a sword, pierced the heart
of his friend's antagonist, was tried, and his life, with difficulty,
redeemed from justice at the expense of a year's close imprisonment, the
punishment of manslaughter. The incident affected him most deeply,
the more that the deceased was a man of excellent character, and had
sustained gross insult and injury ere he drew his sword. I think, from
that moment, I observed--I beg pardon--The fits of morbid sensibility
which had tormented this unfortunate gentleman, were rendered henceforth
more acute by remorse, which he, of all men, was least capable of having
incurred, or of sustaining when it became his unhappy lot. His paroxysms
of agony could not be concealed from the lady to whom he was betrothed;
and it must be confessed they were of an alarming and fearful nature.
He comforted himself, that, at the expiry of his imprisonment, he could
form with his wife and friend a society, encircled by which he might
dispense with more extensive communication with the world. He was
deceived; before that term elapsed, his friend and his betrothed bride
were man and wife. The effects of a shock so dreadful on an ardent
temperament, a disposition already soured by bitter remorse, and
loosened by the indulgence of a gloomy imagination from the rest of
mankind, I cannot describe to you; it was as if the last cable at which
the vessel rode had suddenly parted, and left her abandoned to all the
wild fury of the tempest. He was placed under medical restraint. As a
temporary measure this might have been justifiable; but his hard-hearted
friend, who, in consequence of his marriage, was now his nearest ally,
prolonged his confinement, in order to enjoy the management of his
immense estates. There was one who owed his all to the sufferer, an
humble friend, but grateful and faithful. By unceasing exertion, and
repeated invocation of justice, he at length succeeded in obtaining
his patron's freedom, and reinstatement in the management of his own
property, to which was soon added that of his intended bride, who having
died without male issue, her estates reverted to him, as heir of entail.
But freedom and wealth were unable to restore the equipoise of his mind;
to the former his grief made him indifferent--the latter only served him
as far as it afforded him the means of indulging his strange and wayward
fancy. He had renounced the Catholic religion, but perhaps some of
its doctrines continued to influence a mind, over which remorse and
misanthropy now assumed, in appearance, an unbounded authority. His life
has since been that alternately of a pilgrim and a hermit, suffering
the most severe privations, not indeed in ascetic devotion, but in
abhorrence of mankind. Yet no man's words and actions have been at
such a wide difference, nor has any hypocritical wretch ever been more
ingenious in assigning good motives for his vile actions, than this
unfortunate in reconciling to his abstract principles of misanthropy,
a conduct which flows from his natural generosity and kindness of
feeling."

"Still, Mr. Ratcliffe--still you describe the inconsistencies of a
madman."

"By no means," replied Ratcliffe. "That the imagination of this
gentleman is disordered, I will not pretend to dispute; I have already
told you that it has sometimes broken out into paroxysms approaching
to real mental alienation. But it is of his common state of mind that I
speak; it is irregular, but not deranged; the shades are as gradual as
those that divide the light of noonday from midnight. The courtier who
ruins his fortune for the attainment of a title which can do him no
good, or power of which he can make no suitable or creditable use, the
miser who hoards his useless wealth, and the prodigal who squanders it,
are all marked with a certain shade of insanity. To criminals who are
guilty of enormities, when the temptation, to a sober mind, bears no
proportion to the horror of the act, or the probability of detection and
punishment, the same observation applies; and every violent passion, as
well as anger, may be termed a short madness."

"This may be all good philosophy, Mr. Ratcliffe," answered Miss Vere;
"but, excuse me, it by no means emboldens me to visit, at this late
hour, a person whose extravagance of imagination you yourself can only
palliate."

"Rather, then," said Ratcliffe, "receive my solemn assurances, that you
do not incur the slightest danger. But what I have been hitherto afraid
to mention for fear of alarming you is, that now when we are within
sight of his retreat, for I can discover it through the twilight, I must
go no farther with you; you must proceed alone."

"Alone?--I dare not."

"You must," continued Ratcliffe; "I will remain here and wait for you."

"You will not, then, stir from this place," said Miss Vere "yet
the distance is so great, you could not hear me were I to cry for
assistance."

"Fear nothing," said her guide; "or observe, at least, the utmost
caution in stifling every expression of timidity. Remember that his
predominant and most harassing apprehension arises from a consciousness
of the hideousness of his appearance. Your path lies straight beside
yon half-fallen willow; keep the left side of it; the marsh lies on the
right. Farewell for a time. Remember the evil you are threatened with,
and let it overcome at once your fears and scruples."

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Isabella, "farewell; if you have deceived one so
unfortunate as myself, you have for ever forfeited the fair character
for probity and honour to which I have trusted."

"On my life--on my soul," continued Ratcliffe, raising his voice as the
distance between them increased, "you are safe--perfectly safe."



CHAPTER XVI.

     --'Twas time and griefs
     That framed him thus:  Time, with his fairer hand,
     Offering the fortunes of his former days,
     The former man may make him.--Bring us to him,
     And chance it as it may.--OLD PLAY.

The sounds of Ratcliffe's voice had died on Isabella's ear; but as she
frequently looked back, it was some encouragement to her to discern his
form now darkening in the gloom. Ere, however, she went much farther,
she lost the object in the increasing shade. The last glimmer of the
twilight placed her before the hut of the Solitary. She twice extended
her hand to the door, and twice she withdrew it; and when she did at
length make the effort, the knock did not equal in violence the throb of
her own bosom. Her next effort was louder; her third was reiterated, for
the fear of not obtaining the protection from which Ratcliffe promised
so much, began to overpower the terrors of his presence from whom she
was to request it. At length, as she still received no answer, she
repeatedly called upon the Dwarf by his assumed name, and requested him
to answer and open to her.

"What miserable being is reduced," said the appalling voice of the
Solitary, "to seek refuge here? Go hence; when the heath-fowl need
shelter, they seek it not in the nest of the night-raven."

"I come to you, father," said Isabella, "in my hour of adversity, even
as you yourself commanded, when you promised your heart and your door
should be open to my distress; but I fear--"

"Ha!" said the Solitary, "then thou art Isabella Vere? Give me a token
that thou art she."

"I have brought you back the rose which you gave me; it has not had time
to fade ere the hard fate you foretold has come upon me!"

"And if thou hast thus redeemed thy pledge," said the Dwarf, "I will not
forfeit mine. The heart and the door that are shut against every other
earthly being, shall be open to thee and to thy sorrows."

She heard him move in his hut, and presently afterwards strike a light.
One by one, bolt and bar were then withdrawn, the heart of Isabella
throbbing higher as these obstacles to their meeting were successively
removed. The door opened, and the Solitary stood before her, his uncouth
form and features illuminated by the iron lamp which he held in his
hand.

"Enter, daughter of affliction," he said,--"enter the house of misery."

She entered, and observed, with a precaution which increased her
trepidation, that the Recluse's first act, after setting the lamp upon
the table, was to replace the numerous bolts which secured the door
of his hut. She shrunk as she heard the noise which accompanied this
ominous operation, yet remembered Ratcliffe's caution, and endeavoured
to suppress all appearance of apprehension. The light of the lamp was
weak and uncertain; but the Solitary, without taking immediate notice of
Isabella, otherwise than by motioning her to sit down on a small
settle beside the fireplace, made haste to kindle some dry furze, which
presently cast a blaze through the cottage. Wooden shelves, which bore
a few books, some bundles of dried herbs, and one or two wooden cups and
platters, were on one side of the fire; on the other were placed some
ordinary tools of field-labour, mingled with those used by mechanics.
Where the bed should have been, there was a wooden frame, strewed with
withered moss and rushes, the couch of the ascetic. The whole space of
the cottage did not exceed ten feet by six within the walls; and its
only furniture, besides what we have mentioned, was a table and two
stools formed of rough deals.

Within these narrow precincts Isabella now found herself enclosed with
a being, whose history had nothing to reassure her, and the fearful
conformation of whose hideous countenance inspired an almost
superstitious terror. He occupied the seat opposite to her, and dropping
his huge and shaggy eyebrows over his piercing black eyes, gazed at her
in silence, as if agitated by a variety of contending feelings. On the
other side sate Isabella, pale as death, her long hair uncurled by the
evening damps, and falling over her shoulders and breast, as the wet
streamers droop from the mast when the storm has passed away, and left
the vessel stranded on the beach. The Dwarf first broke the silence with
the sudden, abrupt, and alarming question,--"Woman, what evil fate has
brought thee hither?"

"My father's danger, and your own command," she replied faintly, but
firmly.

"And you hope for aid from me?"

"If you can bestow it," she replied, still in the same tone of mild
submission.

"And how should I possess that power?" continued the Dwarf, with a
bitter sneer; "Is mine the form of a redresser of wrongs? Is this the
castle in which one powerful enough to be sued to by a fair suppliant
is likely to hold his residence? I but mocked thee, girl, when I said I
would relieve thee."

"Then must I depart, and face my fate as I best may!"

"No!" said the Dwarf, rising and interposing between her and the door,
and motioning to her sternly to resume her seat--"No! you leave me
not in this way; we must have farther conference. Why should one being
desire aid of another? Why should not each be sufficient to itself? Look
round you--I, the most despised and most decrepit on Nature's common,
have required sympathy and help from no one. These stones are of my own
piling; these utensils I framed with my own hands; and with this"--and
he laid his hand with a fierce smile on the long dagger which he always
wore beneath his garment, and unsheathed it so far that the blade
glimmered clear in the fire-light--"with this," he pursued, as he thrust
the weapon back into the scabbard, "I can, if necessary, defend the
vital spark enclosed in this poor trunk, against the fairest and
strongest that shall threaten me with injury."

It was with difficulty Isabella refrained from screaming out aloud; but
she DID refrain.

"This," continued the Recluse, "is the life of nature, solitary,
self-sufficing, and independent. The wolf calls not the wolf to aid him
in forming his den; and the vulture invites not another to assist her in
striking down her prey."

"And when they are unable to procure themselves support," said Isabella,
judiciously thinking that he would be most accessible to argument
couched in his own metaphorical style, "what then is to befall them?"

"Let them starve, die, and be forgotten; it is the common lot of
humanity."

"It is the lot of the wild tribes of nature," said Isabella, "but
chiefly of those who are destined to support themselves by rapine, which
brooks no partner; but it is not the law of nature in general; even the
lower orders have confederacies for mutual defence. But mankind--the
race would perish did they cease to aid each other.--From the time
that the mother binds the child's head, till the moment that some kind
assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot
exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that need aid, have right to
ask it of their fellow-mortals; no one who has the power of granting can
refuse it without guilt."

"And in this simple hope, poor maiden," said the Solitary, "thou hast
come into the desert, to seek one whose wish it were that the league
thou hast spoken of were broken for ever, and that, in very truth, the
whole race should perish? Wert thou not frightened?"

"Misery," said Isabella, firmly, "is superior to fear."

"Hast thou not heard it said in thy mortal world, that I have leagued
myself with other powers, deformed to the eye and malevolent to the
human race as myself? Hast thou not heard this--And dost thou seek my
cell at midnight?"

"The Being I worship supports me against such idle fears," said
Isabella; but the increasing agitation of her bosom belied the affected
courage which her words expressed.

"Ho! ho!" said the Dwarf, "thou vauntest thyself a philosopher? Yet,
shouldst thou not have thought of the danger of intrusting thyself,
young and beautiful, in the power of one so spited against humanity, as
to place his chief pleasure in defacing, destroying, and degrading her
fairest works?"

Isabella, much alarmed, continued to answer with firmness, "Whatever
injuries you may have sustained in the world, you are incapable of
revenging them on one who never wronged you, nor, wilfully, any other."

"Ay, but, maiden," he continued, his dark eyes flashing with an
expression of malignity which communicated itself to his wild and
distorted features, "revenge is the hungry wolf, which asks only to tear
flesh and lap blood. Think you the lamb's plea of innocence would be
listened to by him?"

"Man!" said Isabella, rising, and expressing herself with much dignity,
"I fear not the horrible ideas with which you would impress me. I cast
them from me with disdain. Be you mortal or fiend, you would not offer
injury to one who sought you as a suppliant in her utmost need. You
would not--you durst not."

"Thou say'st truly, maiden," rejoined the Solitary; "I dare not--I would
not. Begone to thy dwelling. Fear nothing with which they threaten thee.
Thou hast asked my protection--thou shalt find it effectual."

"But, father, this very night I have consented to wed the man that I
abhor, or I must put the seal to my father's ruin."

"This night?--at what hour?"

"Ere midnight."

"And twilight," said the Dwarf, "has already passed away. But fear
nothing, there is ample time to protect thee."

"And my father?" continued Isabella, in a suppliant tone.

"Thy father," replied the Dwarf, "has been, and is, my most bitter
enemy. But fear not; thy virtue shall save him. And now, begone; were
I to keep thee longer by me, I might again fall into the stupid dreams
concerning human worth from which I have been so fearfully awakened. But
fear nothing--at the very foot of the altar I will redeem thee. Adieu,
time presses, and I must act!"

He led her to the door of the hut, which he opened for her departure.
She remounted her horse, which had been feeding in the outer enclosure,
and pressed him forward by the light of the moon, which was now rising,
to the spot where she had left Ratcliffe.

"Have you succeeded?" was his first eager question.

"I have obtained promises from him to whom you sent me; but how can he
possibly accomplish them?"

"Thank God!" said Ratcliffe; "doubt not his power to fulfil his
promise."

At this moment a shrill whistle was heard to resound along the heath.

"Hark!" said Ratcliffe, "he calls me--Miss Vere, return home, and leave
unbolted the postern-door of the garden; to that which opens on the
back-stairs I have a private key."

A second whistle was heard, yet more shrill and prolonged than the
first.

"I come, I come," said Ratcliffe; and setting spurs to his horse, rode
over the heath in the direction of the Recluse's hut. Miss Vere returned
to the castle, the mettle of the animal on which she rode, and her own
anxiety of mind, combining to accelerate her journey.

She obeyed Ratcliffe's directions, though without well apprehending
their purpose, and leaving her horse at large in a paddock near
the garden, hurried to her own apartment, which she reached without
observation. She now unbolted her door, and rang her bell for lights.
Her father appeared along with the servant who answered her summons.

"He had been twice," he said, "listening at her door during the two
hours that had elapsed since he left her, and, not hearing her speak,
had become apprehensive that she was taken ill."

"And now, my dear father," she said, "permit me to claim the promise you
so kindly gave; let the last moments of freedom which I am to enjoy be
mine without interruption; and protract to the last moment the respite
which is allowed me."

"I will," said her father; "nor shall you be again interrupted. But this
disordered dress--this dishevelled hair--do not let me find you thus
when I call on you again; the sacrifice, to be beneficial, must be
voluntary."

"Must it be so?" she replied; "then fear not, my father! the victim
shall be adorned."



CHAPTER XVII.

     This looks not like a nuptial.--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

The chapel in the castle of Ellieslaw, destined to be the scene of this
ill-omened union, was a building of much older date than the castle
itself, though that claimed considerable antiquity. Before the wars
between England and Scotland had become so common and of such long
duration, that the buildings along both sides of the Border were chiefly
dedicated to warlike purposes, there had been a small settlement of
monks at Ellieslaw, a dependency, it is believed by antiquaries, on the
rich Abbey of Jedburgh. Their possessions had long passed away under the
changes introduced by war and mutual ravage. A feudal castle had
arisen on the ruin of their cells, and their chapel was included in its
precincts.

The edifice, in its round arches and massive pillars, the simplicity
of which referred their date to what has been called the Saxon
architecture, presented at all times a dark and sombre appearance, and
had been frequently used as the cemetery of the family of the feudal
lords, as well as formerly of the monastic brethren. But it looked
doubly gloomy by the effect of the few and smoky torches which were used
to enlighten it on the present occasion, and which, spreading a glare
of yellow light in their immediate vicinity, were surrounded beyond by
a red and purple halo reflected from their own smoke, and beyond that
again by a zone of darkness which magnified the extent of the chapel,
while it rendered it impossible for the eye to ascertain its limits.
Some injudicious ornaments, adopted in haste for the occasion, rather
added to the dreariness of the scene. Old fragments of tapestry, torn
from the walls of other apartments, had been hastily and partially
disposed around those of the chapel, and mingled inconsistently with
scutcheons and funeral emblems of the dead, which they elsewhere
exhibited. On each side of the stone altar was a monument, the
appearance of which formed an equally strange contrast. On the one was
the figure, in stone, of some grim hermit, or monk, who had died in
the odour of sanctity; he was represented as recumbent, in his cowl and
scapulaire, with his face turned upward as in the act of devotion, and
his hands folded, from which his string of beads was dependent. On
the other side was a tomb, in the Italian taste, composed of the most
beautiful statuary marble, and accounted a model of modern art. It
was erected to the memory of Isabella's mother, the late Mrs. Vere of
Ellieslaw, who was represented as in a dying posture, while a weeping
cherub, with eyes averted, seemed in the act of extinguishing a
dying lamp as emblematic of her speedy dissolution. It was, indeed, a
masterpiece of art, but misplaced in the rude vault to which it had been
consigned. Many were surprised, and even scandalized, that Ellieslaw,
not remarkable for attention to his lady while alive, should erect after
her death such a costly mausoleum in affected sorrow; others cleared him
from the imputation of hypocrisy, and averred that the monument had
been constructed under the direction and at the sole expense of Mr.
Ratcliffe.

Before these monuments the wedding guests were assembled. They were
few in number; for many had left the castle to prepare for the ensuing
political explosion, and Ellieslaw was, in the circumstances of the
case, far from being desirous to extend invitations farther than to
those near relations whose presence the custom of the country rendered
indispensable. Next to the altar stood Sir Frederick Langley, dark,
moody, and thoughtful, even beyond his wont, and near him, Mareschal,
who was to play the part of bridesman, as it was called. The thoughtless
humour of this young gentleman, on which he never deigned to place
the least restraint, added to the cloud which overhung the brow of the
bridegroom.

"The bride is not yet come out of her chamber," he whispered to Sir
Frederick; "I trust that we must not have recourse to the violent
expedients of the Romans which I read of at College. It would be hard
upon my pretty cousin to be run away with twice in two days, though I
know none better worth such a violent compliment."