In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men;
Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.
Then a spirit passed before my face, the hair of my head stood up.Job chap. iv.
Early in the seventeenth century, on a very cold November morning, a gentleman of Winchester was returning to his home, by a road which then led by the borders of the New Forest. He was conversing gaily with his attendants, when his dogs arrested the mirth of the party, by darting suddenly into the mazes of the forest, and signifying their discovery of some unusual object by loud and continued howls. Sir Bernard Courtenay instantly followed their track, and was startled by discovering, amid the tangled bushes, the corpse of a man, frightfully mangled, and which appeared to have lain some time in its concealment. Little observation was necessary to point out the identity of the sufferer,—Sir Bernard Courtenay almost instantly recognized an intimate friend; and, with deep and painful commiseration, prepared to assist his attendants to convey the body to its home.
Many conjectures were immediately afloat, as to the cause and perpetrator of this dreadful act, and, as is ever usual in such cases, many more absurd and irrational than just:—there was no apparent possibility of tracing the fact; it appeared to mock all the art and all the power of justice. He had not been robbed—murder alone had been intended, and had alone been perpetrated; so that one fact at least was clear, that this deed had been the work of an enemy: no common one, it was presumed, if the appearance of the corpse might weigh any thing in evidence; it was mangled fearfully, and the frightful distension of the muscles, the grim and rigid expression of the features, the many deep and bloody wounds upon the body, and the firm and powerful grasp with which the strained fingers of one hand clenched a dark lock of human hair, while those of the other as firmly closed over the hilt of a broken dagger, gave tokens that a fierce and terrible struggle had preceded his unexpected destruction. It was hoped, that some corresponding token of wounds and fierce exertion might lead to a discovery of the murderer; for none deemed, after beholding the body, and calling to mind the noble courage of the victim when in life, that the destroyer could pass from that gripe unharmed.
He who had thus fallen, was one for whom every eye had a tear and every heart a genuine sigh; he had been the friend of all, the enemy of none; he was young, beautiful, and brave; and his native town had looked up to him as one who was to add new glory to her venerable name, and new lustre to his own princely blood; and cut off in the beginning of his career, the very high day of his happiness and beauty, and so cut off—who was there that did not lament for John de la Pole? But, though all Winchester, and the county in whose bosom it lies, sorrowed over the corpse of John de la Pole, the agony borne from his death was to be found in his family alone; there he had been adored, and there most truly and deeply was his sad destiny accused. His young and lovely wife, scarce past her bridal year,—she who had, long before his marriage, been the secret object of his ardent love, and who, upon the death of his father, became the object of his choice—of her grief it was scarcely possible to think without affright; for, in that convulsion of soul into which, in the first horror of eternal separation from all we love, we invariably fall, she had withdrawn herself from all consolation of her friends—all succour of her attendants; and report whispered that she was using means, though quietly, (in order to avoid public shame,) to shorten a life which was now become odious and burthensome. To this cruel resolution she had been driven by a terrible incident; on the morning of the discovery of the body, she had, believing him to be on his road towards his home, ascended her carriage in order to meet him, and was driving cheerfully through the town, when her progress was arrested by the appearance of the crowd bearing the corpse of her husband. She recognized it at a glance, and, before they were aware of their imprudence, a piercing shriek announced to the people that she did so. She took another searching, distracted look at the body, and shrunk into the arms of her attendants, insensible and silent. They thought she was dead—it would not have been wonderful if she had been; the husband of her soul was lying before her, a deep gash across his throat, another had disfigured his snowy brow, and almost divided his once lofty head, while the bosom upon which she had been accustomed to repose was mangled and rent by stabs and blows too many to number—what an object for a young and loving wife! Remembrance was terrible to her, and the inability of justice to discover the murderer added despair to her grief, and thus compelled her to seek for consolation only in the prospect of death.
As bitter a grief, though perhaps not so deep or desperate, had fastened upon the heart of the only survivor of his family, a youth of twenty, of a beauty and virtue equal to his lamented brother, and who had indeed ample reason for his regrets. John de la Pole had been as a father to his youth, and loved him with a warmth far surpassing the kindness of ordinary brotherhood. Eustace had never been taught to remember that he was the younger, for the fortunes of his house were open to him, and the purse of the elder was common to both. On the marriage of the latter with his beloved Agatha, the younger had timidly hinted at his fears of an interruption to their friendship; but John had remedied this, by generously providing for his brother, and entreating his Agatha to allow him still a home at the castle: which being granted, Eustace, though still fearful of the influence of his lovely sister, continued to reside at home.
But the influence he so much dreaded during his life, became singularly apparent after the death of his beloved John. The will of the latter had indeed left an independence to Eustace, but nothing to support the splendour of that princely house of which he was now sole representative. All was assigned to Agatha,—she was the sole heir of her husband,—the being for whose sake alone he appeared to glory in the possession of wealth. Eustace indeed might still enjoy it, but it was upon a condition which drew the blood from the young man’s cheek as he read, and palsied the warm throbbings of the heart in his bosom; it was, that if John de la Pole should die childless before he had attained the age of thirty, Eustace should espouse the widow. His brother even entreated this sacrifice of him: he said, he knew his heart had been sensible of other charms, but he implored him to yield up this transient gratification to his eternal happiness. He could not endure, he said, the thought of averting from Eustace the fortune of his house; yet still less could he endure to know that Agatha would fill a subordinate state in his family to that in which he had placed her. He shuddered at the thought of her being driven, by this circumstance, to become the wife of another—of one who would love her, and whom she could also love. He besought Eustace therefore, if he valued his repose, to wed her, as no attachment subsisted between them, and he was satisfied to believe that by him she would be treated with gentleness. Agatha he entreated to comply with his last wishes, and accept the hand of Eustace within two months after his death, or be content to resign, with her present rank, the estates to the next of kin. Such was the will of John de la Pole. Eustace, full of grief, instantly retired from the castle of his sister, whom he believed as little inclined to fulfil the conditions of the will as himself, and resigned his spirit for some days to despair; but his friends rallied round him, and represented how much depended upon his calm decision. The next of kin had appeared too, a greedy rapacious man, the son of his father’s sister, who seemed to be sure of his inheritance, and who John, (it was conjectured,) had purposely named, to stimulate his brother to fulfil his dying injunctions. Hugh de Broke was insolent and brutal, had never been on kindly terms with his cousins, and had once nearly been murdered by the peasantry for wounding John in a quarrel which occurred a few years before. The inhabitants saw him return with disgust; his early brutalities were remembered; and when he boasted, in his drink, that he knew his cousin before his death intended to make a will in his favour, all Hampshire was ready to accuse him of the murder, and many of its gentlemen would have given half their estates to have been able to substantiate the charge. From earnest desire to action there is but one step: the thought was scarcely uttered by one, ere many endeavoured to prove it a fact, and Hugh de Broke became, from an object of mere dislike, one of abhorrence and suspicion. He was not told of the murmurs afloat respecting him; and he was too much accustomed to signs of dislike, to observe any thing new in their conduct. The eyes that glared upon him had nothing in them peculiarly ferocious to him now; nor did the deep mutterings and suppressed curses as he passed, startle him at this period from his path; he remembered the hatred of other days, and if he did observe any increase of this ill feeling towards him, he attributed their malignity less towards himself in his own person, than against the authority he would be enabled to hold over their actions as the fortunate heir of John de la Pole. At all events, he fortified himself against their inflictions, by resorting in some cases to the exercise of his native brutality, in others to a loud and bitter scorn, which only served to increase their abhorrence and his own unsuspected danger.
The accusers were wary in their proceedings, and silently went on collecting proofs and accumulating evidence, until they believed they had truly in the ruffian kinsman, discovered the murderer of their popular favourite. It was remembered, that after three years’ absence, he had appeared in Hampshire about a month previous to the murder of John, and then had suddenly disappeared, to re-appear as suddenly in Winchester after the contents of the extraordinary will were made public. He had boasted a previous knowledge of this document, and he had taken into his service the man who attended John in his fatal journey, and who, by delaying to follow his master, had given courage to the assassin to make the attack. This man had been dismissed by Eustace with a bitter reproof, and had immediately repaired to De Broke. Fear, or too much security, (it was affirmed,) had dictated the measure of his adoption, after a dismissal which ought to have rendered his services every where suspicious. John, it was urged, had been absent nearly a month, on a visit to a distant friend; he had set out on foot on his return, unaccompanied; for this man, according to his own statement, was commanded by his master to follow him with the horses, one of which (De la Pole’s) had been injured by an accident a few days before; but he had loitered long after, in order to keep an appointment which he had made with a damsel in the establishment of his master’s friend. He was for this loudly accused of treachery; and De Broke ferociously became his champion, with a violence that only defeated the object he had in view. The lock of hair found in the gripe of the corpse was remembered and produced; it was a bunch of thick and clustering curls, and had been forcibly torn from the head of the assassin. The hair of the servant was pale, but it was remarked that Hugh’s was dark and curling, and they sought an opportunity to compare them together. De Broke drove the party from his presence with every mark of contempt, and hardly deigned to assent to the repeated asseverations of his servants, that his hair was much darker, and altogether of a different texture from that produced as taken from the corpse. His conduct was resented warmly. By degrees all the gentry assumed the opinions of the mob; and when, in a violent attack upon his person, it was discovered that his hair had lately been polled in order to facilitate the cure of a wound, and which had hitherto been concealed by the (then) extraordinary contrivance of a peruke, the magistrates made open cause with the people, and Hugh was conducted to prison. There his conduct was sullen and brutal; he would give no explanation, save that the wound in his head arose from a fall from his horse. He was unusually ferocious; and considerably aggravated his case, by his constant threats of deep and deadly vengeance against Eustace de la Pole, who, he insisted, had conspired to cheat him of his estate, in conjunction with his other enemies. Many new proofs appeared against him, and the whole county awaited, in trembling suspense, the event of his anticipated trial.
But these anticipations were not to be gratified: a few nights before the arrival of the judges, Hugh had contrived to escape from his prison, and elude the vigilance of his enemies, by the aid, it was supposed, of his servant, for he also fled the country; and neither master nor man again fell into the hands of justice.
In the mean time, the interval months, the short period of time allowed for most important considerations, were fast wearing away; the two persons most interested in their progress had come to no decision; and though Hugh de Broke had for the present withdrawn his claim, yet he had heirs, who neither more delicate nor more generous than himself, might endeavour to prove his incapacity, and substantiate their own in place of his. At all events, delays were dangerous, and the fortunes of De la Pole were too considerable to be put to hazard. Eustace loved another, and Agatha could not forget her husband; yet a compliance with the terms of the will became an absolute necessity. Though with averted hearts, they joined hands at the earnest entreaty of friends and relatives; nor would it have been possible to have refused, since even royal majesty evinced a solicitude, that the great fortunes and powerful political interest of the family should not pass into any other hands than those of that loyal and princely blood which had hitherto held them so nobly. Agatha and Eustace became man and wife, and vowed to cherish and love each other till death.
But it was soon evident to all, that this was not either in the power or inclination of the new wedded pair: a deeper sorrow had sunk into their minds, and their calm grief was supplanted by looks and feelings of horror and despair. They spent much of their time together; but their conferences seemed rather to heighten than to soothe their mutual suffering. It was at length remarked, that Eustace never passed his nights in the chamber of his wife, but sometimes in deep groans and anguish in the seclusion of his own apartment, or in wandering wildly through the gloomy mazes of the forest. At such times a stupor would overshadow the spirit of Agatha,—a silent and uncomplaining madness that seemed to render her insensible to suffering; and only upon his return did she vent her keen anguish in words, or dissipate her torture by shrieks as piercing as they were fearful.
Those about them saw no other cause for this mental hell, than the grief that had seized upon them, by constantly contemplating their eternal separation from the being they most loved. It was anticipated that time would effect, if not a cure, at least some amelioration of its bitterness; but time rolled on, and their agonies did not decrease. Nor did the prospect of an heir to their disastrous union afford any pleasure or consolation to their minds; they went through the usual routine of preparation, because, as it appeared, it was usual; there was no joyous anticipation on the part of Eustace,—no tender, trembling hope on the side of Agatha; there was no anxiety, no care; it was a thing unspoken of, unnoted; and when the bustle of the house, the importance of the attendants, and the entrance of the friend (who, unsummoned, save by the servants, yet judged it necessary to be near her,) told Eustace of the near approaching throes of Agatha, he threw himself upon the ground in the chamber adjoining her, and buried his face in his hands.
Eustace, young, beautiful, and of a gallant spirit, was adored by his household, all the members of which fondly contemplated the birth of an heir, as an event well calculated to calm their mutual suffering, and endear them to each other: and though the maternal anguish of Agatha took place before the usual and expected time, the hopes so affectionately cherished were not shaken by the event; but the conduct of their master gave a wound to their generous devotion. Sad and singular as it was, that of Agatha was scarcely less inexplicable: no groans, no tokens of pain accompanied her physical suffering; and it was apparent that some keener pang of the mind, some woe too deep for utterance, had deadened all sense to merely corporal pain. Her eyes were generally closed, except when some louder noise, or the nearer approach of an attendant towards the couch, forced her to open them, and gaze around her for an instant; but, when her senses were thus for a moment awakened, it was evident the object which had aroused them had no share in their attention. Heedless of all that was passing, she took a shuddering rapid glance around the chamber, as if in earnest search of one whom she yet feared to encounter, and then closed them in evident affright, and sunk anew into stupor and silence;—it was amidst this stupor and silence that her first-born son entered the world.
Eustace had not long remained absorbed in his own painful meditations, ere a mighty shriek from the chamber of Agatha broke upon his ear, and made him partly raise his head from the hard pillow to which he had consigned it. But his soul was dead within him;—he thought no further agony could reach him now—no keener pang could inflict a wound in his already crushed heart; and though the scream was one of horror and dismay, a sound of many voices in grief and consternation, it passed over his senses without further notice, and he again dropped his head to the ground, and, grovelling to earth, seemed as he would bury himself from his anguish in the kindly bosom of his only parent—his last—his truest friend.
But repose was not for him—no, not even the repose of despair—he was again to wake, to feel, to suffer; there was an undreamed-of agony near—a sting that was to penetrate his palsied bosom, and awake his crushed soul from the dead; to die would have been bliss, but that was a bliss denied him.
The unhappy young man arose;—a footstep was heard hastily rushing towards his chamber—the wife of Courtenay approached him with a look of commiserating regard, and took his arm to draw him to the apartment of Agatha. She did not speak, but Eustace read in the expression of her features that there was yet more to encounter and to endure. He entered the apartment of his wife—she was lying speechless and insensible upon her couch, utterly incapable of any observation of what was passing around her; and by her side lay a deformed and distorted infant, plunged in the still deeper silence of death.
In the first moment of sorrow, the friend who had so hastily sought the presence of Eustace, had done so under the compelling influence of the circumstance and the time; but a few moments had scarcely elapsed, ere Courtenay recovered sufficient recollection to decide that his wife had judged unwisely in so rapidly flying from the chamber of the poor Agatha, and bursting into that of her husband, dreading the influence the sudden grief might probably acquire over the already racked brain of the latter. With this feeling, Courtenay raised his eyes from the dead child to observe the countenance of Eustace, and if possible, form a judgment as to how he was likely to support this shock: but here his fears gave place to a new feeling, and his grief was overpowered by astonishment at the singular deportment of Eustace: the childless father advanced slowly towards the corse of his infant, and gazed upon it intently for a moment; a spasm of agony passed over his countenance, but there was no surprise mingled with its expression. “And is it indeed thus!” he murmured in a low and agonised tone of voice; “and so must my punishment begin!—yet better is it even thus, than that thou, poor distorted thing! shouldst live to reproach thy father, and, by thy sufferings, be an accusing witness against him.” A convulsive shivering seized upon his frame, and he seemed to be struggling with some difficult and awful resolve. At that moment a similar convulsion appeared to extend itself to the body of the infant; its eyes rolled, and one arm suddenly stretched itself out with a convulsive kind of movement, and remained extended, pointing towards Eustace. The struggle was at an end in an instant; the change from distracted to subdued sorrow was the work of a moment. He grew perfectly calm; and turning his looks again towards the infant, and addressing it in a low steady voice, “I thank thee,” he said, “for this warning; thou too shalt not have cause to reproach me; I have hesitated too long; but his will and thine shall be done.” Saying thus, his head drooped upon his bosom as in deep thought, and the extended arm of the child a moment after fell quietly down by its side.
Courtenay, the friend of Eustace, and the near relative of Agatha, now judged that in this moment of calmness he might venture some expressions of consolation. He deeply regretted that he should have mistaken the sleep of the infant for the last slumber of death, and he urged to Eustace the possibility that the union of medical skill and paternal care might relieve his child from its afflictions, and restore it, in natural beauty, to his love. He continued to dwell some time longer upon well intended topics of consolation, until he perceived that Eustace no longer heard his observations, or even remembered his presence. Suddenly, a new thought appeared to awaken the dormant faculties of the latter. “Has Agatha seen her child?” he demanded. “No,” replied the wife of Courtenay; “she was insensible at the time of its birth, and I instantly rushed from the chamber to seek counsel of my husband: he could give none; but, terrified as myself, followed me hither. Now, I deem, that as the child has uttered no sound since it came into the world, it were better she were told of its death; it will be but an anticipation of what must happen; for surely such an unhappy object cannot long exist.” “I know not that,” observed Eustace, sadly; “but at least do as thou hast said, and remove the child from the castle.” Courtenay retired from the apartment; and the wish of De la Pole was speedily obeyed.
But it seemed as if this unmeasured sorrow had brought calmness to him whom they feared it would annihilate: he sought not the apartment of his wife, but retired tranquilly to his own; and there was a stillness in it throughout the night, wholly unlike the restless pacings and disturbed groans which had hitherto been heard to issue from it. In the morning he went to Agatha; their conference was long and sad, for traces of tears were on her countenance when they parted; but the shrieks and agonies which had formerly distinguished their interviews were no more; she had caught consolation and fortitude from him, and her mind, it appeared, had now grown as resigned and tranquil as his own.
Eustace made a journey to a distant part of the country: he spoke nothing of his intention previous to his setting out, nor of its object on his return; that it had been of importance, could only be collected from the care with which he had concealed it, and the continual occupations which followed his arrival at Winchester. He was constantly employed in writing, and once or twice had had earnest conversations with Courtenay. It was during one of these that he received an unexpected interruption in the person of Agatha, who entered calmly the apartment of her husband, and demanded his attention. Courtenay arose, and was preparing to retire, when Agatha arrested his steps. “That which I have to say is for thy ear also,” she remarked; “stay, therefore, and answer me. Sleeping on my couch in the midday heat the voice of my damsels in discourse broke upon my ear, and the sound they uttered gave me to know that my infant boy yet lives; wherefore is it that it is not in the bosom of its mother? and why was it ever banished from her care?” There was a dead silence at the conclusion of this speech. Eustace replied not, and the lip of Courtenay trembled. “Eustace fears to reply,” observed Agatha; “he trembles to accumulate more sorrow upon this drooping head; he may, in tenderness, deceive; but thou, Courtenay, knowest not to lie, and from thy lips must the bitter truth come; wherefore is my infant not here?” “We feared it would die,” answered Courtenay; “and, therefore, in thy already terrible agony, wished to spare thee the spectacle of its dissolution.” “But it did not die,” pertinaciously resumed Agatha; “why was it not restored? it might have brought peace and consolation to the bosom of its mother.” “No, madam,” returned the shuddering speaker; “that child would have brought sorrow and dismay, but no joy to the heart of its unhappy parent. We removed it to a distance, fearing the effect of its appearance upon your mind; it is most fearfully disfigured.” “Disfigured!” repeated Agatha, with a thrilling start. A long pause ensued. “Let her behold the boy,” said Eustace, calmly. “Yes! let me behold my boy,” said the mother, while tears of sorrow heightened the lustre of those splendid eyes; “let me behold my boy; I shall not shrink from his sight, even though he be an eternal remembrancer of—” She paused, and sadly turned her eyes towards her husband. “Well, then, thou hast anticipated aright,” said Eustace; “he will be to thee an eternal remembrancer; to me—that ghastly face—that pointing hand—I will not behold them; yet do I rejoice in thy resolve, for such is thy painful duty, and thus wilt thou share my sacrifice without enduring my suffering.” He retired as he spoke; and soon after, conducted by Courtenay, in silence and secrecy, the hapless mother folded the ghastly boy to her breast.
It is rare that the human mind can dwell upon more than one wonder at a period. The neighbourhood, roused by the idle gossiping of the castle damsels, had begun to be astonished at the disappearance of the heir of De la Pole, who was said not to be dead, but deprived of his mother’s tenderness and his father’s succession; and, offended that there should be a secret, they determined that rendering justice to the injured child should be the apology for their own ungenerous curiosity. From this they were diverted by a singular incident.
A meeting of the gentlemen of the county had been called for some public purpose foreign to this narrative. In the midst of this discussion, it was observed that Eustace de la Pole was absent: this, to many who had known of his recent griefs and habits, was nothing singular; but those who resided more remote from the sphere of his influence, felt authorised to demand his presence and attention in a matter which was supposed deeply to interest the class to which he belonged. A messenger was despatched to request his attendance, and was told that he was preparing to wait upon them; and he who was charged with the embassy had scarcely returned to his employers, ere Eustace de la Pole entered the council-chamber, leading by the hand a tall and graceful youth, whom he placed at the table of the council, and behind whose chair he stood while he spoke. His words were few; but their stunning import threw horror and astonishment over the noble assembly. “I present to you this young man,” calmly said he; “and I have assigned to him his appointed place; mine it must be no longer; he is the son of Hugh de Broke, who is lately dead, and who, a few months since, was accused of the murder of John de la Pole. I come to render him a late, though, I trust, not useless justice, and restore the honour of his house. This youth is not only the heir of the fortunes of De la Pole, but of his father’s innocence, since I only was the murderer of my brother.”
It would not be possible to paint all the feelings of the audience who listened to this singular declaration, nor the contrariety of opinions that pervaded the minds of men upon its disclosure. Some asserted that derangement had fastened upon the mind of Eustace, and that he only imagined the fact; others, that grief had wearied him of existence, and that, preferring to die by other hands than his own, he had chosen this method of escaping from life and its convulsions; but the far greater part (as is ever the case in human judgments) decided for the darker side of the question, and concluded the self-accusation to be just, and were only now interested in analysing his motive. The will of the victim too became a subject of infinite wonder; and when, to every interrogatory (save those which implied the participation of Agatha, which he instantly and earnestly denied,) Eustace remained mute, indignation supplied the place of pity; and among those who had been his intimates and friends, had eaten of his bread and drank of his cup, there were not wanting some, who, baffled in their eager pursuit of the marvellous, and offended that a secret was denied to them, even hinted at the torture, as a means of compelling a discovery of his motives and accomplices.
There are many whose sickly existences find health only in the contemplation of the severer agonies of others; many who, without either hatred or malignity, yet love to feed their unnatural and craving appetites for singularities and horrors; and would rather cherish them with the blood of a dear friend, than suffer them to famish for want of sustenance. In small communities and country places, this inclination in the inhabitants is most apparent: here it was cruelly visible. John de la Pole had always been a popular man, and his destiny had afforded them a feast of blood, for which they felt grateful to his memory; from his murderer they could exact it, and they would: the loudest for justice appealed to the king for the application of the torture, and those who pitied the sufferer did not oppose the petition, as curious to behold the result.
The weak and inquisitive prince who then filled the English throne, saw something singular and mysterious in the conduct of the young De la Pole, and therefore unhesitatingly gave his assent to the sentence of his judges. The torture was borne by Eustace without a groan, though a close imprisonment of some weeks might have weakened his spirit and exhausted his bodily strength. He walked calmly and unsupported to the scene of suffering, conversing steadily with Courtenay, who never for an instant forsook him. From any outward tokens of anticipated agony or terror, it would have been difficult to distinguish the criminal from the spectator: he even smiled as he recognised his acquaintances in the crowd assembled to gaze upon his sufferings. There was only one action remarkable in his bearing at this trying juncture; on ascending the scaffold, and while they were binding his arms, his attention was arrested apparently by some object near him, though no one could be seen by the crowd, and during the whole period of the infliction of the “peine forte et dure,” the victim kept his eyes still fastened upon this spot, but without articulating a word. When the accumulated weights pressed so heavily on his sinking breast as to threaten dissolution, he raised his head to look upon his mangled limbs, and surveyed them in silent attention; he then turned his eyes to the spot which had so long occupied their regards, and, pointing with a slow and solemn motion to the load upon his breast, said, in a clear and steady tone, “Thou see’st!”
Eustace was remanded to prison; his friends, his enemies, those who were neither, all besought him with equal earnestness not to die with this secret sin upon his heart; he smiled at their anxiety, but answered nothing to their queries;—they doubted his guilt, ascribed his conduct to madness, to despair;—he replied by throwing off his cap and showing the scar in his head, from which his brother, in the last agonising grasp of death, had torn the dark and bloody lock which had once so nearly condemned the unfortunate De Broke,—and they were silenced. He continued steadfast to his purpose—silent, sorrowful, but calm.
And where was Agatha during these scenes of insult and endurance? Had she too forsaken the dungeon of her husband, and given up her soul to exultation in his captivity and anguish? She had once, and only once, demanded admittance to his prison; she had remained with him many hours, and retired, like himself, tranquillised from the interview. Soon after, she formally resigned the castle and its dependencies to him whom Eustace had named as the lawful heir: her own son and his claims, were now no longer remembered, since the crime of his father had deprived him of the succession, which had been awarded by the king to the son of the injured De Broke. After these arrangements, which were performed in silence and celerity, and with only the casual assistance of Courtenay, Agatha withdrew from her native town, and concealed her person and her sorrow for ever from the eyes of the world.
But her desertion of her husband at the tremendous juncture when he so much needed her help and consolation, was not regarded with indignation by the many who considered the circumstances under which she stood: that husband was a murderer, and of whom? The terrible question needed no reply, and Agatha was speedily acquitted! her absence too was a trivial circumstance compared with that of her husband’s situation. All eyes were turned to the prison at Winchester.
At length Eustace de la Pole was led out to die. It was a splendid day in the season of autumn, on which his mortal career was to terminate. Consideration for the princely blood which flowed in his veins, had forbidden, in his case, the strangulation by the degrading cord, and the axe and the block had been substituted in its room. The novelty of the circumstance drew many thousands round the scaffold, who awaited, in feverish and almost angry impatience, the arrival of him who was to furnish forth the spectacle of the day. He came,—not indeed as before, with an erect and unassisted step, for his limbs had been crushed, and his physical strength destroyed; but his pale countenance was composed, and his soft rich voice was steady and clear, as he conversed at intervals with Courtenay, the priest, and the executioner, who received him courteously, as, led by the two former, he ascended the steps of the scaffold. Of the crowd around he took no heed, but with calm and silent celerity prepared himself for the block. At sight of the noble young man, bare-headed and disrobed for the sad and ignominious death, there were many who could no longer restrain their tears; and hard-hearted grey-headed men who, hating his crime, believed they could find pleasure in his sorrow, and went thither to feast upon his suffering, now wept loudly for him whom, in their first feeling of horror, they had cursed. He appeared unconscious of this change of temper, and seemed rather disposed to hasten than to retard the preparations, for he laid his head down upon his last pillow before the executioner had entirely completed them. He had himself promised to give the signal for the fall of the axe; and while the multitude were anxiously awaiting this movement, they beheld him suddenly raise his head from the block, and gaze intently upon one particular spot upon the scaffold; all eyes were instantly directed towards it, but to them at least no object was visible. He gazed for a few moments with intense earnestness, then calmly replacing his head upon the block, exclaimed in solemn but eager accents, “Thou see’st!” and gave the signal for his death. The axe fell—heavily, rapidly—it was over—swifter than thought. The executioner held up the gory head to the people; the features were calm, the eyes closed; but before he could utter the customary sentence, they had once more opened and fixed themselves upon the same spot which had attracted the last of their living regards; they appeared slowly to follow the movement of some unseen object round the scaffold, till they reached the opposite side; then they withdrew their gaze, quivered for an instant, dropped, dark and immoveable, for ever.
This, as many strange scenes, was however doomed to be forgotten, like other things. Ten years passed away, and ten other wonders had, during that period, interested or frightened the people of Winchester and its surrounding country. John and Eustace de la Pole were no more remembered, or their story only casually mentioned as belonging to the odd things that were; Courtenay had glided into middle age, and the youth for whom Eustace had done so much, had long since written man.—Ten years! How many and how striking may be the changes of ten years! Courtenay had long pondered over the destiny of Agatha, and sighed to think whither her unhappy fate might have conducted her; but the long interval which passed had almost swept her from his mind, when a letter, in her unforgotten character, was one day put into his hand. It was couched in brief and anxious terms, and conveyed a request that he would immediately proceed to her dwelling. Courtenay was no laggard in the cause of humanity; he did not pause to speculate upon this address, or even to wonder at its abruptness, but he set forward instantly, and the morning of the following day saw him knock at a lonely cottage on the coast of Dorsetshire, in the neighbourhood of Corfe Castle. The door was opened by Agatha herself, who habited in the black robes which she had worn since the sad death of the last of her husbands, received him with courteous sadness. Years had not dimmed the beauty of her matchless face, but sorrow had been busy with its expression; the same lovely features were there, but their once bright character was gone.
Their meeting was tenderly sorrowful: Agatha said little in explanation until she had conducted her guest into an adjoining chamber, and pointed out one object for his observation. Stretched upon a couch, grown to boyhood, covered with wounds, and unchanged in person, save that his deformities had now grown more manifest, lay extended the ghastly boy, the only child of Agatha and the helpless Eustace. Courtenay trembled as he gazed; but the mother’s looks were calm. “He is dead,” she said, on observing the emotion of her guest; “what Heaven and Nature with so much difficulty spared, the brutality of man has destroyed; he was my joy and sorrow, and many a weary hour have I watched to snatch him from the yawning grave: for ten years he has been my sole care; and for the insults and scorn heaped upon his deformed and idiotic existence, he found compensation in the tenderness of his mother. The small pittance which I derived from my father was sufficient for our wants; and never should I have called upon any former friend, but for the cruel deed of yesterday; robbers from the waters broke into my dwelling, and pillaged thence my property. I knew not how it was; I had gone to a distance to buy food, and on my return found the poor idiot thus. My only attendant, an old woman, had been wounded in his defence; and from her I with difficulty learned, that the convulsive movements of the boy, and his pointing hand, as his menacing eye followed their actions, had drawn upon him their wrath and its brutal consequences. I am averse from again appearing in the scenes which I have once and for ever abandoned, and therefore I sent for thee, Courtenay, to spare myself the sad task of interring the pale corpse of my boy, and drawing wondering and inquisitive eyes upon my person and history.”
Courtenay was pleased with the confidence reposed in his friendship. A brother’s love might have done less for Agatha; it could not have effected more. Her wishes were immediately performed; and he was preparing, with unintrusive delicacy, to return to his home, when Agatha for a few moments detained him; “You have deserved unlimited confidence at my hands,” said she, “and you shall obtain it: he who is now numbered with the ignominious dead desired it should be so, and I withhold it no longer. You, in common with all the world, were ignorant of the motives which impelled the unhappy Eustace to the deed which he perpetrated; but you did not, in common with all the world, forsake him in his utmost need: for you he drew up the story of his sorrows, and placed it in my hands to be given to you only when I saw the fitting time; that time hath arrived. The child of sorrow is dead, and I shall still more completely retire from a world where insignificance and poverty are no protection from cruelty and avarice; a convent will shortly receive me, and, if I continue to live, a newer and better existence will be mine: if not, I shall have done wisely in thus obeying the last command of Eustace.”
Courtenay received the packet and retired; he lingered not a moment to relieve the recluse of his presence, but returned to Winchester, after receiving her commands to see her again in three days: he then hastened to his apartment, and, with trembling avidity, read, in the confessions of Eustace, the secret story of the fortunes of De la Pole.
“I know that thou despisest me, Courtenay; I know that thou deemest me no less a fool than a coward; thou didst bring me the means of an honourable death, gavest into mine hands the dagger and the drug, and I have rejected both: we disputed, differed, parted, met again, and again renewed the subject; thou didst even deign to persuade the coward (so thou thoughtest him) to act like a man; but thy entreaties were unheeded and thy counsel rejected: he will die like a thief and a criminal—he will be hooted out of life; and curses will be the torches to give light to his memory, that it sink not into darkness and oblivion.
“Said I not that I was a sacrifice? that my punishment was a propitiatory offering? Now again I say to thee the same thing. Death would have few horrors for me (for it is a thing I covet) without the ignominy of a public execution; to offer my life for my wrong would be nothing, but to offer it up thus!—This alone can satisfy immortal justice; this alone can satisfy the spirit of the murdered man. Read and behold the meaning.
“Thou knowest how fondly, contrary to his father’s hope, John de la Pole loved the beautiful daughter of Philip Forester, thy kinsman; but thou knowest not how much more fervently she was adored by the wretched Eustace, and how tenderly the gentle Agatha returned that love. Hope there was none; for what had I to bribe the greedy father of my love, when John de la Pole could hereafter lay the fortunes of his house at her feet? Philip suspected the state of his daughter’s heart, and had looked deeper than I imagined into mine: he determined that a younger brother was not deserving of his Agatha’s beauty, and, by cold civilities and hints of my father’s and brother’s disapprobation, banished me from his house. One thing alone gave consolation to my blighted heart, the steadiness with which my father resolved against the marriage of John with the object of our mutual passion. In one of the sad conferences which I occasionally, though now but seldom, held with my beloved Agatha, it occurred to my imagination, that though my father had resolved to dispose differently of the heir of his house, he might not object to my union with the object of my choice; and I received permission of my beloved to make the attempt upon his feelings. I did so immediately, and, with a rapture which I dare not now dwell upon, received his permission, and his solemn promise to purchase the approbation of the selfish Forester, by bestowing upon me one-fourth of his more than princely fortune. He arranged to see Forester upon the following day: the same evening I flew to Agatha. O Courtenay! didst thou ever love? Those few blessed hours were the most happy of my life, and the last that were so. We parted; Agatha radiant with happiness; I, to think, to hope, to anticipate, to wish all things could share my transports, to love creation, to love God. In the morning my father was found dead on his couch; and the following month Agatha became the wife of my brother! Courtenay! didst thou ever love?
“Thou wilt ask, where was Eustace when his beloved was thus sacrificed? Alas! sent to a distance, to execute some commands of that brother upon whom I was so utterly dependent. He had discovered my love, and thus, without my suspecting his intentions, prevented its consequences: he hastened to Agatha, represented the ruin she would bring upon me, and his determination to abandon me for ever, unless she became his wife; Forester, who was his ally, threatened her with his curse; I know not all the artifices used,—I never could listen to the detail. She became the wife of the man she could not love, and I was suffered to wither beneath his roof, while, with calm hypocrisy, he told his own tale, ostentatiously enriched his younger brother, and declared he could not live happy without him. Fool that he was!—stupid, uncalculating idiot! He had torn asunder two burning hearts, and expected to smother their fires; he had separated two devoted beings, compelled them to live in each other’s presence, and yet expected them to forget. Agatha abhorred his sight—his very aspect was loathsome to her. I saw her agonies,—I saw her daily shudderings at every demonstration of his love; and cold dews of death spread over my own heart when I beheld her submitting to his fondness. I implored to be banished from the castle; I entreated to be allowed the sad privilege of beholding Agatha no more: he could not trust me from him, he said; and I was obliged to remain. Merciless idiot! blind looker into the human heart! Had he consented, all might then have been well; but how did he dare thus selfishly sport with torture? He went on a journey for a few weeks; he commanded me to a distant part of the country on business of importance to his interests: I went, but returned ere half the allotted time for his absence had expired—to be alone with Agatha—to see her unrestrained—to mingle my tears with hers: I could not resist this one sad bliss, and I hastened back to enjoy it.
“We met, the lover and the beloved, in grief—in madness—in despair! Oh, wonder not, that when we parted guilt should be added to the burthen of our sorrows; but the terrible consciousness of crime changed at once our natures and our deeds. Agatha’s horror of her husband increased: and, now that she was mine, I determined she should no more be his—to fly, and rob the castle for the means of sustenance. Alas! I feared to expose her to scorn, should we be unable to evade the pursuit of justice; and, even if in this we should succeed, what means had I of subsistence when that slender source should fail, proscribed, as we should be, in every part of our native land? To live on, as I had lately done, was still more impossible; since Agatha herself had armed her bosom with a knife to be turned against her heart rather than again endure the horrors of her husband’s love. Again and again we met in passionate, though gloomy conference; and thus continued to waste the time in fruitless debate until his messenger announced his approaching return. Despair gave wings to my thought; Agatha’s eye glanced on mine; she drew the dagger from her breast, and I snatched it from her hand. Our thoughts had spoken—there was no need of words—we had understood each other without them.
“I hastened to conceal myself in the New Forest, near the road through which he must pass on his return. He had taken his confidential servant with him, and, rather than expose myself to observation, I had determined to fire at him through the trees, calculating and believing that the servant would mistake the attack for that of concealed robbers, and fly, leaving his master to his fate. But I had scarcely arranged my mode of attack ere I heard a footstep in the road; I looked out, and beheld him slowly advancing, with his eyes steadfastly directed towards the towers of his castle, as if he sought out the apartment of his wife. At the sight of him all prudence vanished—all recollection of the calm attack which I had meditated passed away from my mind; I did not even observe that he was alone: hatred and rage filled my heart, and I rushed upon him like a wild beast, tearing him to the earth by the bare strength of sinew, and inflicting many mortal stabs upon his breast: he grappled fiercely with me, struggled hard to rise, and even drew his dagger, which I broke in his grasp before he could strike one blow. He tore a lock of hair from my head, but, during the terrible contest he had not uttered a single word, till a deep and home-directed stroke upon his brow threw him powerless on the sod, then he spoke gaspingly to his brother: ‘Have mercy upon me,’ he said, ‘have mercy; I have wronged thee, but that is not the heaviest of my crimes; I would live to repent: to expiate one, the deepest, darkest, let me live; I dare not die. My father!—I overheard his arrangements with thee—I could not bear to lose—he was found dead on his couch—I smothered him in the night. Mercy, mercy! O Eustace! let me live,—I am not fit to die!’ But his words raised a wilder fiend in my soul, that scared away the spirit of mercy. He then had been the monster—he!—I raved aloud, ‘Murderer! thou art not fit to live—hell gapes for thee—begone!’ I drew my dagger across his throat; the blood gushed upon my face, upon my hands; he grinned, scowled, gibbered as he sunk, but he spoke and struggled no more.
“I hastened home,—but I saw not Agatha, neither did I seek her during the long and terrible night that followed the sunset crime: I dared not tell her what I had done; I could not have borne to hear her speak of the sin which I had committed. Towards the morning I grew calm; my fears and horror subsided; I thought of the atrocious act of the guilty dead, and, by degrees, persuaded myself that I had done an act of justice; I began to calculate upon the consequences, and seriously consider whether, by this deed, I had really achieved the consummation of my wishes—the possession of my adored Agatha; she was my sister, the widow of my brother; could I legally become her husband? And, allowing the possibility, was it probable that I should be permitted to do so? These considerations gave birth to the action which followed; I forged the extraordinary will which gave the succession to me, but only with the hand of Agatha; and it appeared the more natural, as, during the period of her wedlock, she had borne no child to her husband. That night and succeeding day was thus intently occupied. On the following morning the corpse was discovered by you. I had not seen Agatha, but, on hearing of her meeting the body, hastened to calm her mind, and prepare her for the will, which was opened after the interment. I made use of the pretext of another love, to appear repugnant to the wishes of my brother, and quitted the castle to appease the inquietudes of Agatha, who entreated me not to see her again until I could make her my wife.
“You remember the reading of that will; you remember the arrival of De Broke; poor wretch! his drunken falsehoods, his silly boasts, and above all, his ungoverned insolence, has cost him fatally dear. I was not concerned at the suspicion which fell upon him; on the contrary, I rejoiced it had found such an object; but I trembled with horror when I beheld him conducted to a dungeon, and reflected on the probability of his paying the penalty of my crime. Guilty enough already, this accumulation of sin appalled me, and I determined that innocent blood at least should not cry out from earth against me. In the night previous to the day fixed for his trial, which I dreaded equally, whether he should be condemned or acquitted, I sought his prison, and, by an exaggerated account of the popular rage against him, prevailed upon him to accept the means of escape; his servant who attended him, terrified by the picture I drew of his master’s danger, united his entreaties to mine. Hugh’s courage and fortitude gave way to our solicitations; he fled, and preserved his life at the expense of his honour and his peace.
“I cannot express to you how deep was the pang the ruin of this man’s character gave me, nor how I sunk from the eyes lifted to mine in commiseration, whenever his name was mentioned before me; even now, now that I have rendered back such severe justice, my heart sickens as I recall the curses which I heard heaped upon his head as the murderer of John de la Pole. I should have suffered less had they branded the criminal unknown, but to hear an innocent man thus accused for me—O Courtenay! thou knowest not, mayest thou never know, remorse.
“I reasoned much even then upon the folly of this conduct; I said, I am a cowardly villain, a sneaking murderer, who fears the consequences of the crime he yet feared not to commit. Why should I be careful of this man’s life? what is his safety to me? his death might be my security, at least would prevent suspicion from falling elsewhere; are not his manners brutal, his heart selfish, avaricious, and cruel? who will miss him from the earth? and by whom will his loss be mourned? But it is my crime for which he will suffer, and the curse of innocent blood will lie upon my head: neither has he injured me, that I should doom him so hardly: I cannot even taste the luxury of revenge. These thoughts disquieted me, and, recurring more frequently than I could bear, influenced my conduct in regard to the prisoner. ‘The means of escape shall be offered to him,’ I said; ‘if, innocent as he knows himself to be, he be coward enough to accept them, he is worthy of the opprobrium which will cling to him, and I ought not to grieve for that ruin of character which he himself alone will effect.’
“With this wretched sophistry I endeavoured to reconcile my conscience, and, strange to say, I succeeded; care and regret departed from my bosom, and I looked forward to the day of my approaching union with Agatha with an impatience which I found it difficult to control: it came at length, and under happy auspices, for all our friends were assembled around us, and I saw in my beloved’s tranquil smile the scarce concealed joy of her heart.
“You remember that day, Courtenay—you remember the brilliant assemblage and the gay festival of night—you remember how brightly sparkled the jest, how sweetly sounded the song, and how every creature present seemed wrapped in the delicious intoxication of the hour—you remember my parting commands after Agatha had retired, to carouse till the day-break, and make the young sun a witness of your felicity: you did so; it was a scene of joy and splendour. Alas! there was another, and a widely different, passing in a more retired part of the castle.
“I must pause in my narrative here for a few moments; all that has as yet been detailed has been plain and simple fact, subject to no doubts, liable to no misconstructions; hitherto all has been clear; that which will follow is wild, strange, and improbable—mysterious, incomprehensible indeed, yet not less true than that which I have hitherto written. How shall I make you understand what I have to present to your mind? In what words shall I clothe a narrative so extraordinary as to prevent its stamping me with the opprobrium of folly or madness? Even now, in my dying hour, on the very steps of the scaffold, I hesitate at the thought of being lightly esteemed by thee, or my sacrifice regarded as the result of a weakened intellect or a disordered brain: it is more easy to die as a knave than be lamented as a fool.
“Agatha had withdrawn from the hall with her damsels, and I hastened to follow her; she had retired to an apartment adjoining her bridal chamber, and thither, wearied of the noise and mirth of the rioters below, I also hastened. I longed for a delight I had not lately experienced, an unreserved conversation with my wife, and to be allowed to dismiss the coldness which, during the day, I had been obliged to feign towards her. The damsels retired, and we were left to pour out our hearts to each other in the unbounded confidence of our new relation, when we were startled by hearing a slow and heavy foot steadily ascending the stairs; as these were private, leading only to our apartments, Agatha was surprised and offended. ‘Who would intrude at this hour?’ she demanded, while her eyes turned anxiously towards the door. For me, a thrill of horror shot through my inmost heart; I said, relinquishing the hand I had till then so fondly clasped in mine, ‘That is the step of my brother!’
“And it was so, Courtenay: a moment more and the door slowly opened of itself to give entrance to its master; John de la Pole entered the room and stood between Agatha and me; his face was as in his dying hour, ghastly and menacing, and every gash of the murderous knife upon his body as frightfully distinct as on the night they were inflicted. In one hand he held a lock of dark hair; the other was extended threateningly towards me; and thus he stood between us, drawn from another world by the crime I meditated against his bed, and an everlasting barrier before me.
“My first emotion was astonishment—a boundless and stupefied surprise—then a vague and horrid notion that my brother was not really dead, that he had escaped alive from my hands, and was now come to accuse and surrender me up to scorn. The interval which had passed since his death was obliterated from my mind, and I felt as if that night had been the season of the deed. I spoke in extenuation of my crime, accused his selfishness, cursed his calculating cruelty; I implored his mercy, folded my hands in supplication, and knelt before him in humble debasement. No muscle of his countenance moved, and not a sound escaped through his bruised and blackened lips; he did not even look upon me, but continued to fasten his stony eyes upon the face of Agatha, who stood silent and motionless as himself, gazing like a fascinated thing upon this aspect of horror. I arose from my knees—shut my eyes—tossed my arms abroad to the air—endeavoured to think I was in sleep, in drunkenness, in delirium: no, he was still there!—I thought of the agony of tempestuous feeling I had endured on the night following the commission of the crime, and, believing that my jaded mind was suffering under the same infliction, resolved to seek my couch, to restore my exhausted spirits by rest and sleep. I made an effort to move from my place; I knew that motion might recall my scattered senses; and I exerted myself to enter the chamber of Agatha. Wilt thou believe me, Courtenay? the stern shadow anticipated my movement, and, menacing me back, strode silently towards my bridal chamber. At the door its menacing attitude towards me was changed for one of command to Agatha; one bloody finger was raised to beckon her to follow: she did so. Still stupidly insensible, gazing fixedly upon his form, she followed the direction of his hand, and passed after him into the chamber: the door closed upon them without a sound.
“Now I began to think more calmly: the dead, cold thing was gone, and there was life and air in the apartment; the feelings of this world came upon me, and I became sensible of fear. I was safe; but where was Agatha?—he had beckoned her forth—was it reality?—she was gone—had it been the work of imagination, she had still been there—but she might have retired to her chamber alone. This was to be ascertained. I attempted to enter—the door was fast; I called upon Agatha—there was no sound in reply; I reviewed the last scene, considered the incidents of the past, weighed the appearances of the present, and came at length to the terrible conclusion that a spirit of the damned had stood before me, and that Agatha was still in his grasp! You will not wonder that temporary insanity followed this hideous idea: I grew wild at the thoughts of her danger; I shrieked aloud for mercy; I tore my hair in agony, and beat at the closed door with the utmost exertion of strength. I wonder even now that none heard the uproar I made; but my cries remained unanswered—no sound issued from the bridal chamber of the dead, and I continued to rave until nature, exhausted, sunk speechless and senseless to the earth.
“Morning had broken over the apartment when I awoke, and I was some moments in recovering recollection of my state and circumstances; slowly the truth came before me. I was lying extended on the bare ground, the lights had burned out, and there was no trace of visitors having been near me in my sleep. I arose and listened for some sound that might direct my first movements, for now I knew not what to think nor to do. A low sobbing from the chamber of Agatha rivetted my attention; I sprung towards the door, and, to my astonishment, it yielded to the slightest touch: I entered; Agatha was there, seated upon the bed, and gazing around her with a look of agonising affright; she saw me on the instant, and rushed into my arms. ‘Thou art here! thou art safe!’ she cried in delirious transport; ‘and for this I am at least grateful; I deemed he had destroyed thee. But thou didst leave me, Eustace. O quit me not, I beseech thee! save me from him, Eustace, for thou alone canst!’ I endeavoured to soothe her anguish, and, after some time, succeeded in restoring her to tranquillity and composure enough to be made acquainted with the real state of our circumstances; and I implored her to inform me whither the ghastly phantom had led her, on their retiring from the chamber. She shuddered at the question, and a wild and strange expression passed over her countenance ere she spoke. ‘I will tell thee,’ she said; ‘yet it is but little that I have to say. To this room we came, and our footsteps wandered no further. Without a word he gave his commands to me, and without a word I obeyed him. I ascended my bridal bed, he had willed it so, and he continued to gaze upon me till my head sunk upon the pillow; then the ghastly thing sat down by my side, and though I closed mine eyes hard that I might not behold him, yet I felt that the shadow of his unearthly face was upon me. Once I looked up in the hope that he was gone; beholding him I shrunk, and would have called upon thee, but the stony eye of the spectre grew larger, and a fiendish pang passed over the immoveable face; then I hid mine in my mantle that I might look upon him no more: insensibility succeeded, and I slept; in the morning I awoke, and he was gone!’
Agatha, Eustace, and the Spectre
“This was the tale of Agatha! thou wilt doubt its truth, nor can I wonder at thy most natural incredulity: yet I would now give my few short hours of life, precious as they may be, that thou hadst been present and seen her tell this story; I can give thee her words, her form of expression, but what language of mine can portray her looks as she spoke, or describe the harrowing tones of her voice as she cried to me for protection? I doubted not; for these powerful witnesses would have carried conviction to my mind, had I not already beheld the shadowy thing she spoke of.
“What could I offer in consolation? We wept bitter tears together, and mingled our tender grief. If we indulged a momentary hope that it was but an illusion of the brain, and would return no more, we were quickly undeceived at the approach of night. Again came the ghastly shadow, and again was the spirit of Agatha chained by the sleep of death in his presence. Nor were his visitations confined to the dark and silent hour of night; when we met in the morning, to lament our fate and weep from our stuffed bosoms the weight that pressed upon our hearts, then, with a hideous familiarity, he would stand between us, mocking, with his menacing grin and uplifted finger, the agony his presence created.
“Another night came; we sat alone, solitary, speechless, motionless; hour after hour passed, and we moved not, except to cast stern regards towards the door, or listen with repressed impatience to every sound in the castle. Slowly, at last, came the step of the dead, heavily ascending the stairs;—he entered—I rushed to meet him, and the long pent up agony of my soul burst forth in madness uncontrolled. ‘Monster!—murderer!—destroyer of thy father and thy brother! why comest thou thus to torture and not kill? why is thy bloody hand for ever raised, and yet forbearing to fall? If thine aim be vengeance, strike—strike—strike—thou blood-bespotted horror! and rend from hope and from life those who dared to make thee what thou art!—Strike, thou silent, sullen thing! that we may be as thou art, and learn to fear thee not!’
“I darted towards him, but was arrested by some invisible barrier ere I had traversed half the distance between us; I could not reach him, but sunk, as if felled by an unseen blow, helpless and almost senseless, to the ground: he did not even look upon me, but again sternly summoned Agatha from the chamber, as nightly he had done before. I—but wherefore dwell upon these agonies? Suffice it to say, that these accumulated horrors at length drove me from the side of Agatha to solitude and reflection: sorrow came upon my soul—a sorrow less for my crime than for its fatal consequences. ‘Alas!’ I said, ‘perhaps the tormentor is himself more keenly punished by these hauntings than either of his shrinking victims: said he not, in the hour of death, that he too was a murderer? and did he not pray for time in which to expiate the sin? Surely, surely, these visitations must be the hell of the parricide.’
“And a feeling of remorse arose in my mind, as I deemed it possible that these unnatural hauntings might be involuntary. I had stabbed at the life of my brother, and plunged his unprepared spirit into the hell which awaited it; and surely a more bitter one than looking again upon the secret deeds of the survivors, could not well be imagined. Agatha, too, no longer wept over her separation from me, but hourly called upon Heaven for pity and for pardon; madness and anguish passed away from her heart, and sorrow and repentance entered it.
“I could not repent; at least I could not feel self-condemnation to that degree which I had been early taught was so necessary—that perfect sorrow which abhorred the crime and the criminal, and which, they say, is alone the gift of Heaven—that I did not feel: still, still did my inmost soul worship the thought of Agatha, and abhor the treachery of John de la Pole. I could not regret that I had avenged my wrong—I could not repent that I had attempted to make her mine; I knew that were the deed again to do—again should I dare, and perform it.
“Repentance then was not mine; but I despaired of peace, and knew how to punish crime: I was not yet weary of life; and though tears of remorse did not fill my eyes for my brother’s early doom, yet his unnatural tortures now, and Agatha’s suffering, seemed to call for something like justice from my hand. ‘Perhaps, in the stern mood in which I am,’ I said, ‘the sacrifice will be greater than if repentance struck; and believing myself sure of forgiveness, I hastened to make my peace with Heaven. Yes; I will die—I will inflict death upon myself as I would upon another, and expiate crime with blood!’
“But I hesitated still; death, contemplated so near, in any shape, was horrible; but, dealt by the hand of the executioner—I shrunk from the thought, and could not bear the shadow of a stain upon the honour of my house; so I went on from day to day, dreaming of justice but rendering none, till the birth of Agatha’s son. Thou wast surprised, I believe, at the little emotion I betrayed at its sight: alas! I had long been prepared for some object of horror, and now it was before me. Thou didst behold the action of the ghastly child; thou sawest the menacing finger upraised towards my head, and the calm determination with which I met this image: its presence had banished my indecision. I believed now that Agatha was lost to me for ever,—that Eternal Justice by this sign spoke against me, and, in punishment of my hardness of heart, had thus perpetuated the remembrance of my crime. Now, then, I resolved to die: I communicated my purpose to Agatha, and earthly feelings once more gained the mastery over my subdued spirit, and burst forth in words of grief and reproach, on observing that she evinced no horror at my approaching fate, and scarcely attempted to dissuade me from my purpose! Agatha, for whom I had dared and suffered so much—even she had become indifferent to my destiny: it was indeed time to die! But I did her wrong; sorrow had broken her heart, and repeated scenes of horror had subdued and weakened her spirit. With the feeling common to her sex, she sought consolation only in religion, and thought that to reconcile herself with Heaven was all that was left her now: love had fled with every other human passion, and far from regarding death as an evil, she looked upon it as a passport to bliss, and was more ready to rejoice at than deprecate my fate. Her conduct assisted my resolution. Now, then, the first step was to be made—the most difficult and appalling—the rest would be consequential and easy. It was necessary to begin, and I knew of no better mode than that of rendering justice to the living. Hugh de Broke had been ruined by me, and it was now incumbent upon me to restore him to honour and to happiness: I set out for the distant and humble dwelling in which, since his escape, he had been obliged to conceal his name and dignity: he was stretched upon a sick-bed—a heart-broken and a dying man: it was no physical disease of which he was expiring,—but disgrace had poisoned the fountain of his blood, and shame had eaten its way like a canker-worm to his heart. When he saw me, he shook off his dying listlessness, and sprung upright in his bed. ‘What more wouldst thou have, thou blaster of mine honour!’ he said, ‘of a ruined and dying man? To thy pernicious counsel I owe the shame no after-conduct can efface: cursed, cursed coward that I was! why did I heed or believe thy murderous mercy? Begone, wretch! and let me die. I cannot shake off this load of shame, but I shall sink under its burthen, and bequeath its remorse to thee; go, wretch! and let me die.’
“He was submissively attended by his wife and son, who were earnest with me to relieve him of my presence. Sorrow, and the near approach of death, had softened his heart and chastised the natural brutality of his manners; he looked and spoke more mildly to them, though, with all his failing strength, he continued to heap maledictions upon me. My humiliations were now to begin; I kneeled down by his side, detailed my crime without any palliation, asked his forgiveness for the injury I had done him, and finished by avowing my resolution to deliver myself into the hands of justice, and restore his fame and happiness.
“I was astonished, that during this confession no word had been uttered by him whom it so deeply concerned. I looked up to behold its effect; he was staring wildly at me, the strong energies of his spirit struggling with the grasp of death to gain time to hear its termination; he strove hard to articulate something; and finally whether he conquered for some few moments the mighty power that was wrestling with him, or that that power had now incorporated itself with his victim, and given him of its potency, I knew not, but he suddenly grew calm and passionless, pain and convulsion left him, his features assumed a pale rigidity, and his voice the solemn earnestness of the grave, as he spoke. ‘I have no time for question,’ he said; ‘but I pray that the truth may be upon thy lips: soon, very soon, shall we meet again; and my pardon shall be truly thine when thou shalt tell me that my boy sits with honour in the halls of his fathers.’ He paused, placed the hand of his son in mine, and expired without a groan.
“What followed, I need not tell thee; the son of Hugh was restored, and Eustace consigned to a dungeon. The attempts of the people to force from me my secret, you know how I resisted; calmly and even proudly I went to my prison and prepared myself to die. I had humbled myself to De Broke, for to him I had done deep and particular injury; but to these men I owed no other reparation than what my life would pay: what right had they to demand further humiliation of me, or attempt to rend from my bosom the mystery of its secret purpose? I would die unaccusing, save myself; I would die, shrouded in gloomy dignity,—a man to be wondered at and feared, rather than pitied and scorned. I will willingly furnish their greedy eyes with the awful feast of death, but not their vulgar souls with the struggles and humiliations of mine; my body is the law’s—is theirs; my spirit is beyond their judgment. John de la Pole shall sleep on, embalmed in good opinions; I will not raise up his pall to show them what corruption festers beneath it; I would not tell them what he was, though it should even lessen in their thought the horror of what I am. Grand and silent death—majestic in thy obscurity—I wait to bid thee welcome!