Revenge: a novel

Front matter

EEVENGE. SI Jlunrl. II Y G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ., AUTHOR OF " THE FATE," " THE WOODMAN," " HENRY SMEATON," " THE FORGERY," " THE OLD OAK CHEST," ETC, ETC. " Vain, witless woman ! why should I desire To add more heat to thy immortal fire? To urge thee, by the violence of hate, To shake tlie pillars of thine own estate, When whatsoever we intend to do, Our worst misfortune ever sorteth to; And nothing else remains for us beside, But only tears and coffins to provide?" Drayton. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: THOMAS CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 1852. REVENGE

Chapter I

Let me take you to an old-fashioned country house, built by architects of the reign of James the First, (about eighty years before the commencement of this story) and mani festing all tbe peculiarities — I might almost say the oddities — of that particular epoch in the building art. It had chimneys innumerable: Heaven only knows what rooms they ventilated ; but their name must have been legion. The windows were not fewer, and much more irregular ; for VOL. I. B REVENGE. thc chimneys were gathered together in some sort of symmetrical order, while the windows were scattered over the various faces of the building with no apparent ar rangement at all. Heaven knows, also, what rooms they lighted, or were intended to light, for they scarcely served that pur pose, being narrow, and obstructed by the stone mullions of the Elizabethan age.

Each, too, had its label of stone superin cumbent, and projecting from the brick work, which might leave the period of con struction somewhat doubtful — but the gables decided the fact. They, also, were manifold ; for although the house had received no additions since its original erection, it seemed, nevertheless, to have been raised in detached masses, and joined together as best the builder could ; so tbat there were no less than six gables, facing north, south, east, and west, with four right angles, and flat walls between them. These gables were topped, as it were, by a triangular wall, REVENGE. somewhat higher than the acute roof; and this wall wasconstructed with a row of steps, coped with freestone, on either side of the ascent, as if the architect had fan cied that some man or statue would, one day or another, climb to the top of the pyramid, and take his place upon the crowning stone.

It was a gloomy old edifice : the bricks had become discoloured ; the livery of age, yellow and grey lichen, was upon it ; daws hovered round the chimney tops; rooks passed cawing over it, on the way to their conventicle hard by ; no swallow built under the eaves ; and the trees, as if repelled by the stern, cold aspect of the house, retreated from it on three sides, leaving it alone on its own flat ground, like a moody man amidst a gay society. On the fourth side, indeed, an avenue ■ — that is to say, two rows of old elms — crept cautiously up to it in a winding and sinuous course, as if afraid of approaching too rapidly ; and at the distance of some B REVENGE. five or six hundred yards, clumps of old beeches, evergreen oaks, and trees, of sombre foliage, dotted the park, only enlivened, here and there, by a herd of deer.

Now and then, a milk-maid, a country woman going to church or market, a peasant, or a game-keeper, might be seen traversing the dry, brown expanse of grass, and but rarely deviating from a beaten path, which led from one stile over the park wall to another. It was all sombre and monotonous : the very spirit of dulness seemed to hang over it ; and the clouds themselves — the rapid sportive clouds, free denizens of the sky, and playmates of the wdnd and sunbeam — appeared to grow sleepy and tardy, as they passed across the wide space open to the view, and to proceed with awe and gravity, like timid youth in the presence of stern old age. Enough of the outside of the house. Let me take you into the interior, reader, and into one particular room — not the REVENGE. 5 largest and the finest ; but one of the highest.

It was a little oblong chamber, with one window, ornamented — the only ornament the chamber had — with a decent curtain of red and white checked linen. On the side next the door, and between it and the western wall, was a small bed. A walnut-tree table and two or three chairs were near the window. In one corner stood a washing-stand, not very tidily ar ranged, in another a chest of drawers ; and opposite the fire-place, hung, from nails driven into the wall, two or three shelves of the same material as the table, each supporting a row of books, which by the dark black covers, brown edges, and thumbed corners, seemed to have a right to boast of some antiquity and much use. A volume, soiled, and " dog's-eared" has, in most cases, arrived at its highest honours. At the table, as you perceive, is seated a boy of about fifteen years of age, with pen and ink and paper, and an open book.

REVENGE. If you look over his shoulder, you will perceive that the words are Latin. Yet he reads with ease and facility, and seeks no aid from the dictionary. It is the " Cato Major " of Cicero. Heaven ! what a book for a child like that to read ! Boy hood studying old age ! But let us turn from the book, and 'ex amine the lad himself more closely. See that pale face, with a man-like, unnatural gravity upon it. Look at that high, broad brow, towering as a monument above the eyes. Remark those eyes themselves, with their deep, eager thought ; and then the gleam in them — something more than earnestness, and less than wildness — a thirsty sort of expression, as if they drank in what they rested on, and yet were un sated. The brow rests upon the pale, fair hand, as if requiring something to support the heavy weight of thought with which the brain is burdened.

He marks nothing but the hues of that old book. His whole soul REVENGE. 7 is in the eloquent words. He hears not the door open ; he sees not that tall, venerable, but somewhat stiff and gaunt figure, enter, and approach him. He reads on, till the old man's Geneva cloak brushes his arm, and his hand is upon his shoulder. Then the youth starts up — looks around — but says nothing. A faint smile, pleasant yet grave, crosses his finely cut lip ; but that is the only welcome, as he raises his eyes to the face that bends orer him. Can that boy in years be already aged in heart % It is clear that the old man — the old clergyman, for so he evidently is — has no very tender nature. Every line of his face forbids the supposition. The expression it self is grave, not to say stern. There is powerful thought about it, but small gentleness.

He seems one of those who has been tried and hardened in some one of the many fiery furnaces which the world pro vides for the test of men of strong minds and strong hearts. Much persecution has been in the land. Changes, from the rigid REVENGE. and severe to the light and frivolous — from the light and frivolous to the bitter and cruel — have marked the time. There have been tyrants of all shapes and all characters within the previous forty years, and fools, and knaves, and madmen, to cry them on in every course of evil. In all these chances and changes, what fixed and rigid mind could escape the fangs of persecution and wrong? The old man had known both ; but they had altered him little. His was originally an unbending spirit, and it grew more tough and stubborn by the habit of resistance.

Fortune — Heaven's will — or his own in clination, had denied him wife or child ; and near relation, he had none. A friend he had : that boy's father, who had shel tered him in evil times, protected him as far as possible against the rage of enemies, and bestowed upon him the small living which afforded him support. He did his duty therein, conscientiously, but with a REVENGE. firm, unyielding spirit, adhering to the Calvinistic tenets which he had early re ceived, in spite of the universal fallingoff of companions and neighbours. He would not have yielded an iota to save his head. With all his hardness, he had one object of affection, to which all that was gentle in his nature was bent. That object was the boy by whom he now stood, and for whom he had a great — an almost parental — regard.

Perhaps, it was that he thought the lad not very well treated ; and, as such had been his own case, there was sympathy in the matter. But, besides, he had been entrusted with his education from a very early period, had taken a pleasure in the task, had found his scholar apt, willing, and affectionate, with a sufficient touch of his own character in the boy to make the sympathy strong, and yet sufficient diversity to interest and to excite. The old man was tenderer towards him than towards any other being upon earth ; and he sometimes feared that his early B REVENGE. injunctions to study and perseverance were too strictly followed — even to the detri ment of health. He often looked with some anxiety at the increasing paleness of the cheek, at the too vivid gleam of the eye, at the eager, nervous quivering of the lip, and said within himself, " This is overdone."

He did not like to check, after he had encouraged — to draw the rein where he had been using the spur. There is some thing of vanity in us all, and the sternest is not without that share whicii makes man shrink from the imputation of error, even when made by his own heart. He did not choose to imagine that the lad had needed no urging forward ; and yet he would fain have had him relax a little more, and strove, at times, to make him do so. But the im pulse had been given : it had carried the youth over the difficulties and obstacles in the way to knowledge, and now he went on to acquire it, with an eagerness, a thirst, that had something fearful in it. A bent, REVENGE. too, had been given to his mind — nay, to his character, partly by the stern, uncom promising character of him to whom his education had been solely entrusted, partly by his own peculiar situation, and partly by the subjects on which his reading had chiefly turned.

The stern old Roman of the early Re public ; the deeds of heroic virtue — as vir tue vvas understood by the Romans ; the sacrifice of all tender affections, all the sensibilities of our nature, to the rigid thought of what is right ; the remorseless disregard of feelings implanted by God, when opposed to the notion of duties of man's creation, excited his wonder and his admiration, and would have hardened and perverted bis heart, had not that heart been naturally full of kindlier affections. As it was, there often existed a struggle — a sort of hypothetical struggle — in his bosom, between the mind and the heart. He asked himself sometimes, if he could sacrifice any of those he knew and loved — his father, REVENGE. his mother, his brother — to the good of his country, to some grave duty ; and he felt pained, and roused to resistance of his own affections, when he perceived what a pang it would cost him.

Yet his home was not a very happy one : the kindlier things of domestic life had not gathered green around him. His father was varying aud uneven in temper, especially towards his second son ; sometimes stern and gloomy, sometimes irascible al most to a degree of insanity. Generous, brave, and upright, he was ; but every oue said, that a wound he had received on his head,in 1 b'51 at the battle of Worcester, had marvellously increased the infirmities of his temper. The mother, indeed, was full of tender ness and gentleness ; and doubtless it was through her veins that the milk of human kindness had found its way into that strange boy's heart. But yet she loved her eldest son best, and unfortunately shewed it. The brother was a wild, rash, recUess young man, about three years older ; fond REVENGE. of the other, yet often pleased to irritate — or, at least, to try, for he seldom suc ceeded.

He was the favorite, however, somewhat spoiled, much indulged ; and whatever was done, was done for him. He was the person most considered in the house : his were the parties of pleasure ; his the advantages. Even now the family was absent, in order to let him see the capital of his native land, to open his mind to the general world, to shew him life on a more extended scale than could be done in the country ; and his younger brother was left at home, to pursue his studies in dull solitude. Yet he did not often complain : there was seldom even a murmur at bis heart. He endeavoured to think it all quite right. His destiny was before him. He was to form his fortune for himself, by his own abilities, his own learning, his own exertions. It was needful he should study ; and his highest ambition for the time was to enter with distinction at the University ; his brightest thoughts of plea- REVENGE. sure, the comparative freedom and inde pendence of a collegiate life.

Not that he did not find it dull— that gloomy old house, inhabited by none but himself and a few servants. Sometimes it seemed to oppress him with a sense of terrible loneliness ; sometimes it drove him to think of the strange difference of human destinies, and why it should be that — be cause it had pleased Heaven, tbat one man should be born a little sooner or a little later than another, or in some other place — such a wide interval should be placed between the different degrees of happiness and fortune. He felt, however, that such speculations were not good : they led him beyond his depth ; he involved himself in subtilties more common in those days than in ours ; he lost his way ; and with passionate eagerness flew to his books, to drive the mists and shadows from his mind. Such had been the case, even now ; and there he sat, unconscious that a complete REVENGE. 15 and total change was coming over his destiny.

Oh, the dark workshop of Fate ! what strange things go on therein, affecting human misery and joy, repairing or breaking shackles for the mind, creating the means of carrying us forward in a glorious cause, or forming the relentless weights which hurry us downto destruction ! While yousit thereand read — while I sit here and write — who can say what strange alterations, what combi nations in the most discrepant things, may be going on around — without our willwith out our knowledge — to alter the whole course of our future existence ? Doubtless, could man make his own fate, he would mar it ; and the impossibility of doing so is good. The freedom of his own actions is sufficient, nay, somewhat too much ; and it is well for the world — ay, and for him self — that an over-ruling Providence so shapes circumstances around him, that he cannot go beyond his limit, flutter as he will.

REVENGE. Something is in that old man's face more than is common with him — a deeper gravity even than ordinary, yet mingled with a tenderness that is rare- There is some thing like hesitation, too — ay, hesitation even in him who during a stormy life has seldom known what it is to doubt or to deliberate : a man of strict and ready preparation, whose fixed, clear, definite mind was always prompt and competent to act. " Come, Philip, my son," he said, laying his hand, as I have stated, on the lad's shoulder, " enough of stud}r for to-day. You read too hard. You run before my precepts. The body must have thought as well as the mind ; and if you let the whole summer day pass without exercise, you will soon find that, under the weight of corporeal sickness, the intellect wdll flag, and the spirit droop.

I am going for a walk. Come with me ; and we will con verse of high things by ihe way." " Study is my task ancl my duty, sir," REVENGE. replied the boy ; " my father tells me so, you have told me so often ; and, as for health, I fear not. I seem refreshed when I get up from reading, especially such books as this. It is only when I have been out long, riding or walking, that I feel tired." " A proof that you should ride and walk the more," observed the old man. " Come, put on your hat and cloak. You shall read no more to-day. Other thoughts are before you. You know, Philip," he con tinued, " that by reading we get but ma terials, which we must use to build up an edifice in our own minds. If all our thoughts are derived from others gone before us, we are but robbers of the dead, and live upon labours not our own."

" Elder sons," rejoined the boy, with a laugh, "who take an inheritance for which they toiled not." " Something worse than that," replied tbe clergyman, " for we gather what we do not employ rightly — what we have REVENGE. every right to possess, but upon the sole condition of using well. Each man pos sessed of intellect is bound to make his own mind, not to have it made for him : to adapt it to the times and circumstances in which he lives, squaring it by just rules, and employing the best materials he can find." " Well, sir, I am ready," said the youth, after a moment of deep thought. He and his old preceptor now issued forth together down the long staircase, with the slant sunshine pouring through the windows upon the unequal steps, and illu minating the motes in the thick atmos phere we breathe, like fancy brightening the idle floating things whicii surround us in this world of vanity.

They walked across the park towards the stile. The youth was silent, for the old man's last words seemed to have awa kened a train of thought altogether new. His companion was silent also ; for a burden was on his mind which embarrassed REVENGE. and distressed him. He had something to tell that young man, and he knew not how to tell it. For the first time in his life he perceived, from the difficulty he experienced in deciding upon his course, how little he really knew of his pupil's character. He had dealt much with his intellect, and that he comprehended well — its depth, its clearness, its powers ; but his heart and disposition he had not scanned so accurately. He had a surmise, indeed, that there were feelings strong and intense within ; but he thought that the mind ruled them with habitual sway which nothing could shake.

Yet he paused and pondered ; and once he stopped, as if about to speak, but went on again and said nothing. At length, as they approached the park wall, he laid his finger on his temple, muttering to himself, " Yes, the quicker the better. 'Tis well to mingle two passions. Surprise will share with grief — if much grief there be." Then turning to the young man, he said, REVENGE. " Philip, I think you loved your brother Arthur V He spoke loudly, and in distinct tones ; but the lad did not seem to remark the past tense he used. "Certainly, sir," he said, "I love him dearly. What of that 1" " Then you will he very happy to hear," pursued the old man, " that he has been sin gularly fortunate — I mean that he has been removed from earth and all its allurements — the vanities, the sins, the follies of the world in which he seemed destined to move, before he could be corrupted by its evils, or his spirit receive a taint from its vices."

The young man turned and gazed on him with inquiring eyes, as if still he did not comprehend what he meant. " He was drowned," said the clergyman, t' on Saturday last, while sailing with a party of pleasure on the Thames." Philip fell down at his feet as senseless as if he had shot him. REVENGE.

Chapter II

I must not long dwell upon the youthful scenes of the lad I have just introduced to the reader ; but as it is absolutely need ful that his peculiar character should be clearly understood, I must suffer it to display itself a little farther before I step from his boyhood to his maturity. We left Philip Hastings senseless upon the ground, at the feet of his old pre ceptor, struck down by the sudden intel ligence he had received without warning or preparation. The old man was immeasurably shocked REVENGE. at what he had done, and he reproached himself bitterly ; but he had been a man of action all his life, who never suffered thought, whether pleasant or painful, to impede him. He could think while he acted. Being a strong man, too, he had no great difficulty in taking the slight, pale youth up in his arms, and carrying him over the park stile, which was close at hand, as the reader may remember.

He made up his mind at once to bear his young charge to a small cot tage belonging to a labourer on the other side of the road which ran under the park wall ; but on reaching it, he found that the whole family were out working in the fields, and both doors and wdndows were closed. This was a great disappointment to him, although a very handsome house, in modern taste, was not two hundred yards off. But there were circumstances which made him unwilling to bear the son of Sir John REVENGE. Hastings to the dwelling of his next neighbour. Next neighbours are not always friends ; and even the clergyman of the parish may have his likings and dislikings. Colonel Marshal and Sir John Hastings were political opponents. The latter was of the Calvinistic branch of the Church of England — not absolutely a non-juror, but suspected of having a tendency that way.

He was sturdy and stiff in his political opinions, too, and had but small consideration for the conscientious views and sincere opinions of others. To say the truth, he was butlittle inclined to believe thatany onewho differed from him had conscientious views or sincere opinions at all ; and certainly the demeanour, if not the conduct, of the worthy Colonel, did not betoken any fixed notion or strong principles. He was a man of the Court — gay, lively, even witty, making a jest of most things, however grave and worthy of reverence. He played high, generally won, was shrewd, complai- REVENGE. sant,and particular in his deference to kings and prime ministers. Moreover, he was of the very highest of the High Church pai'ty — so high, indeed, that those who belonged to the Low Church party, fancied he must soon topple over into Catholicism.

In truth, I believe, had the heart of the Colonel been strictly examined, it would have been found empty of any thing like real religion. But then the king was a Roman Catholic, and it was pleasant to be as near him as possible. It may be asked, why then did not the Colonel go the same length as his Majesty . The answrer is very simple. Colonel Marshal was a shrewd observer of the signs of the times. At the card-table, after the three first cards were played, he could tell where every other card in the pack was placed. Now in politics he was nearly as discerning ; and he perceived that, although King James had a great number of honors in his hand, he did not hold the trumps, REVENGE. 25 and would eventually lose the game. Had it been otherwise, there is no saying what sort of religion he might have adopted.

There is no reason to think that Transubstan tiation would have stood in the way at all ; and as for the Council of Trent, he would have swallowed it like a roll for his break fast. For this man, then, Sir John Hastings had a thorough hatred and a profound con tempt, and he extended the same sensations to every member of the family. In the estimation of the worthy old clergyman, the Colonel did not stand much higher; but he was more liberal towards the Colonel's family. Lady Annabella Marshal, his wife, was, when in the country, a very regular attendant at his church. She had been exceedingly beautiful, was still hand some, and had, moreover, a sweet, saint like, placid expression, not untouched by melancholy, which was very winning, even in an old man's eyes. She was known, too, to have made a very good wife to a VOL. I. C REVENGE. not very good husband ; and, to say the truth, Doctor Paulding both pitied and esteemed her.

He went but little to the house, indeed, for Colonel Marshal was odious to him ; ancl the Colonel returned the compliment by never going to the church. Such were the reasons [which rendered the thought of carrying young Philip Hastings up to the Court — as Colonel Marshal's house was called — anything but agreeable to the good clergyman. But then, what could he do? He looked in the boy's face. It was like that of a corpse. Not a sign of returning animation showed itself. He had heard of persons dying under such sudden affections of the mind ; and so still, so death-like, was the form and countenance before him, as he laid the lad down for a moment on a bench at the cottage door, that his heart misgave him, and a trembling feeling of dread came over his old frame. He hesitated no longer; but, after a moment's pause to gain REVENGE. breath, caught young Hastings up in his arms again, and hurried away with him towards Colonel Marshal's house.

I have said that it was a modern mansion: that is to imply, that it was modern in that day. Heaven only knows what has be come of it now ; but Louis Quatorze, though he had no hand in the building of it, had many of its sins to answer for — and the rest belonged to Mansard. It was the strangest possible contrast to the old fashioned country seat of Sir John Hastings, who had his joke at it, and at the owner also — for he, too, could jest in a bitter way — and he used to eay that he wondered his neighbour had not added his own name to the building, to distinguish it from all other courts ; and then it would have been Court Marshal. Many were the windows of the house ; many the ornaments ; pilasters running up between the casements, with sunken panels, covered over with quaint wreaths c REVENGE. of flowers, as if each had an embroidered waistcoat on ; and a large flight of steps running down from the great doorway, de corated with Cupids, and cornucopias over flowing with the most indigestible kind of stone-fruit.

The path from the gates up to the house was well gravelled, and ran in aud out amongst sundry parterres, and basins of water, with the Tritons, &c, of the age, all spouting away as hard as a large reser voir on the top of the neighbouring slope could make them. But for serviceable purposes these basins were vain, as the water was never suffered to rise nearly to the brim ; and good Doctor Paulding gazed on them without hope, as he passed on towards the broad flight of steps. There, however, he found something of a more comfortable aspect. The path he had been obliged to take had one conveni ence to the dwellers in the mansion. Every window in that side of the house com- REVENGE. 29 manded a view of it, and the doctor and his burden were seen by one pair of eyes at least. Running down the steps without any of the frightful appendages of the day upon her head, but her own bright, beautiful hair curling wild like the tendrils of a vine, came a lovely girl of fourteen or fifteen, just past the uncouth age, and blushing in the spring of womanhood.

Eagerness and some alarm were in her face ; for the air and haste of the worthy clergyman, as well as the figure he carried in his arms, spoke as plainly as words could do that some accident had happened ; and she called to him to ask what was the matter. "Matter, child, matter !" cried the clergy man. "I believe I have half killed this poor boy." " Killed him !" exclaimed the girl, with a look of doubt as well as surprise. "Ay, Mistress Rachael," replied the old man, " killed him, by unkindly and REVENGE. rashly telling him of his brother's death, without preparation." " You intended it for kind, I am sure," murmured the girl in a sweet low tone, coming down the steps, and gazing on his pale face, while the clergyman carried the lad up the steps. " There, Miss Marshal, do not stay staring," said Doctor Paulding ; " but pray call some of the lackeys, and bid them bring water or hartshorn, or any restor ative.