Time the Avenger. By the author of 'Emilia Wyndham,' etc

Chapter I

" Must I then forward only look at death? Backward I turn mine eye, and find him there. Man is a self-survivor every year." The enterprise I am about to undertake is the most difficult of any one I have as yet attempted, and possibly to the mere novel rea der may prove the least interesting and attractive. But as Milton, in the deep seriousness of an earnest mind, invoked for aid before he com menced his divine song — not the muses who VOL. I. B preside over the fine arts ; not those powers of grace and beauty which fascinate the imagination of mankind, but that heavenly influence, whose still small voice persuades the reason and strikes the inner heart. That spirit, " Which on the secret top Of Oreb or of Sinai did inspire That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed, In the beginning, how the Heavens and Earth Rose out of Chaos."

So I, in my humble, but I trust as honest purpose, invoke the same high power for assistance in the delineation of a yet more mighty work, than that of reducing the rude voices of chaos into harmony. — The work by which the chaos of the inner soul — its dark contention of warring tempers and undisciplined desires is reduced to order ; and the new man, in his beautiful perfection of moral symmetery, issues forth from amid the confused strife of thought and passion. Springing into fresh being under the influences of the great spiritual power ; that " Son of Righteousness," who hath risen upon this earth " with healing on his wings." A mighty task, indeed. Shall my attempt, in all humility, to perform this, be rewarded by the affectionate indul gence which I have hitherto met with ? That sympathy of simple, ingenuous hearts, which has cheered me through tasks, executed to the best of my feeble powers ; though in a manner so far, far below what was required by the adventurous song.

It is a rather gloomy evening, and the sun has just set in that somewhat solemn pomp of purple and gold, when dark heavy lowering clouds give to the western sky a sublime expression of majestic seriousness. Seeming as if the dark curtains of the heavens were falling round the departing luminary, in order to typify to the imagination that awful day when they shall close over his beams for ever. It was now twilight, and the majestic trees which hang over the beautiful lake in Kensing ton Gardens, rose darkly against the soft sky, in which from time to ime, as if summoned to B their watches of the night, one star after another began faintly to appear. The banks upon the sides of the water which are so beautifully shaded by those magnificent trees, were silent and deserted. Not a creature was to be seen, where such numbers of gaily dressed women and lovely children, in all their bright fantastic attire, making them to me look like troops of Midsummer night fairies, had been lately crowding.

The brilliant forms and colours which, like those of tropical birds, had been glancing up and down among the deep green had vanished. All was solitary, silent, calm, and shadowy. Majestic, almost awful was the dark shadow in its deep repose. The hum of the great city, like the noise of some vast distant waterfall, was heard, filling the air of the night with its sound. Heard at this distance, the confused murmur of this immensity of human life and action is very solemn. It was only now and then interrupted by the sound of a bird among the leaves, or of the wind gently swaying the branches ; thus contrasting the soft voice of tender but most expressive nature with that of the rush and storm of human existence not far off. I made use of the word deserted, in speaking of the gardens at this moment, but they were not altogether deserted.

Do you see that man 1 He has been buried in the thickets for some hours, as if he shunned the face of every living being; but now that everybody is going away he comes forth, and walks alone lost in deep thought, by the side of the calm glassy lake, into which the stars of evening are just beginning to gleam. His life had been as one confused, striving, tumultuous, hurried, darkened dream of death. It had been a long tale, without much con nection or definite purpose; with little, per haps no preparation for the momentous ter mination. One day had succeeded to another as one incident succeeds to another in an ill-managed tale — directed to no apparent purpose, or to no main purposes. Thus had one day followed another in a long history of many years. Not absolutely purposeless, but unguided by principle, and without unity of aim or action.

But the force of circumstances had at length pushed it to a crisis — there had been a great catastrophe, and it was just passed. Not a mere catastrophe as regarded his outer circumstances ; such a vicissitude in the vulgar exterior of life, and of which this man had had his full share ; but that catastrophe, that crisis in the inner man, which is indeed the most solemn of things. When, as by the call of the last trumpet the dead are awakened — the slumbering being within — the immortal soul which dwells beneath this outward crust, not only of flesh and sinews and muscles, but of appetites, desires, ambitions, and pas sions — is suddenly awakened. Starts as from a death trance ; gazes astonished and appalled at this summons to account, and, as if before the last judgment-seat, takes a terrified glance at its true condition.

Yes, awakens from the seeming, unsubstantial, futile shadows which had surrounded it, to truth, reason, reality — to the perception of that truth, that substantial reality, which lies under these fleeting things. He had been aroused — dead as he had seemed to be — dead, as to all appearance he utterly was — lost and buried under the secular every-day material habits of material life, — he had been awakened — suddenly, violently — providentially, to the perception of a new life, a better life — to the real new birth of another, and a far superior man. And how had this been done ? Had he met with some grievous misfortune \ Had he been ruined and seen the edifice of his fortunes borne away by the hurricane ; and reduced to dust like some frail building before a mighty storm? Had he been crossed in his dearest expectations?

Had death been at his fireside ? No, it was none of these. He had, it is true, experienced the extremities of fortune during his life, — he had known that fearful thing ruin. But it was not things of such a nature wliich had possessed power to shake his inner man. For he was of a firm undaunted spirit ; and though he wa3 proud and ambitious, and understood well and loved well the mighty power of gold ; he had never suffered the stern philosophy of his soul to be the slave of it. Had he lost those he loved? — Had his heart been rent asunder? Every trembling fibre wrenched in two by the severance of those affections which had entwined themselves round the source of his being ? Was he now experiencing those fond yearnings of the heart after the lost, those vain longings which nothing left in this world shall satisfy more ?

No. He loved no one enough, to be thus within the power of the mighty hand of death. The grim monster might gather in all the best treasures of the earth into his graves ; this man would have been little the poorer. Earth held no such precious treasures for him. Had he been surprised into committing some heinous crime ? Had a long course of indifference to the higher principles of action ; a course of selfish indulgence, and negligent want of self-discipline, terminated in the hour of sudden temptation in some hideous deed, — a deed at which his own nature revolted? Such things have been. And the very enor mity of the tremendous crime into which, under the influence of sudden temptation, a man has been precipitated, has, in some cases, by the all-gracious provisions for the repentant sinner, proved the very means of rescuing the victim in the eleventh hour.

Awakening a mighty overwhelming sense of remorse. And thus, through the horrors of that most awful of the dread powers of retribution, — real remorse — as through the purifying flames of a heart-searching fire, has restored the polluted victim to a purer being. No such thing had taken place here. He had committed no heinous crime ; no action at which the man, when the passion of the moment was over, recoils. He was not one likely, perhaps, to be thus surprised and overcome by sudden temptation. He was of too firm, too determined a character to be mastered by the sudden power of evil, any more than by any other power. It is weak ness which yields to temptation ; it is weakness that lies peculiarly exposed to tempt ation. This man was neither wont to entertain evil thoughts, nor wont to yield to evil influences.

There are few crimes which are not follies, and he was proof against folly. What was it, then, which had shaken this stern, self-concentrated being, — this man proof against folly or wickedness, against delusive imaginations or fascinating passions ? What was it that had shaken him to the very centre ? He had just escaped from most imminent danger. Ay, but he had done that before. He had passed through the perils of a tremendous shipwreck, and he had been saved. Yet there even, " When the ship hung far aloft, High on the broken wave." Even in that tremendous moment he had not been so strongly moved as he was now. His heart had not been invincibly turned to wards that Being " Who was not slow to hear, Nor impotent to save." No, and when he found himself safe and sound, alive and upon dry land, not even then, had his own great deliverance, where nearly twice five hundred men went down, awakened in him any new sense, or turned his thoughts in gratitude to that Power, that Providence which had saved him.

When he emerged from the briny deep which had swadowed up his fellows, he just took up life again with the same spirit, and in the same indifference to all beyond it which had distinguished him before. His eyes were still bent, like those of Mammon, upon the golden floor of this great creation ; his attention was still rivetted upon the things of this world. His thoughts were never once cast upwards; never once lifted towards the blue serene of the heavenly vault, which might have prefigured to him another and better existence. What then, was, this awful peril — more awful than the raging of the waters round the struggling ship ? What was this dreadful danger — more dreadful than death, more bitter than the grave ? What was it that this man had escaped? What was this danger? — the intense sense of his deliverance from wliich shook his inmost soul, — overwhelming, as with a mighty tide, every foregone system of thought, — submerging, as by one vast wave, every former habit of mind, — invading that inner citadel of his heart, — breaking into strongholds, — and rendering his once steadfast soul, one chaos of confused and tempestuous thought and feeling.

Horror, as he thought of the dangers escaped. Remorse, at the recollection of sufferings he had occasioned; and gratitude, a sense of overwhelming gratitude for the agonies he had been spared. Grati tude — A sentiment, perhaps, never compre hended before ; and now directed he scarcely knew to whom. Terrific storm — Dark raging of the waters in the pitchy night. But what danger had he escaped ? What was this peril ; this agony from which he had been spared? That of being the cause of the death of an innocent man. He had not sought that man's life by criminal means ; he had done nothing in act which the most virtuous of human beings might have thought himself, not only justified in doing, but called upon to do. What, then, was it that smote him in so cruel a manner, when he reflected upon the narrow chance by which he had escaped ?

Any man would have been horror-struck at the idea of occasioning the death of another under a mistaken impression. The man who shoots an innocent person, whom he takes in the night for a robber, suffers much ; the man who has been the cause of bringing as a criminal to trial and to death, one who afterwards proves guiltless, must have moments of indescribable distress and regret ; but at the bar of conscience he stands acquitted, and the death-agony of the soul he is spared. And yet that was all as far as mere out ward appearances go, which had actually been done. This man had firmly believed a person to be guilty, and he had pursued him as guilty — that was all. Then, why did his conscience clamour so importunately and cruelly? This was the reason : — Because that power — that representative, ever living, ever present within us, of an ever living, ever present personal God without us — ■ a God who takes account and reckons with his creatures, not only for actions, but for will — because this truth-speaking conscience told him that this act of his — this bringing of a criminal to punishment — had not been done from a sense of justice.

Not painfudy, re luctantly, as a duty, a debt due to what was right; but in the secret exultation of vindictive joy. — Told him, that when he refused to accept the restitution offered, and persisted in pursuing a criminal to his doom, he had done it, not under a persuasion of what obedience to the laws of his country required — for he knew well that such a consideration would have weio-hed with him not one jot — but with the malignity of bitter, unsparing, unpitying revenge. — That the arm of the criminal law had not been raised, as it ought alone to be raised, from a regard to the preservation of society at large ; but as a tremendous engine, which accident had put into his hands, for gratifying a harsh, unpitying temper ; satisfying the sense he en tertained of heavy personal injury, and aveng ing a secret, private quarrel.

And in the pursuit of this bad object, he had been at the very point of sacrificing an innocent, an admirable, a most meritorious man. He had rushed blindly ou, as it were, in the dark, in pursuit of vengeance ; and he had been about to plunge his poniard into an innocent heart — into the heart of one of the best of human beings. The horror with which, in the court of justice, Mr. Craiglethorpe had started up to pro claim the conviction which then first flashed upon his mind, that Henry Wilmington was innocent — the agony with which he had rushed away, that he might not hear of the fatal award — the tears of blood which seemed to stream from his soul, at sight of those two young women ; the one in all the majestic calmness of her despair; the other lying life less in the arms of her friend — the murmur that had buzzed in his ears, " His young wife and sister" — Oh! these had been torturing, in deed !

The succeeding week had passed like a con fused, horrible dream — he recollected nothing of it distinctly. It had been spent in running about from one place to another, from one person to another ; in agonizing efforts to save that which, through him, was about to perish — to avert the doom he had himself called down. Accident, providential accident, as we cad it — but we all know what we mean when we call it so — had saved the victim. He had not even the poor consolation of knowing that this had been the result of his own exertions or his own skill. It had been done for him, entirely done for him, by a power over which he had not the slightest control. He had escaped, as the man, in the often repeated story escaped, who walked over the precipice in the night. He had been saved by no effort of his own ; and he was ready to die with the apprehension of the perd he had so narrowly avoided.

The man now before us was, in spite of the utter vulgarity of his actual life, one of very strong feelings, — not lively, not easily called forth, but when called forth, acute in the extreme. He had the stuff in him of which better men are made. He had great sensibility, and wherever we meet with sensibility, we need never despair. We ought to value it in the child, to respect it in the man, to for give its many aberrations, in favour of its intrinsic and indestructible value. Let us moderate, restrain, direct; but beware how we attempt to stifle it ! This man before us felt what had passed, in a manner many men would not have been capable of. Numbers of human beings go through fearful passages of life, who want the stuff to take strong impressions from what they experience. They come out from such trials much the same as they went in.

This one's nature was of a sort to take strong and lasting impressions — not ductile, like wax, not easily moulded was he; but, though of a hard, he was made of a malleable metal. He could be moulded by the force of a great circum stance, he could be softened in the furnace of a searching fire ; and when once softened, and VOL. I. c once moulded, the generous material retained the form it had taken. This is the evening of the day upon which Henry Wilmington's pardon was signed. As soon as it was done, the tension of feel ing and thought, which had sustained Craigle thorpe through the agonizing exertions and agitating anxieties of the last ten days, gave way. The whole strong system suddenly re laxed, and the man became weak and power less as a child. I have heard, and I believe it, that the first thing he did was to rush home to his lodging, (since the change in his circumstances no longer in that gloomy lane, but in a lightsome, fashionable street,) to fling himself upon his bed and burst into tears.

He lay weeping there some time. His tears flowed like the stream of some river which has been pent up for centuries, when the dam has given way. They rolled forth like cataracts — A sense of unutterable relief — of gratitude, which had no power of expression — no object to which to direct itself, overwhelmed him. His tears were the outburst of the overloaded, pent-up heart, now suddenly set free. Wben this paroxysm was over, half ashamed and wondering at himself, he rose from his bed and wiped his eyes. He had never had occasion before to wipe his eyes since he was a schoolboy, I believe. He looked round the gay, lightsome room in which he was. You cannot think how pain fully the cheerful air of ad that surrounded him — the gaudy chintz of the bed — the French paper covered with festoons of flowers and dancing Cupids, — how the cheerful rattle of the street at high noon, or rather high afternoon — affected him.

To one emerging from the darkness of the shadow of death, such things are insupportable. These in the anguish and hurry of the past ten days — these, like other external things, had never struck him ; never reached his senses, — but now they did ; and with a contrast to the state of his feelings, perfectly intolerable. c Had he been in his little, grim lodging in the city ; the abode of the proud, wronged, impoverished Craiglethorpe, he would have been in his element. Its gloomy twilight at mid-day, its dreary silence at high noon, would have been congenial. He would have sat there moodily brooding over what had happened — per haps, never have left the room for days. As it was, he could not, and he would not stay where he was. He rose hastily, pulled his hat over his eyes, went stealthily in a sort of blind way down stairs, out at the door, entered a cab, and told tlie man to drive to the further end of Kensington Gardens.

Arrived there he got out, paid the man, entered the back part of the gardens, plunged into the thickets, at that time, — I don't know how it is now, — rarely visited by human foot ; and here he wandered about ad day. Some times he sat down seeming to muse, though, in fact, he rather felt than thought, — some times he got up, and walked to and fro in great agitation. Into the sacred solitude of a stern and proud heart, now in the agony of what I may call its moral regeneration, I scarcely like to intrude, — I do not like to exhibit the man you have respected in spite of his faults, because of his firm uncompromising nature, — in the weakness of those death-throes of the soul. — I shall not do it. — I shall go on to the evening © © of that day, when this mighty storm having subsided, he came down in the solitude of the hour, to walk by the side of those quiet waters, which responded to the calm which had at last visited his soul.

The sun was sinking in his solemn grandeur, and twilight was softly stealing over the grass and trees, whilst the eyes of heaven were kindling, one by one, over his head. The anguish and the agony ; and the desperate apprehension of what might have been, and of what he had escaped, had gradually yielded to other thoughts. First came the reflection that those two women assuredly lived ; had survived the ter ror and the joy. Then that Henry was actually saved, and that even his reputation had escaped uninjured from what had happened. This brought a soothing comfort to his heart, and gradually tranquillized the vehemence of his emotions. As his passion subsided reflection took its place; and, it was in deep reflection that he paced up and down by the lake, now gazing upon its quiet depths, now looking up into the expansive, measureless sky.

Yes, he looked upwards at last. The man, who had escaped from the depths of the ocean ; had battled with the raging waves ; had wandered through the pathless wilds of Africa ; had returned a beggar into human society ; had found his abundant wealth restored, and yet had never once looked up, looked up now ; and seemed endeavouring to penetrate the mysterious depths above him, and to inquire out the problem of being. What was he ? Whence came he, — whither was he bound ? He was not a mere animal produce of teem ing nature, formed by her creative energies out of dust, and to return to dust again. Not a mere fact, — a phenomenon, — to appear fora moment and to vanish for ever. No ; the agonies of his soul had taught him another tale. What was it ? — Why was it ? — That he who had so calmly contemplated the judicial death of a fellow creature whom he thought to be guilty, had been struck with such agonizing horror of the deed, when he believed him to be innocent.

And from whence this cruel sense of remorse, at the idea that he had, in order to gratify a mere selfish passion of personal revenge, pursued a fellow being, and his fellow man, to destruction ? Innocence and guilt were then very different things. — To be sure they were. But purity or impurity of internal motive, even when the very act was the same, were infinitely different things also. — Whence this ? There was the whole theory of the moral law contained in the question. — And whence this moral law ? — How came the sense of it to spring up suddenly, as it were, to life, within his breast, and thus arraign him before an awful tribunal, — a tribunal from which he could not escape. One unseen by every eye, and created in his heart. His heart — so to seek in all these things — his heart where such feelings had never been cultivated ? — And why thus approve itself at once to his reason, where such things had never been presented before.

He had thought little, one might almost say never, about right and wrong, or these sanctions and demands. He had gone along his way through life, guided so far by a sort of blind instinct, that he had avoided any gross ill-con duct. A kind of natural dislike to oppression, cruelty, or licentiousness, had prevented him from being guilty of acts of this nature, but he had never asked himself why ? He had never inquired why one thing ought to be done, and another left undone. And though at times he might have been led to some meritorious action, by passing sentiments of justice or compassion, I question whether, in the whole course of his existence, since he had grown to man's estate, he had ever done a thing simply because it was right. He had no principle of the sort within him. He never thought about what was right.

What was agree able, profitable, advisable, judicious, rational, if you will, nothing more. He walked up and down, pondering deeply upon these things. Now his head bent upon his breast — now his eye lifted up to the world above, which was by this time glittering with midnight stars ; and in the breathless stillness of that beautiful night, the roll of the distant city, giving forth a soothing harmony, and the only one. A sense of the infinite, like some fine influence from above, began to steal, for the first time, over this man's soul. A dread — a holy dread — a sense of fearful awe began to creep over him. He had never feared anything in his life. His was no coward soid — he had shown how he could stand the vicissitudes of existence — he had never blanched before the face of mortal man. So it was not the timorous trembling of the weak ; it was the awe-struck terror of the strong, which began to invade his spirit.

Powerful himself, he was capable of a juster apprehension of the resistless power which he first began to apprehend. Nature was full of it. On every side, this all-pervading, this invincible power beset him. Gazing at the vaulted sky, he dived into its awful immensity, its vast extent, hemming in and overhanging, as it were, ad inferior nature. Turning his eyes upon the firm earth which resisted his feet, he felt the stability of that rock on which this earthly creation was founded. Whilst in the dreadful experience of the last ten hours, he read, that the God of this infinity was a living, a personal, and a moral God; visiting with power not to be resisted, the secret sins of men; capable of and resolute in inflicting punishment ; and swift to avenge wrong. And he was filled with dread — fearful dread — tremendous dread — Not so much from the terror of what was personal to himself, as from that sense of awe with which we regard the sublime, the mighty, the irresistible.

Meditating upon such themes, he walked up and down under the trees for some time. The twilight fell, darker, and darker grew the night. More stilly the silence round, and more hushed the distant roar of London. At last, behind the heavy mass of trees now cast into deep shadow, a faint gleam as of the dawn appeared, and slowly in all her beauty the moon rose by degrees, and by degrees shed a lustrous gleam upon the tree tops ; and then in all her calm glory she began her walk amid the stars, shedding that sublime and tender light which human heart cannot resist. And that it is which makes us all, poets poetasters, novelists and tale tellers, love to speak of the moon. Never weary of speaking of her. She cannot be vulgarized; she cannot be rendered common ; she is too pure, too radiant, too divinely bright and lovely.

And yet Craiglethorpe, now in his sixty fifth year, seemed to gaze upon her for the first time. He had seen her and had made use of her light. She had once or twice prevented him falling into a ditch perchance ; and had served to mark the day for a party in the country, that she might light the jolly reveders home. This is ad she had done for him till now. But this evening electrified, called to life, awakened to a new perception, he looked upon the pure silvery globe resting there in the blue, measureless depths of the sky, and he felt what he had never felt before— How sublime ! how fair ! how heavenly was all this ! And what a hymn the host of heaven were singing, round this their apparent queen, would man but listen. The calm influence seemed to breathe upon his agitated spirits, and to awaken the new train of thought into which he now fell.