The Rivals : or, The Spectre of the Hall. A romance

Preface

. The greater portion of the story of the " Rivals" is chiefly true, but the publication oj .he various incidents can now hurt the feelings of no one, for all the principal actors in that stirring drama of real life have gone the way of all humanity. The highest aim of the work must consist not so much in its being a record of scene** ind events which may beguile some hours in the reading, but in its moral character ; for a more terrific warning to parents, and particularly to mothers, who are thrown more into contact with children in early life, could scarcely be found. Great numbers of works have been written and puffed highly, and attained to great celebrity, en account of the warnings and the examples they presented to youths but if we jok into the working of the great serial machine, we shall find that parents really require more reprehension and more warning than their children, inasmuch as their duties are more onerous, and their faults have wider consequences.

All thinking, educated people now admit the great truth that the duty of the child to he parent is only one arising from circumstances, and that tbe parent has no right to be respected unless he or sbe be respectable in conduct. The world will scarcely ever igain be gulled by the doctrine that men and women are entitled to something like vene ration on account of the number of their offspring ; and we most emphatically warn parents that the time has come when they must be judged, and that the great duties they have to perform can no longer be slurred over by the mock sentimentality of being a ather or a mother, and therefore a something wonderful and infallible. To illustrate one of the most common, and one of the most serious, evils in many faroilies-namely, favouritism, the " Rivals" has been written, and its immense sale shows hat the principle has met with a ready echo in the hearts of thousands. JjONPOK, Awju.it, 1847. THE SPECTRE OF THE HALL. A ROMANCE.

Chapter I

'* And armed against each other were their soula, A dreadful war to wage ; And hearts, which, should in peace have e'er been held, Were filled which hate and rage." .THE DREADFUL MEETING BY THE LAKE. — THE ALTERCATION.— TH PROPOSAL AND ITS RESULTS. The moon shone sweetly on a scene of sylvan beauty — scarce a cloud in the deep blue vault of Heaven could be perceived to dim, for a moment, the pale lustre of its borrowed beams. Tree, shrub, flower, lake, and meadow — each acquired a new and wondrous power to charm, by the silvery surface lent by the mild crescent, which seemed to look down upon the earth as if with love and tender ness. The meanest, roughest objects were silvered into beauty beneath its beams. As if some proud alchemist had discovered the secret of transmuting all things into silvei, and, in the exultation of his heart, was scattering around him the results of his glorious discovery, did the beautiful moon light give that sweet colour to all objects.

The night was not far advanced, but it was at that season of the ye. ' when the moon rises early from the horizon, to gild the corn-fields with some red beams, borrowed from the setting sun, ere its own No. 1. than twenty feet, look strange and spectral, as they stretched far across the meadow be hind them. milder light battles with the shades of evening. The air was laden with a thousand per fumes — Nature would seem desirous at that fair autumnal period to leave as much regret, as well she might, in the minds of those who loved her rural beauties, ere she gave way to the stern "dominion of winter. llinu Liieni. . , Their faces were towards the lake than otherwise, and the moonbeams fell upon them. It might be that the exciting subject of their discourse had produced the effect, which any mental exertion produces upon some persons, of excessive paleness, or it might have been that the moon's rays had robbed their cheeks of all colour ; but certain was it that two faces so pale and deathlike could not have been seen.

The one stood with folded arms, rigid and immovable, except a slight swaying movement, and a biting of the nether lip, which sufficiently pourtrayed the bitter feelings which were at his heart, and pro claimed the seeming calmness of attitude to be but an assumption of that feeling. The other wastalking energetically, and making strange and wild attitudes as he did so. Hi* whole heart and soul seemed to be, and, indeed, were concentrated in the subject of his discourse ; and the attitudes he assumed, and the excited manner in which he moved his arms, were exceedingly picturesque, and, in many instances, classically beautiful. And strange was it to see how his mock ing shadow — that strong and well-defined shadow, cast by the moon — followed his movements. The gigantic shadowy arms would stretch like the sails of a windmill across the meadow, and with such rapidity did they assume new positions, that occa sionally they would seem like flitting clouds across the moon's disk, dimming for a moment its glorious lustre.

The voice, too, of this young man was full of excitement, although at times it would drop into tones of exquisite tenderness and seeling, as in his discourse he struck upon some gentle chord. He was eminently handsome, but of the order of beauty which looks too delicate for a man, and yet shows much sensibility of feeling. He was attired in a loose coat, something in the form of a shooting jacket, and at his feet lay his hat, which he had, in the hurry and excitement of his feelings, cast from him. He who stood with so much assumption of calmness, and yet so little of its reality, was a stouter man, and much more sturdily built than the other. His hair was darker, and had not the wavy gracefulness of his companion's. In dress he was very similar, but in general appearance no two men could very well be more unlike.

In mental cha racteristics they were as wide asunder as the very poles. And yet these two men were brothers. Yes ; these two men were brothers. Bound together by that close tie of affinity, a tie It was a night to knit in still closer and more heavenly bondage those hearts which were susceptible of the better and nobler feelings of humanity, it was one on which to discard from the mind mean and unholy thoughts — a night to gaze on which ought to have made those who had eyes to do so, and comprehension to feel its loveliness, better and wiser men. But, alas 1 when gloom is at the heart, the radiance and beauty of external objects seem but so many silent reproaches, and as such become more irksome than would be the fiercest contention of the elements. There are passions of the human heart which defy all gentle influences, which as it were wrap the very soul in a shroud of gloom and horror, it incapable of holy thoughts, depriving it of the gentler impulses of its nature, robbing it of that peaceful calm which surely is a foretaste of the joy that is in heaven, and making humanity capable of crimes at which, under other circumstances, it would stand aghast in shuddering horror.

Like coiled-up serpents, waiting for the moment to make the deadly spring, lie these passions at the bottom of almost every breast, and, sad is it to say, that with more fervour and dreadful intensity do they exist where Heaven has bestowed some portion of that most god-like of all gifts, genius. This is at once a reflection as painful as it is true. It would appear that those who were blessed with a capacity to feel great joys, were likewise cursed with an aptitude to suffer acute miseries ; and many a seeming fearful deed has been done by one who, had his lot been cast in happier circumstances, would, by the same mind, have been considered an honour to the age in which he lived, instead of exciting the eager condem nation of a host of meaner spirits. On this night, such as we have described it to be, and just as, with a gentle, silvery sound, a village clock struck the hour of eight, there stood two young men by the margin of a broad lake which was in the grounds of a half farm, half villa residence, some fifty miles westward of the metropolis.

The moon we have said was low, and, con sequently, it cast long, strange shadows on the earth. In particular did the shadows of these two young men, elongated to more which should surely have produced concord — which must have been intended by nature to do so, but which, by some strange per versity of human nature, so very seldom does. " Hear me out, Gerald, hear me out. The probability is, that we both loved Ma deline from the first moment we beheld her. 'Tis a sad thing that we should do so — a very sad thing, Gerald; but our affections make our minds, not our minds our affections. As little might we hope to say we would not love her whom our hearts affect, as we could hope to stay the current of the wind by holding up a hand and bidding it pause." "Psha!" cried Gerald, "psha! what do you mean by all this . what do you want?"

The man who stood with his arms folded was the elder of the two — he who spoke with so much fervour, and used such strange gesticulations, was three years his junior. Something of their separate characters we shall gather from their conversation, if conversation that could be called, which consisted of eloquent entreaty on the one side and cold sneers on the other. The younger speaks : — " I am coming to that, Gerald. We are rivals, but remember — oh, remember — we are likewise brothers ; and reason should take in us the place of that feeling of jealous resentment which, were we strangers in blood, we might feel towards each other — you understand me, Gerald?" Gerald made an impatient gesture. " Well, well, I will hurry to the point ol my discourse," said Magnus. " It is a pity — a thousand pities — that it should be so, but we do both love Madeline.

She can love but one, if, indeed, either of us should be the blessed object of her thoughts. 1 tell you again, Gerald, that I will fly from this place, and all its dear associations, il you can but fairly let me know that you are the favoured suitor. Now I do not ask so much of you; all I ask is — andin the ask ing I couple forgiveness of the past — that you will not descend to base aspersions upon me; that you will not malign me; that you will leave me the fair fame I have, and net use the dreadful influence you have over our mother — who has ever, with a nlad infatuation, favoured you — to induce her to lend herself to falsehood, to the utter demolition of all my hopes of happi ne-s." " Gerald — Gerald! From very childhood we have been estranged. In vain have I attempted, as well you know, many and many a time, to break through that morose reserve of your character which wrapped you up in gloom, and as often have I failed.

I do remember well, as if it were but yesterday, our father saying, some years since, that if aught would ever break down the stubborn bitterness of your character, it would be love. You affect to love Madeline, and yet whit are you still ?" " Have you done?" said the other. " I have not done. For days past I have endeavoured to get with you such a meeting as this, but you avoided me. Too well you know the subject of it. To you, and to another, whom I dread to name in connexion with such a charge, can I trace the forgeries and fabricates which have driven me mad, by estrang^ from me the heart of her I adored. Oh, why, why would you step between me and my happiness, Gerald — brother! If you have one spark of feeling in all your composition, take now a better thought. We cannot both have Madeline.

Loved she you, I would depart at once, and not with my ill-omened presence and ill-suppressed si<*hs, seek to cast a shadow on the sun shine of your happiness." Gerald gave a sneering, loud laugh, as he said, — " Y'ou accuse me!" ' Gerald, I know it." " Curses " " Nay, curses cannot mend the matter. For eighteen weary days, now, have Made line and I been strangers. No words have passed between us. I wrung from her mother the secret of the estrangement. By you and by my mother have I been ma ligned." "Liar!" « " Thank my stars, I am not so romant'e. Go yourself, and the devil go with you." " I will not be angry," added the younger. " I am too used to the mode in which you speak, Gerald, to quarrel with that. Coarse, insolent language has long since become a part of your very nature. I am willing to believe, for argument's sake, that, in your way, you do love Madeline Mayworth."

" Oh, you are, are you ; and what's that to you!" said Gerald, scowling on his brother like a fiend. The younger, whose name was Magnus, waved his arm as if in deprecation of these words, and cried, — " Hold, Gerald — hold ! Do not go too far. swell know that, because that word is harsh and discordant to my ear, it is a favourite one ol yours. Every one is a liar who docs not even happen to agree with vou in opinion ; but 1 am not so much moved by your utterance of so coarse an epithet as I should be if it had come from other lips, b -cause I know it to be a part ot fine feelings, and yet you talk ill of your own mother." . , " With sorrow I cannot but speak the truth, were she ten times my mother ; and, let me remind you, that a hundreth part of the affected virtue which prompts you to blame me for an ill word, even in truth, against my mother, would have saved you and her both from becoming my bitterest enemies, instead of my fastest friends— my most cruel and unprincipled calumniators, instead of those who should have defended me against such practices."

" Confound you, I can't and won't waste any more time upon you. Be off; I intend Madeline for mvself. Now I have told you, and you may like it, or dislike it, as you please." " Nay ; but " " Psha ! she is beautiful, and, as you say, in my way I love her ; she shall be mine. You — ha ! ha ! you are done for with her, with all your cleverness, and all your fine your morose and dreadfully malicious dis position." "What do you mean? — what do you want?" " I want you to unsay that which you nave said." ""What?" " You have represented me to the mother of Madeline as one of dissolute habits — a systematic seducer of innocence — one, in fact, who is a dangerous companion for the young and the beautiful, and who has but I one object, and that, the ruin of those who I trust to his smiles." " Indeed '."

" Yes. I am assured that such a tale has been carried to the ears of Madeline's mother by you. It might not have been believed ; but you got our mother, whose prime favourite you are, to back you out in the monstrous assertions. Against the weight of such evidence such a mind as Madeline's could not hold up. With a shudder she felt herself compelled to be lieve the false assertions : for she could not imagine the amount of wi:kedness that could induce a mother and a brother to conspire together to do so much wrong. Hence, I say, she believed It, and we have become estranged." speeches." "Brother !" " Don't brother me ; I hate the word. D n, what do I care for anything and anybody, but just so far as my own ends get fully answered ?" "Oh, God! can there be such a human heart as this?" exclaimed Gerald; "say you do not — cannot mean what you have spoken.

Even from you there cannot come such real words of wickedness, and fully imply that which-they would seem." "I'm not \ml you, I mean what I say. I tell you once more Madeline shall be mine." "What's that tome?" " Good God ! is this insensibility feigned or real ? Do I not accuse you of being the author of the.calumnics which haveinflicted on me such cruel pangs ?" " It's true." " No, false by Heaven ! and well you know it. I love her as purely and inno cently, and as honourably as ever man loved woman. I swear it by this moon — by the myriads of stars — by the beautiful earth — and, more than all, I swear it by the great God that made them all, I wooed Madeline for my wife!" " What's all that to me !" cried Gerald, goaded into saying something. " Go to the devil, for all I care. You talk about our being estranged from each other in early life.

I hated you then — I always hated you. I hate you now." " Do me justice — common justice, and hate me as you will." " I will see you hanged first. What's justice to me ? I intend Madeline for my self, and I'll have her. If you don't like it, be off with you, and a d — d good riddance too. I tell you I hate you, and that ought to be enough." " By fraud — trickery ?" "Anyway. What care I?" " Then," said Magnus, suddenly alter ing his tone and manner, and drawing him self up to his full height, " I have threats as well as entreaties to use." "Tlneats!" " Yes ; I am not powerless ; truth and justice never can be powerless. I will not yield without a struggle for right ; I will proclaim to all the world how, blinded by partiality for one of her children in prefer ence to another, and that one, too, a demon in disposition, my mother has joined in an unnatural cry against me.

I will proclaim you to Madeline — to her mother — to all the world — as a man of desperate, fearful mind. I will bring hosts of witnesses to prove me far different from what you would represent me ; I will dare you before all the world — in tbe open face of day, to prove the slanderous imputations you and my mother have propagated: and, so help me Heaven! I will coveryou both with theshame of your own fulse statements. As you have "Unsay your calumnies — those calumnies you have induced your fondly foolish mother to join you in." " How dare you speak ill of your mother ? A nice article you are to prate about your sown, so shall you reap, and bitter to you both will be the result." " I am the stronger of us two. Beware." " Ay, that is in accordance with all A black shade came over the face of Gerald, as he clenched his hands and ad vanced a step, saying — your actions.

Brute force, and that only to be attempted from a conviction of being the stronger — never, from any generous impulse, never. Oh, if you had but one redeeming trait in all your disposition, it would be a great mercy ; but you have not." " And you come to tell me," cried Gerald, furiously, " that you will make a riot and confusion about this business, will you !" " I will vindicate myself." Before Magnus could then be the least on his guard, Gerald made a sudden and violent attack upon him, striking him several severe ruffianly blows in the face. Confounded by such an unlooked for and cowardly assault, Magnus was incapable of immediate resistance. He fell to the ground, and before he could rise again, Gerald, with a look of fiendish malice, and an insulting laugh of exultation, walked hastily away.

Slowly Magnus rose to his feet. He tot tered onwards a few steps, and then he paused and glanced around him at the sweet moonlight that was still streaming upon all things. A shudder passed through his frame, but he spoke not. His face was as pale as marble, and there was a strange, wild look about his eyes. He turned round several times, as if uncertain which way to go. Something fell on one of his hands. It was a drop of blood from bis lip, which had been cut open by one of the blows Gerald had given him. He fixed his eyes upon it, and then walked slowly towards the house. " Curses on you — you dare not, " I will." "You will!" " Ay. What dare not he who has the truth upon his side? Think you I am like a cringing hound, that I will sit me down quietly beneath such imputation ! Think you that, after an unavailing remonstrance, I will submit !

No. The whole country side shall echo with my wrongs." " You, you " " Madeline shall hear my vindication from a thousand lips. You will find that obstinacy and brutality, even such as yours, can be defeated. You may well tremble." " I tremble !" " Yes. I see you tremble now ; and more will you tremble when the time shall come, as too sure for you it surely will, when you will find that you have nothing left you but your disappointed malice, in the poisoned venom of which you may wallow to your heart's content ; while the mother, who never yet bestowed upon me one motherly care, but who, from some hallucination of intellect, took to her heart of hearts such a ruffian as yourself, will perhaps feel some pang from the shame you bring upon her." " Now, by God " " Ay, swear. It is your custom ; but the greatest oaths will not help your cause."

Chapter II. The Murder

— THE AWAKENING FROM THE STUPOR OP MADNESS. — THE DEAD BODY T was very strange ; but Magnus spoke not a word as he proceeded towards his house, which occupied, as nearly as possible, a position in the centre of the little estate which surrounded il. A feeling of apathy appeared to have come over him, and what he did seemed to be done instinctively, and without thought, as if he were but a moving creature, which had been sent to perform a certain work, and did it without seeling or reflection upon the results. He reached the house by an unfrequented path. He met no one on his progress. He went not to the door ; hut, opening a lowwindow, which looked on to a lawn, he stepped into what was called the great hall. This was a room of considerable length, ' although deficient in good proportionable width to that length.

When the property had been of more importance, this hall had been profusely decorated with spoils and emblems of the chase. the spectral host his heated brain had con jured up vanished. The lane was deserted, and on came the solitary passenger, whose mortal foot fall seemed to have chased away those airy phantoms ofthe biain with which the ima gination of poor Magnus had peopled it. Whoever it was approaching, appeared to be striking the hedges as he came on with a stick, and in a veiy few moments be must reach the stile. Some of the relics of this ancient taste still remained, and Magnus looked for a few moments around him with a strange vacant expression, as if the place were new to him completely. He then walked to the old chimney -piece, above which, along with several weapons, hung a gun.

He took it from its support ing hooks, and then, with a dreadful de liberation, he proceeded to a drawer in an old cabinet, where he knew powder and shot were kept, and loaded the weapon. He placed two slugs in the barrel, and when he felt certain he had it fit for service, he left the hall again by the same window at which he had entered it, and still, with out having uttered one word since he was struck by his brother, he walked with a slow and stately step, like some moving statue, towards the lake, on the maigin of which he had held so exciting a discourse with one, for whom, let his fate be what it may, we can claim no sympathy from our readers. i tmui me onisi. - Louder and louder came the footfalls. Each one appeared to Magnus to come with a stunning blow upon his heart, and now the shadowy form of a man in the darkness approached, and suddenly halted before the stile.

It was Gerald. There was a pause of about half a mi nute's duration. The figure, if not the features, of Magnus must have been clearly discernible, for all behind him in the meadow was a flood of beautiful moonlight, so Gerald knew him at once, and when he re covered from his first sudden surprise at seeing him there, he cried, in a loud, brutal voice, — The moon had now risen considerably higher in the heavens, and, if anything, was brighter and more beautiful than before. Oh, what a sweet voluptuous harmony did nature present in comparison with the dreadful feelings which at that moment must surely have been called into existence is the breast of that young man, who stood looking upon the scene of beauty around him ; and yet, no doubt, too much absorbed in his own fearful cogitations to be con scious of one of its features.

" What the devil do you do here, in my way ? Look out, I tell you. What you have had from me is nothing to what you will have, if you don't mind." Then Magnus spoke, but it was ln so al tered a tone of voice from his own, that none would have known him by it. " Brother, brother," he said, " I can yet forgive — I can yet forget all. Brother Gerald, hold out your hand to me." " I will, with something in it," said Gerald, as he flourished his stick. " I've been to see Madeline. Ha! ha! How do you like that ? — and all our conversation was about what a lucky escape she had had from such a libertine as you were represented to be. Ha! ha! ha 1 I couldn't help laughing." " Brother, shall we be henceforward friends ?" Twice he passed his hand across his brow, and seemed about to speak, but he only shuddered, and something like the faint echo of a groan came from his lips.

Then he passed on across the meadow till he came to a stile, and by the side of this he laid the gun. This stile led into a green lane that, in consequence of the thick hedgerow which bounded it, was in comparative darkness, and full of black shadows. Magnus leaned his arms upon the top rail of this stile, and there he waited for more than an hour. Hi fixed his eyes upon the darkness of the lane, and, as he did so, it seemed to his betted imagination to be peopled with a thousand strange and hideous shapes. Heads without bodies would come close to him, and make gibbering mouths in his face ; dark forms, clad in black, with hoods over the very faces, would come gliding on in solemn procession ; hideous faces would throng about him, so close that he felt sure he could have stretched out his arm aud touched them.

" Friends be d — d 1 Get out of my way, will you ?" " Yes, yes ; but Gerald . _" " What do you want? Another blow!' " Dear Gerald " " Don't try to come any of your non sense over me. D — n me, if I thought you one half such a cowardly hound as you are ; but now I know how to manage you. Whenever I take it into my head, I shall lay a horsewhip over your shoulders. Ha ! ha I ha ! It will be prime sport." " Gerald, Gerald — once more I implore." " Will you get out of my way ?" Gerald raised the stick menacingly, and Magnus stepped aside, as he added, — " Yes, yes, come over." Suddenly, then, the regular tramp of a footstep smote his ears, aud in an instant all Gerald crossed the stile, and when he had the meadow, he turned to Magnus, and said, — *' I always thought what such a fellow as you was, with your poetry, and your sympathies for the hares and the horses, and all that sort of d — d gammon."