“And oft as ease and health retire, To breezy lawn or forest-deep,
The friend shall view yon whitening spire,
And ’mid the varied landscape weep;
But thou who own’s t that earthy bed,
Ah! what will every dirge avail?”
Collins’s Ode on Thomson.
Many years are now elapsed since I took up my residence in this sequestered hamlet. I retired to it in distaste with a world whose vices had robbed me of the dearest treasure of my heart. Two children cheered my solitude, and in training them up to virtue, I lost the remembrance of half my cares. My son, when qualified, was sent to Oxford, as a friend had promised to provide for him in the church; but my daughter was destined to retirement, not only from the narrowness of my income, but from a thorough conviction it was best calculated to insure her felicity. Juliana was the child of innocence and content. She knew of no greater happiness than that of promoting mine, of no pleasures but what the hamlet could afford, and was one of the gayest, as well as the loveliest, of its daughters. One fatal evening I suffered her to go, with some of her young companions, to a rustic ball, given by the parents of Belgrave to their tenants, on coming down to Woodhouse, from which they had been long absent. The graces of my child immediately attracted the notice of their son. Though young in years, he was already a professed libertine. The conduct of his father had set him an example of dissipation which the volatility of his own disposition too readily inclined him to follow. His heart immediately conceived the basest schemes against Juliana, which the obscurity of her situation prompted him to think might readily be accomplished. From this period he took every opportunity of throwing himself in her way. My suspicions, or rather my fears, were soon excited; for I knew not then the real depravity of Belgrave; but I knew that an attachment between him and my daughter would prove a source of uneasiness to both, from the disparity fortune had placed between them. My task in convincing Juliana of the impropriety of encouraging such an attachment was not a difficult one. But, alas! I saw the conviction was attended with a pang of anguish, which pierced me to the soul.
[Pg 296]
Belgrave, from the assumed softness and delicacy of his manners, had made an impression on her heart which was not to be erased. Every effort, however, which prudence could suggest, she resolved to make, and, in compliance with my wishes, avoided Belgrave. This conduct soon convinced him it would be a difficult matter to lull my caution, or betray her innocence. And finding all his attempts to see, or convey a letter to her, ineffectual, he departed with his parents from Woodhouse.
Juliana heard of his departure with a forced smile; but a starting tear, and a colorless cheek, too clearly denoted to me the state of her mind. I shall not attempt to describe my sufferings on witnessing hers. With my pity was mixed a degree of veneration for that virtue which, in so young a mind, could make such exertions against a passion disapproved of by a parent. The evening of his departure, no longer under any restraint, she walked out alone, and instinctively, perhaps, took the road to Woodhouse. She wandered to its deepest glooms, and there gave way to emotions which, from her efforts to suppress them, were become almost too painful to support. The gloom of the wood was heightened by the shades of evening, and a solemn stillness reigned around, well calculated to inspire pensive tenderness. She sighed the name of Belgrave in tremulous accents, and lamented their ever having met. A sudden rustling among the trees startled her, and the next moment she beheld him at her feet, exclaiming, “We have met, my Juliana, never more to part.”
Surprise and confusion so overpowered her senses, as to render her for some time unable to attend to his raptures. When she grew composed, he told her he was returned to make her honorably his, but to effect this intention, a journey from the hamlet was requisite. She turned pale at these words, and declared she never would consent to a clandestine measure. This declaration did not discourage Belgrave; he knew the interest he had in her heart, and this knowledge gave an energy to his arguments, which gradually undermined the resolution of Juliana. Already, he said, she had made a sufficient sacrifice to filial duty; surely something was now due to love like his, which, on her account, would cheerfully submit to innumerable difficulties. As he was under age, a journey to Scotland was unavoidable, he said, and he would have made me his confidant on the occasion, but that he feared my scrupulous delicacy would have opposed his intentions, as contrary to parental authority. He promised Juliana to bring her back to the ham[Pg 297]let immediately after the ceremony; in short, the plausibility of his arguments, the tenderness of his persuasions, at last produced the effect he wished, and he received a promise from her to put herself under his protection that very night.
But oh! how impossible to describe my agonies the ensuing morning when, instead of my child, I found a letter in her room informing me of her elopement; they were such as a fond parent, trembling for the fame and happiness of his child, may conceive. My senses must have sunk beneath them had they long continued; but Belgrave, according to his promise, hastened back my child; and as I sat solitary and pensive in the apartment she so often had enlivened, I suddenly beheld her at my feet, supported by Belgrave, as his wife. So great a transition from despair to comfort was almost too powerful for me to support. I asked my heart was its present happiness real; I knelt, I received my child in my arms: in those feeble arms I seemed to raise her with my heart to Heaven in pious gratitude for her returning unsullied. Yet, when my first transports were abated, I could not help regretting her ever having consented to a clandestine union. I entreated Belgrave to write, in the most submissive terms, to his father. He promised to comply with my entreaty, yet hinted his fears that his compliance would be unattended with the success I hoped. He requested, if this should be the case, I would allow his wife to reside in the cottage till he was of age. Oh, how pleasing a request to my heart! a month passed away in happiness, only allayed by not hearing from his father. At the expiration of that time he declared he must depart, having received orders to join his regiment, but promised to return as soon as possible; he also promised to write, but a fortnight elapsed and no letter arrived.
Juliana and I grew alarmed, but it was an alarm that only proceeded from fears of his being ill. We were sitting one morning at breakfast, when the stopping of a carriage drew us from the table.
“He is come!” said Juliana, “he is come!” and she flew to open the door; when, instead of her expected Belgrave, she beheld his father, whose dark and haughty visage proclaimed that he came on no charitable intent. Alas! the occasion of his visit was too soon explained; he came to have the ties which bound his son to Juliana broken. My child, on hearing this, with firmness declared, that she was convinced any scheme his cruelty might devise to separate them, the integrity, as well as the tenderness of his son, would render abortive.
[Pg 298] “Be not too confident of that, young lady,” cried he, smiling maliciously. He then proceeded to inform her that Belgrave, so beloved, and ............