Paul Clifford — Complete
more glowing hope, of a far purer and loftier vein of sentiment, than
all the “floods and fells” in the universe; and that, sweet evening!
is one reason why we like that the earnest and tender thoughts thou
excitest within us should be rather surrounded by the labours and tokens
of our species than by sheep and bats and melancholy and owls. But
whether, most blessed evening! thou delightest us in the country or in
the town, thou equally disposest us to make and to feel love! Thou art
the cause of more marriages and more divorces than any other time in the
twenty-four hours! Eyes that were common eyes to us before, touched by
thy enchanting and magic shadows, become inspired, and preach to us of
heaven. A softness settles on features that were harsh to us while the
sun shone; a mellow “light of love” reposes on the complexion which by
day we would have steeped “full fathom five” in a sea of Mrs. Gowland's
lotion. What, then, thou modest hypocrite! to those who already and
deeply love,--what, then, of danger and of paradise dost thou bring?
Silent, and stilling the breath which heaved in both quick and fitfully,
Lucy and Clifford sat together. The streets were utterly deserted; and
the loneliness, as they looked below, made them feel the more intensely
not only the emotions which swelled within them, but the undefined and
electric sympathy which, in uniting them, divided them from the world.
The quiet around was broken by a distant strain of rude music; and as it
came nearer, two forms of no poetical order grew visible. The one was
a poor blind man, who was drawing from his flute tones in which the
melancholy beauty of the air compensated for any deficiency (the
deficiency was but slight) in the execution. A woman much younger
than the musician, and with something of beauty in her countenance,
accompanied him, holding a tattered hat, and looking wistfully up at the
windows of the silent street. We said two forms; we did the injustice of
forgetfulness to another,--a rugged and simple friend, it is true, but
one that both minstrel and wife had many and moving reasons to love.
This was a little wiry terrier, with dark piercing eyes, that glanced
quickly and sagaciously in all quarters from beneath the shaggy covert
that surrounded them. Slowly the animal moved onward, pulling gently
against the string by which he was held, and by which he guided his
master. Once his fidelity was tempted: another dog invited him to
play; the poor terrier looked anxiously and doubtingly round, and then,
uttering a low growl of denial, pursued--
“The noiseless tenour of his way.”
The little procession stopped beneath the window where Lucy and Clifford
sat; for the quick eye of the woman had perceived them, and she laid her
hand on the blind man's arm, and whispered him. He took the hint, and
changed his air into one of love. Clifford glanced at Lucy; her cheek
was dyed in blushes. The air was over; another succeeded,--it was of the
same kind; a third,--the burden was still unaltered; and then Clifford
threw into the street a piece of money, and the dog wagged his abridged
and dwarfed tail, and darting forward, picked it up in his mouth; and
the woman (she had a kind face!) patted the officious friend, even
before she thanked the donor, and then she dropped the money with
a cheering word or two into the blind man's pocket, and the three
wanderers moved slowly on. Presently they came to a place where the
street had been mended, and the stones lay scattered about. Here the
woman no longer trusted to the dog's guidance, but anxiously hastened
to the musician, and led him with evident tenderness and minute
watchfulness over the rugged way. When they had passed the danger, the
man stopped; and before he released the hand which had guided him, he
pressed it gratefully, and then both the husband and the wife stooped
down and caressed the dog. This little scene--one of those rough copies
of the loveliness of human affections, of which so many are scattered
about the highways of the world--both the lovers had involuntarily
watched; and now as they withdrew their eyes,--those eyes settled on
each other,--Lucy's swam in tears.
“To be loved and tended by the one I love,” said Clifford, in a low
voice, “I would walk blind and barefoot over the whole earth!”
Lucy sighed very gently; and placing her pretty hands (the one clasped
over the other) upon her knee, looked down wistfully on them, but made
no answer. Clifford drew his chair nearer, and gazed on her, as she
sat; the long dark eyelashes drooping over her eyes, and contrasting the
ivory lids; her delicate profile half turned from him, and borrowing
a more touching beauty from the soft light that dwelt upon it; and her
full yet still scarcely developed bosom heaving at thoughts which she
did not analyze, but was content to feel at once vague and delicious. He
gazed, and his lips trembled; he longed to speak; he longed to say but
those words which convey what volumes have endeavoured to express and
have only weakened by detail,--“I love.” How he resisted the yearnings
of his heart, we know not,--but he did resist; and Lucy, after a
confused and embarrassed pause, took up one of the poems on the table,
and asked him some questions about a particular passage in an old ballad
which he had once pointed to her notice. The passage related to a border
chief, one of the Armstrongs of old, who, having been seized by the
English and condemned to death, vented his last feelings in a passionate
address to his own home--his rude tower--and his newly wedded bride. “Do
you believe,” said Lucy, as their conversation began to flow, “that
one so lawless and eager for bloodshed and strife as this robber is
described to be, could be so capable of soft affections?”
“I do,” said Clifford, “because he was not sensible that he was as
criminal as you esteem him. If a man cherish the idea that his actions
are not evil, he will retain at his heart all its better and gentler
sensations as much as if he had never sinned. The savage murders his
enemy, and when he returns home is not the less devoted to his friend
or the less anxious for his children. To harden and embrute the kindly
dispositions, we must not only indulge in guilt but feel that we are
guilty. Oh! many that the world load with their opprobrium are capable
of acts--nay, have committed acts--which in others the world would
reverence and adore. Would you know whether a man's heart be shut to
the power of love,--ask what he is, not to his foes, but to his friends!
Crime, too,” continued Clifford, speaking fast and vehemently, while his
eyes flashed and the dark blood rushed to his cheek,--“crime,--what is
crime? Men embody their worst prejudices, their most evil passions, in a
heterogeneous and contradictory code; and whatever breaks this code they
term a crime. When they make no distinction in the penalty--that is
to say, in the estimation--awarded both to murder and to a petty theft
imposed on the weak will by famine, we ask nothing else to convince us
that they are ignorant of the very nature of guilt, and that they make
up in ferocity for the want of wisdom.”
Lucy looked in alarm at the animated and fiery countenance of the
speaker. Clifford recovered himself after a moment's pause, and rose
from his seat, with the gay and frank laugh which made one of his
peculiar characteristics. “There is a singularity in politics, Miss
Brandon,” said he, “which I dare say you have often observed,--namely,
that those who are least important are always most noisy, and that the
chief people who lose their temper are those who have nothing to gain in
return.”
As Clifford spoke, the doors were thrown open, and some visitors to
Miss Brandon were announced. The good squire was still immersed in
the vicissitudes of his game; and the sole task of receiving and
entertaining “the company,” as the chambermaids have it, fell, as usual,
upon Lucy. Fortunately for her, Clifford was one of those rare persons
who possess eminently the talents of society. There was much in his
gay and gallant temperament, accompanied as it was with sentiment and
ardour, that resembled our beau-ideal of those chevaliers, ordinarily
peculiar to the Continent,--heroes equally in the drawing-room and
the field. Observant, courteous, witty, and versed in the various
accomplishments that combine (that most unfrequent of all unions!)
vivacity with grace, he was especially formed for that brilliant world
from which his circumstances tended to exclude him. Under different
auspices, he might have been--Pooh! we are running into a most pointless
commonplace; what might any man be under auspices different from those
by which his life has been guided? Music soon succeeded to conversation,
and Clifford's voice was of necessity put into requisition. Miss Brandon
had just risen from the harpsichord, as he sat down to perform his part;
and she stood by him with the rest of the group while he sang. Only
twice his eye stole to that spot which her breath and form made sacred
to him; once when he began, and once when he concluded his song. Perhaps
the recollection of their conversation inspired him; certainly it dwelt
upon his mind at the moment,--threw a richer flush over his brow, and
infused a more meaning and heartfelt softness into his tone.
STANZAS.
When I leave thee, oh! ask not the world what that heart
Which adores thee to others may be!
I know that I sin when from thee I depart,
But my guilt shall not light upon thee!
My life is a river which glasses a ray
That hath deigned to descend from above;
Whatever the banks that o'ershadow its way,
It mirrors the light of thy love.
Though the waves may run high when the night wind awakes,
And hurries the stream to its fall;
Though broken and wild be the billows it makes,
Thine image still trembles on all!”
While this ominous love between Clifford and Lucy was thus finding
fresh food in every interview and every opportunity, the unfortunate
Mauleverer, firmly persuaded that his complaint was a relapse of what he
termed the “Warlock dyspepsia,” was waging dire war with the remains of
the beef and pudding, which he tearfully assured his physicians “were
lurking in his constitution.” As Mauleverer, though complaisant, like
most men of unmistakable rank, to all his acquaintances, whatever might
be their grade, possessed but very few friends intimate enough to enter
his sick-chamber, and none of that few were at Bath, it will readily be
perceived that he was in blissful ignorance of the growing fortunes
of his rival; and to say the exact truth, illness, which makes a man's
thoughts turn very much upon himself, banished many of the most tender
ideas usually floating in his mind around the image of Lucy Brandon. His
pill superseded his passion; and he felt that there are draughts in
the world more powerful in their effects than those in the phials of
Alcidonis.--[See Marmontel's pretty tale of “Les Quatres Flacons.”]--He
very often thought, it is true, how pleasant it would be for Lucy to
smooth his pillow, and Lucy to prepare that mixture; but then Mauleverer
had an excellent valet, who hoped to play the part enacted by Gil
Blas towards the honest Licentiate, and to nurse a legacy while he was
nursing his master. And the earl, who was tolerably good-tempered, was
forced to confess that it would be scarcely possible for any one “to
know his ways better than Smoothson.” Thus, during his illness, the
fair form of his intended bride little troubled the peace of the noble