The Last Man
form, I must have looked like, what indeed I was, the merest ruffian
that ever trod the earth.
The name of the Earl startled me, and caused all the indignant blood
that warmed my heart to rush into my cheeks; I had never seen him
before; I figured to myself a haughty, assuming youth, who would take
me to task, if he deigned to speak to me, with all the arrogance of
superiority. My reply was ready; a reproach I deemed calculated to
sting his very heart. He came up the while; and his appearance blew
aside, with gentle western breath, my cloudy wrath: a tall, slim, fair
boy, with a physiognomy expressive of the excess of sensibility and
refinement stood before me; the morning sunbeams tinged with gold his
silken hair, and spread light and glory over his beaming countenance.
“How is this?” he cried. The men eagerly began their defence; he put
them aside, saying, “Two of you at once on a mere lad— for shame!” He
came up to me: “Verney,” he cried, “Lionel Verney, do we meet thus for
the first time? We were born to be friends to each other; and though
ill fortune has divided us, will you not acknowledge the hereditary
bond of friendship which I trust will hereafter unite us?”
As he spoke, his earnest eyes, fixed on me, seemed to read my very
soul: my heart, my savage revengeful heart, felt the influence of sweet
benignity sink upon it; while his thrilling voice, like sweetest
melody, awoke a mute echo within me, stirring to its depths the
life-blood in my frame. I desired to reply, to acknowledge his
goodness, accept his proffered friendship; but words, fitting words,
were not afforded to the rough mountaineer; I would have held out my
hand, but its guilty stain restrained me. Adrian took pity on my
faltering mien: “Come with me,” he said, “I have much to say to you;
come home with me—you know who I am?”
“Yes,” I exclaimed, “I do believe that I now know you, and that you
will pardon my mistakes—my crime.”
Adrian smiled gently; and after giving his orders to the gamekeepers,
he came up to me; putting his arm in mine, we walked together to the
mansion.
It was not his rank—after all that I have said, surely it will not be
suspected that it was Adrian’s rank, that, from the first, subdued my
heart of hearts, and laid my entire spirit prostrate before him. Nor
was it I alone who felt thus intimately his perfections. His
sensibility and courtesy fascinated every one. His vivacity,
intelligence, and active spirit of benevolence, completed the conquest.
Even at this early age, he was deep read and imbued with the spirit of
high philosophy. This spirit gave a tone of irresistible persuasion to
his intercourse with others, so that he seemed like an inspired
musician, who struck, with unerring skill, the “lyre of mind,” and
produced thence divine harmony. In person, he hardly appeared of this
world; his slight frame was overinformed by the soul that dwelt within;
he was all mind; “Man but a rush against” his breast, and it would have
conquered his strength; but the might of his smile would have tamed an
hungry lion, or caused a legion of armed men to lay their weapons at
his feet.
I spent the day with him. At first he did not recur to the past, or
indeed to any personal occurrences. He wished probably to inspire me
with confidence, and give me time to gather together my scattered
thoughts. He talked of general subjects, and gave me ideas I had never
before conceived. We sat in his library, and he spoke of the old Greek
sages, and of the power which they had acquired over the minds of men,
through the force of love and wisdom only. The room was decorated with
the busts of many of them, and he described their characters to me. As
he spoke, I felt subject to him; and all my boasted pride and strength
were subdued by the honeyed accents of this blue-eyed boy. The trim and
paled demesne of civilization, which I had before regarded from my wild
jungle as inaccessible, had its wicket opened by him; I stepped within,
and felt, as I entered, that I trod my native soil.
As evening came on, he reverted to the past. “I have a tale to relate,”
he said, “and much explanation to give concerning the past; perhaps you
can assist me to curtail it. Do you remember your father? I had never
the happiness of seeing him, but his name is one of my earliest
recollections: he stands written in my mind’s tablets as the type of
all that was gallant, amiable, and fascinating in man. His wit was not
more conspicuous than the overflowing goodness of his heart, which he
poured in such full measure on his friends, as to leave, alas! small
remnant for himself.”
Encouraged by this encomium, I proceeded, in answer to his inquiries,
to relate what I remembered of my parent; and he gave an account of
those circumstances which had brought about a neglect of my father’s
testamentary letter. When, in after times, Adrian’s father, then king
of England, felt his situation become more perilous, his line of
conduct more embarrassed, again and again he wished for his early
friend, who might stand a mound against the impetuous anger of his
queen, a mediator between him and the parliament. From the time that he
had quitted London, on the fatal night of his defeat at the
gaming-table, the king had received no tidings concerning him; and
when, after the lapse of years, he exerted himself to discover him,
every trace was lost. With fonder regret than ever, he clung to his
memory; and gave it in charge to his son, if ever he should meet this
valued friend, in his name to bestow every succour, and to assure him
that, to the last, his attachment survived separation and silence.
A short time before Adrian’s visit to Cumberland, the heir of the
nobleman to whom my father had confided his last appeal to his royal
master, put this letter, its seal unbroken, into the young Earl’s
hands. It had been found cast aside with a mass of papers of old date,
and accident alone brought it to light. Adrian read it with deep
interest; and found there that living spirit of genius and wit he had
so often heard commemorated. He discovered the name of the spot whither
my father had retreated, and where he died; he learnt the existence of
his orphan children; and during the short interval between his arrival
at Ulswater and our meeting in the park, he had been occupied in making
inquiries concerning us, and arranging a variety of plans for our
benefit, preliminary to his introducing himself to our notice.
The mode in which he spoke of my father was gratifying to my vanity;
the veil which he delicately cast over his benevolence, in alledging a
duteous fulfilment of the king’s latest will, was soothing to my pride.
Other feelings, less ambiguous, were called into play by his
conciliating manner and the generous warmth of his expressions, respect
rarely before experienced, admiration, and love—he had touched my rocky
heart with his magic power, and the stream of affection gushed forth,
imperishable and pure. In the evening we parted; he pressed my hand:
“We shall meet again; come to me to-morrow.” I clasped that kind hand;
I tried to answer; a fervent “God bless you!” was all my ignorance
could frame of speech, and I darted away, oppressed by my new emotions.
I could not rest. I sought the hills; a west wind swept them, and the
stars glittered above. I ran on, careless of outward objects, but
trying to master the struggling spirit within me by means of bodily
fatigue. “This,” I thought, “is power! Not to be strong of limb, hard
of heart, ferocious, and daring; but kind, compassionate and
soft.”—Stopping short, I clasped my hands, and with the fervour of a
new proselyte, cried, “Doubt me not, Adrian, I also will become wise
and good!” and then quite overcome, I wept aloud.
As this gust of passion passed from me, I felt more composed. I lay on
the ground, and giving the reins to my thoughts, repassed in my mind my
former life; and began, fold by fold, to unwind the many errors of my
heart, and to discover how brutish, savage, and worthless I had
hitherto been. I could not however at that time feel remorse, for
methought I was born anew; my soul threw off the burthen of past sin,
to commence a new career in innocence and love. Nothing harsh or rough
remained to jar with the soft feelings which the transactions of the
day had inspired; I was as a child lisping its devotions after its
mother, and my plastic soul was remoulded by a master hand, which I
neither desired nor was able to resist.
This was the first commencement of my friendship with Adrian, and I
must commemorate this day as the most fortunate of my life. I now began
to be human. I was admitted within that sacred boundary which divides
the intellectual and moral nature of man from that which characterizes
animals. My best feelings were called into play to give fitting
responses to the generosity, wisdom, and amenity of my new friend. He,
with a noble goodness all his own, took infinite delight in bestowing
to prodigality the treasures of his mind and fortune on the
long-neglected son of his father’s friend, the offspring of that gifted
being whose excellencies and talents he had heard commemorated from
infancy.
After his abdication the late king had retreated from the sphere of
politics, yet his domestic circle afforded him small content. The
ex-queen had none of the virtues of domestic life, and those of courage
and daring which she possessed were rendered null by the secession of
her husband: she despised him, and did not care to conceal her
sentiments. The king had, in compliance with her exactions, cast off
his old friends, but he had acquired no new ones under her guidance. In
this dearth of sympathy, he had recourse to his almost infant son; and
the early development of talent and sensibility rendered Adrian no
unfitting depository of his father’s confidence. He was never weary of
listening to the latter’s often repeated accounts of old times, in
which my father had played a distinguished part; his keen remarks were
repeated to the boy, and remembered by him; his wit, his fascinations,
his very faults were hallowed by the regret of affection; his loss was
sincerely deplored. Even the queen’s dislike of the favourite was
ineffectual to deprive him of his son’s admiration: it was bitter,
sarcastic, contemptuous—but as she bestowed her heavy censure alike on
his virtues as his errors, on his devoted friendship and his
ill-bestowed loves, on his disinterestedness and his prodigality, on
his pre-possessing grace of manner, and the facility with which he
yielded to temptation, her double shot proved too heavy, and fell short
of the mark. Nor did her angry dislike prevent Adrian from imaging my
father, as he had said, the type of all that was gallant, amiable, and
fascinating in man. It was not strange therefore, that when he heard of
the existence of the offspring of this celebrated person, he should
have formed the plan of bestowing on them all the advantages his rank
made him rich to afford. When he found me a vagabond shepherd of the
hills, a poacher, an unlettered savage, still his kindness did not
fail. In addition to the opinion he entertained that his father was to
a degree culpable of neglect towards us, and that he was bound to every
possible reparation, he was pleased to say that under all my ruggedness
there glimmered forth an elevation of spirit, which could be
distinguished from mere animal courage, and that I inherited a
similarity of countenance to my father, which gave proof that all his
virtues and talents had not died with him. Whatever those might be
which descended to me, my noble young friend resolved should not be
lost for want of culture.
Acting upon this plan in our subsequent intercourse, he led me to wish
to participate in that cultivation which graced his own intellect. My