[Volume III]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER I.

HEAR YOU not the rushing sound of the coming tempest?
Do you not behold the clouds open, and destruction
lurid and dire pour down on the blasted earth? See you
not the thunderbolt fall, and are deafened by the shout
of heaven that follows its descent? Feel you not the
earth quake and open with agonizing groans, while the
air is pregnant with shrieks and wailings,--all
announcing the last days of man?
 
No! none of these things accompanied our fall! The
balmy air of spring, breathed from nature's ambrosial
home, invested the lovely earth, which wakened as a
young mother about to lead forth in pride her beauteous
offspring to meet their sire who had been long absent.
The buds decked the trees, the flowers adorned the
land: the dark branches, swollen with seasonable
juices, expanded into leaves, and the variegated
foliage of spring, bending and singing in the breeze,
rejoiced in the genial warmth of the unclouded
empyrean: the brooks flowed murmuring, the sea was
waveless, and the promontories that over-hung it were
reflected in the placid waters; birds awoke in the
woods, while abundant food for man and beast sprung up
from the dark ground. Where was pain and evil? Not in
the calm air or weltering ocean; not in the woods or
fertile fields, nor among the birds that made the woods
resonant with song, nor the animals that in the midst
of plenty basked in the sunshine. Our enemy, like the
Calamity of Homer, trod our hearts, and no sound was
echoed from her steps--         

   With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea,
   Diseases haunt our frail humanity,
   Through noon, through night, on casual wing they     
                                                 glide, 
   Silent,--a voice the power all-wise denied.*

[* Elton's translation of Hesiod.]
         
Once man was a favourite of the Creator, as the royal
psalmist sang, "God had made him a little lower than
the angels, and had crowned him with glory and honour.
God made him to have dominion over the works of his
hands, and put all things under his feet." Once it was
so; now is man lord of the creation? Look at him--ha! I
see plague! She has invested his form, is incarnate in
his flesh, has entwined herself with his being, and
blinds his heaven-seeking eyes. Lie down, O man, on the
flower-strown earth; give up all claim to your
inheritance, all you can ever possess of it is the
small cell which the dead require.
 
Plague is the companion of spring, of sunshine, and
plenty. We no longer struggle with her. We have
forgotten what we did when she was not. Of old navies
used to stem the giant ocean-waves betwixt Indus and
the Pole for slight articles of luxury. Men made
perilous journies to possess themselves of earth's
splendid trifles, gems and gold. Human labour was
wasted--human life set at nought. Now life is all that
we covet; that this automaton of flesh should, with
joints and springs in order, perform its functions,
that this dwelling of the soul should be capable of
containing its dweller. Our minds, late spread abroad
through countless spheres and endless combinations of
thought, now retrenched themselves behind this wall of
flesh, eager to preserve its well-being only. We were
surely sufficiently degraded. 
  
At first the increase of sickness in spring brought
increase of toil to such of us, who, as yet spared to
life, bestowed our time and thoughts on our fellow
creatures. We nerved ourselves to the task: "in the
midst of despair we performed the tasks of hope." We
went out with the resolution of disputing with our foe.
We aided the sick, and comforted the sorrowing; turning
from the multitudinous dead to the rare survivors, with
an energy of desire that bore the resemblance of power,
we bade them--live. Plague sat paramount the while, and
laughed us to scorn.
 
Have any of you, my readers, observed the ruins of an
anthill immediately after its destruction? At first it
appears entirely deserted of its former inhabitants; in
a little time you see an ant struggling through the
upturned mould; they reappear by twos and threes,
running hither and thither in search of their lost
companions. Such were we upon earth, wondering aghast
at the effects of pestilence. Our empty habitations
remained, but the dwellers were gathered to the shades
of the tomb.
 
As the rules of order and pressure of laws were lost,
some began with hesitation and wonder to transgress the
accustomed uses of society. Palaces were deserted, and
the poor man dared at length, unreproved, intrude into
the splendid apartments, whose very furniture and
decorations were an unknown world to him. It was found,
that, though at first the stop put to to all
circulation of property, had reduced those before
supported by the factitious wants of society to sudden
and hideous poverty, yet when the boundaries of private
possession were thrown down, the products of human
labour at present existing were more, far more, than
the thinned generation could possibly consume. To some
among the poor this was matter of exultation. We were
all equal now; magnificent dwellings, luxurious
carpets, and beds of down, were afforded to all.
Carriages and horses, gardens, pictures, statues, and
princely libraries, there were enough of these even to
superfluity; and there was nothing to prevent each from
assuming possession of his share. We were all equal
now; but near at hand was an equality still more
levelling, a state where beauty and strength, and
wisdom, would be as vain as riches and birth. The grave
yawned beneath us all, and its prospect prevented any
of us from enjoying the ease and plenty which in so
awful a manner was presented to us.
 
Still the bloom did not fade on the cheeks of my babes;
and Clara sprung up in years and growth, unsullied by
disease. We had no reason to think the site of Windsor
Castle peculiarly healthy, for many other families had
expired beneath its roof; we lived therefore without
any particular precaution; but we lived, it seemed, in
safety. If Idris became thin and pale, it was anxiety
that occasioned the change; an anxiety I could in no
way alleviate. She never complained, but sleep and
appetite fled from her, a slow fever preyed on her
veins, her colour was hectic, and she often wept in
secret; gloomy prognostications, care, and agonizing
dread, ate up the principle of life within her. I could
not fail to perceive this change. I often wished that I
had permitted her to take her own course, and engage
herself in such labours for the welfare of others as
might have distracted her thoughts. But it was too late
now. Besides that, with the nearly extinct race of man,
all our toils grew near a conclusion, she was too weak;
consumption, if so it might be called, or rather the
over active life within her, which, as with Adrian,
spent the vital oil in the early morning hours,
deprived her limbs of strength. At night, when she
could leave me unperceived, she wandered through the
house, or hung over the couches of her children; and in
the day time would sink into a perturbed sleep, while
her murmurs and starts betrayed the unquiet dreams that
vexed her. As this state of wretchedness became more
confirmed, and, in spite of her endeavours at
concealment more apparent, I strove, though vainly, to
awaken in her courage and hope. I could not wonder at
the vehemence of her care; her very soul was
tenderness; she trusted indeed that she should not
outlive me if I became the prey of the vast calamity,
and this thought sometimes relieved her. We had for
many years trod the highway of life hand in hand, and
still thus linked, we might step within the shades of
death; but her children, her lovely, playful, animated
children--beings sprung from her own dear
side--portions of her own being--depositories of our
loves--even if we died, it would be comfort to know
that they ran man's accustomed course. But it would not
be so; young and blooming as they were, they would die,
and from the hopes of maturity, from the proud name of
attained manhood, they were cut off for ever. Often
with maternal affection she had figured their merits
and talents exerted on life's wide stage. Alas for
these latter days! The world had grown old, and all its
inmates partook of the decrepitude. Why talk of
infancy, manhood, and old age? We all stood equal
sharers of the last throes of time-worn nature. Arrived
at the same point of the world's age--there was no
difference in us; the name of parent and child had lost
their meaning; young boys and girls were level now with
men. This was all true; but it was not less agonizing
to take the admonition home.  
     
Where could we turn, and not find a desolation pregnant
with the dire lesson of example? The fields had been
left uncultivated, weeds and gaudy flowers sprung
up,--or where a few wheat-fields shewed signs of the
living hopes of the husbandman, the work had been left
halfway, the ploughman had died beside the plough; the
horses had deserted the furrow, and no seedsman had
approached the dead; the cattle unattended wandered
over the fields and through the lanes; the tame
inhabitants of the poultry yard, baulked of their daily
food, had become wild--young lambs were dropt in
flower-gardens, and the cow stalled in the hall of
pleasure. Sickly and few, the country people neither
went out to sow nor reap; but sauntered about the
meadows, or lay under the hedges, when the inclement
sky did not drive them to take shelter under the
nearest roof. Many of those who remained, secluded
themselves; some had laid up stores which should
prevent the necessity of leaving their homes;--some
deserted wife and child, and imagined that they secured
their safety in utter solitude. Such had been Ryland's
plan, and he was discovered dead and half-devoured by
insects, in a house many miles from any other, with
piles of food laid up in useless superfluity. Others
made long journies to unite themselves to those they
loved, and arrived to find them dead.
 
London did not contain above a thousand inhabitants;
and this number was continually diminishing. Most of
them were country people, come up for the sake of
change; the Londoners had sought the country. The busy
eastern part of the town was silent, or at most you saw
only where, half from cupidity, half from curiosity,
the warehouses had been more ransacked than pillaged:
bales of rich India goods, shawls of price, jewels, and
spices, unpacked, strewed the floors. In some places
the possessor had to the last kept watch on his store,
and died before the barred gates. The massy portals of
the churches swung creaking on their hinges; and some
few lay dead on the pavement. The wretched female,
loveless victim of vulgar brutality, had wandered to
the toilet of high-born beauty, and, arraying herself
in the garb of splendour, had died before the mirror
which reflected to herself alone her altered
appearance. Women whose delicate feet had seldom
touched the earth in their luxury, had fled in fright
and horror from their homes, till, losing themselves in
the squalid streets of the metropolis, they had died on
the threshold of poverty. The heart sickened at the
variety of misery presented; and, when I saw a specimen
of this gloomy change, my soul ached with the fear of
what might befall my beloved Idris and my babes. Were
they, surviving Adrian and myself, to find themselves
protectorless in the world? As yet the mind alone had
suffered--could I for ever put off the time, when the
delicate frame and shrinking nerves of my child of
prosperity, the nursling of rank and wealth, who was my
companion, should be invaded by famine, hardship, and
disease? Better die at once--better plunge a poinard in
her bosom, still untouched by drear adversity, and then
again sheathe it in my own! But, no; in times of misery
we must fight against our destinies, and strive not to
be overcome by them. I would not yield, but to the last
gasp resolutely defended my dear ones against sorrow
and pain; and if I were vanquished at last, it should
not be ingloriously. I stood in the gap, resisting the
enemy--the impalpable, invisible foe, who had so long
besieged us--as yet he had made no breach: it must be
my care that he should not, secretly undermining, burst
up within the very threshold of the temple of love, at
whose altar I daily sacrificed.  
     
The hunger of Death was now stung more sharply by the
diminution of his food: or was it that before, the
survivors being many, the dead were less eagerly
counted? Now each life was a gem, each human breathing
form of far, O! far more worth than subtlest imagery of
sculptured stone; and the daily, nay, hourly decrease
visible in our numbers, visited the heart with
sickening misery. This summer extinguished our hopes,
the vessel of society was wrecked, and the shattered
raft, which carried the few survivors over the sea of
misery, was riven and tempest tost. Man existed by twos
and threes; man, the individual who might sleep, and
wake, and perform the animal functions; but man, in
himself weak, yet more powerful in congregated numbers
than wind or ocean; man, the queller of the elements,
the lord of created nature, the peer of demi-gods,
existed no longer.

Farewell to the patriotic scene, to the love of liberty
and well earned meed of virtuous aspiration!--farewell
to crowded senate, vocal with the councils of the wise,
whose laws were keener than the sword blade tempered at
Damascus!--farewell to kingly pomp and warlike
pageantry; the crowns are in the dust, and the wearers
are in their graves!--farewell to the desire of rule,
and the hope of victory; to high vaulting ambition, to
the appetite for praise, and the craving for the
suffrage of their fellows! The nations are no longer!
No senate sits in council for the dead; no scion of a
time honoured dynasty pants to rule over the
inhabitants of a charnel house; the general's hand is
cold, and the soldier has his untimely grave dug in his
native fields, unhonoured, though in youth. The
market-place is empty, the candidate for popular favour
finds none whom he can represent. To chambers of
painted state farewell!--To midnight revelry, and the
panting emulation of beauty, to costly dress and
birth-day shew, to title and the gilded coronet,
farewell!  

Farewell to the giant powers of man,--to knowledge that
could pilot the deep-drawing bark through the opposing
waters of shoreless ocean,--to science that directed
the silken balloon through the pathless air,--to the
power that could put a barrier to mighty waters, and
set in motion wheels, and beams, and vast machinery,
that could divide rocks of granite or marble, and make
the mountains plain! 

Farewell to the arts,--to eloquence, which is to the
human mind as the winds to the sea, stirring, and then
allaying it;--farewell to poetry and deep philosophy,
for man's imagination is cold, and his enquiring mind
can no longer expatiate on the wonders of life, for
"there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor
wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest!"--to the
graceful building, which in its perfect proportion
transcended the rude forms of nature, the fretted
gothic and massy saracenic pile, to the stupendous arch
and glorious dome, the fluted column with its capital,
Corinthian, Ionic, or Doric, the peristyle and fair
entablature, whose harmony of form is to the eye as
musical concord to the ear!--farewell to sculpture,
where the pure marble mocks human flesh, and in the
plastic expression of the culled excellencies of the
human shape, shines forth the god!--farewell to
painting, the high wrought sentiment and deep knowledge
of the artists's mind in pictured canvas--to
paradisaical scenes, where trees are ever vernal, and
the ambrosial air rests in perpetual glow:--to the
stamped form of tempest, and wildest uproar of
universal nature encaged in the narrow frame, O
farewell! Farewell to music, and the sound of song; to
the marriage of instruments, where the concord of soft
and harsh unites in sweet harmony, and gives wings to
the panting listeners, whereby to climb heaven, and
learn the hidden pleasures of the eternals!--Farewell
to the well-trod stage; a truer tragedy is enacted on
the world's ample scene, that puts to shame mimic
grief: to high-bred comedy, and the low buffoon,
farewell!--Man may laugh no more.
 
Alas! to enumerate the adornments of humanity, shews,
by what we have lost, how supremely great man was. It
is all over now. He is solitary; like our first parents
expelled from Paradise, he looks back towards the scene
he has quitted. The high walls of the tomb, and the
flaming sword of plague, lie between it and him. Like
to our first parents, the whole earth is before him, a
wide desart. Unsupported and weak, let him wander
through fields where the unreaped corn stands in barren
plenty, through copses planted by his fathers, through
towns built for his use. Posterity is no more; fame,
and ambition, and love, are words void of meaning; even
as the cattle that grazes in the field, do thou, O
deserted one, lie down at evening-tide, unknowing of
the past, careless of the future, for from such fond
ignorance alone canst thou hope for ease!  
     
Joy paints with its own colours every act and thought.
The happy do not feel poverty--for delight is as a
gold-tissued robe, and crowns them with priceless gems.
Enjoyment plays the cook to their homely fare, and
mingles intoxication with their simple drink. Joy
strews the hard couch with roses, and makes labour
ease.
 
Sorrow doubles the burthen to the bent-down back;
plants thorns in the unyielding pillow; mingles gall
with water; adds saltness to their bitter bread;
cloathing them in rags, and strewing ashes on their
bare heads. To our irremediable distress every small
and pelting inconvenience came with added force; we had
strung our frames to endure the Atlean weight thrown on
us; we sank beneath the added feather chance threw on
us, "the grasshopper was a burthen." Many of the
survivors had been bred in luxury--their servants were
gone, their powers of command vanished like unreal
shadows: the poor even suffered various privations; and
the idea of another winter like the last, brought
affright to our minds. Was it not enough that we must
die, but toil must be added?--must we prepare our
funeral repast with labour, and with unseemly drudgery
heap fuel on our deserted hearths--must we with servile
hands fabricate the garments, soon to be our shroud?

Not so! We are presently to die, let us then enjoy to
its full relish the remnant of our lives. Sordid care,
avaunt! menial labours, and pains, slight in
themselves, but too gigantic for our exhausted
strength, shall make no part of our ephemeral
existences. In the beginning of time, when, as now, man
lived by families, and not by tribes or nations, they
were placed in a genial clime, where earth fed them
untilled, and the balmy air enwrapt their reposing
limbs with warmth more pleasant than beds of down. The
south is the native place of the human race; the land
of fruits, more grateful to man than the hard-earned
Ceres of the north,--of trees, whose boughs are as a
palace-roof, of couches of roses, and of the
thirst-appeasing grape. We need not there fear cold and
hunger.
 
Look at England! the grass shoots up high in the
meadows; but they are dank and cold, unfit bed for us.
Corn we have none, and the crude fruits cannot support
us. We must seek firing in the bowels of the earth, or
the unkind atmosphere will fill us with rheums and
aches. The labour of hundreds of thousands alone could
make this inclement nook fit habitation for one man. To
the south then, to the sun!--where nature is kind,
where Jove has showered forth the contents of
Amalthea's horn, and earth is garden.
 
England, late birth-place of excellence and school of
the wise, thy children are gone, thy glory faded! Thou,
England, wert the triumph of man! Small favour was
shewn thee by thy Creator, thou Isle of the North; a
ragged canvas naturally, painted by man with alien
colours; but the hues he gave are faded, never more to
be renewed. So we must leave thee, thou marvel of the
world; we must bid farewell to thy clouds, and cold,
and scarcity for ever! Thy manly hearts are still; thy
tale of power and liberty at its close! Bereft of man,
O little isle! the ocean waves will buffet thee, and
the raven flap his wings over thee; thy soil will be
birth-place of weeds, thy sky will canopy barrenness.
It was not for the rose of Persia thou wert famous, nor
the banana of the east; not for the spicy gales of
India, nor the sugar groves of America; not for thy
vines nor thy double harvests, nor for thy vernal airs,
nor solstitial sun--but for thy children, their
unwearied industry and lofty aspiration. They are
gone, and thou goest with them the oft trodden path
that leads to oblivion,--

     Farewell, sad Isle, farewell, thy fatal glory
     Is summed, cast up, and cancelled in this story.*


[* Cleveland's Poems.] 


[Vol. III]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER II.

IN the autumn of this year 2096, the spirit of
emigration crept in among the few survivors, who,
congregating from various parts of England, met in
London. This spirit existed as a breath, a wish, a far
off thought, until communicated to Adrian, who imbibed
it with ardour, and instantly engaged himself in plans
for its execution. The fear of immediate death vanished
with the heats of September. Another winter was before
us, and we might elect our mode of passing it to the
best advantage. Perhaps in rational philosophy none
could be better chosen than this scheme of migration,
which would draw us from the immediate scene of our
woe, and, leading us through pleasant and picturesque
countries, amuse for a time our despair. The idea once
broached, all were impatient to put it in execution.
 
We were still at Windsor; our renewed hopes medicined
the anguish we had suffered from the late tragedies.
The death of many of our inmates had weaned us from the
fond idea, that Windsor Castle was a spot sacred from
the plague; but our lease of life was renewed for some
months, and even Idris lifted her head, as a lily after
a storm, when a last sunbeam tinges its silver cup.
Just at this time Adrian came down to us; his eager
looks shewed us that he was full of some scheme. He
hastened to take me aside, and disclosed to me with
rapidity his plan of emigration from England.  

To leave England for ever! to turn from its polluted
fields and groves, and, placing the sea between us, to
quit it, as a sailor quits the rock on which he has
been wrecked, when the saving ship rides by. Such was
his plan.  

To leave the country of our fathers, made holy by their
graves!--We could not feel even as a voluntary exile of
old, who might for pleasure or convenience forsake his
native soil; though thousands of miles might divide
him, England was still a part of him, as he of her. He
heard of the passing events of the day; he knew that,
if he returned, and resumed his place in society, the
entrance was still open, and it required but the will,
to surround himself at once with the associations and
habits of boyhood. Not so with us, the remnant. We left
none to represent us, none to repeople the desart land,
and the name of England died, when we left her, 
   
        In vagabond pursuit of dreadful safety.

Yet let us go! England is in her shroud,--we may not
enchain ourselves to a corpse. Let us go--the world is
our country now, and we will choose for our residence
its most fertile spot. Shall we, in these desart halls,
under this wintry sky, sit with closed eyes and folded
hands, expecting death? Let us rather go out to meet it
gallantly: or perhaps--for all this pendulous orb, this
fair gem in the sky's diadem, is not surely
plague-striken--perhaps, in some secluded nook, amidst
eternal spring, and waving trees, and purling streams,
we may find Life. The world is vast, and England,
though her many fields and wide spread woods seem
interminable, is but a small part of her. At the close
of a day's march over high mountains and through snowy
vallies, we may come upon health, and committing our
loved ones to its charge, replant the uprooted tree of
humanity, and send to late posterity the tale of the
ante-pestilential race, the heroes and sages of the
lost state of things.
 
Hope beckons and sorrow urges us, the heart beats high
with expectation, and this eager desire of change must
be an omen of success. O come! Farewell to the dead!
farewell to the tombs of those we loved!--farewell to
giant London and the placid Thames, to river and
mountain or fair district, birth-place of the wise and
good, to Windsor Forest and its antique castle,
farewell! themes for story alone are they,--we must
live elsewhere.        

Such were in part the arguments of Adrian, uttered with
enthusiasm and unanswerable rapidity. Something more
was in his heart, to which he dared not give words. He
felt that the end of time was come; he knew that one by
one we should dwindle into nothingness. It was not
adviseable to wait this sad consummation in our native
country; but travelling would give us our object for
each day, that would distract our thoughts from the
swift-approaching end of things. If we went to Italy,
to sacred and eternal Rome, we might with greater
patience submit to the decree, which had laid her
mighty towers low. We might lose our selfish grief in
the sublime aspect of its desolation. All this was in
the mind of Adrian; but he thought of my children, and,
instead of communicating to me these resources of
despair, he called up the image of health and life to
be found, where we knew not-- when we knew not; but if
never to be found, for ever and for ever to be sought.
He won me over to his party, heart and soul.  


It devolved on me to disclose our plan to Idris. The
images of health and hope which I presented to her,
made her with a smile consent. With a smile she agreed
to leave her country, from which she had never before
been absent, and the spot she had inhabited from
infancy; the forest and its mighty trees, the woodland
paths and green recesses, where she had played in
childhood, and had lived so happily through youth; she
would leave them without regret, for she hoped to
purchase thus the lives of her children. They were her
life; dearer than a spot consecrated to love, dearer
than all else the earth contained. The boys heard with
childish glee of our removal: Clara asked if we were to
go to Athens. "It is possible," I replied; and her
countenance became radiant with pleasure. There she
would behold the tomb of her parents, and the territory
filled with recollections of her father's glory. In
silence, but without respite, she had brooded over
these scenes. It was the recollection of them that had
turned her infant gaiety to seriousness, and had
impressed her with high and restless thoughts.  

There were many dear friends whom we must not leave
behind, humble though they were. There was the spirited
and obedient steed which Lord Raymond had given his
daughter; there was Alfred's dog and a pet eagle, whose
sight was dimmed through age. But this catalogue of
favourites to be taken with us, could not be made
without grief to think of our heavy losses, and a deep
sigh for the many things we must leave behind. The
tears rushed into the eyes of Idris, while Alfred and
Evelyn brought now a favourite rose tree, now a marble
vase beautifully carved, insisting that these must go,
and exclaiming on the pity that we could not take the
castle and the forest, the deer and the birds, and all
accustomed and cherished objects along with us. "Fond
and foolish ones," I said, "we have lost for ever
treasures far more precious than these; and we desert
them, to preserve treasures to which in comparison they
are nothing. Let us not for a moment forget our object
and our hope; and they will form a resistless mound to
stop the overflowing of our regret for trifles."
 
The children were easily distracted, and again returned
to their prospect of future amusement. Idris had
disappeared. She had gone to hide her weakness;
escaping from the castle, she had descended to the
little park, and sought solitude, that she might there
indulge her tears; I found her clinging round an old
oak, pressing its rough trunk with her roseate lips, as
her tears fell plenteously, and her sobs and broken
exclamations could not be suppressed; with surpassing
grief I beheld this loved one of my heart thus lost in
sorrow! I drew her towards me; and, as she felt my
kisses on her eyelids, as she felt my arms press her,
she revived to the knowledge of what remained to her.
"You are very kind not to reproach me," she said: "I
weep, and a bitter pang of intolerable sorrow tears my
heart. And yet I am happy; mothers lament their
children, wives lose their husbands, while you and my
children are left to me. Yes, I am happy, most happy,
that I can weep thus for imaginary sorrows, and that
the slight loss of my adored country is not dwindled
and annihilated in mightier misery. Take me where you
will; where you and my children are, there shall be
Windsor, and every country will be England to me. Let
these tears flow not for myself, happy and ungrateful
as I am, but for the dead world--for our lost
country--for all of love, and life, and joy, now choked
in the dusty chambers of death."        

She spoke quickly, as if to convince herself; she
turned her eyes from the trees and forest-paths she
loved; she hid her face in my bosom, and we--yes, my
masculine firmness dissolved--we wept together
consolatory tears, and then calm--nay, almost cheerful,
we returned to the castle.        

The first cold weather of an English October, made us
hasten our preparations. I persuaded Idris to go up to
London, where she might better attend to necessary
arrangements. I did not tell her, that to spare her the
pang of parting from inanimate objects, now the only
things left, I had resolved that we should none of us
return to Windsor. For the last time we looked on the
wide extent of country visible from the terrace, and
saw the last rays of the sun tinge the dark masses of
wood variegated by autumnal tints; the uncultivated
fields and smokeless cottages lay in shadow below; the
Thames wound through the wide plain, and the venerable
pile of Eton college, stood in dark relief, a prominent
object; the cawing of the myriad rooks which inhabited
the trees of the little park, as in column or thick
wedge they speeded to their nests, disturbed the
silence of evening. Nature was the same, as when she
was the kind mother of the human race; now, childless
and forlorn, her fertility was a mockery; her
loveliness a mask for deformity. Why should the breeze
gently stir the trees, man felt not its refreshment?
Why did dark night adorn herself with stars--man saw
them not? Why are there fruits, or flowers, or streams,
man is not here to enjoy them?
 
Idris stood beside me, her dear hand locked in mine.
Her face was radiant with a smile.--"The sun is alone,"
she said, "but we are not. A strange star, my Lionel,
ruled our birth; sadly and with dismay we may look upon
the annihilation of man; but we remain for each other.
Did I ever in the wide world seek other than thee? And
since in the wide world thou remainest, why should I
complain? Thou and nature are still true to me. Beneath
the shades of night, and through the day, whose garish
light displays our solitude, thou wilt still be at my
side, and even Windsor will not be regretted."
 
I had chosen night time for our journey to London, that
the change and desolation of the country might be the
less observable. Our only surviving servant drove us.
We past down the steep hill, and entered the dusky
avenue of the Long Walk. At times like these, minute
circumstances assume giant and majestic proportions;
the very swinging open of the white gate that admitted
us into the forest, arrested my thoughts as matter of
interest; it was an every day act, never to occur
again! The setting crescent of the moon glittered
through the massy trees to our right, and when we
entered the park, we scared a troop of deer, that fled
bounding away in the forest shades. Our two boys
quietly slept; once, before our road turned from the
view, I looked back on the castle. Its windows
glistened in the moonshine, and its heavy outline lay
in a dark mass against the sky--the trees near us waved
a solemn dirge to the midnight breeze. Idris leaned
back in the carriage; her two hands pressed mine, her
countenance was placid, she seemed to lose the sense of
what she now left, in the memory of what she still
possessed.  
     
My thoughts were sad and solemn, yet not of unmingled
pain. The very excess of our misery carried a relief
with it, giving sublimity and elevation to sorrow. I
felt that I carried with me those I best loved; I was
pleased, after a long separation to rejoin Adrian;
never again to part. I felt that I quitted what I
loved, not what loved me. The castle walls, and long
familiar trees, did not hear the parting sound of our
carriage-wheels with regret. And, while I felt Idris to
be near, and heard the regular breathing of my
children, I could not be unhappy. Clara was greatly
moved; with streaming eyes, suppressing her sobs, she
leaned from the window, watching the last glimpse of
her native Windsor.
 
Adrian welcomed us on our arrival. He was all
animation; you could no longer trace in his look of
health, the suffering valetudinarian; from his smile
and sprightly tones you could not guess that he was
about to lead forth from their native country, the
numbered remnant of the English nation, into the
tenantless realms of the south, there to die, one by
one, till the LAST MAN should remain in a voiceless,
empty world.
 
Adrian was impatient for our departure, and had
advanced far in his preparations. His wisdom guided
all. His care was the soul, to move the luckless crowd,
who relied wholly on him. It was useless to provide
many things, for we should find abundant provision in
every town. It was Adrian's wish to prevent all labour;
to bestow a festive appearance on this funeral train.
Our numbers amounted to not quite two thousand persons.
These were not all assembled in London, but each day
witnessed the arrival of fresh numbers, and those who
resided in the neighbouring towns, had received orders
to assemble at one place, on the twentieth of November.
Carriages and horses were provided for all; captains
and under officers chosen, and the whole assemblage
wisely organized. All obeyed the Lord Protector of
dying England; all looked up to him. His council was
chosen, it consisted of about fifty persons.
Distinction and station were not the qualifications of
their election. We had no station among us, but that
which benevolence and prudence gave; no distinction
save between the living and the dead. Although we were
anxious to leave England before the depth of winter,
yet we were detained. Small parties had been dispatched
to various parts of England, in search of stragglers;
we would not go, until we had assured ourselves that in
all human probability we did not leave behind a single
human being.  
     
On our arrival in London, we found that the aged
Countess of Windsor was residing with her son in the
palace of the Protectorate; we repaired to our
accustomed abode near Hyde Park. Idris now for the
first time for many years saw her mother, anxious to
assure herself that the childishness of old age did not
mingle with unforgotten pride, to make this high-born
dame still so inveterate against me. Age and care had
furrowed her cheeks, and bent her form; but her eye was
still bright, her manners authoritative and unchanged;
she received her daughter coldly, but displayed more
feeling as she folded her grand-children in her arms.
It is our nature to wish to continue our systems and
thoughts to posterity through our own offspring. The
Countess had failed in this design with regard to her
children; perhaps she hoped to find the next remove in
birth more tractable. Once Idris named me casually--a
frown, a convulsive gesture of anger, shook her mother,
and, with voice trembling with hate, she said--"I am of
little worth in this world; the young are impatient to
push the old off the scene; but, Idris, if you do not
wish to see your mother expire at your feet, never
again name that person to me; all else I can bear; and
now I am resigned to the destruction of my cherished
hopes: but it is too much to require that I should love
the instrument that providence gifted with murderous
properties for my destruction." 
      
This was a strange speech, now that, on the empty
stage, each might play his part without impediment from
the other. But the haughty Ex-Queen thought as Octavius
Caesar and Mark Antony,
        
                 We could not stall together
         In the whole world.
        
The period of our departure was fixed for the
twenty-fifth of November. The weather was temperate;
soft rains fell at night, and by day the wintry sun
shone out. Our numbers were to move forward in separate
parties, and to go by different routes, all to unite at
last at Paris. Adrian and his division, consisting in
all of five hundred persons, were to take the direction
of Dover and Calais.
 
On the twentieth of November, Adrian and I rode for the
last time through the streets of London. They were
grass-grown and desert. The open doors of the empty
mansions creaked upon their hinges; rank herbage, and
deforming dirt, had swiftly accumulated on the steps of
the houses; the voiceless steeples of the churches
pierced the smokeless air; the churches were open, but
no prayer was offered at the altars; mildew and damp
had already defaced their ornaments; birds, and tame
animals, now homeless, had built nests, and made their
lairs in consecrated spots. We passed St. Paul's.
London, which had extended so far in suburbs in all
direction, had been somewhat deserted in the midst, and
much of what had in former days obscured this vast
building was removed. Its ponderous mass, blackened
stone, and high dome, made it look, not like a temple,
but a tomb. Methought above the portico was engraved
the Hic jacet of England. We passed on eastwards,
engaged in such solemn talk as the times inspired. No
human step was heard, nor human form discerned. Troops
of dogs, deserted of their masters, passed us; and now
and then a horse, unbridled and unsaddled, trotted
towards us, and tried to attract the attention of those
which we rode, as if to allure them to seek like
liberty. An unwieldy ox, who had fed in an abandoned
granary, suddenly lowed, and shewed his shapeless form
in a narrow door-way; every thing was desert; but
nothing was in ruin. And this medley of undamaged
buildings, and luxurious accommodation, in trim and
fresh youth, was contrasted with the lonely silence of
the unpeopled streets.
 
Night closed in, and it began to rain. We were about to
return homewards, when a voice, a human voice, strange
now to hear, attracted our attention. It was a child
singing a merry, lightsome air; there was no other
sound. We had traversed London from Hyde Park even to
where we now were in the Minories, and had met no
person, heard no voice nor footstep. The singing was
interrupted by laughing and talking; never was merry
ditty so sadly timed, never laughter more akin to
tears. The door of the house from which these sounds
proceeded was open, the upper rooms were illuminated as
for a feast. It was a large magnificent house, in which
doubtless some rich merchant had lived. The singing
again commenced, and rang through the high-roofed
rooms, while we silently ascended the stair-case.
Lights now appeared to guide us; and a long suite of
splendid rooms illuminated, made us still more wonder.
Their only inhabitant, a little girl, was dancing,
waltzing, and singing about them, followed by a large
Newfoundland dog, who boisterously jumping on her, and
interrupting her, made her now scold, now laugh, now
throw herself on the carpet to play with him. She was
dressed grotesquely, in glittering robes and shawls fit
for a woman; she appeared about ten years of age. We
stood at the door looking on this strange scene, till
the dog perceiving us barked loudly; the child turned
and saw us: her face, losing its gaiety, assumed a
sullen expression: she slunk back, apparently
meditating an escape. I came up to her, and held her
hand; she did not resist, but with a stern brow, so
strange in childhood, so different from her former
hilarity, she stood still, her eyes fixed on the
ground. "What do you do here?" I said gently; "Who are
you?"--she was silent, but trembled violently.--"My
poor child," asked Adrian, "are you alone?" There was a
winning softness in his voice, that went to the heart
of the little girl; she looked at him, then snatching
her hand from me, threw herself into his arms, clinging
round his neck, ejaculating--"Save me! save me!" while
her unnatural sullenness dissolved in tears.
 
"I will save you," he replied, "of what are you afraid?
you need not fear my friend, he will do you no harm.
Are you alone ?"
 
"No, Lion is with me."
 
"And your father and mother?--"
 
"I never had any; I am a charity girl. Every body is
gone, gone for a great, great many days; but if they
come back and find me out, they will beat me so!"
 
Her unhappy story was told in these few words: an
orphan, taken on pretended charity, ill-treated and
reviled, her oppressors had died: unknowing of what had
passed around her, she found herself alone; she had not
dared venture out, but by the continuance of her
solitude her courage revived, her childish vivacity
caused her to play a thousand freaks, and with her
brute companion she passed a long holiday, fearing
nothing but the return of the harsh voices and cruel
usage of her protectors. She readily consented to go
with Adrian.
 
In the mean time, while we descanted on alien sorrows,
and on a solitude which struck our eyes and not our
hearts, while we imagined all of change and suffering
that had intervened in these once thronged streets,
before, tenantless and abandoned, they became mere
kennels for dogs, and stables for cattle:--while we
read the death of the world upon the dark fane, and
hugged ourselves in the remembrance that we possessed
that which was all the world to us--in the meanwhile--- 
     
We had arrived from Windsor early in October, and had
now been in London about six weeks. Day by day, during
that time, the health of my Idris declined: her heart
was broken; neither sleep nor appetite, the chosen
servants of health, waited on her wasted form. To watch
her children hour by hour, to sit by me, drinking deep
the dear persuasion that I remained to her, was all her
pastime. Her vivacity, so long assumed, her
affectionate display of cheerfulness, her light-hearted
tone and springy gait were gone. I could not disguise
to myself, nor could she conceal, her life-consuming
sorrow. Still change of scene, and reviving hopes might
restore her; I feared the plague only, and she was
untouched by that.
 
I had left her this evening, reposing after the
fatigues of her preparations. Clara sat beside her,
relating a story to the two boys. The eyes of Idris
were closed: but Clara perceived a sudden change in the
appearance of our eldest darling; his heavy lids veiled
his eyes, an unnatural colour burnt in his cheeks, his
breath became short. Clara looked at the mother; she
slept, yet started at the pause the narrator made--Fear
of awakening and alarming her, caused Clara to go on at
the eager call of Evelyn, who was unaware of what was
passing. Her eyes turned alternately from Alfred to
Idris; with trembling accents she continued her tale,
till she saw the child about to fall: starting forward
she caught him, and her cry roused Idris. She looked on
her son. She saw death stealing across his features;
she laid him on a bed, she held drink to his parched
lips.  
     
Yet he might be saved. If I were there, he might be
saved; perhaps it was not the plague. Without a
counsellor, what could she do? stay and behold him die!
Why at that moment was I away? "Look to him, Clara,"
she exclaimed, "I will return immediately."  

She inquired among those who, selected as the
companions of our journey, had taken up their residence
in our house; she heard from them merely that I had
gone out with Adrian. She entreated them to seek me:
she returned to her child, he was plunged in a
frightful state of torpor; again she rushed down
stairs; all was dark, desert, and silent; she lost all
self-possession; she ran into the street; she called on
my name. The pattering rain and howling wind alone
replied to her. Wild fear gave wings to her feet; she
darted forward to seek me, she knew not where; but,
putting all her thoughts, all her energy, all her being
in speed only, most misdirected speed, she neither
felt, nor feared, nor paused, but ran right on, till
her strength suddenly deserted her so suddenly, that
she had not thought to save herself. Her knees failed
her, and she fell heavily on the pavement.
  
She was stunned for a time; but at length rose, and
though sorely hurt, still walked on, shedding a
fountain of tears, stumbling at times, going she knew
not whither, only now and then with feeble voice she
called my name, adding with heart-piercing
exclamations, that I was cruel and unkind. Human being
there was none to reply; and the inclemency of the
night had driven the wandering animals to the
habitations they had usurped. Her thin dress was
drenched with rain; her wet hair clung round her neck;
she tottered through the dark streets; till, striking
her foot against an unseen impediment, she again fell;
she could not rise; she hardly strove; but, gathering
up her limbs, she resigned herself to the fury of the
elements, and the bitter grief of her own heart. She
breathed an earnest prayer to die speedily, for there
was no relief but death. While hopeless of safety for
herself, she ceased to lament for her dying child, but
shed kindly, bitter tears for the grief I should
experience in losing her.
  
While she lay, life almost suspended, she felt a warm,
soft hand on her brow, and a gentle female voice asked
her, with expressions of tender compassion, if she
could not rise? That another human being, sympathetic
and kind, should exist near, roused her; half rising,
with clasped hands, and fresh springing tears, she
entreated her companion to seek for me, to bid me
hasten to my dying child, to save him, for the love of
heaven, to save him!   
     
The woman raised her; she led her under shelter, she
entreated her to return to her home, whither perhaps I
had already returned. Idris easily yielded to her
persuasions, she leaned on the arm of her friend, she
endeavoured to walk on, but irresistible faintness made
her pause again and again. 
       
Quickened by the encreasing storm, we had hastened our
return, our little charge was placed before Adrian on
his horse. There was an assemblage of persons under the
portico of our house, in whose gestures I instinctively
read some heavy change, some new misfortune. With swift
alarm, afraid to ask a single question, I leapt from my
horse; the spectators saw me, knew me, and in awful
silence divided to make way for me. I snatched a light,
and rushing up stairs, and hearing a groan, without
reflection I threw open the door of the first room that
presented itself. It was quite dark; but, as I stept
within, a pernicious scent assailed my senses,
producing sickening qualms, which made their way to my
very heart, while I felt my leg clasped, and a groan
repeated by the person that held me. I lowered my lamp,
and saw a negro half clad, writhing under the agony of
disease, while he held me with a convulsive grasp. With
mixed horror and impatience I strove to disengage
myself, and fell on the sufferer; he wound his naked
festering arms round me, his face was close to mine,
and his breath, death-laden, entered my vitals. For a
moment I was overcome, my head was bowed by aching
nausea; till, reflection returning, I sprung up, threw
the wretch from me, and darting up the staircase,
entered the chamber usually inhabited by my family. A
dim light shewed me Alfred on a couch; Clara trembling,
and paler than whitest snow, had raised him on her arm,
holding a cup of water to his lips. I saw full well
that no spark of life existed in that ruined form, his
features were rigid, his eyes glazed, his head had
fallen back. I took him from her, I laid him softly
down, kissed his cold little mouth, and turned to speak
in a vain whisper, when loudest sound of thunderlike
cannon could not have reached him in his immaterial
abode.
 
And where was Idris? That she had gone out to seek me,
and had not returned, were fearful tidings, while the
rain and driving wind clattered against the window, and
roared round the house. Added to this, the sickening
sensation of disease gained upon me; no time was to be
lost, if ever I would see her again. I mounted my horse
and rode out to seek her, fancying that I heard her
voice in every gust, oppressed by fever and aching
pain.  
     
I rode in the dark and rain through the labyrinthine
streets of unpeopled London. My child lay dead at home;
the seeds of mortal disease had taken root in my bosom;
I went to seek Idris, my adored, now wandering alone,
while the waters were rushing from heaven like a
cataract to bathe her dear head in chill damp, her fair
limbs in numbing cold. A female stood on the step of a
door, and called to me as I gallopped past. It was not
Idris; so I rode swiftly on, until a kind of second
sight, a reflection back again on my senses of what I
had seen but not marked, made me feel sure that another
figure, thin, graceful and tall, stood clinging to the
foremost person who supported her. In a minute I was
beside the suppliant, in a minute I received the
sinking Idris in my arms. Lifting her up, I placed her
on the horse; she had not strength to support herself;
so I mounted behind her, and held her close to my
bosom, wrapping my riding-cloak round her, while her
companion, whose well known, but changed countenance,
(it was Juliet, daughter of the Duke of L --- ) could
at this moment of horror obtain from me no more than a
passing glance of compassion. She took the abandoned
rein, and conducted our obedient steed homewards. Dare
I avouch it? That was the last moment of my happiness;
but I was happy. Idris must die, for her heart was
broken: I must die, for I had caught the plague; earth
was a scene of desolation; hope was madness; life had
married death; they were one; but, thus supporting my
fainting love, thus feeling that I must soon die, I
revelled in the delight of possessing her once more;
again and again I kissed her, and pressed her to my
heart.  

We arrived at our home. I assisted her to dismount, I
carried her up stairs, and gave her into Clara's care,
that her wet garments might be changed. Briefly I
assured Adrian of her safety, and requested that we
might be left to repose. As the miser, who with
trembling caution visits his treasure to count it again
and again, so I numbered each moment, and grudged every
one that was not spent with Idris. I returned swiftly
to the chamber where the life of my life reposed;
before I entered the room I paused for a few seconds;
for a few seconds I tried to examine my state; sickness
and shuddering ever and anon came over me; my head was
heavy, my chest oppressed, my legs bent under me; but I
threw off resolutely the swift growing symptoms of my
disorder, and met Idris with placid and even joyous
looks. She was lying on a couch; carefully fastening
the door to prevent all intrusion; I sat by her, we
embraced, and our lips met in a kiss long drawn and
breathless--would that moment had been my last!  

Maternal feeling now awoke in my poor girl's bosom, and
she asked: "And Alfred?" "Idris," I replied, "we are
spared to each other, we are together; do not let any
other idea intrude. I am happy; even on this fatal
night, I declare myself happy, beyond all name, all
thought--what would you more, sweet one?"
 
Idris understood me: she bowed her head on my shoulder
and wept. "Why," she again asked, "do you tremble,
Lionel, what shakes you thus?"  

"Well may I be shaken," I replied, "happy as I am. Our
child is dead, and the present hour is dark and
ominous. Well may I tremble! but, I am happy, mine own
Idris, most happy."  
     
"I understand thee, my kind love," said Idris,
"thus--pale as thou art with sorrow at our loss;
trembling and aghast, though wouldest assuage my grief
by thy dear assurances. I am not happy," (and the tears
flashed and fell from under her down-cast lids), "for
we are inmates of a miserable prison, and there is no
joy for us; but the true love I bear you will render
this and every other loss endurable."
 
"We have been happy together, at least," I said; "no
future misery can deprive us of the past. We have been
true to each other for years, ever since my sweet
princess-love came through the snow to the lowly
cottage of the poverty-striken heir of the ruined
Verney. Even now, that eternity is before us, we take
hope only from the presence of each other. Idris, do
you think, that when we die, we shall be divided?"
     
"Die! when we die! what mean you? What secret lies hid
from me in those dreadful words?"  
     
"Must we not all die, dearest?" I asked with a sad
smile.       
   
"Gracious God! are you ill, Lionel, that you speak of
death? My only friend, heart of my heart, speak!"
  
"I do not think," replied I, "that we have any of us
long to live; and when the curtain drops on this mortal
scene, where, think you, we shall find ourselves?"   
     
Idris was calmed by my unembarrassed tone and look; she
answered:--"You may easily believe that during this
long progress of the plague, I have thought much on
death, and asked myself, now that all mankind is dead
to this life, to what other life they may have been
borne. Hour after hour, I have dwelt on these thoughts,
and strove to form a rational conclusion concerning the
mystery of a future state. What a scare-crow, indeed,
would death be, if we were merely to cast aside the
shadow in which we now walk, and, stepping forth into
the unclouded sunshine of knowledge and love, revived
with the same companions, the same affections, and
reached the fulfilment of our hopes, leaving our fears
with our earthly vesture in the grave. Alas! the same
strong feeling which makes me sure that I shall not
wholly die, makes me refuse to believe that I shall
live wholly as I do now. Yet, Lionel, never, never, can
I love any but you; through eternity I must desire your
society; and, as I am innocent of harm to others, and
as relying and confident as my mortal nature permits, I
trust that the Ruler of the world will never tear us
asunder."         

"Your remarks are like yourself, dear love," replied I,
"gentle and good; let us cherish such a belief, and
dismiss anxiety from our minds. But, sweet, we are so
formed, (and there is no sin, if God made our nature,
to yield to what he ordains), we are so formed, that we
must love life, and cling to it; we must love the
living smile, the sympathetic touch, and thrilling
voice, peculiar to our mortal mechanism. Let us not,
through security in hereafter, neglect the present.
This present moment, short as it is, is a part of
eternity, and the dearest part, since it is our own
unalienably. Thou, the hope of my futurity, art my
present joy. Let me then look on thy dear eyes, and,
reading love in them, drink intoxicating pleasure."
  
Timidly, for my vehemence somewhat terrified her, Idris
looked on me. My eyes were bloodshot, starting from my
head; every artery beat, methought, audibly, every
muscle throbbed, each single nerve felt. Her look of
wild affright told me, that I could no longer keep my
secret:--"So it is, mine own beloved," I said, "the
last hour of many happy ones is arrived, nor can we
shun any longer the inevitable destiny. I cannot live
long--but, again and again, I say, this moment is
ours!"
  
Paler than marble, with white lips and convulsed
features, Idris became aware of my situation. My arm,
as I sat, encircled her waist. she felt the palm burn
with fever, even on the heart it pressed:--"One
moment," she murmured, scarce audibly, "only one
moment."--  
     
She kneeled, and hiding her face in her hands, uttered
a brief, but earnest prayer, that she might fulfil her
duty, and watch over me to the last. While there was
hope, the agony had been unendurable;--all was now
concluded; her feelings became solemn and calm. Even as
Epicharis, unperturbed and firm, submitted to the
instruments of torture, did Idris, suppressing every
sigh and sign of grief, enter upon the endurance of
torments, of which the rack and the wheel are but faint
and metaphysical symbols.  

I was changed; the tight-drawn cord that sounded so
harshly was loosened, the moment that Idris
participated in my knowledge of our real situation. The
perturbed and passion-tossed waves of thought subsided,
leaving only the heavy swell that kept right on without
any outward manifestation of its disturbance, till it
should break on the remote shore towards which I
rapidly advanced:--"It is true that I am sick," I said,
"and your society, my Idris is my only medicine; come,
and sit beside me."
 
She made me lie down on the couch, and, drawing a low
ottoman near, sat close to my pillow, pressing my
burning hands in her cold palms. She yielded to my
feverish restlessness, and let me talk, and talked to
me, on subjects strange indeed to beings, who thus
looked the last, and heard the last, of what they loved
alone in the world. We talked of times gone by; of the
happy period of our early love; of Raymond, Perdita,
and Evadne. We talked of what might arise on this
desert earth, if, two or three being saved, it were
slowly re-peopled.--We talked of what was beyond the
tomb; and, man in his human shape being nearly extinct,
we felt with certainty of faith, that other spirits,
other minds, other perceptive beings, sightless to us,
must people with thought and love this beauteous and
imperishable universe.  

We talked--I know not how long--but, in the morning I
awoke from a painful heavy slumber; the pale cheek of
Idris rested on my pillow; the large orbs of her eyes
half raised the lids, and shewed the deep blue lights
beneath; her lips were unclosed, and the slight murmurs
they formed told that, even while asleep, she suffered.
"If she were dead," I thought, "what difference? now
that form is the temple of a residing deity; those eyes
are the windows of her soul; all grace, love, and
intelligence are throned on that lovely bosom--were she
dead, where would this mind, the dearer half of mine,
be? For quickly the fair proportion of this edifice
would be more defaced, than are the sand-choked ruins
of the desert temples of Palmyra." 


[Vol. III]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER III.

IDRIS stirred and awoke; alas! she awoke to misery. She
saw the signs of disease on my countenance, and
wondered how she could permit the long  night to pass
without her having sought, not cure, that was
impossible, but alleviation to my sufferings. She
called Adrian; my couch was quickly  surrounded by
friends and assistants, and such medicines as were
judged fitting were administered. It was the peculiar
and dreadful distinction of our visitation, that none
who had been attacked by the pestilence had recovered. 
The first symptom of the disease was the death-warrant,
which in no single instance had been followed by
pardon or reprieve. No gleam of hope  therefore cheered
my friends.
  
While fever producing torpor, heavy pains, sitting like
lead on my limbs, and making my breast heave, were
upon me; I continued insensible to  every thing but
pain, and at last even to that. I awoke on the fourth
morning as from a dreamless sleep. An irritating sense
of thirst, and, when I strove to speak or move, an
entire dereliction of power, was all I felt.
  
For three days and nights Idris had not moved from my
side. She administered to all my wants, and never slept
nor rested. She did not hope; and therefore she
neither endeavoured to read the physician's
countenance, nor to watch for symptoms of recovery.
All her thought was to attend on me to the last, and
then to lie down and die beside me. On the third night 
animation was suspended; to the eye and touch of all I
was dead. With earnest prayer, almost with force,
Adrian tried to draw Idris from me. He  exhausted every
adjuration, her child's welfare and his own. She shook
her head, and wiped a stealing tear from her sunk
cheek, but would not yield; she entreated to be
allowed to watch me that one night only, with such 
affliction and meek earnestness, that she gained her
point, and sat silent and motionless, except when,
stung by intolerable remembrance, she  kissed my closed
eyes and pallid lips, and pressed my stiffening hands
to her beating heart.   

At dead of night, when, though it was mid winter, the
cock crowed at three o'clock, as herald of the morning
change, while hanging over me, and mourning in silent,
bitter thought for the loss of all of love towards her
that had been enshrined in my heart; her dishevelled
hair hung over her face, and the long tresses fell on
the bed; she saw one ringlet in motion, and the 
scattered hair slightly stirred, as by a breath. It is
not so, she thought, for he will never breathe more.
Several times the same thing occurred, and she  only
marked it by the same reflection; till the whole
ringlet waved back, and she thought she saw my breast
heave. Her first emotion was deadly fear, cold dew
stood on her brow; my eyes half opened; and,
re-assured, she would have exclaimed, "He lives!" but
the words were choked by a spasm, and she fell with a
groan on the floor.   

Adrian was in the chamber. After long watching, he had
unwillingly fallen into a sleep. He started up, and
beheld his sister senseless on the earth, weltering in
a stream of blood that gushed from her mouth.
Encreasing signs of life in me in some degree
explained her state; the surprise, the burst of joy,
the revulsion of every sentiment, had been too much for
her frame, worn by long months of care, late shattered
by every species of woe and toil. She was now in far
greater danger than I, the wheels and springs of my
life, once again set in motion, acquired elasticity
from their short suspension.  For a long time, no one
believed that I should indeed continue to live; during
the reign of the plague upon earth, not one person,
attacked by the  grim disease, had recovered. My
restoration was looked on as a deception; every moment
it was expected that the evil symptoms would recur with 
redoubled violence, until confirmed convalescence,
absence of all fever or pain, and encreasing strength,
brought slow conviction that I had recovered  from the
plague.
  
The restoration of Idris was more problematical. When I
had been attacked by illness, her cheeks were sunk,
her form emaciated; but now, the vessel, which had
broken from the effects of extreme agitation, did not 
entirely heal, but was as a channel that drop by drop
drew from her the ruddy stream that vivified her
heart. Her hollow eyes and worn countenance  had a
ghastly appearance; her cheek-bones, her open fair
brow, the projection of the mouth, stood fearfully
prominent; you might tell each bone  in the thin
anatomy of her frame. Her hand hung powerless; each
joint  lay bare, so that the light penetrated through
and through. It was strange that life could exist in
what was wasted and worn into a very type of  death.   

To take her from these heart-breaking scenes, to lead
her to forget the world's desolation in the variety of
objects presented by travelling, and to nurse her
failing strength in the mild climate towards which we
had  resolved to journey, was my last hope for her
preservation. The preparations for our departure,
which had been suspended during my illness, were 
renewed. I did not revive to doubtful convalescence;
health spent her treasures upon me; as the tree in
spring may feel from its wrinkled limbs the fresh
green break forth, and the living sap rise and
circulate, so did the renewed vigour of my frame, the
cheerful current of my blood, the new-born elasticity
of my limbs, influence my mind to cheerful endurance
and  pleasurable thoughts. My body, late the heavy
weight that bound me to the tomb, was exuberant with
health; mere common exercises were insufficient  for my
reviving strength; methought I could emulate the speed
of the race-horse, discern through the air objects at a
blinding distance, hear the operations of nature in her
mute abodes; my senses had become so refined  and
susceptible after my recovery from mortal disease.
     
Hope, among my other blessings, was not denied to me;
and I did  fondly trust that my unwearied attentions
would restore my adored girl. I was therefore eager to
forward our preparations. According to the plan first 
laid down, we were to have quitted London on the
twenty-fifth of November;  and, in pursuance of this
scheme, two-thirds of our people--<i>the</i>people--all 
that remained of England, had gone forward, and had
already been some  weeks in Paris. First my illness,
and subsequently that of Idris, had detained  Adrian
with his division, which consisted of three hundred
persons, so that  we now departed on the first of
January, 2098. It was my wish to keep Idris as distant
as possible from the hurry and clamour of the crowd,
and  to hide from her those appearances that would
remind her most forcibly of our real situation. We
separated ourselves to a great degree from Adrian,  who
was obliged to give his whole time to public business.
The Countess of Windsor travelled with her son. Clara,
Evelyn, and a female who acted as  our attendant, were
the only persons with whom we had contact. We  occupied
a commodious carriage, our servant officiated as
coachman. A party of about twenty persons preceded us
at a small distance. They had it in charge to prepare
our halting places and our nightly abode. They had 
been selected for this service out of a great number
that offered, on account  of the superior sagacity of
the man who had been appointed their leader.
  
Immediately on our departure, I was delighted to find a
change in Idris, which I fondly hoped prognosticated
the happiest results. All the cheerfulness  and gentle
gaiety natural to her revived. She was weak, and this
alteration was rather displayed in looks and voice
than in acts; but it was permanent  and real. My
recovery from the plague and confirmed health instilled
into  her a firm belief that I was now secure from this
dread enemy. She told me  that she was sure she should
recover. That she had a presentiment, that the  tide of
calamity which deluged our unhappy race had now turned.
That the remnant would be preserved, and among them
the dear objects of her tender affection; and that in
some selected spot we should wear out our  lives
together in pleasant society. "Do not let my state of
feebleness deceive you," she said; "I feel that I am
better; there is a quick life within me, and a  spirit
of anticipation that assures me, that I shall continue
long to make a part of this world. I shall throw off
this degrading weakness of body, which  infects even my
mind with debility, and I shall enter again on the
performance of my duties. I was sorry to leave Windsor:
but now I am weaned from  this local attachment; I am
content to remove to a mild climate, which will 
complete my recovery. Trust me, dearest, I shall
neither leave you, nor my  brother, nor these dear
children; my firm determination to remain with you  to
the last, and to continue to contribute to your
happiness and welfare, would keep me alive, even if
grim death were nearer at hand than he really  is."   

I was only half re-assured by these expressions; I
could not believe that the over-quick flow of her
blood was a sign of health, or that her burning cheeks
denoted convalescence. But I had no fears of an
immediate catastrophe; nay, I persuaded myself that she
would ultimately recover. And thus cheerfulness
reigned in our little society. Idris conversed with
animation on a thousand topics. Her chief desire was to
lead our thoughts from  melancholy reflections; so she
drew charming pictures of a tranquil solitude, of a
beauteous retreat, of the simple manners of our little
tribe, and of the patriarchal brotherhood of love,
which would survive the ruins of the populous nations
which had lately existed. We shut out from our thoughts
the  present, and withdrew our eyes from the dreary
landscape we traversed. Winter reigned in all its
gloom. The leafless trees lay without motion  against
the dun sky; the forms of frost, mimicking the foliage
of summer, strewed the ground; the paths were
overgrown; the unploughed cornfields  were patched with
grass and weeds; the sheep congregated at the threshold 
of the cottage, the horned ox thrust his head from the
window. The wind  was bleak, and frequent sleet or
snow-storms, added to the melancholy  appearance wintry
nature assumed.
  
We arrived at Rochester, and an accident caused us to
be detained there a day. During that time, a
circumstance occurred that changed our plans, and
which, alas! in its result changed the eternal course
of events, turning me from the pleasant new sprung
hope I enjoyed, to an obscure and gloomy desert. But I
must give some little explanation before I proceed with
the final cause of our temporary alteration of plan,
and refer again to those times when man walked the
earth fearless, before Plague had become Queen of the
World.
  
There resided a family in the neighbourhood of Windsor,
of very humble  pretensions, but which had been an
object of interest to us on account of  one of the
persons of whom it was composed. The family of the
Claytons had known better days; but, after a series of
reverses, the father died a bankrupt, and the mother
heartbroken, and a confirmed invalid, retired with her 
five children to a little cottage between Eton and Salt
Hill. The eldest of these children, who was thirteen
years old, seemed at once from the influence  of
adversity, to acquire the sagacity and principle
belonging to a more mature age. Her mother grew worse
and worse in health, but Lucy attended on her, and was
as a tender parent to her younger brothers and sisters, 
and in the meantime shewed herself so good-humoured,
social, and benevolent, that she was beloved as well as
honoured, in her little neighbourhood. 
  
Lucy was besides extremely pretty; so when she grew to
be sixteen, it was to be supposed, notwithstanding her
poverty, that she should have admirers. One of these
was the son of a country-curate; he was a generous,
frank-hearted youth, with an ardent love of knowledge,
and no mean acquirements.  Though Lucy was
untaught, her mother's conversation and manners gave
her a taste for refinements superior to her present
situation.  She loved the youth even without knowing
it, except that in any difficulty she naturally turned
to him for aid, and awoke with a lighter heart every 
Sunday, because she knew that she would be met and
accompanied by him in her evening walk with her
sisters. She had another admirer, one of the 
head-waiters at the inn at Salt Hill. He also was not
without pretensions to  urbane superiority, such as he
learnt from gentlemen's servants and waiting-maids, who
initiating him in all the slang of high life below
stairs, rendered  his arrogant temper ten times more
intrusive. Lucy did not disclaim him--she was incapable
of that feeling; but she was sorry when she saw him 
approach, and quietly resisted all his endeavours to
establish an intimacy.  The fellow soon discovered that
his rival was preferred to him; and this changed what
was at first a chance admiration into a passion, whose
main  springs were envy, and a base desire to deprive
his competitor of the  advantage he enjoyed over
himself.    

Poor Lucy's sad story was but a common one. Her lover's
father died;  and he was left destitute. He accepted
the offer of a gentleman to go to India with him,
feeling secure that he should soon acquire an
independence, and return to claim the hand of his
beloved. He became involved in the  war carried on
there, was taken prisoner, and years elapsed before
tidings of his existence were received in his native
land. In the meantime disastrous poverty came on Lucy.
Her little cottage, which stood looking from its 
trellice, covered with woodbine and jessamine, was
burnt down; and the whole of their little property was
included in the destruction. Whither betake them? By
what exertion of industry could Lucy procure them
another abode? Her mother nearly bed-rid, could not
survive any extreme of famine-struck poverty. At this
time her other admirer stept forward, and  renewed his
offer of marriage. He had saved money, and was going to
set up a little inn at Datchet. There was nothing
alluring to Lucy in this offer, except the home it
secured to her mother; and she felt more sure of this, 
since she was struck by the apparent generosity which
occasioned the present offer. She accepted it; thus
sacrificing herself for the comfort and welfare of her
parent.
  
It was some years after her marriage that we became
acquainted with her.  The accident of a storm caused us
to take refuge in the inn, where we witnessed the
brutal and quarrelsome behaviour of her husband, and
her patient endurance. Her lot was not a fortunate one.
Her first lover had returned with the hope of making
her his own, and met her by accident, for the first
time, as the mistress of his country inn, and the wife
of another.  He withdrew despairingly to foreign parts;
nothing went well with him; at last he enlisted, and
came back again wounded and sick, and yet Lucy was
debarred from nursing him. Her husband's brutal
disposition was aggravated by his yielding to the many
temptations held out by his situation, and the
consequent disarrangement of his affairs. Fortunately
she had no children; but her heart was bound up in her
brothers and sisters, and these  his avarice and ill
temper soon drove from the house; they were dispersed
about the country, earning their livelihood with toil
and care. He even shewed an inclination to get rid of
her mother--but Lucy was firm here--she had sacrificed
herself for her; she lived for her--she would not part
with her--if the mother went, she would also go beg
bread for her, die with her, but never desert her. The
presence of Lucy was too necessary in keeping up the
order of the house, and in preventing the whole
establishment from going to wreck, for him to permit
her to leave him. He yielded the point; but in all
accesses of anger, or in his drunken fits, he recurred
to the old topic, and stung poor Lucy's heart by
opprobrious epithets bestowed on her parent.
  
A passion however, if it be wholly pure, entire, and
reciprocal, brings with it its own solace. Lucy was
truly, and from the depth of heart, devoted to her
mother; the sole end she proposed to herself in life,
was the comfort  and preservation of this parent.
Though she grieved for the result, yet she  did not
repent of her marriage, even when her lover returned to
bestow competence on her. Three years had intervened,
and how, in their pennyless state, could her mother
have existed during this time? This excellent woman 
was worthy of her child's devotion. A perfect
confidence and friendship existed between them;
besides, she was by no means illiterate; and Lucy, 
whose mind had been in some degree cultivated by her
former lover, now found in her the only person who
could understand and appreciate her.  Thus, though
suffering, she was by no means desolate, and when,
during fine summer days, she led her mother into the
flowery and shady lanes near their abode, a gleam of
unmixed joy enlightened her countenance; she saw  that
her parent was happy, and she knew that this happiness
was of her sole  creating.
  
Meanwhile her husband's affairs grew more and more
involved; ruin was near at hand, and she was about to
lose the fruit of all her labours, when pestilence came
to change the aspect of the world. Her husband reaped
benefit from the universal misery; but, as the disaster
encreased, the spirit of lawlessness seized him; he
deserted his home to revel in the luxuries  promised
him in London, and found there a grave. Her former
lover had been one of the first victims of the disease.
But Lucy continued to live for and in her mother. Her
courage only failed when she dreaded peril for her 
parent, or feared that death might prevent her from
performing those duties to which she was unalterably
devoted.   

When we had quitted Windsor for London, as the previous
step to our final emigration, we visited Lucy, and
arranged with her the plan of her own and her mother's
removal.  Lucy was sorry at the necessity which forced
her to quit her native lanes and village, and to drag
an infirm parent from her comforts at home, to the
homeless waste of depopulate earth; but she was too
well disciplined by adversity, and of too sweet a
temper, to  indulge in repinings at what was
inevitable.
  
Subsequent circumstances, my illness and that of Idris,
drove her from  our remembrance; and we called her to
mind at last, only to conclude that  she made one of
the few who came from Windsor to join the emigrants,
and that she was already in Paris. When we arrived at
Rochester therefore, we were surprised to receive, by a
man just come from Slough, a letter from this exemplary
sufferer. His account was, that, journeying from his
home,  and passing through Datchet, he was surprised to
see smoke issue from the  chimney of the inn, and
supposing that he should find comrades for his journey
assembled there, he knocked and was admitted. There was
no one in the house but Lucy, and her mother; the
latter had been deprived of the use of her limbs by an
attack of rheumatism, and so, one by one, all the 
remaining inhabitants of the country set forward,
leaving them alone. Lucy intreated the man to stay with
her; in a week or two her mother would be better, and
they would then set out; but they must perish, if they
were left thus helpless and forlorn. The man said, that
his wife and children were already among the emigrants,
and it was therefore, according to his notion, 
impossible for him to remain. Lucy, as a last resource,
gave him a letter for  Idris, to be delivered to her
wherever he should meet us. This commission  at least
he fulfilled, and Idris received with emotion the
following letter:--
 
"HONOURED LADY,

"I am sure that you will remember and pity me, and I
dare hope that you will assist me; what other hope
have I? Pardon my manner of writing, I am so
bewildered. A month ago my dear mother was deprived of
the use of her limbs. She is already better, and in
another month would I am sure be able to travel, in
the way you were so kind as to say you would arrange 
for us. But now everybody is gone--everybody--as they
went away, each said, that perhaps my mother would be
better, before we were quite deserted.  But three days
ago I went to Samuel Woods, who, on account of his
new-born child, remained to the last; and there being a
large family of them, I thought I could persuade them
to wait a little longer for us; but I found the  house
deserted. I have not seen a soul since, till this good
man came.--What will become of us? My mother does not
know our state; she is so ill, that I have hidden it
from her.   

"Will you not send some one to us? I am sure we must
perish miserably as we are. If I were to try to move my
mother now, she would die on the road; and if, when she
gets better, I were able, I cannot guess how, to find 
out the roads, and get on so many many miles to the
sea, you would all be in France, and the great ocean
would be between us, which is so terrible  even to
sailors. What would it be to me, a woman, who never saw
it? We  should be imprisoned by it in this country,
all, all alone, with no help; better die where we are.
I can hardly write--I cannot stop my tears--it is  not
for myself; I could put my trust in God; and let the
worst come, I think  I could bear it, if I were alone.
But my mother, my sick, my dear, dear mother, who
never, since I was born, spoke a harsh word to me, who
has been patient in many sufferings; pity her, dear
Lady, she must die a miserable death if you do not pity
her. People speak carelessly of her, because she  is
old and infirm, as if we must not all, if we are
spared, become so; and then,  when the young are old
themselves, they will think that they ought to be 
taken care of. It is very silly of me to write in this
way to you; but, when I hear her trying not to groan,
and see her look smiling on me to comfort me,  when I
know she is in pain; and when I think that she does not
know the  worst, but she soon must; and then she will
not complain; but I shall sit  guessing at all that she
is dwelling upon, of famine and misery--I feel as if 
my heart must break, and I do not know what I say or
do; my mother--mother for whom I have borne much, God
preserve you from this fate!  Preserve her, Lady, and
He will bless you; and I, poor miserable creature  as I
am, will thank you and pray for you while I live.
 
          "Your unhappy and dutiful  servant,  
"<i>Dec. 30th</i>, 2097.                 LUCY MARTIN."  

This letter deeply affected Idris, and she instantly
proposed, that we should return to Datchet, to assist
Lucy and her mother. I said that I would without delay
set out for that place, but entreated her to join her 
brother, and there await my return with the children.
But Idris was in high spirits, and full of hope. She
declared that she could not consent even to a temporary
separation from me, but that there was no need of this,
the motion of the carriage did her good, and the
distance was too trifling to be  considered. We could
dispatch messengers to Adrian, to inform him of our 
deviation from the original plan. She spoke with
vivacity, and drew a picture after her own dear heart,
of the pleasure we should bestow upon Lucy, and
declared, if I went, she must accompany me, and that
she  should very much dislike to entrust the charge of
rescuing them to others, who might fulfil it with
coldness or inhumanity. Lucy's life had been one  act
of devotion and virtue; let her now reap the small
reward of finding her excellence appreciated, and her
necessity assisted, by those whom she respected and
honoured.
  
These, and many other arguments, were urged with gentle
pertinacity, and the ardour of a wish to do all the
good in her power, by her whose simple expression of a
desire and slightest request had ever been a law with
me. I, of course, consented, the moment that I saw that
she had set her heart upon this step. We sent half our
attendant troop on to Adrian; and with the other  half
our carriage took a retrograde course back to Windsor.
  
I wonder now how I could be so blind and senseless, as
thus to risk the safety of Idris; for, if I had eyes,
surely I could see the sure, though deceitful, advance
of death in her burning cheek and encreasing weakness.
But she said she was better; and I believed her.
Extinction could not be near a being, whose vivacity
and intelligence hourly encreased, and whose frame was 
endowed with an intense, and I fondly thought, a strong
and permanent spirit of life.  Who, after a great
disaster, has not looked back with wonder at his
inconceivable obtuseness of understanding, that could
not perceive the many minute threads with which fate
weaves the inextricable net of our destinies, until he
is inmeshed completely in it?

The cross roads which we now entered upon, were even in
a worse state  than the long neglected high-ways; and
the inconvenience seemed to menace the perishing frame
of Idris with destruction. Passing through Dartford, we 
arrived at Hampton on the second day. Even in this
short interval my beloved companion grew sensibly
worse in health, though her spirits were  still light,
and she cheered my growing anxiety with gay sallies;
sometimes the thought pierced my brain--Is she
dying?--as I saw her fair fleshless  hand rest on mine,
or observed the feebleness with which she performed the 
accustomed acts of life. I drove away the idea, as if
it had been suggested by insanity; but it occurred
again and again, only to be dispelled by the  continued
liveliness of her manner.
  
About mid-day, after quitting Hampton, our carriage
broke down: the shock caused Idris to faint, but on her
reviving no other ill consequence ensued; our party of
attendants had as usual gone on before us, and our 
coachman went in search of another vehicle, our former
one being rendered by this accident unfit for service.
The only place near us was a poor village, in which he
found a kind of caravan, able to hold four people, but
it was clumsy and ill hung; besides this he found a
very excellent cabriolet: our plan was soon arranged; I
would drive Idris in the latter; while the children 
were conveyed by the servant in the former. But these
arrangements cost time; we had agreed to proceed that
night to Windsor, and thither our purveyors had gone:
we should find considerable difficulty in getting
accommodation, before we reached this place; after all,
the distance was only ten miles; my horse was a good
one; I would go forward at a good pace  with Idris,
leaving the children to follow at a rate more consonant
to the  uses of their cumberous machine.   

Evening closed in quickly, far more quickly than I was
prepared to expect. At the going down of the sun it
began to snow heavily. I attempted in vain to defend
my beloved companion from the storm; the wind drove 
the snow in our faces; and it lay so high on the
ground, that we made but small way; while the night was
so dark, that but for the white covering on the ground
we should not have been able to see a yard before us.
We had left our accompanying caravan far behind us; and
now I perceived that the storm had made me
unconsciously deviate from my intended route. I had 
gone some miles out of my way. My knowledge of the
country enabled me to regain the right road; but,
instead of going, as at first agreed upon, by a  cross
road through Stanwell to Datchet, I was obliged to take
the way of Egham and Bishopgate. It was certain
therefore that I should not be rejoined by the other
vehicle, that I should not meet a single
fellow-creature till we arrived at Windsor.   

The back of our carriage was drawn up, and I hung a
pelisse before it,  thus to curtain the beloved
sufferer from the pelting sleet. She leaned on my 
shoulder, growing every moment more languid and feeble;
at first she replied to my words of cheer with
affectionate thanks; but by degrees she sunk into
silence; her head lay heavily upon me; I only knew that
she lived  by her irregular breathing and frequent
sighs. For a moment I resolved to stop, and, opposing
the back of the cabriolet to the force of the tempest,
to expect morning as well as I might. But the wind was
bleak and piercing, while the occasional shudderings of
my poor Idris, and the intense cold I felt myself,
demonstrated that this would be a dangerous experiment.
At length methought she slept--fatal sleep, induced by
frost: at this moment I saw the heavy outline of a
cottage traced on the dark horizon close to us: 
"Dearest love," I said, "support yourself but one
moment, and we shall have shelter; let us stop here,
that I may open the door of this blessed dwelling."
  
As I spoke, my heart was transported, and my senses
swam with excessive  delight and thankfulness; I placed
the head of Idris against the carriage, and, leaping
out, scrambled through the snow to the cottage, whose
door was open. I had apparatus about me for procuring
light, and that shewed  me a comfortable room, with a
pile of wood in one corner, and no appearance of
disorder, except that, the door having been left partly
open, the snow, drifting in, had blocked up the
threshold. I returned to the carriage, and the sudden
change from light to darkness at first blinded me. When
I recovered my sight--eternal God of this lawless
world! O supreme Death! I will not disturb thy silent
reign, or mar my tale with fruitless exclamations of 
horror--I saw Idris, who had fallen from the seat to
the bottom of the carriage; her head, its long hair
pendent, with one arm, hung over the side.  --Struck by
a spasm of horror, I lifted her up; her heart was
pulseless, her faded lips unfanned by the slightest
breath.
  
I carried her into the cottage; I placed her on the
bed. Lighting a fire, I chafed her stiffening limbs;
for two long hours I sought to restore departed life;
and, when hope was as dead as my beloved, I closed with
trembling hands her glazed eyes. I did not doubt what I
should now do. In the confusion attendant on my
illness, the task of interring our darling Alfred  had
devolved on his grandmother, the Ex-Queen, and she,
true to her  ruling passion, had caused him to be
carried to Windsor, and buried in the family vault, in
St. George's Chapel. I must proceed to Windsor, to
calm  the anxiety of Clara, who would wait anxiously
for us--yet I would fain spare her the heart-breaking
spectacle of Idris, brought in by me lifeless from  the
journey. So first I would place my beloved beside her
child in the vault, and then seek the poor children who
would be expecting me.
  
I lighted the lamps of my carriage; I wrapt her in
furs, and placed her  along the seat; then taking the
reins, made the horses go forward. We proceeded through
the snow, which lay in masses impeding the way, while 
the descending flakes, driving against me with
redoubled fury, blinded me.  The pain occasioned by the
angry elements, and the cold iron of the shafts  of
frost which buffetted me, and entered my aching flesh,
were a relief to me; blunting my mental suffering. The
horses staggered on, and the reins hung loosely in my
hands. I often thought I would lay my head close to the 
sweet, cold face of my lost angel, and thus resign
myself to conquering torpor. Yet I must not leave her a
prey to the fowls of the air; but, in pursuance of my
determination place her in the tomb of her forefathers, 
where a merciful God might permit me to rest also.   
       
The road we passed through Egham was familiar to me;
but the wind and  snow caused the horses to drag their
load slowly and heavily. Suddenly the  wind veered from
south-west to west, and then again to north-west. As 
Sampson with tug and strain stirred from their bases
the columns that  supported the Philistine temple, so
did the gale shake the dense vapours  propped on the
horizon, while the massy dome of clouds fell to the
south, disclosing through the scattered web the clear
empyrean, and the little stars, which were set at an
immeasurable distance in the crystalline fields, 
showered their small rays on the glittering snow. Even
the horses were  cheered, and moved on with renovated
strength.  We entered the forest at Bishopgate, and at
the end of the Long Walk I saw the Castle, "the proud 
Keep of Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion,
girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval
towers."  I looked with reverence on a structure, 
ancient almost as the rock on which it stood, abode of
kings, theme of admiration for the wise.  With greater
reverence and, tearful affection I beheld it as the
asylum of the long lease of love I had enjoyed there
with the perishable, unmatchable treasure of dust,
which now lay cold beside me.  Now indeed, I could have
yielded to all the softness of my nature, and  wept;
and, womanlike, have uttered bitter plaints; while the
familiar trees, the herds of living deer, the sward
oft prest by her fairy-feet, one by one  with sad
association presented themselves. The white gate at the
end of the Long Walk was wide open, and I rode up the
empty town through the first  gate of the feudal tower;
and now St. George's Chapel, with its blackened fretted
sides, was right before me. I halted at its door, which
was open; I entered, and placed my lighted lamp on the
altar; then I returned, and  with tender caution I bore
Idris up the aisle into the chancel, and laid her 
softly down on the carpet which covered the step
leading to the communion table.  The banners of the
knights of the garter, and their half drawn swords, 
were hung in vain emblazonry above the stalls. The
banner of her family hung there, still surmounted by
its regal crown.  Farewell to the glory and  heraldry
of England!--I turned from such vanity with a slight
feeling of wonder, at how mankind could have ever been
interested in such things. I bent over the lifeless
corpse of my beloved; and, while looking on her 
uncovered face, the features already contracted by the
rigidity of death, I felt as if all the visible
universe had grown as soulless, inane, and comfortless 
as the clay-cold image beneath me. I felt for a moment
the intolerable sense of struggle with, and
detestation for, the laws which govern the world; till 
the calm still visible on the face of my dead love
recalled me to a more soothing tone of mind, and I
proceeded to fulfil the last office that could  now be
paid her. For her I could not lament, so much I envied
her enjoyment of "the sad immunities of the grave."   
     
The vault had been lately opened to place our Alfred
therein.  The ceremony customary in these latter days
had been cursorily performed, and the pavement of the
chapel, which was its entrance, having been removed,
had not been replaced. I descended the steps, and
walked through the long passage to the large vault
which contained the kindred dust of my Idris. I
distinguished the small coffin of my babe. With hasty,
trembling hands I constructed a bier beside it,
spreading it with the furs and Indian shawls, which
had wrapt Idris in her journey thither. I lighted the
glimmering lamp, which flickered in this damp abode of
the dead; then I bore my  lost one to her last bed,
decently composing her limbs, and covering them  with a
mantle, veiling all except her face, which remained
lovely and placid.  She appeared to rest like one
over-wearied, her beauteous eyes steeped in  sweet
slumber. Yet, so it was not--she was dead! How
intensely I then longed to lie down beside her, to gaze
till death should gather me to the  same repose.
  
But death does not come at the bidding of the
miserable. I had lately  recovered from mortal illness,
and my blood had never flowed with such  an even
current, nor had my limbs ever been so instinct with
quick life, as  now. I felt that my death must be
voluntary. Yet what more natural than  famine, as I
watched in this chamber of mortality, placed in a world
of the  dead, beside the lost hope of my life?
Meanwhile as I looked on her, the features, which bore
a sisterly resemblance to Adrian, brought my thoughts 
back again to the living, to this dear friend, to
Clara, and to Evelyn, who were probably now in
Windsor, waiting anxiously for our arrival.     
     
Methought I heard a noise, a step in the far chapel,
which was re-echoed by its vaulted roof, and borne to
me through the hollow passages.  Had Clara seen my
carriage pass up the town, and did she seek me here? I
must save her at least from the horrible scene the
vault presented. I sprung up the steps, and then saw a
female figure, bent with age, and clad in long 
mourning robes, advance through the dusky chapel,
supported by a slender cane, yet tottering even with
this support. She heard me, and looked up; the lamp I
held illuminated my figure, and the moon-beams,
struggling through the painted glass, fell upon her
face, wrinkled and gaunt, yet with a piercing eye and
commanding brow--I recognized the Countess of Windsor.
With a hollow voice she asked, "Where is the princess?" 
 
I pointed to the torn up pavement: she walked to the
spot, and looked down into the palpable darkness; for
the vault was too distant for the rays  of the small
lamp I had left there to be discernible.   
        
"Your light," she said. I gave it her; and she regarded
the now visible, but precipitous steps, as if
calculating her capacity to descend. Instinctively  I
made a silent offer of my assistance. She motioned me
away with a look of scorn, saying in an harsh voice, as
she pointed downwards, "There at least I may have her
undisturbed."
  
She walked deliberately down, while I, overcome,
miserable beyond words, or tears, or groans, threw
myself on the pavement near--the stiffening form of
Idris was before me, the death-struck countenance
hushed in eternal repose beneath.  That was to me the
end of all! The day before, I had figured to my self
various adventures, and communion with my friends in 
after time--now I had leapt the interval, and reached
the utmost edge and bourne of life.  Thus wrapt in
gloom, enclosed, walled up, vaulted over by the
omnipotent present, I was startled by the sound of feet
on the steps of the tomb, and I remembered her whom I
had utterly forgotten, my angry visitant; her tall form
slowly rose upwards from the vault, a living statue, 
instinct with hate, and human, passionate strife: she
seemed to me as having reached the pavement of the
aisle; she stood motionless, seeking with her eyes
alone, some desired object--till, perceiving me close
to her, she placed her wrinkled hand on my arm,
exclaiming with tremulous accents, "Lionel Verney, my
son!" This name, applied at such a moment by my 
angel's mother, instilled into me more respect than I
had ever before felt for this disdainful lady. I bowed
my head, and kissed her shrivelled hand, and, remarking
that she trembled violently, supported her to the end
of the chancel, where she sat on the steps that led to
the regal stall. She suffered herself to be led, and
still holding my hand, she leaned her head back against 
the stall, while the moon beams, tinged with various
colours by the painted glass, fell on her glistening
eyes; aware of her weakness, again calling to  mind her
long cherished dignity, she dashed the tears away; yet
they fell fast, as she said, for excuse, "She is so
beautiful and placid, even in death.  No harsh feeling
ever clouded her serene brow; how did I treat her?
wounding her gentle heart with savage coldness; I had
no compassion on her in past years, does she forgive me
now? Little, little does it boot to talk of repentance
and forgiveness to the dead, had I during her life once 
consulted her gentle wishes, and curbed my rugged
nature to do her pleasure, I should not feel thus."
  
Idris and her mother were unlike in person. The dark
hair, deep-set black eyes, and prominent features of
the Ex-Queen were in entire contrast to the golden
tresses, the full blue orbs, and the soft lines and
contour of her daughter's countenance.  Yet, in latter
days, illness had taken from my poor girl the full
outline of her face, and reduced it to the inflexible
shape of the bone beneath. In the form of her brow, in
her oval chin, there was to be found a resemblance to
her mother; nay in some moods, their gestures were  not
unlike; nor, having lived so long together, was this
wonderful.
  
There is a magic power in resemblance. When one we love
dies, we hope to see them in another state, and half
expect that the agency of mind will inform its new
garb in imitation of its decayed earthly vesture. But
these  are ideas of the mind only. We know that the
instrument is shivered, the sensible image lies in
miserable fragments, dissolved to dusty nothingness; a
look, a gesture, or a fashioning of the limbs similar
to the dead in a living person, touches a thrilling
chord, whose sacred harmony is felt in the heart's 
dearest recess. Strangely moved, prostrate before this
spectral image, and enslaved by the force of blood
manifested in likeness of look and movement, I remained
trembling in the presence of the harsh, proud, and till
now unloved mother of Idris.
  
Poor, mistaken woman! in her tenderest mood before, she
had cherished the idea, that a word, a look of
reconciliation from her, would be received with joy,
and repay long years of severity. Now that the time was
gone for the exercise of such power, she fell at once
upon the thorny truth of things, and felt that neither
smile nor caress could penetrate to the unconscious 
state, or influence the happiness of her who lay in the
vault beneath.  This conviction, together with the
remembrance of soft replies to bitter speeches,  of
gentle looks repaying angry glances; the perception of
the falsehood, paltryness and futility of her cherished
dreams of birth and power; the overpowering knowledge,
that love and life were the true emperors of our 
mortal state; all, as a tide, rose, and filled her soul
with stormy and bewildering confusion. It fell to my
lot, to come as the influential power, to allay the 
fierce tossing of these tumultuous waves. I spoke to
her; I led her to reflect how happy Idris had really
been, and how her virtues and numerous excellencies
had found scope and estimation in her past career. I
praised her, the idol of my heart's dear worship, the
admired type of feminine perfection.  With ardent and
overflowing eloquence, I relieved my heart from its
burthen, and awoke to the sense of a new pleasure in
life, as I poured forth the funeral eulogy. Then I
referred to Adrian, her loved brother, and to her
surviving child. I declared, which I had before almost 
forgotten, what my duties were with regard to these
valued portions of herself, and bade the melancholy
repentant mother reflect, how she could best expiate
unkindness towards the dead, by redoubled love of the 
survivors. Consoling her, my own sorrows were assuaged;
my sincerity won her entire conviction.
  
She turned to me.  The hard, inflexible, persecuting
woman, turned with a mild expression of face, and said,
"If our beloved angel sees us now, it  will delight her
to find that I do you even tardy justice.  You were
worthy of  her; and from my heart I am glad that you
won her away from me. Pardon, my son, the many wrongs I
have done you; forget my bitter words and  unkind
treatment--take me, and govern me as you will."  
     
I seized this docile moment to propose our departure
from the church. "First," she said, "let us replace
the pavement above the vault."
  
We drew near to it; "Shall we look on her again?" I
asked.   

"I cannot," she replied, "and, I pray you, neither do
you. We need not torture ourselves by gazing on the
soulless body, while her living spirit is buried quick
in our hearts, and her surpassing loveliness is so
deeply carved there, that sleeping or waking she must
ever be present to us."
   
For a few moments, we bent in solemn silence over the
open vault. I consecrated my future life, to the
embalming of her dear memory; I vowed to serve her
brother and her child till death. The convulsive sob
of my companion made me break off my internal orisons.
I next dragged the stones over the entrance of the
tomb, and closed the gulph that contained  the life of
my life. Then, supporting my decrepid fellow-mourner,
we slowly left the chapel. I felt, as I stepped into
the open air, as if I had quitted an happy nest of
repose, for a dreary wilderness, a tortuous path, a 
bitter, joyless, hopeless pilgrimage. 


[Vol. III]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER IV.
        
OUR escort had been directed to prepare our abode for
the night at the inn, opposite the ascent to the
Castle.  We could not again visit the halls and 
familiar chambers of our home, on a mere visit. We had
already left for ever the glades of Windsor, and all
of coppice, flowery hedgerow, and  murmuring stream,
which gave shape and intensity to the love of our 
country, and the almost superstitious attachment with
which we regarded native England. It had been our
intention to have called at Lucy's dwelling  in
Datchet, and to have re-assured her with promises of
aid and protection before we repaired to our quarters
for the night. Now, as the Countess of Windsor and I
turned down the steep hill that led from the Castle, we
saw the children, who had just stopped in their
caravan, at the inn-door.  They had passed through
Datchet without halting. I dreaded to meet them, and to
be the bearer of my tragic story, so while they were
still occupied in the hurry of arrival, I suddenly left
them, and through the snow and clear moon-light air,
hastened along the well known road to Datchet.   

Well known indeed it was. Each cottage stood on its
accustomed site, each tree wore its familiar
appearance. Habit had graven uneraseably on my memory,
every turn and change of object on the road. At a short
distance beyond the Little Park, was an elm half blown
down by a storm, some ten years ago; and still, with
leafless snow-laden branches, it stretched across the
pathway, which wound through a meadow, beside a shallow 
brook, whose brawling was silenced by frost--that
stile, that white gate, that hollow oak tree, which
doubtless once belonged to the forest, and which now
shewed in the moonlight its gaping rent; to whose
fanciful appearance, tricked out by the dusk into a
resemblance of the human form, the children  had given
the name of Falstaff;--all these objects were as well
known to me as the cold hearth of my deserted home,
and every moss-grown wall and  plot of orchard ground,
alike as twin lambs are to each other in a stranger's
eye, yet to my accustomed gaze bore differences,
distinction, and a name.  England remained, though
England was dead--it was the ghost of merry England
that I beheld, under those greenwood shade passing
generations had sported in security and ease. To this
painful recognition of familiar places, was added a
feeling experienced by all, understood by none--a 
feeling as if in some state, less visionary than a
dream, in some past real existence, I had seen all I
saw, with precisely the same feelings as I now beheld
them--as if all my sensations were a duplex mirror of a
former revelation. To get rid of this oppressive sense
I strove to imagine change in this tranquil spot--this
augmented my mood, by causing me to bestow more
attention on the objects which occasioned me pain.   
        
I reached Datchet and Lucy's humble abode--once noisy
with Saturday night revellers, or trim and neat on
Sunday morning it had borne testimony  to the labours
and orderly habits of the housewife. The snow lay high
about the door, as if it had remained unclosed for many
days.
        
      "What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?"

I muttered to myself as I looked at the dark casements. 
At first I thought I saw a light in one of them, but it
proved to be merely the refraction of the moon-beams,
while the only sound was the crackling branches as the
breeze whirred the snow flakes from them--the moon
sailed high and unclouded in the interminable ether,
while the shadow of the cottage lay black on the
garden behind. I entered this by the open wicket, and
anxiously examined each window. At length I detected a
ray of light struggling through a closed shutter in one
of the upper rooms--it was a novel feeling, alas! to
look at any house and say there dwells its usual
inmate--the door of the house was merely on the latch:
so I entered and ascended the moon-lit staircase. The
door of the inhabited room was ajar: looking in, I saw
Lucy sitting as at work at the table on which the light
stood; the implements of needlework were about her,
but her hand had fallen on her lap, and her eyes, fixed
on the ground, shewed by their vacancy that her
thoughts wandered. Traces of care and watching had
diminished her former attractions--but her simple dress
and cap, her desponding attitude, and the single candle
that cast its light upon her, gave for a moment a
picturesque grouping to the whole. A fearful reality
recalled me from the thought--a figure lay stretched
on the bed covered by a sheet--her mother was dead, 
and Lucy, apart from all the world, deserted and alone,
watched beside the corpse during the weary night. I
entered the room, and my unexpected appearance at first
drew a scream from the lone survivor of a dead nation;
but she recognised me, and recovered herself, with the
quick exercise of self-control habitual to her. "Did
you not expect me?" I asked, in that low voice which
the presence of the dead makes us as it were
instinctively assume.
  
"You are very good," replied she, "to have come
yourself; I can never thank you sufficiently; but it is
too late."
  
"Too late," cried I, "what do you mean? It is not too
late to take you from this deserted place, and conduct
you to---"

My own loss, which I had forgotten as I spoke, now made
me turn away, while choking grief impeded my speech. I
threw open the window, and looked on the cold, waning,
ghastly, misshaped circle on high, and the chill white
earth beneath--did the spirit of sweet Idris sail along
the moon-frozen crystal air?--No, no, a more genial
atmosphere, a lovelier habitation was surely hers!
  
I indulged in this meditation for a moment, and then
again addressed the mourner, who stood leaning against
the bed with that expression of resigned despair, of
complete misery, and a patient sufferance of it, which 
is far more touching than any of the insane ravings or
wild gesticulation of untamed sorrow. I desired to draw
her from this spot; but she opposed my wish. That class
of persons whose imagination and sensibility have never 
been taken out of the narrow circle immediately in
view, if they possess these qualities to any extent,
are apt to pour their influence into the very 
realities which appear to destroy them, and to cling to
these with double tenacity from not being able to
comprehend any thing beyond. Thus Lucy, in desert
England, in a dead world, wished to fulfil the usual
ceremonies of the dead, such as were customary to the
English country people, when death was a rare
visitant, and gave us time to receive his dreaded 
usurpation with pomp and circumstance--going forth in
procession to deliver the keys of the tomb into his
conquering hand. She had already, alone as she was,
accomplished some of these, and the work on which I
found her employed, was her mother's shroud. My heart
sickened at such detail of woe, which a female can
endure, but which is more painful to the  masculine
spirit than deadliest struggle, or throes of
unutterable but transient agony.
  
This must not be, I told her; and then, as further
inducement, I communicated to her my recent loss, and
gave her the idea that she must come with me to take
charge of the orphan children, whom the death of Idris
had deprived of a mother's care. Lucy never resisted
the call of a duty, so she yielded, and closing the
casements and doors with care, she accompanied me back
to Windsor.  As we went she communicated to me the
occasion of her mother's death.  Either by some
mischance she had got sight of Lucy's letter to Idris,
or she had overheard her conversation with the
countryman who bore it; however it might be, she
obtained a knowledge of the appalling situation of
herself and her daughter, her aged frame could not
sustain the anxiety and horror this discovery
instilled--she concealed her knowledge from Lucy, but
brooded over it through sleepless nights, till fever
and delirium, swift forerunners of death, disclosed the
secret.  Her life, which had  long been hovering on its
extinction, now yielded at once to the united effects
of misery and sickness, and that same morning she had
died.
  
After the tumultuous emotions of the day, I was glad to
find on my arrival at the inn that my companions had
retired to rest. I gave Lucy in charge to the
Countess's attendant, and then sought repose from my
various struggles and impatient regrets. For a few
moments the events of the day floated in disastrous
pageant through my brain, till sleep bathed it in
forgetfulness; when morning dawned and I awoke, it
seemed as if my slumber had endured for years.
  
My companions had not shared my oblivion. Clara's
swollen eyes  shewed that she has passed the night in
weeping. The Countess looked haggard and wan. Her firm
spirit had not found relief in tears, and she suffered
the more from all the painful retrospect and agonizing
regret that now occupied her. We departed from Windsor,
as soon as the burial rites had been performed for
Lucy's mother, and, urged on by an impatient desire to
change the scene, went forward towards Dover with
speed, our escort having gone before to provide horses;
finding them either in the  warm stables they
instinctively sought during the cold weather, or
standing shivering in the bleak fields ready to
surrender their liberty in exchange for offered corn. 
       
During our ride the Countess recounted to me the
extraordinary circumstances which had brought her so
strangely to my side in the chancel of St. George's
chapel.  When last she had taken leave of Idris, as she
looked anxiously on her faded person and pallid
countenance, she had suddenly been visited by a
conviction that she saw her for the last time.  It was
hard to part with her while under the dominion of this
sentiment, and for the last time she endeavoured to
persuade her daughter to commit herself to her nursing,
permitting me to join Adrian. Idris mildly refused,
and thus they separated. The idea that they should
never again meet grew on the Countess's mind, and
haunted her perpetually; a thousand times she had
resolved to turn back and join us, and was again and
again restrained by  the pride and anger of which she
was the slave. Proud of heart as she was, she bathed
her pillow with nightly tears, and through the day was
subdued  by nervous agitation and expectation of the
dreaded event, which she was wholly incapable of
curbing. She confessed that at this period her hatred
of me knew no bounds, since she considered me as the
sole obstacle to the  fulfilment of her dearest wish,
that of attending upon her daughter in her  last
moments. She desired to express her fears to her son,
and to seek  consolation from his sympathy with, or
courage from his rejection of, her auguries.
  
On the first day of her arrival at Dover she walked
with him on the sea beach, and with the timidity
characteristic of passionate and exaggerated feeling
was by degrees bringing the conversation to the desired
point, when she could communicate her fears to him,
when the messenger who bore my letter announcing our
temporary return to Windsor, came riding down to  them.
He gave some oral account of how he had left us, and
added, that  notwithstanding the cheerfulness and good
courage of Lady Idris, he was afraid that she would
hardly reach Windsor alive.  
       
"True," said the Countess, "your fears are just, she is
about to expire!"   

As she spoke, her eyes were fixed on a tomblike hollow
of the cliff, and she saw, she averred the same to me
with solemnity, Idris pacing slowly towards this cave. 
She was turned from her, her head was bent down, her 
white dress was such as she was accustomed to wear,
except that a thin crape-like veil covered her golden
tresses, and concealed her as a dim transparent mist.
She looked dejected, as docilely yielding to a
commanding  power; she submissively entered, and was
lost in the dark recess.
  
"Were I subject to visionary moods," said the venerable
lady, as she continued her narrative, "I might doubt my
eyes, and condemn my credulity; but reality is the
world I live in, and what I saw I doubt not had
existence beyond myself.  From that moment I could not
rest; it was worth  my existence to see her once again
before she died; I knew that I should not accomplish
this, yet I must endeavour. I immediately departed for
Windsor; and, though I was assured that we travelled
speedily, it seemed to me that  our progress was
snail-like, and that delays were created solely for my 
annoyance. Still I accused you, and heaped on your head
the fiery ashes of my burning impatience. It was no
disappointment, though an agonizing pang, when you
pointed to her last abode; and words would ill express
the abhorrence I that moment felt towards you, the
triumphant impediment to my dearest wishes. I saw her,
and anger, and hate, and injustice died at her  bier,
giving place at their departure to a remorse (Great
God, that I should  feel it!) which must last while
memory and feeling endure."
  
To medicine such remorse, to prevent awakening love and
new-born mildness from producing the same bitter fruit
that hate and harshness had done, I devoted all my
endeavours to soothe the venerable penitent. Our party
was a melancholy one; each was possessed by regret for
what was remediless; for the absence of his mother
shadowed even the infant gaiety of Evelyn. Added to
this was the prospect of the uncertain future. Before
the final accomplishment of any great voluntary change
the mind vacillates,  now soothing itself by fervent
expectation, now recoiling from obstacles which seem
never to have presented themselves before with so
frightful an aspect. An involuntary tremor ran through
me when I thought that in another day we might have
crossed the watery barrier, and have set forward on
that hopeless, interminable, sad wandering, which but a
short time before I regarded as the only relief to
sorrow that our situation afforded.  

Our approach to Dover was announced by the loud
roarings of the wintry sea. They were borne miles
inland by the sound-laden blast, and by their
unaccustomed uproar, imparted a feeling of insecurity
and peril to our stable abode. At first we hardly
permitted ourselves to think that any unusual eruption
of nature caused this tremendous war of air and water,
but rather fancied that we merely listened to what we
had heard a thousand times before, when we had watched
the flocks of fleece-crowned waves, driven by the
winds, come to lament and die on the barren sands and 
pointed rocks.  But we found upon advancing farther,
that Dover was overflowed--many of the houses were
overthrown by the surges which filled the streets, and
with hideous brawlings sometimes retreated leaving the
pavement of the town bare, till again hurried forward
by the influx of ocean, they returned with
thunder-sound to their usurped station.   

Hardly less disturbed than the tempestuous world of
waters was the assembly of human beings, that from the
cliff fearfully watched its ravings.  On the morning of
the arrival of the emigrants under the conduct of
Adrian, the sea had been serene and glassy, the slight
ripples refracted the sunbeams, which shed their
radiance through the clear blue frosty air.  This
placid appearance of nature was hailed as a good
augury for the voyage, and the chief immediately
repaired to the harbour to examine two steamboats which
were moored there. On the following midnight, when all
were at rest, a frightful storm of wind and clattering
rain and hail first disturbed them, and the voice of
one shrieking in the streets, that the sleepers must
awake or they would be drowned; and when they rushed
out, half clothed, to  discover the meaning of this
alarm, they found that the tide, rising above every
mark, was rushing into the town. They ascended the
cliff, but the darkness permitted only the white crest
of waves to be seen, while the roaring wind mingled its
howlings in dire accord with the wild surges.  The
awful hour of night, the utter inexperience of many who
had never seen the sea  before, the wailing of women
and cries of children added to the horror of  the
tumult.
  
All the following day the same scene continued. When
the tide ebbed, the town was left dry; but on its flow,
it rose even higher than on the preceding night. The
vast ships that lay rotting in the roads were whirled 
from their anchorage, and driven and jammed against the
cliff, the vessels in the harbour were flung on land
like sea-weed, and there battered to pieces by the
breakers.  The waves dashed against the cliff, which if
in any place it had been before loosened, now gave way,
and the affrighted crowd saw vast fragments of the near
earth fall with crash and roar into the deep.  This
sight operated differently on different persons.  The
greater part thought it a judgment of God, to prevent
or punish our emigration from our native land. Many
were doubly eager to quit a nook of ground now become
their prison, which appeared unable to resist the
inroads of ocean's giant waves.
  
When we arrived at Dover, after a fatiguing day's
journey, we all required rest and sleep; but the scene
acting around us soon drove away such ideas.  We were
drawn, along with the greater part of our companions,
to the edge of the cliff, there to listen to and make
a thousand conjectures. A fog narrowed our horizon to
about a quarter of a mile, and the misty veil, cold 
and dense, enveloped sky and sea in equal obscurity.
What added to our inquietude was the circumstance that
two-thirds of our original number were now waiting for
us in Paris, and clinging, as we now did most
painfully, to any addition to our melancholy remnant,
this division, with the tameless impassable ocean
between, struck us with affright.  At length, after
loitering for several hours on the cliff, we retired
to Dover Castle, whose roof sheltered all who breathed
the English air, and sought the sleep necessary  to
restore strength and courage to our worn frames and
languid spirits.

Early in the morning Adrian brought me the welcome
intelligence that the wind had changed: it had been
south-west; it was now north-east. The sky was stripped
bare of clouds by the increasing gale, while the tide
at its ebb seceded entirely from the town. The change
of wind rather increased the fury of the sea, but it
altered its late dusky hue to a bright green; and  in
spite of its unmitigated clamour, its more cheerful
appearance instilled  hope and pleasure. All day we
watched the ranging of the mountainous waves, and
towards sunset a desire to decypher the promise for the
morrow at its setting, made us all gather with one
accord on the edge of the cliff.  When the mighty
luminary approached within a few degrees of the
tempest-tossed horizon, suddenly, a wonder! three other
suns, alike burning and brilliant, rushed from various
quarters of the heavens towards the great orb; they
whirled round it. The glare of light was intense to
our dazzled eyes; the sun itself seemed to join in the
dance, while the sea burned like a furnace, like all
Vesuvius a-light, with flowing lava beneath. The horses 
broke loose from their stalls in terror--a herd of
cattle, panic struck, raced  down to the brink of the
cliff, and blinded by light, plunged down with 
frightful yells in the waves below. The time occupied
by the apparition of these meteors was comparatively
short; suddenly the three mock suns  united in one, and
plunged into the sea. A few seconds afterwards, a 
deafening watery sound came up with awful peal from the
spot where they had disappeared.
  
Meanwhile the sun, disencumbered from his strange
satellites, paced with its accustomed majesty towards
its western home. When--we dared not trust our eyes
late dazzled, but it seemed that--the sea rose to meet
it--it mounted higher and higher, till the fiery globe
was obscured, and the wall of water still ascended the
horizon; it appeared as if suddenly the motion of 
earth was revealed to us--as if no longer we were ruled
by ancient laws, but were turned adrift in an unknown
region of space.  Many cried aloud, that these were no
meteors, but globes of burning matter, which had set
fire to the earth, and caused the vast cauldron at our
feet to bubble up with  its measureless waves; the day
of judgment was come they averred, and a few moments
would transport us before the awful countenance of the 
omnipotent judge; while those less given to visionary
terrors, declared that two conflicting gales had
occasioned the last phaenomenon. In support of this
opinion they pointed out the fact that the east wind
died away, while the rushing of the coming west
mingled its wild howl with the roar of the advancing
waters. Would the cliff resist this new battery? Was
not the giant wave far higher than the precipice?
Would not our little island be deluged by its
approach? The crowd of spectators fled. They were
dispersed over the fields, stopping now and then, and
looking back in terror. A sublime sense of awe calmed
the swift pulsations of my heart--I awaited  the
approach of the destruction menaced, with that solemn
resignation which an unavoidable necessity instils.
The ocean every moment assumed a more terrific aspect,
while the twilight was dimmed by the rack which the 
west wind spread over the sky. By slow degrees however,
as the wave advanced, it took a more mild appearance;
some under current of air, or obstruction in the bed
of the waters, checked its progress, and it sank
gradually; while the surface of the sea became
uniformly higher as it  dissolved into it. This change
took from us the fear of an immediate catastrophe,
although we were still anxious as to the final result.
We continued during the whole night to watch the fury
of the sea and the pace of the driving clouds, through
whose openings the rare stars rushed impetuously; the
thunder of conflicting elements deprived us of all
power to sleep.
  
This endured ceaselessly for three days and nights. The
stoutest hearts quailed before the savage enmity of
nature; provisions began to fail us, though every day
foraging parties were dispersed to the nearer towns. In
vain we schooled ourselves into the belief, that there
was nothing out of the common order of nature in the
strife we witnessed; our disasterous and overwhelming
destiny turned the best of us to cowards. Death had
hunted us through the course of many months, even to
the narrow strip of time on which we now stood; narrow
indeed, and buffeted by storms, was our footway
overhanging the great sea of calamity--
        
     As an unsheltered northern shore
   Is shaken by the wintry wave--
   And frequent storms for evermore,
   (While from the west the loud winds rave,
   Or from the east, or mountains hoar)
   The struck and tott'ring sand-bank lave.*
        
It required more than human energy to bear up against
the menaces of destruction that every where surrounded
us.

[* Chorus in Oedipus Coloneus.]
  
After the lapse of three days, the gale died away, the
sea-gull sailed upon the calm bosom of the windless
atmosphere, and the last yellow leaf on the topmost
branch of the oak hung without motion.  The sea no
longer broke with fury; but a swell setting in steadily
for shore, with long sweep and sullen burst replaced
the roar of the breakers. Yet we derived hope from  the
change, and we did not doubt that after the interval of
a few days the  sea would resume its tranquillity. The
sunset of the fourth day favoured this idea; it was
clear and golden. As we gazed on the purple sea,
radiant beneath, we were attracted by a novel
spectacle; a dark speck--as it neared, visibly a
boat--rode on the top of the waves, every now and then 
lost in the steep vallies between. We marked its course
with eager questionings; and, when we saw that it
evidently made for shore, we descended to the only
practicable landing place, and hoisted a signal to
direct them. By the help of glasses we distinguished
her crew; it consisted of nine men, Englishmen,
belonging in truth to the two divisions of our people,
who had preceded us, and had been for several weeks at
Paris. As countryman was wont to meet countryman in
distant lands, did we greet our visitors on their 
landing, with outstretched hands and gladsome welcome.
They were slow to reciprocate our gratulations. They
looked angry and resentful; not less than the chafed
sea which they had traversed with imminent peril,
though apparently more displeased with each other than
with us. It was strange to see these human beings, w