[Volume II]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER I.

DURING this voyage, when on calm evenings we conversed
on deck, watching the glancing of the waves and the
changeful appearances of the sky, I discovered the
total revolution that the disasters of Raymond had
wrought in the mind of my sister. Were they the same
waters of love, which, lately cold and cutting as ice,
repelling as that, now loosened from their frozen
chains, flowed through the regions of her soul in
gushing and grateful exuberance? She did not believe
that he was dead, but she knew that he was in danger,
and the hope of assisting in his liberation, and the
idea of soothing by tenderness the ills that he might
have undergone, elevated and harmonized the late
jarring element of her being. I was not so sanguine as
she as to the result of our voyage. She was not
sanguine, but secure; and the expectation of seeing the
lover she had banished, the husband, friend, heart's
companion from whom she had long been alienated, wrapt
her senses in delight, her mind in placidity. It was
beginning life again; it was leaving barren sands for
an abode of fertile beauty; it was a harbour after a
tempest, an opiate after sleepless nights, a happy
waking from a terrible dream.  

Little Clara accompanied us; the poor child did not
well understand what was going forward. She heard that
we were bound for Greece, that she would see her
father, and now, for the first time, she prattled of
him to her mother.
 
On landing at Athens we found difficulties encrease
upon us: nor could the storied earth or balmy
atmosphere inspire us with enthusiasm or pleasure,
while the fate of Raymond was in jeopardy. No man had
ever excited so strong an interest in the public mind;
this was apparent even among the phlegmatic English,
from whom he had long been absent. The Athenians had
expected their hero to return in triumph; the women had
taught their children to lisp his name joined to
thanksgiving; his manly beauty, his courage, his
devotion to their cause, made him appear in their eyes
almost as one of the ancient deities of the soil
descended from their native Olympus to defend them.
When they spoke of his probable death and certain
captivity, tears streamed from their eyes; even as the
women of Syria sorrowed for Adonis, did the wives and
mothers of Greece lament our English Raymond--Athens
was a city of mourning.  
     
All these shews of despair struck Perdita with
affright. With that sanguine but confused expectation,
which desire engendered while she was at a distance
from reality, she had formed an image in her mind of
instantaneous change, when she should set her foot on
Grecian shores. She fancied that Raymond would already
be free, and that her tender attentions would come to
entirely obliterate even the memory of his mischance.
But his fate was still uncertain; she began to fear the
worst, and to feel that her soul's hope was cast on a
chance that might prove a blank. The wife and lovely
child of Lord Raymond became objects of intense
interest in Athens. The gates of their abode were
besieged, audible prayers were breathed for his
restoration; all these circumstances added to the
dismay and fears of Perdita.
 
My exertions were unremitted: after a time I left
Athens, and joined the army stationed at Kishan in
Thrace. Bribery, threats, and intrigue, soon discovered
the secret that Raymond was alive, a prisoner,
suffering the most rigorous confinement and wanton
cruelties. We put in movement every impulse of policy
and money to redeem him from their hands.        

The impatience of my sister's disposition now returned
on her, awakened by repentance, sharpened by remorse.
The very beauty of the Grecian climate, during the
season of spring, added torture to her sensations. The
unexampled loveliness of the flower-clad earth--the
genial sunshine and grateful shade--the melody of the
birds--the majesty of the woods--the splendour of the
marble ruins--the clear effulgence of the stars by
night--the combination of all that was exciting and
voluptuous in this transcending land, by inspiring a
quicker spirit of life and an added sensitiveness to
every articulation of her frame, only gave edge to the
poignancy of her grief. Each long hour was counted, and
"<i>He suffers<i/>" was the burthen of all her
thoughts. She abstained from food; she lay on the bare
earth, and, by such mimickry of his enforced torments,
endeavoured to hold communion with his distant pain. I
remembered in one of her harshest moments a quotation
of mine had roused her to anger and disdain. "Perdita,"
I had said, "some day you will discover that you have
done wrong in again casting Raymond on the thorns of
life. When disappointment has sullied his beauty, when
a soldier's hardships have bent his manly form, and
loneliness made even triumph bitter to him, then you
will repent; and regret for the irreparable change
      
                                   "will move
   In hearts all rocky now, the late remorse of love."* 
          

The stinging "remorse of love" now pierced her heart.
She accused herself of his journey to Greece--his
dangers--his imprisonment. She pictured to herself the
anguish of his solitude; she remembered with what eager
delight he had in former days made her the partner of
his joyful hopes--with what grateful affection he
received her sympathy in his cares. She called to mind
how often he had declared that solitude was to him the
greatest of all evils, and how death itself was to him
more full of fear and pain when he pictured to himself
a lonely grave. "My best girl," he had said, "relieves
me from these phantasies. United to her, cherished in
her dear heart, never again shall I know the misery of
finding myself alone. Even if I die before you, my
Perdita, treasure up my ashes till yours may mingle
with mine. It is a foolish sentiment for one who is not
a materialist, yet, methinks, even in that dark cell, I
may feel that my inanimate dust mingles with yours, and
thus have a companion in decay." In her resentful mood,
these expressions had been remembered with acrimony and
disdain; they visited her in her softened hour, taking
sleep from her eyes, all hope of rest from her uneasy
mind.
 
[*Lord Byron's Fourth Canto of Childe Harolde.]

Two months passed thus, when at last we obtained a
promise of Raymond's release. Confinement and hardship
had undermined his health; the Turks feared an
accomplishment of the threats of the English
government, if he died under their hands; they looked
upon his recovery as impossible; they delivered him up
as a dying man, willingly making over to us the rites
of burial.       

He came by sea from Constantinople to Athens. The wind,
favourable to him, blew so strongly in shore, that we
were unable, as we had at first intended, to meet him
on his watery road. The watchtower of Athens was
besieged by inquirers, each sail eagerly looked out
for; till on the first of May the gallant frigate bore
in sight, freighted with treasure more invaluable than
the wealth which, piloted from Mexico, the vexed
Pacific swallowed, or that was conveyed over its
tranquil bosom to enrich the crown of Spain. At early
dawn the vessel was discovered bearing in shore; it was
conjectured that it would cast anchor about five miles
from land. The news spread through Athens, and the
whole city poured out at the gate of the Piraeus, down
the roads, through the vineyards, the olive woods and
plantations of fig-trees, towards the harbour. The
noisy joy of the populace, the gaudy colours of their
dress, the tumult of carriages and horses, the march of
soldiers intermixed, the waving of banners and sound of
martial music added to the high excitement of the
scene; while round us reposed in solemn majesty the
relics of antient time. To our right the Acropolis rose
high, spectatress of a thousand changes, of ancient
glory, Turkish slavery, and the restoration of
dear-bought liberty; tombs and cenotaphs were strewed
thick around, adorned by ever renewing vegetation; the
mighty dead hovered over their monuments, and beheld in
our enthusiasm and congregated numbers a renewal of the
scenes in which they had been the actors. Perdita and
Clara rode in a close carriage; I attended them on
horseback. At length we arrived at the harbour; it was
agitated by the outward swell of the sea; the beach, as
far could be discerned, was covered by a moving
multitude, which, urged by those behind toward the sea,
again rushed back as the heavy waves with sullen roar
burst close to them. I applied my glass, and could
discern that the frigate had already cast anchor,
fearful of the danger of approaching nearer to a lee
shore: a boat was lowered; with a pang I saw that
Raymond was unable to descend the vessel's side; he was
let down in a chair, and lay wrapt in cloaks at the
bottom of the boat.  
    
I dismounted, and called to some sailors who were
rowing about the harbour to pull up, and take me into
their skiff; Perdita at the same moment alighted from
her carriage--she seized my arm--"Take me with you,"
she cried; she was trembling and pale; Clara clung to
her--"You must not," I said, "the sea is rough--he will
soon be here--do you not see his boat?" The little bark
to which I had beckoned had now pulled up; before I
could stop her, Perdita, assisted by the sailors was in
it--Clara followed her mother--a loud shout echoed from
the crowd as we pulled out of the inner harbour; while
my sister at the prow, had caught hold of one of the
men who was using a glass, asking a thousand questions,
careless of the spray that broke over her, deaf,
sightless to all, except the little speck that, just
visible on the top of the waves, evidently neared. We
approached with all the speed six rowers could give;
the orderly and picturesque dress of the soldiers on
the beach, the sounds of exulting music, the stirring
breeze and waving flags, the unchecked exclamations of
the eager crowd, whose dark looks and foreign garb were
purely eastern; the sight of temple-crowned rock, the
white marble of the buildings glittering in the sun,
and standing in bright relief against the dark ridge of
lofty mountains beyond; the near roar of the sea, the
splash of oars, and dash of spray, all steeped my soul
in a delirium, unfelt, unimagined in the common course
of common life. Trembling, I was unable to continue to
look through the glass with which I had watched the
motion of the crew, when the frigate's boat had first
been launched. We rapidly drew near, so that at length
the number and forms of those within could be
discerned; its dark sides grew big, and the splash of
its oars became audible: I could distinguish the
languid form of my friend, as he half raised himself at
our approach.       

Perdita's questions had ceased; she leaned on my arm,
panting with emotions too acute for tears--our men
pulled alongside the other boat. As a last effort, my
sister mustered her strength, her firmness; she stepped
from one boat to the other, and then with a shriek she
sprang towards Raymond, knelt at his side, and glueing
her lips to the hand she seized, her face shrouded by
her long hair, gave herself up to tears.
 
Raymond had somewhat raised himself at our approach,
but it was with difficulty that he exerted himself even
thus much. With sunken cheek and hollow eyes, pale and
gaunt, how could I recognize the beloved of Perdita? I
continued awe-struck and mute--he looked smilingly on
the poor girl; the smile was his. A day of sunshine
falling on a dark valley, displays its before hidden
characteristics; and now this smile, the same with
which he first spoke love to Perdita, with which he had
welcomed the protectorate, playing on his altered
countenance, made me in my heart's core feel that this
was Raymond.
 
He stretched out to me his other hand; I discerned the
trace of manacles on his bared wrist. I heard my
sister's sobs, and thought, happy are women who can
weep, and in a passionate caress disburthen the
oppression of their feelings; shame and habitual
restraint hold back a man. I would have given worlds to
have acted as in days of boyhood, have strained him to
my breast, pressed his hand to my lips, and wept over
him; my swelling heart choked me; the natural current
would not be checked; the big rebellious tears gathered
in my eyes; I turned aside, and they dropped in the
sea--they came fast and faster;--yet I could hardly be
ashamed, for I saw that the rough sailors were not
unmoved, and Raymond's eyes alone were dry from among
our crew. He lay in that blessed calm which
convalescence always induces, enjoying in secure
tranquillity his liberty and re-union with her whom he
adored. Perdita at length subdued her burst of passion,
and rose,--she looked round for Clara; the child
frightened, not recognizing her father, and neglected
by us, had crept to the other end of the boat; she came
at her mother's call. Perdita presented her to Raymond;
her first words were: "Beloved, embrace our child:"
"Come hither, sweet one," said her father, "do you not
know me?" she knew his voice, and cast herself in his
arms with half bashful but uncontrollable emotion.  

Perceiving the weakness of Raymond, I was afraid of ill
consequences from the pressure of the crowd on his
landing. But they were awed as I had been, at the
change of his appearance. The music died away, the
shouts abruptly ended; the soldiers had cleared a space
in which a carriage was drawn up. He was placed in it;
Perdita and Clara entered with him, and his escort
closed round it; a hollow murmur, akin to the roaring
of the near waves, went through the multitude; they
fell back as the carriage advanced, and fearful of
injuring him they had come to welcome, by loud
testimonies of joy, they satisfied themselves with
bending in a low salaam as the carriage passed; it went
slowly along the road of the Piraeus; passed by antique
temple and heroic tomb, beneath the craggy rock of the
citadel. The sound of the waves was left behind; that
of the multitude continued at intervals, supressed and
hoarse; and though, in the city, the houses, churches,
and public buildings were decorated with tapestry and
banners--though the soldiery lined the streets, and the
inhabitants in thousands were assembled to give him
hail, the same solemn silence prevailed, the soldiery
presented arms, the banners vailed, many a white hand
waved a streamer, and vainly sought to discern the hero
in the vehicle, which, closed and encompassed by the
city guards, drew him to the palace allotted for his
abode.  
    
Raymond was weak and exhausted, yet the interest he
perceived to be excited on his account, filled him with
proud pleasure. He was nearly killed with kindness. It
is true, the populace retained themselves; but there
arose a perpetual hum and bustle from the throng round
the palace, which added to the noise of fireworks, the
frequent explosion of arms, the tramp to and fro of
horsemen and carriages, to which effervescence he was
the focus, retarded his recovery. So we retired awhile
to Eleusis, and here rest and tender care added each
day to the strength of our invalid. The zealous
attention of Perdita claimed the first rank in the
causes which induced his rapid recovery; but the second
was surely the delight he felt in the affection and
good will of the Greeks. We are said to love much those
whom we greatly benefit. Raymond had fought and
conquered for the Athenians; he had suffered, on their
account, peril, imprisonment, and hardship; their
gratitude affected him deeply, and he inly vowed to
unite his fate for ever to that of a people so
enthusiastically devoted to him.  

Social feeling and sympathy constituted a marked
feature in my disposition. In early youth, the living
drama acted around me, drew me heart and soul into its
vortex. I was now conscious of a change. I loved, I
hoped, I enjoyed; but there was something besides this.
I was inquisitive as to the internal principles of
action of those around me: anxious to read their
thoughts justly, and for ever occupied in divining
their inmost mind. All events, at the same time that
they deeply interested me, arranged themselves in
pictures before me. I gave the right place to every
personage in the groupe, the just balance to every
sentiment. This undercurrent of thought, often soothed
me amidst distress, and even agony. It gave ideality to
that, from which, taken in naked truth, the soul would
have revolted: it bestowed pictorial colours on misery
and disease, and not unfrequently relieved me from
despair in deplorable changes. This faculty, or
instinct, was now rouzed. I watched the re-awakened
devotion of my sister; Clara's timid, but concentrated
admiration of her father, and Raymond's appetite for
renown, and sensitiveness to the demonstrations of
affection of the Athenians. Attentively perusing this
animated volume, I was the less surprised at the tale I
read on the new-turned page.
 
The Turkish army were at this time besieging Rodosto;
and the Greeks, hastening their preparations, and
sending each day reinforcements, were on the eve of
forcing the enemy to battle. Each people looked on the
coming struggle as that which would be to a great
degree decisive; as, in case of victory, the next step
would be the siege of Constantinople by the Greeks.
Raymond, being somewhat recovered, prepared to
re-assume his command in the army.       

Perdita did not oppose herself to his determination.
She only stipulated to be permitted to accompany him.
She had set down no rule of conduct for herself; but
for her life she could not have opposed his slightest
wish, or do other than acquiesce cheerfully in all his
projects. One word, in truth, had alarmed her more than
battles or sieges, during which she trusted Raymond's
high command would exempt him from danger. That word,
as yet it was not more to her, was PLAGUE. This enemy
to the human race had begun early in June to raise its
serpent-head on the shores of the Nile; parts of Asia,
not usually subject to this evil, were infected. It was
in Constantinople; but as each year that city
experienced a like visitation, small attention was paid
to those accounts which declared more people to have
died there already, than usually made up the accustomed
prey of the whole of the hotter months. However it
might be, neither plague nor war could prevent Perdita
from following her lord, or induce her to utter one
objection to the plans which he proposed. To be near
him, to be loved by him, to feel him again her own, was
the limit of her desires. The object of her life was to
do him pleasure: it had been so before, but with a
difference. In past times, without thought or foresight
she had made him happy, being so herself, and in any
question of choice, consulted her own wishes, as being
one with his. Now she sedulously put herself out of the
question, sacrificing even her anxiety for his health
and welfare to her resolve not to oppose any of his
desires. Love of the Greek people, appetite for glory,
and hatred of the barbarian government under which he
had suffered even to the approach of death, stimulated
him. He wished to repay the kindness of the Athenians,
to keep alive the splendid associations connected with
his name, and to eradicate from Europe a power which,
while every other nation advanced in civilization,
stood still, a monument of antique barbarism. Having
effected the reunion of Raymond and Perdita, I was
eager to return to England; but his earnest request,
added to awakening curiosity, and an indefinable
anxiety to behold the catastrophe, now apparently at
hand, in the long drawn history of Grecian and Turkish
warfare, induced me to consent to prolong until the
autumn, the period of my residence in Greece.       

As soon as the health of Raymond was sufficiently
re-established, he prepared to join the Grecian camp,
hear Kishan, a town of some importance, situated to the
east of the Hebrus; in which Perdita and Clara were to
remain until the event of the expected battle. We
quitted Athens on the 2nd of June. Raymond had
recovered from the gaunt and pallid looks of fever. If
I no longer saw the fresh glow of youth on his matured
countenance, if care had besieged his brow,      

   "And dug deep trenches in his beauty's field,"*

if his hair, slightly mingled with grey, and his look,
considerate even in its eagerness, gave signs of added
years and past sufferings, yet there was something
irresistibly affecting in the sight of one, lately
snatched from the grave, renewing his career, untamed
by sickness or disaster. The Athenians saw in him, not
as heretofore, the heroic boy or desperate man, who was
ready to die for them; but the prudent commander, who
for their sakes was careful of his life, and could make
his own warrior-propensities second to the scheme of
conduct policy might point out.       

[*Shakspeare's Sonnets.]

All Athens accompanied us for several miles. When he
had landed a month ago, the noisy populace had been
hushed by sorrow and fear; but this was a festival day
to all. The air resounded with their shouts; their
picturesque costume, and the gay colours of which it
was composed, flaunted in the sunshine; their eager
gestures and rapid utterance accorded with their wild
appearance. Raymond was the theme of every tongue, the
hope of each wife, mother or betrothed bride, whose
husband, child, or lover, making a part of the Greek
army, were to be conducted to victory by him.   

Notwithstanding the hazardous object of our journey, it
was full of romantic interest, as we passed through the
vallies, and over the hills, of this divine country.
Raymond was inspirited by the intense sensations of
recovered health; he felt that in being general of the
Athenians, he filled a post worthy of his ambition;
and, in his hope of the conquest of Constantinople, he
counted on an event which would be as a landmark in the
waste of ages, an exploit unequalled in the annals of
man; when a city of grand historic association, the
beauty of whose site was the wonder of the world, which
for many hundred years had been the strong hold of the
Moslems, should be rescued from slavery and barbarism,
and restored to a people illustrious for genius,
civilization, and a spirit of liberty. Perdita rested
on his restored society, on his love, his hopes and
fame, even as a Sybarite on a luxurious couch; every
thought was transport, each emotion bathed as it were
in a congenial and balmy element.  
    
We arrived at Kishan on the 7th of July. The weather
during our journey had been serene. Each day, before
dawn, we left our night's encampment, and watched the
shadows as they retreated from hill and valley, and the
golden splendour of the sun's approach. The
accompanying soldiers received, with national vivacity,
enthusiastic pleasure from the sight of beautiful
nature. The uprising of the star of day was hailed by
triumphant strains, while the birds, heard by snatches,
filled up the intervals of the music. At noon, we
pitched our tents in some shady valley, or embowering
wood among the mountains, while a stream prattling over
pebbles induced grateful sleep. Our evening march, more
calm, was yet more delightful than the morning
restlessness of spirit. If the band played,
involuntarily they chose airs of moderated passion; the
farewell of love, or lament at absence, was followed
and closed by some solemn hymn, which harmonized with
the tranquil loveliness of evening, and elevated the
soul to grand and religious thought. Often all sounds
were suspended, that we might listen to the
nightingale, while the fire-flies danced in bright
measure, and the soft cooing of the aziolo spoke of
fair weather to the travellers. Did we pass a valley?
Soft shades encompassed us, and rocks tinged with
beauteous hues. If we traversed a mountain, Greece, a
living map, was spread beneath, her renowned pinnacles
cleaving the ether; her rivers threading in silver line
the fertile land. Afraid almost to breathe, we English
travellers surveyed with extasy this splendid
landscape, so different from the sober hues and
melancholy graces of our native scenery. When we
quitted Macedonia, the fertile but low plains of Thrace
afforded fewer beauties; yet our journey continued to
be interesting. An advanced guard gave information of
our approach, and the country people were quickly in
motion to do honour to Lord Raymond. The villages were
decorated by triumphal arches of greenery by day, and
lamps by night; tapestry waved from the windows, the
ground was strewed with flowers, and the name of
Raymond, joined to that of Greece, was echoed in the
<i>Evive</i> of the peasant crowd.         

When we arrived at Kishan, we learnt, that on hearing
of the advance of Lord Raymond and his detachment, the
Turkish army had retreated from Rodosto; but meeting
with a reinforcement, they had re-trod their steps. In
the meantime, Argyropylo, the Greek commander-in-chief,
had advanced, so as to be between the Turks and
Rodosto; a battle, it was said, was inevitable. Perdita
and her child were to remain at Kishan. Raymond asked
me, if I would not continue with them. "Now by the
fells of Cumberland," I cried, "by all of the vagabond
and poacher that appertains to me, I will stand at your
side, draw my sword in the Greek cause, and be hailed
as a victor along with you!"  

All the plain, from Kishan to Rodosto, a distance of
sixteen leagues, was alive with troops, or with the
camp-followers, all in motion at the approach of a
battle. The small garrisons were drawn from the various
towns and fortresses, and went to swell the main army.
We met baggage waggons, and many females of high and
low rank returning to Fairy or Kishan, there to wait
the issue of the expected day. When we arrived at
Rodosto, we found that the field had been taken, and
the scheme of the battle arranged. The sound of firing,
early on the following morning, informed us that
advanced posts of the armies were engaged. Regiment
after regiment advanced, their colours flying and bands
playing. They planted the cannon on the tumuli, sole
elevations in this level country, and formed themselves
into column and hollow square; while the pioneers threw
up small mounds for their protection.
 
These then were the preparations for a battle, nay, the
battle itself; far different from any thing the
imagination had pictured. We read of centre and wing in
Greek and Roman history; we fancy a spot, plain as a
table, and soldiers small as chessmen; and drawn forth,
so that the most ignorant of the game can discover
science and order in the disposition of the forces.
When I came to the reality, and saw regiments file off
to the left far out of sight, fields intervening
between the battalions, but a few troops sufficiently
near me to observe their motions, I gave up all idea of
understanding, even of seeing a battle, but attaching
myself to Raymond attended with intense interest to his
actions. He shewed himself collected, gallant and
imperial; his commands were prompt, his intuition of
the events of the day to me miraculous. In the mean
time the cannon roared; the music lifted up its
enlivening voice at intervals; and we on the highest of
the mounds I mentioned, too far off to observe the
fallen sheaves which death gathered into his
storehouse, beheld the regiments, now lost in smoke,
now banners and staves peering above the cloud, while
shout and clamour drowned every sound.  

Early in the day, Argyropylo was wounded dangerously,
and Raymond assumed the command of the whole army. He
made few remarks, till, on observing through his glass
the sequel of an order he had given, his face, clouded
for awhile with doubt, became radiant. "The day is
ours," he cried, "the Turks fly from the bayonet. And
then swiftly he dispatched his aides-de-camp to command
the horse to fall on the routed enemy. The defeat
became total; the cannon ceased to roar; the infantry
rallied, and horse pursued the flying Turks along the
dreary plain; the staff of Raymond was dispersed in
various directions, to make observations, and bear
commands. Even I was dispatched to a distant part of
the field.  

The ground on which the battle was fought, was a level
plain--so level, that from the tumuli you saw the
waving line of mountains on the wide-stretched horizon;
yet the intervening space was unvaried by the least
irregularity, save such undulations as resembled the
waves of the sea. The whole of this part of Thrace had
been so long a scene of contest, that it had remained
uncultivated, and presented a dreary, barren
appearance. The order I had received, was to make an
observation of the direction which a detachment of the
enemy might have taken, from a northern tumulus; the
whole Turkish army, followed by the Greek, had poured
eastward; none but the dead remained in the direction
of my side. From the top of the mound, I looked far
round--all was silent and deserted.  

The last beams of the nearly sunken sun shot up from
behind the far summit of Mount Athos; the sea of
Marmora still glittered beneath its rays, while the
Asiatic coast beyond was half hid in a haze of low
cloud. Many a casque, and bayonet, and sword, fallen
from unnerved arms, reflected the departing ray; they
lay scattered far and near. From the east, a band of
ravens, old inhabitants of the Turkish cemeteries, came
sailing along towards their harvest; the sun
disappeared.  This hour, melancholy yet sweet, has
always seemed to me the time when we are most naturally
led to commune with higher powers; our mortal sternness
departs, and gentle complacency invests the soul. But
now, in the midst of the dying and the dead, how could
a thought of heaven or a sensation of tranquillity
possess one of the murderers? During the busy day, my
mind had yielded itself a willing slave to the state of
things presented to it by its fellow-beings; historical
association, hatred of the foe, and military enthusiasm
had held dominion over me. Now, I looked on the evening
star, as softly and calmly it hung pendulous in the
orange hues of sunset. I turned to the corse-strewn
earth; and felt ashamed of my species. So perhaps were
the placid skies; for they quickly veiled themselves in
mist, and in this change assisted the swift
disappearance of twilight usual in the south; heavy
masses of cloud floated up from the south east, and red
and turbid lightning shot from their dark edges; the
rushing wind disturbed the garments of the dead, and
was chilled as it passed over their icy forms. Darkness
gathered round; the objects about me became indistinct,
I descended from my station, and with difficulty guided
my horse, so as to avoid the slain.   

Suddenly I heard a piercing shriek; a form seemed to
rise from the earth; it flew swiftly towards me,
sinking to the ground again as it drew near. All this
passed so suddenly, that I with difficulty reined in my
horse, so that it should not trample on the prostrate
being. The dress of this person was that of a soldier,
but the bared neck and arms, and the continued shrieks
discovered a female thus disguised. I dismounted to her
aid, while she, with heavy groans, and her hand placed
on her side, resisted my attempt to lead her on. In the
hurry of the moment I forgot that I was in Greece, and
in my native accents endeavoured to soothe the
sufferer. With wild and terrific exclamations did the
lost, dying Evadne (for it was she) recognize the
language of her lover; pain and fever from her wound
had deranged her intellects, while her piteous cries
and feeble efforts to escape, penetrated me with
compassion. In wild delirium she called upon the name
of Raymond; she exclaimed that I was keeping him from
her, while the Turks with fearful instruments of
torture were about to take his life. Then again she
sadly lamented her hard fate; that a woman, with a
woman's heart and sensibility, should be driven by
hopeless love and vacant hopes to take up the trade of
arms, and suffer beyond the endurance of man privation,
labour, and pain--the while her dry, hot hand pressed
mine, and her brow and lips burned with consuming fire. 

As her strength grew less, I lifted her from the
ground; her emaciated form hung over my arm, her sunken
cheek rested on my breast; in a sepulchral voice she
murmured:--"This is the end of love!--Yet not the
end!"--and frenzy lent her strength as she cast her arm
up to heaven: "there is the end! there we meet again.
Many living deaths have I borne for thee, O Raymond,
and now I expire, thy victim!--By my death I purchase
thee--lo! the instruments of war, fire, the plague are
my servitors. I dared, I conquered them all, till now!
I have sold myself to death, with the sole condition
that thou shouldst follow me--Fire, and war, and
plague, unite for thy destruction--O my Raymond, there
is no safety for thee!"  

With an heavy heart I listened to the changes of her
delirium; I made her a bed of cloaks; her violence
decreased and a clammy dew stood on her brow as the
paleness of death succeeded to the crimson of fever, I
placed her on the cloaks. She continued to rave of her
speedy meeting with her beloved in the grave, of his
death nigh at hand; sometimes she solemnly declared
that he was summoned; sometimes she bewailed his hard
destiny. Her voice grew feebler, her speech
interrupted; a few convulsive movements, and her
muscles relaxed, the limbs fell, no more to be
sustained, one deep sigh, and life was gone.
 
I bore her from the near neighbourhood of the dead;
wrapt in cloaks, I placed her beneath a tree. Once more
I looked on her altered face; the last time I saw her
she was eighteen; beautiful as poet's vision, splendid
as a Sultana of the East--Twelve years had past; twelve
years of change, sorrow and hardship; her brilliant
complexion had become worn and dark, her limbs had lost
the roundness of youth and womanhood; her eyes had sunk
deep,
       
           Crushed and o'erworn,                        
   The hours had drained her blood, and filled her brow 
   With lines and wrinkles.
        

With shuddering horror I veiled this monument of human
passion and human misery; I heaped over her all of
flags and heavy accoutrements I could find, to guard
her from birds and beasts of prey, until I could bestow
on her a fitting grave. Sadly and slowly I stemmed my
course from among the heaps of slain, and, guided by
the twinkling lights of the town, at length reached
Rodosto.


[Vol. II]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER II.

ON my arrival, I found that an order had already gone
forth for the army to proceed immediately towards
Constantinople; and the troops which had suffered least
in the battle were already on their way. The town was
full of tumult. The wound, and consequent inability of
Argyropylo, caused Raymond to be the first in command.
He rode through the town, visiting the wounded, and
giving such orders as were necessary for the siege he
meditated. Early in the morning the whole army was in
motion. In the hurry I could hardly find an opportunity
to bestow the last offices on Evadne. Attended only by
my servant, I dug a deep grave for her at the foot of
the tree, and without disturbing her warrior shroud, I
placed her in it, heaping stones upon the grave. The
dazzling sun and glare of daylight, deprived the scene
of solemnity; from Evadne's low tomb, I joined Raymond
and his staff, now on their way to the Golden City.     
             
Constantinople was invested, trenches dug, and advances
made. The whole Greek fleet blockaded it by sea; on
land from the river Kyat Kbanah, near the Sweet Waters,
to the Tower of Marmora, on the shores of the
Propontis, along the whole line of the ancient walls,
the trenches of the siege were drawn. We already
possessed Pera; the Golden Horn itself, the city,
bastioned by the sea, and the ivy-mantled walls of the
Greek emperors was all of Europe that the Mahometans
could call theirs. Our army looked on her as certain
prey. They counted the garrison; it was impossible that
it should be relieved; each sally was a victory; for,
even when the Turks were triumphant, the loss of men
they sustained was an irreparable injury.  

I rode one morning with Raymond to the lofty mound, not
far from the Top Kapou, (Cannon-gate), on which Mahmoud
planted his standard, and first saw the city. Still the
same lofty domes and minarets towered above the
verdurous walls, where Constantine had died, and the
Turk had entered the city. The plain around was
interspersed with cemeteries, Turk, Greek, and
Armenian, with their growth of cypress trees; and other
woods of more cheerful aspect, diversified the scene.
Among them the Greek army was encamped, and their
squadrons moved to and fro--now in regular march, now
in swift career.
 
Raymond's eyes were fixed on the city. "I have counted
the hours of her life," said he; "one month, and she
falls. Remain with me till then; wait till you see the
cross on St. Sophia; and then return to your peaceful
glades."  

"You then," I asked, "still remain in Greece?"
         
"Assuredly," replied Raymond. "Yet Lionel, when I say
this, believe me I look back with regret to our
tranquil life at Windsor. I am but half a soldier; I
love the renown, but not the trade of war. Before the
battle of Rodosto I was full of hope and spirit; to
conquer there, and afterwards to take Constantinople,
was the hope, the bourne, the fulfilment of my
ambition. This enthusiasm is now spent, I know not why;
I seem to myself to be entering a darksome gulph; the
ardent spirit of the army is irksome to me, the rapture
of triumph null."
 
He paused, and was lost in thought. His serious mien
recalled, by some association, the half-forgotten
Evadne to my mind, and I seized this opportunity to
make enquiries from him concerning her strange lot. I
asked him, if he had ever seen among the troops any one
resembling her; if since he had returned to Greece he
had heard of her?        

He started at her name,--he looked uneasily on me.
"Even so," he cried, "I knew you would speak of her.
Long, long I had forgotten her. Since our encampment
here, she daily, hourly visits my thoughts. When I am
addressed, her name is the sound I expect: in every
communication, I imagine that she will form a part. At
length you have broken the spell; tell me what you know
of her."      

I related my meeting with her; the story of her death
was told and re-told. With painful earnestness he
questioned me concerning her prophecies with regard to
him. I treated them as the ravings of a maniac. "No,
no," he said, "do not deceive yourself,--me you cannot.
She has said nothing but what I knew before--though
this is confirmation. Fire, the sword, and plague! They
may all be found in yonder city; on my head alone may
they fall!"        

From this day Raymond's melancholy increased. He
secluded himself as much as the duties of his station
permitted. When in company, sadness would in spite of
every effort steal over his features, and he sat absent
and mute among the busy crowd that thronged about him.
Perdita rejoined him, and before her he forced himself
to appear cheerful, for she, even as a mirror, changed
as he changed, and if he were silent and anxious, she
solicitously inquired concerning, and endeavoured to
remove the cause of his seriousness. She resided at the
palace of Sweet Waters, a summer seraglio of the
Sultan; the beauty of the surrounding scenery,
undefiled by war, and the freshness of the river, made
this spot doubly delightful. Raymond felt no relief,
received no pleasure from any show of heaven or earth.
He often left Perdita, to wander in the grounds alone;
or in a light shallop he floated idly on the pure
waters, musing deeply. Sometimes I joined him; at such
times his countenance was invariably solemn, his air
dejected. He seemed relieved on seeing me, and would
talk with some degree of interest on the affairs of the
day. There was evidently something behind all this;
yet, when he appeared about to speak of that which was
nearest his heart, he would abruptly turn away, and
with a sigh endeavour to deliver the painful idea to
the winds.        

It had often occurred, that, when, as I said, Raymond
quitted Perdita's drawing-room, Clara came up to me,
and gently drawing me aside, said, "Papa is gone; shall
we go to him? I dare say he will be glad to see you."
And, as accident permitted, I complied with or refused
her request. One evening a numerous assembly of Greek
chieftains were gathered together in the palace. The
intriguing Palli, the accomplished Karazza, the warlike
Ypsilanti, were among the principal. They talked of the
events of the day; the skirmish at noon; the diminished
numbers of the Infidels; their defeat and flight: they
contemplated, after a short interval of time, the
capture of the Golden City. They endeavoured to picture
forth what would then happen, and spoke in lofty terms
of the prosperity of Greece, when Constantinople should
become its capital. The conversation then reverted to
Asiatic intelligence, and the ravages the plague made
in its chief cities; conjectures were hazarded as to
the progress that disease might have made in the
besieged city.   

Raymond had joined in the former part of the
discussion. In lively terms he demonstrated the
extremities to which Constantinople was reduced; the
wasted and haggard, though ferocious appearance of the
troops; famine and pestilence was at work for them, he
observed, and the infidels would soon be obliged to
take refuge in their only hope--submission. Suddenly in
the midst of his harangue he broke off, as if stung by
some painful thought; he rose uneasily, and I perceived
him at length quit the hall, and through the long
corridor seek the open air. He did not return; and soon
Clara crept round to me, making the accustomed
invitation. I consented to her request, and taking her
little hand, followed Raymond. We found him just about
to embark in his boat, and he readily agreed to receive
us as companions. After the heats of the day, the
cooling land-breeze ruffled the river, and filled our
little sail. The city looked dark to the south, while
numerous lights along the near shores, and the
beautiful aspect of the banks reposing in placid night,
the waters keenly reflecting the heavenly lights, gave
to this beauteous river a dower of loveliness that
might have characterized a retreat in Paradise. Our
single boatman attended to the sail; Raymond steered;
Clara sat at his feet, clasping his knees with her
arms, and laying her head on them. Raymond began the
conversation somewhat abruptly.        

"This, my friend, is probably the last time we shall
have an opportunity of conversing freely; my plans are
now in full operation, and my time will become more and
more occupied. Besides, I wish at once to tell you my
wishes and expectations, and then never again to revert
to so painful a subject. First, I must thank you,
Lionel, for having remained here at my request. Vanity
first prompted me to ask you: vanity, I call it; yet
even in this I see the hand of fate--your presence will
soon be necessary; you will become the last resource of
Perdita, her protector and consoler. You will take her
back to Windsor."--
 
"Not without you," I said. "You do not mean to separate
again?"         

"Do not deceive yourself," replied Raymond, "the
separation at hand is one over which I have no control;
most near at hand is it; the days are already counted.
May I trust you? For many days I have longed to
disclose the mysterious presentiments that weigh on me,
although I fear that you will ridicule them. Yet do
not, my gentle friend; for, all childish and unwise as
they are, they have become a part of me, and I dare not
expect to shake them off.         

"Yet how can I expect you to sympathize with me? You
are of this world; I am not. You hold forth your hand;
it is even as a part of yourself; and you do not yet
divide the feeling of identity from the mortal form
that shapes forth Lionel. How then can you understand
me? Earth is to me a tomb, the firmament a vault,
shrouding mere corruption. Time is no more, for I have
stepped within the threshold of eternity; each man I
meet appears a corse, which will soon be deserted of
its animating spark, on the eve of decay and
corruption.

         Cada piedra un piramide levanta,
         y cada flor costruye un monumento,
         cada edificio es un sepulcro altivo,
         cada soldado un esqueleto vivo."*
        
His accent was mournful,--he sighed deeply. "A few
months ago," he continued, "I was thought to be dying;
but life was strong within me. My affections were
human; hope and love were the day-stars of my life.
Now--they dream that the brows of the conqueror of the
infidel faith are about to be encircled by triumphant
laurel; they talk of honourable reward, of title,
power, and wealth--all I ask of Greece is a grave. Let
them raise a mound above my lifeless body, which may
stand even when the dome of St. Sophia has fallen.
 
[*Calderon de la Barca.]

"Wherefore do I feel thus? At Rodosto I was full of
hope; but when first I saw Constantinople, that
feeling, with every other joyful one, departed. The
last words of Evadne were the seal upon the warrant of
my death. Yet I do not pretend to account for my mood
by any particular event. All I can say is, that it is
so. The plague I am told is in Constantinople, perhaps
I have imbibed its effluvia--perhaps disease is the
real cause of my prognostications. It matters little
why or wherefore I am affected, no power can avert the
stroke, and the shadow of Fate's uplifted hand already
darkens me.
 
"To you, Lionel, I entrust your sister and her child.
Never mention to her the fatal name of Evadne. She
would doubly sorrow over the strange link that enchains
me to her, making my spirit obey her dying voice,
following her, as it is about to do, to the unknown
country."        

I listened to him with wonder; but that his sad
demeanour and solemn utterance assured me of the truth
and intensity of his feelings, I should with light
derision have attempted to dissipate his fears.
Whatever I was about to reply, was interrupted by the
powerful emotions of Clara. Raymond had spoken,
thoughtless of her presence, and she, poor child, heard
with terror and faith the prophecy of his death. Her
father was moved by her violent grief; he took her in
his arms and soothed her, but his very soothings were
solemn and fearful. "Weep not, sweet child," said he,
"the coming death of one you have hardly known. I may
die, but in death I can never forget or desert my own
Clara. In after sorrow or joy, believe that you
father's spirit is near, to save or sympathize with
you. Be proud of me, and cherish your infant
remembrance of me. Thus, sweetest, I shall not appear
to die. One thing you must promise,--not to speak to
any one but your uncle, of the conversation you have
just overheard. When I am gone, you will console your
mother, and tell her that death was only bitter because
it divided me from her; that my last thoughts will be
spent on her. But while I live, promise not to betray
me; promise, my child."  
     
With faltering accents Clara promised, while she still
clung to her father in a transport of sorrow. Soon we
returned to shore, and I endeavoured to obviate the
impression made on the child's mind, by treating
Raymond's fears lightly. We heard no more of them; for,
as he had said, the siege, now drawing to a conclusion,
became paramount in interest, engaging all his time and
attention.  

The empire of the Mahometans in Europe was at its
close. The Greek fleet blockading every port of
Stamboul, prevented the arrival of succour from Asia;
all egress on the side towards land had become
impracticable, except to such desperate sallies, as
reduced the numbers of the enemy without making any
impression on our lines. The garrison was now so much
diminished, that it was evident that the city could
easily have been carried by storm; but both humanity
and policy dictated a slower mode of proceeding. We
could hardly doubt that, if pursued to the utmost, its
palaces, its temples and store of wealth would be
destroyed in the fury of contending triumph and defeat.
Already the defenceless citizens had suffered through
the barbarity of the Janisaries; and, in time of storm,
tumult and massacre, beauty, infancy and decrepitude,
would have alike been sacrificed to the brutal ferocity
of the soldiers. Famine and blockade were certain means
of conquest; and on these we founded our hopes of
victory.
 
Each day the soldiers of the garrison assaulted our
advanced posts, and impeded the accomplishment of our
works. Fire-boats were launched from the various ports,
while our troops sometimes recoiled from the devoted
courage of men who did not seek to live, but to sell
their lives dearly. These contests were aggravated by
the season: they took place during summer, when the
southern Asiatic wind came laden with intolerable heat,
when the streams were dried up in their shallow beds,
and the vast basin of the sea appeared to glow under
the unmitigated rays of the solsticial sun. Nor did
night refresh the earth. Dew was denied; herbage and
flowers there were none; the very trees drooped; and
summer assumed the blighted appearance of winter, as it
went forth in silence and flame to abridge the means of
sustenance to man. In vain did the eye strive to find
the wreck of some northern cloud in the stainless
empyrean, which might bring hope of change and moisture
to the oppressive and windless atmosphere. All was
serene, burning, annihilating. We the besiegers were in
the comparison little affected by these evils. The
woods around afforded us shade,--the river secured to
us a constant supply of water; nay, detachments were
employed in furnishing the army with ice, which had
been laid up on Haemus, and Athos, and the mountains of
Macedonia, while cooling fruits and wholesome food
renovated the strength of the labourers, and made us
bear with less impatience the weight of the
unrefreshing air. But in the city things wore a
different face. The sun's rays were refracted from the
pavement and buildings--the stoppage of the public
fountains--the bad quality of the food, and scarcity
even of that, produced a state of suffering, which was
aggravated by the scourge of disease; while the
garrison arrogated every superfluity to themselves,
adding by waste and riot to the necessary evils of the
time. Still they would not capitulate.   

Suddenly the system of warfare was changed. We
experienced no more assaults; and by night and day we
continued our labours unimpeded. Stranger still, when
the troops advanced near the city, the walls were
vacant, and no cannon was pointed against the
intruders. When these circumstances were reported to
Raymond, he caused minute observations to be made as to
what was doing within the walls, and when his scouts
returned, reporting only the continued silence and
desolation of the city, he commanded the army to be
drawn out before the gates. No one appeared on the
walls; the very portals, though locked and barred,
seemed unguarded; above, the many domes and glittering
crescents pierced heaven; while the old walls,
survivors of ages, with ivy-crowned tower and
weed-tangled buttress, stood as rocks in an uninhabited
waste. From within the city neither shout nor cry, nor
aught except the casual howling of a dog, broke the
noon-day stillness. Even our soldiers were awed to
silence; the music paused; the clang of arms was
hushed. Each man asked his fellow in whispers, the
meaning of this sudden peace; while Raymond from an
height endeavoured, by means of glasses, to discover
and observe the stratagem of the enemy. No form could
be discerned on the terraces of the houses; in the
higher parts of the town no moving shadow bespoke the
presence of any living being: the very trees waved not,
and mocked the stability of architecture with like
immovability.   

The tramp of horses, distinctly heard in the silence,
was at length discerned. It was a troop sent by
Karazza, the Admiral; they bore dispatches to the Lord
General. The contents of these papers were important.
The night before, the watch, on board one of the
smaller vessels anchored near the seraglio wall, was
roused by a slight splashing as of muffled oars; the
alarm was given: twelve small boats, each containing
three Janizaries, were descried endeavouring to make
their way through the fleet to the opposite shore of
Scutari. When they found themselves discovered they
discharged their muskets, and some came to the front to
cover the others, whose crews, exerting all their
strength, endeavoured to escape with their light barks
from among the dark hulls that environed them. They
were in the end all sunk, and, with the exception of
two or three prisoners, the crews drowned. Little could
be got from the survivors; but their cautious answers
caused it to be surmised that several expeditions had
preceded this last, and that several Turks of rank and
importance had been conveyed to Asia. The men
disdainfully repelled the idea of having deserted the
defence of their city; and one, the youngest among
them, in answer to the taunt of a sailor, exclaimed,
"Take it, Christian dogs! take the palaces, the
gardens, the mosques, the abode of our fathers--take
plague with them; pestilence is the enemy we fly; if
she be your friend, hug her to your bosoms. The curse
of Allah is on Stamboul, share ye her fate."  
     
Such was the account sent by Karazza to Raymond: but a
tale full of monstrous exaggerations, though founded on
this, was spread by the accompanying troop among our
soldiers. A murmur arose, the city was the prey of
pestilence; already had a mighty power subjugated the
inhabitants; Death had become lord of Constantinople.
 
I have heard a picture described, wherein all the
inhabitants of earth were drawn out in fear to stand
the encounter of Death. The feeble and decrepid fled;
the warriors retreated, though they threatened even in
flight. Wolves and lions, and various monsters of the
desert roared against him; while the grim Unreality
hovered shaking his spectral dart, a solitary but
invincible assailant. Even so was it with the army of
Greece. I am convinced, that had the myriad troops of
Asia come from over the Propontis, and stood defenders
of the Golden City, each and every Greek would have
marched against the overwhelming numbers, and have
devoted himself with patriotic fury for his country.
But here no hedge of bayonets opposed itself, no
death-dealing artillery, no formidable array of brave
soldiers--the unguarded walls afforded easy
entrance--the vacant palaces luxurious dwellings; but
above the dome of St. Sophia the superstitious Greek
saw Pestilence, and shrunk in trepidation from her
influence.
 
Raymond was actuated by far other feelings. He
descended the hill with a face beaming with triumph,
and pointing with his sword to the gates, commanded his
troops to--down with those barricades--the only
obstacles now to completest victory. The soldiers
answered his cheerful words with aghast and awe-struck
looks; instinctively they drew back, and Raymond rode
in the front of the lines:--"By my sword I swear," he
cried, "that no ambush or stratagem endangers you. The
enemy is already vanquished; the pleasant places, the
noble dwellings and spoil of the city are already
yours; force the gate; enter and possess the seats of
your ancestors, your own inheritance! "  

An universal shudder and fearful whispering passed
through the lines; not a soldier moved. "Cowards!"
exclaimed their general, exasperated, "give me an
hatchet! I alone will enter! I will plant your
standard; and when you see it wave from yon highest
minaret, you may gain courage, and rally round it!"
 
One of the officers now came forward: "General," he
said, "we neither fear the courage, nor arms, the open
attack, nor secret ambush of the Moslems. We are ready
to expose our breasts, exposed ten thousand times
before, to the balls and scymetars of the infidels, and
to fall gloriously for Greece. But we will not die in
heaps, like dogs poisoned in summer-time, by the
pestilential air of that city--we dare not go against
the Plague!"  

A multitude of men are feeble and inert, without a
voice, a leader; give them that, and they regain the
strength belonging to their numbers. Shouts from a
thousand voices now rent the air--the cry of applause
became universal. Raymond saw the danger; he was
willing to save his troops from the crime of
disobedience; for he knew, that contention once begun
between the commander and his army, each act and word
added to the weakness of the former, and bestowed power
on the latter. He gave orders for the retreat to be
sounded, and the regiments repaired in good order to
the camp.  

I hastened to carry the intelligence of these strange
proceedings to Perdita; and we were soon joined by
Raymond. He looked gloomy and perturbed. My sister was
struck by my narrative: "How beyond the imagination of
man," she exclaimed, "are the decrees of heaven,
wondrous and inexplicable!"   

"Foolish girl," cried Raymond angrily, "are you like my
valiant soldiers, panic-struck? What is there
inexplicable, pray, tell me, in so very natural an
occurrence? Does not the plague rage each year in
Stamboul? What wonder, that this year, when as we are
told, its virulence is unexampled in Asia, that it
should have occasioned double havoc in that city? What
wonder then, in time of siege, want, extreme heat, and
drought, that it should make unaccustomed ravages? Less
wonder far is it, that the garrison, despairing of
being able to hold out longer, should take advantage of
the negligence of our fleet to escape at once from
siege and capture. It is not pestilence--by the God
that lives! it is not either plague or impending danger
that makes us, like birds in harvest-time, terrified by
a scarecrow, abstain from the ready prey--it is base
superstition--And thus the aim of the valiant is made
the shuttlecock of fools; the worthy ambition of the
high-souled, the plaything of these tamed hares ! But
yet Stamboul shall be ours! By my past labours, by
torture and imprisonment suffered for them, by my
victories, by my sword, I swear--by my hopes of fame,
by my former deserts now awaiting their reward, I
deeply vow, with these hands to plant the cross on
yonder mosque!"  

"Dearest Raymond!" interrupted Perdita, in a
supplicating accent.          

He had been walking to and fro in the marble hall of
the seraglio; his very lips were pale with rage, while,
quivering, they shaped his angry words--his eyes shot
fire--his gestures seemed restrained by their very
vehemence. "Perdita," he continued, impatiently, "I
know what you would say; I know that you love me, that
you are good and gentle; but this is no woman's
work--nor can a female heart guess at the hurricane
which tears me!"  

He seemed half afraid of his own violence, and suddenly
quitted the hall: a look from Perdita shewed me her
distress, and I followed him. He was pacing the garden:
his passions were in a state of inconceivable
turbulence. "Am I for ever," he cried, "to be the sport
of fortune! Must man, the heaven-climber, be for ever
the victim of the crawling reptiles of his species!
Were I as you, Lionel, looking forward to many years of
life, to a succession of love-enlightened days, to
refined enjoyments and fresh-springing hopes, I might
yield, and breaking my General's staff, seek repose in
the glades of Windsor. But I am about to die!--nay,
interrupt me not--soon I shall die. From the
many-peopled earth, from the sympathies of man, from
the loved resorts of my youth, from the kindness of my
friends, from the affection of my only beloved Perdita,
I am about to be removed. Such is the will of fate!
Such the decree of the High Ruler from whom there is no
appeal: to whom I submit. But to lose all--to lose with
life and love, glory also! It shall not be!        

"I, and in a few brief years, all you,--this
panic-struck army, and all the population of fair
Greece, will no longer be. But other generations will
arise, and ever and for ever will continue, to be made
happier by our present acts, to be glorified by our
valour. The prayer of my youth was to be one among
those who render the pages of earth's history splendid;
who exalt the race of man, and make this little globe a
dwelling of the mighty. Alas, for Raymond! the prayer
of his youth is wasted--the hopes of his manhood are
null!
 
"From my dungeon in yonder city I cried, soon I will be
thy lord! When Evadne pronounced my death, I thought
that the title of Victor of Constantinople would be
written on my tomb, and I subdued all mortal fear. I
stand before its vanquished walls, and dare not call
myself a conqueror.  So shall it not be! Did not
Alexander leap from the walls of the city of the
Oxydracae, to shew his coward troops the way to
victory, encountering alone the swords of its
defenders? Even so will I brave the plague--and though
no man follow, I will plant the Grecian standard on the
height of St. Sophia."
 
Reason came unavailing to such high-wrought feelings.
In vain I shewed him, that when winter came, the cold
would dissipate the pestilential air, and restore
courage to the Greeks. "Talk not of other season than
this!" he cried. "I have lived my last winter, and the
date of this year, 2092, will be carved upon my tomb.
Already do I see," he continued, looking up mournfully,
"the bourne and precipitate edge of my existence, over
which I plunge into the gloomy mystery of the life to
come. I am prepared, so that I leave behind a trail of
light so radiant, that my worst enemies cannot cloud
it. I owe this to Greece, to you, to my surviving
Perdita, and to myself, the victim of ambition."  

We were interrupted by an attendant, who announced,
that the staff of Raymond was assembled in the
council-chamber. He requested me in the meantime to
ride through the camp, and to observe and report to him
the dispositions of the soldiers; he then left me. I
had been excited to the utmost by the proceedings of
the day, and now more than ever by the passionate
language of Raymond. Alas! for human reason! He accused
the Greeks of superstition: what name did he give to
the faith he lent to the predictions of Evadne? I
passed from the palace of Sweet Waters to the plain on
which the encampment lay, and found its inhabitants in
commotion. The arrival of several with fresh stories of
marvels, from the fleet; the exaggerations bestowed on
what was already known; tales of old prophecies, of
fearful histories of whole regions which had been laid
waste during the present year by pestilence, alarmed
and occupied the troops. Discipline was lost; the army
disbanded itself. Each individual, before a part of a
great whole moving only in unison with others, now
became resolved into the unit nature had made him, and
thought of himself only. They stole off at first by
ones and twos, then in larger companies, until,
unimpeded by the officers, whole battalions sought the
road that led to Macedonia.  

About midnight I returned to the palace and sought
Raymond; he was alone, and apparently composed; such
composure, at least, was his as is inspired by a
resolve to adhere to a certain line of conduct. He
heard my account of the self-dissolution of the army
with calmness, and then said, "You know, Verney, my
fixed determination not to quit this place, until in
the light of day Stamboul is confessedly ours. If the
men I have about me shrink from following me, others,
more courageous, are to be found. Go you before break
of day, bear these dispatches to Karazza, add to them
your own entreaties that he send me his marines and
naval force; if I can get but one regiment to second
me, the rest would follow of course. Let him send me
this regiment. I shall expect your return by to-morrow
noon."  

Methought this was but a poor expedient; but I assured
him of my obedience and zeal. I quitted him to take a
few hours rest. With the breaking of morning I was
accoutred for my ride. I lingered awhile, desirous of
taking leave of Perdita, and from my window observed
the approach of the sun. The golden splendour arose,
and weary nature awoke to suffer yet another day of
heat and thirsty decay. No flowers lifted up their
dew-laden cups to meet the dawn; the dry grass had
withered on the plains; the burning fields of air were
vacant of birds; the cicale alone, children of the sun,
began their shrill and deafening song among the
cypresses and olives. I saw Raymond's coal-black
charger brought to the palace gate; a small company of
officers arrived soon after; care and fear was painted
on each cheek, and in each eye, unrefreshed by sleep. I
found Raymond and Perdita together. He was watching the
rising sun, while with one arm he encircled his
beloved's waist; she looked on him, the sun of her
life, with earnest gaze of mingled anxiety and
tenderness. Raymond started angrily when he saw me.
"Here still?" he cried. "Is this your promised zeal?"   
  
"Pardon me," I said, "but even as you speak, I am
gone."
 
"Nay, pardon me," he replied; "I have no right to
command or reproach; but my life hangs on your
departure and speedy return. Farewell!"  

His voice had recovered its bland tone, but a dark
cloud still hung on his features. I would have delayed;
I wished to recommend watchfulness to Perdita, but his
presence restrained me. I had no pretence for my
hesitation; and on his repeating his farewell, I
clasped his outstretched hand; it was cold and clammy.
"Take care of yourself, my dear Lord," I said.        

"Nay," said Perdita, "that task shall be mine. Return
speedily, Lionel."        

With an air of absence he was playing with her auburn
locks, while she leaned on him; twice I turned back,
only to look again on this matchless pair. At last,
with slow and heavy steps, I had paced out of the hall,
and sprung upon my horse. At that moment Clara flew
towards me; clasping my knee she cried, "Make haste
back, uncle! Dear uncle, I have such fearful dreams; I
dare not tell my mother. Do not be long away!" I
assured her of my impatience to return, and then, with
a small escort rode along the plain towards the tower
of Marmora.       

I fulfilled my commission; I saw Karazza. He was
somewhat surprised; he would see, he said, what could
be done; but it required time; and Raymond had ordered
me to return by noon. It was impossible to effect any
thing in so short a time. I must stay till the next
day; or come back, after having reported the present
state of things to the general. My choice was easily
made. A restlessness, a fear of what was about to
betide, a doubt as to Raymond's purposes, urged me to
return without delay to his quarters. Quitting the
Seven Towers, I rode eastward towards the Sweet Waters.
I took a circuitous path, principally for the sake of
going to the top of the mount before mentioned, which
commanded a view of the city. I had my glass with me.
The city basked under the noon-day sun, and the
venerable walls formed its picturesque boundary.
Immediately before me was the Top Kapou, the gate near
which Mahomet had made the breach by which he entered
the city. Trees gigantic and aged grew near; before the
gate I discerned a crowd of moving human figures--with
intense curiosity I lifted my glass to my eye. I saw
Lord Raymond on his charger; a small company of
officers had gathered about him; and behind was a
promiscuous concourse of soldiers and subalterns, their
discipline lost, their arms thrown aside; no music
sounded, no banners streamed. The only flag among them
was one which Raymond carried; he pointed with it to
the gate of the city. The circle round him fell back.
With angry gestures he leapt from his horse, and
seizing a hatchet that hung from his saddle-bow, went
with the apparent intention of battering down the
opposing gate. A few men came to aid him; their numbers
increased; under their united blows the obstacle was
vanquished, gate, portcullis, and fence were
demolished; and the wide sun-lit way, leading to the
heart of the city, now lay open before them. The men
shrank back; they seemed afraid of what they had
already done, and stood as if they expected some Mighty
Phantom to stalk in offended majesty from the opening.
Raymond sprung lightly on his horse, grasped the
standard, and with words which I could not hear (but
his gestures, being their fit accompaniment, were
marked by passionate energy,) he seemed to adjure their
assistance and companionship; even as he spoke, the
crowd receded from him. Indignation now transported
him; his words I guessed were fraught with
disdain--then turning from his coward followers, he
addressed himself to enter the city alone. His very
horse seemed to back from the fatal entrance; his dog,
his faithful dog, lay moaning and supplicating in his
path--in a moment more, he had plunged the rowels into
the sides of the stung animal, who bounded forward, and
he, the gateway passed, was galloping up the broad and
desart street.  
    
Until this moment my soul had been in my eyes only. I
had gazed with wonder, mixed with fear and enthusiasm.
The latter feeling now predominated. I forgot the
distance between us: "I will go with thee, Raymond!" I
cried; but, my eye removed from the glass, I could
scarce discern the pigmy forms of the crowd, which
about a mile from me surrounded the gate; the form of
Raymond was lost. Stung with impatience, I urged my
horse with force of spur and loosened reins down the
acclivity, that, before danger could arrive, I might be
at the side of my noble, godlike friend. A number of
buildings and trees intervened, when I had reached the
plain, hiding the city from my view. But at that moment
a crash was heard.  Thunderlike it reverberated through
the sky, while the air was darkened. A moment more and
the old walls again met my sight, while over them
hovered a murky cloud; fragments of buildings whirled
above, half seen in smoke, while flames burst out
beneath, and continued explosions filled the air with
terrific thunders. Flying from the mass of falling ruin
which leapt over the high walls, and shook the ivy
towers, a crowd of soldiers made for the road by which
I came; I was surrounded, hemmed in by them, unable to
get forward. My impatience rose to its utmost; I
stretched out my hands to the men; I conjured them to
turn back and save their General, the conqueror of
Stamboul, the liberator of Greece; tears, aye tears, in
warm flow gushed from my eyes--I would not believe in
his destruction; yet every mass that darkened the air
seemed to bear with it a portion of the martyred
Raymond. Horrible sights were shaped to me in the
turbid cloud that hovered over the city; and my only
relief was derived from the struggles I made to
approach the gate. Yet when I effected my purpose, all
I could discern within the precincts of the massive
walls was a city of fire: the open way through which
Raymond had ridden was enveloped in smoke and flame.
After an interval the explosions ceased, but the flames
still shot up from various quarters; the dome of St.
Sophia had disappeared. Strange to say (the result
perhaps of the concussion of air occasioned by the
blowing up of the city) huge, white thunder clouds
lifted themselves up from the southern horizon, and
gathered over-head; they were the first blots on the
blue expanse that I had seen for months, and amidst
this havoc and despair they inspired pleasure. The
vault above became obscured, lightning flashed from the
heavy masses, followed instantaneously by crashing
thunder; then the big rain fell. The flames of the city
bent beneath it; and the smoke and dust arising from
the ruins was dissipated.    
     
I no sooner perceived an abatement of the flames than,
hurried on by an irresistible impulse, I endeavoured to
penetrate the town. I could only do this on foot, as
the mass of ruin was impracticable for a horse. I had
never entered the city before, and its ways were
unknown to me. The streets were blocked up, the ruins
smoking; I climbed up one heap, only to view others in
succession; and nothing told me where the centre of the
town might be, or towards what point Raymond might have
directed his course. The rain ceased; the clouds sunk
behind the horizon; it was now evening, and the sun
descended swiftly the western sky. I scrambled on,
until I came to a street, whose wooden houses,
half-burnt, had been cooled by the rain, and were
fortunately uninjured by the gunpowder. Up this I
hurried--until now I had not seen a vestige of man. Yet
none of the defaced human forms which I distinguished,
could be Raymond; so I turned my eyes away, while my
heart sickened within me. I came to an open space--a
mountain of ruin in the midst, announced that some
large mosque had occupied the space--and here,
scattered about, I saw various articles of luxury and
wealth, singed, destroyed--but shewing what they had
been in their ruin--jewels, strings of pearls,
embroidered robes, rich furs, glittering tapestries,
and oriental ornaments, seemed to have been collected
here in a pile destined for destruction; but the rain
had stopped the havoc midway.    

Hours passed, while in this scene of ruin I sought for
Raymond. Insurmountable heaps sometimes opposed
themselves; the still burning fires scorched me. The
sun set; the atmosphere grew dim--and the evening star
no longer shone companionless. The glare of flames
attested the progress of destruction, while, during
mingled light and obscurity, the piles around me took
gigantic proportions and weird shapes. For a moment I
could yield to the creative power of the imagination,
and for a moment was soothed by the sublime fictions it
presented to me. The beatings of my human heart drew me
back to blank reality. Where, in this wilderness of
death, art thou, O Raymond--ornament of England,
deliverer of Greece, "hero of unwritten story," where
in this burning chaos are thy dear relics strewed? I
called aloud for him--through the darkness of night,
over the scorching ruins of fallen Constantinople, his
name was heard; no voice replied--echo even was mute.   

I was overcome by weariness; the solitude depressed my
spirits. The sultry air impregnated with dust, the heat
and smoke of burning palaces, palsied my limbs. Hunger
suddenly came acutely upon me. The excitement which had
hitherto sustained me was lost; as a building, whose
props are loosened, and whose foundations rock, totters
and falls, so when enthusiasm and hope deserted me, did
my strength fail. I sat on the sole remaining step of
an edifice, which even in its downfall, was huge and
magnificent; a few broken walls, not dislodged by
gunpowder, stood in fantastic groupes, and a flame
glimmered at intervals on the summit of the pile. For a
time hunger and sleep contended, till the
constellations reeled before my eyes and then were
lost. I strove to rise, but my heavy lids closed, my
limbs over-wearied, claimed repose--I rested my head on
the stone, I yielded to the grateful sensation of utter
forgetfulness; and in that scene of desolation, on that
night of despair--I slept.


[Vol. II]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER III.

THE stars still shone brightly when I awoke, and Taurus
high in the southern heaven shewed that it was
midnight. I awoke from disturbed dreams. Methought I
had been invited to Timon's last feast; I came with
keen appetite, the covers were removed, the hot water
sent up its unsatisfying steams, while I fled before
the anger of the host, who assumed the form of Raymond;
while to my diseased fancy, the vessels hurled by him
after me, were surcharged with fetid vapour, and my
friend's shape, altered by a thousand distortions,
expanded into a gigantic phantom, bearing on its brow
the sign of pestilence. The growing shadow rose and
rose, filling, and then seeming to endeavour to burst
beyond, the adamantine vault that bent over, sustaining
and enclosing the world. The night-mare became torture;
with a strong effort I threw off sleep, and recalled
reason to her wonted functions. My first thought was
Perdita; to her I must return; her I must support,
drawing such food from despair as might best sustain
her wounded heart; recalling her from the wild excesses
of grief, by the austere laws of duty, and the soft
tenderness of regret.   
    
The position of the stars was my only guide. I turned
from the awful ruin of the Golden City, and, after
great exertion, succeeded in extricating myself from
its enclosure. I met a company of soldiers outside the
walls; I borrowed a horse from one of them, and
hastened to my sister. The appearance of the plain was
changed during this short interval; the encampment was
broken up; the relics of the disbanded army met in
small companies here and there; each face was clouded;
every gesture spoke astonishment and dismay.
 
With an heavy heart I entered the palace, and stood
fearful to advance, to speak, to look. In the midst of
the hall was Perdita; she sat on the marble pavement,
her head fallen on her bosom, her hair dishevelled, her
fingers twined busily one within the other; she was
pale as marble, and every feature was contracted by
agony. She perceived me, and looked up enquiringly; her
half glance of hope was misery; the words died before I
could articulate them; I felt a ghastly smile wrinkle
my lips. She understood my gesture; again her head
fell; again her fingers worked restlessly. At last I
recovered speech, but my voice terrified her; the
hapless girl had understood my look, and for worlds she
would not that the tale of her heavy misery should have
been shaped out and confirmed by hard, irrevocable
words. Nay, she seemed to wish to distract my thoughts
from the subject: she rose from the floor: "Hush!" she
said, whisperingly; "after much weeping, Clara sleeps;
we must not disturb her." She seated herself then on
the same ottoman where I had left her in the morning
resting on the beating heart of her Raymond; I dared
not approach her, but sat at a distant corner, watching
her starting and nervous gestures. At length, in an
abrupt manner she asked, "Where is he?"
 
"O, fear not," she continued, "fear not that I should
entertain hope! Yet tell me, have you found him? To
have him once more in my arms, to see him, however
changed, is all I desire. Though Constantinople be
heaped above him as a tomb, yet I must find him--then
cover us with the city's weight, with a mountain piled
above--I care not, so that one grave hold Raymond and
his Perdita." Then weeping, she clung to me: "Take me
to him," she cried, "unkind Lionel, why do you keep me
here? Of myself I cannot find him--but you know where
he lies--lead me thither."  

At first these agonizing plaints filled me with
intolerable compassion. But soon I endeavoured to
extract patience for her from the ideas she suggested.
I related my adventures of the night, my endeavours to
find our lost one, and my disappointment. Turning her
thoughts this way, I gave them an object which rescued
them from insanity. With apparent calmness she
discussed with me the probable spot where he might be
found, and planned the means we should use for that
purpose. Then hearing of my fatigue and abstinence, she
herself brought me food. I seized the favourable
moment, and endeavoured to awaken in her something
beyond the killing torpor of grief. As I spoke, my
subject carried me away; deep admiration; grief, the
offspring of truest affection, the overflowing of a
heart bursting with sympathy for all that had been
great and sublime in the career of my friend, inspired
me as I poured forth the praises of Raymond.        

"Alas, for us," I cried, "who have lost this latest
honour of the world! Beloved Raymond! He is gone to the
nations of the dead; he has become one of those, who
render the dark abode of the obscure grave illustrious
by dwelling there. He has journied on the road that
leads to it, and joined the mighty of soul who went
before him. When the world was in its infancy death
must have been terrible, and man left his friends and
kindred to dwell, a solitary stranger, in an unknown
country. But now, he who dies finds many companions
gone before to prepare for his reception. The great of
past ages people it, the exalted hero of our own days
is counted among its inhabitants, while life becomes
doubly 'the desart and the solitude.'        

"What a noble creature was Raymond, the first among the
men of our time. By the grandeur of his conceptions,
the graceful daring of his actions, by his wit and
beauty, he won and ruled the minds of all. Of one only
fault he might have been accused; but his death has
cancelled that. I have heard him called inconstant of
purpose--when he deserted, for the sake of love, the
hope of sovereignty, and when he abdicated the
protectorship of England, men blamed his infirmity of
purpose. Now his death has crowned his life, and to the
end of time it will be remembered, that he devoted
himself, a willing victim, to the glory of Greece. Such
was his choice: he expected to die. He foresaw that he
should leave this cheerful earth, the lightsome sky,
and thy love, Perdita; yet he neither hesitated or
turned back, going right onward to his mark of fame.
While the earth lasts, his actions will be recorded
with praise. Grecian maidens will in devotion strew
flowers on his tomb, and make the air around it
resonant with patriotic hymns, in which his name will
find high record."
 
I saw the features of Perdita soften; the sternness of
grief yielded to tenderness--I continued:--"Thus to
honour him, is the sacred duty of his survivors. To
make his name even as an holy spot of ground, enclosing
it from all hostile attacks by our praise, shedding on
it the blossoms of love and regret, guarding it from
decay, and bequeathing it untainted to posterity. Such
is the duty of his friends. A dearer one belongs to
you, Perdita, mother of his child. Do you remember in
her infancy, with what transport you beheld Clara,
recognizing in her the united being of yourself and
Raymond; joying to view in this living temple a
manifestation of your eternal loves. Even such is she
still. You say that you have lost Raymond. O, no!--yet
he lives with you and in you there. From him she
sprung, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone--and not,
as heretofore, are you content to trace in her downy
cheek and delicate limbs, an affinity to Raymond, but
in her enthusiastic affections, in the sweet qualities
of her mind, you may still find him living, the good,
the great, the beloved. Be it your care to foster this
similarity--be it your care to render her worthy of
him, so that, when she glory in her origin, she take
not shame for what she is."  

I could perceive that, when I recalled my sister's
thoughts to her duties in life, she did not listen with
the same patience as before. She appeared to suspect a
plan of consolation on my part, from which she,
cherishing her new-born grief, revolted. "You talk of
the future," she said, "while the present is all to me.
Let me find the earthly dwelling of my beloved; let us
rescue that from common dust, so that in times to come
men may point to the sacred tomb, and name it his--then
to other thoughts, and a new course of life, or what
else fate, in her cruel tyranny, may have marked out
for me."
 
After a short repose I prepared to leave her, that I
might endeavour to accomplish her wish. In the mean
time we were joined by Clara, whose pallid cheek and
scared look shewed the deep impression grief had made
on her young mind. She seemed to be full of something
to which she could not give words; but, seizing an
opportunity afforded by Perdita's absence, she
preferred to me an earnest prayer, that I would take
her within view of the gate at which her father had
entered Constantinople. She promised to commit no
extravagance, to be docile, and immediately to return.
I could not refuse; for Clara was not an ordinary
child; her sensibility and intelligence seemed already
to have endowed her with the rights of womanhood. With
her therefore, before me on my horse, attended only by
the servant who was to re-conduct her, we rode to the
Top Kapou. We found a party of soldiers gathered round
it. They were listening. "They are human cries," said
one: "More like the howling of a dog," replied another;
and again they bent to catch the sound of regular
distant moans, which issued from the precincts of the
ruined city. "That, Clara," I said, "is the gate, that
the street which yestermorn your father rode up."
Whatever Clara's intention had been in asking to be
brought hither, it was balked by the presence of the
soldiers. With earnest gaze she looked on the labyrinth
of smoking piles which had been a city, and then
expressed her readiness to return home. At this moment
a melancholy howl struck on our ears; it was repeated;
"Hark!" cried Clara, "he is there; that is Florio, my
father's dog." It seemed to me impossible that she
could recognise the sound, but she persisted in her
assertion till she gained credit with the crowd about.
At least it would be a benevolent action to rescue the
sufferer, whether human or brute, from the desolation
of the town; so, sending Clara back to her home, I
again entered Constantinople. Encouraged by the
impunity attendant on my former visit, several soldiers
who had made a part of Raymond's body guard, who had
loved him, and sincerely mourned his loss, accompanied
me.
 
It is impossible to conjecture the strange enchainment
of events which restored the lifeless form of my friend
to our hands. In that part of the town where the fire
had most raged the night before, and which now lay
quenched, black and cold, the dying dog of Raymond
crouched beside the mutilated form of its lord. At such
a time sorrow has no voice; affliction, tamed by it is
very vehemence, is mute. The poor animal recognised me,
licked my hand, crept close to its lord, and died. He
had been evidently thrown from his horse by some
falling ruin, which had crushed his head, and defaced
his whole person. I bent over the body, and took in my
hand the edge of his cloak, less altered in appearance
than the human frame it clothed. I pressed it to my
lips, while the rough soldiers gathered around,
mourning over this worthiest prey of death, as if
regret and endless lamentation could re-illumine the
extinguished spark, or call to its shattered
prison-house of flesh the liberated spirit. Yesterday
those limbs were worth an universe; they then enshrined
a transcendant power, whose intents, words, and actions
were worthy to be recorded in letters of gold; now the
superstition of affection alone could give value to the
shattered mechanism, which, incapable and clod-like, no
more resembled Raymond, than the fallen rain is like
the former mansion of cloud in which it climbed the
highest skies, and gilded by the sun, attracted all
eyes, and satiated the sense by its excess of beauty.
 
Such as he had now become, such as was his terrene
vesture, defaced and spoiled, we wrapt it in our
cloaks, and lifting the burthen in our arms, bore it
from this city of the dead. The question arose as to
where we should deposit him. In our road to the palace,
we passed through the Greek cemetery; here on a tablet
of black marble I caused him to be laid; the cypresses
waved high above, their death-like gloom accorded with
his state of nothingness. We cut branches of the
funereal trees and placed them over him, and on these
again his sword. I left a guard to protect this
treasure of dust; and ordered perpetual torches to be
burned around.        

When I returned to Perdita, I found that she had
already been informed of the success of my undertaking.
He, her beloved, the sole and eternal object of her
passionate tenderness, was restored her. Such was the
maniac language of her enthusiasm. What though those
limbs moved not, and those lips could no more frame
modulated accents of wisdom and love! What though like
a weed flung from the fruitless sea, he lay the prey of
corruption--still that was the form she had caressed,
those the lips that meeting hers, had drank the spirit
of love from the commingling breath; that was the
earthly mechanism of dissoluble clay she had called her
own. True, she looked forward to another life; true,
the burning spirit of love seemed to her
unextinguishable throughout eternity. Yet at this time,
with human fondness, she clung to all that her human
senses permitted her to see and feel to be a part of
Raymond.
 
Pale as marble, clear and beaming as that, she heard my
tale, and enquired concerning the spot where he had
been deposited. Her features had lost the distortion of
grief; her eyes were brightened, her very person seemed
dilated; while the excessive whiteness and even
transparency of her skin, and something hollow in her
voice, bore witness that not tranquillity, but excess
of excitement, occasioned the treacherous calm that
settled on her countenance. I asked her where he should
be buried. She replied, "At Athens; even at the Athens
which he loved. Without the town, on the acclivity of
Hymettus, there is a rocky recess which he pointed out
to me as the spot where he would wish to repose."
 
My own desire certainly was that he should not be
removed from the spot where he now lay. But her wish
was of course to be complied with; and I entreated her
to prepare without delay for our departure.
 
Behold now the melancholy train cross the flats of
Thrace, and wind through the defiles, and over the
mountains of Macedonia, coast the clear waves of the
Peneus, cross the Larissean plain, pass the straits of
Thermopylae, and ascending in succession Oeta and
Parnassus, descend to the fertile plain of Athens.
Women bear with resignation these long drawn ills, but
to a man's impatient spirit, the slow motion of our
cavalcade, the melancholy repose we took at noon, the
perpetual presence of the pall, gorgeous though it was,
that wrapt the rifled casket which had contained
Raymond, the monotonous recurrence of day and night,
unvaried by hope or change, all the circumstances of
our march were intolerable. Perdita, shut up in
herself, spoke little. Her carriage was closed; and,
when we rested, she sat leaning her pale cheek on her
white cold hand, with eyes fixed on the ground,
indulging thoughts which refused communication or
sympathy.  

We descended from Parnassus, emerging from its many
folds, and passed through Livadia on our road to
Attica. Perdita would not enter Athens; but reposing at
Marathon on the night of our arrival, conducted me on
the following day, to the spot selected by her as the
treasure house of Raymond's dear remains. It was in a
recess near the head of the ravine to the south of
Hymettus. The chasm, deep, black, and hoary, swept from
the summit to the base; in the fissures of the rock
myrtle underwood grew and wild thyme, the food of many
nations of bees; enormous crags protruded into the
cleft, some beetling over, others rising
perpendicularly from it. At the foot of this sublime
chasm, a fertile laughing valley reached from sea to
sea, and beyond was spread the blue Aegean, sprinkled
with islands, the light waves glancing beneath the sun.
Close to the spot on which we stood, was a solitary
rock, high and conical, which, divided on every side
from the mountain, seemed a nature-hewn pyramid; with
little labour this block was reduced to a perfect
shape; the narrow cell was scooped out beneath in which
Raymond was placed, and a short inscription, carved in
the living stone, recorded the name of its tenant, the
cause and aera of his death.  

Every thing was accomplished with speed under my
directions. I agreed to leave the finishing and
guardianship of the tomb to the head of the religious
establishment at Athens, and by the end of October
prepared for my return to England. I mentioned this to
Perdita. It was painful to appear to drag her from the
last scene that spoke of her lost one; but to linger
here was vain, and my very soul was sick with its
yearning to rejoin my Idris and her babes. In reply, my
sister requested me to accompany her the following
evening to the tomb of Raymond. Some days had passed
since I had visited the spot. The path to it had been
enlarged, and steps hewn in the rock led us less
circuitously than before, to the spot itself; the
platform on which the pyramid stood was enlarged, and
looking towards the south, in a recess overshadowed by
the straggling branches of a wild fig-tree, I saw
foundations dug, and props and rafters fixed, evidently
the commencement of a cottage; standing on its
unfinished threshold, the tomb was at our right-hand,
the whole ravine, and plain, and azure sea immediately
before us; the dark rocks received a glow from the
descending sun, which glanced along the cultivated
valley, and dyed in purple and orange the placid waves;
we sat on a rocky elevation, and I gazed with rapture
on the beauteous panorama of living and changeful
colours, which varied and enhanced the graces of earth
and ocean.
 
"Did I not do right," said Perdita, "in having my loved
one conveyed hither? Hereafter this will be the
cynosure of Greece. In such a spot death loses half its
terrors, and even the inanimate dust appears to partake
of the spirit of beauty which hallows this region.
Lionel, he sleeps there; that is the grave of Raymond,
he whom in my youth I first loved; whom my heart
accompanied in days of separation and anger; to whom I
am now joined for ever. Never--mark me--never will I
leave this spot. Methinks his spirit remains here as
well as that dust, which, uncommunicable though it be,
is more precious in its nothingness than aught else
widowed earth clasps to her sorrowing bosom. The myrtle
bushes, the thyme, the little cyclamen, which peep from
the fissures of the rock, all the produce of the place,
bear affinity to him; the light that invests the hills
participates in his essence, and sky and mountains, sea
and valley, are imbued by the presence of his spirit. I
will live and die here!
 
"Go you to England, Lionel; return to sweet Idris and
dearest Adrian; return, and let my orphan girl be as a
child of your own in your house. Look on me as dead;
and truly if death be a mere change of state, I am
dead. This is another world, from that which late I
inhabited, from that which is now your home. Here I
hold communion only with the has been, and to come. Go
you to England, and leave me where alone I can consent
to drag out the miserable days which I must still
live."
 
A shower of tears terminated her sad harangue. I had
expected some extravagant proposition, and remained
silent awhile, collecting my thoughts that I might the
better combat her fanciful scheme. "You cherish dreary
thoughts, my dear Perdita," I said, "nor do I wonder
that for a time your better reason should be influenced
by passionate grief and a disturbed imagination. Even I
am in love with this last home of Raymond's;
nevertheless we must quit it."  

"I expected this," cried Perdita; "I supposed that you
would treat me as a mad, foolish girl. But do not
deceive yourself; this cottage is built by my order;
and here I shall remain, until the hour arrives when I
may share his happier dwelling."

"My dearest girl!"
 
"And what is there so strange in my design? I might
have deceived you; I might have talked of remaining
here only a few months; in your anxiety to reach
Windsor you would have left me, and without reproach or
contention, I might have pursued my plan. But I
disdained the artifice; or rather in my wretchedness it
was my only consolation to pour out my heart to you, my
brother, my only friend. You will not dispute with me?
You know how wilful your poor, misery-stricken sister
is. Take my girl with you; wean her from sights and
thoughts of sorrow; let infantine hilarity revisit her
heart, and animate her eyes; so could it never be, were
she near me; it is far better for all of you that you
should never see me again. For myself, I will not
voluntarily seek death, that is, I will not, while I
can command myself; and I can here. But drag me from
this country; and my power of self control vanishes,
nor can I answer for the violence my agony of grief may
lead me to commit."
 
"You clothe your meaning, Perdita," I replied, "in
powerful words, yet that meaning is selfish and
unworthy of you. You have often agreed with me that
there is but one solution to the intricate riddle of
life; to improve ourselves, and contribute to the
happiness of others: and now, in the very prime of
life, you desert your principles, and shut yourself up
in useless solitude. Will you think of Raymond less at
Windsor, the scene of your early happiness? Will you
commune less with his departed spirit, while you watch
over and cultivate the rare excellence of his child?
You have been sadly visited; nor do I wonder that a
feeling akin to insanity should drive you to bitter and
unreasonable imaginings. But a home of love awaits you
in your native England. My tenderness and affection
must soothe you; the society of Raymond's friends will
be of more solace than these dreary speculations. We
will all make it our first care, our dearest task, to
contribute to your happiness."
 
Perdita shook her head; "If it could be so," she
replied, "I were much in the wrong to disdain your
offers. But it is not a matter of choice; I can live
here only. I am a part of this scene; each and all its
properties are a part of me. This is no sudden fancy; I
live by it. The knowledge that I am here, rises with me
in the morning, and enables me to endure the light; it
is mingled with my food, which else were poison; it
walks, it sleeps with me, for ever it accompanies me.
Here I may even cease to repine, and may add my tardy
consent to the decree which has taken him from me. He
would rather have died such a death, which will be
recorded in history to endless time, than have lived to
old age unknown, unhonoured. Nor can I desire better,
than, having been the chosen and beloved of his heart,
here, in youth's prime, before added years can tarnish
the best feelings of my nature, to watch his tomb, and
speedily rejoin him in his blessed repose.        

"So much, my dearest Lionel, I have said, wishing to
persuade you that I do right. If you are unconvinced, I
can add nothing further by way of argument, and I can
only declare my fixed resolve. I stay here; force only
can remove me. Be it so; drag me away--I return;
confine me, imprison me, still I escape, and come here.
Or would my brother rather devote the heart-broken
Perdita to the straw and chains of a maniac, than
suffer her to rest in peace beneath the shadow of His
society, in this my own selected and beloved recess?"-- 

All this appeared to me, I own, methodized madness. I
imagined, that it was my imperative duty to take her
from scenes that thus forcibly reminded her of her
loss. Nor did I doubt, that in the tranquillity of our
family circle at Windsor, she would recover some degree
of composure, and in the end, of happiness. My
affection for Clara also led me to oppose these fond
dreams of cherished grief; her sensibility had already
been too much excited; her infant heedlessness too soon
exchanged for deep and anxious thought. The strange and
romantic scheme of her mother, might confirm and
perpetuate the painful view of life, which had intruded
itself thus early on her contemplation.
 
On returning home, the captain of the steam packet with
whom I had agreed to sail, came to tell me, that
accidental circumstances hastened his departure, and
that, if I went with him, I must come on board at five
on the following morning. I hastily gave my consent to
this arrangement, and as hastily formed a plan through
which Perdita should be forced to become my companion.
I believe that most people in my situation would have
acted in the same manner. Yet this consideration does
not, or rather did not in after time, diminish the
reproaches of my conscience. At the moment, I felt
convinced that I was acting for the best, and that all
I did was right and even necessary.
 
I sat with Perdita and soothed her, by my seeming
assent to her wild scheme. She received my concurrence
with pleasure, and a thousand times over thanked her
deceiving, deceitful brother. As night came on, her
spirits, enlivened by my unexpected concession,
regained an almost forgotten vivacity. I pretended to
be alarmed by the feverish glow in her cheek; I
entreated her to take a composing draught; I poured out
the medicine, which she took docilely from me. I
watched her as she drank it. Falsehood and artifice are
in themselves so hateful, that, though I still thought
I did right, a feeling of shame and guilt came
painfully upon me. I left her, and soon heard that she
slept soundly under the influence of the opiate I had
administered. She was carried thus unconscious on
board; the anchor weighed, and the wind being
favourable, we stood far out to sea; with all the
canvas spread, and the power of the engine to assist,
we scudded swiftly and steadily through the chafed
element.
 
It was late in the day before Perdita awoke, and a
longer time elapsed before recovering from the torpor
occasioned by the laudanum, she perceived her change of
situation. She started wildly from her couch, and flew
to the cabin window. The blue and troubled sea sped
past the vessel, and was spread shoreless around: the
sky was covered by a rack, which in its swift motion
shewed how speedily she was borne away. The creaking of
the masts, the clang of the wheels, the tramp above,
all persuaded her that she was already far from the
shores of Greece.--"Where are we?" she cried, "where
are we going?"--
 
The attendant whom I had stationed to watch her,
replied, "to England."--        

"And my brother?"--
 
"Is on deck, Madam."
 
"Unkind! unkind!" exclaimed the poor victim, as with a
deep sigh she looked on the waste of waters. Then
without further remark, she threw herself on her couch,
and closing her eyes remained motionless; so that but
for the deep sighs that burst from her, it would have
seemed that she slept.  

As soon as I heard that she had spoken, I sent Clara to
her, that the sight of the lovely innocent might
inspire gentle and affectionate thoughts. But neither
the presence of her child, nor a subsequent visit from
me, could rouse my sister. She looked on Clara with a
countenance of woful meaning, but she did not speak.
When I appeared, she turned away, and in reply to my
enquiries, only said, "You know not what you have
done!"--I trusted that this sullenness betokened merely
the struggle between disappointment and natural
affection, and that in a few days she would be
reconciled to her fate.
 
When night came on, she begged that Clara might sleep
in a separate cabin. Her servant, however, remained
with her. About midnight she spoke to the latter,
saying that she had had a bad dream, and bade her go to
her daughter, and bring word whether she rested
quietly. The woman obeyed.  

The breeze, that had flagged since sunset, now rose
again. I was on deck, enjoying our swift progress. The
quiet was disturbed only by the rush of waters as they
divided before the steady keel, the murmur of the
moveless and full sails, the wind whistling in the
shrouds, and the regular motion of the engine. The sea
was gently agitated, now shewing a white crest, and now
resuming an uniform hue; the clouds had disappeared;
and dark ether clipt the broad ocean, in which the
constellations vainly sought their accustomed mirror.
Our rate could not have been less than eight knots.  

Suddenly I heard a splash in the sea. The sailors on
watch rushed to the side of the vessel, with the
cry--some one gone overboard. "It is not from deck,"
said the man at the helm, "something has been thrown
from the aft cabin." A call for the boat to be lowered
was echoed from the deck. I rushed into my sister's
cabin; it was empty.
         
With sails abaft, the engine stopt, the vessel remained
unwillingly stationary, until, after an hour's search,
my poor Perdita was brought on board. But no care could
re-animate her, no medicine cause her dear eyes to
open, and the blood to flow again from her pulseless
heart. One clenched hand contained a slip of paper, on
which was written, "To Athens." To ensure her removal
thither, and prevent the irrecoverable loss of her body
in the wide sea, she had had the precaution to fasten a
long shawl round her waist, and again to the
staunchions of the cabin window. She had drifted
somewhat under the keel of the vessel, and her being
out of sight occasioned the delay in finding her. And
thus the ill-starred girl died a victim to my senseless
rashness. Thus, in early day, she left us for the
company of the dead, and preferred to share the rocky
grave of Raymond, before the animated scene this
cheerful earth afforded, and the society of loving
friends. Thus in her twenty-ninth year she died; having
enjoyed some few years of the happiness of paradise,
and sustaining a reverse to which her impatient spirit
and affectionate disposition were unable to submit. As
I marked the placid expression that had settled on her
countenance in death, I felt, in spite of the pangs of
remorse, in spite of heart-rending regret, that it was
better to die so, than to drag on long, miserable years
of repining and inconsolable grief.  
     
Stress of weather drove us up the Adriatic Gulph; and,
our vessel being hardly fitted to weather a storm, we
took refuge in the port of Ancona. Here I met Georgio
Palli, the vice-admiral of the Greek fleet, a former
friend and warm partizan of Raymond. I committed the
remains of my lost Perdita to his care, for the purpose
of having them transported to Hymettus, and placed in
the cell her Raymond already occupied beneath the
pyramid. This was all accomplished even as I wished.
She reposed beside her beloved, and the tomb above was
inscribed with the united names of Raymond and Perdita.
 
I then came to a resolution of pursuing our journey to
England overland. My own heart was racked by regrets
and remorse. The apprehension, that Raymond had
departed for ever, that his name, blended eternally
with the past, must be erased from every anticipation
of the future, had come slowly upon me. I had always
admired his talents; his noble aspirations; his grand
conceptions of the glory and majesty of his ambition:
his utter want of mean passions; his fortitude and
daring. In Greece I had learnt to love him; his very
waywardness, and self-abandonment to the impulses of
superstition, attached me to him doubly; it might be
weakness, but it was the antipodes of all that was
grovelling and selfish. To these pangs were added the
loss of Perdita, lost through my own accursed self-will
and conceit. This dear one, my sole relation; whose
progress I had marked from tender childhood through the
varied path of life, and seen her throughout
conspicuous for integrity, devotion, and true
affection; for all that constitutes the peculiar graces
of the female character, and beheld her at last the
victim of too much loving, too constant an attachment
to the perishable and lost, she, in her pride of beauty
and life, had thrown aside the pleasant perception of
the apparent world for the unreality of the grave, and
had left poor Clara quite an orphan. I concealed from
this beloved child that her mother's death was
voluntary, and tried every means to awaken cheerfulness
in her sorrow-stricken spirit.
 
One of my first acts for the recovery even of my own
composure, was to bid farewell to the sea. Its hateful
splash renewed again and again to my sense the death of
my sister; its roar was a dirge; in every dark hull
that was tossed on its inconstant bosom, I imaged a
bier, that would convey to death all who trusted to its
treacherous smiles. Farewell to the sea! Come, my
Clara, sit beside me in this aerial bark; quickly and
gently it cleaves the azure serene, and with soft
undulation glides upon the current of the air; or, if
storm shake its fragile mechanism, the green earth is
below; we can descend, and take shelter on the stable
continent. Here aloft, the companions of the
swift-winged birds, we skim through the unresisting
element, fleetly and fearlessly. The light boat heaves
not, nor is opposed by death-bearing waves; the ether
opens before the prow, and the shadow of the globe that
upholds it, shelters us from the noon-day sun. Beneath
are the plains of Italy, or the vast undulations of the
wave-like Apennines: fertility reposes in their many
folds, and woods crown the summits. The free and happy
peasant, unshackled by the Austrian, bears the double
harvest to the garner; and the refined citizens rear
without dread the long blighted tree of knowledge in
this garden of the world. We were lifted above the
Alpine peaks, and from their deep and brawling ravines
entered the plain of fair France, and after an airy
journey of six days, we landed at Dieppe, furled the
feathered wings, and closed the silken globe of our
little pinnace. A heavy rain made this mode of
travelling now incommodious; so we embarked in a
steam-packet, and after a short passage landed at
Portsmouth.
 
A strange story was rife here. A few days before, a
tempest-struck vessel had appeared off the town: the
hull was parched-looking and cracked, the sails rent,
and bent in a careless, unseamanlike manner, the
shrouds tangled and broken. She drifted towards the
harbour, and was stranded on the sands at the entrance.
In the morning the custom-house officers, together with
a crowd of idlers, visited her. One only of the crew
appeared to have arrived with her. He had got to shore,
and had walked a few paces towards the town, and then,
vanquished by malady and approaching death, had fallen
on the inhospitable beach. He was found stiff, his
hands clenched, and pressed against his breast. His
skin, nearly black, his matted hair and bristly beard,
were signs of a long protracted misery. It was
whispered that he had died of the plague. No one
ventured on board the vessel, and strange sights were
averred to be seen at night, walking the deck, and
hanging on the masts and shrouds. She soon went to
pieces; I was shewn where she had been, and saw her
disjoined timbers tossed on the waves. The body of the
man who had landed, had been buried deep in the sands;
and none could tell more, than that the vessel was
American built, and that several months before the
Fortunatas had sailed from Philadelphia, of which no
tidings were afterwards received.


[Vol. II]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER IV.

I RETURNED to my family estate in the autumn of the
year 2092. My heart had long been with them; and I felt
sick with the hope and delight of seeing them again.
The district which contained them appeared the abode of
every kindly spirit. Happiness, love and peace, walked
the forest paths, and tempered the atmosphere. After
all the agitation and sorrow I had endured in Greece, I
sought Windsor, as the storm-driven bird does the nest
in which it may fold its wings in tranquillity.
 
How unwise had the wanderers been, who had deserted its
shelter, entangled themselves in the web of society,
and entered on what men of the world call "life,"--that
labyrinth of evil, that scheme of mutual torture. To
live, according to this sense of the word, we must not
only observe and learn, we must also feel; we must not
be mere spectators of action, we must act; we must not
describe, but be subjects of description. Deep sorrow
must have been the inmate of our bosoms; fraud must
have lain in wait for us; the artful must have deceived
us; sickening doubt and false hope must have chequered
our days; hilarity and joy, that lap the soul in
ecstasy, must at times have possessed us. Who that
knows what "life" is, would pine for this feverish
species of existence? I have lived. I have spent days
and nights of festivity; I have joined in ambitious
hopes, and exulted in victory: now,--shut the door on
the world, and build high the wall that is to separate
me from the troubled scene enacted within its
precincts. Let us live for each other and for
happiness; let us seek peace in our dear home, near the
inland murmur of streams, and the gracious waving of
trees, the beauteous vesture of earth, and sublime
pageantry of the skies. Let us leave "life," that we
may live.
 
Idris was well content with this resolve of mine. Her
native sprightliness needed no undue excitement, and
her placid heart reposed contented on my love, the
well-being of her children, and the beauty of
surrounding nature. Her pride and blameless ambition
was to create smiles in all around her, and to shed
repose on the fragile existence of her brother. In
spite of her tender nursing, the health of Adrian
perceptibly declined. Walking, riding, the common
occupations of life, overcame him: he felt no pain, but
seemed to tremble for ever on the verge of
annihilation. Yet, as he had lived on for months nearly
in the same state, he did not inspire us with any
immediate fear; and, though he talked of death as an
event most familiar to his thoughts, he did not cease
to exert himself to render others happy, or to
cultivate his own astonishing powers of mind. 
     
Winter passed away; and spring, led by the months,
awakened life in all nature. The forest was dressed in
green; the young calves frisked on the new-sprung
grass; the wind-winged shadows of light clouds sped
over the green cornfields; the hermit cuckoo repeated
his monotonous all-hail to the season; the nightingale,
bird of love and minion of the evening star, filled the
woods with song; while Venus lingered in the warm
sunset, and the young green of the trees lay in gentle
relief along the clear horizon.  

Delight awoke in every heart, delight and exultation;
for there was peace through all the world; the temple
of Universal Janus was shut, and man died not that year
by the hand of man.  
     
"Let this last but twelve months," said Adrian; "and
earth will become a Paradise. The energies of man were
before directed to the destruction of his species: they
now aim at its liberation and preservation. Man cannot
repose, and his restless aspirations will now bring
forth good instead of evil. The favoured countries of
the south will throw off the iron yoke of servitude;
poverty will quit us, and with that, sickness. What may
not the forces, never before united, of liberty and
peace achieve in this dwelling of man?"
 
"Dreaming, for ever dreaming, Windsor!" said Ryland,
the old adversary of Raymond, and candidate for the
Protectorate at the ensuing election. "Be assured that
earth is not, nor ever can be heaven, while the seeds
of hell are natives of her soil. When the seasons have
become equal, when the air breeds no disorders, when
its surface is no longer liable to blights and
droughts, then sickness will cease; when men's passions
are dead, poverty will depart. When love is no longer
akin to hate, then brotherhood will exist: we are very
far from that state at present."  
     
"Not so far as you may suppose," observed a little old
astronomer, by name Merrival, "the poles precede
slowly, but securely; in an hundred thousand years--"  
     
"We shall all be underground," said Ryland.
 
"The pole of the earth will coincide with the pole of
the ecliptic," continued the astronomer, "an universal
spring will be produced, and earth become a paradise."  
     
"And we shall of course enjoy the benefit of the
change," said Ryland, contemptuously.  
     
"We have strange news here," I observed. I had the
newspaper in my hand, and, as usual, had turned to the
intelligence from Greece. "It seems that the total
destruction of Constantinople, and the supposition that
winter had purified the air of the fallen city, gave
the Greeks courage to visit its site, and begin to
rebuild it. But they tell us that the curse of God is
on the place, for every one who has ventured within the
walls has been tainted by the plague; that this disease
has spread in Thrace and Macedonia; and now, fearing
the virulence of infection during the coming heats, a
cordon has been drawn on the frontiers of Thessaly, and
a strict quarantine exacted."        

This intelligence brought us back from the prospect of
paradise, held out after the lapse of an hundred
thousand years, to the pain and misery at present
existent upon earth. We talked of the ravages made last
year by pestilence in every quarter of the world; and
of the dreadful consequences of a second visitation. We
discussed the best means of preventing infection, and
of preserving health and activity in a large city thus
afflicted--London, for instance. Merrival did not join
in this conversation; drawing near Idris, he proceeded
to assure her that the joyful prospect of an earthly
paradise after an hundred thousand years, was clouded
to him by the knowledge that in a certain period of
time after, an earthly hell or purgatory, would occur,
when the ecliptic and equator would be at right
angles.* Our party at length broke up; "We are all
dreaming this morning," said Ryland, "it is as wise to
discuss the probability of a visitation of the plague
in our well-governed metropolis, as to calculate the
centuries which must escape before we can grow
pine-apples here in the open air."

[* See an ingenious Essay, entitled, "The Mythological
Astronomy of the Ancients Demonstrated," by Mackey, a
shoemaker, of Norwich printed in 1822]
 
But, though it seemed absurd to calculate upon the
arrival of the plague in London, I could not reflect
without extreme pain on the desolation this evil would
cause in Greece. The English for the most part talked
of Thrace and Macedonia, as they would of a lunar
territory, which, unknown to them, presented no
distinct idea or interest to the minds. I had trod the
soil. The faces of many of the inhabitants were
familiar to me; in the towns, plains, hills, and
defiles of these countries, I had enjoyed unspeakable
delight, as I journied through them the year before.
Some romantic village, some cottage, or elegant abode
there situated, inhabited by the lovely and the good,
rose before my mental sight, and the question haunted
me, is the plague there also?--That same invincible
monster, which hovered over and devoured
Constantinople--that fiend more cruel than tempest,
less tame than fire, is, alas, unchained in that
beautiful country--these reflections would not allow me
to rest.
 
The political state of England became agitated as the
time drew near when the new Protector was to be
elected. This event excited the more interest, since it
was the current report, that if the popular candidate
(Ryland) should be chosen, the question of the
abolition of hereditary rank, and other feudal relics,
would come under the consideration of parliament. Not a
word had been spoken during the present session on any
of these topics. Every thing would depend upon the
choice of a Protector, and the elections of the ensuing
year. Yet this very silence was awful, shewing the deep
weight attributed to the question; the fear of either
party to hazard an ill-timed attack, and the
expectation of a furious contention when it should
begin.  
     
But although St. Stephen's did not echo with the voice
which filled each heart, the newspapers teemed with
nothing else; and in private companies the conversation
however remotely begun, soon verged towards this
central point, while voices were lowered and chairs
drawn closer. The nobles did not hesitate to express
their fear; the other party endeavoured to treat the
matter lightly. "Shame on the country," said Ryland,
"to lay so much stress upon words and frippery; it is a
question of nothing; of the new painting of
carriage-pannels and the embroidery of footmen's
coats."  

Yet could England indeed doff her lordly trappings, and
be content with the democratic style of America? Were
the pride of ancestry, the patrician spirit, the gentle
courtesies and refined pursuits, splendid attributes of
rank, to be erased among us? We were told that this
would not be the case; that we were by nature a
poetical people, a nation easily duped by words, ready
to array clouds in splendour, and bestow honour on the
dust. This spirit we could never lose; and it was to
diffuse this concentrated spirit of birth, that the new
law was to be brought forward. We were assured that,
when the name and title of Englishman was the sole
patent of nobility, we should all be noble; that when
no man born under English sway, felt another his
superior in rank, courtesy and refinement would become
the birth-right of all our countrymen. Let not England
be so far disgraced, as to have it imagined that it can
be without nobles, nature's true nobility, who bear
their patent in their mien, who are from their cradle
elevated above the rest of their species, because they
are better than the rest. Among a race of independent,
and generous, and well educated men, in a country where
the imagination is empress of men's minds, there needs
be no fear that we should want a perpetual succession
of the high-born and lordly. That party, however, could
hardly yet be considered a minority in the kingdom, who
extolled the ornament of the column, "the Corinthian
capital of polished society;" they appealed to
prejudices without number, to old attachments and young
hopes; to the expectation of thousands who might one
day become peers; they set up as a scarecrow, the
spectre of all that was sordid, mechanic and base in
the commercial republics.
 
The plague had come to Athens. Hundreds of English
residents returned to their own country. Raymond's
beloved Athenians, the free, the noble people of the
divinest town in Greece, fell like ripe corn before the
merciless sickle of the adversary. Its pleasant places
were deserted; its temples and palaces were converted
into tombs; its energies, bent before towards the
highest objects of human ambition, were now forced to
converge to one point, the guarding against the
innumerous arrows of the plague.
 
At any other time this disaster would have excited
extreme compassion among us; but it was now passed
over, while each mind was engaged by the coming
controversy. It was not so with me; and the question of
rank and right dwindled to insignificance in my eyes,
when I pictured the scene of suffering Athens. I heard
of the death of only sons; of wives and husbands most
devoted; of the rending of ties twisted with the
heart's fibres, of friend losing friend, and young
mothers mourning for their first born; and these moving
incidents were grouped and painted in my mind by the
knowledge of the persons, by my esteem and affection
for the sufferers. It was the admirers, friends, fellow
soldiers of Raymond, families that had welcomed Perdita
to Greece, and lamented with her the loss of her lord,
that were swept away, and went to dwell with them in
the undistinguishing tomb.
 
The plague at Athens had been preceded and caused by
the contagion from the East; and the scene of havoc and
death continued to be acted there, on a scale of
fearful magnitude. A hope that the visitation of the
present year would prove the last, kept up the spirits
of the merchants connected with these countries; but
the inhabitants were driven to despair, or to a
resignation which, arising from fanaticism, assumed the
same dark hue. America had also received the taint;
and, were it yellow fever or plague, the epidemic was
gifted with a virulence before unfelt. The devastation
was not confined to the towns, but spread throughout
the country; the hunter died in the woods, the peasant
in the corn-fields, and the fisher on his native
waters.  
     
A strange story was brought to us from the East, to
which little credit would have been given, had not the
fact been attested by a multitude of witnesses, in
various parts of the world. On the twenty-first of
June, it was said that an hour before noon, a black sun
arose: an orb, the size of that luminary, but dark,
defined, whose beams were shadows, ascended from the
west; in about an hour it had reached the meridian, and
eclipsed the bright parent of day. Night fell upon
every country, night, sudden, rayless, entire. The
stars came out, shedding their ineffectual glimmerings
on the light-widowed earth. But soon the dim orb passed
from over the sun, and lingered down the eastern
heaven. As it descended, its dusky rays crossed the
brilliant ones of the sun, and deadened or distorted
them. The shadows of things assumed strange and ghastly
shapes. The wild animals in the woods took fright at
the unknown shapes figured on the ground. They fled
they knew not whither; and the citizens were filled
with greater dread, at the convulsion which "shook
lions into civil streets;"--birds, strong-winged
eagles, suddenly blinded, fell in the market-places,
while owls and bats shewed themselves welcoming the
early night. Gradually the object of fear sank beneath
the horizon, and to the last shot up shadowy beams into
the otherwise radiant air. Such was the tale sent us
from Asia, from the eastern extremity of Europe, and
from Africa as far west as the Golden Coast.  

Whether this story were true or not, the effects were
certain. Through Asia, from the banks of the Nile to
the shores of the Caspian, from the Hellespont even to
the sea of Oman, a sudden panic was driven. The men
filled the mosques; the women, veiled, hastened to the
tombs, and carried offerings to the dead, thus to
preserve the living. The plague was forgotten, in this
new fear which the black sun had spread; and, though
the dead multiplied, and the streets of Ispahan, of
Pekin, and of Delhi were strewed with pestilence-struck
corpses, men passed on, gazing on the ominous sky,
regardless of the death beneath their feet. The
christians sought their churches,--christian maidens,
even at the feast of roses, clad in white, with shining
veils, sought, in long procession, the places
consecrated to their religion, filling the air with
their hymns; while, ever and anon, from the lips of
some poor mourner in the crowd, a voice of wailing
burst, and the rest looked up, fancying they could
discern the sweeping wings of angels, who passed over
the earth, lamenting the disasters about to fall on
man.   

In the sunny clime of Persia, in the crowded cities of
China, amidst the aromatic groves of Cashmere, and
along the southern shores of the Mediterranean, such
scenes had place. Even in Greece the tale of the sun of
darkness encreased the fears and despair of the dying
multitude. We, in our cloudy isle, were far removed
from danger, and the only circumstance that brought
these disasters at all home to us, was the daily
arrival of vessels from the east, crowded with
emigrants, mostly English; for the Moslems, though the
fear of death was spread keenly among them, still clung
together; that, if they were to die (and if they were,
death would as readily meet them on the homeless sea,
or in far England, as in Persia,)--if they were to die,
their bones might rest in earth made sacred by the
relics of true believers. Mecca had never before been
so crowded with pilgrims; yet the Arabs neglected to
pillage the caravans, but, humble and weaponless, they
joined the procession, praying Mahomet to avert plague
from their tents and deserts.   
     
I cannot describe the rapturous delight with which I
turned from political brawls at home, and the physical
evils of distant countries, to my own dear home, to the
selected abode of goodness and love; to peace, and the
interchange of every sacred sympathy. Had I never
quitted Windsor, these emotions would not have been so
intense; but I had in Greece been the prey of fear and
deplorable change; in Greece, after a period of anxiety
and sorrow, I had seen depart two, whose very names
were the symbol of greatness and virtue. But such
miseries could never intrude upon the domestic circle
left to me, while, secluded in our beloved forest, we
passed our lives in tranquillity.  Some small change
indeed the progress of years brought here; and time, as
it is wont, stamped the traces of mortality on our
pleasures and expectations.   
     
Idris, the most affectionate wife, sister and friend,
was a tender and loving mother. The feeling was not
with her as with many, a pastime; it was a passion. We
had had three children; one, the second in age, died
while I was in Greece. This had dashed the triumphant
and rapturous emotions of maternity with grief and
fear. Before this event, the little beings, sprung from
herself, the young heirs of her transient life, seemed
to have a sure lease of existence; now she dreaded that
the pitiless destroyer might snatch her remaining
darlings, as it had snatched their brother. The least
illness caused throes of terror; she was miserable if
she were at all absent from them; her treasure of
happiness she had garnered in their fragile being, and
kept forever on the watch, lest the insidious thief
should as before steal these valued gems. She had
fortunately small cause for fear. Alfred, now nine
years old, was an upright, manly little fellow, with
radiant brow, soft eyes, and gentle, though independent
disposition. Our youngest was yet in infancy; but his
downy cheek was sprinkled with the roses of health, and
his unwearied vivacity filled our halls with innocent
laughter.  

Clara had passed the age which, from its mute
ignorance, was the source of the fears of Idris. Clara
was dear to her, to all. There was so much intelligence
combined with innocence, sensibility with forbearance,
and seriousness with perfect good-humour, a beauty so
transcendant, united to such endearing simplicity, that
she hung like a pearl in the shrine of our possessions,
a treasure of wonder and excellence.
 
At the beginning of winter our Alfred, now nine years
of age, first went to school at Eton. This appeared to
him the primary step towards manhood, and he was
proportionably pleased. Community of study and
amusement developed the best parts of his character,
his steady perseverance, generosity, and well-governed
firmness. What deep and sacred emotions are excited in
a father's bosom, when he first becomes convinced that
his love for his child is not a mere instinct, but
worthily bestowed, and that others, less akin,
participate his approbation! It was supreme happiness
to Idris and myself, to find that the frankness which
Alfred's open brow indicated, the intelligence of his
eyes, the tempered sensibility of his tones, were not
delusions, but indications of talents and virtues,
which would "grow with his growth, and strengthen with
his strength." At this period, the termination of an
animal's love for its offspring,--the true affection of
the human parent commences. We no longer look on this
dearest part of ourselves, as a tender plant which we
must cherish, or a plaything for an idle hour. We build
now on his intellectual faculties, we establish our
hopes on his moral propensities. His weakness still
imparts anxiety to this feeling, his ignorance prevents
entire intimacy; but we begin to respect the future
man, and to endeavour to secure his esteem, even as if
he were our equal. What can a parent have more at heart
than the good opinion of his child? In all our
transactions with him our honour must be inviolate, the
integrity of our relations untainted: fate and
circumstance may, when he arrives at maturity, separate
us for ever--but, as his aegis in danger, his
consolation in hardship, let the ardent youth for ever
bear with him through the rough path of life, love and
honour for his parents.
 
We had lived so long in the vicinity of Eton, that its
population of young folks was well known to us. Many of
them had been Alfred's playmates, before they became
his school-fellows. We now watched this youthful
congregation with redoubled interest. We marked the
difference of character among the boys, and endeavoured
to read the future man in the stripling. There is
nothing more lovely, to which the heart more yearns
than a free-spirited boy, gentle, brave, and generous.
Several of the Etonians had these characteristics; all
were distinguished by a sense of honour, and spirit of
enterprize; in some, as they verged towards manhood,
this degenerated into presumption; but the younger
ones, lads a little older than our own, were
conspicuous for their gallant and sweet dispositions.  

Here were the future governors of England; the men,
who, when our ardour was cold, and our projects
completed or destroyed for ever, when, our drama acted,
we doffed the garb of the hour, and assumed the uniform
of age, or of more equalizing death; here were the
beings who were to carry on the vast machine of
society; here were the lovers, husbands, fathers; here
the landlord, the politician, the soldier; some fancied
that they were even now ready to appear on the stage,
eager to make one among the dramatis personae of active
life. It was not long since I was like one of these
beardless aspirants; when my boy shall have obtained
the place I now hold, I shall have tottered into a
grey-headed, wrinkled old man. Strange system! riddle
of the Sphynx, most awe-striking! that thus man
remains, while we the individuals pass away. Such is,
to borrow the words of an eloquent and philosophic
writer, "the mode of existence decreed to a permanent
body composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the
disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together
the great mysterious incorporation of the human race,
the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged,
or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable
constancy, moves on through the varied tenour of
perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression."*  

[* Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution]

Willingly do I give place to thee, dear Alfred!
advance, offspring of tender love, child of our hopes;
advance a soldier on the road to which I have been the
pioneer! I will make way for thee. I have already put
off the carelessness of childhood, the unlined brow,
and springy gait of early years, that they may adorn
thee. Advance; and I will despoil myself still further
for thy advantage. Time shall rob me of the graces of
maturity, shall take the fire from my eyes, and agility
from my limbs, shall steal the better part of life,
eager expectation and passionate love, and shower them
in double portion on thy dear head. Advance! avail
thyself of the gift, thou and thy comrades; and in the
drama you are about to act, do not disgrace those who
taught you to enter on the stage, and to pronounce
becomingly the parts assigned to you! May your progress
be uninterrupted and secure; born during the
spring-tide of the hopes of man, may you lead up the
summer to which no winter may succeed!


[Vol. II]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER V.

SOME disorder had surely crept into the course of the
elements, destroying their benignant influence. The
wind, prince of air, raged through his kingdom, lashing
the sea into fury, and subduing the rebel earth into
some sort of obedience.
         
 The God sends down his angry plagues from high,
 Famine and pestilence in heaps they die.
 Again in vengeance of his wrath he falls
 On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering       
                                              walls;    
 Arrests their navies on the ocean's plain,
 And whelms their strength with mountains of the main.* 
        
Their deadly power shook the flourishing countries of
the south, and during winter, even, we, in our northern
retreat, began to quake under their ill effects.  

[* Elton's translation of Hesiod's Works]
   
That fable is unjust, which gives the superiority to
the sun over the wind. Who has not seen the lightsome
earth, the balmy atmosphere, and basking nature become
dark, cold and ungenial, when the sleeping wind has
awoke in the east? Or, when the dun clouds thickly veil
the sky, while exhaustless stores of rain are poured
down, until, the dank earth refusing to imbibe the
superabundant moisture, it lies in pools on the
surface; when the torch of day seems like a meteor, to
be quenched; who has not seen the cloud-stirring north
arise, the streaked blue appear, and soon an opening
made in the vapours in the eye of the wind, through
which the bright azure shines? The clouds become thin;
an arch is formed for ever rising upwards, till, the
universal cope being unveiled, the sun pours forth its
rays, re-animated and fed by the breeze.  
    
Then mighty art thou, O wind, to be throned above all
other vicegerents of nature's power; whether thou
comest destroying from the east, or pregnant with
elementary life from the west; thee the clouds obey;
the sun is subservient to thee; the shoreless ocean is
thy slave! Thou sweepest over the earth, and oaks, the
growth of centuries, submit to thy viewless axe; the
snow-drift is scattered on the pinnacles of the Alps,
the avalanche thunders down their vallies. Thou holdest
the keys of the frost, and canst first chain and then
set free the streams; under thy gentle governance the
buds and leaves are born, they flourish nursed by thee. 

Why dost thou howl thus, O wind? By day and by night
for four long months thy roarings have not ceased--the
shores of the sea are strewn with wrecks, its
keel-welcoming surface has become impassable, the earth
has shed her beauty in obedience to thy command; the
frail balloon dares no longer sail on the agitated air;
thy ministers, the clouds, deluge the land with rain;
rivers forsake their banks; the wild torrent tears up
the mountain path; plain and wood, and verdant dell are
despoiled of their loveliness; our very cities are
wasted by thee. Alas, what will become of us? It seems
as if the giant waves of ocean, and vast arms of the
sea, were about to wrench the deep-rooted island from
its centre; and cast it, a ruin and a wreck, upon the
fields of the Atlantic.
      
What are we, the inhabitants of this globe, least among
the many that people infinite space? Our minds embrace
infinity; the visible mechanism of our being is subject
to merest accident. Day by day we are forced to believe
this. He whom a scratch has disorganized, he who
disappears from apparent life under the influence of
the hostile agency at work around us, had the same
powers as I--I also am subject to the same laws. In the
face of all this we call ourselves lords of the
creation, wielders of the elements, masters of life and
death, and we allege in excuse of this arrogance, that
though the individual is destroyed, man continues for
ever.      
  
Thus, losing our identity, that of which we are chiefly
conscious, we glory in the continuity of our species,
and learn to regard death without terror. But when any
whole nation becomes the victim of the destructive
powers of exterior agents, then indeed man shrinks into
insignificance, he feels his tenure of life insecure,
his inheritance on earth cut off.        

I remember, after having witnessed the destructive
effects of a fire, I could not even behold a small one
in a stove, without a sensation of fear. The mounting
flames had curled round the building, as it fell, and
was destroyed. They insinuated themselves into the
substances about them, and the impediments to their
progress yielded at their touch. Could we take integral
parts of this power, and not be subject to its
operation? Could we domesticate a cub of this wild
beast, and not fear its growth and maturity?  

Thus we began to feel, with regard to many-visaged
death let loose on the chosen districts of our fair
habitation, and above all, with regard to the plague.
We feared the coming summer. Nations, bordering on the
already infected countries, began to enter upon serious
plans for the better keeping out of the enemy. We, a
commercial people, were obliged to bring such schemes
under consideration; and the question of contagion
became matter of earnest disquisition.  
    
That the plague was not what is commonly called
contagious, like the scarlet fever, or extinct
small-pox, was proved. It was called an epidemic. But
the grand question was still unsettled of how this
epidemic was generated and increased. If infection
depended upon the air, the air was subject to
infection. As for instance, a typhus fever has been
brought by ships to one sea-port town; yet the very
people who brought it there, were incapable of
communicating it in a town more fortunately situated.
But how are we to judge of airs, and pronounce--in such
a city plague will die unproductive; in such another,
nature has provided for it a plentiful harvest? In the
same way, individuals may escape ninety-nine times, and
receive the death-blow at the hundredth; because bodies
are sometimes in a state to reject the infection of
malady, and at others, thirsty to imbibe it. These
reflections made our legislators pause, before they
could decide on the laws to be put in force. The evil
was so wide-spreading, so violent and immedicable, that
no care, no prevention could be judged superfluous,
which even added a chance to our escape.  
    
These were questions of prudence; there was no
immediate necessity for an earnest caution. England was
still secure. France, Germany, Italy and Spain, were
interposed, walls yet without a breach, between us and
the plague. Our vessels truly were the sport of winds
and waves, even as Gulliver was the toy of the
Brobdignagians; but we on our stable abode could not be
hurt in life or limb by these eruptions of nature. We
could not fear--we did not. Yet a feeling of awe, a
breathless sentiment of wonder, a painful sense of the
degradation of humanity, was introduced into every
heart. Nature, our mother, and our friend, had turned
on us a brow of menace. She shewed us plainly, that,
though she permitted us to assign her laws and subdue
her apparent powers, yet, if she put forth but a
finger, we must quake. She could take our globe,
fringed with mountains, girded by the atmosphere,
containing the condition of our being, and all that
man's mind could invent or his force achieve; she could
take the ball in her hand, and cast it into space,
where life would be drunk up, and man and all his
efforts for ever annihilated.  
    
These speculations were rife among us; yet not the less
we proceeded in our daily occupations, and our plans,
whose accomplishment demanded the lapse of many years.
No voice was heard telling us to hold! When foreign
distresses came to be felt by us through the channels
of commerce, we set ourselves to apply remedies.
Subscriptions were made for the emigrants, and
merchants bankrupt by the failure of trade. The English
spirit awoke to its full activity, and, as it had ever
done, set itself to resist the evil, and to stand in
the breach which diseased nature had suffered chaos and
death to make in the bounds and banks which had
hitherto kept them out.       

At the commencement of summer, we began to feel, that
the mischief which had taken place in distant countries
was greater than we had at first suspected. Quito was
destroyed by an earthquake. Mexico laid waste by the
united effects of storm, pestilence and famine. Crowds
of emigrants inundated the west of Europe; and our
island had become the refuge of thousands. In the mean
time Ryland had been chosen Protector. He had sought
this office with eagerness, under the idea of turning
his whole forces to the suppression of the privileged
orders of our community. His measures were thwarted,
and his schemes interrupted by this new state of
things. Many of the foreigners were utterly destitute;
and their increasing numbers at length forbade a
recourse to the usual modes of relief. Trade was
stopped by the failure of the interchange of cargoes
usual between us, and America, India, Egypt and Greece.
A sudden break was made in the routine of our lives. In
vain our Protector and his partizans sought to conceal
this truth; in vain, day after day, he appointed a
period for the discussion of the new laws concerning
hereditary rank and privilege; in vain he endeavoured
to represent the evil as partial and temporary. These
disasters came home to so many bosoms, and, through the
various channels of commerce, were carried so entirely
into every class and division of the community, that of
necessity they became the first question in the state,
the chief subjects to which we must turn our attention.
 
Can it be true, each asked the other with wonder and
dismay, that whole countries are laid waste, whole
nations annihilated, by these disorders in nature? The
vast cities of America, the fertile plains of
Hindostan, the crowded abodes of the Chinese, are
menaced with utter ruin. Where late the busy multitudes
assembled for pleasure or profit, now only the sound of
wailing and misery is heard. The air is empoisoned, and
each human being inhales death, even while in youth and
health, their hopes are in the flower. We called to
mind the plague of 1348, when it was calculated that a
third of mankind had been destroyed. As yet western
Europe was uninfected; would it always be so?
 
O, yes, it would--Countrymen, fear not! In the still
uncultivated wilds of America, what wonder that among
its other giant destroyers, Plague should be numbered!
It is of old a native of the East, sister of the
tornado, the earthquake, and the simoon. Child of the
sun, and nursling of the tropics, it would expire in
these climes. It drinks the dark blood of the
inhabitant of the south, but it never feasts on the
pale-faced Celt. If perchance some stricken Asiatic
come among us, plague dies with him, uncommunicated and
innoxious. Let us weep for our brethren, though we can
never experience their reverse. Let us lament over and
assist the children of the garden of the earth. Late we
envied their abodes, their spicy groves, fertile
plains, and abundant loveliness. But in this mortal
life extremes are always matched; the thorn grows with
the rose, the poison tree and the cinnamon mingle their
boughs. Persia, with its cloth of gold, marble halls,
and infinite wealth, is now a tomb. The tent of the
Arab is fallen in the sands, and his horse spurns the
ground unbridled and unsaddled. The voice of
lamentation fills the valley of Cashmere; its dells and
woods, its cool fountains, and gardens of roses, are
polluted by the dead; in Circassia and Georgia the
spirit of beauty weeps over the ruin of its favourite
temple--the form of woman.
     
Our own distresses, though they were occasioned by the
fictitious reciprocity of commerce, encreased in due
proportion. Bankers, merchants, and manufacturers,
whose trade depended on exports and interchange of
wealth, became bankrupt. Such things, when they happen
singly, affect only the immediate parties; but the
prosperity of the nation was now shaken by frequent and
extensive losses. Families, bred in opulence and
luxury, were reduced to beggary. The very state of
peace in which we gloried was injurious; there were no
means of employing the idle, or of sending any overplus
of population out of the country. Even the source of
colonies was dried up, for in New Holland, Van Diemen's
Land, and the Cape of Good Hope, plague raged. O, for
some medicinal vial to purge unwholesome nature, and
bring back the earth to its accustomed health!  

Ryland was a man of strong intellects and quick and
sound decision in the usual course of things, but he
stood aghast at the multitude of evils that gathered
round us. Must he tax the landed interest to assist our
commercial population? To do this, he must gain the
favour of the chief land-holders, the nobility of the
country; and these were his vowed enemies--he must
conciliate them by abandoning his favourite scheme of
equalization; he must confirm them in their manorial
rights; he must sell his cherished plans for the
permanent good of his country, for temporary relief. He
must aim no more at the dear object of his ambition;
throwing his arms aside, he must for present ends give
up the ultimate object of his endeavours. He came to
Windsor to consult with us. Every day added to his
difficulties; the arrival of fresh vessels with
emigrants, the total cessation of commerce, the
starving multitude that thronged around the palace of
the Protectorate, were circumstances not to be tampered
with. The blow was struck; the aristocracy obtained all
they wished, and they subscribed to a twelvemonths'
bill, which levied twenty per cent on all the
rent-rolls of the country.
 
Calm was now restored to the metropolis, and to the
populous cities, before driven to desperation; and we
returned to the consideration of distant calamities,
wondering if the future would bring any alleviation to
their excess. It was August; so there could be small
hope of relief during the heats. On the contrary, the
disease gained virulence, while starvation did its
accustomed work. Thousands died unlamented; for beside
the yet warm corpse the mourner was stretched, made
mute by death.  

On the eighteenth of this month news arrived in London
that the plague was in France and Italy. These tidings
were at first whispered about town; but no one dared
express aloud the soul-quailing intelligence. When any
one met a friend in the street, he only cried as he
hurried on, "You know!"-- while the other, with an
ejaculation of fear and horror, would answer,--"What
will become of us?" At length it was mentioned in the
newspapers. The paragraph was inserted in an obscure
part: "We regret to state that there can be no longer a
doubt of the plague having been introduced at Leghorn,
Genoa, and Marseilles." No word of comment followed;
each reader made his own fearful one. We were as a man
who hears that his house is burning, and yet hurries
through the streets, borne along by a lurking hope of a
mistake, till he turns the corner, and sees his
sheltering roof enveloped in a flame. Before it had
been a rumour; but now in words uneraseable, in
definite and undeniable print, the knowledge went
forth. Its obscurity of situation rendered it the more
conspicuous: the diminutive letters grew gigantic to
the bewildered eye of fear: they seemed graven with a
pen of iron, impressed by fire, woven in the clouds,
stamped on the very front of the universe.
 
The English, whether travellers or residents, came
pouring in one great revulsive stream, back on their
own country; and with them crowds of Italians and
Spaniards. Our little island was filled even to
bursting. At first an unusual quantity of specie made
its appearance with the emigrants; but these people had
no means of receiving back into their hands what they
spent among us. With the advance of summer, and the
increase of the distemper, rents were unpaid, and their
remittances failed them. It was impossible to see these
crowds of wretched, perishing creatures, late nurslings
of luxury, and not stretch out a hand to save them. As
at the conclusion of the eighteenth century, the
English unlocked their hospitable store, for the relief
of those driven from their homes by political
revolution; so now they were not backward in affording
aid to the victims of a more wide-spreading calamity.
We had many foreign friends whom we eagerly sought out,
and relieved from dreadful penury. Our Castle became an
asylum for the unhappy. A little population occupied
its halls. The revenue of its possessor, which had
always found a mode of expenditure congenial to his
generous nature, was now attended to more
parsimoniously, that it might embrace a wider portion
of utility. It was not however money, except partially,
but the necessaries of life, that became scarce. It was
difficult to find an immediate remedy. The usual one of
imports was entirely cut off. In this emergency, to
feed the very people to whom we had given refuge, we
were obliged to yield to the plough and the mattock our
pleasure-grounds and parks. Live stock diminished
sensibly in the country, from the effects of the great
demand in the market. Even the poor deer, our antlered
proteges, were obliged to fall for the sake of worthier
pensioners. The labour necessary to bring the lands to
this sort of culture, employed and fed the offcasts of
the diminished manufactories.
 
Adrian did not rest only with the exertions he could
make with regard to his own possessions. He addressed
himself to the wealthy of the land; he made proposals
in parliament little adapted to please the rich; but
his earnest pleadings and benevolent eloquence were
irresistible. To give up their pleasure-grounds to the
agriculturist, to diminish sensibly the number of
horses kept for the purposes of luxury throughout the
country, were means obvious, but unpleasing. Yet, to
the honour of the English be it recorded, that,
although natural disinclination made them delay awhile,
yet when the misery of their fellow-creatures became
glaring, an enthusiastic generosity inspired their
decrees. The most luxurious were often the first to
part with their indulgencies. As is common in
communities, a fashion was set. The high-born ladies of
the country would have deemed themselves disgraced if
they had now enjoyed, what they before called a
necessary, the ease of a carriage. Chairs, as in olden
time, and Indian palanquins were introduced for the
infirm; but else it was nothing singular to see females
of rank going on foot to places of fashionable resort.
It was more common, for all who possessed landed
property to secede to their estates, attended by whole
troops of the indigent, to cut down their woods to
erect temporary dwellings, and to portion out their
parks, parterres and flower-gardens, to necessitous
families. Many of these, of high rank in their own
countries, now, with hoe in hand, turned up the soil.
It was found necessary at last to check the spirit of
sacrifice, and to remind those whose generosity
proceeded to lavish waste, that, until the present
state of things became permanent, of which there was no
likelihood, it was wrong to carry change so far as to
make a reaction difficult. Experience demonstrated that
in a year or two pestilence would cease; it were well
that in the mean time we should not have destroyed our
fine breeds of horses, or have utterly changed the face
of the ornamented portion of the country.  

It may be imagined that things were in a bad state
indeed, before this spirit of benevolence could have
struck such deep roots. The infection had now spread in
the southern provinces of France. But that country had
so many resources in the way of agriculture, that the
rush of population from one part of it to another, and
its increase through foreign emigration, was less felt
than with us. The panic struck appeared of more injury,
than disease and its natural concomitants.  
     
Winter was hailed, a general and never-failing
physician. The embrowning woods, and swollen rivers,
the evening mists, and morning frosts, were welcomed
with gratitude. The effects of purifying cold were
immediately felt; and the lists of mortality abroad
were curtailed each week. Many of our visitors left us:
those whose homes were far in the south, fled
delightedly from our northern winter, and sought their
native land, secure of plenty even after their fearful
visitation. We breathed again. What the coming summer
would bring, we knew not; but the present months were
our own, and our hopes of a cessation of pestilence
were high.  


[Vol. II]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER VI.

I HAVE lingered thus long on the extreme bank, the
wasting shoal that stretched into the stream of life,
dallying with the shadow of death. Thus long, I have
cradled my heart in retrospection of past happiness,
when hope was. Why not for ever thus? I am not
immortal; and the thread of my history might be spun
out to the limits of my existence. But the same
sentiment that first led me to pourtray scenes replete
with tender recollections, now bids me hurry on. The
same yearning of this warm, panting heart, that has
made me in written words record my vagabond youth, my
serene manhood, and the passions of my soul, makes me
now recoil from further delay. I must complete my work.
 
Here then I stand, as I said, beside the fleet waters
of the flowing years, and now away! Spread the sail,
and strain with oar, hurrying by dark impending crags,
adown steep rapids, even to the sea of desolation I
have reached. Yet one moment, one brief interval before
I put from shore--once, once again let me fancy myself
as I was in 2094 in my abode at Windsor, let me close
my eyes, and imagine that the immeasurable boughs of
its oaks still shadow me, its castle walls anear. Let
fancy pourtray the joyous scene of the twentieth of
June, such as even now my aching heart recalls it. 
         
Circumstances had called me to London; here I heard
talk that symptoms of the plague had occurred in
hospitals of that city. I returned to Windsor; my brow
was clouded, my heart heavy; I entered the Little Park,
as was my custom, at the Frogmore gate, on my way to
the Castle. A great part of these grounds had been
given to cultivation, and strips of potatoe-land and
corn were scattered here and there. The rooks cawed
loudly in the trees above; mixed with their hoarse
cries I heard a lively strain of music. It was Alfred's
birthday. The young people, the Etonians, and children
of the neighbouring gentry, held a mock fair, to which
all the country people were invited. The park was
speckled by tents, whose flaunting colours and gaudy
flags, waving in the sunshine, added to the gaiety of
the scene. On a platform erected beneath the terrace, a
number of the younger part of the assembly were
dancing. I leaned against a tree to observe them. The
band played the wild eastern air of Weber introduced in
Abon Hassan; its volatile notes gave wings to the feet
of the dancers, while the lookers-on unconsciously beat
time. At first the tripping measure lifted my spirit
with it, and for a moment my eyes gladly followed the
mazes of the dance. The revulsion of thought passed
like keen steel to my heart. Ye are all going to die, I
thought; already your tomb is built up around you.
Awhile, because you are gifted with agility and
strength, you fancy that you live: but frail is the
"bower of flesh" that encaskets life; dissoluble the
silver cord than binds you to it. The joyous soul,
charioted from pleasure to pleasure by the graceful
mechanism of well-formed limbs, will suddenly feel the
axle-tree give way, and spring and wheel dissolve in
dust.  Not one of you, O! fated crowd, can escape--not
one! not my own ones! not my Idris and her babes!
Horror and misery! Already the gay dance vanished, the
green sward was strewn with corpses, the blue air above
became fetid with deathly exhalations. Shriek, ye
clarions! ye loud trumpets, howl! Pile dirge on dirge;
rouse the funereal chords; let the air ring with dire
wailing; let wild discord rush on the wings of the
wind! Already I hear it, while guardian angels,
attendant on humanity, their task achieved, hasten
away, and their departure is announced by melancholy
strains; faces all unseemly with weeping, forced open
my lids; faster and faster many groups of these
woe-begone countenances thronged around, exhibiting
every variety of wretchedness--well known faces mingled
with the distorted creations of fancy. Ashy pale,
Raymond and Perdita sat apart, looking on with sad
smiles. Adrian's countenance flitted across, tainted by
death--Idris, with eyes languidly closed and livid
lips, was about to slide into the wide grave. The
confusion grew--their looks of sorrow changed to
mockery; they nodded their heads in time to the music,
whose clang became maddening.        

I felt that this was insanity--I sprang forward to
throw it off; I rushed into the midst of the crowd.
Idris saw me: with light step she advanced; as I folded
her in my arms, feeling, as I did, that I thus enclosed
what was to me a world, yet frail as the waterdrop
which the noon-day sun will drink from the water lily's
cup; tears filled my eyes, unwont to be thus moistened.
The joyful welcome of my boys, the soft gratulation of
Clara, the pressure of Adrian's hand, contributed to
unman me. I felt that they were near, that they were
safe, yet methought this was all deceit;--the earth
reeled, the firm-enrooted trees moved--dizziness came
over me--I sank to the ground.        

My beloved friends were alarmed--nay, they expressed
their alarm so anxiously, that I dared not pronounce
the word <i>plague</i>, that hovered on my lips, lest
they should construe my perturbed looks into a symptom,
and see infection in my languor. I had scarcely
recovered, and with feigned hilarity had brought back
smiles into my little circle, when we saw Ryland
approach.  
      
Ryland had something the appearance of a farmer; of a
man whose muscles and full grown stature had been
developed under the influence of vigorous exercise and
exposure to the elements. This was to a great degree
the case: for, though a large landed proprietor, yet,
being a projector, and of an ardent and industrious
disposition, he had on his own estate given himself up
to agricultural labours. When he went as ambassador to
the Northern States of America, he, for some time,
planned his entire migration; and went so far as to
make several journies far westward on that immense
continent, for the purpose of choosing the site of his
new abode. Ambition turned his thoughts from these
designs--ambition, which labouring through various lets
and hindrances, had now led him to the summit of his
hopes, in making him Lord Protector of England.
 
His countenance was rough but intelligent--his ample
brow and quick grey eyes seemed to look out, over his
own plans, and the opposition of his enemies. His voice
was stentorian: his hand stretched out in debate,
seemed by its gigantic and muscular form, to warn his
hearers that words were not his only weapons. Few
people had discovered some cowardice and much infirmity
of purpose under this imposing exterior. No man could
crush a "butterfly on the wheel" with better effect; no
man better cover a speedy retreat from a powerful
adversary. This had been the secret of his secession at
the time of Lord Raymond's election. In the unsteady
glance of his eye, in his extreme desire to learn the
opinions of all, in the feebleness of his hand-writing,
these qualities might be obscurely traced, but they
were not generally known. He was now our Lord
Protector. He had canvassed eagerly for this post. His
protectorate was to be distinguished by every kind of
innovation on the aristocracy. This his selected task
was exchanged for the far different one of encountering
the ruin caused by the convulsions of physical nature.
He was incapable of meeting these evils by any
comprehensive system; he had resorted to expedient
after expedient, and could never be induced to put a
remedy in force, till it came too late to be of use.  
     
Certainly the Ryland that advanced towards us now, bore
small resemblance to the powerful, ironical, seemingly
fearless canvasser for the first rank among Englishmen.
Our native oak, as his partisans called him, was
visited truly by a nipping winter. He scarcely appeared
half his usual height; his joints were unknit, his
limbs would not support him; his face was contracted,
his eye wandering; debility of purpose and dastard fear
were expressed in every gesture.  
     
In answer to our eager questions, one word alone fell,
as it were involuntarily, from his convulsed lips:
<i>The Plague</i>.--"Where?"--"Every where--we must
fly--all fly--but whither? No man can tell--there is no
refuge on earth, it comes on us like a thousand packs
of wolves--we must all fly--where shall you go? Where
can any of us go?"  
     
These words were syllabled trembling by the iron man.
Adrian replied, "Whither indeed would you fly? We must
all remain; and do our best to help our suffering
fellow-creatures."  
     
"Help!" said Ryland, "there is no help!--great God, who
talks of help! All the world has the plague!"
 
"Then to avoid it, we must quit the world," observed
Adrian, with a gentle smile.  
     
Ryland groaned; cold drops stood on his brow. It was
useless to oppose his paroxysm of terror: but we
soothed and encouraged him, so that after an interval
he was better able to explain to us the ground of his
alarm. It had come sufficiently home to him. One of his
servants, while waiting on him, had suddenly fallen
down dead. The physician declared that he died of the
plague. We endeavoured to calm him--but our own hearts
were not calm. I saw the eye of Idris wander from me to
her children, with an anxious appeal to my judgment.
Adrian was absorbed in meditation. For myself, I own
that Ryland's words rang in my ears; all the world was
infected;--in what uncontaminated seclusion could I
save my beloved treasures, until the shadow of death
had passed from over the earth? We sunk into silence: a
silence that drank in the doleful accounts and
prognostications of our guest.
 
We had receded from the crowd; and ascending the steps
of the terrace, sought the Castle. Our change of cheer
struck those nearest to us; and, by means of Ryland's
servants, the report soon spread that he had fled from
the plague in London. The sprightly parties broke
up--they assembled in whispering groups. The spirit of
gaiety was eclipsed; the music ceased; the young people
left their occupations and gathered together. The
lightness of heart which had dressed them in masquerade
habits, had decorated their tents, and assembled them
in fantastic groups, appeared a sin against, and a
provocative to, the awful destiny that had laid its
palsying hand upon hope and life. The merriment of the
hour was an unholy mockery of the sorrows of man. The
foreigners whom we had among us, who had fled from the
plague in their own country, now saw their last asylum
invaded; and, fear making them garrulous, they
described to eager listeners the miseries they had
beheld in cities visited by the calamity, and gave
fearful accounts of the insidious and irremediable
nature of the disease.
 
We had entered the Castle. Idris stood at a window that
over-looked the park; her maternal eyes sought her own
children among the young crowd. An Italian lad had got
an audience about him, and with animated gestures was
describing some scene of horror. Alfred stood
immoveable before him, his whole attention absorbed.
Little Evelyn had endeavoured to draw Clara away to
play with him; but the Italian's tale arrested her, she
crept near, her lustrous eyes fixed on the speaker.
Either watching the crowd in the park, or occupied by
painful reflection, we were all silent; Ryland stood by
himself in an embrasure of the window; Adrian paced the
hall, revolving some new and overpowering
idea--suddenly he stopped and said: "I have long
expected this; could we in reason expect that this
island should be exempt from the universal visitation?
The evil is come home to us, and we must not shrink
from our fate. What are your plans, my Lord Protector,
for the benefit of our country?"
 
"For heaven's love! Windsor," cried Ryland, "do not
mock me with that title. Death and disease level all
men. I neither pretend to protect nor govern an
hospital--such will England quickly become."

"Do you then intend, now in time of peril, to recede
from your duties?"          
     
"Duties! speak rationally, my Lord!--when I am a
plague-spotted corpse, where will my duties be? Every
man for himself! the devil take the protectorship, say
I, if it expose me to danger!"   
     
"Faint-hearted man!" cried Adrian indignantly--"Your
countrymen put their trust in you, and you betray
them!"
  
"I betray them!" said Ryland, "the plague betrays me.
Faint-hearted! It is well, shut up in your castle, out
of danger, to boast yourself out of fear. Take the
Protectorship who will; before God I renounce it!"   

"And before God," replied his opponent, fervently, "do
I receive it! No one will canvass for this honour
now--none envy my danger or labours. Deposit your
powers in my hands. Long have I fought with death, and
much" (he stretched out his thin hand) "much have I
suffered in the struggle. It is not by flying, but by
facing the enemy, that we can conquer. If my last
combat is now about to be fought, and I am to be
worsted--so let it be!"          

"But come, Ryland, recollect yourself! Men have
hitherto thought you magnanimous and wise, will you
cast aside these titles? Consider the panic your
departure will occasion. Return to London. I will go
with you. Encourage the people by your presence. I will
incur all the danger. Shame! shame! if the first
magistrate of England be foremost to renounce his
duties."   
     
Meanwhile among our guests in the park, all thoughts of
festivity had faded. As summer-flies are scattered by
rain, so did this congregation, late noisy and happy,
in sadness and melancholy murmurs break up, dwindling
away apace. With the set sun and the deepening twilight
the park became nearly empty. Adrian and Ryland were
still in earnest discussion. We had prepared a banquet
for our guests in the lower hall of the castle; and
thither Idris and I repaired to receive and entertain
the few that remained. There is nothing more melancholy
than a merry-meeting thus turned to sorrow: the gala
dresses--the decorations, gay as they might otherwise
be, receive a solemn and funereal appearance. If such
change be painful from lighter causes, it weighed with
intolerable heaviness from the knowledge that the
earth's desolator had at last, even as an arch-fiend,
lightly over-leaped the boundaries our precautions
raised, and at once enthroned himself in the full and
beating heart of our country. Idris sat at the top of
the half-empty hall. Pale and tearful, she almost
forgot her duties as hostess; her eyes were fixed on
her children. Alfred's serious air shewed that he still
revolved the tragic story related by the Italian boy.
Evelyn was the only mirthful creature present: he sat
on Clara's lap; and, making matter of glee from his own
fancies, laughed aloud. The vaulted roof echoed again
his infant tone. The poor mother who had brooded long
over, and suppressed the expression of her anguish, now
burst into tears, and folding her babe in her arms,
hurried from the hall. Clara and Alfred followed. While
the rest of the company, in confused murmur, which grew
louder and louder, gave voice to their many fears.
 
The younger part gathered round me to ask my advice;
and those who had friends in London were anxious beyond
the rest, to ascertain the present extent of disease in
the metropolis. I encouraged them with such thoughts of
cheer as presented themselves. I told them exceedingly
few deaths had yet been occasioned by pestilence, and
gave them hopes, as we were the last visited, so the
calamity might have lost its most venomous power before
it had reached us. The cleanliness, habits of order,
and the manner in which our cities were built, were all
in our favour. As it was an epidemic, its chief force
was derived from pernicious qualities in the air, and
it would probably do little harm where this was
naturally salubrious. At first, I had spoken only to
those nearest me; but the whole assembly gathered about
me, and I found that I was listened to by all. "My
friends," I said, "our risk is common; our precautions
and exertions shall be common also. If manly courage
and resistance can save us, we will be saved. We will
fight the enemy to the last. Plague shall not find us a
ready prey; we will dispute every inch of ground; and,
by methodical and inflexible laws, pile invincible
barriers to the progress of our foe. Perhaps in no part
of the world has she met with so systematic and
determined an opposition. Perhaps no country is
naturally so well protected against our invader; nor
has nature anywhere been so well assisted by the hand
of man. We will not despair. We are neither cowards nor
fatalists; but, believing that God has placed the means
for our preservation in our own hands, we will use
those means to our utmost. Remember that cleanliness,
sobriety, and even good-humour and benevolence, are our
best medicines."
 
There was little I could add to this general
exhortation; for the plague, though in London, was not
among us. I dismissed the guests therefore; and they
went thoughtful, more than sad, to await the events in
store for them.  

I now sought Adrian, anxious to hear the result of his
discussion with Ryland. He had in part prevailed; the
Lord Protector consented to return to London for a few
weeks; during which time things should be so arranged,
as to occasion less consternation at his departure.
Adrian and Idris were together. The sadness with which
the former had first heard that the plague was in
London had vanished; the energy of his purpose informed
his body with strength, the solemn joy of enthusiasm
and self-devotion illuminated his countenance; and the
weakness of his physical nature seemed to pass from
him, as the cloud of humanity did, in the ancient
fable, from the divine lover of Semele. He was
endeavouring to encourage his sister, and to bring her
to look on his intent in a less tragic light than she
was prepared to do; and with passionate eloquence he
unfolded his designs to her.  

"Let me, at the first word," he said, "relieve your
mind from all fear on my account. I will not task
myself beyond my powers, nor will I needlessly seek
danger. I feel that I know what ought to be done, and
as my presence is necessary for the accomplishment of
my plans, I will take especial care to preserve my
life.
 
"I am now going to undertake an office fitted for me. I
cannot intrigue, or work a tortuous path through the
labyrinth of men's vices and passions; but I can bring
patience, and sympathy, and such aid as art affords, to
the bed of disease; I can raise from earth the
miserable orphan, and awaken to new hopes the shut
heart of the mourner. I can enchain the plague in
limits, and set a term to the misery it would occasion;
courage, forbearance, and watchfulness, are the forces
I bring towards this great work.  

"O, I shall be something now! From my birth I have
aspired like the eagle--but, unlike the eagle, my wings
have failed, and my vision has been blinded.
Disappointment and sickness have hitherto held dominion
over me; twin born with me, my <i>would</i>, was for
ever enchained by the <i>shall not</i>, of these my
tyrants. A shepherd-boy that tends a silly flock on the
mountains, was more in the scale of society than I.
Congratulate me then that I have found fitting scope
for my powers. I have often thought of offering my
services to the pestilence-stricken towns of France and
Italy; but fear of paining you, and expectation of this
catastrophe, withheld me. To England and to Englishmen
I dedicate myself. If I can save one of her mighty
spirits from the deadly shaft; if I can ward disease
from one of her smiling cottages, I shall not have
lived in vain."  
      
Strange ambition this! Yet such was Adrian. He appeared
given up to contemplation, averse to excitement, a
lowly student, a man of visions--but afford him worthy
theme, and--  
       
     Like to the lark at break of day arising,          
     From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.*  
      
so did he spring up from listlessness and unproductive
thought, to the highest pitch of virtuous action.

[* Shakespeare's Sonnets.]
 
With him went enthusiasm, the high-wrought resolve, the
eye that without blenching could look at death. With us
remained sorrow, anxiety, and unendurable expectation
of evil. The man, says Lord Bacon, who hath wife and
children, has given hostages to fortune. Vain was all
philosophical reasoning--vain all fortitude--vain,
vain, a reliance on probable good. I might heap high
the scale with logic, courage, and resignation--but let
one fear for Idris and our children enter the opposite
one, and, over-weighed, it kicked the beam.  
     
The plague was in London! Fools that we were not long
ago to have foreseen this. We wept over the ruin of the
boundless continents of the east, and the desolation of
the western world; while we fancied that the little
channel between our island and the rest of the earth
was to preserve us alive among the dead. It were no
mighty leap methinks from Calais to Dover. The eye
easily discerns the sister land; they were united once;
and the little path that runs between looks in a map
but as a trodden footway through high grass. Yet this
small interval was to save us: the sea was to rise a
wall of adamant--without, disease and misery--within, a
shelter from evil, a nook of the garden of paradise--a
particle of celestial soil, which no evil could
invade--truly we were wise in our generation, to
imagine all these things!
  
But we are awake now. The plague is in London; the air
of England is tainted, and her sons and daughters strew
the unwholesome earth. And now, the sea, late our
defence, seems our prison bound; hemmed in by its
gulphs, we shall die like the famished inhabitants of a
besieged town. Other nations have a fellowship in
death; but we, shut out from all neighbourhood, must
bury our own dead, and little England become a wide,
wide tomb.
  
This feeling of universal misery assumed concentration
and shape, when I looked on my wife and children; and
the thought of danger to them possessed my whole being
with fear. How could I save them? I revolved a thousand
and a thousand plans. They should not die--first I
would be gathered to nothingness, ere infection should
come anear these idols of my soul. I would walk
barefoot through the world, to find an uninfected spot;
I would build my home on some wave-tossed plank,
drifted about on the barren, shoreless ocean. I would
betake me with them to some wild beast's den, where a
tyger's cubs, which I would slay, had been reared in
health. I would seek the mountain eagle's eirie, and
live years suspended in some inaccessible recess of a
sea-bounding cliff--no labour too great, no scheme too
wild, if it promised life to them. O! ye heart-strings
of mine, could ye be torn asunder, and my soul not
spend itself in tears of blood for sorrow!   

Idris, after the first shock, regained a portion of
fortitude. She studiously shut out all prospect of the
future, and cradled her heart in present blessings. She
never for a moment lost sight of her children. But
while they in health sported about her, she could
cherish contentment and hope. A strange and wild
restlessness came over me--the more intolerable,
because I was forced to conceal it. My fears for Adrian
were ceaseless; August had come; and the symptoms of
plague encreased rapidly in London. It was deserted by
all who possessed the power of removing; and he, the
brother of my soul, was exposed to the perils from
which all but slaves enchained by circumstance fled. He
remained to combat the fiend--his side unguarded, his
toils unshared--infection might even reach him, and he
die unattended and alone. By day and night these
thoughts pursued me. I resolved to visit London, to see
him; to quiet these agonizing throes by the sweet
medicine of hope, or the opiate of despair.
  
It was not until I arrived at Brentford, that I
perceived much change in the face of the country. The
better sort of houses were shut up; the busy trade of
the town palsied; there was an air of anxiety among the
few passengers I met, and they looked wonderingly at my
carriage--the first they had seen pass towards London,
since pestilence sat on its high places, and possessed
its busy streets. I met several funerals; they were
slenderly attended by mourners, and were regarded by
the spectators as omens of direst import. Some gazed on
these processions with wild eagerness--others fled
timidly--some wept aloud.
 
Adrian's chief endeavour, after the immediate succour
of the sick, had been to disguise the symptoms and
progress of the plague from the inhabitants of London.
He knew that fear and melancholy forebodings were
powerful assistants to disease; that desponding and
brooding care rendered the physical nature of man
peculiarly susceptible of infection. No unseemly sights
were therefore discernible: the shops were in general
open, the concourse of passengers in some degree kept
up. But although the appearance of an infected town was
avoided, to me, who had not beheld it since the
commencement of the visitation, London appeared
sufficiently changed. There were no carriages, and
grass had sprung high in the streets; the houses had a
desolate look; most of the shutters were closed; and
there was a ghast and frightened stare in the persons I
met, very different from the usual business-like
demeanour of the Londoners. My solitary carriage
attracted notice, as it rattled along towards the
Protectoral Palace--and the fashionable streets leading
to it wore a still more dreary and deserted appearance.
I found Adrian's anti-chamber crowded--it was his hour
for giving audience. I was unwilling to disturb his
labours, and waited, watching the ingress and egress of
the petitioners. They consisted of people of the
middling and lower classes of society, whose means of
subsistence failed with the cessation of trade, and of
the busy spirit of money-making in all its branches,
peculiar to our country. There was an air of anxiety,
sometimes of terror in the new-comers, strongly
contrasted with the resigned and even satisfied mien of
those who had had audience. I could read the influence
of my friend in their quickened motions and cheerful
faces. Two o'clock struck, after which none were
admitted; those who had been disappointed went sullenly
or sorrowfully away, while I entered the
audience-chamber.
 
I was struck by the improvement that appeared in the
health of Adrian. He was no longer bent to the ground,
like an over-nursed flower of spring, that, shooting up
beyond its strength, is weighed down even by its own
coronal of blossoms. His eyes were bright, his
countenance composed, an air of concentrated energy was
diffused over his whole person, much unlike its former
languor. He sat at a table with several secretaries,
who were arranging petitions, or registering the notes
made during that day's audience. Two or three
petitioners were still in attendance. I admired his
justice and patience. Those who possessed a power of
living out of London, he advised immediately to quit
it, affording them the means of so doing. Others, whose
trade was beneficial to the city, or who possessed no
other refuge, he provided with advice for better
avoiding the epidemic; relieving overloaded families,
supplying the gaps made in others by death. Order,
comfort, and even health, rose under his influence, as
from the touch of a magician's wand.
 
"I am glad you are come," he said to me, when we were
at last alone; "I can only spare a few minutes, and
must tell you much in that time. The plague is now in
progress--it is useless closing one's eyes to the
fact--the deaths encrease each week. What will come I
cannot guess. As yet, thank God, I am equal to the
government of the town; and I look only to the present.
Ryland, whom I have so long detained, has stipulated
that I shall suffer him to depart before the end of
this month. The deputy appointed by parliament is dead;
another therefore must be named; I have advanced my
claim, and I believe that I shall have no competitor.
To-night the question is to be decided, as there is a
call of the house for the purpose. You must nominate
me, Lionel; Ryland, for shame, cannot shew himself; but
you, my friend, will do me this service?" 
     
How lovely is devotion! Here was a youth, royally
sprung, bred in luxury, by nature averse to the usual
struggles of a public life, and now, in time of danger,
at a period when to live was the utmost scope of the
ambitious, he, the beloved and heroic Adrian, made, in
sweet simplicity, an offer to sacrifice himself for the
public good. The very idea was generous and
noble,--but, beyond this, his unpretending manner, his
entire want of the assumption of a virtue, rendered his
act ten times more touching. I would have withstood his
request; but I had seen the good he diffused; I felt
that his resolves were not to be shaken, so, with an
heavy heart, I consented to do as he asked. He grasped
my hand affectionately:--"Thank you," he said, "you
have relieved me from a painful dilemma, and are, as
you ever were, the best of my friends. Farewell--I must
now leave you for a few hours. Go you and converse with
Ryland. Although he deserts his post in London, he may
be of the greatest service in the north of England, by
receiving and assisting travellers, and contributing to
supply the metropolis with food. Awaken him, I entreat
you, to some sense of duty."
 
Adrian left me, as I afterwards learnt, upon his daily
task of visiting the hospitals, and inspecting the
crowded parts of London. I found Ryland much altered,
even from what he had been when he visited Windsor.
Perpetual fear had jaundiced his complexion, and
shrivelled his whole person. I told him of the business
of the evening, and a smile relaxed the contracted
muscles. He desired to go; each day he expected to be
infected by pestilence, each day he was unable to
resist the gentle violence of Adrian's detention. The
moment Adrian should be legally elected his deputy, he
would escape to safety. Under this impression he
listened to all I said; and, elevated almost to joy by
the near prospect of his departure, he entered into a
discussion concerning the plans he should adopt in his
own county, forgetting, for the moment, his cherished
resolution of shutting himself up from all
communication in the mansion and grounds of his estate. 

In the evening, Adrian and I proceeded to Westminster.
As we went he reminded me of what I was to say and do,
yet, strange to say, I entered the chamber without
having once reflected on my purpose. Adrian remained in
the coffee-room, while I, in compliance with his
desire, took my seat in St. Stephen's. There reigned
unusual silence in the chamber. I had not visited it
since Raymond's protectorate; a period conspicuous for
a numerous attendance of members, for the eloquence of
the speakers, and the warmth of the debate. The benches
were very empty, those by custom occupied by the
hereditary members were vacant; the city members were
there--the members for the commercial towns, few landed
proprietors, and not many of those who entered
parliament for the sake of a career. The first subject
that occupied the attention of the house was an address
from the Lord Protector, praying them to appoint a
deputy during a necessary absence on his part. 
 
A silence prevailed, till one of the members coming to
me, whispered that the Earl of Windsor had sent him
word that I was to move his election, in the absence of
the person who had been first chosen for this office.
Now for the first time I saw the full extent of my
task, and I was overwhelmed by what I had brought on
myself. Ryland had deserted his post through fear of
the plague: from the same fear Adrian had no
competitor. And I, the nearest kinsman of the Earl of
Windsor, was to propose his election. I was to thrust
this selected and matchless friend into the post of
danger--impossible! the die was cast--I would offer
myself as candidate.       

The few members who were present, had come more for the
sake of terminating the business by securing a legal
attendance, than under the idea of a debate. I had
risen mechanically--my knees trembled; irresolution
hung on my voice, as I uttered a few words on the
necessity of choosing a person adequate to the
dangerous task in hand. But, when the idea of
presenting myself in the room of my friend intruded,
the load of doubt and pain was taken from off me. My
words flowed spontaneously--my utterance was firm and
quick. I adverted to what Adrian had already done--I
promised the same vigilance in furthering all his
views. I drew a touching picture of his vacillating
health; I boasted of my own strength. I prayed them to
save even from himself this scion of the noblest family
in England. My alliance with him was the pledge of my
sincerity, my union with his sister, my children, his
presumptive heirs, were the hostages of my truth.  
    
This unexpected turn in the debate was quickly
communicated to Adrian. He hurried in, and witnessed
the termination of my impassioned harangue. I did not
see him: my soul was in my words,--my eyes could not
perceive that which was; while a vision of Adrian's
form, tainted by pestilence, and sinking in death,
floated before them. He seized my hand, as I
concluded-- "Unkind!" he cried, "you have betrayed me!"
then, springing forwards, with the air of one who had a
right to command, he claimed the place of deputy as his
own. He had bought it, he said, with danger, and paid
for it with toil. His ambition rested there; and, after
an interval devoted to the interests of his country,
was I to step in, and reap the profit? Let them
remember what London had been when he arrived: the
panic that prevailed brought famine, while every moral
and legal tie was loosened. He had restored order--this
had been a work which required perseverance, patience,
and energy; and he had neither slept nor waked but for
the good of his country.--Would they dare wrong him
thus? Would they wrest his hard-earned reward from him,
to bestow it on one, who, never having mingled in
public life, would come a tyro to the craft, in which
he was an adept. He demanded the place of deputy as his
right. Ryland had shewn that he preferred him. Never
before had he, who was born even to the inheritance of
the throne of England, never had he asked favour or
honour from those now his equals, but who might have
been his subjects. Would they refuse him? Could they
thrust back from the path of distinction and laudable
ambition, the heir of their ancient kings, and heap
another disappointment on a fallen house.  

No one had ever before heard Adrian allude to the
rights of his ancestors. None had ever before
suspected, that power, or the suffrage of the many,
could in any manner become dear to him. He had begun
his speech with vehemence; he ended with unassuming
gentleness, making his appeal with the same humility,
as if he had asked to be the first in wealth, honour,
and power among Englishmen, and not, as was the truth,
to be the foremost in the ranks of loathsome toils and
inevitable death. A murmur of approbation rose after
his speech. "Oh, do not listen to him," I cried, "he
speaks false--false to himself,"--I was interrupted:
and, silence being restored, we were ordered, as was
the custom, to retire during the decision of the house.
I fancied that they hesitated, and that there was some
hope for me--I was mistaken--hardly had we quitted the
chamber, before Adrian was recalled, and installed in
his office of Lord Deputy to the Protector.       

We returned together to the palace. "Why, Lionel," said
Adrian, "what did you intend? you could not hope to
conquer, and yet you gave me the pain of a triumph over
my dearest friend."  
     
"This is mockery," I replied, "you devote
yourself,--you, the adored brother of Idris, the being,
of all the world contains, dearest to our hearts--you
devote yourself to an early death. I would have
prevented this; my death would be a small evil--or
rather I should not die; while you cannot hope to
escape."

"As to the likelihood of escaping," said Adrian, "ten
years hence the cold stars may shine on the graves of
all of us; but as to my peculiar liability to
infection, I could easily prove, both logically and
physically, that in the midst of contagion I have a
better chance of life than you.       

"This is my post: I was born for this--to rule England
in anarchy, to save her in danger--to devote myself for
her. The blood of my forefathers cries aloud in my
veins, and bids me be first among my countrymen. Or, if
this mode of speech offend you, let me say, that my
mother, the proud queen, instilled early into me a love
of distinction, and all that, if the weakness of my
physical nature and my peculiar opinions had not
prevented such a design, might have made me long since
struggle for the lost inheritance of my race. But now
my mother, or, if you will, my mother's lessons, awaken
within me. I cannot lead on to battle; I cannot,
through intrigue and faithlessness rear again the
throne upon the wreck of English public spirit. But I
can be the first to support and guard my country, now
that terrific disasters and ruin have laid strong hands
upon her.
 
"That country and my beloved sister are all I have. I
will protect the first--the latter I commit to your
charge. If I survive, and she be lost, I were far
better dead. Preserve her--for her own sake I know that
you will--if you require any other spur, think that, in
preserving her, you preserve me. Her faultless nature,
one sum of perfections, is wrapt up in her
affections--if they were hurt, she would droop like an
unwatered floweret, and the slightest injury they
receive is a nipping frost to her. Already she fears
for us. She fears for the children she adores, and for
you, the father of these, her lover, husband,
protector; and you must be near her to support and
encourage her. Return to Windsor then, my brother; for
such you are by every tie--fill the double place my
absence imposes on you, and let me, in all my
sufferings here, turn my eyes towards that dear
seclusion, and say--There is peace."


[Vol. II]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER VII.

I DID proceed to Windsor, but not with the intention of
remaining there. I went but to obtain the consent of
Idris, and then to return and take my station beside my
unequalled friend; to share his labours, and save him,
if so it must be, at the expence of my life. Yet I
dreaded to witness the anguish which my resolve might
excite in Idris. I had vowed to my own heart never to
shadow her countenance even with transient grief, and
should I prove recreant at the hour of greatest need? I
had begun my journey with anxious haste; now I desired
to draw it out through the course of days and months. I
longed to avoid the necessity of action; I strove to
escape from thought--vainly--futurity, like a dark
image in a phantasmagoria, came nearer and more near,
till it clasped the whole earth in its shadow.
 
A slight circumstance induced me to alter my usual
route, and to return home by Egham and Bishopgate. I
alighted at Perdita's ancient abode, her cottage; and,
sending forward the carriage, determined to walk across
the park to the castle. This spot, dedicated to
sweetest recollections, the deserted house and
neglected garden were well adapted to nurse my
melancholy. In our happiest days, Perdita had adorned
her cottage with every aid art might bring, to that
which nature had selected to favour. In the same spirit
of exaggeration she had, on the event of her separation
from Raymond, caused it to be entirely neglected. It
was now in ruin: the deer had climbed the broken
palings, and reposed among the flowers; grass grew on
the threshold, and the swinging lattice creaking to the
wind, gave signal of utter desertion. The sky was blue
above, and the air impregnated with fragrance by the
rare flowers that grew among the weeds. The trees moved
overhead, awakening nature's favourite melody--but the
melancholy appearance of the choaked paths, and
weed-grown flower-beds, dimmed even this gay summer
scene. The time when in proud and happy security we
assembled at this cottage, was gone--soon the present
hours would join those past, and shadows of future ones
rose dark and menacing from the womb of time, their
cradle and their bier. For the first time in my life I
envied the sleep of the dead, and thought with pleasure
of one's bed under the sod, where grief and fear have
no power. I passed through the gap of the broken
paling--I felt, while I disdained, the choaking
tears--I rushed into the depths of the forest. O death
and change, rulers of our life, where are ye, that I
may grapple with you! What was there in our
tranquillity, that excited your envy--in our happiness,
that ye should destroy it? We were happy, loving, and
beloved; the horn of Amalthea contained no blessing
unshowered upon us, but, alas!

                     la fortuna
         deidad barbara importuna,
         oy cadaver y ayer flor,
         no permanece jamas!*

[* Calderon de la Barca.]
        

As I wandered on thus ruminating, a number of country
people passed me. They seemed full of careful thought,
and a few words of their conversation that reached me,
induced me to approach and make further enquiries. A
party of people flying from London, as was frequent in
those days, had come up the Thames in a boat. No one at
Windsor would afford them shelter; so, going a little
further up, they remained all night in a deserted hut
near Bolter's lock. They pursued their way the
following morning, leaving one of their company behind
them, sick of the plague. This circumstance once spread
abroad, none dared approach within half a mile of the
infected neighbourhood, and the deserted wretch was
left to fight with disease and death in solitude, as he
best might. I was urged by compassion to hasten to the
hut, for the purpose of ascertaining his situation, and
administering to his wants.
 
As I advanced I met knots of country-people talking
earnestly of this event: distant as they were from the
apprehended contagion, fear was impressed on every
countenance. I passed by a group of these terrorists,
in a lane in the direct road to the hut. One of them
stopped me, and, conjecturing that I was ignorant of
the circumstance, told me not to go on, for that an
infected person lay but at a short distance.    

"I know it," I replied, "and I am going to see in what
condition the poor fellow is."

A murmur of surprise and horror ran through the
assembly. I continued:--"This poor wretch is deserted,
dying, succourless; in these unhappy times, God knows
how soon any or all of us may be in like want. I am
going to do, as I would be done by."  
     
"But you will never be able to return to the
Castle--Lady Idris--his children--" in confused speech
were the words that struck my ear.  

"Do you not know, my friends," I said, "that the Earl
himself, now Lord Protector, visits daily, not only
those probably infected by this disease, but the
hospitals and pest houses, going near, and even
touching the sick? yet he was never in better health.
You labour under an entire mistake as to the nature of
the plague; but do not fear, I do not ask any of you to
accompany me, nor to believe me, until I return safe
and sound from my patient."        

So I left them, and hurried on. I soon arrived at the
hut: the door was ajar. I entered, and one glance
assured me that its former inhabitant was no more--he
lay on a heap of straw, cold and stiff; while a
pernicious effluvia filled the room, and various stains
and marks served to shew the virulence of the disorder.
 
I had never before beheld one killed by pestilence.
While every mind was full of dismay at its effects, a
craving for excitement had led us to peruse De Foe's
account, and the masterly delineations of the author of
Arthur Mervyn. The pictures drawn in these books were
so vivid, that we seemed to have experienced the
results depicted by them. But cold were the sensations
excited by words, burning though they were, and
describing the death and misery of thousands, compared
to what I felt in looking on the corpse of this unhappy
stranger. This indeed was the plague. I raised his
rigid limbs, I marked the distortion of his face, and
the stony eyes lost to perception. As I was thus
occupied, chill horror congealed my blood, making my
flesh quiver and my hair to stand on end. Half insanely
I spoke to the dead. So the plague killed you, I
muttered. How came this? Was the coming painful? You
look as if the enemy had tortured, before he murdered
you. And now I leapt up precipitately, and escaped from
the hut, before nature could revoke her laws, and
inorganic words be breathed in answer from the lips of
the departed.
  
On returning through the lane, I saw at a distance the
same assemblage of persons which I had left. They
hurried away, as soon as they saw me; my agitated mien
added to their fear of coming near one who had entered
within the verge of contagion.
  
At a distance from facts one draws conclusions which
appear infallible, which yet when put to the test of
reality, vanish like unreal dreams. I had ridiculed the
fears of my countrymen, when they related to others;
now that they came home to myself, I paused. The
Rubicon, I felt, was passed; and it behoved me well to
reflect what I should do on this hither side of disease
and danger. According to the vulgar superstition, my
dress, my person, the air I breathed, bore in it mortal
danger to myself and others. Should I return to the
Castle, to my wife and children, with this taint upon
me? Not surely if I were infected; but I felt certain
that I was not--a few hours would determine the
question--I would spend these in the forest, in
reflection on what was to come, and what my future
actions were to be. In the feeling communicated to me
by the sight of one struck by the plague, I forgot the
events that had excited me so strongly in London; new
and more painful prospects, by degrees were cleared of
the mist which had hitherto veiled them. The question
was no longer whether I should share Adrian's toils and
danger; but in what manner I could, in Windsor and the
neighbourhood, imitate the prudence and zeal which,
under his government, produced order and plenty in
London, and how, now pestilence had spread more widely,
I could secure the health of my own family.
  
I spread the whole earth out as a map before me. On no
one spot of its surface could I put my finger and say,
here is safety. In the south, the disease, virulent and
immedicable, had nearly annihilated the race of man;
storm and inundation, poisonous winds and blights,
filled up the measure of suffering. In the north it was
worse--the lesser population gradually declined, and
famine and plague kept watch on the survivors, who,
helpless and feeble, were ready to fall an easy prey
into their hands.   

I contracted my view to England. The overgrown
metropolis, the great heart of mighty Britain, was
pulseless. Commerce had ceased. All resort for ambition
or pleasure was cut off--the streets were
grass-grown--the houses empty--the few, that from
necessity remained, seemed already branded with the
taint of inevitable pestilence. In the larger
manufacturing towns the same tragedy was acted on a
smaller, yet more disastrous scale. There was no Adrian
to superintend and direct, while whole flocks of the
poor were struck and killed.   
     
Yet we were not all to die. No truly, though thinned,
the race of man would continue, and the great plague
would, in after years, become matter of history and
wonder. Doubtless this visitation was for extent
unexampled--more need that we should work hard to
dispute its progress; ere this men have gone out in
sport, and slain their thousands and tens of thousands;
but now man had become a creature of price; the life of
one of them was of more worth than the so called
treasures of kings. Look at his thought-endued
countenance, his graceful limbs, his majestic brow, his
wondrous mechanism--the type and model of this best
work of God is not to be cast aside as a broken
vessel--he shall be preserved, and his children and his
children's children carry down the name and form of man
to latest time.
 
Above all I must guard those entrusted by nature and
fate to my especial care. And surely, if among all my
fellow-creatures I were to select those who might stand
forth examples of the greatness and goodness of man, I
could choose no other than those allied to me by the
most sacred ties. Some from among the family of man
must survive, and these should be among the survivors;
that should be my task--to accomplish it my own life
were a small sacrifice. There then in that castle--in
Windsor Castle, birth-place of Idris and my babes,
should be the haven and retreat for the wrecked bark of
human society. Its forest should be our world--its
garden afford us food; within its walls I would
establish the shaken throne of health. I was an outcast
and a vagabond, when Adrian gently threw over me the
silver net of love and civilization, and linked me
inextricably to human charities and human excellence. I
was one, who, though an aspirant after good, and an
ardent lover of wisdom, was yet unenrolled in any list
of worth, when Idris, the princely born, who was
herself the personification of all that was divine in
woman, she who walked the earth like a poet's dream, as
a carved goddess endued with sense, or pictured saint
stepping from the canvas-- she, the most worthy, chose
me, and gave me herself--a priceless gift.  
     
During several hours I continued thus to meditate, till
hunger and fatigue brought me back to the passing hour,
then marked by long shadows cast from the descending
sun. I had wandered towards Bracknel, far to the west
of Windsor. The feeling of perfect health which I
enjoyed, assured me that I was free from contagion. I
remembered that Idris had been kept in ignorance of my
proceedings. She might have heard of my return from
London, and my visit to Bolter's Lock, which, connected
with my continued absence, might tend greatly to alarm
her. I returned to Windsor by the Long Walk, and
passing through the town towards the Castle, I found it
in a state of agitation and disturbance.
 
"It is too late to be ambitious," says Sir Thomas
Browne. "We cannot hope to live so long in our names as
some have done in their persons; one face of Janus
holds no proportion to the other." Upon this text many
fanatics arose, who prophesied that the end of time was
come. The spirit of superstition had birth, from the
wreck of our hopes, and antics wild and dangerous were
played on the great theatre, while the remaining
particle of futurity dwindled into a point in the eyes
of the prognosticators. Weak-spirited women died of
fear as they listened to their denunciations; men of
robust form and seeming strength fell into idiotcy and
madness, racked by the dread of coming eternity. A man
of this kind was now pouring forth his eloquent despair
among the inhabitants of Windsor. The scene of the
morning, and my visit to the dead, which had been
spread abroad, had alarmed the country-people, so they
had become fit instruments to be played upon by a
maniac.
  
The poor wretch had lost his young wife and lovely
infant by the plague. He was a mechanic; and, rendered
unable to attend to the occupation which supplied his
necessities, famine was added to his other miseries. He
left the chamber which contained his wife and
child--wife and child no more, but "dead earth upon the
earth"--wild with hunger, watching and grief, his
diseased fancy made him believe himself sent by heaven
to preach the end of time to the world. He entered the
churches, and foretold to the congregations their
speedy removal to the vaults below. He appeared like
the forgotten spirit of the time in the theatres, and
bade the spectators go home and die. He had been seized
and confined; he had escaped and wandered from London
among the neighbouring towns, and, with frantic
gestures and thrilling words, he unveiled to each their
hidden fears, and gave voice to the soundless thought
they dared not syllable. He stood under the arcade of
the town-hall of Windsor, and from this elevation
harangued a trembling crowd.
 
"Hear, O ye inhabitants of the earth," he cried, "hear
thou, all seeing, but most pitiless Heaven! hear thou
too, O tempest-tossed heart, which breathes out these
words, yet faints beneath their meaning! Death is among
us! The earth is beautiful and flower-bedecked, but she
is our grave! The clouds of heaven weep for us--the
pageantry of the stars is but our funeral torchlight.
Grey headed men, ye hoped for yet a few years in your
long-known abode--but the lease is up, you must
remove--children, ye will never reach maturity, even
now the small grave is dug for ye--mothers, clasp them
in your arms, one death embraces you!"   
     
Shuddering, he stretched out his hands, his eyes cast
up, seemed bursting from their sockets, while he
appeared to follow shapes, to us invisible, in the
yielding air--"There they are," he cried, "the  dead!
They rise in their shrouds, and pass in silent
procession towards the far land of their doom--their
bloodless lips move not--their shadowy limbs are void
of motion, while still they glide onwards.  We come,"
he exclaimed, springing forwards, "for what should we
wait? Haste, my friends, apparel yourselves in the
court-dress of death. Pestilence will usher you to his
presence. Why thus long? they, the good, the wise, and
the beloved, are gone before. Mothers, kiss you
last--husbands, protectors no more, lead on the
partners of your death! Come, O come! while the dear
ones are yet in sight, for soon they will pass away,
and we never never shall join them more."  

From such ravings as these, he would suddenly become
collected, and with unexaggerated but terrific words,
paint the horrors of the time; describe with minute
detail, the effects of the plague on the human frame,
and tell heart-breaking tales of the snapping of dear
affinities--the gasping horror of despair over the
death-bed of the last beloved--so that groans and even
shrieks burst from the crowd. One man in particular
stood in front, his eyes fixt on the prophet, his mouth
open, his limbs rigid, while his face changed to
various colours, yellow, blue, and green, through
intense fear. The maniac caught his glance, and turned
his eye on him--one has heard of the gaze of the
rattle-snake, which allures the trembling victim till
he falls within his jaws. The maniac became composed;
his person rose higher; authority beamed from his
countenance. He looked on the peasant, who began to
tremble, while he still gazed; his knees knocked
together; his teeth chattered. He at last fell down in
convulsions. "That man has the plague," said the maniac
calmly. A shriek burst from the lips of the poor
wretch; and then sudden motionlessness came over him;
it was manifest to all that he was dead.
 
Cries of horror filled the place--every one endeavoured
to effect his escape--in a few minutes the market place
was cleared--the corpse lay on the ground; and the
maniac, subdued and exhausted, sat beside it, leaning
his gaunt cheek upon his thin hand. Soon some people,
deputed by the magistrates, came to remove the body;
the unfortunate being saw a jailor in each--he fled
precipitately, while I passed onwards to the Castle.  

Death, cruel and relentless, had entered these beloved
walls. An old servant, who had nursed Idris in infancy,
and who lived with us more on the footing of a revered
relative than a domestic, had gone a few days before to
visit a daughter, married, and settled in the
neighbourhood of London. On the night of her return she
sickened of the plague. From the haughty and unbending
nature of the Countess of Windsor, Idris had few tender
filial associations with her. This good woman had stood
in the place of a mother, and her very deficiencies of
education and knowledge, by rendering her humble and
defenceless, endeared her to us--she was the especial
favourite of the children. I found my poor girl, there
is no exaggeration in the expression, wild with grief
and dread. She hung over the patient in agony, which
was not mitigated when her thoughts wandered towards
her babes, for whom she feared infection. My arrival
was like the newly discovered lamp of a lighthouse to
sailors, who are weathering some dangerous point. She
deposited her appalling doubts in my hands; she relied
on my judgment, and was comforted by my participation
in her sorrow. Soon our poor nurse expired; and the
anguish of suspense was changed to deep regret, which
though at first more painful, yet yielded with greater
readiness to my consolations. Sleep, the sovereign
balm, at length steeped her tearful eyes in
forgetfulness. 
      
She slept; and quiet prevailed in the Castle, whose
inhabitants were hushed to repose. I was awake, and
during the long hours of dead night, my busy thoughts
worked in my brain, like ten thousand mill-wheels,
rapid, acute, untameable. All slept--all England slept;
and from my window, commanding a wide prospect of the
star-illumined country, I saw the land stretched out in
placid rest. I was awake, alive, while the brother of
death possessed my race. What, if the more potent of
these fraternal deities should obtain dominion over it?
The silence of midnight, to speak truly, though
apparently a paradox, rung in my ears. The solitude
became intolerable--I placed my hand on the beating
heart of Idris, I bent my head to catch the sound of
her breath, to assure myself that she still
existed--for a moment I doubted whether I should not
awake her; so effeminate an horror ran through my
frame.--Great God! would it one day be thus? One day
all extinct, save myself, should I walk the earth
alone? Were these warning voices, whose inarticulate
and oracular sense forced belief upon me?
     
         Yet I would not call <i>them</i>      
         Voices of warning, that announce to us
         Only the inevitable. As the sun,
         Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image
         In the atmosphere--so often do the spirits
         Of great events stride on before the events,
         And in to-day already walks to-morrow.*


[* Coleridge's Translation of Schiller's Wallenstein.]


[Vol. II]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER VIII.

AFTER a long interval, I am again impelled by the
restless spirit within me to continue my narration; but
I must alter the mode which I have hitherto adopted.
The details contained in the foregoing pages,
apparently trivial, yet each slightest one weighing
like lead in the depressed scale of human afflictions;
this tedious dwelling on the sorrows of others, while
my own were only in apprehension; this slowly laying
bare of my soul's wounds: this journal of death; this
long drawn and tortuous path, leading to the ocean of
countless tears, awakens me again to keen grief. I had
used this history as an opiate; while it described my
beloved friends, fresh with life and glowing with hope,
active assistants on the scene, I was soothed; there
will be a more melancholy pleasure in painting the end
of all. But the intermediate steps, the climbing the
wall, raised up between what was and is, while I still
looked back nor saw the concealed desert beyond, is a
labour past my strength. Time and experience have
placed me on an height from which I can comprehend the
past as a whole; and in this way I must describe it,
bringing forward the leading incidents, and disposing
light and shade so as to form a picture in whose very
darkness there will be harmony.  

It would be needless to narrate those disastrous
occurrences, for which a parallel might be found in any
slighter visitation of our gigantic calamity. Does the
reader wish to hear of the pest-houses, where death is
the comforter--of the mournful passage of the
death-cart--of the insensibility of the worthless, and
the anguish of the loving heart--of harrowing shrieks
and silence dire--of the variety of disease, desertion,
famine, despair, and death? There are many books which
can feed the appetite craving for these things; let
them turn to the accounts of Boccaccio, De Foe, and
Browne. The vast annihilation that has swallowed all
things--the voiceless solitude of the once busy
earth--the lonely state of singleness which hems me in,
has deprived even such details of their stinging
reality, and mellowing the lurid tints of past anguish
with poetic hues, I am able to escape from the mosaic
of circumstance, by perceiving and reflecting back the
grouping and combined colouring of the past.  
     
I had returned from London possessed by the idea, with
the intimate feeling that it was my first duty to
secure, as well as I was able, the well-being of my
family, and then to return and take my post beside
Adrian. The events that immediately followed on my
arrival at Windsor changed this view of things. The
plague was not in London alone, it was every where--it
came on us, as Ryland had said, like a thousand packs
of wolves, howling through the winter night, gaunt and
fierce. When once disease was introduced into the rural
districts, its effects appeared more horrible, more
exigent, and more difficult to cure, than in towns.
There was a companionship in suffering there, and, the
neighbours keeping constant watch on each other, and
inspired by the active benevolence of Adrian, succour
was afforded, and the path of destruction smoothed. But
in the country, among the scattered farm-houses, in
lone cottages, in fields, and barns, tragedies were
acted harrowing to the soul, unseen, unheard,
unnoticed. Medical aid was less easily procured, food
was more difficult to obtain, and human beings,
unwithheld by shame, for they were unbeheld of their
fellows, ventured on deeds of greater wickedness, or
gave way more readily to their abject fears.
 
Deeds of heroism also occurred, whose very mention
swells the heart and brings tears into the eyes. Such
is human nature, that beauty and deformity are often
closely linked. In reading history we are chiefly
struck by the generosity and self-devotion that follow
close on the heels of crime, veiling with supernal
flowers the stain of blood. Such acts were not wanting
to adorn the grim train that waited on the progress of
the plague.  


The inhabitants of Berkshire and Bucks had been long
aware that the plague was in London, in Liverpool,
Bristol, Manchester, York, in short, in all the more
populous towns of England. They were not however the
less astonished and dismayed when it appeared among
themselves. They were impatient and angry in the midst
of terror. They would do something to throw off the
clinging evil, and, while in action, they fancied that
a remedy was applied. The inhabitants of the smaller
towns left their houses, pitched tents in the fields,
wandering separate from each other careless of hunger
or the sky's inclemency, while they imagined that they
avoided the death-dealing disease. The farmers and
cottagers, on the contrary, struck with the fear of
solitude, and madly desirous of medical assistance,
flocked into the towns.  
     
But winter was coming, and with winter, hope. In
August, the plague had appeared in the country of
England, and during September it made its ravages.
Towards the end of October it dwindled away, and was in
some degree replaced by a typhus, of hardly less
virulence. The autumn was warm and rainy: the infirm
and sickly died off--happier they: many young people
flushed with health and prosperity, made pale by
wasting malady, became the inhabitants of the grave.
The crop had failed, the bad corn, and want of foreign
wines, added vigour to disease. Before Christmas half
England was under water. The storms of the last winter
were renewed; but the diminished shipping of this year
caused us to feel less the tempests of the sea. The
flood and storms did more harm to continental Europe
than to us--giving, as it were, the last blow to the
calamities which destroyed it. In Italy the rivers were
unwatched by the diminished peasantry; and, like wild
beasts from their lair when the hunters and dogs are
afar, did Tiber, Arno, and Po, rush upon and destroy
the fertility of the plains. Whole villages were
carried away. Rome, and Florence, and Pisa were
overflowed, and their marble palaces, late mirrored in
tranquil streams, had their foundations shaken by their
winter-gifted power. In Germany and Russia the injury
was still more momentous.
 
But frost would come at last, and with it a renewal of
our lease of earth. Frost would blunt the arrows of
pestilence, and enchain the furious elements; and the
land would in spring throw off her garment of snow,
released from her menace of destruction. It was not
until February that the desired signs of winter
appeared. For three days the snow fell, ice stopped the
current of the rivers, and the birds flew out from
crackling branches of the frost-whitened trees. On the
fourth morning all vanished. A south-west wind brought
up rain--the sun came out, and mocking the usual laws
of nature, seemed even at this early season to burn
with solsticial force. It was no consolation, that with
the first winds of March the lanes were filled with
violets, the fruit trees covered with blossoms, that
the corn sprung up, and the leaves came out, forced by
the unseasonable heat. We feared the balmy air--we
feared the cloudless sky, the flower-covered earth, and
delightful woods, for we looked on the fabric of the
universe no longer as our dwelling, but our tomb, and
the fragrant land smelled to the apprehension of fear
like a wide church-yard.
  
         Pisando la tierra dura
         de continuo el hombre esta
         y cada passo que da
         es sobre su sepultura.*

[* Calderon de la Barca.]
         
Yet notwithstanding these disadvantages winter was
breathing time; and we exerted ourselves to make the
best of it. Plague might not revive with the summer;
but if it did, it should find us prepared. It is a part
of man's nature to adapt itself through habit even to
pain and sorrow. Pestilence had become a part of our
future, our existence; it was to be guarded against,
like the flooding of rivers, the encroachments of
ocean, or the inclemency of the sky. After long
suffering and bitter experience, some panacea might be
discovered; as it was, all that received infection
died--all however were not infected; and it became our
part to fix deep the foundations, and raise high the
barrier between contagion and the sane; to introduce
such order as would conduce to the well-being of the
survivors, and as would preserve hope and some portion
of happiness to those who were spectators of the still
renewed tragedy. Adrian had introduced systematic modes
of proceeding in the metropolis, which, while they were
unable to stop the progress of death, yet prevented
other evils, vice and folly, from rendering the awful
fate of the hour still more tremendous. I wished to
imitate his example, but men are used to 
     
            --move all together, if they move at all,*

and I could find no means of leading the inhabitants of
scattered towns and villages, who forgot my words as
soon as they heard them not, and veered with every
baffling wind, that might arise from an apparent change
of circumstance.

[* Wordsworth.]

I adopted another plan. Those writers who have imagined
a reign of peace and happiness on earth, have generally
described a rural country, where each small township
was directed by the elders and wise men. This was the
key of my design. Each village, however small, usually
contains a leader, one among themselves whom they
venerate, whose advice they seek in difficulty, and
whose good opinion they chiefly value. I was
immediately drawn to make this observation by
occurrences that presented themselves to my personal
experience.  
     
In the village of Little Marlow an old woman ruled the
community. She had lived for some years in an
alms-house, and on fine Sundays her threshold was
constantly beset by a crowd, seeking her advice and
listening to her admonitions. She had been a soldier's
wife, and had seen the world; infirmity, induced by
fevers caught in unwholesome quarters, had come on her
before its time, and she seldom moved from her little
cot. The plague entered the village; and, while fright
and grief deprived the inhabitants of the little wisdom
they possessed, old Martha stepped forward and
said--"Before now I have been in a town where there was
the plague."--"And you escaped?"--"No, but I
recovered."--After this Martha was seated more firmly
than ever on the regal seat, elevated by reverence and
love. She entered the cottages of the sick; she
relieved their wants with her own hand; she betrayed no
fear, and inspired all who saw her with some portion of
her own native courage. She attended the markets--she
insisted upon being supplied with food for those who
were too poor to purchase it. She shewed them how the
well-being of each included the prosperity of all. She
would not permit the gardens to be neglected, nor the
very flowers in the cottage lattices to droop from want
of care. Hope, she said, was better than a doctor's
prescription, and every thing that could sustain and
enliven the spirits, of more worth than drugs and
mixtures.  

It was the sight of Little Marlow, and my conversations
with Martha, that led me to the plan I formed. I had
before visited the manor houses and gentlemen's seats,
and often found the inhabitants actuated by the purest
benevolence, ready to lend their utmost aid for the
welfare of their tenants. But this was not enough. The
intimate sympathy generated by similar hopes and fears,
similar experience and pursuits, was wanting here. The
poor perceived that the rich possessed other means of
preservation than those which could be partaken of by
themselves, seclusion, and, as far as circumstances
permitted, freedom from care. They could not place
reliance on them, but turned with tenfold dependence to
the succour and advice of their equals. I resolved
therefore to go from village to village, seeking out
the rustic archon of the place, and by systematizing
their exertions, and enlightening their views, encrease
both their power and their use among their
fellow-cottagers. Many changes also now occurred in
these spontaneous regal elections: depositions and
abdications were frequent, while, in the place of the
old and prudent, the ardent youth would step forward,
eager for action, regardless of danger. Often too, the
voice to which all listened was suddenly silenced, the
helping hand cold, the sympathetic eye closed, and the
villagers feared still more the death that had selected
a choice victim, shivering in dust the heart that had
beat for them, reducing to incommunicable annihilation
the mind for ever occupied with projects for their
welfare.
 
Whoever labours for man must often find ingratitude,
watered by vice and folly, spring from the grain which
he has sown. Death, which had in our younger days
walked the earth like "a thief that comes in the
night," now, rising from his subterranean vault, girt
with power, with dark banner floating, came a
conqueror. Many saw, seated above his vice-regal
throne, a supreme Providence, who directed his shafts,
and guided his progress, and they bowed their heads in
resignation, or at least in obedience. Others perceived
only a passing casualty; they endeavoured to exchange
terror for heedlessness, and plunged into
licentiousness, to avoid the agonizing throes of worst
apprehension. Thus, while the wise, the good, and the
prudent were occupied by the labours of benevolence,
the truce of winter produced other effects among the
young, the thoughtless, and the vicious. During the
colder months there was a general rush to London in
search of amusement--the ties of public opinion were
loosened; many were rich, heretofore poor--many had
lost father and mother, the guardians of their morals,
their mentors and restraints. It would have been
useless to have opposed these impulses by barriers,
which would only have driven those actuated by them to
more pernicious indulgencies. The theatres were open
and thronged; dance and midnight festival were
frequented--in many of these decorum was violated, and
the evils, which hitherto adhered to an advanced state
of civilization, were doubled. The student left his
books, the artist his study: the occupations of life
were gone, but the amusements remained; enjoyment might
be protracted to the verge of the grave. All factitious
colouring disappeared--death rose like night, and,
protected by its murky shadows the blush of modesty,
the reserve of pride, the decorum of prudery were
frequently thrown aside as useless veils.
 
This was not universal. Among better natures, anguish
and dread, the fear of eternal separation, and the
awful wonder produced by unprecedented calamity, drew
closer the ties of kindred and friendship. Philosophers
opposed their principles, as barriers to the inundation
of profligacy or despair, and the only ramparts to
protect the invaded territory of human life; the
religious, hoping now for their reward, clung fast to
their creeds, as the rafts and planks which over the
tempest-vexed sea of suffering, would bear them in
safety to the harbour of the Unknown Continent. The
loving heart, obliged to contract its view, bestowed
its overflow of affection in triple portion on the few
that remained. Yet, even among these, the present, as
an unalienable possession, became all of time to which
they dared commit the precious freight of their hopes.  
     
The experience of immemorial time had taught us
formerly to count our enjoyments by years, and extend
our prospect of life through a lengthened period of
progression and decay; the long road threaded a vast
labyrinth, and the Valley of the Shadow of Death, in
which it terminated, was hid by intervening objects.
But an earthquake had changed the scene--under our very
feet the earth yawned--deep and precipitous the gulph
below opened to receive us, while the hours charioted
us towards the chasm. But it was winter now, and months
must elapse before we are hurled from our security. We
became ephemera, to whom the interval between the
rising and setting sun was as a long drawn year of
common time. We should never see our children ripen
into maturity, nor behold their downy cheeks roughen,
their blithe hearts subdued by passion or care; but we
had them now--they lived, and we lived--what more could
we desire? With such schooling did my poor Idris try to
hush thronging fears, and in some measure succeeded. It
was not as in summer-time, when each hour might bring
the dreaded fate--until summer, we felt sure; and this
certainty, short lived as it must be, yet for awhile
satisfied her maternal tenderness. I know not how to
express or communicate the sense of concentrated,
intense, though evanescent transport, that imparadized
us in the present hour. Our joys were dearer because we
saw their end; they were keener because we felt, to its
fullest extent, their value; they were purer because
their essence was sympathy--as a meteor is brighter
than a star, did the felicity of this winter contain in
itself the extracted delights of a long, long life.     
  
How lovely is spring! As we looked from Windsor Terrace
on the sixteen fertile counties spread beneath,
speckled by happy cottages and wealthier towns, all
looked as in former years, heart-cheering and fair. The
land was ploughed, the slender blades of wheat broke
through the dark soil, the fruit trees were covered
with buds, the husbandman was abroad in the fields, the
milk-maid tripped home with well-filled pails, the
swallows and martins struck the sunny pools with their
long, pointed wings, the new dropped lambs reposed on
the young grass, the tender growth of leaves-- 
         
         Lifts its sweet head into the air, and feeds
         A silent space with ever sprouting green.*
     
Man himself seemed to regenerate, and feel the frost of
winter yield to an elastic and warm renewal of
life--reason told us that care and sorrow would grow
with the opening year--but how to believe the ominous
voice breathed up with pestiferous vapours from fear's
dim cavern, while nature, laughing and scattering from
her green lap flowers, and fruits, and sparkling
waters, invited us to join the gay masque of young life
she led upon the scene?  

[* Keats.]
     
Where was the plague? "Here--every where!" one voice of
horror and dismay exclaimed, when in the pleasant days
of a sunny May the Destroyer of man brooded again over
the earth, forcing the spirit to leave its organic
chrysalis, and to enter upon an untried life. With one
mighty sweep of its potent weapon, all caution, all
care, all prudence were levelled low: death sat at the
tables of the great, stretched itself on the cottager's
pallet, seized the dastard who fled, quelled the brave
man who resisted: despondency entered every heart,
sorrow dimmed every eye.            

Sights of woe now became familiar to me, and were I to
tell all of anguish and pain that I witnessed, of the
despairing moans of age, and the more terrible smiles
of infancy in the bosom of horror, my reader, his limbs
quivering and his hair on end, would wonder how I did
not, seized with sudden frenzy, dash myself from some
precipice, and so close my eyes for ever on the sad end
of the world. But the powers of love, poetry, and
creative fancy will dwell even beside the sick of the
plague, with the squalid, and with the dying. A feeling
of devotion, of duty, of a high and steady purpose,
elevated me; a strange joy filled my heart. In the
midst of saddest grief I seemed to tread air, while the
spirit of good shed round me an ambrosial atmosphere,
which blunted the sting of sympathy, and purified the
air of sighs. If my wearied soul flagged in its career,
I thought of my loved home, of the casket that
contained my treasures, of the kiss of love and the
filial caress, while my eyes were moistened by purest
dew, and my heart was at once softened and refreshed by
thrilling tenderness.  

Maternal affection had not rendered Idris selfish; at
the beginning of our calamity she had, with thoughtless
enthusiasm, devoted herself to the care of the sick and
helpless. I checked her; and she submitted to my rule.
I told her how the fear of her danger palsied my
exertions, how the knowledge of her safety strung my
nerves to endurance. I shewed her the dangers which her
children incurred during her absence; and she at length
agreed not to go beyond the inclosure of the forest.
Indeed, within the walls of the Castle we had a colony
of the unhappy, deserted by their relatives, and in
themselves helpless, sufficient to occupy her time and
attention, while ceaseless anxiety for my welfare and
the health of her children, however she strove to curb
or conceal it, absorbed all her thoughts, and
undermined the vital principle. After watching over and
providing for their safety, her second care was to hide
from me her anguish and tears. Each night I returned to
the Castle, and found there repose and love awaiting
me. Often I waited beside the bed of death till
midnight, and through the obscurity of rainy, cloudy
nights rode many miles, sustained by one circumstance
only, the safety and sheltered repose of those I loved.
If some scene of tremendous agony shook my frame and
fevered my brow, I would lay my head on the lap of
Idris, and the tumultuous pulses subsided into a
temperate flow--her smile could raise me from
hopelessness, her embrace bathe my sorrowing heart in
calm peace.  
     
Summer advanced, and, crowned with the sun's potent
rays, plague shot her unerring shafts over the earth.
The nations beneath their influence bowed their heads,
and died. The corn that sprung up in plenty, lay in
autumn rotting on the ground, while the melancholy
wretch who had gone out to gather bread for his
children, lay stiff and plague-struck in the furrow.
The green woods waved their boughs majestically, while
the dying were spread beneath their shade, answering
the solemn melody with inharmonious cries. The painted
birds flitted through the shades; the careless deer
reposed unhurt upon the fern--the oxen and the horses
strayed from their unguarded stables, and grazed among
the wheat, for death fell on man alone.
 
With summer and mortality grew our fears. My poor love
and I looked at each other, and our babes.--"We will
save them, Idris," I said, "I will save them. Years
hence we shall recount to them our fears, then passed
away with their occasion. Though they only should
remain on the earth, still they shall live, nor shall
their cheeks become pale nor their sweet voices
languish." Our eldest in some degree understood the
scenes passing around, and at times, he with serious
looks questioned me concerning the reason of so vast a
desolation. But he was only ten years old; and the
hilarity of youth soon chased unreasonable care from
his brow. Evelyn, a laughing cherub, a gamesome infant,
without idea of pain or sorrow, would, shaking back his
light curls from his eyes, make the halls re-echo with
his merriment, and in a thousand artless ways attract
our attention to his play. Clara, our lovely gentle
Clara, was our stay, our solace, our delight. She made
it her task to attend the sick, comfort the sorrowing,
assist the aged, and partake the sports and awaken the
gaiety of the young. She flitted through the rooms,
like a good spirit, dispatched from the celestial
kingdom, to illumine our dark hour with alien
splendour. Gratitude and praise marked where her
footsteps had been. Yet, when she stood in unassuming
simplicity before us, playing with our children, or
with girlish assiduity performing little kind offices
for Idris, one wondered in what fair lineament of her
pure loveliness, in what soft tone of her thrilling
voice, so much of heroism, sagacity and active goodness
resided.
 
The summer passed tediously, for we trusted that winter
would at least check the disease. That it would vanish
altogether was an hope too dear--too heartfelt, to be
expressed. When such a thought was heedlessly uttered,
the hearers, with a gush of tears and passionate sobs,
bore witness how deep their fears were, how small their
hopes. For my own part, my exertions for the public
good permitted me to observe more closely than most
others, the virulence and extensive ravages of our
sightless enemy. A short month has destroyed a village,
and where in May the first person sickened, in June the
paths were deformed by unburied corpses--the houses
tenantless, no smoke arising from the chimneys; and the
housewife's clock marked only the hour when death had
been triumphant. From such scenes I have sometimes
saved a deserted infant--sometimes led a young and
grieving mother from the lifeless image of her first
born, or drawn the sturdy labourer from childish
weeping over his extinct family.        

July is gone. August must pass, and by the middle of
September we may hope. Each day was eagerly counted;
and the inhabitants of towns, desirous to leap this
dangerous interval, plunged into dissipation, and
strove, by riot, and what they wished to imagine to be
pleasure, to banish thought and opiate despair. None
but Adrian could have tamed the motley population of
London, which, like a troop of unbitted steeds rushing
to their pastures, had thrown aside all minor fears,
through the operation of the fear paramount. Even
Adrian was obliged in part to yield, that he might be
able, if not to guide, at least to set bounds to the
license of the times. The theatres were kept open;
every place of public resort was frequented; though he
endeavoured so to modify them, as might best quiet the
agitation of the spectators, and at the same time
prevent a reaction of misery when the excitement was
over. Tragedies deep and dire were the chief
favourites. Comedy brought with it too great a contrast
to the inner despair: when such were attempted, it was
not unfrequent for a comedian, in the midst of the
laughter occasioned by his disporportioned buffoonery,
to find a word or thought in his part that jarred with
his own sense of wretchedness, and burst from mimic
merriment into sobs and tears, while the spectators,
seized with irresistible sympathy, wept, and the
pantomimic revelry was changed to a real exhibition of
tragic passion.
 
It was not in my nature to derive consolation from such
scenes; from theatres, whose buffoon laughter and
discordant mirth awakened distempered sympathy, or
where fictitious tears and wailings mocked the
heart-felt grief within; from festival or crowded
meeting, where hilarity sprung from the worst feelings
of our nature, or such enthralment of the better ones,
as impressed it with garish and false varnish; from
assemblies of mourners in the guise of revellers. Once
however I witnessed a scene of singular interest at one
of the theatres, where nature overpowered art, as an
overflowing cataract will tear away the puny
manufacture of a mock cascade, which had before been
fed by a small portion of its waters.  

I had come to London to see Adrian. He was not at the
palace; and, though the attendants did not know whither
he had gone, they did not expect him till late at
night. It was between six and seven o'clock, a fine
summer afternoon, and I spent my leisure hours in a
ramble through the empty streets of London; now turning
to avoid an approaching funeral, now urged by curiosity
to observe the state of a particular spot; my
wanderings were instinct with pain, for silence and
desertion characterized every place I visited, and the
few beings I met were so pale and woe-begone, so marked
with care and depressed by fear, that weary of
encountering only signs of misery, I began to retread
my steps towards home.
 
I was now in Holborn, and passed by a public house
filled with uproarious companions, whose songs,
laughter, and shouts were more sorrowful than the pale
looks and silence of the mourner. Such an one was near,
hovering round this house. The sorry plight of her
dress displayed her poverty, she was ghastly pale, and
continued approaching, first the window and then the
door of the house, as if fearful, yet longing to enter.
A sudden burst of song and merriment seemed to sting
her to the heart; she murmured, "Can he have the
heart?" and then mustering her courage, she stepped
within the threshold. The landlady met her in the
passage; the poor creature asked, "Is my husband here?
Can I see George?"
 
"See him," cried the woman, "yes, if you go to him;
last night he was taken with the plague, and we sent
him to the hospital."
 
The unfortunate inquirer staggered against a wall, a
faint cry escaped her--"O! were you cruel enough," she
exclaimed, "to send him there?"  

The landlady meanwhile hurried away; but a more
compassionate bar-maid gave her a detailed account, the
sum of which was, that her husband had been taken ill,
after a night of riot, and sent by his boon companions
with all expedition to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. I
had watched this scene, for there was a gentleness
about the poor woman that interested me; she now
tottered away from the door, walking as well as she
could down Holborn Hill; but her strength soon failed
her; she leaned against a wall, and her head sunk on
her bosom, while her pallid cheek became still more
white. I went up to her and offered my services. She
hardly looked up--"You can do me no good," she replied;
"I must go to the hospital; if I do not die before I
get there."  
     
There were still a few hackney-coaches accustomed to
stand about the streets, more truly from habit than for
use. I put her in one of these, and entered with her
that I might secure her entrance into the hospital. Our
way was short, and she said little; except interrupted
ejaculations of reproach that he had left her,
exclamations on the unkindness of some of his friends,
and hope that she would find him alive. There was a
simple, natural earnestness about her that interested
me in her fate, especially when she assured me that her
husband was the best of men,--had been so, till want of
business during these unhappy times had thrown him into
bad company. "He could not bear to come home," she
said, "only to see our children die. A man cannot have
the patience a mother has, with her own flesh and
blood."
 
We were set down at St. Bartholomew's, and entered the
wretched precincts of the house of disease. The poor
creature clung closer to me, as she saw with what
heartless haste they bore the dead from the wards, and
took them into a room, whose half-opened door displayed
a number of corpses, horrible to behold by one
unaccustomed to such scenes. We were directed to the
ward where her husband had been first taken, and still
was, the nurse said, if alive. My companion looked
eagerly from one bed to the other, till at the end of
the ward she espied, on a wretched bed, a squalid,
haggard creature, writhing under the torture of
disease. She rushed towards him, she embraced him,
blessing God for his preservation.  

The enthusiasm that inspired her with this strange joy,
blinded her to the horrors about her; but they were
intolerably agonizing to me. The ward was filled with
an effluvia that caused my heart to heave with painful
qualms. The dead were carried out, and the sick brought
in, with like indifference; some were screaming with
pain, others laughing from the influence of more
terrible delirium; some were attended by weeping,
despairing relations, others called aloud with
thrilling tenderness or reproach on the friends who had
deserted them, while the nurses went from bed to bed,
incarnate images of despair, neglect, and death. I gave
gold to my luckless companion; I recommended her to the
care of the attendants; I then hastened away; while the
tormentor, the imagination, busied itself in picturing
my own loved ones, stretched on such beds, attended
thus. The country afforded no such mass of horrors;
solitary wretches died in the open fields; and I have
found a survivor in a vacant village, contending at
once with famine and disease; but the assembly of
pestilence, the banqueting hall of death, was spread
only in London.  
     
I rambled on, oppressed, distracted by painful
emotions--suddenly I found myself before Drury Lane
Theatre. The play was Macbeth--the first actor of the
age was there to exert his powers to drug with
irreflection the auditors; such a medicine I yearned
for, so I entered. The theatre was tolerably well
filled. Shakspeare, whose popularity was established by
the approval of four centuries, had not lost his
influence even at this dread period; but was still "Ut
magus," the wizard to rule our hearts and govern our
imaginations. I came in during the interval between the
third and fourth act. I looked round on the audience;
the females were mostly of the lower classes, but the
men were of all ranks, come hither to forget awhile the
protracted scenes of wretchedness, which awaited them
at their miserable homes. The curtain drew up, and the
stage presented the scene of the witches' cave. The
wildness and supernatural machinery of Macbeth, was a
pledge that it could contain little directly connected
with our present circumstances. Great pains had been
taken in the scenery to give the semblance of reality
to the impossible. The extreme darkness of the stage,
whose only light was received from the fire under the
cauldron, joined to a kind of mist that floated about
it, rendered the unearthly shapes of the witches
obscure and shadowy. It was not three decrepid old hags
that bent over their pot throwing in the grim
ingredients of the magic charm, but forms frightful,
unreal, and fanciful. The entrance of Hecate, and the
wild music that followed, took us out of this world.
The cavern shape the stage assumed, the beetling rocks,
the glare of the fire, the misty shades that crossed
the scene at times, the music in harmony with all
witch-like fancies, permitted the imagination to revel,
without fear of contradiction, or reproof from reason
or the heart. The entrance of Macbeth did not destroy
the illusion, for he was actuated by the same feelings
that inspired us, and while the work of magic proceeded
we sympathized in his wonder and his daring, and gave
ourselves up with our whole souls to the influence of
scenic delusion. I felt the beneficial result of such
excitement, in a renewal of those pleasing flights of
fancy to which I had long been a stranger. The effect
of this scene of incantation communicated a portion of
its power to that which followed. We forgot that
Malcolm and Macduff were mere human beings, acted upon
by such simple passions as warmed our own breasts. By
slow degrees however we were drawn to the real interest
of the scene. A shudder like the swift passing of an
electric shock ran through the house, when Rosse
exclaimed, in answer to "Stands Scotland where it did?"
       
     Alas, poor country;
  Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
  Be called our mother, but our grave: where nothing,
  But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
  Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the    
                                                   air, 
  Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
  A modern extasy: the dead man's knell
  Is there scarce asked, for who; and good men's lives  
  Expire before the flowers in their caps,
  Dying, or ere they sicken.

Each word struck the sense, as our life's passing bell;
we feared to look at each other, but bent our gaze on
the stage, as if our eyes could fall innocuous on that
alone. The person who played the part of Rosse,
suddenly became aware of the dangerous ground he trod.
He was an inferior actor, but truth now made him
excellent; as he went on to announce to Macduff the
slaughter of his family, he was afraid to speak,
trembling from apprehension of a burst of grief from
the audience, not from his fellow-mime. Each word was
drawn out with difficulty; real anguish painted his
features; his eyes were now lifted in sudden horror,
now fixed in dread upon the ground. This shew of terror
encreased ours, we gasped with him, each neck was
stretched out, each face changed with the actor's
changes--at length while Macduff, who, attending to his
part, was unobservant of the high wrought sympathy of
the house, cried with well acted passion: 
     
          All my pretty ones?
         Did you say all?--O hell kite! All?
         What! all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
         At one fell swoop!
        
A pang of tameless grief wrenched every heart, a burst
of despair was echoed from every lip.--I had entered
into the universal feeling--I had been absorbed by the
terrors of Rosse--I re-echoed the cry of Macduff, and
then rushed out as from an hell of torture, to find
calm in the free air and silent street.

Free the air was not, or the street silent. Oh, how I
longed then for the dear soothings of maternal Nature,
as my wounded heart was still further stung by the roar
of heartless merriment from the public-house, by the
sight of the drunkard reeling home, having lost the
memory of what he would find there in oblivious
debauch, and by the more appalling salutations of those
melancholy beings to whom the name of home was a
mockery. I ran on at my utmost speed until I found
myself I knew not how, close to Westminster Abbey, and
was attracted by the deep and swelling tone of the
organ. I entered with soothing awe the lighted chancel,
and listened to the solemn religious chaunt, which
spoke peace and hope to the unhappy. The notes,
freighted with man's dearest prayers, re-echoed through
the dim aisles, and the bleeding of the soul's wounds
was staunched by heavenly balm. In spite of the misery
I deprecated, and could not understand; in spite of the
cold hearths of wide London, and the corpse-strewn
fields of my native land; in spite of all the variety
of agonizing emotions I had that evening experienced, I
thought that in reply to our melodious adjurations, the
Creator looked down in compassion and promise of
relief; the awful peal of the heaven-winged music
seemed fitting voice wherewith to commune with the
Supreme; calm was produced by its sound, and by the
sight of many other human creatures offering up prayers
and submission with me. A sentiment approaching
happiness followed the total resignation of one's being
to the guardianship of the world's ruler. Alas! with
the failing of this solemn strain, the elevated spirit
sank again to earth. Suddenly one of the choristers
died--he was lifted from his desk, the vaults below
were hastily opened--he was consigned with a few
muttered prayers to the darksome cavern, abode of
thousands who had gone before--now wide yawning to
receive even all who fulfilled the funeral rites. In
vain I would then have turned from this scene, to
darkened aisle or lofty dome, echoing with melodious
praise. In the open air alone I found relief; among
nature's beauteous works, her God reassumed his
attribute of benevolence, and again I could trust that
he who built up the mountains, planted the forests, and
poured out the rivers, would erect another state for
lost humanity, where we might awaken again to our
affections, our happiness, and our faith.   

Fortunately for me those circumstances were of rare
occurrence that obliged me to visit London, and my
duties were confined to the rural district which our
lofty castle overlooked; and here labour stood in the
place of pastime, to occupy such of the country people
as were sufficiently exempt from sorrow or disease. My
endeavours were directed towards urging them to their
usual attention to their crops, and to the acting as if
pestilence did not exist. The mower's scythe was at
times heard; yet the joyless haymakers after they had
listlessly turned the grass, forgot to cart it; the
shepherd, when he had sheared his sheep, would let the
wool lie to be scattered by the winds, deeming it
useless to provide clothing for another winter. At
times however the spirit of life was awakened by these
employments; the sun, the refreshing breeze, the sweet
smell of the hay, the rustling leaves and prattling
rivulets brought repose to the agitated bosom, and
bestowed a feeling akin to happiness on the
apprehensive. Nor, strange to say, was the time without
its pleasures. Young couples, who had loved long and
hopelessly, suddenly found every impediment removed,
and wealth pour in from the death of relatives. The
very danger drew them closer. The immediate peril urged
them to seize the immediate opportunity; wildly and
passionately they sought to know what delights
existence afforded, before they yielded to death, and 
        
           Snatching their pleasures with rough strife  
           Thorough the iron gates of life,*
        
they defied the conquering pestilence to destroy what
had been, or to erase even from their death-bed
thoughts the sentiment of happiness which had been
theirs.  

[* Andrew Marvell.]
     
One instance of this kind came immediately under our
notice, where a high-born girl had in early youth given
her heart to one of meaner extraction. He was a
schoolfellow and friend of her brother's, and usually
spent a part of the holidays at the mansion of the duke
her father. They had played together as children, been
the confidants of each other's little secrets, mutual
aids and consolers in difficulty and sorrow. Love had
crept in, noiseless, terrorless at first, till each
felt their life bound up in the other, and at the same
time knew that they must part. Their extreme youth, and
the purity of their attachment, made them yield with
less resistance to the tyranny of circumstances. The
father of the fair Juliet separated them; but not until
the young lover had promised to remain absent only till
he had rendered himself worthy of her, and she had
vowed to preserve her virgin heart, his treasure, till
he returned to claim and possess it.        

Plague came, threatening to destroy at once the aim of
the ambitious and the hopes of love. Long the Duke of
L---- derided the idea that there could be danger while
he pursued his plans of cautious seclusion; and he so
far succeeded, that it was not till this second summer,
that the destroyer, at one fell stroke, overthrew his
precautions, his security, and his life. Poor Juliet
saw one by one, father, mother, brothers, and
sisters,sicken and die. Most of the servants fled on
the first appearance of disease, those who remained
were infected mortally; no neighbour or rustic ventured
within the verge of contagion. By a strange fatality
Juliet alone escaped, and she to the last waited on her
relatives, and smoothed the pillow of death. The moment
at length came, when the last blow was given to the
last of the house: the youthful survivor of her race
sat alone among the dead. There was no living being
near to soothe her, or withdraw her from this hideous
company. With the declining heat of a September night,
a whirlwind of storm, thunder, and hail, rattled round
the house, and with ghastly harmony sung the dirge of
her family. She sat upon the ground absorbed in
wordless despair, when through the gusty wind and
bickering rain she thought she heard her name called.
Whose could that familiar voice be? Not one of her
relations, for they lay glaring on her with stony eyes.
Again her name was syllabled, and she shuddered as she
asked herself, am I becoming mad, or am I dying, that I
hear the voices of the departed? A second thought
passed, swift as an arrow, into her brain; she rushed
to the window; and a flash of lightning shewed to her
the expected vision, her lover in the shrubbery
beneath; joy lent her strength to descend the stairs,
to open the door, and then she fainted in his
supporting arms.  
     
A thousand times she reproached herself, as with a
crime, that she should revive to happiness with him.
The natural clinging of the human mind to life and joy
was in its full energy in her young heart; she gave
herself impetuously up to the enchantment: they were
married; and in their radiant features I saw incarnate,
for the last time, the spirit of love, of rapturous
sympathy, which once had been the life of the world.
 
I envied them, but felt how impossible it was to imbibe
the same feeling, now that years had multiplied my ties
in the world. Above all, the anxious mother, my own
beloved and drooping Idris, claimed my earnest care; I
could not reproach the anxiety that never for a moment
slept in her heart, but I exerted myself to distract
her attention from too keen an observation of the truth
of things, of the near and nearer approaches of
disease, misery, and death, of the wild look of our
attendants as intelligence of another and yet another
death reached us; for to the last something new
occurred that seemed to transcend in horror all that
had gone before. Wretched beings crawled to die under
our succouring roof; the inhabitants of the Castle
decreased daily, while the survivors huddled together
in fear, and, as in a famine-struck boat, the sport of
the wild, interminable waves, each looked in the
other's face, to guess on whom the death-lot would next
fall. All this I endeavoured to veil, so that it might
least impress my Idris; yet, as I have said, my courage
survived even despair: I might be vanquished, but I
would not yield. 
      
One day, it was the ninth of September, seemed devoted
to every disaster, to every harrowing incident. Early
in the day, I heard of the arrival of the aged
grandmother of one of our servants at the Castle. This
old woman had reached her hundredth year; her skin was
shrivelled, her form was bent and lost in extreme
decrepitude; but as still from year to year she
continued in existence, out-living many younger and
stronger, she began to feel as if she were to live for
ever. The plague came, and the inhabitants of her
village died. Clinging, with the dastard feeling of the
aged, to the remnant of her spent life, she had, on
hearing that the pestilence had come into her
neighbourhood, barred her door, and closed her
casement, refusing to communicate with any. She would
wander out at night to get food, and returned home,
pleased that she had met no one, that she was in no
danger from the plague. As the earth became more
desolate, her difficulty in acquiring sustenance
increased; at first, her son, who lived near, had
humoured her by placing articles of food in her way: at
last he died. But, even though threatened by famine,
her fear of the plague was paramount; and her greatest
care was to avoid her fellow creatures. She grew weaker
each day, and each day she had further to go. The night
before, she had reached Datchet; and, prowling about,
had found a baker's shop open and deserted. Laden with
spoil, she hastened to return, and lost her way. The
night was windless, hot, and cloudy; her load became
too heavy for her; and one by one she threw away her
loaves, still endeavouring to get along, though her
hobbling fell into lameness, and her weakness at last
into inability to move.  
     
She lay down among the tall corn, and fell asleep. Deep
in midnight, she was awaked by a rustling near her; she
would have started up, but her stiff joints refused to
obey her will. A low moan close to her ear followed,
and the rustling increased; she heard a smothered voice
breathe out, Water, Water! several times; and then
again a sigh heaved from the heart of the sufferer. The
old woman shuddered, she contrived at length to sit
upright; but her teeth chattered, and her knees knocked
together--close, very close, lay a half-naked figure,
just discernible in the gloom, and the cry for water
and the stifled moan were again uttered. Her motions at
length attracted the attention of her unknown
companion; her hand was seized with a convulsive
violence that made the grasp feel like iron, the
fingers like the keen teeth of a trap.--"At last you
are come!" were the words given forth--but this
exertion was the last effort of the dying--the joints
relaxed, the figure fell prostrate, one low moan, the
last, marked the moment of death. Morning broke; and
the old woman saw the corpse, marked with the fatal
disease, close to her; her wrist was livid with the
hold loosened by death. She felt struck by the plague;
her aged frame was unable to bear her away with
sufficient speed; and now, believing herself infected,
she no longer dreaded the association of others; but,
as swiftly as she might, came to her grand-daughter, at
Windsor Castle, there to lament and die. The sight was
horrible; still she clung to life, and lamented her
mischance with cries and hideous groans; while the
swift advance of the disease shewed, what proved to be
the fact, that she could not survive many hours.        

While I was directing that the necessary care should be
taken of her, Clara came in; she was trembling and
pale; and, when I anxiously asked her the cause of her
agitation, she threw herself into my arms weeping and
exclaiming--"Uncle, dearest uncle, do not hate me for
ever! I must tell you, for you must know, that Evelyn,
poor little Evelyn"--her voice was choked by sobs. The
fear of so mighty a calamity as the loss of our adored
infant made the current of my blood pause with chilly
horror; but the remembrance of the mother restored my
presence of mind. I sought the little bed of my
darling; he was oppressed by fever; but I trusted, I
fondly and fearfully trusted, that there were no
symptoms of the plague. He was not three years old, and
his illness appeared only one of those attacks incident
to infancy. I watched him long--his heavy half-closed
lids, his burning cheeks and restless twining of his
small fingers--the fever was violent, the torpor
complete--enough, without the greater fear of
pestilence, to awaken alarm. Idris must not see him in
this state. Clara, though only twelve years old, was
rendered, through extreme sensibility, so prudent and
careful, that I felt secure in entrusting the charge of
him to her, and it was my task to prevent Idris from
observing their absence. I administered the fitting
remedies, and left my sweet niece to watch beside him,
and bring me notice of any change she should observe.   
      
I then went to Idris, contriving in my way, plausible
excuses for remaining all day in the Castle, and
endeavouring to disperse the traces of care from my
brow. Fortunately she was not alone. I found Merrival,
the astronomer, with her. He was far too long sighted
in his view of humanity to heed the casualties of the
day, and lived in the midst of contagion unconscious of
its existence. This poor man, learned as La Place,
guileless and unforeseeing as a child, had often been
on the point of starvation, he, his pale wife and
numerous offspring, while he neither felt hunger, nor
observed distress. His astronomical theories absorbed
him; calculations were scrawled with coal on the bare
walls of his garret: a hard-earned guinea, or an
article of dress, was exchanged for a book without
remorse; he neither heard his children cry, nor
observed his companion's emaciated form, and the excess
of calamity was merely to him as the occurrence of a
cloudy night, when he would have given his right hand
to observe a celestial phenomenon. His wife was one of
those wondrous beings, to be found only among women,
with affections not to be diminished by misfortune. Her
mind was divided between boundless admiration for her
husband, and tender anxiety for her children--she
waited on him, worked for them, and never complained,
though care rendered her life one long-drawn,
melancholy dream.      

He had introduced himself to Adrian, by a request he
made to observe some planetary motions from his glass.
His poverty was easily detected and relieved. He often
thanked us for the books we lent him, and for the use
of our instruments, but never spoke of his altered
abode or change of circumstances. His wife assured us,
that he had not observed any difference, except in the
absence of the children from his study, and to her
infinite surprise he complained of this unaccustomed
quiet.  

He came now to announce to us the completion of his
Essay on the Pericyclical Motions of the Earth's Axis,
and the precession of the equinoctial points. If an old
Roman of the period of the Republic had returned to
life, and talked of the impending election of some
laurel-crowned consul, or of the last battle with
Mithridates, his ideas would not have been more alien
to the times, than the conversation of Merrival. Man,
no longer with an appetite for sympathy, clothed his
thoughts in visible signs; nor were there any readers
left: while each one, having thrown away his sword with
opposing shield alone, awaited the plague, Merrival
talked of the state of mankind six thousand years
hence. He might with equal interest to us, have added a
commentary, to describe the unknown and unimaginable
lineaments of the creatures, who would then occupy the
vacated dwelling of mankind. We had not the heart to
undeceive the poor old man; and at the moment I came
in, he was reading parts of his book to Idris, asking
what answer could be given to this or that position.
 
Idris could not refrain from a smile, as she listened;
she had already gathered from him that his family was
alive and in health; though not apt to forget the
precipice of time on which she stood, yet I could
perceive that she was amused for a moment, by the
contrast between the contracted view we had so long
taken of human life, and the seven league strides with
which Merrival paced a coming eternity. I was glad to
see her smile, because it assured me of her total
ignorance of her infant's danger: but I shuddered to
think of the revulsion that would be occasioned by a
discovery of the truth. While Merrival was talking,
Clara softly opened a door behind Idris, and beckoned
me to come with a gesture and look of grief. A mirror
betrayed the sign to Idris--she started up. To suspect
evil, to perceive that, Alfred being with us, the
danger must regard her youngest darling, to fly across
the long chambers into his apartment, was the work but
of a moment. There she beheld her Evelyn lying
fever-stricken and motionless. I followed her, and
strove to inspire more hope than I could myself
entertain; but she shook her head mournfully. Anguish
deprived her of presence of mind; she gave up to me and
Clara the physician's and nurse's parts; she sat by the
bed, holding one little burning hand, and, with glazed
eyes fixed on her babe, passed the long day in one
unvaried agony. It was not the plague that visited our
little boy so roughly; but she could not listen to my
assurances; apprehension deprived her of judgment and
reflection; every slight convulsion of her child's
features shook her frame--if he moved, she dreaded the
instant crisis; if he remained still, she saw death in
his torpor, and the cloud on her brow darkened.  
     
The poor little thing's fever encreased towards night.
The sensation is most dreary, to use no stronger term,
with which one looks forward to passing the long hours
of night beside a sick bed, especially if the patient
be an infant, who cannot explain its pain, and whose
flickering life resembles the wasting flame of the
watch-light,
     
                   Whose narrow fire          
         Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge
         Devouring darkness hovers.*
        
With eagerness one turns toward the east, with angry
impatience one marks the unchequered darkness; the
crowing of a cock, that sound of glee during day-time,
comes wailing and untuneable--the creaking of rafters,
and slight stir of invisible insect is heard and felt
as the signal and type of desolation. Clara, overcome
by weariness, had seated herself at the foot of her
cousin's bed, and in spite of her efforts slumber
weighed down her lids; twice or thrice she shook it
off; but at length she was conquered and slept. Idris
sat at the bedside, holding Evelyn's hand; we were
afraid to speak to each other; I watched the stars--I
hung over my child--I felt his little pulse--I drew
near the mother--again I receded. At the turn of
morning a gentle sigh from the patient attracted me,
the burning spot on his cheek faded--his pulse beat
softly and regularly--torpor yielded to sleep. For a
long time I dared not hope; but when his unobstructed
breathing and the moisture that suffused his forehead,
were tokens no longer to be mistaken of the departure
of mortal malady, I ventured to whisper the news of the
change to Idris, and at length succeeded in persuading
her that I spoke truth.  

[* The Cenci]

But neither this assurance, nor the speedy
convalescence of our child could restore her, even to
the portion of peace she before enjoyed. Her fear had
been too deep, too absorbing, too entire, to be changed
to security. She felt as if during her past calm she
had dreamed, but was now awake; she was     
        
                         As one
     In some lone watch-tower on the deep, awakened
     From soothing visions of the home he loves,
     Trembling to hear the wrathful billows roar;*

as one who has been cradled by a storm, and awakes to
find the vessel sinking. Before, she had been visited
by pangs of fear--now, she never enjoyed an interval of
hope. No smile of the heart ever irradiated her fair
countenance; sometimes she forced one, and then gushing
tears would flow, and the sea of grief close above
these wrecks of past happiness. Still while I was near
her, she could not be in utter despair--she fully
confided herself to me--she did not seem to fear my
death, or revert to its possibility; to my guardianship
she consigned the full freight of her anxieties,
reposing on my love, as a wind-nipped fawn by the side
of a doe, as a wounded nestling under its mother's
wing, as a tiny, shattered boat, quivering still,
beneath some protecting willow-tree. While I, not
proudly as in days of joy, yet tenderly, and with glad
consciousness of the comfort I afforded, drew my
trembling girl close to my heart, and tried to ward
every painful thought or rough circumstance from her
sensitive nature.       

[* The Brides' Tragedy, by T. L. Beddoes, Esq.]

One other incident occurred at the end of this summer.
The Countess of Windsor, Ex-Queen of England, returned
from Germany. She had at the beginning of the season
quitted the vacant city of Vienna; and, unable to tame
her haughty mind to anything like submission, she had
delayed at Hamburgh, and, when at last she came to
London, many weeks elapsed before she gave Adrian
notice of her arrival. In spite of her coldness and
long absence, he welcomed her with sensibility,
displaying such affection as sought to heal the wounds
of pride and sorrow, and was repulsed only by her total
apparent want of sympathy. Idris heard of her mother's
return with pleasure. Her own maternal feelings were so
ardent, that she imagined her parent must now, in this
waste world, have lost pride and harshness, and would
receive with delight her filial attentions. The first
check to her duteous demonstrations was a formal
intimation from the fallen majesty of England, that I
was in no manner to be intruded upon her. She
consented, she said, to forgive her daughter, and
acknowledge her grandchildren; larger concessions must
not be expected.  

To me this proceeding appeared (if so light a term may
be permitted) extremely whimsical. Now that the race of
man had lost in fact all distinction of rank, this
pride was doubly fatuitous; now that we felt a kindred,
fraternal nature with all who bore the stamp of
humanity, this angry reminiscence of times for ever
gone, was worse than foolish. Idris was too much taken
up by her own dreadful fears, to be angry, hardly
grieved; for she judged that insensibility must be the
source of this continued rancour. This was not
altogether the fact: but predominant self-will assumed
the arms and masque of callous feeling; and the haughty
lady disdained to exhibit any token of the struggle she
endured; while the slave of pride, she fancied that she
sacrificed her happiness to immutable principle.
 
False was all this--false all but the affections of our
nature, and the links of sympathy with pleasure or
pain. There was but one good and one evil in the
world--life and death. The pomp of rank, the assumption
of power, the possessions of wealth vanished like
morning mist. One living beggar had become of more
worth than a national peerage of dead lords--alas the
day!--than of dead heroes, patriots, or men of genius.
There was much of degradation in this: for even vice
and virtue had lost their attributes--life--life--the
continuation of our animal mechanism--was the Alpha and
Omega of the desires, the prayers, the prostrate
ambition of human race. 


[Vol. II]

THE LAST MAN

CHAPTER IX.

HALF England was desolate, when October came, and the
equinoctial winds swept over the earth, chilling the
ardours of the unhealthy season. The summer, which was
uncommonly hot, had been protracted into the beginning
of this month, when on the eighteenth a sudden change
was brought about from summer temperature to winter
frost. Pestilence then made a pause in her
death-dealing career. Gasping, not daring to name our
hopes, yet full even to the brim with intense
expectation, we stood, as a ship-wrecked sailor stands
on a barren rock islanded by the ocean, watching a
distant vessel, fancying that now it nears, and then
again that it is bearing from sight. This promise of a
renewed lease of life turned rugged natures to melting
tenderness, and by contrast filled the soft with harsh
and unnatural sentiments. When it seemed destined that
all were to die, we were reckless of the how and
when--now that the virulence of the disease was
mitigated, and it appeared willing to spare some, each
was eager to be among the elect, and clung to life with
dastard tenacity. Instances of desertion became more
frequent; and even murders, which made the hearer sick
with horror, where the fear of contagion had armed
those nearest in blood against each other. But these
smaller and separate tragedies were about to yield to a
mightier interest--and, while we were promised calm
from infectious influences, a tempest arose wilder than
the winds, a tempest bred by the passions of man,
nourished by his most violent impulses, unexampled and
dire.
 
A number of people from North America, the relics of
that populous continent, had set sail for the East with
mad desire of change, leaving their native plains for
lands not less afflicted than their own. Several
hundreds landed in Ireland, about the first of
November, and took possession of such vacant
habitations as they could find; seizing upon the
superabundant food, and the stray cattle. As they
exhausted the produce of one spot, they went on to
another. At length they began to interfere with the
inhabitants, and strong in their concentrated numbers,
ejected the natives from their dwellings, and robbed
them of their winter store. A few events of this kind
roused the fiery nature of the Irish; and they attacked
the invaders. Some were destroyed; the major part
escaped by quick and well ordered movements; and danger
made them careful. Their numbers ably arranged; the
very deaths among them concealed; moving on in good
order, and apparently given up to enjoyment, they
excited the envy of the Irish. The Americans permitted
a few to join their band, and presently the recruits
outnumbered the strangers--nor did they join with them,
nor imitate the admirable order which, preserved by the
Trans-Atlantic chiefs, rendered them at once secure and
formidable. The Irish followed their track in
disorganized multitudes; each day encreasing; each day
becoming more lawless. The Americans were eager to
escape from the spirit they had roused, and, reaching
the eastern shores of the island, embarked for England.
Their incursion would hardly have been felt had they
come alone; but the Irish, collected in unnatural
numbers, began to feel the inroads of famine, and they
followed in the wake of the Americans for England also.
The crossing of the sea could not arrest their
progress. The harbours of the desolate sea-ports of the
west of Ireland were filled with vessels of all sizes,
from the man of war to the small fishers' boat, which
lay sailorless, and rotting on the lazy deep. The
emigrants embarked by hundreds, and unfurling their
sails with rude hands, made strange havoc of buoy and
cordage. Those who modestly betook themselves to the
smaller craft, for the most part achieved their watery
journey in safety. Some, in the true spirit of reckless
enterprise, went on board a ship of an hundred and
twenty guns; the vast hull drifted with the tide out of
the bay, and after many hours its crew of landsmen
contrived to spread a great part of her enormous
canvass--the wind took it, and while a thousand
mistakes of the helmsman made her present her head now
to one point, and now to another, the vast fields of
canvass that formed her sails flapped with a sound like
that of a huge cataract; or such as a sea-like forest
may give forth when buffeted by an equinoctial
north-wind. The port-holes were open, and with every
sea, which as she lurched, washed her decks, they
received whole tons of water. The difficulties were
increased by a fresh breeze which began to blow,
whistling among the shrowds, dashing the sails this way
and that, and rending them with horrid split, and such
whir as may have visited the dreams of Milton, when he
imagined the winnowing of the arch-fiend's van-like
wings, which encreased the uproar of wild chaos. These
sounds were mingled with the roaring of the sea, the
splash of the chafed billows round the vessel's sides,
and the gurgling up of the water in the hold. The crew,
many of whom had never seen the sea before, felt indeed
as if heaven and earth came ruining together, as the
vessel dipped her bows in the waves, or rose high upon
them. Their yells were drowned in the clamour of
elements, and the thunder rivings of their unwieldy
habitation--they discovered at last that the water
gained on them, and they betook themselves to their
pumps; they might as well have laboured to empty the
ocean by bucketfuls. As the sun went down, the gale
encreased; the ship seemed to feel her danger, she was
now completely water-logged, and presented other
indications of settling before she went down. The bay
was crowded with vessels, whose crews, for the most
part, were observing the uncouth sportings of this huge
unwieldy machine--they saw her gradually sink; the
waters now rising above her lower decks--they could
hardly wink before she had utterly disappeared, nor
could the place where the sea had closed over her be at
all discerned. Some few of her crew were saved, but the
greater part clinging to her cordage and masts went
down with her, to rise only when death loosened their
hold.  
     
This event caused many of those who were about to sail,
to put foot again on firm land, ready to encounter any
evil rather than to rush into the yawning jaws of the
pitiless ocean. But these were few, in comparison to
the numbers who actually crossed. Many went up as high
as Belfast to ensure a shorter passage, and then
journeying south through Scotland, they were joined by
the poorer natives of that country, and all poured with
one consent into England.       

Such incursions struck the English with affright, in
all those towns where there was still sufficient
population to feel the change. There was room enough
indeed in our hapless country for twice the number of
invaders; but their lawless spirit instigated them to
violence; they took a delight in thrusting the
possessors from their houses; in seizing on some
mansion of luxury, where the noble dwellers secluded
themselves in fear of the plague; in forcing these of
either sex to become their servants and purveyors;
till, the ruin complete in one place, they removed
their locust visitation to another. When unopposed they
spread their ravages wide; in cases of danger they
clustered, and by dint of numbers overthrew their weak
and despairing foes. They came from the east and the
north, and directed their course without apparent
motive, but unanimously towards our unhappy metropolis.
 
Communication had been to a great degree cut off
through the paralyzing effects of pestilence, so that
the van of our invaders had proceeded as far as
Manchester and Derby, before we received notice of
their arrival. They swept the country like a conquering
army, burning--laying
waste--murdering. The lower and vagabond English joined
with them.  Some few of the Lords Lieutenant who
remained, endeavoured to collect the militia--but the
ranks were vacant, panic seized on all, and the
opposition that was made only served to increase the
audacity and cruelty of the enemy. They talked of
taking London, conquering England--calling to mind the
long detail of injuries which had for many years been
forgotten. Such vaunts displayed their weakness, rather
than their strength--yet still they might do extreme
mischief, which, ending in their destruction, would
render them at last objects of compassion and remorse.  
      
We were now taught how, in the beginning of the world,
mankind clothed their enemies in impossible
attributes--and how details proceeding from mouth to
mouth, might, like Virgil's ever-growing Rumour, reach
the heavens with her brow, and clasp Hesperus and
Lucifer with her outstretched hands. Gorgon and
Centaur, dragon and iron-hoofed lion, vast sea-monster
and gigantic hydra, were but types of the strange and
appalling accounts brought to London concerning our
invaders. Their landing was long unknown, but having
now advanced within an hundred miles of London, the
country people flying before them arrived in successive
troops, each exaggerating the numbers, fury, and
cruelty of the assailants. Tumult filled the before
quiet streets--women and children deserted their homes,
escaping they knew not whither--fathers, husbands, and
sons, stood trembling, not for themselves, but for
their loved and defenceless relations. As the country
people poured into London, the citizens fled
southwards--they climbed the higher edifices of the
town, fancying that they could discern the smoke and
flames the enemy spread around them. As Windsor lay, to
a great degree, in the line of march from the west, I
removed my family to London, assigning the Tower for
their sojourn, and joining Adrian, acted as his
Lieutenant in the coming struggle.  

We employed only two days in our preparations, and made
good use of them. Artillery and arms were collected;
the remnants of such regiments, as could be brought
through many losses into any show of muster, were put
under arms, with that appearance of military discipline
which might encourage our own party, and seem most
formidable to the disorganized multitude of our
enemies. Even music was not wanting: banners floated in
the air, and the shrill fife and loud trumpet breathed
forth sounds of encouragement and victory. A practised
ear might trace an undue faltering in the step of the
soldiers; but this was not occasioned so much by fear
of the adversary, as by disease, by sorrow, and by
fatal prognostications, which often weighed most
potently on the brave, and quelled the manly heart to
abject subjection.        

Adrian led the troops. He was full of care. It was
small relief to him that our discipline should gain us
success in such a conflict; while plague still hovered
to equalize the conqueror and the conquered, it was not
victory that he desired, but bloodless peace. As we
advanced, we were met by bands of peasantry, whose
almost naked condition, whose despair and horror, told
at once the fierce nature of the coming enemy. The
senseless spirit of conquest and thirst of spoil
blinded them, while with insane fury they deluged the
country in ruin. The sight of the military restored
hope to those who fled, and revenge took place of fear.
They inspired the soldiers with the same sentiment.
Languor was changed to ardour, the slow step converted
to a speedy pace, while the hollow murmur of the
multitude, inspired by one feeling, and that deadly,
filled the air, drowning the clang of arms and sound of
music. Adrian perceived the change, and feared that it
would be difficult to prevent them from wreaking their
utmost fury on the Irish. He rode through the lines,
charging the officers to restrain the troops, exhorting
the soldiers, restoring order, and quieting in some
degree the violent agitation that swelled every bosom.  
     
We first came upon a few stragglers of the Irish at St.
Albans. They retreated, and, joining others of their
companions, still fell back, till they reached the main
body. Tidings of an armed and regular opposition
recalled them to a sort of order. They made Buckingham
their head-quarters, and scouts were sent out to
ascertain our situation. We remained for the night at
Luton. In the morning a simultaneous movement caused us
each to advance. It was early dawn, and the air,
impregnated with freshest odour, seemed in idle mockery
to play with our banners, and bore onwards towards the
enemy the music of the bands, the neighings of the
horses, and regular step of the infantry. The first
sound of martial instruments that came upon our
undisciplined foe, inspired surprise, not unmingled
with dread. It spoke of other days, of days of concord
and order; it was associated with times when plague was
not, and man lived beyond the shadow of imminent fate.
The pause was momentary. Soon we heard their disorderly
clamour, the barbarian shouts, the untimed step of
thousands coming on in disarray. Their troops now came
pouring on us from the open country or narrow lanes; a
large extent of unenclosed fields lay between us; we
advanced to the middle of this, and then made a halt:
being somewhat on superior ground, we could discern the
space they covered. When their leaders perceived us
drawn out in opposition, they also gave the word to
halt, and endeavoured to form their men into some
imitation of military discipline. The first ranks had
muskets; some were mounted, but their arms were such as
they had seized during their advance, their horses
those they had taken from the peasantry; there was no
uniformity, and little obedience, but their shouts and
wild gestures showed the untamed spirit that inspired
them. Our soldiers received the word, and advanced to
quickest time, but in perfect order: their uniform
dresses, the gleam of their polished arms, their
silence, and looks of sullen hate, were more appalling
than the savage clamour of our innumerous foe. Thus
coming nearer and nearer each other, the howls and
shouts of the Irish increased; the English proceeded in
obedience to their officers, until they came near
enough to distinguish the faces of their enemies; the
sight inspired them with fury: with one cry, that rent
heaven and was re-echoed by the furthest lines, they
rushed on; they disdained the use of the bullet, but
with fixed bayonet dashed among the opposing foe, while
the ranks opening at intervals, the matchmen lighted
the cannon, whose deafening roar and blinding smoke
filled up the horror of the scene.        

I was beside Adrian; a moment before he had again given
the word to halt, and had remained a few yards distant
from us in deep meditation: he was forming swiftly his
plan of action, to prevent the effusion of blood; the
noise of cannon, the sudden rush of the troops, and
yell of the foe, startled him: with flashing eyes he
exclaimed, "Not one of these must perish!" and plunging
the rowels into his horse's sides, he dashed between
the conflicting bands. We, his staff, followed him to
surround and protect him; obeying his signal, however,
we fell back somewhat. The soldiery perceiving him,
paused in their onset; he did not swerve from the
bullets that passed near him, but rode immediately
between the opposing lines. Silence succeeded to
clamour; about fifty men lay on the ground dying or
dead. Adrian raised his sword in act to speak: "By
whose command," he cried, addressing his own troops,
"do you advance? Who ordered your attack? Fall back;
these misguided men shall not be slaughtered, while I
am your general. Sheath your weapons; these are your
brothers, commit not fratricide; soon the plague will
not leave one for you to glut your revenge upon: will
you be more pitiless than pestilence? As you honour
me--as you worship God, in whose image those also are
created--as your children and friends are dear to
you,--shed not a drop of precious human blood."  

He spoke with outstretched hand and winning voice, and
then turning to our invaders, with a severe brow, he
commanded them to lay down their arms: "Do you think,"
he said, "that because we are wasted by plague, you can
overcome us; the plague is also among you, and when ye
are vanquished by famine and disease, the ghosts of
those you have murdered will arise to bid you not hope
in death. Lay down your arms, barbarous and cruel
men--men whose hands are stained with the blood of the
innocent, whose souls are weighed down by the orphan's
cry! We shall conquer, for the right is on our side;
already your cheeks are pale--the weapons fall from
your nerveless grasp. Lay down your arms, fellow men!
brethren! Pardon, succour, and brotherly love await
your repentance. You are dear to us, because you wear
the frail shape of humanity; each one among you will
find a friend and host among these forces. Shall man be
the enemy of man, while plague, the foe to all, even
now is above us, triumphing in our butchery, more cruel
than her own?"  

Each army paused. On our side the soldiers grasped
their arms firmly, and looked with stern glances on the
foe. These had not thrown down their weapons, more from
fear than the spirit of contest; they looked at each
other, each wishing to follow some example given
him,--but they had no leader. Adrian threw himself from
his horse, and approaching one of those just slain: "He
was a man," he cried, "and he is dead. O quickly bind
up the wounds of the fallen--let not one die; let not
one more soul escape through your merciless gashes, to
relate before the throne of God the tale of fratricide;
bind up their wounds--restore them to their friends.
Cast away the hearts of tigers that burn in your
breasts; throw down those tools of cruelty and hate; in
this pause of exterminating destiny, let each man be
brother, guardian, and stay to the other. Away with
those blood-stained arms, and hasten some of you to
bind up these wounds."        

As he spoke, he knelt on the ground, and raised in his
arms a man from whose side the warm tide of life
gushed--the poor wretch gasped--so still had either
host become, that his moans were distinctly heard, and
every heart, late fiercely bent on universal massacre,
now beat anxiously in hope and fear for the fate of
this one man. Adrian tore off his military scarf and
bound it round the sufferer--it was too late--the man
heaved a deep sigh, his head fell back, his limbs lost
their sustaining power.--"He is dead!" said Adrian, as
the corpse fell from his arms on the ground, and he
bowed his head in sorrow and awe. The fate of the world
seemed bound up in the death of this single man. On
either side the bands threw down their arms, even the
veterans wept, and our party held out their hands to
their foes, while a gush of love and deepest amity
filled every heart. The two forces mingling, unarmed
and hand in hand, talking only how each might assist
the other, the adversaries conjoined; each repenting,
the one side their former cruelties, the other their
late violence, they obeyed the orders of the General to
proceed towards London.       

Adrian was obliged to exert his utmost prudence, first
to allay the discord, and then to provide for the
multitude of the invaders. They were marched to various
parts of the southern counties, quartered in deserted
villages,--a part were sent back to their own island,
while the season of winter so far revived our energy,
that the passes of the country were defended, and any
increase of numbers prohibited.
 
On this occasion Adrian and Idris met after a
separation of nearly a year. Adrian had been occupied
in fulfilling a laborious and painful task. He had been
familiar with every species of human misery, and had
for ever found his powers inadequate, his aid of small
avail. Yet the purpose of his soul, his energy and
ardent resolution, prevented any re-action of sorrow.
He seemed born anew, and virtue, more potent than
Medean alchemy, endued him with health and strength.
Idris hardly recognized the fragile being, whose form
had seemed to bend even to the summer breeze, in the
energetic man, whose very excess of sensibility
rendered him more capable of fulfilling his station of
pilot in storm-tossed England.        

It was not thus with Idris. She was uncomplaining; but
the very soul of fear had taken its seat in her heart.
She had grown thin and pale, her eyes filled with
involuntary tears, her voice was broken and low. She
tried to throw a veil over the change which she knew
her brother must observe in her, but the effort was
ineffectual; and when alone with him, with a burst of
irrepressible grief she gave vent to her apprehensions
and sorrow. She described in vivid terms the ceaseless
care that with still renewing hunger ate into her soul;
she compared this gnawing of sleepless expectation of
evil, to the vulture that fed on the heart of
Prometheus; under the influence of this eternal
excitement, and of the interminable struggles she
endured to combat and conceal it, she felt, she said,
as if all the wheels and springs of the animal machine
worked at double rate, and were fast consuming
themselves. Sleep was not sleep, for her waking
thoughts, bridled by some remains of reason, and by the
sight of her children happy and in health, were then
transformed to wild dreams, all her terrors were
realized, all her fears received their dread
fulfilment. To this state there was no hope, no
alleviation, unless the grave should quickly receive
its destined prey, and she be permitted to die, before
she experienced a thousand living deaths in the loss of
those she loved. Fearing to give me pain, she hid as
best she could the excess of her wretchedness, but
meeting thus her brother after a long absence, she
could not restrain the expression of her woe, but with
all the vividness of imagination with which misery is
always replete, she poured out the emotions of her
heart to her beloved and sympathizing Adrian.       

Her present visit to London tended to augment her state
of inquietude, by shewing in its utmost extent the
ravages occasioned by pestilence. It hardly preserved
the appearance of an inhabited city; grass sprung up
thick in the streets; the squares were weed-grown, the
houses were shut up, while silence and loneliness
characterized the busiest parts of the town. Yet in the
midst of desolation Adrian had preserved order; and
each one continued to live according to law and
custom--human institutions thus surviving as it were
divine ones, and while the decree of population was
abrogated, property continued sacred. It was a
melancholy reflection; and in spite of the diminution
of evil produced, it struck on the heart as a wretched
mockery. All idea of resort for pleasure, of theatres
and festivals had passed away. "Next summer," said
Adrian as we parted on our return to Windsor, "will
decide the fate of the human race. I shall not pause in
my exertions until that time; but, if plague revives
with the coming year, all contest with her must cease,
and our only occupation be the choice of a grave."
 
I must not forget one incident that occurred during
this visit to London. The visits of Merrival to
Windsor, before frequent, had suddenly ceased. At this
time where but a hair's line separated the living from
the dead, I feared that our friend had become a victim
to the all-embracing evil. On this occasion I went,
dreading the worst, to his dwelling, to see if I could
be of any service to those of his family who might have
survived. The house was deserted, and had been one of
those assigned to the invading strangers quartered in
London. I saw his astronomical instruments put to
strange uses, his globes defaced, his papers covered
with abstruse calculations destroyed. The neighbours
could tell me little, till I lighted on a poor woman
who acted as nurse in these perilous times. She told me
that all the family were dead, except Merrival himself,
who had gone mad--mad, she called it, yet on
questioning her further, it appeared that he was
possessed only by the delirium of excessive grief. This
old man, tottering on the edge of the grave, and
prolonging his prospect through millions of calculated
years,--this visionary who had not seen starvation in
the wasted forms of his wife and children, or plague in
the horrible sights and sounds that surrounded
him--this astronomer, apparently dead on earth, and
living only in the motion of the spheres--loved his
family with unapparent but intense affection. Through
long habit they had become a part of himself; his want
of worldly knowledge, his absence of mind and infant
guilelessness, made him utterly dependent on them. It
was not till one of them died that he perceived their
danger; one by one they were carried off by pestilence;
and his wife, his helpmate and supporter, more
necessary to him than his own limbs and frame, which
had hardly been taught the lesson of self-preservation,
the kind companion whose voice always spoke peace to
him, closed her eyes in death. The old man felt the
system of universal nature which he had so long studied
and adored, slide from under him, and he stood among
the dead, and lifted his voice in curses.--No wonder
that the attendant should interpret as phrensy the
harrowing maledictions of the grief-struck old man.
 
I had commenced my search late in the day, a November
day, that closed in early with pattering rain and
melancholy wind. As I turned from the door, I saw
Merrival, or rather the shadow of Merrival, attenuated
and wild, pass me, and sit on the steps of his home.
The breeze scattered the grey locks on his temples, the
rain drenched his uncovered head, he sat hiding his
face in his withered hands. I pressed his shoulder to
awaken his attention, but he did not alter his
position. "Merrival," I said, "it is long since we have
seen you--you must return to Windsor with me--Lady
Idris desires to see you, you will not refuse her
request--come home with me."        

He replied in a hollow voice, "Why deceive a helpless
old man, why talk hypocritically to one half crazed?
Windsor is not my home; my true home I have found; the
home that the Creator has prepared for me."  

His accent of bitter scorn thrilled me--"Do not tempt
me to speak," he continued, "my words would scare
you--in an universe of cowards I dare think--among the
church-yard tombs--among the victims of His merciless
tyranny I dare reproach the Supreme Evil. How can he
punish me? Let him bare his arm and transfix me with
lightning--this is also one of his attributes"--and the
old man laughed.
 
He rose, and I followed him through the rain to a
neighbouring church-yard--he threw himself on the wet
earth. "Here they are," he cried, "beautiful
creatures--breathing, speaking, loving creatures. She
who by day and night cherished the age-worn lover of
her youth--they, parts of my flesh, my children--here
they are: call them, scream their names through the
night; they will not answer!" He clung to the little
heaps that marked the graves. "I ask but one thing; I
do not fear His hell, for I have it here; I do not
desire His heaven, let me but die and be laid beside
them; let me but, when I lie dead, feel my flesh as it
moulders, mingle with theirs. Promise," and he raised
himself painfully, and seized my arm, "promise to bury
me with them."       

"So God help me and mine as I promise," I replied, "on
one condition: return with me to Windsor."
 
"To Windsor!" he cried with a shriek, "Never!--from
this place I never go--my bones, my flesh, I myself,
are already buried here, and what you see of me is
corrupted clay like them. I will lie here, and cling
here, till rain, and hail, and lightning and storm,
ruining on me, make me one in substance with them
below."
 
In a few words I must conclude this tragedy. I was
obliged to leave London, and Adrian undertook to watch
over him; the task was soon fulfilled; age, grief, and
inclement weather, all united to hush his sorrows, and
bring repose to his heart, whose beats were agony. He
died embracing the sod, which was piled above his
breast, when he was placed beside the beings whom he
regretted with such wild despair.
  

I returned to Windsor at the wish of Idris, who seemed
to think that there was greater safety for her children
at that spot; and because, once having taken on me the
guardianship of the district, I would not desert it
while an inhabitant survived. I went also to act in
conformity with Adrian's plans, which was to congregate
in masses what remained of the population; for he
possessed the conviction that it was only through the
benevolent and social virtues that any safety was to be
hoped for the remnant of mankind.             

It was a melancholy thing to return to this spot so
dear to us, as the scene of a happiness rarely before
enjoyed, here to mark the extinction of our species,
and trace the deep uneraseable footsteps of disease
over the fertile and cherished soil. The aspect of the
country had so far changed, that it had been impossible
to enter on the task of sowing seed, and other autumnal
labours. That season was now gone; and winter had set
in with sudden and unusual severity. Alternate frosts
and thaws succeeding to floods, rendered the country
impassable. Heavy falls of snow gave an arctic
appearance to the scenery; the roofs of the houses
peeped from the white mass; the lowly cot and stately
mansion, alike deserted, were blocked up, their
thresholds uncleared; the windows were broken by the
hail, while the prevalence of a north-east wind
rendered out-door exertions extremely painful. The
altered state of society made these accidents of
nature, sources of real misery. The luxury of command
and the attentions of servitude were lost. It is true
that the necessaries of life were assembled in such
quantities, as to supply to superfluity the wants of
the diminished population; but still much labour was
required to arrange these, as it were, raw materials;
and depressed by sickness, and fearful of the future,
we had not energy to enter boldly and decidedly on any
system.
  
I can speak for myself--want of energy was not my
failing. The intense life that quickened my pulses, and
animated my frame, had the effect, not of drawing me
into the mazes of active life, but of exalting my
lowliness, and of bestowing majestic proportions on
insignificant objects--I could have lived the life of a
peasant in the same way--my trifling occupations were
swelled into important pursuits; my affections were
impetuous and engrossing passions, and nature with all
her changes was invested in divine attributes. The very
spirit of the Greek mythology inhabited my heart; I
deified the uplands, glades, and streams, I
        
         Had sight of Proteus coming from the sea;
         And heard old Triton blow his wreathed horn.*
        
[* Wordsworth.]         

Strange, that while the earth preserved her monotonous
course, I dwelt with ever-renewing wonder on her
antique laws, and now that with excentric wheel she
rushed into an untried path, I should feel this spirit
fade; I struggled with despondency and weariness, but
like a fog, they choked me. Perhaps, after the labours
and stupendous excitement of the past summer, the calm
of winter and the almost menial toils it brought with
it, were by natural re-action doubly irksome. It was
not the grasping passion of the preceding year, which
gave life and individuality to each moment--it was not
the aching pangs induced by the distresses of the
times. The utter inutility that had attended all my
exertions took from them their usual effects of
exhilaration, and despair rendered abortive the balm of
self applause--I longed to return to my old
occupations, but of what use were they? To read were
futile--to write, vanity indeed. The earth, late wide
circus for the display of dignified exploits, vast
theatre for a magnificent drama, now presented a vacant
space, an empty stage--for actor or spectator there was
no longer aught to say or hear.      
         
Our little town of Windsor, in which the survivors from
the neighbouring counties were chiefly assembled, wore
a melancholy aspect. Its streets were blocked up with
snow--the few passengers seemed palsied, and frozen by
the ungenial visitation of winter. To escape these
evils was the aim and scope of all our exertions.
Families late devoted to exalting and refined pursuits,
rich, blooming, and young, with diminished numbers and
care-fraught hearts, huddled over a fire, grown selfish
and grovelling through suffering. Without the aid of
servants, it was necessary to discharge all household
duties; hands unused to such labour must knead the
bread, or in the absence of flour, the statesmen or
perfumed courtier must undertake the butcher's office.
Poor and rich were now equal, or rather the poor were
the superior, since they entered on such tasks with
alacrity and experience; while ignorance, inaptitude,
and habits of repose, rendered them fatiguing to the
luxurious, galling to the proud, disgustful to all
whose minds, bent on intellectual improvement, held it
their dearest privilege to be exempt from attending to
mere animal wants.       

But in every change goodness and affection can find
field for exertion and display. Among some these
changes produced a devotion and sacrifice of self at
once graceful and heroic. It was a sight for the lovers
of the human race to enjoy; to behold, as in ancient
times, the patriarchal modes in which the variety of
kindred and friendship fulfilled their duteous and
kindly offices. Youths, nobles of the land, performed
for the sake of mother or sister, the services of
menials with amiable cheerfulness. They went to the
river to break the ice, and draw water: they assembled
on foraging expeditions, or axe in hand felled the
trees for fuel. The females received them on their
return with the simple and affectionate welcome known
before only to the lowly cottage--a clean hearth and
bright fire; the supper ready cooked by beloved hands;
gratitude for the provision for to-morrow's meal:
strange enjoyments for the high-born English, yet they
were now their sole, hard earned, and dearly prized
luxuries.
 
None was more conspicuous for this graceful submission
to circumstances, noble humility, and ingenious fancy
to adorn such acts with romantic colouring, than our
own Clara. She saw my despondency, and the aching cares
of Idris. Her perpetual study was to relieve us from
labour and to spread ease and even elegance over our
altered mode of life. We still had some attendants
spared by disease, and warmly attached to us. But Clara
was jealous of their services; she would be sole
handmaid of Idris, sole minister to the wants of her
little cousins; nothing gave her so much pleasure as
our employing her in this way; she went beyond our
desires, earnest, diligent, and unwearied,--

         Abra was ready ere we called her name,
         And though we called another, Abra came.*
         
[* Prior's "Solomon."]

It was my task each day to visit the various families
assembled in our town, and when the weather permitted,
I was glad to prolong my ride, and to muse in solitude
over every changeful appearance of our destiny,
endeavouring to gather lessons for the future from the
experience of the past. The impatience with which,
while in society, the ills that afflicted my species
inspired me, were softened by loneliness, when
individual suffering was merged in the general
calamity, strange to say, less afflicting to
contemplate. Thus often, pushing my way with difficulty
through the narrow snow-blocked town, I crossed the
bridge and passed through Eton. No youthful
congregation of gallant-hearted boys thronged the
portal of the college; sad silence pervaded the busy
school-room and noisy playground. I extended my ride
towards Salt Hill, on every side impeded by the snow.
Were those the fertile fields I loved--was that the
interchange of gentle upland and cultivated dale, once
covered with waving corn, diversified by stately trees,
watered by the meandering Thames? One sheet of white
covered it, while bitter recollection told me that cold
as the winter-clothed earth, were the hearts of the
inhabitants. I met troops of horses, herds of cattle,
flocks of sheep, wandering at will; here throwing down
a hay-rick, and nestling from cold in its heart, which
afforded them shelter and food--there having taken
possession of a vacant cottage.  

Once on a frosty day, pushed on by restless
unsatisfying reflections, I sought a favourite haunt, a
little wood not far distant from Salt Hill. A bubbling
spring prattles over stones on one side, and a
plantation of a few elms and beeches, hardly deserve,
and yet continue the name of wood. This spot had for me
peculiar charms. It had been a favourite resort of
Adrian; it was secluded; and he often said that in
boyhood, his happiest hours were spent here; having
escaped the stately bondage of his mother, he sat on
the rough hewn steps that led to the spring, now
reading a favourite book, now musing, with speculation
beyond his years, on the still unravelled skein of
morals or metaphysics. A melancholy foreboding assured
me that I should never see this place more; so with
careful thought, I noted each tree, every winding of
the streamlet and irregularity of the soil, that I
might better call up its idea in absence. A robin
red-breast dropt from the frosty branches of the trees,
upon the congealed rivulet; its panting breast and
half-closed eyes shewed that it was dying: a hawk
appeared in the air; sudden fear seized the little
creature; it exerted its last strength, throwing itself
on its back, raising its talons in impotent defence
against its powerful enemy. I took it up and placed it
in my breast. I fed it with a few crumbs from a
biscuit; by degrees it revived; its warm fluttering
heart beat against me; I cannot tell why I detail this
trifling incident--but the scene is still before me;
the snow-clad fields seen through the silvered trunks
of the beeches,--the brook, in days of happiness alive
with sparkling waters, now choked by ice--the leafless
trees fantastically dressed in hoar frost--the shapes
of summer leaves imaged by winter's frozen hand on the
hard ground--the dusky sky, drear cold, and unbroken
silence--while close in my bosom, my feathered nursling
lay warm, and safe, speaking its content with a light
chirp--painful reflections thronged, stirring my brain
with wild commotion--cold and death-like as the snowy
fields was all earth--misery-stricken the life-tide of
the inhabitants--why should I oppose the cataract of
destruction that swept us away?--why string my nerves
and renew my wearied efforts--ah, why? But that my firm
courage and cheerful exertions might shelter the dear
mate, whom I chose in the spring of my life; though the
throbbings of my heart be replete with pain, though my
hopes for the future are chill, still while your dear
head, my gentlest love, can repose in peace on that
heart, and while you derive from its fostering care,
comfort, and hope, my struggles shall not cease,--I
will not call myself altogether vanquished.       

One fine February day, when the sun had reassumed some
of its genial power, I walked in the forest with my
family. It was one of those lovely winter-days which
assert the capacity of nature to bestow beauty on
barrenness. The leafless trees spread their fibrous
branches against the pure sky; their intricate and
pervious tracery resembled delicate sea-weed; the deer
were turning up the snow in search of the hidden grass;
the white was made intensely dazzling by the sun, and
trunks of the trees, rendered more conspicuous by the
loss of preponderating foliage, gathered around like
the labyrinthine columns of a vast temple; it was
impossible not to receive pleasure from the sight of
these things. Our children, freed from the bondage of
winter, bounded before us; pursuing the deer, or
rousing the pheasants and partridges from their
coverts. Idris leant on my arm; her sadness yielded to
the present sense of pleasure. We met other families on
the Long Walk, enjoying like ourselves the return of
the genial season. At once, I seemed to awake; I cast
off the clinging sloth of the past months; earth
assumed a new appearance, and my view of the future was
suddenly made clear. I exclaimed, "I have now found out
the secret!"                

"What secret?"

In answer to this question, I described our gloomy
winter-life, our sordid cares, our menial
labours:--"This northern country," I said, "is no place
for our diminished race. When mankind were few, it was
not here that they battled with the powerful agents of
nature, and were enabled to cover the globe with
offspring. We must seek some natural Paradise, some
garden of the earth, where our simple wants may be
easily supplied, and the enjoyment of a delicious
climate compensate for the social pleasures we have
lost. If we survive this coming summer, I will not
spend the ensuing winter in England; neither I nor any
of us."       

I spoke without much heed, and the very conclusion of
what I said brought with it other thoughts. Should we,
any of us, survive the coming summer? I saw the brow of
Idris clouded; I again felt, that we were enchained to
the car of fate, over whose coursers we had no control.
We could no longer say, This we will do, and this we
will leave undone. A mightier power than the human was
at hand to destroy our plans or to achieve the work we
avoided. It were madness to calculate upon another
winter. This was our last. The coming summer was the
extreme end of our vista; and, when we arrived there,
instead of a continuation of the long road, a gulph
yawned, into which we must of force be precipitated.
The last blessing of humanity was wrested from us; we
might no longer hope. Can the madman, as he clanks his
chains, hope? Can the wretch, led to the scaffold, who
when he lays his head on the block, marks the double
shadow of himself and the executioner, whose uplifted
arm bears the axe, hope? Can the ship-wrecked mariner,
who spent with swimming, hears close behind the
splashing waters divided by a shark which pursues him
through the Atlantic, hope? Such hope as theirs, we
also may entertain!       

Old fable tells us, that this gentle spirit sprung from
the box of Pandora, else crammed with evils; but these
were unseen and null, while all admired the inspiriting
loveliness of young Hope; each man's heart became her
home; she was enthroned sovereign of our lives, here
and here-after; she was deified and worshipped,
declared incorruptible and everlasting. But like all
other gifts of the Creator to Man, she is mortal; her
life has attained its last hour. We have watched over
her; nursed her flickering existence; now she has
fallen at once from youth to decrepitude, from health
to immedicinable disease; even as we spend ourselves in
struggles for her recovery, she dies; to all nations
the voice goes forth, Hope is dead! We are but mourners
in the funeral train, and what immortal essence or
perishable creation will refuse to make one in the sad
procession that attends to its grave the dead comforter
of humanity?

         Does not the sun call in his light? and day
         Like a thin exhalation melt away--
         Both wrapping up their beams in clouds to be
         Themselves close mourners at this obsequie.*


[* Cleveland's Poems.]


                       END OF VOL. II