First Love. Mrs. Loudon
violence.
“Hear me, madam!” he continued with solemn earnestness; “Yee’re a Christian woman, and a mother, I dar say. She was doon-lying, (as yon lady may be,) the neighbours aw kent she was wid bairn, and kent she was wedded and need na’ sham; then, whare wad she gang from her fayther, and her fayther’s hoose, in sic a straight, if she didna gang we him, whose wedded wife she was? Sweetheart, indeed! An the lass had been withoot sham hersel, whare’s the sweetheart at wad tack her awa, an she gone wid another man’s bairn?—Not his wife!—not his wife! An’ he thinks then, does he, to tack a vantage of yon darkling wedding? But I’ll tell you aw aboot it, madam,” he continued, gasping for breath. Then, with the utmost simplicity, he recounted every minute particular of Betsy’s wedding; the roofless ruin, the midnight hour, the fall of the owl, the consequent darkness, &c. &c.; and finding that his relation was listened to with interest, and evident compassion, he advanced a step nearer, grasped Mrs. Montgomery’s arm, with a hand that almost scorched her skin, and, lowering his voice, continued: “Oh, madam! bit what’s to come, is war than all; I went to Whiten like one distract, when Bess was missing; and theere, the ostler folk at ane o’ the Inn-yards, talt me sic a tale aboot a lady and a gentleman, at had been seen late at evening, walking ootby o’ the sands, a lang way aff. And hoo the gentleman, at darkling, cam back by his sel’; and cam ’intle the inn-yard, looking affeared like, and caw’d for a carriage; and hoo he walked up and doon, up and doon, on a bit o’ flag, nay longer nor yon table, aw the time the cattle war putting too; (the folk showed me the bit o’ flag;) and hoo, when ane on them asked him to remember t’ostler, hoo he looked at him, and never spack; and when he asked him again to remember t’ostler, hoo he started like a body at was wakened, and talt him te gang te hell; and gave him nout, and bad the driver drive on. I trembled fray head to foot,” continued David, “and I asked them—but, oh, I feard te hear what they should say in reply—I asked them, if the lass was na wid bairn; and—and—they answered——” Here the poor man became dreadfully agitated; threw up his arms and eyes a moment, then flung himself forward with violence on a table that stood before him, laid his face down on it, and sobbed audibly, uttering, in broken accents, the concluding words:—“They answered, she was wid bairn—it was why they notished her.”
“But what would you infer?” asked Mrs. Montgomery.
“Wha wad it be but Bess!” he replied, still sobbing. “And she did-na cam back,” he recommenced, raising his streaming eyes and clasped hands to heaven, as he joined complaint to complaint thus:—“And she’ll niver cam back! and she was aw I had! and I’ll niver see her bonny face more! nor her bairn, that I could ha’ loved for being Betsy’s bairn, if the deevil had been the fayther on’t! He has murdered her i’ the sands!” he added, sternly and suddenly, and he faced round as he spoke, “to be clean rid bathe o’ her and the bairn!”
“Silence! silence, man!” exclaimed Mrs. Montgomery, in a voice of authority. Then, too much shocked and affected to experience, in full, the indignation she must otherwise have felt on hearing Henry thus accused, she added, “For heaven’s sake compose yourself! The horrible suspicion which agitates you in this dreadful manner, it is quite impossible should have any foundation! My nephew, however imprudent he may have been, is much too young a creature to have even thought of an enormity such as this!”
“Then where is Betsy?” said the poor man, looking up in her face.
“I shall insist on Henry’s declaring all he knows about her,” replied Mrs. Montgomery. “Depend upon it, she is perfectly safe in some lodging in Whitehaven, or some cottage in this neighbourhood, perhaps.”
The poor father smiled. It was a ghastly and a momentary smile. “Heaven grant it!” he ejaculated.
“Henry has behaved most imprudently,” continued Mrs. Montgomery, “in marrying, as you assure me he has done: and very wickedly, in endeavouring to deny it, when done; and I shall see that he does your daughter, if she be a modest girl, every justice, however ruinous to his prospects, ill-fated being! But you ought, indeed, my good man, you ought to take care, how you accuse any one, lightly, of such a crime as you have ventured to name! Were it not that I see your own internal sufferings are so dreadful, that you scarcely know what you say, and that it all proceeds from parental affection, in which I can sympathise, I should, indeed, be very much, and very justly offended!”
But there was no severity in Mrs. Montgomery’s tone: she looked, while she spoke, at her own daughter, and her mind glanced at what was, and what was not, parallel in situation, and she could have pardoned almost any extravagance in poor David.
“Weel, weel,” he replied, and forgetting ceremony, he sat down on a chair, and leaned back quite exhausted.
Lady L., who had felt for his extreme agitation, and had ordered wine to be brought in, now charitably offered him some, helping him herself. At this mark of condescension he attempted to stand up; but she saw he was unable, and would not let him. He took the glass from her; in doing so, a finger came in contact with the hand of Lady L.; its touch was like that of an icicle! He brought the wine near his lips; then, pausing, laid it on the table untasted, and said, “Bit wha could yon ha’ been, ’at went oot wid a young gintleman, and niver cam’ back, and was big wid bairn!”
“Possibly,” replied Mrs. Montgomery, “some lady, whose friends live in that direction, and who had no intention of returning.”
David took up the glass again; but it dropped from his hand, and he fell to the floor with a fatally heavy sound.
Mrs. Montgomery rang, called, begged Lady L. to sit down quietly in the next room, and not suffer herself to be agitated; then rang, and called again. Servants appeared, the doctor was sent for, bleeding, and every other method of restoring animation, resorted to, but in vain—poor David was no more! It was the doctor’s opinion, that his long and hurried journeys on foot, the frightful agitation of his mind, and the heat of the weather, had all together occasioned apoplexy.
Henry, when, a few days after this melancholy catastrophe, the subject was renewed, persisted in his assertions, that he had never thought of marrying the girl; that she was a perfectly good-for-nothing creature, and, most probably, gone off with some fellow, whoever, perhaps, she had been most intimate with; though it was not a week since the father had had the insolence to threaten him, because he had spoken to the girl two or three times, with legal proceedings, forsooth.
Mrs. Montgomery was staggered, and puzzled, and knew not what to think. She wrote, however, to the master of S—B—school, but received, in reply, no more satisfactory information than the certainty that Betsy Park was missing. As to her character, she had always been considered dressy, and fond of the company of scholar lads.
If there was any truth in David’s having thought of taking legal proceedings, his sudden death seemed to have silenced his intended witnesses, for no person came forward. All, therefore, on which Mrs. Montgomery could decide was, that Henry’s profession should not be the church, as had been intended; and that she would settle some little pension on David Park’s widow.
CHAPTER XV.
“Fruits, abundant as the southern vintage,
O’erspread the board, and please the wand’ring eye,
As each, from its moist and globular side,
Reflects a ray, varied by its native hue;
And all, through shelt’ring foliage shine, so placed,
To give them tempting freshness: while Flora,
Dispensing fragrance in the gayest forms,
And brightest tints, that once fair Paradise
Adorned, flings all the loveliness of spring
O’er autumn’s ripen’d richness.”
A social party of relatives, friends, and neighbours, were seated round the dinner-table at Lodore