The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844. Various
overheard every thing that passed between you and my friend.’
Rust bit his lip.
‘Don’t let it annoy you,’ continued he, ‘for the most of what I heard I knew before. I have had my eye on you from the time we parted. With all your benevolent schemes respecting myself I am perfectly familiar. The debt which you bought up to arrest me on; your attempt to have me indicted on a false charge of felony; the quiet hint dropped in another quarter, that if I should be found with my throat cut, or a bullet in my head, you wouldn’t break your heart; I knew them all; but I did not avail myself of the law. Shall I tell you why, Michael Rust? Because I had a revenge sweeter than the law could give.’
‘Friend Enoch is welcome to it when he gets it,’ replied Rust, in a soft tone. ‘But the day when it will come is far off.’
‘The day is at hand,’ replied Grosket. ‘It is here: it is now. Not for a mine of gold would I forego what I now know; not for any thing that is dear in the world’s eyes, would I spare you one pang that I can now inflict.’
Rust smiled incredulously, but made no reply.
‘Your schemes are frustrated,’ continued Grosket. ‘The children are both found; their parentage known; your name blasted. The brother who fostered you, and loaded you with kindness will have his eyes opened to your true character; and you will be a felon, amenable to the penalty of the law, whenever any man shall think fit to call it down upon your head. But this is nothing to what is in store for you.’
‘Well,’ said Rust, with the same quiet smile; ‘please to enumerate what other little kindnesses you have in store for me.’
‘I will,’ replied Grosket. ‘I was once a happy man. I had a wife and daughter, whom I loved. My wife is dead; what became of my child? I say,’ exclaimed he bitterly, ‘what became of my child?’
‘Young women will forget themselves sometimes,’ said Rust, his thin lip curling. ‘She became a harlot—only a harlot.’
Grosket grew deadly pale, and his voice became less clear, as he answered:
‘You’re right—you’re right! why shrink from the word. It’s a harsh one; but it’s God’s truth; she did—and she died.’
‘That’s frank,’ said Rust, ‘quite frank. I am a straight-forward man, and always speak the truth. I’m glad to see that friend Enoch can bear it like a Christian.’
A loud, taunting laugh broke from Grosket; and then he said:
‘Thus much for me; now for yourself, Michael Rust. You once had a wife.’
Rust’s calm sneer disappeared in an instant, and he seemed absolutely to wither before the keen flashing eye which was fixed steadfastly on his.
‘She lived with you two years; and then she became—shall I tell you what?’
Rust’s lips moved, but no sound came from them. Grosket bent his lips to his ear, and whispered in it. Rust neither moved nor spoke. He seemed paralyzed.
‘But she died,’ continued Grosket, ‘and she left a child—a daughter; mine was a daughter too.’
Rust started from a state of actual torpor; every energy, every faculty, every feeling leaping into life.
‘That daughter is now alive,’ continued Grosket, speaking slowly, that every word might tell with tenfold force. ‘That daughter now is, what you drove my child to be, a harlot.’
‘It’s false as hell!’ shouted Rust, in a tone that made the room ring. ‘It’s false!’
‘It’s true. I can prove it; prove it, clear as the noon-day,’ returned Grosket, with a loud, exulting laugh.
‘Oh! Enoch! oh, Enoch!’ said Rust, in a broken, supplicating tone, ‘tell me that it’s false, and I’ll bless you! Crush me, blight me, do what you will, only tell me that my own loved child is pure from spot or stain! Tell me so, I beseech you; I, Michael Rust, who never begged a boon before—I beseech you.’
He fell on his knees in front of Grosket, and clasping his hands together, raised them toward him.
‘I cannot,’ replied Grosket, coldly, ‘for it’s as true as there is a heaven above us!’
Rust made an effort to speak; his fingers worked convulsively, and he fell prostrate on the floor.
THE SACRIFICE
‘One day during the bloody executions which took place at Lyons, a young girl rushed into the hall where the revolutionary tribunal was held, and throwing herself at the feet of the judges, said: ‘There remain to me of all my family only my brothers! Mother, father, sister—you have butchered all; and now you are going to condemn my brothers. Oh! in mercy ordain that I may ascend the scaffold with them!’ Her prayer was refused, and she threw herself into the Rhone and perished.’
The judges have met in the council-hall,
A strange and a motley pageant, all:
What seek they? to win for their land a name
The brightest and best in the lists of fame?
The light of Mercy’s all-hallowed ray
To look with grief on the culprit’s way?
Nay! watch the smile and the flushing brow,
And in that crowd what read ye now?
The daring spirit and purpose high,
The fiery glance of the eagle eye
That marked the Roman’s haughty pride,
In the days of yore by the Tiber’s side?
The stern resolve of the patriot’s breast,
When the warrior’s zeal has sunk to rest?
No! Mercy has fled from the hardened heart,
And Justice and Truth in her steps depart,
And the fires of hell rage fierce and warm
Mid the fitful strife of the spirit’s storm.
But a wail is borne on the troubled air:
What victim comes those frowns to dare?
’Tis woman’s form and woman’s eye,
That Time hath passed full lightly by;
The limner’s art in vain might trace
The glorious beauty and winning grace
Of that fair girl; youth’s sunny day
Flings its radiance over life’s changing way:
Why has she left her princely home,
Why to that hall a suppliant come?
Her heart is sad with a deepening gloom,
For Hope has found in her heart a tomb.
With quiv’ring lip, and eye whose light
Is faint as the moon in a cloudy night,
And with cheek as pale as the crimson glow
That the sunset casts on the spotless snow;
Nerved with the strength of wild despair,
Low at their feet she pours her prayer:
‘My home! my home! is desolate,
For ye have slain them all,
And cast upon the light of Love
Death’s cold and fearful pall.
We knelt in agony to save
My father’s silver hair,
Ye would not mark the bitter tears,
Nor list the frantic prayer!
‘And