Self-control. Mary Brunton
expose my feeble virtue to the trial of your example—your authority; ere I durst make it my duty to shut my eyes against your faults, or to see them with the indulgence of love.'
'Dearest Laura, one word from you will lure me back to the path of virtue—will you wilfully destroy even the wish to return. If for a year—for two years—my conduct should bear the strictest scrutiny—will you not accept this as a proof that my heart is changed—changed in every thing but its love for you—will you not then receive me?'
Laura had resisted entreaty—had withstood alarm—had conquered strong affection; but the hope of rousing Hargrave to the views, the pursuits, the habits of a Christian, betrayed her caution, and gladdened her heart to rapture. 'If for two years,' said she, her youthful countenance brightening with delight, 'your conduct is such as you describe—if it will bear the inspection of the wise, of the sober-minded, of the pious—as my father's friend, as my own friend, will I welcome you.'
Thus suddenly raised from despair, Hargrave seemed at the summit of felicity. Once admitted as her 'father's friend, as her own,' he was secure of the accomplishment of his wishes. The time that must first elapse, appeared to him but a moment; and the labours of duty required of him seemed a smiling dream. Love and joy animated every feature of his fine countenance; he threw himself at the feet of Laura, and rapturously blessed her for her condescension. His extasies first made her sensible of the extent of her concession; and she feared that she had gone too far. But with her, a promise, however inadvertent, was a sacred thing, which she would neither qualify nor retract. She contented herself, therefore, with merely repeating the terms of it, emphatically guarding the conditions. Desirous now to have leisure for reflection, she reminded him that the lateness of the hour made it fit that he should depart; and, inwardly persuaded that she would not long obdurately refuse him another interview, he obeyed without much opposition.
CHAPTER VI
The lovers were no sooner parted, than Hargrave began to repent that he had not more distinctly ascertained the kind and manner of the intercourse which he was to hold with his mistress during the term of his probation; and though he had little fear that she would be very rigid, he considered this as a point of such importance, that he resolved not to quit Glenalbert without having the matter settled to his satisfaction. For this reason he condescended to accept the accommodations of the little straw-roofed cottage, by courtesy called the Inn, where he had already left his horse; and thither he retired accordingly, not without some national misgivings of mind on the subject of Scotish nastiness and its consequences. His apartment, however, though small, was decent, his bed was clean, his sleep refreshing, and his dreams pleasant; nor was it till a late hour the following morning, that he rose to the homely comfort, and clumsy abundance of a Highland breakfast. As soon as he had finished his repast, he walked towards Montreville's cottage, ostensibly to pay his respects to the Captain, but, in reality, with the hope of obtaining a private interview with Laura. He entered the garden, where he expected to find Captain Montreville. It was empty. He approached the house. The shutters were barred. He knocked at the door, which was opened by the old woman; and, on inquiring for Captain Montreville, he was answered, 'Wow, Sir, him an' Miss Laura's awa' at six o'clock this morning.' 'Away,' repeated the Colonel—'Where are they gone?' 'To London, Sir; and I'm sure a lanely time we'll hae till they come hame again.' 'What stay do they intend making?' 'Hech, Sir, I dare say that's what they dinna ken themsels.' 'What is their address?' inquired the Colonel. 'What's your will, Sir:' 'Where are they to be found?' 'Am'n I tellan you they're in London, Sir. I'm sure ye ken whar that is?' 'But how are you to send their letters?' 'Wow! they never got mony letters but frae England; and now 'at they're in London, ye ken the folk may gie them into their ain hand.' 'But suppose you should have occasion to write to them yourself?' said Hargrave, whose small stock of patience wore fast to a close. 'Hech, Sir, sorrow a scrape can I write. They learn a' thae newfangled things now; but, trouth, i' my young days, we were na' sae upsettan.' Hargrave was in no humour to canvas the merits of the different modes of education; and, muttering an ejaculation, in which the word devil was distinctly audible, he turned away.
Vexed and disappointed, he wandered down the churchyard-lane, and reached the spot where he had last seen Laura. He threw himself on the seat that had supported her graceful form—called to mind her consummate loveliness—her ill-repressed tenderness—and most cordially consigned himself to Satan for neglecting to wring from her some further concessions. She was now removed from the solitude where he had reigned without a rival. Her's would be the gaze of every eye—her's the command of every heart. 'She may soon choose among numbers,' cried he—'she will meet with people of her own humour, and some canting hypocritical scoundrel will drive me completely from her mind.' By the time he had uttered this prediction, and bit his lip half through—he was some steps on his way to order his horses, that he might pursue his fair fugitive, in the hope of extorting from her some less equivocal kind of promise. Fortunately for his reputation for sanity, however, he recollected, before he began his pursuit, that, ere he could overtake her, Laura must have reached Edinburgh, where, without a direction, it might be difficult to discover her abode. In this dilemma, he was again obliged to have recourse to the old woman at the cottage; but she could give him no information. She neither knew how long Captain Montreville purposed remaining in Edinburgh, nor in what part of the town he intended to reside.
Thus baffled in his inquiries, Hargrave was convinced that his pursuit must be ineffectual; and, in no very placid frame of mind, he changed his destination from Edinburgh to his quarters. He arrived there in time for a late dinner, but his wine was insipid, his companions tiresome; and he retired early, that, early next morning, he might set out on a visit to Mrs. Douglas, from whom he purposed to learn Captain Montreville's address.
On comparing the suppressed melancholy of Laura, her embarrassment at the mention of Hargrave, and her inadvertent disclosure, with her father's detail of her rejection of the insinuating young soldier, a suspicion not very remote from truth, had entered the mind of Mrs. Douglas. She imagined that Captain Montreville had in some way been deceived as to the kind of proposals made to his daughter; and that Laura had rejected no offers but such as it would have been infamy to accept. Under this conviction, it is not surprising that her reception of the Colonel was far from being cordial; nor that, guessing his correspondence to be rather intended for the young lady than for the old gentleman, she chose to afford no facility to an intercourse which she considered as both dangerous and degrading. To Hargrave's questions, therefore, she answered, that until she should hear from London, she was ignorant of Captain Montreville's address; and that the time of his return was utterly unknown to her. When the Colonel, with the same intention, soon after repeated his visit, she quietly, but steadily, evaded all his inquiries, equally unmoved by his entreaties, and the paroxysms of impatience with which he endured his disappointment.
Hargrave was the only child of a widow—an easy, indolent, good sort of woman, who would gladly have seen him become every thing that man ought to be, provided she could have accomplished this laudable desire without recourse to such harsh instruments as contradiction and restraint. But of these she disliked the use, as much as her son did the endurance: and thus the young gentleman was educated, or rather grew up, without the slightest acquaintance of either. Of consequence, his naturally warm temper became violent, and his constitutionally strong passions ungovernable.
Hargrave was the undoubted heir of a title, and of a fine estate. Of money he had never felt the want, and did not know the value; he was, therefore, so far as money was concerned, generous even to profusion. His abilities were naturally of the highest order. To force him to the improvement of them, was an effort above the power of Mrs. Hargrave; but, fortunately for him, ere his habits of mental inaction were irremediable, a tedious illness confined him to recreations in which mind had some share, however small. During the interdiction of bats and balls, he, by accident, stumbled on a volume of Peregrine Pickle, which he devoured with great eagerness; and his mother, delighted with what she was pleased to call a turn for reading, took care that this new appetite should not, any more than the old ones, pine for want of gratification. To direct it to food wholesome and invigorating, would have required unremitting