“Nothing can be clearer; and were you a rich
man, Eugene Aram, or could you obtain your bride’s
dowry (no doubt a respectable sum) in advance, the
arrangement might at once be settled.”
Aram gasped for breath, and as usual with him in emotion,
made several strides forward, muttering rapidly, and
indistinctly to himself, and then returned.
“Even were this possible, it would be but a
short reprieve; I could not trust you; the sum would
be spent, and I again in the state to which you have
compelled me now; but without the means again to relieve
myself. No, no! if the blow must fall, be it
so one day as another.”
“As you will,” said Houseman; ‘but—’
Just at that moment, a long shrill whistle sounded
below, as from the water. Houseman paused abruptly—“That
signal is from my comrades; I must away. Hark,
again! Farewell, Aram.”
“Farewell, if it must be so,” said Aram,
in a tone of dogged sullenness; “but to-morrow,
should you know of any means by which I could feel
secure, beyond the security of your own word, from
your future molestation, I might—yet how?”
“To-morrow,” said Houseman, “I cannot
answer for myself; it is not always that I can leave
my comrades; a natural jealousy makes them suspicious
of the absence of their friends. Yet hold; the
night after to-morrow, the Sabbath night, most virtuous
Aram, I can meet you—but not here—some
miles hence. You know the foot of the Devil’s
Crag, by the waterfall; it is a spot quiet and shaded
enough in all conscience for our interview; and I
will tell you a secret I would trust to no other man—(hark,
again!)—it is close by our present lurking-place.
Meet me there!—it would, indeed, be pleasanter
to hold our conference under shelter—but
just at present, I would rather not trust myself beneath
any honest man’s roof in this neighbourhood.
Adieu! on Sunday night, one hour before mid-night.”
The robber, for such then he was, waved his hand,
and hurried away in the direction from which the signal
seemed to come.
Aram gazed after him, but with vacant eyes; and remained
for several minutes rooted to the spot, as if the
very life had left him.
“The Sabbath night!” said he, at length,
moving slowly on; “and I must spin forth my
existence in trouble and fear till then—till
then! what remedy can I then invent? It is clear
that I can have no dependance on his word, if won;
and I have not even aught wherewith to buy it.
But courage, courage, my heart; and work thou, my
busy brain! Ye have never failed me yet!”
Fresh alarm in
the village.—Lester’s
visit to aram.—A trait
of delicate kindness in the Student.—Madeline.—Her
proneness
to confide.—The conversation between
Lester and aram.
—The persons by whom it
is interrupted.
Not my own fears, nor the
prophetic soul
Of the wide world, dreaming on things
to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love
controul.
—Shakspeare:
Sonnets.
