Fearful, indeed, is the vicinity of death and life,—the
bridal chamber and the charnel. That night the
old woman died. It appeared as if Fate had set
its seal upon the union it had so long forbidden,
and had woven a dark thread even in the marriage-bond.
At least, it tore from two hearts, over which the
cloud and the blast lay couched in a “grim repose,”
the last shelter, which, however frail and distant,
seemed left to them upon the inhospitable earth.
Live while ye may, yet happy
pair; enjoy
Short pleasures, for long
woes are to succeed.—Milton.
The autumn and the winter passed away; Mordaunt’s
relation continued implacable. Algernon grieved
for this, independent of worldly circumstances; for,
though he had seldom seen that relation, yet he loved
him for former kindness—rather promised,
to be sure, than yet shown—with the natural
warmth of an affection which has but few objects.
However, the old gentleman (a very short, very fat
person; very short and very fat people, when they
are surly, are the devil and all; for the humours
of their mind, like those of their body, have something
corrupt and unpurgeable in them) wrote him one bluff,
contemptuous letter, in a witty strain,—for
he was a bit of a humourist,—disowned his
connection, and very shortly afterwards died, and
left all his fortune to the very Mr. Vavasour who was
at law with Mordaunt, and for whom he had always openly
expressed the strongest personal dislike: spite
to one relation is a marvellous tie to another.
Meanwhile the lawsuit went on less slowly than lawsuits
usually do, and the final decision was very speedily
to be given.
We said the autumn and the winter were gone; and it
was in one of those latter days in March, when, like
a hoyden girl subsiding into dawning womanhood, the
rude weather mellows into a softer and tenderer month,
that, by the side of a stream, overshadowed by many
a brake and tree, sat two persons.
“I know not, dearest Algernon,” said one,
who was a female, “if this is not almost the
sweetest month in the year, because it is the month
of Hope.”
“Ay, Isabel; and they did it wrong who called
it harsh, and dedicated it to Mars. I exult
even in the fresh winds which hardier frames than
mine shrink from, and I love feeling their wild breath
fan my cheek as I ride against it. I remember,”
continued Algernon, musingly, “that on this
very day three years ago, I was travelling through
Germany, alone and on horseback, and I paused, not
far from Ens, on the banks of the Danube; the waters
of the river were disturbed and fierce, and the winds
came loud and angry against my face, dashing the spray
of the waves upon me, and filling my spirit with a
buoyant and glad delight; and at that time I had been
indulging old dreams of poetry, and had laid my philosophy
aside; and, in the inspiration of the moment, I lifted
up my hand towards the quarter whence the winds came,
and questioned them audibly of their birthplace and
their bourne; and, as the enthusiasm increased, I
compared them to our human life, which a moment is,
and then is not; and, proceeding from folly to folly,
I asked them, as if they were the interpreters of
heaven, for a type and sign of my future lot.”
