cularly of the Danvers family in its different branches. Thus he obtained from his corre spondent the intelligence he wanted, without exciting the slightest suspicion that he had any motive for desiring it, beyond the curiosity that is incident to almost every human mind. It was thus that he was already informed of the deaths of my eldest son and eldest daughter. My recent calamities had not reached his ear, till subsequently to his arrival in Ireland. It was How changed was our position ! eighteen years since I had seen him. This lengthened period could not have been without leaving its traces and the marks of its varied fortune upon the persons of both. We had been young when we parted; we were now somewhat beyond the middle period of human life. When we parted, Cloudesley had already passed several months in the service of a liberal master. He had consequently contracted the alertness, the docile and obedient spirit, and the complacent gesture and turn of countenance, incident to that walk of life. He had spent all the interval in a state of independence. His look therefore now betokened the erect and self-centred spirit of an English yeoman, with a slight surface of the manner, at once animated and officious, of that class of Italian gentry with whom he had been in frequent intercourse. Such was his appearance, as he stood unabashed in my presence. But the alteration in me was much more memorable. He had known me in the most brilliant and faultless period of my life. I had already conquered the jealous and envious temper which had disfigured my youth. I loved my brother with a generous sincerity, and had formed myself upon his model. I had served with distinction in the imperial armies, under the command of the incomparable Eugene. I was no disadvantageous specimen of a younger branch of the English nobility. At the time we parted, the demon of avarice, injustice and fraud had entered my bosom; but there had not been time for the effecting a radical change in my exterior and my general demeanour. But now he saw me after the thoughts of guilt, remorse and shame had been for eighteen years the inmates of my breast. Mine was the roving and suspicious eye; mine the worm of con-science veiled under a fair outside; minethe complexion of dun and tarnished red, the colour uniform through every region of the face, which told that no food had to me the effect of kindly nourishment, and that no beam of serenity and cheerfulness ever gladdened my soul bynight or by day. I said to him, with as firm and lofty an air as I could assume, as he entered, What make you here? This is a violation of the contract between us. "I have not come," retorted Cloudesley in a determined manner," from Florence to the south of Ireland, without having first maturely considered my purpose. The lands and seas I have traversed are a pledge to you, that I will not return without a perfect success. I have been driven by an impulse that it was out of my power to control, by a voice from heaven; and I swear that I will not leave this house of my ward and his ancestors, till I have accomplished the purpose for which I came. In the "We meet as two guilty creatures. face of the world we might blush and hang down our heads, if mankind could read the secret of our souls: but to each other we are familiar, and have arrived beyond the reach of shame. "There was a day when we entered into a hellish contract, and mutually agreed on that which might worthily expel us from every ' good man's feast,' and shut us out of such societies where bells have knolled to church.' My oblivion of the great bond by which com munities are held together, was short; I have expiated my sin in undying repentance; I have sought by every means in my power to atone for and repair my injustice. You have rioted in impunity for eighteen years; no moment of compunction has visited you; you have not thought for an instant of retracing your downward steps. This error, this guilt, this usurpation, this breach of every thing that is holy, must have an end; and I am come to put a close to all further delay and reprieve. Let your reparation be open and without reserve; it is your wisdom to make it so; for, in one way or the other, I come to tell you that this house and these revenues shall no longer be yours, and that the title you bear must be laid down for ever." This is the essence of guilt. I drank the cup of bitterness to the very dregs. There is but one thing that can truly humble a man; and that is crime. I was born a nobleman; I |