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The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves
The unexpected apparition of Miss Aurelia Darnel, beaming with all the emanations of ripened beauty, blushing with all the graces of the most lovely confusion, could not but produce a violent effect upon the mind of Sir Launcelot Greaves. He was, indeed, overwhelmed with a mingled transport of astonishment, admiration, affection, and awe. The colour vanished from his cheeks, and he stood gazing upon her, in silence, with the most emphatic expression of countenance.
Aurelia was infected by his disorder. She began to tremble, and the roses fluctuated on her face. “I cannot forget,” said she, “that I owe my life to the courage and humanity of Sir Launcelot Greaves, and that he at the same time rescued from the most dreadful death a dear and venerable parent.”—“Would to Heaven she still survived!” cried our adventurer, with great emotion. “She was the friend of my youth, the kind patroness of my felicity! My guardian angel forsook me when she expired! Her last injunctions are deep engraver on my heart!”
While he pronounced these words, she lifted her handkerchief to her fair eyes, and, after some pause, proceeded in a tremulous tone, “I hope, sir, —I hope you have—I should be sorry—Pardon me, sir, I cannot reflect upon such an interesting subject unmoved”—Here she fetched a deep sigh, that was accompanied by a flood of tears; while the knight continued to bend his eyes upon her with the utmost eagerness of attention.
Having recollected herself a little, she endeavoured to shift the conversation: “You have been abroad since I had the pleasure to see you —I hope you were agreeably amused in your travels.”—“No, madam,” said our hero, drooping his head; “I have been unfortunate.” When she, with the most enchanting sweetness of benevolence, expressed her concern to hear he had been unhappy, and her hope that his misfortunes were not past remedy; he lifted up his eyes, and fixing them upon her again, with a look of tender dejection, “Cut off,” said he, “from the possession of what my soul held most dear, I wished for death, and was visited by distraction. I have been abandoned by my reason—my youth is for ever blasted.”
The tender heart of Aurelia could bear no more—her knees began to totter, the lustre vanished from her eyes, and she fainted in the arms of her attendant. Sir Launcelot, aroused by this circumstance, assisted Dolly in seating her mistress on a couch, where she soon recovered, and saw the knight on his knees before her. “I am still happy,” said he, “in being able to move your compassion, though I have been held unworthy of your esteem.”—“Do me justice,” she replied; “my best esteem has been always inseparably connected with the character of Sir Launcelot Greaves.”—“Is it possible?” cried our hero; “then surely I have no reason to complain. If I have moved your compassion, and possess your esteem, I am but one degree short of supreme happiness—that, however, is a gigantic step. O Miss Darnel! when I remember that dear, that melancholy moment.”—So saying he gently touched her hand, in order to press it to his lips, and perceived on her finger the very individual ring which he had presented in her mother’s presence, as an interchanged testimony of plighted faith. Starting at the well-known object, the sight of which conjured up a strange confusion of ideas, “This,” said he, “was once the pledge of something still more cordial than esteem.” Aurelia, blushing at this remark, while her eyes lightened with unusual vivacity, replied, in a severer tone, “Sir, you best know how it lost its original signification.”—“By Heaven! I do not, madam!” exclaimed our adventurer. “With me it was ever held a sacred idea throned within my heart, cherished with such fervency of regard, with such reverence of affection, as the devout anchorite more unreasonably pays to those sainted reliques that constitute the object of his adoration.”—“And, like those reliques,” answered Miss Darnel, “I have been insensible of my votary’s devotion. A saint I must have been, or something more, to know the sentiments of your heart by inspiration.”
“Did I forbear,” said he, “to express, to repeat, to enforce the dictates of the purest passion that ever warmed the human breast, until I was denied access, and formally discarded by that cruel dismission?”—“I must beg your pardon, sir,” cried Aurelia, interrupting him hastily, “I know not what you mean.”—“That fatal sentence,” said he, “if not pronounced by your own lips, at least written by your own fair hand, which drove me out an exile for ever from the paradise of your affection.”—“I would not,” she replied, “do Sir Launcelot Greaves the injury to suppose him capable of imposition; but you talk of things to which I am an utter stranger. I have a right, sir, to demand of your honour, that you will not impute to me your breaking off a connexion, which—I would—rather wish—had never”–“Heaven and earth! what do I hear?” cried our impatient knight; “have I not the baleful letter to produce? What else but Miss Darnel’s explicit and express declaration could have destroyed the sweetest hope that ever cheered my soul; could have obliged me to resign all claim to that felicity for which alone I wished to live; could have filled my bosom with unutterable sorrow and despair; could have even divested me of reason, and driven me from the society of men, a poor, forlorn, wandering lunatic, such as you see me now prostrate at your feet; all the blossoms of my youth withered, all the honours of my family decayed?”
Aurelia looking wishfully at her lover, “Sir,” said she, “you overwhelm me with amazement and anxiety! you are imposed upon, if you have received any such letter. You are deceived, if you thought Aurelia Darnel could be so insensible, ungrateful, and—inconstant.”
This last word she pronounced with some hesitation, and a downcast look, while her face underwent a total suffusion, and the knight’s heart began to palpitate with all the violence of emotion. He eagerly imprinted a kiss upon her hand, exclaiming, in interrupted phrase, “Can it be possible?—Heaven grant—Sure this is no illusion!—O madam!—shall I call you my Aurelia? My heart is bursting with a thousand fond thoughts and presages. You shall see that dire paper which has been the source of all my woes—it is the constant companion of my travels—last night I nourished my chagrin with the perusal of its horrid contents.”
Aurelia expressed great impatience to view the cruel forgery, for such she assured him it must be. But he could not gratify her desire, till the arrival of his servant with the portmanteau. In the meantime, tea was called. The lovers were seated. He looked and languished; she flushed and faltered. All was doubt and delirium, fondness and flutter. Their mutual disorder communicated itself to the kind-hearted sympathising Dolly, who had been witness to the interview, and deeply affected at the disclosure of the scene. Unspeakable was her surprise, when she found her mistress, Miss Meadows, was no other than the celebrated Aurelia Darnel, whose eulogium she had heard so eloquently pronounced by her sweetheart, Mr. Thomas Clarke; a discovery which still more endeared her lady to her affection. She had wept plentifully at the progress of their mutual explanation, and was now so disconcerted, that she scarce knew the meaning of the orders she had received. She set the kettle on the table, and placed the tea-board on the fire. Her confusion, by attracting the notice of her mistress, helped to relieve her from her own embarrassing situation. She, with her own delicate hands, rectified the mistake of Dolly, who still continued to sob, and said, “Yau may think, my Leady Darnel, as haw I’aive yeaten hool-cheese; but it y’an’t soa. I’se think, vor mai peart, as how I’aive bean bewitched.”
Sir Launcelot could not help smiling at the simplicity of Dolly, whose goodness of heart and attachment Aurelia did not fail to extol, as soon as her back was turned. It was in consequence of this commendation, that, the next time she entered the room, our adventurer, for the first time, considered her face, and seemed to be struck with her features. He asked her some questions, which she could not answer to his satisfaction; applauded her regard for her lady, and assured her of his friendship and protection. He now begged to know the cause that obliged his Aurelia to travel at such a rate, and in such an equipage; and she informed him of those particulars which we have already communicated to our reader.
Sir Launcelot glowed with resentment, when he understood how his dear Aurelia had been oppressed by her perfidious and cruel guardian. He bit his nether lip, rolled his eyes around, started from his seat, and striding across the room, “I remember,” said he, “the dying words of her who now is a saint in heaven: ‘That violent man, my brother-in-law, who is Aurelia’s sole guardian, will thwart her wishes with every obstacle that brutal resentment and implacable malice can contrive.’ What followed, it would ill become me to repeat. But she concluded with these words: ‘The rest we must leave to the dispensations of Providence.’ Was it not Providence that sent me hither to guard and protect the injured Aurelia?” Then turning to Miss Darnel, whose eyes streamed with tears, he added, “Yes, divine creature! Heaven, careful of your safety, and in compassion to my sufferings, hath guided me hither, in this mysterious manner, that I might defend you from violence, and enjoy this transition from madness to deliberation, from despair to felicity.”
So saying, he approached this amiable mourner, this fragrant flower of beauty, glittering with the dew-drops of the morning; this sweetest, and gentlest, loveliest ornament of human nature. He gazed upon her with looks of love ineffable; he sat down by her; he pressed her soft hand in his; he began to fear that all he saw was the flattering vision of a distempered brain; he looked and sighed, and, turning up his eyes to heaven, breathed, in broken murmurs, the chaste raptures of his soul. The tenderness of this communication was too painful to be long endured. Aurelia industriously interposed other subjects of discourse, that his attention might not be dangerously overcharged, and the afternoon passed insensibly away.
Though he had determined, in his own mind, never more to quit this idol of his soul, they had not yet concerted any plan of conduct, when their happiness was all at once interrupted by a repetition of cries, denoting horror; and a servant coming in, said he believed some rogues were murdering a traveller on the highway. The supposition of such distress operated like gunpowder on the disposition of our adventurer, who, without considering the situation of Aurelia, and indeed without seeing, or being capable to think on her or any other subject for the time being, ran directly to the stable, and, mounting the first horse which he found saddled, issued out in the twilight, having no other weapon but his sword.
He rode full speed to the spot whence the cries seemed to proceed; but they sounded more remote as he advanced. Nevertheless, he followed them to a considerable distance from the road, over fields, ditches, and hedges; and at last came so near, that he could plainly distinguish the voice of his own squire, Timothy Crabshaw, bellowing for mercy, with hideous vociferation. Stimulated by this recognition, he redoubled his career in the dark, till at length his horse plunged into a hole, the nature of which he could not comprehend; but he found it impracticable to disengage him. It was with some difficulty that he himself clambered over a ruined wall, and regained the open ground. Here he groped about, in the utmost impatience of anxiety, ignorant of the place, mad with vexation for the fate of his unfortunate squire, and between whiles invaded with a pang of concern for Aurelia, left among strangers, unguarded, and alarmed.
In the midst of this emotion, he bethought himself of hallooing aloud, that, in case he should be in the neighbourhood of any inhabited place, he might be heard and assisted. He accordingly practised this expedient, which was not altogether without effect; for he was immediately answered by an old friend, no other than his own steed Bronzomarte, who, hearing his master’s voice, neighed strenuously at a small distance. The knight, being well acquainted with the sound, heard it with astonishment, and, advancing in the right direction, found his noble charger fastened to a tree. He forthwith untied and mounted him; then, laying the reins upon his neck, allowed him to choose his own path, in which he began to travel with equal steadiness and expedition. They had not proceeded far, when the knight’s ears were again saluted by the cries of Crabshaw; which Bronzomarte no sooner heard, than he pricked up his ears, neighed, and quickened his pace, as if he had been sensible of the squire’s distress, and hastened to his relief. Sir Launcelot, notwithstanding his own disquiet, could not help observing and admiring this generous sensibility of his horse. He began to think himself some hero of romance, mounted upon a winged steed, inspired with reason, directed by some humane enchanter, who pitied virtue in distress. All circumstances considered, it is no wonder that the commotion in the mind of our adventurer produced some such delirium. All night he continued the chase; the voice, which was repeated at intervals, still retreating before him, till the morning began to appear in the east, when, by divers piteous groans, he was directed to the corner of a wood, where he beheld his miserable squire stretched upon the grass, and Gilbert feeding by him altogether unconcerned, the helmet and the lance suspended at the saddle-bow, and the portmanteau safely fixed upon the crupper.
The knight, riding up to Crabshaw, with equal surprise and concern, asked what had brought him there? and Timothy, after some pause, during which he surveyed his master with a rueful aspect, answered, “The devil.”—“One would imagine, indeed, you had some such conveyance,” said Sir Launcelot. “I have followed your cries since last evening, I know not how nor whither, and never could come up with you till this moment. But, say, what damage have you sustained, that you lie in that wretched posture, and groan so dismally?” “I can’t guess,” replied the squire, “if it bean’t that mai hoole carcase is drilled into oilet hools, and my flesh pinched into a jelly.”—“How! wherefore!” cried the knight; “who were the miscreants that treated you in such a barbarous manner? Do you know the ruffians?”—“I know nothing at all,” answered the peevish squire, “but that I was tormented by vive houndred and vifty thousand legions of devils, and there’s an end oon’t.”—“Well, you must have a little patience, Crabshaw—there’s a salve for every sore.”—“Yaw mought as well tell ma, for every zow there’s a zirreverence.”—“For a man in your condition, methinks you talk very much at your ease—try if you can get up and mount Gilbert, that you may be conveyed to some place where you can have proper assistance.—So—well done—cheerly!”
Timothy actually made an effort to rise, but fell down again, and uttered a dismal yell. Then his master exhorted him to take advantage of a park wall, by which he lay, and raise himself gradually upon it. Crabshaw, eyeing him askance, said, by way of reproach, for his not alighting and assisting him in person, “Thatch your house with t—d, and you’ll have more teachers than reachers.”—Having pronounced this inelegant adage, he made shift to stand upon his legs; and now, the knight lending a hand, was mounted upon Gilbert, though not without a world of ohs! and ahs! and other ejaculations of pain and impatience.
As they jogged on together, our adventurer endeavoured to learn the particulars of the disaster which had befallen the squire; but all the information he could obtain, amounted to a very imperfect sketch of the adventure. By dint of a thousand interrogations, he understood, that Crabshaw had been, in the preceding evening, encountered by three persons on horseback, with Venetian masks on their faces, which he mistook for their natural features, and was terrified accordingly. That they not only presented pistols to his breast, and led his horse out of the highway; but pricked him with goads, and pinched him, from time to time, till he screamed with the torture. That he was led through unfrequented places across the country, sometimes at an easy trot, sometimes at full gallop, and tormented all night by those hideous demons, who vanished at daybreak, and left him lying on the spot where he was found by his master.
This was a mystery which our hero could by no means unriddle. It was the more unaccountable, as the squire had not been robbed of his money, horses, and baggage. He was even disposed to believe that Crabshaw’s brain was disordered, and the whole account he had given no more than a mere chimera. This opinion, however, he could no longer retain, when he arrived at an inn on the post-road, and found, upon examination, that Timothy’s lower extremities were covered with blood, and all the rest of his body speckled with livid marks of contusion. But he was still more chagrined when the landlord informed him, that he was thirty miles distant from the place where he had left Aurelia, and that his way lay through cross-roads, which were almost impassable at that season of the year. Alarmed at this intelligence, he gave directions that his squire should be immediately conveyed to bed in a comfortable chamber, as he complained more and more; and, indeed, was seized with a fever, occasioned by the fatigue, the pain, and terror he had undergone. A neighbouring apothecary being called, and giving it as his opinion that he could not for some days be in a condition to travel, his master deposited a sum of money in his hands, desiring he might be properly attended till he should hear further. Then mounting Bronzomarte, he set out with a guide for the place he had left, not without a thousand fears and perplexities, arising from the reflection of having left the jewel of his heart with such precipitation.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WHICH, IT IS TO BE HOPED, THE READER WILL FIND AN AGREEABLE MEDLEY OF MIRTH AND MADNESS, SENSE AND ABSURDITYIt was not without reason that our adventurer afflicted himself; his fears were but too prophetic. When he alighted at the inn, which he had left so abruptly the preceding evening, he ran directly to the apartment where he had been so happy in Aurelia’s company; but her he saw not—all was solitary. Turning to the woman of the house, who had followed him into the room, “Where is the lady?” cried he, in a tone of impatience. Mine hostess screwing up her features into a very demure aspect, said she saw so many ladies she could not pretend to know who he meant. “I tell thee, woman,” exclaimed the knight, in a louder accent, “thou never sawest such another—I mean that miracle of beauty”—“Very like,” replied the dame, as she retired to the room door. “Husband, here’s one as axes concerning a miracle of beauty; hi, hi, hi. Can you give him any information about this miracle of beauty? O la! hi, hi, hi.”
Instead of answering this question, the innkeeper advancing, and surveying Sir Launcelot, “Friend,” said he, “you are the person that carried off my horse out of the stable.”—“Tell me not of a horse—where is the young lady?”—“Now, I will tell you of the horse, and I’ll make you find him too before you and I part.”—“Wretched animal! how dar’st thou dally with my impatience? Speak, or despair—what is become of Miss Meadows? Say, did she leave this place of her own accord, or was she— hah! speak—answer, or by the powers above”—“I’ll answer you flat—she you call Miss Meadows is in very good hands—so you may make yourself easy on that score.”—“Sacred Heaven! explain your meaning, miscreant, or I’ll make you a dreadful example to all the insolent publicans of the realm.” So saying, he seized him with one hand and dashed him on the floor, set one foot on his belly, and kept him trembling in that prostrate attitude. The ostler and waiter flying to the assistance of their master, our adventurer unsheathed his sword, declaring he would dismiss their souls from their bodies, and exterminate the whole family from the face of the earth, if they would not immediately give him the satisfaction he required.
The hostess being by this time terrified almost out of her senses, fell on her knees before him, begging he would spare their lives, and promising to declare the whole truth. He would not, however, remove his foot from the body of her husband until she told him, that in less than half an hour after he had sallied out upon the supposed robbers, two chaises arrived, each drawn by four horses; that two men, armed with pistols, alighted from one of them, laid violent hands upon the young lady; and, notwithstanding her struggling and shrieking, forced her into the other carriage, in which was an infirm gentleman, who called himself her guardian; that the maid was left to the care of a third servant, to follow with a third chaise, which was got ready with all possible despatch, while the other two proceeded at full speed on the road to London. It was by this communicative lacquey the people of the house were informed that the old gentleman his master was Squire Darnel, the young lady his niece and ward, and our adventurer a needy sharper who wanted to make a prey of her fortune.
The knight, fired even almost to frenzy by this intimation, spurned the carcase of his host; and, his eye gleaming terror, rushed into the yard, in order to mount Bronzomarte and pursue the ravisher, when he was diverted from his purpose by a new incident.
One of the postillions, who had driven the chaise in which Dolly was conveyed, happened to arrive at that instant; when, seeing our hero, he ran up to him cap in hand, and, presenting a letter, accosted him in these words: “Please your noble honour, if your honour be Sir Launcelot Greaves of the West Riding, here’s a letter from a gentlewoman, that I promised to deliver into your honour’s own hands.”
The knight, snatching the letter with the utmost avidity, broke it up, and found the contents couched in these terms:—
“HONOURED SIR,—The man az gi’en me leave to lat yaw knaw my dear leady is going to Loondon with her unkle Squaire Darnel. Be not conzarned, honoured sir, vor I’se take it on mai laife to let yaw knaw wheare we be zettled, if zobe I can vind where you loadge in Loondon. The man zays yaw may put it in the pooblic prints. I houp the bareheir will be honest enuff to deliver this scrowl; and that your honour will pardon Your umbil servant to command, DOROTHY COWSLIP.”
“P. S.—Please my kaind sarvice to laayer Clarke. Squire Darnel’s man is very civil vor sartain; but I’ave no thoughts on him I’ll assure yaw. Marry hap, worse ware may have a better chap, as the zaying goes.”
Nothing could be more seasonable than the delivery of this billet, which he had no sooner perused than his reflection returned, and he entered into a serious deliberation with his own heart. He considered that Aurelia was by this time far beyond a possibility of being overtaken, and that by a precipitate pursuit he should only expose his own infirmities. He confided in the attachment of his mistress, and in the fidelity of her maid, who would find opportunities of communicating her sentiments by means of this lacquey, of whom he perceived by the letter she had already made a conquest. He therefore resolved to bridle his impatience, to proceed leisurely to London, and, instead of taking any rash step which might induce Anthony Darnel to remove his niece from that city, remain in seeming quiet until she should be settled, and her guardian returned to the country. Aurelia had mentioned to him the name of Doctor Kawdle, and from him he expected in due time to receive the most interesting information formerly tormented with the pangs of despairing love, which had actually unsettled his understanding, he was now happily convinced that he had inspired the tender breast of Aurelia with mutual affection; and, though she was invidiously snatched from his embrace in the midst of such endearments as had wound up his soul to ecstasy and transport, he did not doubt of being able to rescue her from the power of an inhuman kinsman, whose guardianship would soon of course expire; and in the meantime he rested with the most perfect dependence on her constancy and virtue.
As he next day crossed the country, ruminating on the disaster that had befallen his squire, and could now compare circumstances coolly, he easily comprehended the whole scheme of that adventure, which was no other than an artifice of Anthony Darnel and his emissaries to draw him from the inn, where he proposed to execute his design upon the innocent Aurelia. He took it for granted that the uncle, having been made acquainted with his niece’s elopement, had followed her track by the help of such information as he received, from one stage to another; and that, receiving more particulars at the White Hart touching Sir Launcelot, he had formed the scheme in which Crabshaw was an involuntary instrument towards the seduction of his master.