Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER XII.

When Mr. Man­dev­ille re­turned home in the evening, he found the maid in great trou­ble on ac­count of Eve­line's long con­tin­ued ab­sence, and he him­self be­came alarmed on learn­ing that she had not been seen since ear­ly in the forenoon. He knew that she of­ten recre­at­ed in the grove, and, af­ter find­ing her in no more like­ly place, he pro­ceed­ed thith­er. No Eve­line was there, and no voice an­swered to his re­peat­ed calls; but in his search he found two bil­lets of pa­per, and has­ten­ing to the house, for it was too dark to read them in the woods, he ea­ger­ly pe­rused them.

One of the two was the let­ter to Eve­line, pur­port­ing to be from her lover, which she had ac­ci­den­tal­ly lost in her ag­ita­tion, at the mo­ment of set­ting out on her at first hope­ful but sad­ly ter­mi­nat­ed er­rand; its con­tents are al­ready known to the read­er; and the oth­er read as fol­lows:

"MR. MAN­DEV­ILLE:--Be­ing aware of your dis­like to me, and hav­ing learned that you charge me with a crime of great mag­ni­tude--no less than that of steal­ing your horse, (of which, per­mit me to say, I am as in­no­cent as your­self,) and feel­ing as­sured, from these cir­cum­stances, that there was no hope for me ev­er to gain your con­sent to wed Eve­line, I have tak­en the on­ly al­ter­na­tive left me in the premis­es--that of per­suad­ing your daugh­ter to elope with me. She has con­sent­ed; and ere you read this note, will be my wife. I hope you may find it in your heart to par­don us for tak­ing this step, as it ap­pears to us the on­ly way in which our ar­dent wish­es can be ac­com­plished; but if you can­not par­don me, at least for­give Eve­line, who has had a hard strug­gle be­tween fil­ial af­fec­tion, du­ty and re­gard, and the strong plead­ings of her heart; though her deep love at last con­quered.

"But as we feel cer­tain you will be high­ly ex­as­per­at­ed at the first on re­ceiv­ing this in­tel­li­gence, we have deemed it best to ab­sent our­selves for a time. You will not be able to find us, if you choose to in­sti­tute a search, un­til such time as we please to show our­selves; hence you need not put your­self to the trou­ble of look­ing af­ter us. So soon, how­ev­er, as you feel a will­ing­ness to re­ceive us as your chil­dren, we will glad­ly re­turn to you. To as­cer­tain your feel­ings on this sub­ject, we will vol­un­tar­ily open a cor­re­spon­dence with you at some pe­ri­od in the fu­ture, per­haps in a month, when you can com­mu­ni­cate to us your wish­es and com­mands.

"With sen­ti­ments of high es­teem, and deeply pained feel­ings that I am com­pelled to take this step, I am, my very dear sir,

"Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

“CHARLES HADLEY.”

Man­dev­ille read this let­ter a sec­ond time to as­sure him­self that its con­tents were what they seemed, and when sat­is­fied on this point, he stood mute for a brief space of time, as if to ful­ly take in the as­ton­ish­ing truth that Eve­line, his on­ly, his beloved child, had so far for­got­ten her du­ly and her promise, yes, her solemn promise, as to leave her home and _his_ care, for the love of a stranger! At last the great re­al­ity seemed to en­ter his soul in all its crush­ing force, tear­ing from his heart the af­fec­tions that had clus­tered around his on­ly child for years, from his bo­som the hopes of a life­time, and leav­ing him a des­olate, smit­ten, soul-​chilled be­ing, with all the beau­ty and bright­ness of life de­part­ed!

Oh, ye chil­dren of af­fec­tion­ate par­ents! be­ware how you crush the hearts that have “nour­ished and cher­ished” you as on­ly par­ents' hearts can do! God will smite the un­du­ti­ful child with a curse! Bear and for­bear, even if the com­mands of those ap­point­ed over you should seem to be un­just. Re­mem­ber their la­bor, and toil and suf­fer­ing in your be­half, and spare, oh! spare them in their old age, when their bod­ies are ripen­ing for the grave, and their spir­its for the skies. Let not their gray hairs go down to the cham­bers of the dead in sor­row, nor their fail­ing strength be sud­den­ly brought low by the an­guish _you_ have in­flict­ed up­on their spir­its; but spare them as you would be spared!

Sev­er­al min­utes elapsed be­fore Mr. Man­dev­ille could col­lect his scat­tered and stunned thoughts to­geth­er. The blow was so sud­den, the shock so ter­ri­ble, they al­most pros­trat­ed him. He walked up and down the room, with pale­ness on his cheeks, and a load in his bo­som. The on­ly ev­idence he man­ifest­ed of the great grief that was con­sum­ing him was an oc­ca­sion­al groan, which came up from the great deep of his heart, as though they were forced out by some un­seen or over-​mas­ter­ing pow­er. He was like the tall oak of the for­est when blast­ed by the fiery thun­der­bolt! What a sad pic­ture!

At length the ex­cla­ma­tion burst forth from his lips, as though the over­charged heart would re­lieve it­self in words:

“Oh, my God, pity me!” and he clasped his hands, and pressed them up­on his la­bor­ing breast, as if to still its tu­mult. Then came an­oth­er groan, ac­com­pa­nied by a deep, soul-​de­spond­ing “Oh!”

And the strong man was calm. But such a calm­ness! It seemed as if years of suf­fer­ing had stamped their im­press up­on his brow, and in his face, in those brief mo­ments of agony! Ah, how true it is, that the soul may grow old in a day!

Af­ter a time he again took up the let­ters and pe­rused them.

“How art­ful!” he mused to him­self, as he read the one to Eve­line. “Ev­ery word is writ­ten with stud­ied care, and ev­ery sen­tence con­ceals a temp­ta­tion. Then the last, the postscript, so much to tell her, to ex­cite her cu­rios­ity, as well as op­er­ate up­on her af­fec­tions!--The vil­lain! But she ought not to have yield­ed to his so­lic­ita­tions; even in her great love I can find no ad­equate ex­cuse for her. She knew he was ac­cused of a crime, and pledged me her solemn word that she would nev­er see him un­til the ac­cu­sa­tion was proved false. But she is gone--_gone_! Oh, what des­ola­tion in the thought! And I am left alone and for­sak­en in my woe! Un­grate­ful child! may heav­en re­ward you as you have dealt by me! No, no, God for­bid! Heav­en be mer­ci­ful to her! But on _him_, on the mis­cre­ant who is at the bot­tom of all this un­du­ti­ful con­duct, of all the pain it in­flicts, may the fierce light­ning of God's vengeance de­scend in burn­ing wrath, and as a con­sum­ing fire! God of heav­en! thou who be­hold­est the an­guish of a strick­en par­ent's heart, smite him with a curse; aye, pour out up­on his for­sak­en head the vials of thy hot anger! Give him no rest to his soul, day or night, un­til the hour of reck­on­ing shall come!”

Amen! Let that prayer en­ter the ear of Him who sit­teth up­on the Throne; and may He com­mis­sion the an­gels of wrath to bear the curse, and heap it up­on the head of the guilty au­thor of all this wretched­ness, and of the un­ut­ter­able pain in­flict­ed up­on _an­oth­er_ heart!

* * * * *

Bill and Dick pro­ceed­ed with their pris­on­er through the denser por­tions of the wilder­ness for two or three miles on foot, when they met Duf­fel, who had pre­pared hors­es for their flight, as it was a good long way to the cave. The vil­lain ap­proached Eve­line, and said:

“I hope you will par­don the seem­ing rude­ness which ne­ces­si­ty com­pels me to man­ifest to­ward you in the present emer­gen­cy. I hope soon to find you a pleas­ant rest­ing-​place, where I shall have leisure and op­por­tu­ni­ty to make ex­pla­na­tions and am­pli­fy on this brief apol­ogy.”

To this in­sult­ing speech Eve­line made no re­ply, but she cast a de­fi­ant and pierc­ing look up­on the mis­cre­ant, which made him quail with cow­ard­ly fear, and took from his man­ner much of its bold as­sur­ance. He saw in that one glance of her eye an un­con­quer­able re­solve to meet him as a foe, and _nev­er to be van­quished_; the vic­to­ry he had flat­tered him­self as be­ing near­ly won, he now saw afar off, un­less the most beast­ly vi­olence should be re­sort­ed to. But with­out a mo­ment's de­lay, she was placed up­on a horse, him­self and ac­com­plices mount­ed on oth­ers, and, he by her side, with Bill and Dick in the rear, the whole par­ty pushed for­ward for the cave, where they ar­rived a lit­tle past the mid­dle of the af­ter­noon with­out any se­ri­ous ad­ven­ture.

Duf­fel placed his cap­tive in the Cap­tain's room, with the bed-​room to re­tire to at her plea­sure.

“I trust,” said he, “you will find this a com­fort­able place; and be as­sured I shall strive to do all in my pow­er to make your stay here as agree­able as pos­si­ble. Books you shall have when­ev­er you de­sire them; there are a num­ber in the case yon­der, and any oth­ers you may wish for shall be pro­cured. The length of time you will re­main my guest de­pends up­on your own choice, with one con­di­tion an­nexed, of which I will speak to you more ful­ly to-​mor­row. At present I have ur­gent busi­ness to at­tend to else­where, which can­not be de­layed; I re­gret to leave you so soon; I hope you will par­don me, and I will en­deav­or to make amends in the fu­ture for any ap­par­ent ne­glect at the present. You will find the key to the bed-​room in the lock on the in­side; make your­self easy dur­ing my ab­sence. I shall lake the pre­cau­tion to lock the door of egress and ingress to this room, so that you may rest in per­fect se­cu­ri­ty that no one can harm you. And now good evening, for I must be off, and may pleas­ant dreams at­tend your slum­bers.”

With this mock­ing­ly po­lite ad­dress and adieu he left the room and the cave, se­cur­ing the door af­ter him, and was soon on his way back.

Eve­line had sus­tained her­self with the most de­ter­mined and hero­ic for­ti­tude dur­ing all the try­ing scenes of the day, and un­til Duf­fel was gone. By a great ef­fort of the will to seem calm, she had kept her­self from be­tray­ing any emo­tions of fear while her en­emies were near to ob­serve her bear­ing; but now that she was alone, the un­wont­ed ten­sion to which her pow­ers of en­durance had been sub­ject­ed, caused a re­ac­tion to take place; she was over­whelmed by the flood­ing tides of thought and de­spair that rushed in up­on her. What a day of calami­ty it had been! What a night of ray­less dark­ness was be­fore her!

She knew that she was in the hands and at the mer­cy of an un­scrupu­lous vil­lain, who was in­ca­pable of per­form­ing a no­ble or mag­nan­imous act, but base enough to re­sort to any means in the use of which to car­ry an end, or gain a point. She but too well knew the fate be­fore her, if no means of re­sis­tance were placed in her hands; and where to find these she knew not. She was, as we said, over­whelmed with dis­may. But grad­ual­ly, as she had time to re­flect, to col­lect her thoughts, and form re­solves, she be­gan to grow calm. There was a strength in firm­ness of will which could sur­mount many dif­fi­cul­ties. It was, in­deed, a kind of wall of de­fense about her, which might ma­te­ri­al­ly aid her in the con­test she clear­ly saw be­fore her, with her un­prin­ci­pled en­emy. He was, she knew, like all vil­lains, a cow­ard, and she de­ter­mined, among oth­er things, to op­er­ate up­on his fears.

It might be sup­posed that she would feel lit­tle like sleep un­der the cir­cum­stances by which she was sur­round­ed; but hav­ing over­heard part of an aside con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Duf­fel and his con­fed­er­ates, in which he men­tioned meet­ing them at some place des­ig­nat­ed, and about some­thing to be done on the mor­row, she felt as­sured of what she could not have been cer­tain on his own word mere­ly, that he had busi­ness which would de­tain him un­til the next day, and, con­se­quent­ly, would not re­turn to mo­lest her for the present. She re­tired to the in­ner room, locked and bolt­ed the door, (she had not ex­pect­ed to find a bolt on the in­side, and the fact that there was one gave her a feel­ing of greater se­cu­ri­ty,) then knelt down and of­fered up a fer­vent prayer to heav­en for pro­tec­tion, for shield­ing care and fi­nal de­liv­er­ance; af­ter which she laid down, and com­posed her­self to rest. Her slum­bers were peace­ful and undis­turbed, at­tend­ed with pleas­ant dreams; and she awoke, in the morn­ing, as she sup­posed--for the light of day nev­er vis­it­ed the dark re­cess­es of her abode, which were light­ed by ar­ti­fi­cial means alone--much re­freshed, with her spir­its quite re­stored to their for­mer elas­tic­ity.

She went out in­to the oth­er room, and se­lect­ed a book for pe­rusal; it chanced to be a work on meta­physics, and af­ter por­ing over its ab­struse pages for some time, she be­came drowsy, and fi­nal­ly fell in­to a dreamy sleep. In her fit­ful slum­bers, she was vis­it­ed by a dream or vi­sion of ex­traor­di­nary vivid­ness, which made an in­deli­ble im­pres­sion up­on her mind, be­cause she felt per­son­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in the char­ac­ters that ap­peared be­fore her, and by al­lud­ing to the scenes, she might alarm the guilty soul of her per­se­cu­tor; so, at least, she hoped and be­lieved; with what rea­son we shall see here­after.

* * * * *

Af­ter leav­ing the cave, Duf­fel has­tened back to Mr. Man­dev­ille's as fast as his fleet steed could bear him. It was af­ter dark be­fore he drew up in front of that gen­tle­man's house, his horse cov­ered with sweat and foam, and well-​nigh ex­haust­ed. It was his wish to be there be­fore the fa­ther should in­sti­tute any search for his miss­ing daugh­ter, that he might suc­ceed in throw­ing the blame up­on Hadley, in case the let­ters dropped for the pur­pose of im­pli­cat­ing him should not have fall­en in­to the hands of the par­ent; and with this view he had a sto­ry al­ready made up, to the ef­fect that some one had seen the fugi­tives in their flight. As was his cus­tom, he paused on the out­side of the house to lis­ten, hop­ing by that means to ob­tain a knowl­edge of af­fairs, and of the feel­ings of Mr. Man­dev­ille rel­ative to his daugh­ter's de­ser­tion or ab­duc­tion as the case might be. He soon heard the hur­ried foot­steps of that gen­tle­man, as, in his deep dis­tress, he paced the floor--heard, al­so, his bro­ken ex­cla­ma­tions and heavy groans, and the on­ly sen­ti­ment all these things awak­ened in his cal­lous soul was ex­pressed in the un­feel­ing words spo­ken to him­self, in thought:

“The old man takes it hard.”

It was a very ex­traor­di­nary thing for Mr. Man­dev­ille to ex­press his thoughts aloud, but he did so on this oc­ca­sion, and Duf­fel heard his com­ments on the let­ters, and his ex­ecra­tion of the writ­er, as al­so his re­flec­tions up­on his daugh­ter's con­duct; then there was a crum­pling sound like that of pa­per, as though the sheets were crushed in the hand of the read­er. All this was mu­sic to the crime-​stained soul of the guilty lis­ten­er, who ex­ult­ed in the suc­cess of his scheme, and felt ad­di­tion­al as­sur­ance of ul­ti­mate­ly tri­umph­ing in all his un­der­tak­ings. But when the spir­it-​bowed fa­ther, in his hope­less agony, called down the curse up­on the head of the au­thor of the wrong, and ap­pealed to Heav­en for vengeance, the vil­lain cow­ered as if tru­ly smit­ten with a bolt; and the bare thought that the fate prayed for _might_ be his, sent a cold chill to his heart and forced out great drops of per­spi­ra­tion on his brow. He trem­bled in ev­ery limb, like one in an ague fit, and it was some sec­onds be­fore he could re­gain com­mand of his fac­ul­ties. At last he felt some­thing like him­self again, and not wish­ing to hear any­thing more of the same kind, he knocked at the door, and the next minute stood face to face with Mr. Man­dev­ille. Black as his cor­rupt heart had be­come, he could not look un­moved up­on that coun­te­nance, and be­hold the rav­ages made in a short hour by the pains of soul _he_ had in­flict­ed.

“Are you sick, Mr. Man­dev­ille?” was his first in­quiry.

“No, sir; but worse, much worse than sick.”

“In­deed! How is that?”

“Eve­line is gone!”

“Gone?”

“Yes, gone for­ev­er!”

“What!” and the mis­cre­ant evinced the ut­most sur­prise and as­ton­ish­ment. “You do not mean to say she is dead?”

“No, no! Would to God she was! I would a thou­sand times rather have fol­lowed her to the grave! But read, read, and know for your­self what has hap­pened.” Say­ing which, he placed the let­ters in the hyp­ocrite's hands, and then, while he was read­ing them, buried his face in his own hands, and sat in mute but ag­onized grief.

Duf­fel read the let­ters with se­cret de­light, re­peat­ing to him­self at ev­ery par­tic­ular place where it suit­ed him best, “Glo­ri­ous!” and at the close of all, “I must re­ward Bill for this. He's a per­fect gem of a dev­il for such work.”

But to Man­dev­ille, in well-​feigned amaze­ment, he ex­claimed:

“Charles Hadley!”

“Yes,” said the af­flict­ed par­ent, lift­ing his bowed head, “of all the world, _him_! a crim­inal and vagabond, who had fled from jus­tice to hide him­self from the face of man! Oh, my God! to think that she would for­sake home, friends, a good name, and tram­ple up­on a par­ent's love for such a vil­lain!”

“Per­haps it is not yet too late to save her?” sug­gest­ed Duf­fel.

“How? what?” ejac­ulat­ed the oth­er, catch­ing at the words as a drown­ing man would at a straw.

“I say it may be pos­si­ble that the mar­riage-​rites have not yet been per­formed. This may be writ­ten for a blind to pre­vent pur­suit.”

“No, no; I can­not doubt its truth, and would not have a hope raised in my heart to be crushed out again by de­spair. Be­side, whith­er should I go in pur­suit of them?”

“I see you are in hope­less de­spon­den­cy, but I do not feel like giv­ing over with­out a strug­gle--I have too much to lose in Eve­line. Shall I try to res­cue her?”

“Oh! yes, if you wish to do so.”

“And if, by any means, I can cir­cum­vent this Hadley, and pre­vent their union, I have your con­sent to make her my wife?”

“Cer­tain­ly.”

“And will you in­ter­pose parental au­thor­ity in my be­half?”

“Yes, af­ter this I will.”

“I have still one re­quest more to make, and that is, that you will per­mit me to act in my own way, and ac­cord­ing to my own judg­ment in this mat­ter.”

“Do so; I have no ad­vice to give.”

“Very well; I am to un­der­stand, then, that if by _any means_ I can res­cue Eve­line from Hadley, she is to be my wife?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will try. I will fol­low them to the end of the world if need be. Per­haps you may hear from me soon, per­haps not for a month. Good-​by.”

In a few mo­ments he was gal­lop­ing away at full speed, as if to im­press his re­cent host with the idea that he was in great haste to be af­ter the fugi­tives.

Mr. Man­dev­ille had been too deeply ab­sorbed with his own feel­ings to pay very strict at­ten­tion to what Duf­fel was say­ing; but the words _by any means_ now rose vivid­ly up in his mind, and like a flash came the thought--

“He may in­tend to _mur­der_ Hadley!”

Start­ing to his feet, he has­tened out for an ex­pla­na­tion; but Duf­fel was al­ready gone, and turn­ing back, he en­tered his dwelling with the ex­pres­sion in his thoughts--

“Let him die: it mat­ters not!”

Ah, had he known the true state of the case, and the dev­il­ish im­port of those words in the mind of the abom­inable wretch who had ut­tered them, how sud­den­ly would he have aroused him­self to ac­tion. But now he cared not.

“If,” thought he, “Eve­line is so un­grate­ful, if she thinks so lit­tle of a fa­ther's love, let her go! Why need I seek to force her to stay with me when she prefers the so­ci­ety of an­oth­er? Oh, if I had not loved her so ten­der­ly, I could en­dure this tri­al bet­ter. But why mourn and lament? No, rather let me for­get her, as she has for­sak­en me.”

But he could not for­get her with all his re­solv­ing, and we will leave him with his sor­row.