“L’habitude de vivre ensemble fit naître les plus
doux sentimens qui soient connus des hommes.”
—ROUSSEAU.
Herbert’s sleep was troubled with fragments and startling combinations of his waking thoughts. At one moment he was at Westbrook, making love to Bessie, who seemed to be deaf to him, and intently reading a letter in Jasper Meredith’s hand; while Helen Ruthven stood behind her, beckoning to Herbert with her most seductive smile, which he fancied he was not to be deluded by. Suddenly the scene changed—he had a rope round his neck, and was mounting a scaffold, surrounded by a crowd, where he saw Washington, Eliot, his father, mother, and Isabella—all unconcerned spectators. Then, as is often the case, a real sound shaped the unreal vision. He witnessed his own funeral obsequies, and heard his father reading the burial service over him. By degrees, sleep loosened the chain that bound his fancy, and the actual sounds became distinct. He awoke: a candle was burning on the table, and he heard his father in an adjoining apartment, to which it had always been his habit to retire for his evening devotions. He heard him repeat the formula prescribed by the church, and then his voice, tremulous with the feeling that gushed from his heart, broke forth in an extempore appeal to Him who holds all hearts in the hollow of his hand. He prayed him to visit with his grace his wandering 180son; and to incline him to turn away from feeding on husks with swine, and bring him home to his father’s house—to his duty—to his God. “If it please thee,” he said, “humble thy servant in any other form—send poverty, sickness, desertion, but restore my only and well-beloved boy; wipe out the stain of rebellion from my name. If this may not be, if still thy servant must go sorrowing for the departed glory of his house, keep him steadfast in duty, so that he swerve not, even for his son, his only son.”
The prayer finished, his door was opened, and he saw his father enter without daring himself to move. Mr. Linwood looked at the candle, glanced his eye around the room, and then sat down at the table, saying, as if in explanation, “Belle has been here.” He covered his face with both his hands, and murmured in a broken voice, “Oh, Herbert, was it to store up these bitter hours that I watched over your childhood—that I came every night here, when you were sleeping, to kiss you and pray over your pillow?—what fools we are! we knit the love of our children with our very heart-strings—we tend on them—we pamper them—we blend our lives with theirs, and then we are deserted—forgotten!”
“Never, never for one moment!” cried Herbert, who with one spring was at his father’s feet. Mr. Linwood started from him, and then, obeying the impulse of nature, he received his son’s embrace, and they wept in one another’s arms.
The door softly opened. Isabella appeared, and her face irradiating with most joyful surprise, she called, “Mamma, mamma; here, in Herbert’s room!” In another instant, Herbert had folded his mother and sister to his bosom; and Mr. Linwood was beginning to recover his self-possession, and to feel as if he had been betrayed into the surrender of a post. He walked up and down the room, then suddenly stopping and laying his hand on Herbert’s shoulder, and surveying him from head to foot, “I know not, but I fear,” he said, “what 181this disguise may mean—tell me, in one word, do you return penitent?”
“I return grieving that I ever offended you, my dear father, and venturing life and honour to see you—to hear you say that you forgive me.”
“Herbert, my son, you know,” replied Mr. Linwood, his voice faltering with the tenderness against which he struggled, “that my door and my heart have always been open to you, provided—”
“Oh, no provideds, papa! Herbert begs your forgiveness—this is enough.”
“I wish, sir, you would think it was enough,” sobbed Mrs. Linwood.
“You must think so, papa; it is the sin and misery of these unhappy times that divides you. Give to the winds your political differences, and leave the war to the camp and the field. Herbert has always loved and honoured you.”
Mr. Linwood felt as if they were dragging him over a precipice, and he resisted with all his might. “A pretty way he has taken to show it!” he said, “let him declare he has abandoned the rebels and traitors, and their cause, and I will believe it.”
Herbert was silent.
“My dear father,” said Isabella.
“Nay, Isabella, do not ‘dear father’ me. I will not be coaxed out of my right reason. If you can tell me that your brother abandons and abjures the miscreants, speak—if not, be silent.”
“If it were true that he did abandon them, he would be no son of yours, no brother of mine. If he were thus restored to us, who could restore him to himself? where could he hide him from himself? Your own soul would spurn a renegado!—think better of him—think better of his friends—they are not all miscreants. There are many noble, highminded—”
182“What? what, Isabella?”
“As deluded as he is.”
“A wisely-finished sentence, child. But you need not undertake to teach me what they are. I know them—a set of paltry schismatics—pettifogging attorneys—schoolmasters—mechanics—shop-keepers—bankrupts—outlaws—smugglers—half-starved, half-bred, ragged sons of Belial; banded together, and led on by that quack Catiline, that despot-in-chief, Washington. ‘No son of mine if he abjures them!’ I swear to you, Herbert, that on these terms alone will I ever again receive you as my son.” Again he paused, and after some reflection, added, “You have an alternative if you do not choose to avail yourself of Sir Henry’s standing proclamation, and come in and receive your pardon as a deserter—you may join the corps of Reformees. This opportunity now lost, is lost for ever. Is my forgiveness worth the price I have fixed? speak, Herbert.”
“Have I not proved how inexpressibly dear it is to me?”
“No faltering, young man! speak to the point.”
“Oh, my dear, dear son,” said his mother, “if you but knew how much we have all suffered for you, and how happy you can now make us, if you only will, you would not hesitate, even if the rebel cause were a good one: you are but as one man to that, and to us you are all the world.”
This argumentum ad hominem (the only argument of weak minds) clouded Herbert’s perception. It was a moment of the most painful vacillation; the forgiveness of his father, the ministering, indulgent love of his mother, the presence of his sister, the soft endearments of home, and all its dear familiar objects, solicited him. He had once forsaken them, but then he was incited by the immeasurable expectation of unrebuked youth, thoughts of high emprise, romantic deeds, and strange incidents; but his experience, with few and slight exceptions, had been a tissue of dangers without the opportunity 183of brilliant exploits; of fatigue without reward; and of rough and scanty fare, which, however well it may tell in the past life of a hero, has no romantic charm in its actual details. He continued silent. His father perceived, or at least hoped, that he wavered.
“Speak,” he said, in a voice of earnest entreaty, “speak, Herbert—my dear son, for God’s sake, speak.”
“It is right above all things to desire his forgiveness,” thought Herbert, “and it is plain there is but one way of getting it. I am in a diabolical hobble—if I succeed in getting back to camp, what am I to expect? Imprudence is crime with our general; and after all, what good have I done the cause?—and yet—”
“Herbert,” exclaimed Isabella, and her voice thrilled through his soul, “is it possible you waver?”
He started as if he were electrified: his eye met hers, and the evil spirits of doubt and irresolution were overcome.
“Heaven forgive me!” he said, “I waver no longer.”
“Then, by all that is holy,” exclaimed Mr. Linwood, flushed with disappointment and rage, “you shall reap as you sow; it shall never be said that I sheltered a rebel, though that rebel be my son.” He rang the bell violently; “Justice shall have its course—why does not Jupe come!—you too to prove false, Isabella! I might have known it when I saw you drinking in the vapouring of that fellow Lee to-day;” again he rang the bell: “you may all desert me, but I’ll be true so long as my pulse beats.”
No one replied to him. Mrs. Linwood, sustained by Herbert’s encircling arm, wept aloud. Isabella knew the tide of her father’s passion would have its ebb as well as flow; she believed the servants were in bed, and that before he could obtain a messenger to communicate with the proper authority, which she perceived to be his present intention, his Brutus resolution would fail. She was however startled by hearing 184voices in the lower entry, and immediately Rose burst open the door, crying, “Fly, Mr. Herbert—they are after you!”
The words operated on Mr. Linwood like a gust of wind on a superincumbent cloud of smoke. His angry emotions passed off, and nature flamed up bright and irresistible. Every thought, every feeling but for Herbert’s escape and safety, vanished. “This way, my son,” he cried; “through your mother’s room—down the back stairs, and out the side gate.—God help you!” He closed the door after Herbert, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. Isabella advanced into the entry to meet her brother’s pursuers, and procure a delay of a few moments on what pretext she could. She was met by two men and an officer, sent by Colonel Robertson, the commandant. “Your pardon, Miss Linwood,” said the officer, pushing by her into the room where her father awaited him.
“How very rude!” exclaimed Mrs. Linwood, for once in her life speaking first and independently in her husband’s presence; “how very rude, sir, to come up stairs into our bedrooms without permission.” The officer smiled at this pretended deference to forms at the moment the poor mother was pale as death, and shivering with terror. “I beg your pardon, madam, and yours, Mr. Linwood—this is the last house in the city in which I should willingly have performed this duty; but you, sir, are aware, that in these times our very best and most honoured friends are sometimes involved with our foes.”
“No apologies, sir, there’s no use in them—you are in search of Mr. Herbert Linwood—proceed—my house is subject to your pleasure.”
The officer was reiterating his apologies, when a cry from the side entrance to the yard announced that the fugitive was taken. Mr. Linwood sunk into his chair; but instantly rallying, he asked whither his son was to be conducted.
185“I am sorry to say, sir, that I am directed to lodge him in the Provost.”
“In Cunningham’s hands!—the Lord have mercy on him, then!”
The officer assured him the young man should have whatever alleviation it was in his power to afford him, until Sir Henry’s further pleasure should be known. He then withdrew, and left Mr. Linwood exhausted by a rapid succession of jarring emotions.
Isabella retired with her mother, and succeeded in lulling her into a tranquility which she herself was far enough from attaining.
The person whom, as it may be remembered, Linwood met in passing down the lane to his father’s house, was an emissary of Robertson, who had been sent on a scout for Captain Lee’s attendant, and who immediately reported to the commandant his suspicions. He, anxious, if possible, not to offend the elder Linwood, had stationed men in the lane and in Broad-street, to watch for the young man’s egress. They waited till ten in the evening, and then found it expedient to proceed to the direct measures which ended in Herbert’s capture.