English families, when the first bond has been broken by any act of disobedience. He grew angry as he spoke of the indignity with which her mother had been treated—and the barbarous proposition of separating her from her only child; and he had fondly assured her that it was his dearest pride to render her independent of these unworthy and inhuman relations. Why were his intentions changed? His voice and look were ominous. Elizabeth was hurt—she did not like to object; she was silent—but Falkner deciphered her wounded feelings in her ingenuous countenance, and he too was pained; he could not bear that she should think him ungrateful—mindless of her affection, her filial attentions, and endearing virtues: he felt that he must, to a certain degree, explain his views—difficult as it was to make a segment of his feelings in any way take a definite or satisfactory shape.
"Do not think hardly of me, my own dear girl," he began; "for wishing that we should separate. God knows that it is a blow that will visit me far more severely than you. You will find relations and friends, who will be proud of you—whose affections you will win;—wherever you are, you will meet with love and admiration—and your sweet disposition and excellent qualities will make life happy. I depart alone. You are my only tie—my only friend—I break it and leave you—never can I find another. Henceforth, alone—I shall wander into distant and uncivilized countries, enter on a new and perilous career, during which I may perish miserably. You cannot share these dangers with me."
"But why do you seek them?" exclaimed Elizabeth, alarmed by this sudden prophecy of ill.
"Do you remember the day when we first met?" replied Falkner; "when my hand was raised against my own life, because I knew myself unworthy to exist. It is the same now. It is cowardly to live, feeling that I have forfeited every right to enjoy the blessings of life. I go that I may die—not by my own hand—but where I can meet death by the hand of others."
Strangely and frightfully did these words fall on the ear of his appalled listener; he went on rapidly—for having once begun, the words he uttered relieved, in some degree, the misery that burthened his soul.
"This idea cannot astonish you, my love; you have seen too much of the secret of my heart; you have witnessed my fits of distress and anguish, and are not now told, for the first time, that grief and remorse weigh intolerably on me. I can endure the infliction no longer. May God forgive me in another world—the light of this I will see no more!"
Falkner saw the sort of astonished distress her countenance depicted; and, angry with himself for being its cause, was going on in a voice changed to one less expressive of misery, but Elizabeth, seized with dismay—the unbidden tears pouring from her eyes; her young—her child's heart bursting with a new sense of horror—cast herself at his feet and, embracing his knees as he sat, exclaimed, "My dear, dear father!—my more than father, and only friend—you break my heart by speaking thus. If you are miserable, the more need that your child—the creature you preserved, and taught to love you—should be at your side to comfort—I had almost said to help you. You must not cast me off! Were you happy, you might desert me; but if you are miserable, I cannot leave you—you must not ask me—it kills me to think of it!"
The youthful, who have no experience of the changes of life, regard the present with far more awe and terror than those who have seen one turn in the hour-glass suffice to change, and change again, the colour of their lives. To be divided from Falkner, was to have the pillars of the earth shaken under her—and she clung to him, and looked up imploringly in his face, as if the next word he spoke were to decide all; he kissed her, and, seating her on his knee, said, "Let us talk of this more calmly, dearest—I was wrong to agitate you—or to mix the miserable thoughts forced on me by my wretchedness—with the prudent consideration of your future destiny. I feel it to be unjust to keep you from your relations. They are rich. We are ignorant of what changes and losses may have taken place among them, to soften their hearts—which, after all, were never shut against you. You may have become of importance in their eyes. Raby is a proud name, and we must not heedlessly forego the advantages that may belong to your right to it."
"My dear father," replied Elizabeth, "this talk is not for me. I have no wish to claim the kindness of those who treated my true parents ill. You are every thing to me. I am little more than a child, and cannot find words to express all I mean; but my truest meaning is, to show my gratitude to you till my dying day; to remain with you for ever, while you love me; and to be the most miserable creature in the world if you drive me from you. Have we not lived together since I was a little thing, no higher than your knee? And all the time you have been kinder than any father. When we have been exposed to storms, you have wrapped me round in your arms so that no drop could fall on my head. Do you remember that dreadful evening, when our carriage broke down in the wide, dark steppe; and you, covering me up, carried me in your arms, while the wind howled, and the freezing rain drove against you? You could hardly bear up; and when we arrived at the post-house, you, strong man as you are, fainted from exhaustion; while I, sheltered in your arms, was as warm and well as if it had been a summer's day. You have earned me—you have bought me by all this kindness, and you must not cast me away!"
She clung round his neck—her face bathed in tears, sobbing and speaking in broken accents. As she saw him soften, she implored him yet more earnestly, till his heart was quite subdued; and, clasping her to his heart, he showered kisses on her head and neck; while, to his surprise, forgotten tears sprung to his own eyes. "For worlds I would not desert you," he cried. "It is not casting you away that we should separate for a short time; for where I go, indeed, dearest, you cannot accompany me. I cannot go on living as I have done. For many years now my life has been spent in pleasantness and peace—I have no right to this—hardship and toil, and death, I ought to repay. I abhor myself for a coward, when I think of what others suffer through my deeds—while I am scathless. You can scarcely remember the hour when the touch of your little hand saved my life. My heart is not changed since then—I am unworthy to exist. Dear Elizabeth, you may one day hate me, when you know the misery I have caused to those who deserved better at my hands. The cry of my victim rings in my ears, and I am base to survive my crime. Let me, dearest, make my own the praise, that nothing graced my life more than the leaving it. To live a coward and a drone, suits vilely with my former acts of violence and ill. Let me gain peace of mind by exposing my life to danger. By advocating a just cause I may bring a blessing down upon my endeavours. I shall go to Greece. Theirs is a good cause—that of liberty and Christianity against tyranny and an evil faith. Let me die for it; and when it is known, as it will one day be, that the innocent perished through me, it will be added, that I died in the defence of the suffering and the brave. But you cannot go with me to Greece, dearest; you must await my return in this country."
"You go to die!" she exclaimed, "and I am to be far away. No, dear father, I am a little girl, but no harm can happen to me. The Ionian Isles are under the English government—there, at least, I may go. Athens too, I dare say, is safe. Dear Athens—we spent a happy winter there before the revolution began. You forget what a traveller I am—how accustomed to find my home among strangers in foreign and savage lands. No, dear father, you will not leave me behind. I am not unreasonable—I do not ask to follow you to the camp—but you must let me be near—in the same country as yourself."
"You force me to yield against my better reason," said Falkner. "This is not right—I feel that it is not so—one of your sex, and so young, ought not to be exposed to all I am about to encounter;—and if I should die, and leave you there desolate?"
"There are good Christians everywhere to protect the orphan," persisted Elizabeth. "As if you could die when I am with you! And if you died while I was far, what would become of me? Am I to be left, like a poor sailor's wife—to get a shocking, black-sealed letter, to tell me that, while I was enjoying myself, and hoping that you had long been—? It is wicked to speak of these things—but I shall go with my own dear, dear father, and he shall not die!"
Falkner yielded to her tears, her caresses, and persuasions. He was not convinced, but he could not withstand the excess of grief she displayed at the thought
