haven he had sought, as if it had never been a place of shelter to him, unthankful for the many happy hours which had blessed him there, he hastened to reach the stormier seas of life, whose breakers and whose winds were ready to visit him with shipwreck and destruction.
Chapter 5
“The boy is father of the man.”
Wordsworth.
Fitzhenry having formed his resolution, acted upon it immediately: and yet, while hastening every preparation for his departure, he felt return upon him that inquietude and intolerable sense of suffering, which of late years had subsided in his soul. Now and then it struck him as madness to quit his house, his garden, the trees of his planting, the quiet abode which he had reared in the wilderness. He gave his orders, but he was unable to command himself to attend to any of the minutiæ of circumstance connected with his removal. As when he first arrived, again he sought relief in exercise and the open air. He felt each ministration of nature to be his friend, and man, in every guise, to be his enemy. He was about to plunge among them again. What would be the result?
Yet this was no abode for the opening bloom of Ethel. For her good his beloved and safe seclusion must be sacrificed, and that he was acting for her benefit, and not his own, served to calm his mind. She contemplated their migration with something akin to joy. We could almost believe that we are destined by Providence to an unsettled position on the globe, so invariably is a love of change implanted in the young. It seems as if the eternal Lawgiver intended that, at a certain age, man should leave father, mother, and the dwelling of his infancy, to seek his fortunes over the wide world. A few natural tears Ethel shed — they were not many. She, usually so resigned and quiet in her feelings, was now in a state of excitement: dreamy, shadowy visions floated before her of what would result from her journey, and curiosity and hope gave life and a bright colouring to the prospect.
The day came at last. On the previous Sunday she had knelt for the last time in church on the little hassock which had been her’s from infancy, and walked along the accustomed pathway towards her home for the last time. During the afternoon, she visited the village to bid adieu to her few acquaintances. The sensitive refinement of Fitzhenry had caused him to guard his daughter jealously from familiar intercourse with their fellow settlers, even as a child. But she had been accustomed to enter the poorer cottages, to assist the distressed, and now and then to partake of tea drinking with the minister. This personage, however, was not stationary. At one time they had had a venerable old man whom Ethel had begun to love; but latterly, the pastor had not been a person to engage her liking, and this had loosened her only tie with her fellow colonists.
The day came. The father and daughter, with three attendants, entered their carriage, and would along the scarcely formed road. One by one they passed, and lost sight of objects, that for many years had been woven in with the texture of their lives. Fitzhenry was sad. Ethel wept, unconstrainedly, plentiful showery tears, which cost so much less to the heart, than the few sorrowful drops which, in after life, we expend upon our woes. Still as they proceeded the objects that met their eyes became less familiar and less endeared. They began to converse, and when they arrived at their lodging for the night, Ethel was cheerful, and her father, mastering the unquiet feelings which disturbed him, exerted himself to converse with her on such topics as would serve to introduce her most pleasantly to the new scenes which she was about to visit.
There was one object, however, which lay nearest to the emigrant’s heart, to which he had not yet acquired courage to allude; his own position in the world, his former fortunes, and the circumstances that had driven him from Europe, to seek peace and obscurity in the wilderness. It was a strange tale; replete with such incidents as could scarcely be made intelligible to the nursling of solitude — one difficult for a father to disclose to his daughter; involving besides a consideration of his future conduct, to which he did not desire to make her a party. Thus they talked of the cities they might see, and the strange sights she would behold, and but once did her father refer to their own position. After a long silence, on his part sombre and abstracted — as Prospero asked the ever sweet Miranda, so did Fitzhenry inquire of his daughter, if she had memory of aught preceding their residence in the Illinois? And Ethel, as readily as Miranda, replied in the affirmative.
“And what, my love, do you remember? Gold-laced liveries and spacious apartments?”
Ethel shook her head. “It may be the memory of a dream that haunts me,” she replied, “and not a reality; but I have frequently the image before me, of having been kissed and caressed by a beautiful lady, very richly dressed.”
Fitzhenry actually started at this reply. “I have often conjectured,” continued Ethel, “that that lovely vision was my dear mother; and that when — when you lost her, you despised all the rest of the world, and exiled yourself to America.”
Ethel looked inquiringly at her father as she made this leading remark; but he in a sharp and tremulous accent repeated the words, “Lost her!”
“Yes,” said Ethel, “I mean, is she not lost — did she not die?”
Fitzhenry sighed heavily, and turning his head towards the window on his side, became absorbed in thought, and Ethel feared to disturb him by continuing the conversation.
It has not been difficult all along for the reader to imagine, that the lamented brother of the honourable Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry and the exile of the Illinois are one; and while father and daughter are proceeding on their way towards New York, it will be necessary, for the interpretation of the ensuing pages, to dilate somewhat on the previous history of the father of our lovely heroine.
It may be remembered, that Henry Fitzhenry was the only son of Admiral Lord Lodore. He was, from infancy, the pride of his father and the idol of his sister; and the lives of both were devoted to exertions for his happiness and well-being. The boy soon became aware of their extravagant fondness, and could not do less in consequence than fancy himself a person of considerable importance. The distinction that Lord Lodore’s title and residence bestowed upon Longfield made his son and heir a demigod among the villagers. As he rode through it on his pony, every one smiled on him and bowed to him; and the habit of regarding himself superior to all the world, became too much an habit to afford triumph, though any circumstances that had lessened his consequence in his own eyes would have been matter of astonishment and indignation. His personal beauty was the delight of the women, his agility and hardihood the topic of the men of the village. For although essentially spoiled, he was not pampered in luxury. His father, with all his fondness, would have despised him heartily had he not been inured to hardship, and rendered careless of it. Rousseau might have passed his approbation upon his physical education, while his moral nurture was the most perniciously indulgent. Thus, at the same time, his passions were fostered, and he possessed none of those habits of effeminacy, which sometimes stand in the gap, preventing our young self-indulged aristocracy from rebelling against the restraints of society. Still generous and brave as was his father, benevolent and pious as was his sister, Henry Fitzhenry was naturally led to love their virtues, and to seek their approbation by imitating them. He would not wantonly have inflicted a pang upon a human being; yet he exerted any power he might possess to quell the smallest resistance to his desires; and unless when they were manifested in the most intelligible manner, he scarcely knew that his fellow-creatures had any feelings at all, except pride and gladness in serving him, and gratitude when he showed them kindness. Any poor family visited by rough adversity, any unfortunate child enduring unjust oppression, he assisted earnestly and with all his heart. He was courageous as a lion, and, upon occasion, soft-hearted and pitiful; but once roused to anger by opposition, his eyes darted fire, his little form swelled, his boyish voice grew big, nor could he be pacified except by the most entire submission
