Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

the powers, the boiling ardor of his soul, the strong cry of its anguish, should be smothered alike, and closed in by dead impediments which could not, could not be passed over. But what availed its hardness? Who would help him? Who would deliver? He almost wept when he thought of childish carelessness and sports, and the green sunny braes of his native Annandale, and of his mother; how she used to wrap him in his little bed at nights, and watch over him, and shield him from every danger. Gone now to the land of night and silence! and he, her luckless boy, clutched in the iron grasp of fate, to meet his stern doom, alone, unpitied, uncared for; the few true hearts that still loved him, far away. And then, to die! to mingle with the gloomy ministers of the unseen world, whose nature he knew not, but whose shadowy manifestations he viewed with awe unspeakable! All this he thought of, and it was vain to think of it-vain to gaze and ponder over the abysses of eternity, the black and shoreless ocean into which he must soon be launched. No ray would strike across the scene-or only with a fitful glimmer which but made it ghastlier and more dubious; but showed it to be a place of dreariness and doubt, and haggard desolation, to which he must soon enter, and whence he would never return.

A prey to these and worse disquietudes, poor Jonson felt all the misery of his forlorn situation. Of ten he would sit for long hours immersed in thought, till he became almost unconscious of external things. By times he would stamp quickly and sternly across the damp pavement of his dungeon-by times he would pause, and, grasping his iron gyves, his countenance would darken with a scowl which spoke unutterable things. Of immeasurable agony it spoke. But of craven yielding to it, or of weak despair? No! he never yielded to it-never dreamt of yielding. What good

was it to yield? To be self-despised to be triumphed over-to be pilied of the scurvy rabble that watched him! This would have stung him worse than all. He could not make his heart insensible, or cleanse it of "that perilous stuff" which weighed upon it; but he could keep it silent, and his only consolation was in doing so. His spirit was strong and honest, if not stainlesshis life had not been spent on down

he had long been learning to endure. So he locked up his thoughts, whatever they were, within himself

his own mind was the only witness of his conflicts. He talked as carelessly, and seemed to live as calmly, even gaily, as man could talk and live.

Thus Jonson passed his days till the Judges arrived, and the work of death began to proceed with vigor. Already many of his comrades had gone forth to Harribee, and bowed their necks beneath the axe of the headsman; when he, in his turn, was haled before the bar Of the crowded court, some gloomed upon him; others pitied the tall and gallant fellow who was soon to lie so low; the most looked quietly on as at a scenic spectacle, which was very solemn and interestingwhich might be hard for some of the actors, but nothing save a show for them. The guards escorted himthe men of law went through their formularies. At length the presiding Judge inquired, what he had to say why sentence should not pass against him? Jonson answered, that he had little or nothing to say; he believed he had broken their regulations- they had the upper hand at present, and he saw not why they should not work their will. He was accordingly condemned to lose his head within three days; and sent back to prison with many admonitions, (which he received with great composure and civility,) to prepare for his last removal.

How different was the state of Cruthers in the mean time. A stranger to all these scenes of peril

and adventure, tilling the clayey acres of Breconhill, he cared not for the rise or fall of dynasties. He had never meddled for the Celtic rebels, or against them, with his will-had quietly seen their ragged gipsy host move over the Cowdens height within a furlong of his door -had grumbled and cursed a little when their rear-guard stole three sheep from him-and heartily wished them at the devil when they seized upon himself as a man of substance that might benefit their cause, and carried him down with them to Ecclefechan, threatening to kill him if he would not join with them, or pay well for a dispensation. Whisky, the great solvent of nature, delivered him from this latter accident. He fairly drank five of them beneath the table of Curlie's change-house, and felled the remaining three to the earth, with a fist large as the head of an ox, and potent as the hammer of Thor; then sprang to the street-to the fields-to the moors-and ran like "the hind let loose," and never saw them more.

This storm blown over, Cruthers betook him to his usual avocations, and went out and came in as if there had been no rebellion in the land. He was planted by his clean hearth one evening, before a bright blazing fire, with his youngest boy upon his knee, the goodwife and her tidy maids all spinning meanwhile, "studious of household good," when a neighbor sauntered in, and told, by way of news, that "Knockhill " was tried and sentenced at Carlisle. The heart of Cruthers smote him; he had been too careless in the day of his friend's extreme need. He felt a coldness within when he remembered their youthful passages-their promise, and how it was to be fulfilled. He arose, and gave orders to have a horse ready for him by the earliest dawn. The goodwife attempted to dissuade him, by talk about difficulties, dangers, and so forth; but she persisted not-knowing that his

will, once fairly spoken, was like the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.-Next morning, by daybreak, he was on the road to Carlisle.

It was late at night when he gained admittance to the prison. Obstacles he had met with, delays and formalities without number. These at length adjusted, he penetrated into the place-tired and jaded, as well as sad. The bolts and doors which croaked and grated as they moved, the low winding passages and the pale and doubtful light which a few lamps shed over them, sickened his free heart still more. In fine, he was admitted to the cell of his comrade. The soul of the rude yeoman melted at the sight; he took Jonson's hand in silence, and the tears trickled down his hard visage as he looked round upon the apparatus of captivity, and thought of what had brought him to view it. Jonson was not less moved: this look of genuine sympathy, the first shown towards him for many days, had well-nigh overpowered him; it broke in upon the harsh and stubborn determinations with which he had meant to meet the catastrophe of to-morrow; it was like to make a girl of him too. He hastened to begin speaking; and succeeded, by degrees, in dispelling the gloom of his companion's mind, and restoring the serenity of his own. After a hundred questions and replies, and rejoinders, from both parties, about old occurrences and late, about home and friends and freedom from the one; about foes and durance and a prison from the other, when the night was already waning, Jonson paused, and, looking at his friend, "My good William," he said, "this is indeed very kind of you; it shows me that you are a true man; long afterwards your own mind will reward you for it nevertheless, it may not be these bloodhounds will mark you if you look after me to-morrow, or show any symptoms of care for me; they will bring you

into trouble for it, and it cannot come to good. I recollect our promise well-what a bright evening that was !-but never mind; the official people will find a place to lay me in-what matters it where or how I lie? You shall stay with me two hours here; then mountand home, while the way is clear. Nay, I insist upon it!" Cruthers stoutly rejected this command, declared that he would never leave him in this extremity, he cared not what might come of it; he absolutely would not go. Jonson was obliged to acquiesce in his companion's honest wilfulness; he consented, though reluctantly, and the conversation proceeded as before. Cruthers felt amazed at his mood of mind: there was no sign of drooping or despondency in him; but heartiness and cheerfulness as if the morrow had been to be for him a mere common day. Nothing seemed to cloud his spirits-he seemed to have balanced his accounts with this world and the next, and to be now abiding his stern appointment without wavering. In fact, his mind felt a sort of exultation-a pride in what it had already endured, in the certainty of what it could still endure; and this feeling shed a degree of splendor over his cloudy horizon-gilded with a kind of hope the lowering whirlwind of his thoughts, which had well-nigh mastered him at first, but now was sunk into a "grim repose "-to awake and rage but once, for a few short moments of mortal agony, and then be hushed forever. He had roused his spirit to its noblest pitch to meet that fierce, though brief extremity he knew that he could meet it rightly-and then his task was done. So he felt a sullen calmness within, a fixed intensity of purpose; over which a cheerful composure with those that loved him, a bitter contempt for those that hated him, had alike some room to show themselves, and thus to decorate with a fit of moving interest

the parting hour of a brave, though unhappy, man.

The former disposition he was now exhibiting; the latter he had soon occasion to exhibit. While yet speaking, they were interrupted by a bustle in the passage. Presently the door opened; and the turnkey, a rough lean savage of the country, entered, escorting two undertakers with a coffin: it was to lie there till wanted. Jonson viewed it with a smile; was afraid it would be too short: "you see," said he, "I am six feet two, or thereby." "Short?" said the turnkey, "six feet two!-recollect, friend, that your head is to be cut off to-morrow, and stuck upon a pike over the gates." “Very just, my dear Spoonbill," replied the prisoner, "that alters the case entirely. You are a judicious man, Captain Spoonbill: I might have forgot that. Heaven keep you, my beloved Spoonbill! You have done here?"

"Yes!" "Then bless

us with your absence, noble captain! retire-evacuate-vanish !—there! peace be with you, best of all the Spoonbills!"

In spite of this interruption, their conversation continued as before. Jonson loaded his companion with commissions and memorials for friends and dependants; explained his own ideas about death and immortality-connecting both very strangely with recollections of the world he was just about to quit, and spreading over all a coloring of native stout-heartedness and good humor, which astonished Cruthers, and deepened the sorrow of his rude but kindly heart, as he thought that so frank, and true, and brave a spirit, must never hold communion with him more. It was far in the morning when Jonson laid himself upon his hard bed-to seek, for the last time on earth, an hour's repose.

Cruthers watched, meanwhile; gathered himself within his thick surtout, squeezed on his hat, and sat crouched together in the drea

riest of all possible moods. He looked upon the dungeon, upon the coffin; he listened in the deep and dead silence of the place-nothing was heard but the breathing of his friend, now sunk in sweet forgetfulness, and the slow ticking of the great prison clock, each heavy beat of which seemed to be striking off a portion of the small barrier that yet separated the firm land of time from the great devouring ocean of eternity. He shuddered at the thought of this; he tried to meditate upon the hopes of another life: dim shadows floated before his mind; but the past and the present intermingled with the future-each fleeting image chased away by one as fleeting-the wrecks and fragments of all thoughts and feelings hovering in his fancy-and overcasting them all, a sad and sable hue proceeding from the secret consciousness of what he strove to banish from his contemplations. He sank at length into a kind of stupor-that state where pain or pleasure continues, but their agitations cease-where feeling is no longer shapen into thought, but the mind rolls slowly to and fro, like some lake which the tempest has just given over breaking into billows, but still, though abated, keeps in motion. He had not slept, but he had been for some time nearly unconscious of external things, when his reverie was broken in upon by a loud noise at the door of the cell. Starting to his feet in a paroxysm of horrible anticipation, as the bolts gave way, his eye lighted on the gaoler and another person, with boots and spurs, and a toil-worn aspect. Surely they were come to lead his friend to Harribee! Without waiting to investigate their purposes, he seized both, scarce knowing what he did, and would have knocked their heads together, and then against the floor, had not the wail they made and the noise of their entrance roused Jonson from his pallet; who forthwith interposing, inquired what the matter was, and if the hour was come? "Yes,"

said Spoonbill, "t'oor's coom, but thou's neet to.". “I bring you joyful news," said the other," you are saved from death! Observe his gracious Majesty's will and pleasure!-Read!"

Who shall describe the joy of these two friends? None can describe it, or need, for all can conceive it well. Cruthers blessed the King a thousand times; capered and stamped, and exclaimed, and raved for about an hour; then paused a little to inquire about the circumstances, and see what yet remained to be done. The circumstances were quite simple. The court of London had ceased to fear, and grown tired of shedding useless blood: Jonson, with several others, was snatched from the executioner, their sentence being changed from death into a forfeiture of all their property, and a loss of countrywhich they were ordered to quit without delay.

Behold the prisoner then again set free again about to mingle in the rushing tide of life, from which a little while ago he seemed cut off forever. His first sensation was gladness-vivid and unmingled as a human mind can feel: his next was.gladness still, but dashed by cares which brought it nearer to the common temper. However, he was now unshackled; he saw regrets and useless pains behind him, difficulty and toil before; but he had got back the consciousness of vigorous and active existence, he felt the pulse of life beat full and free within him, and that was happiness of itself.

At any rate his present business was not to muse and speculate, but to determine and to do. In about a week after his deliverance, you might have seen him busied about many tangible concerns, bustling to and fro for many purposes; and at length hurrying along the pier of Whitehaven to step on board of a stout ship bound for the island of Jamaica. Cruthers left him-not without tears, or till he had forced

upon him all the money in his purse; then mounted the stairs of the lighthouse, waved his hat as the vessel cleared the head of the battlements, and turned his face sorrowfully towards home. Jonson felt a bitter pang as he parted from his last earthly friend, and saw himself borne speedily away into a far clime, with so very few resources to encounter its difficulties, and gain a footing in it. He was not of a sentimental humor: but he did sigh when he saw, mellowed and azured in the distance, the bright fields of his native land; the very braes, as he thought, which bis fathers had held, and from which he was now driven like an outcast, never to behold them more. But reflections and regrets were unavailing he had left the old world, no matter how-the only question was what plan he should adopt to get a living in the new. A question hard to answer! All was obscure and overcast: he knew not what to think. He used to walk the deck alone, when they were out in the main sea, at nights, in the clear moonshine; now looking over the vast blue dome of the sky, the wide and wasteful solitude of the everlasting ocean; now listening to the moaning of the wind, the crackling of the cordage, or the ship's quick ripple as she ploughed the trackless deep; now catching the rough chorus of the seamen in the galley on the watch, or their speech subdued into a kind of rude solemnity by the grandeur and perils of the scene; now thinking of his own dreary fate, and striving to devise some remedy for it. All in vain! He reached the shore of Kingston without any plan or purpose-save only to live in honesty, by some means, of what sort he knew not.

Such a state of mind was little favorable for enjoying the beautiful phases which the island suocessively assumed as they approached it. Jonson noticed it, indeed, when it rose like a bright shining wedge, at the rim of the ocean, sailing, as

it seemed, upon a fleecy continent of clouds, spread all around; he watched it as it grew higher and bluer, till the successive ridges of its mountains became revealed to him-rising each above the other, with a purer, more aërial tint, all cut with huge rents and crags and airy torrent-beds, all sprinkled with deep and shadowy foliage, all burning in the light of a tropical sun; houses and lawns and plantations near the shore; and, higher, forests and rocks, and peaks and beetling cliffs, winding-winding up into the unfathomable depths of air. All this he saw, and not without some feeling of its grandeur; but humbler cares engaged him, cares which he could not satisfy, and could not silence. It grieved him when they came to land, to see the bustle and gladness of every other but himself; every other seemed to have an object and a hope; he had none. There was not even the cold welcome of an inn to greet him; Jamaica had no inns in those days: the mate had gone to find him lodgings, but he was not yet returned; he had not where to lay his head.

This was

Already had he been kicking the pebbles of the beach, up and down for half an hour, when a pleasantlooking, elderly person of a prosperous appearance, came up and ventured to accost him. Councillor Herberts, a merchant and planter of the place, come out to take his evening stroll. Jonson looked upon the man-there was something in his aspect which attracted-an appearance of easy circumstances and green old ageof calm judgment, and a certain grave good-nature; they entered into conversation. The wanderer admitted that he was not happythat, in fact, it was ebb tide with him, at present; but he had a notion things would mend. The planter invited him to come and eat bread in his house, which stood hard by ; and where, he said, his daughter would be happy to receive them.

« AnteriorContinuar »