CHAPTER XIV.

There’s a thanklessness In our fallen nature that too lightly holds The good too lightly won. Fortune’s minion, Whose pamper’d sense the luscious banquet courts, Ere he can say, “I hunger,” coldly thanks The bounteous Giver for his daily bread; And hearts that have not unrequited, loved, Feel not the bliss of loving, loved again. ’Tis Cupid’s wanton fashion still to vex His dearest vot’ries, that they may exalt His tyrant godhead by a truer worship, More pure, more holy, sober, strong, and lasting.

_Unedited Poem._

About a month after the termination of the court-martial, Henry, finding that all endeavours were fruitless to restore Warenne to cheerfulness, and that his unceasing anxiety was wearing out at once his body and mind, determined again to communicate with Adelaide. He rode over to Epworth, and told her his firm conviction, that unless some means were discovered of diverting Warenne’s thoughts from the channel in which they were running, his life or his reason would be endangered. He had besought him to come to Epworth, but he would not hear of it.

Adelaide was not wholly unprepared for this intelligence; she so thoroughly understood Warenne’s character, that in some measure she expected it, and she felt that the time was come when she must herself make an effort, or permit the happiness of both parties to be sacrificed. She asked Henry if he thought Warenne would come to Epworth at _her_ request. Her brother said, that with her permission he would make the trial. She authorised him to do so.

Henry departed. Not a word fell from her lips to stay him, for she wished not to unsay that which she had spoken. Yet when he was gone, she remained transfixed to the spot where he had left her, alarmed at her own boldness; confounded at the change one short moment had made in her fortunes. The tramp of Henry’s horse galloping down the avenue recalled her to self-possession, and she soon taught herself to rejoice in the step she had taken. The world, thought the generous girl, might blame me, if it knew of my request; but he will not,—for he loves me. Love will plead my cause, if I have been too forward,—love, which I should ill deserve, did I permit a fear of the world, or my own false pride to close my lips, when, as I believe, and trust, and hope, one word from them can cheer his gallant spirit, and win him back to happiness.

Henry found Warenne brooding over his misfortunes, sad and dispirited as usual; but his dark eye lighted up, and the blood crimsoned his cheek, as he listened to Adelaide’s message.

“Your sister wish me to go to Epworth? Impossible!” said he.

Henry assured him of the fact. A request from her was not to be refused, and though Warenne had determined not to quit his apartment while yet a cloud should remain upon his reputation, he at once made ready to depart.

A few minutes before, and he would instinctively have shrunk from the broad glare of day; but now he passed unheeding beneath the sun’s meridian splendour, for his heart was full of feelings he could not utterly suppress, and his head busied with surmises as to Adelaide’s motives in urging her request. Could it be that she was interested in his fate? he dared not cherish the hope. Yet why should she wish to see him? Alas, Henry had informed her of his wretchedness, and in the kindness of her nature, and because she felt that her kindness would not now be misinterpreted, she sought to amuse him, and divert him from his sorrows. This latter idea predominated when he reached Epworth.

He found Adelaide alone. She was prepared for the task she had imposed upon herself, and though her heart beat quickly as she heard his well known step, she advanced to welcome him with an unfaltering voice and apparent composure.

“Will you pardon me, Colonel Warenne,” said she, “for the liberty I have taken in requesting you to come and see me?”

“Miss Marston need not ask Colonel Warenne’s pardon for her kindness to him,” was his formal and measured reply; for he feared to be thought capable of presuming upon the kindness which he thus acknowledged.

Adelaide hesitated before she spoke again; the melancholy tone of his voice unnerved her; forcing herself however to proceed, after a pause she resumed,—

“My brother tells me that you will not listen to reason, but torment yourself with visions of disgrace impending over you from this court-martial. Will you let me chide you for your folly?”

“Folly!” ejaculated Warenne, keeping his eyes on the ground.

“Yes,” repeated Adelaide, “folly; you cannot think it wisdom to imagine disaster, and suffer under its pressure, when in all probability the evil you anticipate will never reach you, and even if it should arrive, cannot injure you in the manner you apprehend. Whatever may be the sentence of the court, every fair, every humane person must approve of your conduct.”

“Heaven bless you for these words of kindness!” replied Warenne, despondingly; “but you say what you wish me to believe, rather than what you believe yourself.”

“No,” said Adelaide, with much animation, “I speak as I think—as I feel.”

Warenne raised his eyes from the ground, and looking sadly on her, continued, “I once told you, in a moment of forgetfulness, which I trust you have pardoned, that there is no person whose good opinion I so much ambition. I am deeply sensible of your goodness.”

“When you first spoke the words you have just repeated,” said Adelaide, reproachfully, “you did not speak with the cold formality you now do.”

The colour rushed to Warenne’s face, but he restrained his feelings. “I spoke in passion then,” said he, “and I speak coldly now, because I dare not trust myself to use the language my heart would dictate; besides I am not what I was. I had then an unsullied character.”

“Must I repeat,” rejoined Adelaide, “that in my estimation your character stands as high as ever?—but”—she paused for an instant, and then continued, “you must pardon my boldness,—but I cannot help doubting, whether your grief is solely caused by your apprehension of disgrace.”

Warenne would not deny the truth, and he could not acknowledge it, without in some measure trespassing, as he conceived, upon the kindness of one who, to soothe his sorrows, had perhaps overstepped the strict bounds of prudence; he preserved therefore silence, and she proceeded:—

“Your hesitation confirms me in my opinion, and now I recall to mind (as she spoke, her heart beat almost audibly, and the eloquent blood mantled her very brows, at the outrage she forced herself to inflict upon her maiden modesty), that some weeks ago, long before this present business occupied your thoughts, when I asked you if you were ill, you replied, that you were ‘ill in mind, and harassed, because you could not determine to pursue a certain line of conduct you were anxious to adopt, lest in the attempt to acquire your own individual happiness, which you confessed to be at stake, you should injure another person;’—perhaps you are still undecided?”

Again she paused, but not as before, overpowered by the struggle within her breast. The Rubicon was passed, and—she sat before Warenne, calm and pale, with her head proudly thrown back, and her dark eye glancing with the consciousness of single-minded innocence, as though she dared the world to look into her heart, or question its purity.

He turned a wondering and admiring gaze upon the beautiful being who thus questioned him, as it were with authority, and answered slowly, “No, I have no indecision now to torture me; my path is clear before me, and a joyless one it is.”

“I had guessed as much,” resumed Adelaide, “from your compressed lips, and sterner manner, even had you not acknowledged it. Am I equally right in my further surmise that you have decided against yourself, and that, not because you are convinced of its being your duty so to do under the circumstances of the case, but because the circumstances themselves have changed—because, though the benefit to yourself, in the world’s opinion at least, may be greater, you consider that you have less right to ask it of the person?”

Warenne interposed. “Miss Marston, you cannot know—you cannot understand—yet you assuredly speak the truth.”

Adelaide continued. “Have you forgotten your conversation with me the last time we met? Might not that help me to read the riddle of your thoughts? and now (a deep blush again resuming the empire of her cheek, as she in a clear low tone, but with rapid utterance, made the demand)—that person, is it not myself?—that purpose, was it not to ask my hand?”

Warenne flung himself at her feet. “Pardon, pardon my presumption,” said he, “I had, indeed, such aspiring hopes, before fortune raised you far above me, and before your father by his manner implied his disapprobation of my pretensions; but I have endeavoured to check and conceal them, as in honour I felt bound to do, and since this late unhappy affair, more than ever. You now force me to speak. You must, therefore, hear me, though the next moment you drive me from your presence. I have loved you almost from the first hour that we met. I love you now, fervently, fondly, passionately. I honour you as one of the noblest of living beings. I would peril every earthly thing I possess, to know that I hold a place in your affections. As I hope for mercy, the bitterness of my present sorrows arises, I will not say, solely, for honour is ever the soldier’s idol, but, principally, from the consciousness that henceforth I may not dare to think of you; pardon my presumptuous words, you have wrung them from me.”

“I will pardon you, now that you have spoken,” replied Adelaide, with a faltering voice, and relapsing into her wonted timidity of manner, “though, perhaps, had you remained silent (a sweet smile of reproach strove with the tears which trembled in her dark eyelashes), I should not have forgiven you. You do not deserve forgiveness, for you would have sacrificed”—she hesitated—“your happiness to your vanity.”

Warenne seized the hand she tremblingly held out to him.

“Will you then listen to me?” asked he impetuously; “but no, I dream—it cannot be!”

“Must all the assurances come from me?” rejoined Adelaide, fixing her tearful eyes upon the ground.

“Oh, pardon me, the transition from despair to hope is so sudden that I can scarce believe it—but,” said he inquiringly, “you said you would listen to me. Will you—can you?”

“I have not actually said so,” replied Adelaide timidly, “but I can—I will.”

Warenne doubted no longer, but gave himself up to the full certainty of his happiness, while again and again he told Adelaide the tale she knew full well, but was nothing loth to hear.

From that moment fortune seemed to smile on Warenne. He had hardly reached his quarters when a letter arrived from the secretary to the commander-in-chief, informing him, that the king’s decision was forwarded to the commanding officer of the regiment; and that he hoped Colonel Warenne would be gratified with its purport. It was to the effect, that, though the act of disobedience was proved, (as, indeed, it had been admitted by Colonel Warenne himself,) yet, in consideration of the peculiar circumstances of the case, and the great zeal and ability manifested by Colonel Warenne, his majesty deemed it right (carefully guarding against such a construction of his sentence as might tend to the commission of similar breaches of discipline for the future,) to omit the penalty by course of law devolving upon him for the act of disobedience; and further ordered, that his thanks might be publicly expressed to him, by the officer in present command of the regiment, in proof of his approbation of Colonel Warenne’s endeavours to preserve the peace of his subjects.

Warenne’s heart bounded lightly as he read the welcome note:—“Thank Heaven!” he exclaimed, “I can now honourably ask Adelaide to be mine;” and hastily inclosing it to her, with a few lines expressive of his own happy feelings, he despatched it without delay to Epworth.

The night was passed in a state of bewildered excitement, amid the congratulations of friends and delightful anticipations of the future. On the morrow the regiment was formed in square in the market-place. Thousands of people soon collected around the soldiery, and every window and house-roof that overlooked the scene became thronged; for Warenne’s activity in the protection of the people of Fisherton, and mild conduct in command of his regiment at Calbury, had interested all hearts in his favour.

Frank, as the officer in command, came forward with his brother into the centre of the square. Instantly the hum of the voices around was hushed, and a silence pervaded the whole assembly,—so still, and perfect, that every syllable of the despatches, which Frank immediately proceeded to read, in a clear though occasionally faltering voice, was distinctly heard by the surrounding multitudes. At the former part of them, wherein it was recited that Colonel Warenne was proved guilty of an act of disobedience, there appeared a look of anxiety upon the countenances of some of the bystanders, who feared lest they had been misinformed as to the true purport of the sentence; but by degrees all brows cleared. Frank declared his Majesty’s approval of his brother’s conduct, and restored to him his sword. Then (but not till then) was the attention of the assembly interrupted. The blacksmith of the regiment, who was the father of the corps, and its pride for his various exploits, was seen to raise his hand, and in an instant there arose one loud, heart-given cheer from every soldier in the regiment. This was too much for Warenne—he burst into tears; he soon, however, recovered his self-possession, and thanked his brother officers, and brother soldiers, for the kind interest they had taken in his fate; then resuming his command of the regiment, he hastened to dismiss it, that he might fly on the wings of love to Epworth. At his door he found Lord Framlingham’s carriage; in his lodgings Lord Framlingham and Adelaide. Her fond and faithful eye had witnessed his restoration to honour.

It need hardly be said, that Lord Framlingham’s consent was not withheld, when he found that Adelaide’s affections were fixed on Warenne, nor that their marriage took place in the proper course of time. No accident occurred to prevent their happiness, and they are now continuing to enjoy it in as great, or perhaps greater, perfection than when they were first united. Warenne has resigned the lieutenant-colonelcy of his regiment, though he is ready to take the field, should war again break out. Stuart has succeeded to the lieutenant-colonelcy; Frank to the majority vacant by Stuart’s promotion. Henry is in parliament,—a liberal politician, but abstaining from the full expression of his sentiments from regard to his father, who is opposed to every sort of change. Seaforth and Warenne are become intimate friends, and Nicholas not unfrequently drops in at Epworth, when the best preserves are shot, or favourite fox-coverts drawn in the neighbourhood, or when a severe south-wester prevents the usual supply of fish at Fisherton market; while last, but we trust not least in the affection of our reader, Nanny Rudd is—not united to Frank, as might be presumed from the long flirtation which existed between them, but quietly established in the lodge at Epworth, with Betsy to wait on her—her greatest pleasure to talk a little soldiering with Warenne, Frank, or Henry, whenever they can listen to her, and to explain to them the superiority of (Ruddicè) “the _fut_ over the _os_;” (Anglicè) of the infantry over the cavalry.

AN OLD TALE,

AND OFTEN TOLD.