St. Ronan's Well

by Walter Scott

  But, ere Dame Dods had arrived at the Manse, the patient had summoned Mr. Cargill to her presence, and required him to write her confession while she had life and breath to make it.

  “For I believe,” she added, raising herself in the bed, and rolling her eyes wildly around, “that, were I to confess my guilt to one of a less sacred character, the Evil Spirit, whose servant I have been, would carry away his prey, both body and soul, before they had severed from each other, however short the space that they must remain in partnership!”

  Mr. Cargill would have spoken some ghostly consolation, but she answered with pettish impatience, “Waste not words—waste not words!—Let me speak that which I must tell, and sign it with my hand; and do you, as the more immediate servant of God, and therefore bound to bear witness to the truth, take heed you write that which I tell you, and nothing else. I desired to have told this to St. Ronan's—I have even made some progress in telling it to others—but I am glad I broke short off—for I know you, Josiah Cargill, though you have long forgotten me.”

  “It may be so,” said Cargill. “I have indeed no recollection of you.”

  “You once knew Hannah Irwin, though,” said the sick woman, “who was companion and relation to Miss Clara Mowbray, and who was present with her on that sinful night, when she was wedded in the kirk of St. Ronan's.”

  “Do you mean to say that you are that person?” said Cargill, holding the candle so as to throw some light on the face of the sick woman. “I cannot believe it.”

  “No?” replied the penitent; “there is indeed a difference between wickedness in the act of carrying through its successful machinations, and wickedness surrounded by all the horrors of a death-bed!”

  “Do not yet despair,” said Cargill. “Grace is omnipotent—to doubt this is in itself a great crime.”

  “Be it so!—I cannot help it—my heart is hardened, Mr. Cargill; and there is something here,” she pressed her bosom, “which tells me, that, with prolonged life and renewed health, even my present agonies would be forgotten, and I should become the same I have been before. I have rejected the offer of grace, Mr. Cargill, and not through ignorance, for I have sinned with my eyes open. Care not for me, then, who am a mere outcast.” He again endeavoured to interrupt her, but she continued, “Or if you really wish my welfare, let me relieve my bosom of that which presses it, and it may be that I shall then be better able to listen to you. You say you remember me not—but if I tell you how often you refused to perform in secret the office which was required of you—how much you urged that it was against your canonical rules—if I name the argument to which you yielded—and remind you of your purpose, to acknowledge your transgression to your brethren in the church courts, to plead your excuse, and submit to their censure, which you said could not be a light one—you will be then aware, that, in the voice of the miserable pauper, you hear the words of the once artful, gay, and specious Hannah Irwin.”

  “I allow it—I allow it!” said Mr. Cargill; “I admit the tokens, and believe you to be indeed her whose name you assume.”

  “Then one painful step is over,” said she; “for I would ere now have lightened my conscience by confession, saving for the cursed pride of spirit, which was ashamed of poverty, though it had not shrunk from guilt.—Well—In these arguments, which were urged to you by a youth best known to you by the name of Francis Tyrrel, though more properly entitled to that of Valentine Bulmer, we practised on you a base and gross deception.—Did you not hear some one sigh?—I hope there is no one in the room—I trust I shall die when my confession is signed and sealed, without my name being dragged through the public—I hope ye bring not in your menials to gaze on my abject misery—I cannot brook that.”

  She paused and listened; for the ear, usually deafened by pain, is sometimes, on the contrary, rendered morbidly acute. Mr. Cargill assured her, there was no one present but himself. “But, O, most unhappy woman!” he said, “what does your introduction prepare me to expect!”

  “Your expectation, be it ever so ominous, shall be fully satisfied.—I was the guilty confidant of the false Francis Tyrrel.—Clara loved the true one.—When the fatal ceremony passed, the bride and the clergyman were deceived alike—and I was the wretch—the fiend—who, aiding another yet blacker, if blacker could be—mainly helped to accomplish this cureless misery!”

  “Wretch!” exclaimed the clergyman, “and had you not then done enough?—Why did you expose the betrothed of one brother to become the wife of another?”

  “I acted,” said the sick woman, “only as Bulmer instructed me; but I had to do with a master of the game. He contrived, by his agent Solmes, to match me with a husband imposed on me by his devices as a man of fortune!—a wretch, who maltreated me—plundered me—sold me.—Oh! if fiends laugh, as I have heard they can, what a jubilee of scorn will there be, when Bulmer and I enter their place of torture!—Hark!—I am sure of it—some one draws breath, as if shuddering!”

  “You will distract yourself if you give way to these fancies. Be calm—speak on—but, oh! at last, and for once, speak the truth!”

  “I will, for it will best gratify my hatred against him, who, having first robbed me of my virtue, made me a sport and a plunder to the basest of the species. For that I wandered here to unmask him. I had heard he again stirred his suit to Clara, and I came here to tell young Mowbray the whole.—But do you wonder that I shrunk from doing so till this last decisive moment?—I thought of my conduct to Clara, and how could I face her brother?—And yet I hated her not after I learned her utter wretchedness—her deep misery, verging even upon madness—I hated her not then. I was sorry that she was not to fall to the lot of a better man than Bulmer;—and I pitied her after she was rescued by Tyrrel, and you may remember it was I who prevailed on you to conceal her marriage.”

  “I remember it,” answered Cargill, “and that you alleged, as a reason for secrecy, danger from her family. I did conceal it, until reports that she was again to be married reached my ears.”

  “Well, then,” said the sick woman, “Clara Mowbray ought to forgive me—since what ill I have done her was inevitable, while the good I did was voluntary.—I must see her, Josiah Cargill—I must see her before I die—I shall never pray till I see her—I shall never profit by word of godliness till I see her! If I cannot obtain the pardon of a worm like myself, how can I hope for that of”——

  She started at these words with a faint scream; for slowly, and with a feeble hand, the curtains of the bed opposite to the side at which Cargill sat, were opened, and the figure of Clara Mowbray, her clothes and long hair drenched and dripping with rain, stood in the opening by the bedside. The dying woman sat upright, her eyes starting from their sockets, her lips quivering, her face pale, her emaciated hands grasping the bed-clothes, as if to support herself, and looking as much aghast as if her confession had called up the apparition of her betrayed friend.

  “Hannah Irwin,” said Clara, with her usual sweetness of tone, “my early friend—my unprovoked enemy!—Betake thee to Him who hath pardon for us all, and betake thee with confidence—for I pardon you as freely as if you had never wronged me—as freely as I desire my own pardon.—Farewell—Farewell!”

  She retired from the room, ere the clergyman could convince himself that it was more than a phantom which he beheld. He ran down stairs—he summoned assistants, but no one could attend his call; for the deep ruckling groans of the patient satisfied every one that she was breathing her last; and Mrs. Dods, with the maid-servant, ran into the bedroom, to witness the death of Hannah Irwin, which shortly after took place.

  That event had scarcely occurred, when the maid-servant who had been left in the inn, came down in great terror to acquaint her mistress, that a lady had entered the house like a ghost, and was dying in Mr. Tyrrel's room. The truth of the story we must tell our own way.

  In the irregular state of Miss Mowbray's mind, a less violent impulse than that which she had received from her brother's arbitrary violence, a
dded to the fatigues, dangers, and terrors of her night-walk, might have exhausted the powers of her body, and alienated those of her mind. We have before said, that the lights in the clergyman's house had probably attracted her attention, and in the temporary confusion of a family, never remarkable for its regularity, she easily mounted the stairs, and entered the sick chamber undiscovered, and thus overheard Hannah Irwin's confession, a tale sufficient to have greatly aggravated her mental malady.

  We have no means of knowing whether she actually sought Tyrrel, or whether it was, as in the former case, the circumstance of a light still burning where all around was dark, that attracted her; but her next apparition was close by the side of her unfortunate lover, then deeply engaged in writing, when something suddenly gleamed on a large, old-fashioned mirror, which hung on the wall opposite. He looked up, and saw the figure of Clara, holding a light (which she had taken from the passage) in her extended hand. He stood for an instant with his eyes fixed on this fearful shadow, ere he dared turn round on the substance which was thus reflected. When he did so, the fixed and pallid countenance almost impressed him with the belief that he saw a vision, and he shuddered when, stooping beside him, she took his hand. “Come away!” she said, in a hurried voice—“Come away, my brother follows to kill us both. Come, Tyrrel, let us fly—we shall easily escape him.—Hannah Irwin is on before—but, if we are overtaken, I will have no more fighting—you must promise me that we shall not—we have had but too much of that—but you will be wise in future.”

  “Clara Mowbray!” exclaimed Tyrrel. “Alas! is it thus?—Stay—do not go,” for she turned to make her escape—“stay—stay—sit down.”

  “I must go,” she replied, “I must go—I am called—Hannah Irwin is gone before to tell all, and I must follow. Will you not let me go?—Nay, if you will hold me by force, I know I must sit down—but you will not be able to keep me for all that.”

  A convulsion fit followed, and seemed, by its violence, to explain that she was indeed bound for the last and darksome journey. The maid, who at length answered Tyrrel's earnest and repeated summons, fled terrified at the scene she witnessed, and carried to the Manse the alarm which we before mentioned.

  The old landlady was compelled to exchange one scene of sorrow for another, wondering within herself what fatality could have marked this single night with so much misery. When she arrived at home, what was her astonishment to find there the daughter of the house, which, even in their alienation, she had never ceased to love, in a state little short of distraction, and tended by Tyrrel, whose state of mind seemed scarce more composed than that of the unhappy patient. The oddities of Mrs. Dods were merely the rust which had accumulated upon her character, but without impairing its native strength and energy; and her sympathies were not of a kind acute enough to disable her from thinking and acting as decisively as circumstances required.

  “Mr. Tyrrel,” she said, “this is nae sight for men folk—ye maun rise and gang to another room.”

  “I will not stir from her,” said Tyrrel—“I will not remove from her either now, or as long as she or I may live.”

  “That will be nae lang space, Maister Tyrrel, if ye winna be ruled by common sense.”

  Tyrrel started up, as if half comprehending what she said, but remained motionless.

  “Come, come,” said the compassionate landlady; “do not stand looking on a sight sair enough to break a harder heart than yours, hinny—your ain sense tells ye, ye canna stay here—Miss Clara shall be weel cared for, and I'll bring word to your room-door frae half-hour to half-hour how she is.”

  The necessity of the case was undeniable, and Tyrrel suffered himself to be led to another apartment, leaving Miss Mowbray to the care of the hostess and her female assistants. He counted the hours in an agony, less by the watch than by the visits which Mrs. Dods, faithful to her promise, made from interval to interval, to tell him that Clara was not better—that she was worse—and, at last, that she did not think she could live over morning. It required all the deprecatory influence of the good landlady to restrain Tyrrel, who, calm and cold on common occasions, was proportionally fierce and impetuous when his passions were afloat, from bursting into the room, and ascertaining, with his own eyes, the state of the beloved patient. At length there was a long interval—an interval of hours—so long, indeed, that Tyrrel caught from it the flattering hope that Clara slept, and that sleep might bring refreshment both to mind and body. Mrs. Dods, he concluded, was prevented from moving, for fear of disturbing her patient's slumber; and, as if actuated by the same feeling which he imputed to her, he ceased to traverse his apartment, as his agitation had hitherto dictated, and throwing himself into a chair, forbore to move even a finger, and withheld his respiration as much as possible, just as if he had been seated by the pillow of the patient. Morning was far advanced, when his landlady appeared in his room with a grave and anxious countenance.

  “Mr. Tyrrel,” she said, “ye are a Christian man.”

  “Hush, hush, for Heaven's sake!” he replied; “you will disturb Miss Mowbray.”

  “Naething will disturb her, puir thing,” answered Mrs. Dods; “they have muckle to answer for that brought her to this!”

  “They have—they have indeed,” said Tyrrel, striking his forehead; “and I will see her avenged on every one of them!—Can I see her?”

  “Better not—better not,” said the good woman; but he burst from her, and rushed into the apartment.

  “Is life gone?—Is every spark extinct?” he exclaimed eagerly to a country surgeon, a sensible man, who had been summoned from Marchthorn in the course of the night. The medical man shook his head—Tyrrel rushed to the bedside, and was convinced by his own eyes that the being whose sorrows he had both caused and shared, was now insensible to all earthly calamity. He raised almost a shriek of despair, as he threw himself on the pale hand of the corpse, wet it with tears, devoured it with kisses, and played for a short time the part of a distracted person. At length, on the repeated expostulation of all present, he suffered himself to be again conducted to another apartment, the surgeon following, anxious to give such sad consolation as the case admitted of.

  “As you are so deeply concerned for the untimely fate of this young lady,” he said, “it may be some satisfaction to you, though a melancholy one, to know, that it has been occasioned by a pressure on the brain, probably accompanied by a suffusion; and I feel authorized in stating, from the symptoms, that if life had been spared, reason would, in all probability, never have returned. In such a case, sir, the most affectionate relation must own, that death, in comparison to life, is a mercy.”

  “Mercy?” answered Tyrrel; “but why, then, is it denied to me?—I know—I know!—My life is spared till I revenge her.”

  He started from his seat, and hurried eagerly down stairs. But, as he was about to rush from the door of the inn, he was stopped by Touchwood, who had just alighted from a carriage, with an air of stern anxiety imprinted on his features, very different from their usual expression. “Whither would ye? Whither would ye?” he said, laying hold of Tyrrel, and stopping him by force.

  “For revenge—for revenge!” said Tyrrel. “Give way, I charge you, on your peril!”

  “Vengeance belongs to God,” replied the old man, “and his bolt has fallen.—This way—this way,” he continued, dragging Tyrrel into the house. “Know,” he said, so soon as he had led or forced him into a chamber, “that Mowbray of St. Ronan's has met Bulmer within this half hour, and has killed him on the spot.”

  “Killed?—whom?” answered the bewildered Tyrrel.

  “Valentine Bulmer, the titular Earl of Etherington.”

  “You bring tidings of death to the house of death,” answered Tyrrel; “and there is nothing in this world left that I should live for!”

  CHAPTER XX.

  CONCLUSION.

  Here come we to our close—for that which follows Is but the tale of dull, unvaried misery.

  Steep crags and headlong linns m
ay court the pencil,

  Like sudden haps, dark plots, and strange adventures;

  But who would paint the dull and fog-wrapt moor, In its long track of sterile desolation?

  Old Play.

  When Mowbray crossed the brook, as we have already detailed, his mind was in that wayward and uncertain state, which seeks something whereon to vent the self-engendered rage with which it labours, like a volcano before eruption. On a sudden, a shot or two, followed by loud voices and laughter reminded him he had promised, at that hour, and in that sequestered place, to decide a bet respecting pistol-shooting, to which the titular Lord Etherington, Jekyl, and Captain MacTurk, to whom such a pastime was peculiarly congenial, were parties as well as himself. The prospect this recollection afforded him, of vengeance on the man whom he regarded as the author of his sister's wrongs, was, in the present state of his mind, too tempting to be relinquished; and, setting spurs to his horse, he rushed through the copse to the little glade, where he found the other parties, who, despairing of his arrival, had already begun their amusement. A jubilee shout was set up as he approached.