The World's Greatest Books - Volume 5 Part 32

In the confusion, Henry seized Lady Emily, and shooting down Gabriel Jones, escaped through a secret pa.s.sage into the grounds. There he lay hidden for some days, and then, when the coast was clear, secured a pa.s.sage in a smuggling s.h.i.+p for himself and Lady Emily, and her aunt, Lady Margaret. Arrived in France, he placed the ladies in a convent at Dinan, and made his way to England again, under an a.s.sumed name as a commercial traveller for a French house, to learn the fate of his brother.

Arrived in London, he obtained some news of his brother from a goldsmith who had acted as the family banker for years past. Through the a.s.sistance of Lady Eleanor, Frank Masterton had been set at liberty and had taken his departure in the company of that lady to Paris. Thither, Henry determined to follow them.

Before setting out, he paid a business call at a merchant's house, where he found a man of distinguished appearance, whom he discovered to be General Ireton. Hearing that Henry was bound for France, Ireton asked him whether he would deliver a letter for him to General St. Maur. It was a most important communication, he declared, insomuch as it was the payment of a debt to a man to whom he owed much.

Warned by a footstep on the stairs, Ireton requested Henry to retire into the adjoining room, as he had some business to transact. Through the door, Henry heard the well-known voice of General Dixon. He was complaining bitterly that Ireton had not carried out his promise, and handed him over the estates of Penford-bourne.

"We have no excuse for sequestrating the estates," replied Ireton.

Walter Dixon was furious, declared that he had been made a tool of, and, threatening Ireton, announced his intention of going to France. As soon as he had taken his departure, Henry was summoned from the other room, and being bidden to hold his tongue if he had heard anything, was informed by Ireton that he would visit him that night with the package he had requested him to deliver to General St. Maur.

Some hours later, when it was dark, Henry received his visitor; but the unexpected arrival of the goldsmith, who addressed Henry by his real name, disclosed his ident.i.ty. Finding, however, that he intended him no ill, Ireton questioned him closely as to what had brought him to London.

"To see whether I might not render some aid to my brother," Henry replied, "after having placed the Lady Emily in safety."

"She was never in danger," replied Ireton quietly. "I would take good care of that. I will still trust you with my commission. The time may come when you will thank me for so doing."

With that he turned and left the room.

_IV.--The Mysterious Monk_

Chance ordained it that Henry Masterton should cross the Channel on the same boat which was carrying General Dixon to France. The latter, with what General Ireton had called "his blunt hypocrisy," frankly related to Henry the motives that had influenced him in the part that he had played.

Arrived at Calais, the two men journeyed some part of the way together, and before they separated Henry discovered something of the real character of his companion by his familiarity with certain broken-down Cavaliers, who, having lost all right to the t.i.tle of gentlemen in their own country, eked out a living by brigandage in France. After they had separated, Henry lost his way, and arriving at night, drenched through with the rain, at a certain chateau, begged its hospitality for a night.

He was led into the dining-room, and introduced to another guest who was there--a Benedictine monk.

That night, while Henry lay in bed, he was startled to see the monk standing by his side. He had come, he said, to ask him several questions. In particular he wished to know whether his brother Frank had married Lady Emily Langleigh. When Henry related how the marriage had been prevented, the Benedictine suddenly sprang to his feet in a fury of rage. When calmer, he asked Henry whether Frank had come to France alone; but on this subject the young man preserved a discreet silence, and after a few more questions, which proved the monk's extraordinary familiarity with all Walter Dixon's intrigues at Penford-bourne, he left the room.

The following day, Henry bade farewell to his courteous host, and made his way to Dinan. There he found that the convent in which he had left the two ladies had been burnt down; and he learnt that a strange gentleman had called before this disaster, and had taken Lady Emily and Lady Margaret away.

Bitterly disappointed, Henry made his way to Paris, where he found the city in the throes of a civil war. Becoming unintentionally mixed up in a petty skirmish between the court party and the Frondes, he was badly wounded, and narrowly escaped hanging as an enemy of the Frondeurs.

Meanwhile, Frank Masterton, or Lord Masterton as he now was, was living what he had fondly imagined would be the ideal life with the girl he loved; but already he found it an illusion. His loss of honour, his consciousness that his conduct was discreditable, plunged him into bitter fits of remorse, from which he vainly sought relief by a round of gaiety. Lady Eleanor saw these signs with terror and despair. Though she had accomplished her desire, her life was unbearable; daily she grew more miserable. At last she determined to end her earthly sufferings. In her chamber she swallowed the fatal dose of poison with which, against such a day, she had provided herself.

As she lay in the throes of death it chanced that Henry Masterton arrived, having at length found his brother's place of residence. Henry at once did everything possible to save Lady Eleanor's life, but, seeing that the dark shadow deepened every moment, he hastened to fetch a priest.

In the street he came upon the Benedictine, talking to Walter Dixon, and bidding him follow, led him to the bedside of Lady Eleanor, and left him alone with the dying woman.

Bending over her, the monk solemnly asked her if she had anything on her mind which she wished to confess.

He pressed a cup to her lips; and in a slow, gasping voice she laid bare the story of her life, and then went on to relate her feelings at her first meeting with Frank Masterton.

"When we parted, and I thought of the man to whom I was bound for life, what fearful feelings came across my bosom! Sir Andrew Fleming my husband! Was it possible? I called to remembrance his look, his harshness, his jealousy, and, oh, G.o.d! oh, G.o.d! how I did hate that man!"

"Woman, woman!" exclaimed the monk, rising up from his seat, and casting back the cowl from his head, "Oh, G.o.d! oh, G.o.d! how I did love you!"

Lady Eleanor's eyes fixed full upon his face. Before her stood, in the garb of a Benedictine monk, Sir Andrew Fleming, her husband. For a second she looked at him imploringly; then, with fearful strength, she rose from her rec.u.mbent position, and clasping her hands as if in the act of prayer, sank down upon her knees at his feet. A low moan escaped from her lips. She fell forward on the ground, and the spirit departed for ever from its clay.

The monk grasped his forehead with his hand, gazing at her with mingled feelings of love, anger, sorrow, and despair; then, raising the body in his arms, he placed it on the couch, and bending over it, three times printed a long kiss upon the pale lips. Then, with his right hand thrust into his robe, he rushed out of the room.

Outside in the hall there came towards him Lord Masterton, General Dixon, and Henry. A look of deadly, concentrated hate came into Sir Andrew Fleming's eyes. For a moment he paused; then, drawing a dagger from his bosom, he flung himself on Lord Masterton, and, with one blow, stretched him dead at his feet.

"Villain!" cried Walter Dixon. "Atrocious villain!"

With the rapidity of lightning he drew his sword, and at once pa.s.sed it through the body of the a.s.sa.s.sin.

To Walter Dixon, this scene of carnage, which he had planned with elaborate care, seemed to ensure his long delayed possession of the Penford-bourne estates. Lady Eleanor was dead; her husband, Sir Andrew had fallen by his hand, and there were no lives now between him and his rightful possession of the property. But once more he was doomed to disappointment.

As soon as he had an opportunity Henry sought out General St. Maur, and handed him the package he had received from Ireton. The general pressed him to stay to dinner, and while the meal progressed, extracted from him something of his story. When the meal was nearly over, the door suddenly opened, and a dog rushed to him, barking joyously. It was his own dog--the dog he had brought with him from Masterton House, and left with Lady Emily! How had it come there? Amazed, he was about to ask for an explanation, when Lady Emily herself stood before him. In another moment the lovers were in one another's arms.

Henry, astonished as he was at these events, was still more surprised when he learnt that General St. Maur was really Lord Langleigh, the father of Emily. He had not, as all the world had thought, been drowned in his escape from the Tower. In the wreck, he had succeeded in saving not only his own life, but the life of a young man named Ireton. Ireton had never forgotten the debt, and now, in the package which Henry had brought over from England, had endeavoured to repay it. He had persuaded the Council that the estates of Penford-bourne had been improperly sequestrated by King Charles, and should be returned to their lawful owner, Lord Langleigh; and the letter contained a decree of the Council once more granting him his lands and t.i.tle.

When Walter Dixon heard of these events, which again s.n.a.t.c.hed the prize for which he had attempted so much from his lips, he determined on yet another effort to achieve his object. Bribing two men to a.s.sist him in the deed, he lured Lord Langleigh into an ambush. Only the prompt arrival of Henry Masterton prevented the success of this foul deed; and it was Dixon himself who fell a victim.

Lord Langleigh, too good a Cavalier, courteously refused the offers of the Council of State, and remained in France until the Restoration, when, with Henry, now Lord Masterton, and his wife, Lady Emily, he returned to Penford-bourne to spend the remainder of his days in his native land.

SAMUEL JOHNSON

Ra.s.selas, Prince of Abyssinia

Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield in Staffords.h.i.+re, on September 18, 1709, and died in London, December 13, 1784. In Volume IX of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS appears an epitome of Boswell's famous "Life of Johnson." "The History of Ra.s.selas, Prince of Abyssinia," was written by Dr. Johnson in order to meet the expenses incurred by his mother's illness and death.

According to Boswell, the work was composed in the evenings of one week, and the sheets sent to the printers exactly as they left his hands, without even being read over by the author himself. It was published during the early part of 1759, Johnson receiving for it the sum of 100, and a further amount of 25 when it came to a second edition. Of all Johnson's works, "Ra.s.selas" was apparently the most popular. By 1775 it reached its fifth edition, and has since been translated into many languages. The work is more of a satire on optimism and on human life in general than a novel, and perhaps is little more than a ponderous dissertation on Johnson's favourite theme, the "vanity of human wishes." As to its actual merits, Johnson's contemporaries differed widely, some proclaiming him a pompous pedant with a pa.s.sion for words of six syllables and more, others delighting in those pa.s.sages in which weighty meaning was ill.u.s.trated with splendour and vigour.

_I.--Life in the Happy Valley_

Ra.s.selas was the fourth son of the mighty emperor in whose dominions the father of waters begins his course, whose bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over the world the harvests of Egypt.

According to the custom which has descended from age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, the prince was confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty, till the order of succession should call him to the throne.

The place which the wisdom, or policy, of antiquity had designed for the residence of the princes was a s.p.a.cious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains of which the summits overhang the middle part. The only pa.s.sage by which it could be entered was a cavern that pa.s.sed under a rock, of which it had long been disputed whether it was the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth, which opened into the valley, was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so ma.s.sive that no man, without the help of engines, could open or shut them.

From the mountains on every side rivulets descended that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake in the middle, inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water.

The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants with all the necessaries of life, and all delights and superfluities were added at the annual visit which the emperor paid his children, when the iron gate was opened to the sound of music; and during eight days every one that resided in the valley was required to propose whatever might contribute to make seclusion pleasant, to fill up the vacancies of attention, and to lessen the tediousness of time. Every desire was immediately gratified. Such was the appearance of security and delight which this retirement afforded that they to whom it was new always desired that it might be perpetual; and as those on whom the iron gate had once closed were never suffered to return, the effect of longer experience could not be known.

Here the sons and daughters of Abyssinia lived only to know the soft vicissitudes of pleasure and repose. The sages who instructed them told them of nothing but the miseries of public life, and described all beyond the mountains as regions of calamity where discord was always raging, and where man preyed upon man. These methods were generally successful. Few of the princes had ever wished to enlarge their bounds; they rose in the morning and lay down at night, pleased with each other and with themselves. All but Ra.s.selas, who, in the twenty-sixth year of his age, began to withdraw himself from the pastimes and a.s.semblies, and to delight in solitary walks and silent meditation. His attendants observed the change, and endeavoured to renew his love of pleasure; but he neglected their officiousness and repulsed their invitations.