Imogen Part 5

"Alas, my charming mistress," replied her admirer, "I would to G.o.d it were in my power to inspire you with hope and fill you with courage. I confess that while peril was at a distance, and I sat secure in the tranquil vale, I received without distinction the doctrines of the Druids, and bowed a.s.sent to their sacred lessons. But practice, my Imogen, and the scenes of danger differ beyond conception from the ideas we form of them in the calmness of repose. Something must be allowed to the unruffled solitude of these sacred men, and something to the sublime of poetry. Surely it is no part of comprehensive prudence to banish the idea of those hazards that must be encountered, and to refuse to survey the snares and the difficulties with which our path is surrounded.

Remember, my fair one, the malignant suspiciousness of your jailer, and the comfortless darkness of the night."--

"Oh Edwin, and is this the strain in which you were wont to talk? Why are you thus altered, and what means this inauspicious quick-sightedness and alarm? We should indeed survey and prepare for danger, but we should never suffer it to overwhelm us. The cause of integrity should never be despaired of. What avails the suspicions of my keeper? The ever wakeful eye of heaven can make them slumber. Why should we reck the gloom and loneliness of the night? Virtue is the ever-burning lamp of the sacred groves. No darkness can cast a shadow on her beams. Though the sun and moon were hurled below the bosom of the circling ocean, virtue could see to perform her purposes, and execute her great designs. Alas, my swain, my voice is weak, and broken, and powerless. But willingly would I breathe a soul to animate your timidity. Oh Edwin," and she folded him in her alabaster arms to her heaving, anxious bosom, "let me not exhort you in vain! It is but for a little while, it is but for one short effort, and if the powers above smile propitious on our purpose, we are happy for ever! Think how great and beautiful is our adventure.

Comfortless and desponding as I am now, ready to sink without life and animation at your feet, I may be in a few hours happier than ever.--Oh Edwin, lead on!--Can you hesitate?--Would it were in my power to reward the virtue I would excite as it deserves to be rewarded. But the G.o.ds will reward you, Edwin."--

As she uttered these words, her action was unspeakably graceful, her countenance was full of persuasion, and her voice was soft, and eloquent, and fascinating. Roderic gazed upon her with insatiate curiosity, and drank her accents with a greedy ear. For a moment, charmed with the loftiness of her discourse and the heroism of her soul, he was half persuaded to relent, and abjure his diabolical purpose. It was only by summoning up all the fierceness of his temper, all the impatience of his pa.s.sions, and all the mistaken haughtiness and inflexibility of his purpose, that he could resist the artless enchantment. During the internal struggle, his countenance by no means answered to the simplicity of pastoral sentiments. It was now fierce, and now unprotected and despairing. Anon it was pale with envy, and anon it was flushed with the triumph of brutal pa.s.sion. Transitions like these could not pa.s.s un.o.bserved. Imogen beheld them with anxiety and astonishment, but suspicion was too foreign in her breast, to be thus excited.

"Imogen," cried the traitor, "it is in your power to reward the n.o.blest acts of heroism that human courage can perform. Who in the midst of all the exultation and applause that triumphant rect.i.tude can inspire, could look to a n.o.bler prize than the condescension of your smiles and the heaven of your embraces? No, too amiable shepherdess, it is not for myself I fear; witness every action of my life; witness all those dangers that I have this moment unhesitatingly encountered, that I might fly to your arms. But, oh, when your safety is brought to hazard, I feel that I am indeed a coward. Think, my fair one, of the dangers that surround us. Let us calmly revolve, before we immediately meet them. No sooner shall we set our foot beyond this threshold, than they will commence. Tyranny is ever full of apprehensions and environed with guards. Along the gallery, and through the protracted hall, centinels are placed with every setting sun. Could you escape their observations, an hundred bolts, and an hundred ma.s.sive chains secure the hinges of the impious mansion. Beyond it all will be dark, and the solitude inviolate.

But suppose we meet again,--by what path to cross the wide extended glade, and to reach the only avenue that can lead us safely through this horrid cincture, will then be undiscoverable. Amid the untamed forest and untrod precipices that lie beyond, all the beasts most inimical to man reside. There the hills re-echo the tremendous roarings of the boar; the serpents hiss among the thickets; and the gaunt and hungry wolf roams for prey. Oh, Imogen, how fearful is the picture! And can your tender frame, and your timid spirits support the reality?"

Imogen had now preserved the character of heroism and fort.i.tude for a considerable time. All the energies of her soul had been exerted to encounter the trials and surmount the difficulties which she felt to be unavoidable. When the beloved form of Edwin had appeared before her, she relaxed in some degree from the caution and vigilance she had hitherto preserved. It is the very nature of joyful surprize to unbend as it were the strings of the mind, and to throw wide the doors of unguarded confidence. Before, she had felt herself alone; she saw no resource but in her own virtue, and could lean upon no pillar but her own resolution.

Now she had trusted to meet with an external support; she had poured out her heart into the bosom of him in whom she confided, and she looked to him for prudence, for suggestion and courage. But, instead of support, she had found debility, and instead of a.s.sistance the resources of her own mind were dried up, and her native fort.i.tude was overwhelmed and depressed. She turned pale at the recital of Roderic, her knees trembled, her eyes forgot their wonted l.u.s.tre, and she was immersed in the supineness and imbecility of despair.

"Edwin!"--she cried, with a tone of perturbation; but her utterance failed her. Her voice was low, hoa.r.s.e, and inaudible. The fict.i.tious shepherd supported her in his arms. Her distress was a new gratification and stimulus to her betrayer. "Edwin, ah, wherefore this fearful recital? Did you come here for no other purpose than to sink me ten times deeper in despair? Alas, I had conceived far other expectations, and far other hopes fluttered in my anxious bosom, when I first beheld your well known form. I said I have been hitherto constant and determined, though unsupported and melancholy. I shall now be triumphant. I shall experience that heaven-descended favour, which ever attends the upright. Edwin, my firm, heroic Edwin, will perform what I wished, and finish what I began. And, oh, generous and amiable shepherd, is it thus that my presages are fulfilled? No, I cannot, will not bear it. If the courage of Edwin fail, I will show him what he ought to be.

If you dare not lead, think whether you dare follow whither I guide. You shall see what an injured and oppressed woman can do. Feeble and tender as we are formed by nature, you shall see that we are capable of some fort.i.tude and some exertion." As she said this she had risen, and was advancing towards the door. But recollecting herself with a sudden pang, "Alas," cried she, "whither do I go?--What am I doing?--What shall I do?--Oh, Edwin!" and, falling at his feet, she embraced his knees, "do not, do no [sic] not desert me in this sad, tremendous moment!"

"I will not, my Imogen, I will never desert you. One fate shall attend us both. And if you are called to calamity, to torture, and to death, Edwin will not be supine and inactive." "Oh, now," cried she, her eyes moistened with rapture, "I recognize my n.o.ble and gallant swain. Come then, and let us fly. If we must encounter peril and disaster, what avails it to suspend the trial for a few n.i.g.g.ard hours? This, my friend, my guardian,--this is the time--Now the master dragon sleeps--Roderic is now unconscious and distant--and I fear him too much to apprehend any thing from a meaner adversary--Let us fly--let us escape--let our speed outstrip the rapid winds!"

During their conversation, the heavens had been covered with clouds, and the rain descended with violence. But the change had not been noticed by Imogen. "Well then, my fair one, we will depart. What though the wind whistles along the heath, and the rain patters among the elms? We will defy their fury. Let us go! But, ah, my Imogen, look there! The hinds are flying across the plain for shelter; and see! two of them approach to the clump of trees directly before us on the outside of the garden.

No, shepherdess, it is in vain that we resolve, and in vain that we struggle: we cannot escape."

The mind of Imogen was now wrought up to the extremest distress. Her heart was wrung with anguish. She was ready to charge the immortals with conspiring against her, had not her piety forbad it. She saw the reality of what Roderic stated, and yet she was ready to charge him with raising eternal obstacles. She cast upon him a look of despair and agony. But she did not read in the countenance of the imaginary shepherd congenial sentiments. "Methinks," said she, with a voice full of reproachful blandishment, and inimitable sweetness, "methinks it is not with the tenderness of sympathy, that you tell me we must desist. Sure it is only the mist of tears through which I behold you, that makes me see the suppressed emotion of pleasure in your countenance. No, it is not in the heart of Edwin to harbour for a moment the sentiments of barbarity and insult--But if we cannot now escape--if the dangers to which we must submit may be diminished by delay--indeed, Edwin, something must be attempted--at least let us now fix upon a plan, and determine what to do. Let not delay relax the spirit of enterprise, or shake the firmness of our purpose."

"And what plan," cried the pretended shepherd, "can we form? I have already trod the intricate and dangerous road, and there is nothing better for us than to tread my footsteps back again. The day is particularly unfavourable, as it is accompanied with activity and business. We must therefore wait for the night. Then we must watch our opportunities, and embrace the favourable interval. Imogen, I feel not for myself. I do not throw away a thought upon my own safety, and I am ready to submit to every evil for your service and your defence. But yet, my gentle, n.o.ble-minded shepherdess, I cannot promise any very flattering probability of success. Indeed my hopes are not sanguine. The difficulties that are before us appear to me insurmountable. One mountain peeps through the breaches of another, and they are like a wall built by the hand of nature, and reaching to the skies. Penmaenmawr is heaped upon Snowdon, and Plinlimmon nods upon the summit of Penmaenmawr.

It is only by the intervention of a miracle that we can ever revisit the dear, lamented fields of Clwyd. Let us then, my Imogen, compose ourselves to the sedateness of despair. Let us surrender the success of our future efforts to fate. And let us endeavor to solace the short and only certain interval that we yet can call our own, by the recollection of our virtuous loves."

"Alas," cried Imogen, "I understand not in what the sedateness of despair consists. In the prospect of every horrid mischief, mischief that threatens not merely my personal happiness or mortal existence, but which bears a malignant aspect upon the dignity of honour and the peace of integrity, I cannot calmly recollect our virtuous loves, or derive from that recollection sedateness and composure. Edwin, your language is dissonant, and the thoughts you seek to inspire, jarring and incompatible. If you must tell me to despair, at least point me to some n.o.bler source of consolation, than the coldness of memory; at least let us prepare for the fate that awaits us in a manner decent, manly, and heroic."

"Yes, too amiable shepherdess, if I were worthy to advise, I would recommend a more generous source of consolation, and teach you to prepare for futurity in a manner worthy of the simplicity of your heart; and worthy of that disinterested affection we have ever borne to each other. Think of those sacred ties that have united us. Think of the soft and gentle commerce of mutual glances; the chaste and innocent communication with which we have so often beguiled the noontide hour; the intercourse of pleasures, of sentiments, of feelings that we have held; the mingling of the soul. Did not heaven design us for each other?

Is not, by a long probation of simplicity and innocence, the possession of each other become a mutual purchase? An impious and arbitrary tyrant has torn us asunder. But do the G.o.ds smile upon his hated purpose? Does he not rather act in opposition to their decrees, and in defiance of their authority?"

The magician paused. "Alas," replied the shepherdess, "what is it you mean? Whither would you lead me? I understand you not. These indeed were motives for fort.i.tude and exertion, but what consolation can they impart to the desponding heart?" "I will tell you," replied her seducer, folding her slender waist with one of his arms as he spoke. "Since the G.o.ds are on our side, since heaven and earth approve our honest attachment, let us sit here and laugh at the tyrant. While he doubles his guards, and employs all his vigilance, let us mock his impotent efforts."

"Ah," replied the shepherdess, her eye moistened with despair, and beaming with unapprehensiveness, "how strange and impracticable an advice do you suggest! Full of terror, full of despair, you bid me laugh at fear. Threatened by a tyrant whose power is irresistible, and whose arts you yourself a.s.sure me are not to be evaded, you would have me mock at those arts, and this dreaded power. Is not his power triumphant? Is not all his vigilance crowned with a fatal success? Are we not his miserable, trembling, death-expecting victims? Can we leave this apartment, can we almost move our hand, or utter our voice, for solicitude and terror? Oh Edwin, in what mould must that heart have been cast, what must be its hard and unsusceptible texture, that can laugh at sorrow, and be full of the sensations of joy, though surrounded with all the engines of wretchedness?"

"Imogen, your fears are too great, your anxieties exaggerate the indigence of our condition. Though we are prisoners, yet even the misfortunes of a prison have their compensations. The activity of the immaterial mind, will not indeed submit long without reluctance to confinement and restraint. But we have not yet experienced la.s.situde and disgust." "Alas, Edwin, how strange and foreign are thoughts like these!

Whither do they tend? What would you infer from them?"

"This my love I would infer. That within one little cincture we are yet absolute. No prying eye can penetrate here. Of our words, of our actions, during a few remaining hours, we can dispose without controul."

"Ah," exclaimed the shepherdess, struck with a sudden suspicion of the treacherous purpose, and starting from her betrayer, "ah, Edwin, yet, yet explain yourself! A thousand horrid thoughts--a thousand dire and shapeless phantoms--But Edwin,--sure--is plain, and artless, and innocent.--What boots it that we can dispose of our words and actions within this cincture?--Will that enable us to escape?--No, no, no, no.--Escape you say is hopeless--What is it you mean?--Say--explain yourself--Oh, Edwin!"--

"Be not alarmed," cried the remorseless villain. "Listen, yet listen with calmness to the suggestions of my deliberate mind. Imogen, you are too beautiful--I have beheld you too long--I have admired you with too fierce an ardour. The G.o.ds--the G.o.ds have joined us. It is guilt and malignity alone that oppose their purpose.--Let us beat them down--trample them under our feet--employ worthily the moment that yet remains."--

As the magician p.r.o.nounced these words, he advanced towards his captive, and endeavoured to seize her in his arms. But she thrust him from her with the warmest indignation; and contemplating him with an eye of infinite disdain, "Base unworthy swain!"--she cried--"Insidious traitor!--abhorred destroyer!--And is it thus that you would approach me?--Is it thus that you would creep into the weakness of my heart?--But fly--I know you not--One mark of compa.s.sion I will yet exhibit, which you little deserve--Fly--I will not deliver you into the hands of your rival, whom yet my soul does not so much loath and abhor--Fly--Live to be pointed at as an example of degeneracy--Live to blush for and repent of that crime, which, Edwin!--cannot be expiated."

Roderic had advanced too far to be thus deterred. He did not wish to manage the character under which he appeared. His pa.s.sions by this interview, more private, and in which his captive had beheld him with an eye of greater complacency than ever, were inflamed to the extremest degree. The charms of Imogen had been in turn heightened with joy, and mellowed with distress. Even the conscious dignity, and haughty air she now a.s.sumed, gave new attractions to her form, and new grace to her manner. Her muscles trembled with horror and disdain. Her eloquent blood wrought distinctly in her veins, and spoke in a tone, not more dignified than enchanting. Her whole figure had a life, an expression, a loveliness, that it is impossible to conceive.

Roderic rushed forward unappalled, and unsubdued. He had already seized his unwilling victim. In vain she resisted his violence; in vain she strove to escape from her betrayer. "For pity's sake--for mercy's sake--for the sake of all our past endearments--spare me!--relent--and spare me--spare me!--" For a time she struggled; but her tender frame was soon overcome by the strength of her destroyer. She became cold and insensible in his arms.

At this moment a flood of splendid lightning filled the apartment. The air was rent with the hoa.r.s.e and deafening roar of the thunder, the door flew open, and the form of that spectre that he most abhorred stood before Roderic. "Go on," cried the phantom, "complete thy heroic purpose. Scorn the tremendous sounds that now appal thee. They are but the prelude of that scene that shall shortly feast my eyes. Perceivest thou not the earth to tremble beneath thy feet? Hearest thou not the walls of thy hated mansion cracking to their ruin? Confusion is at hand.

_Chaos is come again._ Go on then, Roderic. Complete thy heroic purpose." The spectre vanished, and all was uninterrupted silence.

The whole mind of Roderic was transformed from what it was. For the impotence of l.u.s.t, and the cruelty of inexorable triumph, he felt the terrors of annihilation, and all the cold, damp tremblings of despair.

But the victory of innocence was not yet complete.

Imogen had sunk for a moment under the horrors that threatened her, but she had not been so far impercipient as not to hear the murmuring of the thunder, and to see the gleam of the lightning. The form however that terrified Roderic, and the voice that addressed him, were perceived by him alone.

The shepherdess opened her eyes, and beheld the degenerate ravisher pale, aghast, and trembling. "It is well, Edwin. The G.o.ds have declared themselves. The G.o.ds have suspended their thunder over the head of the apostate. Rut, oh Edwin, could I have imagined it! Desolate and oppressed as I have been, could I have supposed, that that form was destined to fill up the measure of my woes! I once beheld it as the harbinger of happiness, as the temple of integrity and innocence. Oh, how wretched you have made me! How you have shaken all my most rooted opinions of the residence of virtue among mankind! Am I alone, and unsupported in her cause? How forlorn and solitary do I seem to myself!

I suffered--once I suffered the thought of Edwin to mix with the love of rect.i.tude, and the obedience of heaven. They all together confirmed me in the path I had chalked out for myself. Mistake not these reproaches for the weakness of returning pa.s.sion. And yet, Edwin, though I loath, I pity you! Go, and repent! Go, and blot from the records of your memory the cold insinuation, the aggravated guilt that you have this day practised! Go, and let me never, never see you more!"

As she uttered these words, congratulation, reproach, wretchedness, abhorrence and pity succeeded each other in her countenance. Rut they were all accompanied with an ineffable dignity, and an angelic purity.

The savage and the satyr might have beheld, and been awed into reverence. Roderic slunk away, guilty, mortified, and confounded. And such was the success of this other attempt upon the virtue of Imogen.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

BOOK THE SIXTH

IMOGEN ENDEAVOURS TO SUBDUE THE ATTENDANTS OF RODERIC.--THE SUPPER OF THE HALL.--JOURNEY AND ARRIVAL OF EDWIN.--SUBTLETY OF THE MAGICIAN.--HE IS DEFEATED.--END OF THE SECOND DAY.

The magician, overwhelmed and confounded with uninterrupted disappointment, was now ready to give himself up to despair. "I have approached the inflexible fair one," cried he, "by every avenue that leads to the female heart. And what is the amount of the advantages I have gained? I tempted her with riches. But riches she considered with disdain; they had nothing a.n.a.logous to the temper of her mind, and her uncultivated simplicity regarded them as superfluous and c.u.mbersome. I taught her to listen to the voice of flattery; I clothed it in all that is plausible and insinuating; but to no purpose. She was still upon her guard; all her suspicions were awake; and her integrity and her innocence were as vigilant as ever. Incapable of effecting any thing under that form she had learned to detest, I laid it aside. I a.s.sumed a form most prepossessing and most amiable in her eyes. Surely if her breast had not been as cold as the snow that clothes the summit of Snowdon; if her virtue had not been impregnable as the groves of Mona, a stratagem, omnipotent and impenetrable as this, must have succeeded. She beheld the figure of him she loved, and this was calculated in a moment of distress to draw forth all her softness. She beheld the person of him in whom she had been wont to find all integrity, and place all confidence, and this might have induced her to apprehend no danger. And yet with how much tender pa.s.sion, with how distressful an indignation, with what tumultuous sorrow did she witness his supposed crime? What then must I do? What yet remains? I love her with a more frantic and irresistible pa.s.sion than ever. I cannot abstain from her.--I cannot dismiss her.--I cannot forget her. Oh Imogen, too lovely, all-attractive Imogen, for you I stand upon the very brink of fate! Nor is this all.

Soon should I leap the gulph, soon should forget every prudent and colder prospect in the tumult of my soul, did not that cursed spectre ever shoot across my path to dash my transports, and to mar my enjoyments. Which way shall I turn? To leave her, that is impossible. To possess her by open force and manly violence, that my fate forbids. My understanding is bewildered, and my invention is lost.--Medoro!"--

Medoro received the well known signal, and stood before Roderic. He waited not to be addressed, he read the purposes of the heart of the magician. "Roderic," cried he, "this moment is the crisis of you[r]

destiny. The occasion, to which the curse p.r.o.nounced upon you by the inimical spectre refers, has already in part taken place. YOU HAVE SUED TO A SIMPLE MAID, WHO BY YOUR CHARMS HAS BEEN TAUGHT TO HATE THE SWAIN THAT ONCE SHE LOVED. It only remains that she should persevere in the resistance she has. .h.i.therto made, and that A SIMPLE SWAIN, perhaps her favoured Edwin, should defy your enchantments. Think then of the precipice on which you stand. Yet, yet return, while it is in your power. One step in advance beyond those you have already taken may be irretrievable. Alas, Roderic, it is thus that I advise! but I foresee that my advice will be neglected. The G.o.ds permit to the invisible inhabitants of air, when strongly invoked by a mortal voice, to a.s.sist their vices and teach adroitness to their pa.s.sions; but they do not permit an invocation like this to receive for its reward the lesson of moderation, and the attainment of happiness.

"Go on then, Roderic, in the path upon which you are inflexibly determined. You succeeded not in the stratagem of flattery; but it served to take off the keenness of the aversion of Imogen. She contemplates you now with somewhat less of horror, and with a virtuous and ingenuous fear of uncandidness and injustice upon your account.

Neither have you succeeded in that deeper stratagem and less penetrable deceit, the a.s.sumption of the form of him she loved. It has however served to weaken her prepossessions, and relax the chains of her attachment. She is now the better prepared to receive openly and impartially the addresses of a stranger swain. Thus even your miscarriages have furthered your design. Thus may a wise general convert his defeats into the means of victory. Think not however again to approach her in the coolness of reason, and the sobriety of the judgment. Hope not by temptation, by flattery, by prejudice, to shake the immutable character of her mind. There is yet one way unessayed. You must advance, if you would form the slightest expectations of victory, by secret and invisible steps. Her virtue must be surrounded, entangled and enmeshed, or ever her suspicions be awakened, or her integrity alarmed. This can be effected only by the instrumentality of pleasure.

Pleasure has risen triumphant over many a heart that riches could not conquer, and that ambition could not subdue. What though she has resisted temptation under the most alluring form, when her thoughts were collected and all around was silence?--Let the board of luxury be spread. Let the choicest dainties be heaped together in unbounded profusion. Let the most skilful musicians awake the softest instruments.

Let neatness, and elegance, and beauty exhibit their proudest charms.

Let every path that leads to delight, let every gratification that inebriates the soul be discovered. If at that moment temptation approach, even a meaner and less potent temptation may then succeed. The night advances with hasty feet. Night is the season of dissipation and luxury. Be this the hour of experiment, and let the apprehensive mind of Imogen be first a.s.siduously lulled to repose. Here, Roderic, you must rest your remaining hopes. There is not another instrument can be discovered, to disarm and vanquish the human mind. If here you fail, the G.o.ds have decreed it--they will be obeyed--Imogen must be dismissed from the enchanted halls of Rodogune."

With these words the goblin disappeared. The warning he had uttered pa.s.sed unheeded, but the magician immediately prepared to employ this last of stratagems. Summoning the train of attendants of either s.e.x that resided in the castle, he directed them some to make ready the intended feast, and some to repair to the apartment of Imogen. The preparations of the enchanted castle were not like those of a vulgar entertainment.

Every thing was accelerated by invisible agents. The intervention of the retinue of Roderic was scarcely admitted. The most savoury viands, the most high flavoured ragouts, and the most delicious wines presented themselves spontaneously to the expecting attendant. The hall was illuminated with a thousand l.u.s.tres that depended like stars from the concave roof, and were multiplied by the reflection of innumerable mirrors. The whole was arranged with inconceivable expedition.

In the mean time a few of the more distinguished attendants of her own s.e.x repaired to the presence of Imogen. They found her feeble, spiritless and disconsolate. "Come," exclaimed their leader, in an accent of persuasion; "comply, my lovely girl, let not us alone have reason to complain of your unfriendliness and inflexibility."

Imogen was fatigued and she wished not for repose. Grief and persecution had in a former instance inspired her with the love of solitude. But her feelings were now of another kind. The disgrace and ingrat.i.tude of Edwin had wounded her in the tenderest point, and she could not think of it but with inexpressible anguish. She was for the first time afraid of her own reflections, and desirous to fly from herself. "Yes," exclaimed she, "and I would go, if you will promise me that it shall not be to the presence of Roderic. The castle and the fields, the freshness of the morning air and the gloom of a dungeon, are equal to me, provided I must be kept back from the arms of my beloved parents, and their anxious and tender spirits must still be held in suspence. But indeed I must not, I will not, be continually dragged to the presence of the man I hate. It is ungenerous, unreasonable, and indecent. What is the meaning of all this compulsion? Why am I kept here so much against my will? Why am I dragged from place to place, and from object to object? Surely all this cannot be mere caprice and tyranny. There must be in it some dark and guilty meaning that I cannot comprehend. Oh shepherdesses! if ye had any friends.h.i.+p, if any pity dwelt within your bosoms, ye would surely a.s.sist me to escape this hated confinement. Point but the way, show me but the smallest hole, by which I might get away to ease and liberty, and I would thank you a thousand times. You, who appear the leader of the throng, your brow is smooth, your eyes are gentle and serene, and the bloom of youth still dwells upon your face. Oh," added the apprehensive Imogen, and she threw herself upon her knees--"do not bely the stamp of benevolence and clemency that nature has planted there. Think if you had parents as I have, whose happiness, whose existence, are suspended upon mine, if you abbhorred, and detested, and feared your jailor as I do, what would be your feelings then, and how you would wish to be treated by a person in your situation. Grant me only the poor and scanty boon, that you would then conceive your right. Dismiss me, I intreat you. I cannot bear my situation. My former days have all been suns.h.i.+ne, my former companions have all been kindness. I have not been educated to encounter persecution, and misfortunes, and horrors. I cannot encounter them. I cannot survive it."

As she p.r.o.nounced these words, she sunk, feeble, languid, and breathless, upon the knees of the attendant. They hastened to raise her.

They soothed her ingenuous affliction, and a.s.sured her that she should not be intruded upon by him of whom she had formed so groundless apprehensions. Since then she was invited to partake of a slight refreshment accompanied only by persons of her own s.e.x, she did not long hesitate, and was easily persuaded to acquiesce. The unostentatious kindness of the invitation, and the modesty of the entertainment she expected, dissipated her fears. It was from solitude that she now wished to escape; and it was to that simple and temperate relaxation that she had experienced among the inhabitants of Clwyd, to which she was desirous to repair.