The Black Dwarf

Chapter 15

The intruder on Miss Vere's sorrows was Ratcliffe. Ellieslaw had, in the

agitation of his mind, forgotten to countermand the order he had given

to call him thither, so that he opened the door with the words, "You

sent for me, Mr. Vere." Then looking around--"Miss Vere, alone! on the

ground! and in tears!"

"Leave me--leave me, Mr. Ratcliffe," said the unhappy young lady.

"I must not leave you," said Ratcliffe; "I have been repeatedly

requesting admittance to take my leave of you, and have been refused,

until your father himself sent for me. Blame me not, if I am bold and

intrusive; I have a duty to discharge which makes me so."

"I cannot listen to you--I cannot speak to you, Mr. Ratcliffe; take my

best wishes, and for God's sake leave me."

"Tell me only," said Ratcliffe, "is it true that this monstrous match is

to go forward, and this very night? I heard the servants proclaim it as

I was on the great staircase--I heard the directions given to clear out

the chapel."

"Spare me, Mr. Ratcliffe," replied the luckless bride; "and from the

state in which you see me, judge of the cruelty of these questions."

"Married? to Sir Frederick Langley? and this night? It must not

cannot--shall not be."

"It MUST be, Mr. Ratcliff, or my father is ruined."

"Ah! I understand," answered Ratcliffe; "and you have sacrificed

yourself to save him who--But let the virtue of the child atone for the

faults of the father it is no time to rake them up.--What CAN be done?

Time presses--I know but one remedy--with four-and-twenty hours I might

find many--Miss Vere, you must implore the protection of the only human

being who has it in his power to control the course of events which

threatens to hurry you before it."

"And what human being," answered Miss Vere, "has such power?"

"Start not when I name him," said Ratcliffe, coming near her, and

speaking in a low but distinct voice. "It is he who is called Elshender

the Recluse of Mucklestane-Moor."

"You are mad, Mr. Ratcliffe, or you mean to insult my misery by an

ill-timed jest!"

"I am as much in my senses, young lady," answered her adviser, "as you

are; and I am no idle jester, far less with misery, least of all with

your misery. I swear to you that this being (who is other far than

what he seems) actually possesses the means of redeeming you from this

hateful union."

"And of insuring my father's safety?"

"Yes! even that," said Ratcliffe, "if you plead his cause with him--yet

how to obtain admittance to the Recluse!"

"Fear not that," said Miss Vere, suddenly recollecting the incident

of the rose; "I remember he desired me to call upon him for aid in

my extremity, and gave me this flower as a token. Ere it faded away

entirely, I would need, he said, his assistance: is it possible his

words can have been aught but the ravings of insanity?"

"Doubt it not fear it not--but above all," said Ratcliffe, "let us lose

no time--are you at liberty, and unwatched?"

"I believe so," said Isabella: "but what would you have me to do?"

"Leave the castle instantly," said Ratcliffe, "and throw yourself at the

feet of this extraordinary man, who in circumstances that seem to argue

the extremity of the most contemptible poverty, possesses yet an almost

absolute influence over your fate.--Guests and servants are deep in

their carouse--the leaders sitting in conclave on their treasonable

schemes--my horse stands ready in the stable--I will saddle one for you,

and meet you at the little garden-gate--O, let no doubt of my prudence

or fidelity prevent your taking the only step in your power to escape

the dreadful fate which must attend the wife of Sir Frederick Langley!"

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Miss Vere, "you have always been esteemed a man

of honour and probity, and a drowning wretch will always catch at the

feeblest twig,--I will trust you--I will follow your advice--I will meet

you at the garden-gate."

She bolted the outer-door of her apartment as soon as Mr. Ratcliffe left

her, and descended to the garden by a separate stair of communication

which opened to her dressing-room. On the way she felt inclined to

retract the consent she had so hastily given to a plan so hopeless

and extravagant. But as she passed in her descent a private door which

entered into the chapel from the back-stair, she heard the voice of the

female-servants as they were employed in the task of cleaning it.

"Married! and to sae bad a man--Ewhow, sirs! onything rather than that."

"They are right--they are right," said Miss Vere, "anything rather than

that!"

She hurried to the garden. Mr. Ratcliffe was true to his

appointment--the horses stood saddled at the garden-gate, and in a few

minutes they were advancing rapidly towards the hut of the Solitary.

While the ground was favourable, the speed of their journey was such as

to prevent much communication; but when a steep ascent compelled them to

slacken their pace, a new cause of apprehension occurred to Miss Vere's

mind.

"Mr. Ratcliffe," she said, pulling up her horse's bridle, "let us

prosecute no farther a journey, which nothing but the extreme agitation

of my mind can vindicate my having undertaken--I am well aware that this

man passes among the vulgar as being possessed of supernatural powers,

and carrying on an intercourse with beings of another world; but I would

have you aware I am neither to be imposed on by such follies, nor, were

I to believe in their existence, durst I, with my feelings of religion,

apply to this being in my distress."

"I should have thought, Miss Vere," replied Ratcliffe, "my character and

habits of thinking were so well known to you, that you might have held

me exculpated from crediting in such absurdity."

"But in what other mode," said Isabella, "can a being, so miserable

himself in appearance, possess the power of assisting me?"

"Miss Vere." said Ratcliffe, after a momentary pause, "I am bound by

a solemn oath of secrecy--You must, without farther explanation, be

satisfied with my pledged assurance, that he does possess the power, if

you can inspire him with the will; and that, I doubt not, you will be

able to do."

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Miss Vere, "you may yourself be mistaken; you ask

an unlimited degree of confidence from me."

"Recollect, Miss Vere," he replied, "that when, in your humanity, you

asked me to interfere with your father in favour of Haswell and his

ruined family--when you requested me to prevail on him to do a

thing most abhorrent to his nature--to forgive an injury and remit a

penalty--I stipulated that you should ask me no questions concerning the

sources of my influence--You found no reason to distrust me then, do not

distrust me now."

"But the extraordinary mode of life of this man," said Miss Vere; "his

seclusion--his figure--the deepness of mis-anthropy which he is said to

express in his language--Mr. Ratcliffe, what can I think of him if he

really possesses the powers you ascribe to him?"

"This man, young lady, was bred a Catholic, a sect which affords a

thousand instances of those who have retired from power and affluence to

voluntary privations more strict even than his."

"But he avows no religious motive," replied Miss Vere.

"No," replied Ratcliffe; "disgust with the world has operated his

retreat from it without assuming the veil of superstition. Thus far I

may tell you--he was born to great wealth, which his parents designed

should become greater by his union with a kinswoman, whom for that

purpose they bred up in their own house. You have seen his figure;

judge what the young lady must have thought of the lot to which she was

destined--Yet, habituated to his appearance, she showed no reluctance,

and the friends of--of the person whom I speak of, doubted not that the

excess of his attachment, the various acquisitions of his mind, his

many and amiable qualities, had overcome the natural horror which

his destined bride must have entertained at an exterior so dreadfully

inauspicious."

"And did they judge truly?" said Isabella.

"You shall hear. He, at least, was fully aware of his own deficiency;

the sense of it haunted him like a phantom. 'I am,' was his own

expression to me,--I mean to a man whom he trusted,--'I am, in spite

of what you would say, a poor miserable outcast, fitter to have been

smothered in the cradle than to have been brought up to scare the world

in which I crawl.' The person whom he addressed in vain endeavoured to

impress him with the indifference to external form which is the natural

result of philosophy, or entreat him to recall the superiority of mental

talents to the more attractive attributes that are merely personal.

'I hear you,' he would reply; 'but you speak the voice of cold-blooded

stoicism, or, at least, of friendly partiality. But look at every book

which we have read, those excepted of that abstract philosophy which

feels no responsive voice in our natural feelings. Is not personal form,

such as at least can be tolerated without horror and disgust, always

represented as essential to our ideas of a friend, far more a lover?

Is not such a mis-shapen monster as I am, excluded, by the very fiat

of Nature, from her fairest enjoyments? What but my wealth prevents

all--perhaps even Letitia, or you--from shunning me as something foreign

to your nature, and more odious, by bearing that distorted resemblance

to humanity which we observe in the animal tribes that are more hateful

to man because they seem his caricature?'"

"You repeat the sentiments of a madman," said Miss Vere.

"No," replied her conductor, "unless a morbid and excessive sensibility

on such a subject can be termed insanity. Yet I will not deny that this

governing feeling and apprehension carried the person who entertained

it, to lengths which indicated a deranged imagination. He appeared

to think that it was necessary for him, by exuberant, and not always

well-chosen instances of liberality, and even profusion, to unite

himself to the human race, from which he conceived himself naturally

dissevered. The benefits which he bestowed, from a disposition naturally

philanthropical in an uncommon degree, were exaggerated by the influence

of the goading reflection, that more was necessary from him than from

others,--lavishing his treasures as if to bribe mankind to receive him

into their class. It is scarcely necessary to say, that the bounty which

flowed from a source so capricious was often abused, and his confidence

frequently betrayed. These disappointments, which occur to all, more or

less, and most to such as confer benefits without just discrimination,

his diseased fancy set down to the hatred and contempt excited by his

personal deformity.--But I fatigue you, Miss Vere?"

"No, by no means; I--I could not prevent my attention from wandering an

instant; pray proceed."

"He became at length," continued Ratcliffe, "the most ingenious

self-tormentor of whom I have ever heard; the scoff of the rabble, and

the sneer of the yet more brutal vulgar of his own rank, was to him

agony and breaking on the wheel. He regarded the laugh of the common

people whom he passed on the street, and the suppressed titter, or yet

more offensive terror, of the young girls to whom he was introduced in

company, as proofs of the true sense which the world entertained of

him, as a prodigy unfit to be received among them on the usual terms

of society, and as vindicating the wisdom of his purpose in withdrawing

himself from among them. On the faith and sincerity of two persons

alone, he seemed to rely implicitly--on that of his betrothed bride, and

of a friend eminently gifted in personal accomplishments, who seemed,

and indeed probably was, sincerely attached to him. He ought to have

been so at least, for he was literally loaded with benefits by him whom

you are now about to see. The parents of the subject of my story died

within a short space of each other. Their death postponed the marriage,

for which the day had been fixed. The lady did not seem greatly to

mourn this delay,--perhaps that was not to have been expected; but

she intimated no change of intention, when, after a decent interval,

a second day was named for their union. The friend of whom I spoke was

then a constant resident at the Hall. In an evil hour, at the earnest

request and entreaty of this friend, they joined a general party, where

men of different political opinions were mingled, and where they drank

deep. A quarrel ensued; the friend of the Recluse drew his sword with

others, and was thrown down and disarmed by a more powerful antagonist.

They fell in the struggle at the feet of the Recluse, who, maimed and

truncated as his form appears, possesses, nevertheless, great strength,

as well as violent passions. He caught up a sword, pierced the heart

of his friend's antagonist, was tried, and his life, with difficulty,

redeemed from justice at the expense of a year's close imprisonment, the

punishment of manslaughter. The incident affected him most deeply,

the more that the deceased was a man of excellent character, and had

sustained gross insult and injury ere he drew his sword. I think, from

that moment, I observed--I beg pardon--The fits of morbid sensibility

which had tormented this unfortunate gentleman, were rendered henceforth

more acute by remorse, which he, of all men, was least capable of having

incurred, or of sustaining when it became his unhappy lot. His paroxysms

of agony could not be concealed from the lady to whom he was betrothed;

and it must be confessed they were of an alarming and fearful nature.

He comforted himself, that, at the expiry of his imprisonment, he could

form with his wife and friend a society, encircled by which he might

dispense with more extensive communication with the world. He was

deceived; before that term elapsed, his friend and his betrothed bride

were man and wife. The effects of a shock so dreadful on an ardent

temperament, a disposition already soured by bitter remorse, and

loosened by the indulgence of a gloomy imagination from the rest of

mankind, I cannot describe to you; it was as if the last cable at which

the vessel rode had suddenly parted, and left her abandoned to all the

wild fury of the tempest. He was placed under medical restraint. As a

temporary measure this might have been justifiable; but his hard-hearted

friend, who, in consequence of his marriage, was now his nearest ally,

prolonged his confinement, in order to enjoy the management of his

immense estates. There was one who owed his all to the sufferer, an

humble friend, but grateful and faithful. By unceasing exertion, and

repeated invocation of justice, he at length succeeded in obtaining

his patron's freedom, and reinstatement in the management of his own

property, to which was soon added that of his intended bride, who having

died without male issue, her estates reverted to him, as heir of entail.

But freedom and wealth were unable to restore the equipoise of his mind;

to the former his grief made him indifferent--the latter only served him

as far as it afforded him the means of indulging his strange and wayward

fancy. He had renounced the Catholic religion, but perhaps some of

its doctrines continued to influence a mind, over which remorse and

misanthropy now assumed, in appearance, an unbounded authority. His life

has since been that alternately of a pilgrim and a hermit, suffering

the most severe privations, not indeed in ascetic devotion, but in

abhorrence of mankind. Yet no man's words and actions have been at

such a wide difference, nor has any hypocritical wretch ever been more

ingenious in assigning good motives for his vile actions, than this

unfortunate in reconciling to his abstract principles of misanthropy,

a conduct which flows from his natural generosity and kindness of

feeling."

"Still, Mr. Ratcliffe--still you describe the inconsistencies of a

madman."

"By no means," replied Ratcliffe. "That the imagination of this

gentleman is disordered, I will not pretend to dispute; I have already

told you that it has sometimes broken out into paroxysms approaching

to real mental alienation. But it is of his common state of mind that I

speak; it is irregular, but not deranged; the shades are as gradual as

those that divide the light of noonday from midnight. The courtier who

ruins his fortune for the attainment of a title which can do him no

good, or power of which he can make no suitable or creditable use, the

miser who hoards his useless wealth, and the prodigal who squanders it,

are all marked with a certain shade of insanity. To criminals who are

guilty of enormities, when the temptation, to a sober mind, bears no

proportion to the horror of the act, or the probability of detection and

punishment, the same observation applies; and every violent passion, as

well as anger, may be termed a short madness."

"This may be all good philosophy, Mr. Ratcliffe," answered Miss Vere;

"but, excuse me, it by no means emboldens me to visit, at this late

hour, a person whose extravagance of imagination you yourself can only

palliate."

"Rather, then," said Ratcliffe, "receive my solemn assurances, that you

do not incur the slightest danger. But what I have been hitherto afraid

to mention for fear of alarming you is, that now when we are within

sight of his retreat, for I can discover it through the twilight, I must

go no farther with you; you must proceed alone."

"Alone?--I dare not."

"You must," continued Ratcliffe; "I will remain here and wait for you."

"You will not, then, stir from this place," said Miss Vere "yet

the distance is so great, you could not hear me were I to cry for

assistance."

"Fear nothing," said her guide; "or observe, at least, the utmost

caution in stifling every expression of timidity. Remember that his

predominant and most harassing apprehension arises from a consciousness

of the hideousness of his appearance. Your path lies straight beside

yon half-fallen willow; keep the left side of it; the marsh lies on the

right. Farewell for a time. Remember the evil you are threatened with,

and let it overcome at once your fears and scruples."

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Isabella, "farewell; if you have deceived one so

unfortunate as myself, you have for ever forfeited the fair character

for probity and honour to which I have trusted."

"On my life--on my soul," continued Ratcliffe, raising his voice as the

distance between them increased, "you are safe--perfectly safe."