THE TRAVELLING TUTOR. CHAPTER IV. The shades of evening had fallen upon the valley, and the pale moon, casting her softened beams upon the rippled bosom of the mountain stream, tipped with a silvery radiance every circling eddy in its current. The myriad stars, gleaming in the cloudless sky, seemed like the eyes of countless disembodied spirits keeping watchful guard over the world, now buried in slumbering repose; and among the green blades of the grassy turf the glowworm, with his tiny lamps, seemed to emulate the brilliance of the mighty heavens, while the firefly, flitting on light and nimble wing, made the greenwood sparkle with unnumbered mimic meteors, darting from shrub to flower, and illumining with evanescent flashes the solemn darkness of the everlasting woods. The feathered songsters of the grove had hushed their merry warblings, and the shrill grasshopper still raised his sprightly chirrupings, and ever and anon the piercing note of the nighthawk aroused with its discordant tones the echoes of slumbering Nature. It was one of those glorious nights in which the care-worn spirit feels gently stealing over it the calm and tranquil influence of Nature's loveliness; soothing sorrow into repose, and arousing, in the heart bowed down with woe, glad hopes of happier days in the bright world beyond the stars; in which the anguished mourner, gazing into the noble expanse of the spangled firmament, loves to dream. that the spirits of the dead are looking down upon him from their home in heaven, and pictures in the soft breathings of the evening wind the voices of the angel host, bearing to his willing ear sweet words of hope and solace to his woe-worn heart. For amid all the turmoils and heart-burnings of human strife the face of Nature ever presents the same heavenly aspect of serene and perfect beauty; let man's heart be never so sad, creation VOL. III. NO. V. NEW SERIES. wears the same unvarying smile, and, like the merry partner of a moping husband, strives to win him back to happiness and peace. Well indeed would it be for the world, if men would more willingly lend ear to the majestic tones which are borne upon the crashing thunder amid the whirl of elemental strife, and listen more reverently to the gentle whispers which float upon the soft autumnal breeze; for these are indeed the voice of Heaven. In all the wondrous beauties of creation, the pious heart recognizes the mighty hand of the Eternal, and reads the noble lessons with which Nature strives to lead back the erring soul to virtue. Such influences, however, failed to reach the hearts of Rushton and Lord Arthur Ellerton, who were at that moment re clining in the shade of a projecting rock, the base of which reached almost to the river's brink. No one who listened for a few moments to their conversation could fail to perceive that they were intent upon a scheme of villany; and although Lord Arthur's resolution seemed to be often conquered for a moment by some qualms of conscience, these rays of virtuous purpose were but evanescent flashes, and held but brief empire over his mind. At length, after a silence broken only by the plashing of the rippling current, as it danced merrily over its rocky bed, Lord Arthur said, "Look out, Rushton, and tell me whether you can see any one approaching." "Not a shadow; but the moon has this moment passed under a cloud, and it is not very easy to distinguish. At nine, I think you said, she was to meet you?" Yes; and now I almost hope she may not come. Such innocence, such confiding love, makes my perfidy appear the more atrocious. You say you have all in readiness? "Everything; it is impossible that we should not succeed. Within fifty yards of this spot our horses are now waiting to 30 convey us beyond the reach of pursuit. | It only remains for you to try and persuade her to become the companion of your flight; since you will insist upon trying persuasion first, instead of adopting my safer plan, and carrying her off without parley." "But should she refuse ?" If "We have gone too far to retreat. she should escape us, and inform these fellows of our attempt, we should have the whole mountain horde upon us, and our lives would not be worth half an hour's purchase." "Oh! Rushton, I wish I had never consented to this villany. Let us abandon the whole scheme. I will sue her honorably to become my wife, and then of "Become the outcast of your family, the despised of your friends, the ridicule your old associates. Pshaw! cast aside these idle scruples, and do credit to your education by showing yourself free from such craven qualms. You! one of the roués of the West End-the pride of Crockford's, and the darling of Almack's -and yet afraid to carry off a peasant girl!" "Yes, yes, Rushton, I suppose you are right. And yet I confess that I wish we had never come here. I know that I have plunged deeply into the tide of dissipation; but to betray such love, such innocence, seems to me almost a crime." "Are you content then to resign the pursuit; to abandon your fair enslaver to become the wife of some honest bandit, or the prey of some less scrupulous intriguer?" "No, the thought of that were madness! Are you sure that we are safe from the chance of successful pursuit ?" Everything has been done to secure our safety in flight. But you are not generally so fearful.” "No, no. I am not afraid; but my heart is ill at ease, and conscience makes me a coward. If these fellows should take us, I should be more afraid to encounter their looks than to meet their poignards." "You may be sure that if we have the ill luck to suffer the one, the other will soon follow. But so far fortune has already smiled upon us. This very day a party of dragoons has tracked to their lair some of the mountain robbers; and as most of the honest inhabitants of this valley are in some way connected with the pursuits of these gentry, they have fled in all directions. Ah! some one is coming down the valley. As I live, it is the fair Elenor herself. Now I will leave you, and remember, you are to lead her in the direction in which you see me go. Be firm, and recollect that if you falter you endanger not only our success, but our lives!" And, so saying, Rushton disappeared rapidly among the trees. Lord Arthur had no time for thought, for no sooner had his companion left him than he was joined by a lovely girl, tripping lightly along with almost fairy footsteps, the sight of whom at once caused passion to extinguish in his heart all the impulses of remorse. Her figure was petite, but, though slightly formed, it was exquisitely moulded, and presented, in the picturesque garb of her country, a perfect model of rustic gracefulness. Her features would not have been deemed handsome by a connoisseur, but she had the clear olive complexion of her sunny clime, into which love had summoned a rosy blush which warmed it into glowing beauty, and from the depths of her liquid eyes shone forth the full radiance of a true woman's heart. Her beauty was a grace, not of form but of soul; and the joyous steps with which she now approached her lover, and the timid yet confiding fondness with which she placed her little hand in his, and raised her blushing cheek to receive his tender greeting, told at once all the history of her loving, trusting heart. "My sweet Elenor, I feared you had forgotten your promise to bless me with so much happiness." Nay, Arthur, you, should not have distrusted me. Indeed, I could not join you earlier. The soldiers are lurking in every dell, and ambushed in every ravine, and even now it is at the peril of my safety that I have kept my word." "Devoted girl! to see you once again repays me for all anxieties; though it makes me the more heart-broken to think we are so soon to part forever." "To part forever! Oh! do not alarm me with such dreadful words; you cannot mean to leave me; me, who love you so dearly, and will cherish you in my heart so truly ?" 'Alas, Elenor! I cannot escape from a fate which to me is worse than death. This very night I must leave this happy valley, and retrace my steps to England.' "But you will soon return?" "Perhaps that may be impossible, but even if I should, it will only be to find you the wife of some happier man.' Arthur, dear Arthur, you do not know my heart, or you would not wrong me by such suspicions. In the warm heart of an Italian maiden, love is not the idle fancy of a passing hour; it is her soul, it is her life. The sanctuary in which your loved image has found a shrine can admit no other divinity; the empire over which you reign can own no new supremacy. Ah! Arthur, you cannot believe that I love you, or you would not doubt my truth. You say that we must part; and though it should break my heart to lose you, I would not ask you to remain, if absence would secure your happiness. But do not think that you will be forgotten; though you may suffer the remembrance of poor Elenor to pass from your recollection, you will still be my life, my soul, my existence. Waking, your image shall be my only idol; sleeping, your shadow shall alone gladden my lonely dreams; living, I will cherish your memory with undying love; dying, a prayer for your happiness will be breathed in the last accents of expiring existence !" My sweet Elenor! we will live, then, in the hope of future happiness, when the gloom which now lowers around our destiny shall be chased away by the bright sunshine of joy. And see, dearest, the moon breaking from her bed of silvery clouds, gives omen of our happy days to come. Let this last evening at least be sacred to love. The cool breeze which wafts its balmy breath from yonder hills seems to invite us to wander beside the mountain streamlet, whose course is now as troubled as our own fate, but which will soon expand into the calmly gliding river, foreshadowing our joyous destiny. Come, dear Elenor, for one hour at least let us defy the frowns of fortune." And circling with his arm her slender, graceful waist, he led her unresistingly along the path which skirted along the margin of the woods, pouring into her ear the while sweet words of hopeful love, upon which she hung with all the absorbing devotion of her pure and guileless heart. For a few brief moments all was still. But scarcely had the retreating shadows of the two wanderers disappeared among the trees, when a few shots fired in quick succession broke the solemn silence of the night, and Beppo, swinging himself from shrub to shrub with well-practised dexterity, descended the hillside with the agility of the mountain roe. Reaching the valley, he prepared himself for yet further flight; but at that moment a piercing shriek struck upon his ear, whose well-remembered tones sent the warm blood coursing in a fiery torrent to his heart. Again and again the cry arose, and Elenor, her hair flying wildly in the breeze, and her face pallid with alarm, came running rapidly along the valley, followed by Rushton, whose swift footsteps gained quickly upon his retreating prey. She saw him; with a wild cry of joy she bent her steps towards him; in another moment she would have been in his arms; in an instant the ball from Beppo's levelled pistol would have sent the soul of the dastardly assailant to its long home beyond the grave. But at that moment the well-directed aim of a trooper's carbine, discharged from the hill above, sent the bandit reeling to the earth; the soldiers, pouring down the hillside, gathered around him, and secured his limbs with cords, while his senses were yet steeped in stupor from the sudden shock of his wound; and when Beppo again woke to recollection and started to his feet in mad frenzy, at the remembrance of the scene which had last met his view, the wild shrieks of Elenor had almost died away into silence among the distant hills. CHAPTER V. Again Time had winged his eager flight over the lapse of three revolving years. Three years! Small item in the great account of eternity, yet to some a lifetime of despair. Three years! To the voluptuary, but a moment for enjoyment; to the favorite of fortune, but an hour for happiness; yet to the poor, friendless outcast, an age of speechless agony. Three years! To the flippant fancy of those who weigh | ful and unholy trade; and in the wide the destinies of others in the balance of avenues, where splendid buildings reared their earthly justice, a term of suffering their sculptured fronts, and the bright gasalmost too short to be assigned to the lamps rivalled the brilliance of the open meanest offender against their laws; yet day, the wretched beings who spread a to the mourner, an age of misery; to the moral pestilence among men, and lay lone and desolate, a century of undying around their steps their dreadful snares, as if to avenge upon the race the cruel wrongs which caused their early fall from virtue, swept along, arrayed in flaunting finery, laughing the hollow laugh of vice; too often, alas! hiding beneath the gaudy mask without, an endless store of aching woe and bitterness within. woe. The great world of London lay hushed and cradled in uneasy slumber. In the lordly palaces of the silent city, the high and mighty ones of the land-the titled favorites of fortune, around whom wealth had strewn her glittering treasure, dreamed, with fitful starts, then waking visions of avarice and ambition. In the pauper hovels of the obscure and crowded alleys, where the pure air of heaven never fans the pallid cheek of stunted and decrepit childhood, but filth, and want, and woe, vegetate in an atmosphere of corruption, the poor, tossing on their uneasy pillows, dreamed of happy and contented homes, and wholesome food and ample raiment never, alas! to be realized in their wakeful hours; and in the dark and gloomy cells of the felon's prison, the convict rattled the heavy chains which manacled his aching limbs, as before his sleeping fancy rose bright visions of the cheerful fireside, and kindly looks, and loving words, which had gladdened his stainless infancy, now fled, to return no more. High and low, rich and poor-all revelled in the world of visions. In the disordered fancies of many slumberers dark forms of vicious passion sprung into wild developments, and evil phantoms grinned upon their repose; but around many young, sleeping heads, wreathed other and more hopeful fancies; and many gentle hearts, shrining in their visions the idols of their young affections, dreamed dreams of love, and innocence, and peace, such as might make the weeping angels, who mourn in their high homes the vices of a selfish world, smile, and bless the dreamers as they slept. In one of the streets, in the fashionable quarter of St. James's, there is, or was, not long ago, a house of staid and decorous aspect, possessing, externally, no features likely to attract a stranger's notice; and as, on the night to which our history now carries us, the shutters were closed, and no signs of wakeful existence were apparent to the closest observer, a passer-by would have been inclined (if he took any notice of it all, which it is most likely he would not) to set it down, at once, as the abode of some innoffensive citizen, who had followed at least one of the precepts of that golden rule, commonly prescribed to infancy as the unfailing key to the attainment of vigorous constitutions, large fortunes, and oracular wisdom, by retiring early to repose. The light of the tall gas-lamp which reared its head before the door of this building fell, about two hours after midnight, upon two individuals who approached the house, and, after glancing cautiously up and down the street, gave three soft and peculiar taps upon the door. A slide, which covered a little grating in the panel, so small and well-concealed that it would have passed unnoticed, save by a very careful observer, was quickly but noiselessly drawn back, and a watchful eye peered out upon the new comers. Apparently, the result of the inspection was satisfactory, for the door was softly opened, though only wide enough to allow the ingress of and narrow streets which skirt the haunts one person, and the two visitors passed of vice, the thief lurked in obsrity, watch- through the narrow opening, and entered ing for some stray traveller who might be- an ill-lighted hall. At the end of this, come his prey; close to the walls of great another door interposed to bar their prohouses, whose outward aspect spoke of gress; but, at a few words from the man wealth within, the burglar crept, with soft who had first admitted them, this was and stealthy footsteps, to pursue his fear-opened also, and, ascending the narrow London slept! Yet not all its denizens were wrapped in slumber. In the dark staircase, they entered the principal apart- | the game, and whose anxious eye was now ment. It was a small, but sufficiently lofty room, lighted by a hanging gas-lamp, around the four burners of which green shades threw the full glare of brilliance upon the table below. The furniture bespoke habits of luxurious occupancy. Soft sofas skirted the walls; and all the appliances were upon a scale of elegant and costly splendor. But the atmosphere was hot and stifling; the closed windows excluded every breath of pure air: and the motley crowd of occupants combined with the glaring lights to make the heat insufferable. They were all gathered round the table in the centre of the room, except one lethargic visitor, who, having imbibed more than enough of the generous wine which sparkled in crystal decanters upon the sidetables, had fallen on the floor, and lay, his head resting on the sofa, in undisturbed repose; and another, who, with pallid cheeks and bloodshot eyes, and hands clenched in the mute agony of despair, sat glaring wildly on vacancy, apparently unconscious of all that passed around him. But the rest all bent over the table, watching eagerly the progress of the play, with the rapt anxiety of men whose fate hung upon the issue of the game. fixed nervously upon the progress of the play, awaiting, in agonized expectation, the coming crisis of his fate. Could a calm observer have scanned the hearts of all this motley throng, and read the secrets that were there enshrined, how dark a page would he have perused in the book of fate! how many entries would have met his eye, which would have made the blood run cold within his veins, and chilled his heart with misery! But there were no calm observers there; all were lost in the wild whirl of tumultuous excitement; none had any eyes but for the game before them; any ear, but for the sounds which told them whether they had lost or won. Now and then, some poor ruined wretch would rush from the table, and throwing himself upon the sofa, clench and twine his hands in his disordered hair, abandoning himself to agonized despair; while others, who saw the gulf of ruin yawning wide before them, yet lacked the resolution to spring back from the margin of the abyss, hurried to the wine-bottle, and fed their frenzy with. draughts, which poured upon their maddened brains like oil upon a blazing fire. Curses and execrations were borne upon every breath; obscene jests and blasphemous ribaldries passed from mouth to mouth; infuriated gamesters, raising the wine-cup to their lips, heard a new loss proclaimed, and dashed the untasted goblet wildly on the floor; while others, flushed with wine, and elated with success, gave vent to their glee in boisterous and unruly merriment. All was tumult, riot, and debauchery-a living image of an earthly hell! The new comers were of a class some It would have been a curious study, to scan the varied aspects of those who were gathered together in this den, and to discriminate the infinitely diversified shades of character which presented themselves on every side. There was the jolly country squire, who had been decoyed into entering the house by the questionable man of fashion, who stood beside him, and kindly "managed his play," and at whose bidding and advice he staked and lost his money mechanically, gaping around the while, in wondering astonishment at the strangeness and novelty of the scene before him. There was the professed gambler, who made his living in such haunts-cool, steady, and calculating; of polished bearing, yet with gleams of native vulgarity peeping through his artificial covering of gentility; gaily dressed in the extreme of jaunty fashion, and his fingers heavy with rings of questionable metal. There was the clerk, who had appropriated his em- an actor, looked as if formed for better ployer's money to risk upon the hazard of things. But he appeared to abandon him what superior to those who were already gathered within the apartment; but each man was so absorbed in the chances of his own game, that their entrance passed almost unobserved. The elder was a tall, handsome man, the expression of whose face bespoke the thorough and hardened libertine; but the younger, though he bore on his countenance sad traces of dissipation, was yet of nobler mould, and, though he seemed but too much habituated to such scenes as those in which he was now |