YAMBOO.
A TALE.
Lane, Darling, & Co. Leadenhall-street.
YAMBOO;
OR,
THE NORTH AMERICAN SLAVE.
A TALE.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
THE BRAVO OF
Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit Nature’s claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in black and white the same.
COWPER.
VOL. I.
PRINTED AT THE
Minerva Press,
FOR A. K. NEWMAN AND CO.
LEADENHALL-STREET.
1812.
DEDICATION.
TO
MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER,
President of his Majesty’s Hon. Privy Council,
and Commander in Chief of the Province
of
SIR,
As, at the present period, no one can be more interested in the welfare of this little Colony than yourself, whose zeal for your country’s good, independent of the honourable situation you fill, has led you daily to the establishment of whatever could promote the interest of the province, or tend to the comforts of its inhabitants; to you I would dedicate the amusement of my leisure hours, during a short residence in it.
But in acknowledging that, were the trivial production for which I claim your patronage to be weighed in the scale of merit, I have too much reason to fear it would be found wanting, I may be accused of vanity in thus intruding it upon a generous public, who, continually regaled with works of genuine taste, can have little relish for that which falls even below mediocrity; nor will my presumption be less questioned, for attaching your name to a work of acknowledged inferiority: but as neither vanity nor presumption are the leading motives by which I am actuated, I will trust that, as a tribute of respect, you, Sir, at least, will not reject my humble offering; while the lenity already experienced from a liberal public, induces me to be so far sanguine of their indulgence, that if, on a perusal of the following sheets, there should be found little to approve, they will forbear, where they are privileged to condemn, to do so harshly.
Should you, Sir, as a military character, derive one hour’s amusement from the incidents of a tale so simple—as a father, feel interested in the fate of its hero—or, as a Christian, deign to approve the sentiments it contains, I shall be more encouraged to stem the tide of censure, which an Author, conscious of her own demerits, is perhaps justified in expecting. I have the honour to be,
SIR,
With the greatest respect,
Your most obedient humble Servant,
THE AUTHOR.
YAMBOO.
CHAP. I.
“POOR Mary!” said the little Emmeline, as she stooped to pluck a weed from a new-made grave on the remote shores of New Brunswick, in North America—and “Poor Mary!” was repeated with still more energy by Mrs. Beresford, as she stood silently contemplating the same grave, in which were interred the remains of a faithful servant, who had accompanied her from England. The busy day was succeeded by that tranquil period which gives rest to the hardy sons of Labour—patient industry had completed its daily task, and, retired within its rude-built hut, rested in supine ease.
The setting sun, still more glorious in its decline, hovered over the summit of the forest pines, and tardily withdrew its soul-inspiring beams at the approach of sober Eve, who softly shaded, as she advanced, the surrounding beauties of Nature. Celestial agents of your Maker’s will! each equally important to the children of earth—each alike emblematical of life’s closing scene. Cheerful as the welcome herald of the coming day, we enter on its morning hour, and, buoyant on the wings of Hope, run the transient course allotted—a short, but certain span—at most, a few fleeting years, and we find our sun also setting, the shades of evening closing fast upon the existence which we must resign! To this succeeds a long and fearful night, more durable than that which wraps the sleeping world; it is the night of death, the dark, and too often dreaded grave, which for a time conceals us from the eye of sorrowing friends, shields us from the calumny of harsh, unpitying enemies, veils us from the cruel shaft of satire, and, in short, consigns to oblivion our virtues and our vices.
But the night, so essential to the repose of weary nature, is transient; returning morn furls the sombre shade, and forth from the purple east the heavenly messenger hails the new-born day, nothing diminished in that glory which can end but with eternity! And just so, a day will dawn on the silent mansions of the dead, when the grave can no longer promise a refuge to the sinner; its boasted victory over the trusting Christian will have ceased, since each—awful thought!—each must enter upon that hour which precedes not a short-lived day, but an eternal, an endless age!
It was these reflections which occupied the mind of Mrs. Beresford, as she emphatically pronounced “Poor Mary!”
Not a breeze whispered among the trees which shaded Mary’s grave, not a voice broke upon the stilly silence, save that of the children speaking to each other, as they employed themselves in taking out the thistles which grew upon it; while their mother, abstracted from the busy world, and retired within herself, dwelt upon the merits and sufferings of her once affectionate and grateful servant, who had endured a long and painful illness with Christian fortitude; during which she gave birth to a lovely babe, who was never permitted to reward one pang of its suffering mother, by those infantine smiles so dear to a fond parent.
Such was Mary—but three short weeks consigned her cherub to that grave she had prophetically pointed out for herself, and returned to the bosom of its God the little being, spotless as he gave it. Nor did the mother long survive. As she had sustained her heavy affliction without a murmur, so in her last moments was she resigned and patient, expressing but one earthly wish, and it was accomplished—her dying head was supported, and her eyes closed, by the hand of that mistress whom, living, she had served with fidelity, and blessed with her expiring breath; and over the spot which, at the age of twenty-two, inclosed the fragile form of Mary and her child, that mistress now bent, totally unconscious of the heavy dews which had already collected on the high grass, till, roused from her reverie by the sound of footsteps, she took a hand of each of the children, and returned towards the little town of which she was then an inhabitant.
But, on quitting the burial-ground, their attention was arrested by the audible sobs of a boy, stretched on the damp earth. His tattered clothes too plainly bespoke him the child of poverty; the situation left little room to doubt of his being friendless: each were claims upon the humanity of Mrs. Beresford, and never was her charity more laudably exercised. Her inquiries were answered by a short and simple story, which awakened an interest in his hearers, not easily eradicated from hearts susceptible as theirs.
He was one of those unfortunate beings, brought into the world only to be stigmatized with the opprobrious epithet which at once reveals the indiscretion of the parents, to bear the keen rebuffs of a misjudging world, to suffer through life, perhaps to die unpitied and unknown. He knew no father; and the wretched mother to whom he owed his being, careless of a mother’s rights, willingly resigned to an unfeeling master the helpless offspring, for whom she was too idle to work, too proud to beg.
But this was not all: Nature had fixed on him an indelible mark; she had given him a heart, that, if known, might have ranked him with the fairest of her sons; but, alas! that heart was enshrined in an ebon casket, and shewed not, in the dark lineaments of his fine features, the workings of a generous and noble mind: chill penury had damped the genial current of his soul, and tyranny had nearly suppressed the ardour of that spirit, which now refused to justify his conduct at the expence of truth. The master, to whom he had been sold when an infant, treated as a vile slave the fellow-creature who, save in colour, was his superior—and, regardless of the consequences, he had fled from him. To kindred affection nature had closed every avenue—he had no relative, since even the mother who had abandoned him was now dead—and to the houseless child of misery, who will open the door? Again, he was black, and who believes a negro’s story?
All this, from fatal experience, Yamboo knew—yet all were light, compared to the past evils, which in succession passed through his vivid mind, till hunger pressed hard on his exhausted frame.
He had reached this solitary spot, to pass the hopeless night, when the full sobs, which betrayed his enfeebled mind, caught the attention of Mrs. Beresford. “Are you very hungry?” said her eldest daughter. “Do, mamma,” she continued, “let him return with us, that we may give him food.”
“ ’Tis two days, Missy, since Yamboo eat,” he replied, “and then poor Indian boil rice for him.”
“And why,” asked Emmeline, “did you not remain with the good Indian?”
“Him no stay on this side the water, Missy, but travel long, long way off, where Yamboo must not go with him.”
“You shall go with me,” said Mrs. Beresford, after a moment’s pause; “at least we will take care of you for the night.”
Unused to the voice of kindness, save from those of his own colour, the grateful creature could only weep his thanks, as he followed his benefactress to her hospitable roof.
It was not the novelty of a grateful pensioner beneath their roof, which actuated the children in the thousand inquiries they were so anxious to make; for many were the wanderers whom the bounty of their good mother had relieved; but Yamboo’s language was altogether new to them; and having seen him enjoy a comfortable meal, they would have wearied him with questions, only to hear him, had not Mrs. Beresford suppressed their ill-timed curiosity, by dismissing them for the night, with a gentle reproof on the impropriety of their conduct; and having done so, her next consideration was, what plan she should pursue for the future advantage of poor Yamboo. It was easy, from her ample board, to recruit his exhausted strength, and equally so to provide him, in an adjoining out-house, such a bed as he had never reposed his weary limbs upon; and to clothe him in a plain homely garb, suited to his present situation, was a matter as easily accomplished in her liberal mind: not so the task of emancipating him from the hard master he was destined to serve; yet to give him up to that master, after what she had heard, was repugnant to her generous feelings; to thrust him out again to penury and famine, an idea not to be tolerated.
Colonel Beresford was absent on public duty; she was therefore deprived of his excellent advice; but his unexpected return on the following day removed every difficulty. Mrs. Beresford reigned in the heart of her husband; her influence in his affection was unbounded; for years of mutual happiness had taught him the full value of such a partner: they had married early in life, when the gay world offered for their enjoyment her delusive scenes, fraught with transient pleasures, pleasing to the senses, but dangerous to its votaries. The colonel, then young in rank, but gay as the halcyon tide of youth could render him, entered with avidity on the busy scene, and embarked with the thoughtless many, who glide down the stream of life, unconscious of a coming storm. Not so his Emily: a correct sense of her duty as a wife suppressed even a gentle reproof, and the conduct she could not approve, she forbore to condemn. Thus far she acted up to her moral character, and thus far her conscience acquitted her, as having done right: but her views were not confined to mortal life; she had been early taught to rest her hopes on that other and better world; and to inspire him for whom she lived with those hopes, was the spring of every action; increasing affection laid him more open to her efforts; the serenity of her pure mind led him to examine more minutely the cause from which it sprung: from silently admiring the virtues he despaired of imitating, he questioned the foundation of them, listened attentively to the truths which came mended from her tongue, wondered that he had so long idly disregarded them, and at last embraced, on the surest grounds, that faith which, like a true mirror, shewed him the vain folly of past pursuits, and the endless rewards of a well-spent life.
For this he was indebted to the wife of his bosom, the mother of his children; and thus it was that, convinced of the rectitude of her heart, he could oppose no plan which she pointed out, or reject a proposition made by her.
Even such an advocate was now to plead the cause of Yamboo, strengthened by the entreaties of “Dear papa, do let Yamboo live with us!” alternately from each of the children. Merely to prove their zeal in the humane cause, the colonel appeared irresolute, asserting, that provided Yamboo’s master was inclined to part with him, which he much doubted, he might demand a larger sum for his ransom than it would be convenient for himself to pay.
“But we will help you!” replied each of them in the same breath.
“To what extent?” said the colonel, smiling at their eagerness.
“Oh! I have several pieces of money which
I brought from dear
“And I have still more than Emmeline,” added the elder.
“But, by expending all your little stock on this one object, however worthy your bounty, remember, my children,” returned their delighted father, “you deprive yourselves of the power to assist another, perhaps equally deserving, whom chance may ere to-morrow throw in your way.”
This for a moment made them thoughtful; but Yamboo was the present subject, and they endeavoured to persuade themselves it would be easy to recruit their little purses before they were again called upon; and with an assurance of being very saving in future for that purpose, again they entreated papa to purchase Yamboo.
“I must first see this black favourite,” he replied, “before I can decide what is to be done.”
But Yamboo’s countenance, when summoned, could not fail to strengthen the warm interest excited by such powerful pleaders in the colonel’s breast.—In his manner there was a marked humility, but it arose from respect to those in whose presence he stood, not the result of mean cowardice, while the large expressive eyes he fixed upon Colonel Beresford, seemed to ask, if from him also he was to expect kindness; but the half-raised hope was crushed by the tone in which, for many reasons, the colonel chose to address him.
“You have ran away from your master, I find, my lad?” was the first salutation.
Yamboo modestly bowed down his head.
“I hope,” he added, “you have been correct in your story to this lady,” pointing to Mrs. Beresford; “for I shall certainly make it my first business to investigate the truth.”
The soul which scorned a falsehood flashed in his eyes, and conveyed perhaps too much severity to the tone of his voice when he answered—“Yamboo never tell a lie!”
“I am glad of it,” replied the colonel; “but perhaps your master was obliged to be severe with you, at least you should have borne much before you left him in the manner you did.”
“Me served him faithful, masser—me often try to love him—but Yamboo’s scars will shew how much he suffer; this but one,” pointing to a wound recently healed in his forehead. “Strip him, and then masser see how hard him used.”
“But had you no friend to take your part—no pitying fellow-creature to rescue you from such cruelty?” said Colonel Beresford, while his own heart glowed with the divine emanation.
“Yamboo never know one friend!” he
replied; “no one love black man, no one pity him!”
“But suppose,” said the colonel, interrupting him, “I should be enabled to purchase you of this hard master, what would you say?”
“Say!” he returned with energy, “Yamboo have no say; but here,” laying his hand on his heart, “here him feel what he never forget!”
“But if I fail,” added his new friend, fearful of encouraging hopes which might not be realised, “how will you act? Perhaps your master will demand you at my hands; in which case, I must give you up.”
“Then Yamboo have only to bless good white people, and die!” he replied, mournfully crossing his hands on his breast, while the big tear rolled down his dusky cheeks.
Mrs. Beresford, unable longer to conceal her emotion, arose to quit the room; and Yamboo was for the present dismissed, with an assurance that every effort should be made to get him released; and, at all events, justice done him, if obliged to remain in his former service.
CHAP. II.
ON the following morning, Colonel Beresford dispatched his own servant with a letter, in which he explained the circumstance that had placed Yamboo under his immediate protection; requested to know if Mr. Reid had lost a servant answering the description given of him; and, without dwelling upon the motives of his desertion, finally concluded by asking if he was disposed to part with the boy? in which case, the bearer of his letter had full authority to treat with him upon the terms of Yamboo’s release. But though the common cause of humanity made him thus circumspect in his communication, from the probability, that, should Yamboo return, his having dared to complain might add much to the severity of his treatment with such a master, he felt justified in endeavouring to obtain every information that might satisfy him as to the boy’s rectitude, and prove how far he was worthy his future care; and, for this purpose, his messenger had orders to make every possible inquiry, as to the real character of both Reid and his negro.
But the former had no longer a character to sustain, or the latter a harsh unfeeling master to demand (which he would have done) from Colonel Beresford the hapless victim, whose tears of agony and bleeding stripes would alone have appeased his eager vengeance. The Being who knows no distinction of colour, and to whose throne alike ascend the voice of Nature from Africa’s burning soil as Zembla’s ice-bound shore—that Being, who breathed into every breast the love of freedom, and disdains the compact of blood made by man for his fellow-creature, had dissolved the base covenant—Yamboo was no longer a slave. The man who had lorded it over a few wretched creatures, too weak to oppose his tyranny, was in turn subdued, not by man, but the last and common enemy, death. A few hours illness had consigned him to the narrow space of earth, from whence there is no appeal—short warning to him whose accounts with his Creator are unclosed, when he must leave that world in which alone he could hope to make his peace. Lengthened years had but served to increase the catalogue of his vices; and while every neighbour he had left could testify proofs of his known inhumanity, not one could be found whose memory had on record a single instance of his having performed a good or worthy action; the sigh of regret consequently followed not his remains; nor could the tear of affection bedew the grave which contained a being hateful to all who knew him!
If he had relations, they were unknown in the province, where he had resided many years, and were unacknowledged by himself, as the property he possessed, which, though not considerable, far exceeded his unworthy deserts, he had, while living, bequeathed to a man who neither required nor felt gratified by the donation, and who, possessing principles diametrically opposite to his own, had of all other least reason to expect it; on the contrary, he had never concealed the contempt in which he held him, and never failed openly to reprobate his conduct, whenever palpable acts of violence or injustice gave him an opportunity of doing so. Yet in the last closing scene, when the vicious are too commonly forsaken (by the good, because unknown to them,) by their former companions in vice, when they can no longer join in the commission of sin, the worthy Leslie alone was heard to administer consolation, and soothe, by kindness and attention, the convulsive pangs of expiring nature, rendered more poignant by an accusing conscience—he only dared to speak of a God, in whose presence the half-repentant trembling sinner was shortly to appear, without a hope of pardon! for he had never solicited it, and now but faintly inquired if it was possible mercy could extend to him?
Anxious to explain the boundless attribute, and unveil the mysteries of redeeming love, Leslie was eloquent; but his zeal in the pious cause, fervent as it was, came too late; pain pressed hard on the earthly frame, and ere the unbeliever had formed his lips to prayer, the disembodied soul had taken its unknown flight.
Happy to learn Yamboo had found such an excellent friend, the good Leslie readily acceded to the colonel’s proposal of taking him into his service, and cheerfully resigned every claim to him, save the warm interest which he averred he must ever feel in the welfare of the faithful creature, whom he was convinced a succession of unmerited hardships had alone driven from his former allegiance; and having, with the warmth of sincerity, enumerated every good quality of which he knew him possessed, and strongly recommended him to the favour of his new master, by a letter, of which Colonel Beresford’s servant was the willing bearer, the latter returned to communicate a degree of pleasure to every part of the family, since Yamboo had already found a passport to the favour of every individual beneath the colonel’s roof.
Mrs. Beresford’s arose from the heartfelt
satisfaction of having rescued a fellow-creature from distress, and contributed
so much to his future comfort as she had done, in securing him the warm
interest of such a master: the colonel, on the other hand, happy to have so
easily accomplished his Emily’s wish of emancipating Yamboo, and delighted in gratifying
at the same time his deserving children, could only now attend to their
unfeigned joy, and the extravagant gestures of their grateful favourite: nor were the servants less sincere in their
congratulations on his release from slavery.
He danced, sung, kneeled to Mrs. Beresford, wept, laughed—in short, committed every absurdity of which excessive and ungoverned joy is capable, even in stronger minds than Yamboo’s; but a moment served to alter the scene, for he at once became thoughtful, trembled, and in the next instant threw himself at the colonel’s feet, where, though it was evident he strove to speak, his feelings proved too powerful for utterance. Astonished at a change so sudden, Colonel Beresford, in the kindest accents, demanded the cause.
“Him say,” replied the afflicted creature, bursting into tears as he pointed to one of the servants, “that Yamboo no longer a slave! then what him be, if masser no obliged to keep him? Perhaps get angry, bid him go away, and young misses never beg so hard again for Yamboo; lady, all, all get tired of black boy. Oh, masser!” he continued, “Yamboo no live, if he no slave; make him slave—he serve you, work for you, die for you, only say him your Yamboo, your own slave!”
“Why, my good boy,” said the colonel, “all this you can do without being a slave. I promised to take you into my service, to provide for you, and I shall certainly keep my word. You are now my servant, and while you are deserving of my favour and protection, that is, while you are honest, faithful, and diligent, you shall continue to serve me; but you are free, as every other servant I have, to leave me whenever you can do better for yourself.”
“Oh! that it be,” he returned, after listening with profound attention while his master was speaking: “You no pay money for Yamboo, and when him do wrong, you bid him go leave you; and Mr. Leslie say Yamboo still my slave, and him never see his good colonel again!” Again the tears rolled down his cheeks; nor was it till Mrs. Beresford undertook to satisfy all his doubts, by explaining the business more fully, that he could be persuaded Mr. Leslie might not demand him whenever he thought proper; and though he allowed him to be a kind, good master, who had often fed him when very hungry, still his only wish was to stay with his new friends; and liberty had no charms, since it was to render him independent of the colonel’s power. But when he more perfectly understood that his dismissal from the family to which, from the purest motives of gratitude, he was already so strongly attached, depended upon his own conduct, and found his fellow-servants were so perfectly happy, that most of them had lived many years in their service, and still hoped to live many more, the smile of cheerfulness again played over his dark features; for he believed nothing could ever induce him to offend those, whom he was far more inclined to worship as superior beings; and whole days, weeks, and months, rolled over the delighted, happy negro. His benefactors had no reason to regret the incident which had apparently added a valuable domestic to the number they already possessed.
One of those long and severe winters to which the inhabitants of New Brunswick are habituated, had succeeded the autumn which marked the pleasing change in Yamboo’s fate, and was in turn giving way to a milder season; Nature, as if weary of the chill embrace, impatiently broke from its stern form, and prepared to lead forth her embryo blossoms, so long concealed beneath dazzling snows, to scent the morning zephyr, and revel in its playful sunbeams; while the forest pines, shaking from their lofty heads the flaky vesture, resumed its many shades of native green, and gave to the delighted eye a surety of approaching summer; for so sudden are the transitions of cold and heat, that spring, sweet emblem of life’s morning hour, which in other countries advancing with sober pace, leaves so much for pleasing anticipation, is never seen to smile upon its rock-bound shore—since no sooner has the hoary monarch closed his frigid reign, than vegetation, fruits, and flowers, steal imperceptibly upon the sight, and leave the wondering mind to gaze with astonishment on the fertile scene.
The period so desirable was now fast approaching; the ice, which for six tedious months had transformed one of the most beautiful rivers known in America to a glacier substance, on whose hardened surface men and horses travelled with equal facility, divested of its power to suppress the lucid stream, snow, in mountain piles, glided over the no longer captive waves, to hide, in the vast ocean, its vanquished strength, and open to the expecting inhabitants the welcome communication with the sister kingdom.
Expectation lightened every countenance on the arrival of an English mail, since there were but few among them whom private or public concerns did not in some measure interest, as all were liege subjects of the same king, either loyalists who, at the conclusion of the American war, had retired to the province, or those employed in government service, whose residence in it, like Colonel Beresford’s, depended upon fortuitous circumstances. But, as few parts of the world are so little indebted to the historian’s pen as New Brunswick has hitherto been, whether from its remote situation, or that the country is yet too young to afford sufficient subject for travellers who delight in the marvellous, we presume not to say, there may be some who peruse this simple tale, to whom a few sketches may not be unacceptable; nor will it trespass in a great degree on those more interested for the fate of Yamboo, as the conclusion of one chapter will find him no less a favourite in the Beresford family, than where we now leave him.
CHAP. III.
THE
The latter cannot fail to excite our astonishment. We view the remains of stupendous buildings, raised by the united efforts of strength and ingenuity, and imagination is carried back to the period in which they were inhabited by those long since forgotten, save where their virtues or their vices are recorded; and for a while these reflections amuse. If the remains of an amphitheatre, once dedicated to the barbarous diversions of past ages, we rejoice that such savage customs no longer exist to render them needful. If edifices erected to more noble purposes, we are left to regret that they, like the founders, must decay.
To the
They are very partial to dress, and
usually blend the French and English fashions together; the former of which
they import from
The church, their only public building, is a neat superstructure of wood, painted white, and raised upon a stone foundation, near the centre of the town; but they have omitted two external decorations, which would add much to its appearance—there are no trees to shade the hallowed spot, or spire to raise its “taper point to heaven;” but the interior is prettily finished, and contains an excellent organ—by which, however, the congregation profit little, as the almost constant want of an organist obliges them to exert their vocal powers, unassisted by its melody.
The peninsula is defended by several small
batteries, placed around it, for the purpose of repelling the attack of an
enemy from the harbour; these are, in their
construction, too simple for any comments, but are kept in tolerable repair,
Fort Horn excepted, if that can be termed a fort, on whose site there is no
longer a vestige of its former works, save a ruinous building, occupied as
barracks, and capable of containing about two hundred men, but which have no
other claims to notice than the height on which it is situated, being upwards
of two hundred feet from the low water-mark, giving it a command of the harbour, that must have rendered it a most desirable
position for its original purpose. There is a signal-post upon the same
eminence, which communicates with a second, erected on
The harbour, though small, is an exceeding good one, and when (as it sometimes is) full of shipping, has a pretty appearance: but nothing can be more bold and romantic than its rugged coast, where, as if placed by nature as its safeguard, huge mountains of rock meet the eye in every direction, while from their shelving sides and lofty summits, towering above each other, the spruce and pine tree flourish in wild disorder.
Mrs. Beresford was delighted with the rude scenery, and in their frequent rambles through it, often seated herself on the projecting point of a cliff, from whence she could look down upon the calm waves that washed its white base; while the children’s chief amusement consisted in gathering wild strawberries and raspberries—the former of which, during the season, spring up in every part of the ground, and bushes, bending with the latter, present their luxuriant fruit on every side.
At the close of day, their favourite walk was on that part of the pebbled beach which afforded them a full view of the Falls, or Rapids: here they beheld an immense sheet of water, bounded on each side by its native rocks, one of which, in its centre, split in various directions, extending to either side of the land, in which, far above the surface of the water, there are two apertures, through one of which only a row-boat can pass, and no vessel larger than a sloop through the other, nor then but at high water, when the surface of the stream is perfectly calm; but, as the tide turns, the scene is totally changed—the so late passive waves gradually collect, and at last appear to boil with incredible fury, during which time the whole river is covered with a white foam, and the noise occasioned by the violence of the surge may be heard at a considerable distance. During these periods, nothing dare approach the spot, as inevitable destruction must be the consequence, from the various experiments which have been made, by setting boats adrift filled with empty casks; but these, long before they reach the dreadful spot, have been caught by the current, whirled round and round with irresistible force, and carried down the fearful vortex; after which the shattered wrecks have floated, to proclaim the resistance they must have encountered beneath the agitated waters: but, notwithstanding the precaution usually taken, accidents sometimes occur from boats not saving the tide.
Near this phenomenon of nature they frequently loitered, listening to the soft murmurs of the silver stream, and watching the busy fisherman, as he prepared to close his evening’s task, by hauling the full fraught net, rich with the scaly prize, which was to reward him for his day’s toil; and this it seldom failed to do, as, though the river every where abounds with the finest salmon, they are usually found in greatest plenty near the Rapids—the common price is half a dollar each, and many of them weigh from fourteen to sixteen pounds: there are also other kinds of fish, of an inferior quality, and some lobsters, but these are by no means plentiful, and are never caught at any distance from the city, though the river continues its fertile course till it reaches the grand Falls in Canada, and to which it is navigable with canoes; but the passage-boats from St. John never go higher than Frederictown, the seat of government situated upon its beautiful banks, owing to the number of small Rapids between that town and the grand Falls.
Than this river nothing can be more picturesque—cultivated lands, good farms, and verdant hedges, while they give a happy assurance of a promising colony, cannot fail to please the sight; and these form the whole scenery on either side, but leave the mind to regret that it is still but a beautiful border, as the background presents a continued line of impenetrable woods, whose darkened shades, awfully grand, serve but to soften the pleasing landscape which flourishes below, while their majestic heads, vieing with each other in stately pride, are lost in clouds that skim above them. The town of Frederictown, more resembling a beautiful English village, is built upon a fine level, and contains about one hundred and twenty houses, which are almost invariably painted white, and, for the greater part, have green Venetian shutters to every window, as the sun is intensely hot during the summer months; and this precaution not only gives a refreshing coolness to the room, but adds much to the external appearance of their houses, which are altogether in the cottage style.
The streets are mostly covered with a fine green sod; and the church, which stands nearly in the centre of the town—a very neat building—is, like the houses, white, and, like them, stands on a level green; but its appearance, as well as that at St. John, might be much improved by the addition of a few trees round it; at present, it is not even allowed a railing or fence of any description, as the burial-ground is some distance from the town: neither have they been more liberal in its interior decoration, as nothing can be more neat and simple—two plain black monuments, melancholy records of the loss the inhabitants sustained in the death of a favourite rector and his son, a very worthy young man, who were both drowned crossing the river to their own house in a canoe, with the king’s arms placed over the president’s seat, are the only ornaments it boasts.
The court-house, or province-hall, is a very handsome elevation, and, from the water, has a pretty effect; but the barracks are still more worthy the notice of strangers—they form a range of buildings, sufficiently large to contain a complete regiment of men and officers, having a very neat parade in front of them, inclosed by a railing, like the barracks, painted white, as is also the government-house, which, with the grounds attached to it, form a picture of elegant neatness.
Of the inhabitants, who have before been named, it remains only to say, they are not less attentive to strangers, or hospitable in their manner, than their neighbours in the city, and, like them, fond of company and dress, but adopt only the English fashions, to which they are uncommonly partial. Notwithstanding they are situated so far from the great world, as almost to exclude a knowledge of what is passing in it, they are equally gay; a continued round of visiting is kept up throughout the year, and many of the most valuable hours in the day passed in morning calls; but the greatest œconomy is observed in every family, which probably arises from their having in general very large ones, among whom the most perfect unanimity prevails. They are uncommonly fond of dancing, an amusement they do not confine to winter; nor are they less fond of cards, but do not (at least the ladies) play high.
Of the Indians, who originally inhabited alone the province, a very inadequate number remain, and these have degenerated into a weak, inactive race of beings, seldom exerting themselves farther than to provide just what will suffice nature, possessing no longer the warlike spirit which characterized their ancestors. They are all Catholics, and stand much in awe of their priest. Some of them talk very good English, but there are others who have no idea of the language. In general, they are too much addicted to the abominable practice of drinking rum, otherwise they certainly could avoid the extremes of poverty which mark their appearance, as they carry on a great traffic with the owners of stores, in furs and skins of various kinds. During the winter months they reside altogether in the woods, and in the summer bring their moveable habitations to the skirts of them, along the borders of the river—these are made of bark, built in a conical form, with long poles; and in these dwellings, with no other furniture than an iron pot to cook their victuals, a few rude implements to carry on their basket-work, which they can bring to great perfection, a fowling-piece to destroy the winged tenants of the forest, and a blanket which covers them at night, and usually wraps them in the day, they pass the greater part of their time.
The most industrious are very successful in hunting and fishing. The latter is only useful to them during the salmon season, but the former is a constant revenue, as the bear skin, beaver, and martin, independent of various other kinds, fetch them good prices; but they have few among them who work the bark like the Canadian Indians. Each family is provided with one or more canoes, made by the females, whom they call squaws; for no one can marry till she has made this essential article, as, from their residing always on the banks opposite to the town, they have no other mode of conveyance across the river during the summer; but in the winter, whole families travel about on a sledge, drawn over the ice by horses.
Towards the latter end of June, they journey in large parties to an island at some distance, for the purpose of manufacturing maple sugar, which is a curious process. After sunset, they bore a hole in the maple tree, and fix a tin tube into the bark, through which a glutinous kind of substance issues, and which they allow to flow the whole night, but stop it, by carefully filling up the aperture, in the morning, opening it again in the evening; and this they continue doing until they have extracted as much as the tree will afford, without injury to its future growth; and of this they make a sugar, very hard in substance, but of a pleasant flavour. It is considered as an effectual remedy for colds, coughs, and hoarseness. But there are families, independent of the Indians, who, having maple trees on their own lands, make it for common use, and prefer it in tea or coffee to any other kind.
Of the maple tree, there are two sorts growing in the province, viz. the rock and bird’s eye; the latter, when good, is uncommonly handsome, far surpassing the satin wood; but it rarely happens more than one tree out of six will prove of any value.
The black birch is also a native of
In the vegetable world they are still more favoured, having an abundance of every sort that can be named, and of excellent quality, especially potatoes.
Indian corn is brought to great perfection; they have also a grain called buckwheat, of which the inhabitants are very fond; and their oats in general are good.
Of birds there are various kinds, but none which sing beside their robin, in size resembling the English thrush; but its notes, though very sweet, are greatly inferior to the melody of that warbler. The only sort worthy observation for their plumage, are the humming-birds, which vary both in size and colour, though all are beautiful.
In their climate there is seldom a medium. During the summer months, the glass is not unfrequently at 90, often up to 100; but this excess of heat seldom lasts more than two or three days together: and nothing can be more beautiful than the fall of the year; neither can that season be called short, since the winter does not commence before December; in November the weather is in general so fine, as to produce what is called the Indian summer; this lasts near three weeks, and is extremely pleasant: but the inhabitants can hardly be said to feel the real enjoyment of summer, as the constant dread they express of the severe winter, which they know must follow, mars every pleasure they ought to derive from the transient season; and were it not for the beautiful sun which constantly enlivens the atmosphere, and by its inspiring beams compensates for a thousand privations, they might indeed justly dread the long period which, by encompassing them with walls of snow and ice, excludes them from the whole world.
During these inclement seasons, and nothing can be more severe, even milk is carried to table in cakes, bound impenetrable as their rocks; in short, as in Canada, scarce any thing of a solid nature will yield to less than the saw or hatchet; and of liquids, few are to be seen in their fluid state, hot water excepted. Still the inhabitants have many pleasures, many comforts; their houses are provided with stoves suited to their climate, which diffuse a regular and pleasant warmth through them; they have abundance of fuel, and that attainable even by the indigent tenant of the mud-raised hut, who is also, from the moderate price of provisions in general, enabled to avoid the dreadful extremes of hunger and cold, so piercing to the houseless child of penury, even in milder climates.
They are seldom confined by weather, when inclination prompts them to leave home, as every family is provided with a cabriole, or sleigh, like their Canadian neighbours; and, like them, dressed in furs, they travel equally on the land or river, frequently making excursions for pleasure on the latter even as far as St. John’s a distance of ninety miles; and their winter machines, or rather the horses, are decorated with many bells; the different sounds of each add cheerfulness to the novelty, for such this singular mode of conveyance, with its amazing velocity, cannot fail to appear to those strangers who have only travelled southern climes.
CHAP. IV.
IN this secluded little spot (Frederictown), Colonel Beresford’s family had passed three fleeting years; but knowing the many and various changes to which a military life is destined, he expressed, nay felt, no surprise, when the letter which contained his order to return was, among many others from England, delivered to him.
Blest in the society of parents so devoted
to their happiness, the children knew no difference of place: with Mrs.
Beresford it was far otherwise; she knew the ardent disposition of her husband
led him to prefer a station where he was liable to actual service, and knew
that on which he then was had, on his promotion to a colonelcy, been given to
him but as a preparatory step to such a one: to her, their present residence
was no otherwise endeared, than as it promised the society of her husband
during their stay in it; nor was it without regret she saw the period of
felicity thus long enjoyed about to fade from her view. Already her active
imagination had passed the vast
War still raged—still demanded husbands, fathers, brothers, sons; and already she saw the dreadful mandate which exposed him to its horrific scenes; thither in imagination also she followed him, and, as a wife, gloried in his dauntless bravery, shared—proudly shared the triumphs of his victory; but, as a mother, she looked on her lovely girls, and trembled. Yet from these beloved pledges every maternal anxiety was carefully concealed. To strengthen their minds for the trials which more or less might await them in their journey through life, was with her an essential point; and well knowing how much more is effected by practice than theory, she never allowed her own fortitude to give way in their presence; and was still more circumspect in betraying the least symptom of that weakness which, as being natural to the sex, is considered warrantable, before her husband. The smile which ever greeted his approach continued to animate her countenance through every hour passed in his society; and whatever her own apprehension that those hours of enjoyment, so highly and justly prized by herself, might be circumscribed in future by their removal from Frederictown, no external shade of anxiety betrayed to his tenderly inquiring eye the internal struggles of her resolute mind, as she made the necessary preparations for their departure.
“And where
“Surely, Yamboo,” she replied; “ ’tis my native land; I have many valuable friends there, whom I shall hope to see on my arrival.”
“Then Yamboo very, very glad he return; now him sure he never leave his colonel, because him no send poor blacky in ship all the way back to Brunswick, and all him servants say he never go there himself again.”
“But you will be sick at sea, Yamboo,” said Emmeline; “for almost every body is who have never been in a ship.”
“And will you be sick too?” inquired the faithful creature, looking at her with emotion.
“Yes, very sick,” she replied.
“Then Yamboo forget him sick to nurse Miss Emmeline!” he said; “and he bid Lion dance, kneel down, play many tricks, to make her laugh!”
This was a Newfoundland dog, in whose tuition Yamboo had taken great pains; and so great was Lion’s proficiency, that few of his species could achieve greater feats of agility, or more punctually fulfil the commands of those who ordered him to fetch or carry whatever article they might put down for that purpose.
Emmeline smiled her thanks for his promised attention, and left him to accompany her mother in making their round of farewell visits; for as an immediate opportunity offered for their returning to England in a vessel then fitting out at St. John’s, the colonel lost no time in securing passages for himself and family, who shortly afterwards embarked once more upon that world of waters, whose then propitious waves had before wafted them to the hospitable shores they were now quitting for ever.
The children, as Emmeline prophesied, felt the usual inconvenience of being on ship-board; but a very few days restored them to perfect health, and enabled them to accompany their good father on deck, where great part of their time was spent, to the no small joy of Yamboo, who was spared the punishment of a sea-sickness, and who devoted every moment of his time to the amusement of his young ladies, to which Lion contributed no inconsiderable share.
Mrs. Beresford remained a close prisoner in her cabin, as not even her persevering resolution could surmount the difficulty to which every succeeding voyage, and that the whole of it, saw her subject.
Notwithstanding the favourable weather, which promised an auspicious and speedy passage, their little bark glided over the trackless ocean as if in full security of reaching its destined port, and, as she spread her white bosom to the propitious gale, nothing could be more beautiful; to Yamboo the ship was a new world; and, while he delighted every sailor on board by his odd remarks and facetious humour, he was in turn no less pleased himself with their rough jokes, and great agility in the performance of their nautical duties.
The beauty of a cloudless moon, whose beams, in wanton dalliance, sported upon each mountain wave, as they dashed against the vessel’s side, had detained Colonel Beresford on deck one evening, in the third week of their voyage, long after the children had retired to their beds; feeling disposed to enjoy his own reflections unmolested, and which the scene he then contemplated favoured, he dismissed his servants for the night, and continued to pace the quarter-deck, almost unconscious of his own motion. The night-watch was set, and only those of the ship’s crew who composed it remained on deck, all of whom, save the man at the helm, were lolling, in listless ease, over the bows, or reclining in different parts of the forecastle, when the helm-man called his attention to the moon’s halo aspect, no less sudden than unexpected, and which he averred foreboded an approaching storm. The colonel’s unquestionable bravery had ever seen him dauntless in the field of battle, and, as a soldier, fear was a stranger to his soul; but the danger which threatened his wife and children, and which he had no power to ward, roused all the feelings of a father, as he gazed wistfully on the fatal omen, which increased with incredible rapidity. The seamen, too well versed to mistake the warning, lost no time in collecting their slumbering messmates, who in the next moment assembled upon the deck, but to confirm the dreadful prognostic, from which there was no appeal; while Colonel Beresford hastened below, to prepare his little family, who slept unconscious of the threatened danger. He had lingered above till hope no longer left him a pretext for doing so—when not a dissenting voice dared to whisper it might pass over; and he now remained by his beloved Emily, equally unwilling to disturb the sweet sleep which wrapped the peaceful mind in security. His dear girls also slept, and from their guileless slumbers it was his task to awaken them, only to witness a scene of horror, to which even the present confusion on deck was but a mournful prelude. The vessel’s course lay due east, and directly to that point the wind, hitherto so favourable for their voyage, had veered, increasing to a height which verified their worst fears. The boatswain’s commands for all hands aloft to reef maintop-sails was unavailing; for in one instant every sail then set was torn in pieces; and the dreadful crash caused by the canvas thus shivered, mingled with the awful roaring of the agitated waters, could not fail to murder sleep.
Mrs. Beresford started from her pillow in breathless astonishment; at that instant pressing her trembling hand in his, the colonel said—“Emily, I know your resolution, but we must prepare the children.”
“Is there then no hope?” she replied, conceiving at once the cause of all she heard.
“Yes, much, my love,” he tenderly answered, concealing his own emotions; “but it will need all their strength of mind to combat such terrors.”
Matilda’s scream at that moment caught their ears; and before the anxious father could cross the cabin, he found himself encircled not only by his children, but their faithful servants, who, believing all was over, in frantic eagerness sought their master and mistress, determined at least to die with them, and who now vainly called upon the former for that protection he needed no less than themselves.
Yamboo’s voice had been clearly distinguished among the group, when they first entered—not like the rest, in fruitless lamentation, but entreating by turns his good lady, his kind Misses Emmeline and Matilda, not to be afraid; but each were too much absorbed by their own terrors, too much distressed, to hear the voice of consolation, even from lips more eloquent than those of the untaught Yamboo. Nor were they sensible that he no longer remained with the wretched party, who had all seated themselves on the cabin floor, in fearful expectation of the fate which awaited them.
The shock Mrs. Beresford received on first opening her eyes had for some minutes annihilated the powers of recollection; but she was no sooner sensible of her husband’s presence, and clasped her agitated children to her maternal arms, than her fortitude returned. Despair would have taught her that all was lost, but that her pious soul cherished a fairer guest, who had not illumined her breast through life to forsake her at that moment, when only its divine power could support the Christian; and she became sufficiently collected to join Colonel Beresford in persuading their fellow-sufferers, that the time they were spending in excessive grief might be more essentially devoted to prayer.
He was anxious to reascend the deck for information, which he even ventured to hope might also afford them comfort; but their affecting entreaties that he would not forsake them at such a moment, obliged him to relinquish the design, and the painful suspense still continued; for every one above was much too deeply engaged to remember the distressed family, till the carpenter entered the cabin, accompanied by two of the sailors, for the purpose of putting on the dead-lights; this was productive of fresh alarm, for it bespoke increasing danger; nor did they lose a word of the mournful intelligence, given in answer to the colonel’s inquiry as to the weather.
“It can hardly be worse, your honour,” said one of the men; “and if it lasts much longer as it is, the vessel can never outlive the storm; for every thing has been thrown overboard to lighten her, and the rigging is almost all destroyed.”
The candle, which one of them held, threw its dim rays around him; and the colonel now, for the first time, observing the absence of Yamboo, anxiously inquired for him of the seamen; one of them answered, they had left him very busy above; that the captain had in vain persuaded him to go below, from a fear of his being hurt, if not washed overboard in the confusion; but he persisted in saying, “he stay to help work.”
“And indeed,” added another of the men, “it seems as if he thought your honour’s safety depended on him alone, for he is here, there, and every where in an instant.”
The colonel faintly smiled at this account; and the sailors having completed their work, returned to the deck, leaving the solitary inhabitants of the cabin to listen in silent anguish to the howling winds, whose fury evidently increased, while the heavy seas they every moment shipped threatened little short of instant destruction.
Yamboo was, as had been reported, actively employed, for the emergency of the moment allowed no one on deck to remain an idle spectator of the perilous storm. During the only short interval in which the captain of the vessel had time to notice any thing not more immediately connected with the duties of his ship, he had observed Yamboo standing sorrowfully near the binnacle, and knowing how great a favourite he was of the family whom he served, as well as from an impulse of humanity, entreated him to go below, adding, “You will only be in our way, my good boy; and we must have nothing useless on deck.”
“Make Yamboo useful then, captain,” he replied with eagerness; “he do any thing him bid, work very hard, so him not see the young ladies cry.”
At that moment hands were ordered to the pump, as it was discovered she had sprung a leak, and Yamboo no longer wanted employment.
On this scene of increasing horrors morning at length dawned, but it only served to make their hopeless situation more visible, when the wind again on a sudden shifted, and the helm-man assured the captain the vessel would certainly lay to her right course in a few minutes; nor was he disappointed—her motion became less violent; and this alteration, though the gale still continued strong, left them much to hope.
Yamboo had been relieved at the pumps, and, anxious to catch even the sound of information, for which alone he lingered near the captain, was standing upon the companion steps, when his eager ears caught the joyful exclamation, and the next moment saw him with breathless haste at Mrs. Beresford’s feet—“Live! live! lady,” he cried, clasping his hands with energy; “Miss Emmeline, my colonel, all, all live! the ship goes right, the wind sink, and then they stop the leak!”
The last dreadful word sunk deep in the colonel’s mind, for till then he knew not the extent of their danger. Great as were his apprehensions for their safety, Mrs. Beresford faintly articulated, “Then we have no longer any thing to hope;” and the children, regardless of Yamboo’s offered consolation, again wept in agony.
Astonished that he had failed to impart the comfort he expected to give, he was attempting fresh assurances of the storm’s abating, when a violent surge forced its way over the quarter-deck, and rushed with such violence into the cabin, as nearly to wash them out of it. Yamboo, more than ever dismayed by this unexpected check to his new-formed hopes, stood speechless; while the colonel, unable longer to endure the tortures of suspense as to the real state of the ship, once more entreated his afflicted companions to allow him only a moment to ascertain, if possible, the general opinion of their present situation, promising to return the instant he had done so.
Their harassed spirits and exhausted frames had by this time rendered them indifferent almost to life itself, and they no longer resisted his wish of leaving them to seek the captain, whose presence among his men contributed much to their exertion; and ordering Yamboo to remain with his family, he ascended the deck, which presented a scene equally distressing with that he had left, though of a different nature—the shattered canvas hung in fragments upon the destroyed rigging, which was become altogether useless, and not a vestige remained upon the deck which the fatal waves had power to sweep from it; the quarter boarding had already been carried away, and the creaking masts almost promised to become the next victims of the storm’s relentless fury: still the captain averred he was not without hope, since the wind, though still raging, was in their favour; but the heavy clouds which gathered over their affrighted heads foretold the torrents of rain, which now poured upon the weary mariners, who became no less the sport of hope and fear, than they had for many hours been that of the tempest. They succeeded in stopping the leak, which, upon examination, proved trivial; the vessel also lay her due course, neither of which at one time they had dared to expect: but the pleasing hope which began to warm their chill bosoms was in one instant crushed, by the altered aspect of the storm; the rain continued to descend, accompanied by loud peals of thunder, which appalled every sense; sheets of lightning crested the angry billows, as they wafted its blue flames in every direction around the distressed ship.
Again the disconsolate father returned to his family, hopeless as he left them; and again the disappointed Yamboo, unable to endure their lamentations, sought the deck, from whence, in the next moment, issued a shriek of horror, that no sooner reached the hapless Beresfords, than every idea of their wretchedness or danger was lost in total insensibility. The colonel and his valet alone retained the faculty of speech or thought; and the former believing, from the dreadful crash which accompanied the shriek, that the vessel must have struck upon a rock, almost rejoiced that his ill-fated companions were no longer sensible of the misery which had now reached its climax; and, while his vacant eyes rested upon them in paternal anguish, his parched lips implored the mercy of his God!
CHAP. V.
NEARLY two hours had elapsed, when Mrs. Beresford opened her eyes, to behold the glory of that sun on which it was believed she had closed them for ever; faint recollections of a fearful dream floated on her yet disordered imagination; and scarcely daring to hear the answer, she inquired, in faltering terms, for Colonel Beresford? He was kneeling by her, and raising her cold hand to his lips, pronounced her name. “My children,” she next still more faintly articulated; the lovely Emmeline smiled upon her; while the delighted Matilda in turn presented herself, and pressed her lips to the pale ones of her mother, who made an effort to rise; but a giddiness seized her head, and she fell back upon her pillow; when a voice, of which she had no recollection, declared her recovery even now depended wholly upon her being kept very quiet, and prohibited every one speaking till she had taken some rest; at the same time assuring the colonel, the giddiness of which she complained proceeded entirely from loss of blood, and would be no otherwise attended with danger than as she might be disturbed.
Unconscious what it all meant, yet hearing her recovery depended upon rest, she endeavoured to compose herself, and at the same time collect her scattered thoughts, which, with returning reason, brought a perfect recollection of the dreadful storm; the fatal words, all is over! accompanied by the fearful scream, still vibrated on her ears; and it occurred to her, that having caught her children to her breast, the vessel had certainly gone down: yet now she had pressed her husband’s hand, had seen her children, all were in perfect safety, and she alone appeared to have suffered any thing. She would then have inquired the cause of that blood which she observed on the bedclothes, but a profound silence reigned in the cabin, where she discovered she still was, notwithstanding the change of scene. All was dark when she had closed her eyes to misery, now a beautiful morning illumined it, whose light was even too powerful for her weakened sight.
Emmeline stole softly to the door, to inform Yamboo, who stood centinel at it, that her dear mamma had spoken, and entreated him to keep every body from the cabin, as the least noise would now distress her. Tears of gratitude dimmed his eyes, and not daring to trust the sound of his own voice, lest it might disturb his benefactress, he made a thousand dumb signs, to shew how joyfully he should obey her orders.
A gentle slumber, the result of that fatigue she had endured, and the medicine administered, in a very short time enabled Mrs. Beresford to learn from her happy husband, as he fondly hung over her pillow, the elucidation of what even yet appeared to her a magic scene. The dreadful shriek, which had annihilated every faculty, was occasioned by the mainmast going overboard. A flash of lightning, which only shewed them more plainly the gaping waves, ready to swallow the already half-destroyed vessel, had struck its centre in the same moment, hurling it into the raging ocean, and with it a seaman, whom no efforts of his wretched messmates had power to save. From that instant, despair seized the whole crew, who became so panic-struck, that an almost instant change of weather, and which they had so long looked for, and anxiously implored, was now lost upon them; nor was it till Yamboo remarked the alteration, that they became sensible of it, and once more turned their thoughts to the course they were steering. The wind gradually died away in murmurs, the awful thunder no longer rolled over their defenceless heads, and the dreadful lightning gave place to the enlivening rays of the morning sun; while the faithless waves, having spent their fury, glided smoothly on. Losing with the danger their sense of it, the crew, animated to fresh exertion, employed every thought for the means of their further preservation, by adopting the most effective measures to render the shattered bark capable of completing her voyage; while the captain hastened below to visit his passengers, trusting the extreme danger, which had obliged him to remain with his men, would acquit him of intentional neglect in the liberal mind of Colonel Beresford: but though conscious they must have suffered every thing which terror could inflict during such a night as they had passed, he was by no means prepared for the scene which awaited his entrance; he had taken a sailor with him to remove the dead-lights; but the doing so presented a mournful spectacle—stretched on the floor, without any symptom of life, lay Mrs. Beresford, with her head rested on the colonel’s arm, as he sat in mute despair. On either side, the servants holding in their arms the children, just recovering from the swoon, which promised to be more fatal to the mother; while Yamboo wrung his hands in unutterable agony.
The captain, who had some skill in surgery, and was provided with excellent medicine, turned all his attention to Mrs. Beresford’s recovery, after assuring the yet affrighted children, and their anxious father, they had no longer any thing to apprehend from the late storm; adding, that it was most probable a very few days would bring them into the British Channel. Restoratives of various kinds were for some time unsuccessfully applied, and, on raising her for the purpose of conveying her to the bed, a quantity of blood was discovered to have issued from a wound received on the back of her head; this was examined, and proved to have been effected by the corner of a trunk clamped with iron, against which her head had struck when she first fainted; but although the moving her caused it to flow afresh, the captain ventured to promise, rest and proper applications would restore her in a short time, as her lengthened insensibility was the result of extreme fatigue, both of body and mind, aided by the loss of blood, which had been considerable.
Somewhat cheered by these assurances, and no longer oppressed by the late dreadful presages of impending fate, they were anxiously anticipating the promised restoration, when she first opened her languid eyes, and faintly pronounced the colonel’s name.
Upon examining the ship’s log-book, they were found to be long. 22º 4’, lat. 48º 52’, which, by the captain’s reckoning, might, with tolerable winds, enable them to run down their course in five days. The next step was to erect a jury-mast, in lieu of that which they had lost, and by partially repairing the shattered rigging, carry all possible sail. This done, hope became once more buoyant.
Mrs. Beresford daily recovered, hourly
regained strength; and the children were again permitted to taste the
refreshing sea-breeze on deck, and gladden the heart of Yamboo by their usual
notice of poor Lion, who had, though nobody could tell how, escaped the storm,
when a sailor at the mast-head vociferated land; with the swiftness of an
arrow, Yamboo flew to communicate the joyful intelligence to his lady; and
nothing but lively expectation was seen in every countenance, on which but so
lately only horror was depicted. Every eye was strained to catch the first
glimpse of the desired blessing; and when it teemed on their eager sight,
language could ill supply words expressive of their feelings; for only those
who have seen their own, their native land recede from the aching view, till
even imagination could be no longer deceived, whom a perilous storm, with its
accompanying horrors, has left hopeless of a return to that land, can feel,
much less express their feelings, upon beholding, even at a distance, the spot
sacred to remembrance, so long, so fondly desired. Favouring
winds still befriended them, and two days from that period saw their shattered
vessel safe in the welcome port, and the weary passengers provided with
comfortable lodgings at
Yamboo’s astonishment at every thing he encountered on the journey, could only be surpassed by the wonders which awaited him in the great metropolis; his bewildered imagination, unable to account for half he saw, obliged him every moment to apply to some one near him for the information he was so desirous of obtaining; and the questions he asked, together with the singular constructions he put upon sedan chairs, stage-coaches, &c. afforded no small diversion to those around him, particularly his young ladies, who were seldom so much amused as when Yamboo had a new history to give them of something which had struck his wondering mind.
But Mrs. Beresford, who still felt all the lassitude of her late indisposition, rejoiced when the colonel, having obtained six months leave of absence, engaged a very comfortable residence for them a few miles from town, to which they shortly after removed, to enjoy that uninterrupted felicity, known only to the happy few, whose every wish centered in their own little circle, who seek not, in a round of fashionable acquaintance, those resources they find in each other. Such were the Beresfords: the colonel had always devoted every moment he could spare from professional duties to the tuition of his lovely girls—a task the partial mother divided with him; but this pleasing employment, though constituting one of their chief pleasures, because they conceived it an essential part of their duty also, did not render them unmindful of what they owed to society, or regardless of its pleasures; hence their house was ever open to the friendly guest, whom they considered a desirable acquisition to their cheerful fire-side, in whatever part of the world destiny placed them: nor were there wanting in their new residence many families ambitious of their acquaintance, or unworthy the attention paid by them in return for civilities received.
But how rapid is the progress of time,
when we anticipate the period which must effect a change of scene! Mrs.
Beresford saw with reluctance the approach of that, which would too probably
destine her to a separation from her husband. The first battalion of the
regiment to which he then belonged had been some time in the
But from these reflections her mind was for a time diverted, by the sudden, and, as it was believed, fatal indisposition of Yamboo. He had accompanied one of his fellow-servants, for the purpose of seeing him bathe; but having himself an aversion to the amusement, he beguiled the time with dispatching his favourite Lion (at all times his constant attendant) on various errands for stones and sticks, which he continued to throw at a distance for that purpose, when the voice of his companion calling for help startled him; his eager eyes followed the sound, but the uplifted hands alone marked the fatal spot, when the water closed over them, though only a few paces from the shore. Self-preservation ever appeared with Yamboo of the least consequence, nor did he attempt to look around him for that assistance he believed his own arm able to afford, while, regardless of the result, he plunged into the water, just as the unfortunate lad rose to its surface, and having, in his agony, grasped his throat, again sunk with him, when both must decidedly have found that grave from which the waves had once spared them, but for the vigilance of Lion, who having playfully followed his master, now, as if sensible of his danger, caught his clothes, nor relinquished his faithful hold him till he had dragged them to the shore, where, senseless and clasped in each others’ arms, they lay till his incessant barking attracted the notice of some porters in a neighbouring warehouse. Yamboo was quickly recovered; but to the persevering assiduity of the humane strangers was Edward indebted for a life which long appeared doubtful.
Both were at length conveyed to Colonel Beresford’s house, where Yamboo’s attention to his yet feeble friend, and delight at seeing him so far recovered, rendered him altogether unmindful of the hours he had remained in his wet clothes, till the colonel, having learned the accident from a gentleman’s servant, with whose master himself and family had that day dined, hastened home, to learn the particulars of an account which, with many aggravations of danger, had been related to him (happily unheard by Mrs. Beresford), where he had the satisfaction of finding Edward and Yamboo in high spirits; but having accidentally lain his hand on the latter’s shoulder, he perceived his clothes were unchanged; and severely reproving each of his servants for their inattention to a matter so important, ordered him instantly into a warm bed; but the kind intention was frustrated.
Mrs. Beresford was informed, on her return, that cold shiverings had
seized his frame, into which every method tried to infuse a degree of warmth
had failed. In a few hours a fever, no less violent, and which the medical men
anticipated, shewed its first symptoms, baffling
every effort to subdue its fatal power; nor was it till the awful moment in
which the surgeon averred his recovery admitted not a hope, that one individual
beneath the colonel’s roof could ascertain the faithful Yamboo’s claim upon
their affection; though all had loved and respected his many virtues in the
hour of health, now every countenance pourtrayed, by
its marked dejection, how well they loved him; and many were the fervent
prayers breathed for his restoration. As the fever, though it evidently
threatened a fatal issue to its victim, was not of a malignant nature, Mrs.
Beresford would not be deterred from watching every turn of its progress. In
his
During those periods, he would fix his expressive eyes, rendered more bright by the consuming fever, upon her pitying countenance, as if from her benign features alone he derived an alleviation of his sufferings. Once he said, with a heavy sigh—“Lady, Yamboo die! but he have not live long enough.”
“I should be happy,” she replied, “very happy, Yamboo, to see you recover, nor do I yet despair of doing so; but, if it must not be, we dare not repine, for there is an appointed time for us all, and to that we must submit.”
“Yamboo not mean that he returned, him only grieve to die before him good colonel, before you lady know how much him love you both; had him live good many years, till him old, very old man, then you know him heart, and tell much people Yamboo live so many years, love us, serve us, all that time; now him old, and no able to work, we keep, love him—Ah, how happy! Then Yamboo bless you all, and die; now him must die, and soon every body forget poor black boy.”
“Never, my good little fellow,” said his kind mistress; “it is only bad people whom we wish to forget, and your gratitude will be long remembered, even should we lose you: but talking will fatigue you too much, and it is my request, therefore, that you remain perfectly quiet till my return, which I will do very shortly.”
Even her wishes were commands, and his parched tongue essayed not to utter another word, till reason was again lost in a wild delirium, which for many hours rendered him unconscious of her soothing presence, till at the expiration of a period, in which the surgeon asserted his fate must be finally determined by the state in which he awoke, for a sleep more resembling that of death than nature’s sweet restorative, had absorbed every faculty.
He raised his eyes to her face as she sat anxiously watching the promised crisis—heavy perspirations hung on his full brows, and chased each other from his face; for a moment she gazed upon him, and believing them the awful insignia of approaching dissolution, ventured to try how far he was sensible, by tremulously pronouncing his name; he smiled faintly, and entreated drink: elated by new hopes, she administered the desired nourishment, and a short time sufficed to prove there was a change, and that of a favourable nature; this was followed by others equally essential to his recovery; and a few days left no other trace of his severe indisposition than extreme weakness, the result of that struggle nature had sustained in so violent an attack.
Happy to have seen the completion of her warmest wishes in the restoration of this her deserving favourite, she next meditated a still more important task, that of impressing upon his hitherto untaught mind the sacred truths which illumined her own. From an infant, he had witnessed every enormity of which drunkenness is capable, in the wretch he called master—had been accustomed to hear only blasphemy issue from lips that knew not how to pray; of religion, therefore, he could have no idea; neither could he love or fear a God, of whom he had never heard, or whose name, when it did escape the unhallowed lips that dared profane it, was but the accompaniment of an oath, made more horrible by the union. Yet the heart thus cast off by every natural tie, bereft of every incitement to virtue, reared, educated but in vice, was incapable of performing a base or unworthy action, detested a falsehood, uttered no expression offensive to the chastest ear, was grateful, feeling, and humane; with such a talent, could he fail to become a profitable servant to his heavenly Master?
Various circumstances had hitherto prevented the commencement of Mrs. Beresford’s projected work. Their stay in Frederictown after he became one of her family, had not allowed her a sufficient knowledge of his character, though she saw it from the first in a favourable point of view; their subsequent voyage allowed no opportunity; and their short residence in England had not yet enabled her to pursue the laudable intention, when his almost miraculous recovery left a fair opening for it. She was still his chief nurse—still administered his medicine, because the surgeon had said much yet depended on their being punctually given—and still spent much of her time in the chamber he was not yet allowed to leave.
“Well, Yamboo,” she said one morning, while sitting by him, “now you have a chance of fulfilling your wish of living longer with us, than a few days since you had reason to expect, and are doubtless very grateful for the blessing of returning health.”
“Yes, lady,” he replied, “Yamboo not able to say how grateful.”
“You see,” she returned, “how much God can do for us.”
“God!” he exclaimed with apparent surprise; “he no nurse Yamboo; only him mistress and the good doctor save him life.”
From this it appeared plain, that all his short intervals of reason, during his indisposition, had allowed her to say, or him to listen to, the potent delirium had erased, and, without reverting to what had then passed, she said kindly—“But the doctor’s advice, or my care, Yamboo, could not have given you health, if that God of whom I speak had not thought fit to spare your life; we prayed for you, and he answered our prayer.”
“Prayer!” he repeated, putting his hand to his forehead, “how people pray? fall on their knees, and put hands so?” clasping his eagerly in each other.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Oh then, Yamboo know,” he returned interrupting her, “when the great waters rise at sea, and blue fire cut down the mast, all the sailors fall down, hide their faces, and say, ‘God! great God, save us!’ and the storm soon go. That same God save Yamboo?”
“The same.”
“Why they not call their God sooner, lady?” he inquired. “Yamboo not know such a God, or him pray too when him so ill.”
“But you can now bless him for his great goodness, and promise to serve him evermore,” said Mrs. Beresford.
“Yes,” he returned, almost unconscious of what he said; for a new idea had forcibly struck his mind, but, unable to comprehend it, he at last said—“If God save ships at sea, give Yamboo life, then him do every thing good?”
“He can only do what is good,” was her answer; “he is in himself all goodness.”
“Why then wicked men say his name so often?” he inquired eagerly. “The colonel not call God, Miss Emmeline, Matilda, no one in this house talk about God, and Mr. Reid always say him name when drunk, when him swear, when him beat Yamboo most, and sailors no swear but God’s name; perhaps there two gods then: which him lady pray to, him Yamboo serve always.”
“Listen then, my good boy,” she said, with a benevolent smile, “while I explain the nature of that Supreme Being whom I serve, and tell you how wicked men profane his holy name when they swear; if you had done so, you could never have remained with the colonel, for no blasphemer is suffered to reside under his roof: but you have a good heart, and I will tell you how to be happy.”
As if determined to understand all he was about to hear, his eager eyes were fixed in grateful attention upon Mrs. Beresford; nor did he interrupt her by one question, while in terms suited to his hitherto uninformed mind, she explained the leading traits of those gospel truths, so necessary to the salvation promised the believer, be his colour what it may. Aware of their importance to herself, she carefully cherished, but never made them subjects of conversation, nor gave the world an opportunity of censuring what they would have termed her fastidious notions; her religious opinions were never obtruded upon slight acquaintance, and it was only her more particular friends who, beside her family, could form any judgment of her principles, save from her moral conduct. Yamboo was now one of that family, and she considered herself in part responsible for his future happiness or misery.
With such valuable qualifications as he possessed, to render him worthy the character, he wanted only an explanation of the duties incumbent on the Christian, to become a zealous candidate for the eternal prize; and no sooner heard, than his flexible mind willingly received all that his limited capacity allowed him to comprehend; the veil of ignorance, which had hitherto obscured it, was cautiously withdrawn by his benevolent friend, who, with returning health, saw the promised harvest of her pious wishes, in his anxious researches after those truths, of which she had fully taught him the inestimable value: but, in so doing, she taught him also carefully to avoid those violent extremes, which too often, in illiterate minds, amount to absurdities, by the external professions they deem laudable convictions of their conversion to Christianity; hence Yamboo was the humble trusting believer, silently adoring that Power, whose gracious works he now delighted to trace in all around him, and to whom in secret the grateful effervescence of his pious heart was daily offered for the happiness of his benefactors.
But even theirs was not always to be uninterrupted; few indeed had been the thorns mingled with those roses which had hitherto strewed their path through life—and fewer still the shades which had ever threatened even a temporary suspension of the bright sun, that rose and set alike upon their felicity.
By anticipating the too probable event of
the colonel’s joining his regiment, Mrs. Beresford wished to believe herself
prepared for it; but the reality, by proving it otherwise, demanded an exertion
of fortitude worthy even herself. The orders were at
length received, which destined him, as was expected, to embark with the second
battalion for the
In Colonel Beresford’s breast, as a husband, he knew no tie so strong as that which bound him to his Emily; as a soldier, there existed even a yet more sacred one—it was his country, and that now called him from her. In the character of the former, he pressed her with fervour to his throbbing heart, strained his children still closer to the fond recess, in which the claims of each were treasured, and turned from them to conceal the paternal look, raised to Heaven in silent anguish for their preservation; but, in that of the latter, every emotion subsided, and he eagerly sought, in the field of glory, that fame which might render him still more worthy such inestimable blessings.
CHAP. VI.
YAMBOO, with visible dejection, witnessed every preparation for the intended departure, unconscious that he was himself to accompany his colonel, a point already settled on the part of Mrs. Beresford, though his master still reluctantly consented to the arrangement, from the very same motive which impelled her to urge it, namely, the tried and known fidelity which rendered him so valuable an attendant. “It is therefore, my Henry,” she said, resting her arm on her husband’s, “that he must accompany you; for, in a strange country, exposed alike to danger and fatigue, you will find him a treasure, as on his assiduity I dare rely.”
“And that very dependence upon his honest worth,” returned the colonel, “makes me desirous that he should still remain with you; for the less indulgence a soldier allows himself, my Emily, the better; and Yamboo’s anticipation of my wishes will perhaps only render me unmindful that hardships, and the privation of many comforts, are better suited to the tented field and the hazards of a dangerous campaign.”
But Mrs. Beresford believed her only satisfaction, during this painful separation, must be derived from a knowledge of the unwearied attention which would be paid by this attached creature, and determined her not to give up a point so essential to the comfort of a beloved husband; and the generous contest was not decided on the third day previous to that on which they were to embark, when Yamboo having entered the room at the usual hour with the colonel’s slippers, the latter said—“Two evenings more, my good fellow, and Edward must perform an office in which you have hitherto been so punctual.”
Without one foundation for the hope, a latent one had still lingered in Yamboo’s breast, and from being desired, was cherished, that he should yet be suffered to attend his master. To Mrs. Beresford and his dear young ladies he owed every thing; and he believed, that in following his colonel through every danger, he should best evince his gratitude to them; but this was a final stroke, which at once crushed the mighty deeds he had already in imagination achieved in defence of his master. The slippers fell from his trembling hands, and raising his full-fraught eyes to the colonel’s face, he said—“No, no, masser, Yamboo not stay behind!”
“Why surely,” replied Colonel Beresford, affecting a tone of surprise, “you would not leave your good ladies and this country, with which you are so much delighted, to follow me into an enemy’s, where you may be exposed to every dreadful scene, while here you are happy and safe from every danger?”
“Then him ladies no want Yamboo,” he
replied eagerly; “all good people in
This affecting appeal to Mrs. Beresford
was not to be rejected, and instantly decided the business. “You see,” she
said, smiling to the colonel, “how much your purpose of having him with us must
be defeated, as his candid avowal proves his person only would remain in
“Yes,” said the colonel, “I am somewhat surprised that he can thus consent to leave you all, when, by remaining with you during my absence, he could render you so many services. How is this, Yamboo? Recollect Mrs. Beresford was your first friend, and ought to be your first consideration.”
“Yes, masser, that it is make Yamboo go,” he replied with energy; “him lady love nothing so well as him colonel, and now him going far off, Yamboo must go take care of him, bring him safe back. Edward very good lad, but him not owe him life to my colonel.”
“But he does to you,” returned the colonel, “and I believe only that circumstance would induce him to make the exchange you are so desirous to obtain, since one must remain with my family: I shall, however, propose it to-morrow, for, as an elder servant, it is an indulgence due to him. For myself, I cannot make a choice between two attendants, of whose integrity I am so well satisfied; and I dare say he will feel equally rejoiced to remain with his mistress, in which case, you are at liberty to accompany me.”
Yamboo, more elated than ever, having made his grateful bow, hastened to find Edward, whom, with redoubled eagerness, he pressed to make an exchange so requisite to his happiness, and which his high sense of duty induced him to imagine was essential, since the enthusiastic love he bore the family whom he served, led him to believe that he was in part responsible for the safety of a life so dear to them as was the colonel’s, and that in no way could he cancel his debt of lasting gratitude to Mrs. Beresford, or her sweet children, so effectually as by following him through every danger, that happily he might be an instrument of deliverance in some way or other.
Edward, equally attached, though with feelings less tremblingly alive to gratitude than Yamboo, only from not having the same cause, believed that he should no less prove his fidelity by remaining with his ladies; and no sooner heard the anxious request of his preserver, than he acceded to the entreaty, happy in the opportunity of acknowledging, by so doing, how much he owed him.
On the following day, the arrangement, so satisfactory to each party, was adjusted; and the succeeding one witnessed a separation best described by passing it over in silence, so far did it exceed all that language could express.
Yamboo’s late experience of a sea-voyage had not tinctured his mind with any melancholy presage that his present one might be equally unfavourable; his understanding, strengthened by the precepts of his excellent mistress, felt armed against impending dangers; for he believed that, now knowing there was a God to whom he could pray, he should no longer tremble, though the great waters washed over him, and the blue fire, as he termed the lightning, cut down every mast; neither of which then threatened to be the case; for nothing could be more desirable than the weather, nothing more propitious than the gales which continued to waft the little fleet to the shores of India, whither it was to convey a chosen band, no less adequate to the performance of brave deeds, or aught less worthy the arms they bore, than those warriors from whose graves, hallowed by their country’s tears, still issues the phœnix flame, which every British soldier imbibes, and which only can expire with England’s self.
Three months completed their voyage, without
any particular occurrence, and saw every man landed in perfect safety on the
coast of
Colonel Beresford’s battalion, animated by the prevalent spirit of the times, was presented to the commander in chief, with an assurance that his lordship would find them, to a man, not only eager for, but competent to every duty on which their service might be required, however arduous; and subsequent events confirmed the truth of this assertion, as the important siege of Severndroog bore ample testimony to their courage, which no difficulties could subdue: unappalled by the incredible labour demanded for conveying their artillery over rocky summits, and through almost impenetrable woods, still they continued to perform it with cheerfulness and alacrity, though often obliged to drag their battering guns across rocks of various heights, or, what required no less Herculean strength, through extensive forests of bamboo, which nature has rendered more invulnerable to the woodman’s axe than any other tree, and equally indifferent to the dreadful atmosphere, from whose noxious vapours the stupendous fortress of Severndroog has been termed the Rock of Death. They convinced Tippoo, that “soldiers, whose business ’tis to die,” know not the fear of death, under whatever name its terrors are couched. Possessed of this fort, which had hitherto been deemed impregnable, they followed up their conquests with unremitting perseverance, till Outredroog, a less formidable, though little less important post, in the vicinity of the former, yielded to their victorious arms, and justly entitled them to the public acknowledgments of Lord Cornwallis, who was never known to withhold his generous approbation of a brave action performed by the troops under his command, from the meritorious officer to the no less deserving soldier.
Colonel Beresford had passed the early
period of his military career in the
For many days after they reached the camp, astonishment and surprise deprived him of every faculty, save that of sight. The canvas houses, as he continued to call the tents, the innumerable multitude of people and soldiers, collected, as he believed they must be, from every part of the world, with their various uniforms, dress, and colour, the no less prodigious number of horses, bullocks, and, above all, creatures of whose species he could form no idea (the elephants), bewildered his imagination, and he could only gaze on them in speechless amazement; but, as they became more familiar to his sight, he was, as usual, solicitous to obtain that information which his ardent mind ever panted to acquire, when it encountered any object beyond his limited capacity; and all that he had hitherto met with was comparatively insignificant, in competition with the living wonders which each succeeding day presented.
The Mahratta chiefs surpassed all the idea he had ever pictured to himself of worldly grandeur; and their magnificent equipages and stately attendants delighted him no less than their slow movements and dignified gestures diverted him. Perfectly understanding that this immense army was collected solely for the purpose of defeating one man, who was king of the beautiful country he so much admired, his desire to see the sultan became extreme; for scarcely could he persuade himself, from the various reports he heard of him, that Tippoo was, like himself, mortal: but he never even expressed a wish to do so, after he had seen some English prisoners, whom the British troops had rescued from captivity, after a dreadful confinement, in heavy irons, of ten years. And on being one day told, it was probable he might very shortly see the sultan in person with his army, he replied sullenly, “Yamboo no want to see a tyrant; him not like bad kings.”
“And are not all kings tyrants?” said a soldier, who was standing by, merely to hear his answer.
“Me only know one king,” he replied, “and
him all people love, and call father; you not know
“But I do know and venerate him, my honest fellow,” returned the soldier, clapping Yamboo on the shoulder; “what is more, I will fight for him while this hand can wield a musket, or such an officer as your colonel is left to lead me on to battle; and, having finished Tippoo’s business in this country, who knows but you and I may meet in good Old England, to drink the health of our gracious sovereign, George the Third, God bless him! but you must see this copper-coloured gentleman first, though he is not so good a king as our own.”
“Then Yamboo hope it will be in chains, like him poor prisoners,” he said, “else him no want to see him at all;” a circumstance which would have been equally desirable to all parties; but the fate of war had not yet determined that event; and Yamboo had yet many painful hours of solicitude to endure for his colonel’s safety, which every fresh movement of the army he believed endangered.
They were already in possession of Tippoo’s strongest forts, and the next step meditated was the march towards Seringapatam, with a view to attack his fortified camp; and no sooner were the arrangements for this grand design completed, than the eager troops manifested their impatience to commence a march they were unanimous in believing must terminate on the spot destined to witness the sultan’s final overthrow, and at once conclude the war in India.
Aware that his enemies would follow up their victorious pursuits even to the gates of his capital (all that was now left him to defend), the sultan had turned his whole attention to its preservation. His army, consisting of more than five thousand cavalry, and near fifty thousand infantry, still inspired him with hopes of success; to these were added the heavy cannon which filled his redoubts in front of his line, the still greater number be possessed in the island, together with his field train, which his great military knowledge and warlike experience had taught him to place in the most advantageous situation. But neither these formidable preparations to receive them, or his own appearance with his army, which proved he meant to defend the capital in person, could intimidate the brave fellows, who anticipated, in its surrender, the reward of their past labours; and who now encamped before the island of Seringapatam (the most beautiful and flourishing city possessed by any native prince), with spirits elated by past victories, and impatient for the expected siege.
Yamboo’s heart alone was sad; he knew Colonel Beresford’s intrepidity, and had gathered sufficient information, from the preparations made, to know that, in an attempt so replete with danger, many valuable lives must be lost; and he heard, with heartfelt regret, the general orders communicated to the troops, which explained the division of the army, the position pointed out for each, with the order of their march, which took place at half past eight in the evening, under the influence of a full-orbed moon, whose cheerful beams smiled on the martial hosts, promising her friendly aid towards their success, as they passed onward in silent hope, and fearless of approaching danger, till they entered Tippoo’s lines, nearly as soon as their eventful approach was made known to him.
Again the valour of brave officers and disciplined men was proved; prompt to their given orders, and alike determined, each maintained his post with vigour. And now the battle became general, the conflict dreadful; high on the pinions of each passing breeze floated the circling clouds of sulphured smoke, and loudly echoed through the vast expanse of air reiterated peals of heavy cannon, mingling with the no less fatal discharge of musketry; while the towering rockets, darting in every direction their blue flames, too plainly shewed the sultan the resolute approaches of an enemy, who had closed upon him in every quarter. Morning, however unwilling to disclose the carnage night had veiled, at length dawned upon the victor and the vanquished. The allied armies, after performing prodigies, and obtaining every important object, retired to their appointed posts, to ascertain their own loss, and prepare for a renewal of the former attack; for still the battle was not ended, and it yet remained for several officers to distinguish themselves, in a manner which it were injustice to pass over in silence.
The Sultan Redoubt, which the British army had some time since wrested from its feeble defenders, and then occupied as quarters, for their sick and wounded, became at once of sufficient importance to Tippoo to be regained at any rate, so far as it was essential towards protracting the siege; and for this purpose every preparation to recover it was made on his part—a circumstance which much annoyed the commander in chief, who, aware of the impracticability of throwing in any succours for its relief (owing to the continued fire kept up from the fort), could only anxiously survey from his own station on the Pagoda Hill, the powerful resistance made by the small party, who were alone to share the honours of a well-earned victory, or perish in the attempt. And long and doubtful was the contest; for resolute as the enemy advanced to the assault, weak and ill-supported as were their opponents, still they were driven back with considerable loss; while the death of two brave English officers, who fell in this unequal conflict, served to animate with more than mortal strength the remaining few, who, disregarding the wounds which had been the cause of their removal to the redoubt, now exerted themselves in assisting the small number of effective men left for its defence. One gallant officer, even though wounded a second time, not only continued firm to his own post, but ably assisted his brave companions in danger; and never was a moment more replete with danger and distress, harassed on every side by the assailants, and obliged to trample upon the mangled bodies of their slaughtered comrades; while the sick and wounded vainly implored the comfort of cold water to support their dying frames, which it was not in their power to procure for them. Every passing hour appeared to teem with added horrors, when a third attack was commenced by fresh troops, who advanced from the rocks; but no sooner beheld a few of their leaders fall, than they retreated, to the great relief of the gallant party whom (almost exhausted with fatigue and the want of refreshment,) they left in quiet possession of the redoubt.
A thorough knowledge of the British army had long since convinced the commander in chief what it could effect; but he now saw an almost unexampled test of bravery, which justly entitled every individual engaged in it to his marked attention and warmest congratulations.
During the painful period which held the fate of so many deserving men in doubtful equipoise, his lordship’s mind was too deeply engaged to admit any other subject; neither would he quit the station, which commanded a view of the whole transaction, till the favourable result enabled him to make immediate provision for their relief, by sending those comforts of which they stood so much in need; but this was no sooner accomplished, than his memory recurred with added solicitude to an event which had been productive of general regret on the preceding morning, and which was no less than the loss of the worthy Colonel Beresford, who, during the attack of the lines, had been seen in the centre division, exerting himself with the true spirit which had always signalized him in actual service, but who, on their return to the camp, was no longer to be found. Anxious hope, or doubtful fear, was deeply impressed upon every countenance, which eagerly sought among the returning troops, as weary and fatigued they passed onward, for those in whose welfare they were most interested.
Yamboo sought only his colonel, but his aching eyes were vainly stretched to find the benefactor, of whom the hydra war had robbed him, and equally vain his inquiries, which no one could satisfy; still he urged them, till anguish made him mute; an encreasing terror rivetted him, a silent monument of despair, to that spot near which he had beheld all those assembled who had returned from the fatal field capable of doing so—had heard every name called over in the list of wounded awfully distinct—the mournful one of those killed—and, to him, that no less dreadful, which proclaimed the number missing; for among the latter was his master.
He smote his breast in speechless anguish, and once more turned his dejected steps to his colonel’s tent, unconscious of the movement; but it brought no alleviation to his distracted mind; the chair in which he had sat, the ’scrutoire at which he had so often seen him write, were but mementoes of his painful absence, and he threw himself on the former in a state of agony bordering on desperation; no one broke in upon his sorrow, and the stillness which prevailed around, by leaving him uninterrupted, allowed his grief that full scope so necessary to the relief of the overcharged heart; and having for some hours enjoyed the full luxury of woe, his exhausted feelings subsided into one of those melancholy calms which leaves the mourner time for recollection. In this interval, Hope, that fairy promiser of our early joys, the fond deceiver of maturer years, the still deluding last solace of the wretched, dawned upon his benighted mind—“Yes, yes,” he exclaimed, starting from his seat in wild ecstacy, “dearest lady, kind good Miss Emmeline, Yamboo must, will find him; where no one able to see him colonel, Yamboo find out, know him friend.”
Self-deceived into a temporary tranquillity, he clasped his hands, silently but with fervour implored a blessing upon the step he meditated; and elate with his visionary scheme, flew, regardless of every passing object, to the field of battle, still crimsoned with human blood, in which, mantled with many horrors, Death triumphantly held his sombre court, through whose awful avenues Yamboo glided a lone and living spectre; for even plunder, satiated with its dreadful harvest, and half appalled by the approach of night (whose hours of darkness teem with nameless terrors), had retired from their sanguinary task. He was unconscious of the time, till the receding light of day left him to regret having so long delayed the firm purpose of his anxious soul, since the shade it threw upon the scene before him only served to accumulate its horrors, without assisting the search he felt disposed to believe must infallibly end in the discovery of his beloved colonel, whom to have obtained, even in death, would have been a mitigation of his misery: but though in every mangled form he surveyed with mournful attention, and over which his pitying eye dropped the commiserating tear, he still found not him whom he sought, he yet cherished the ideal conviction, that morning would present to his eager sight the still fondly desired, though dreaded object; and, firm to his purpose, hesitated not to pass the night in a place which conveyed no terrors to his dauntless mind, but which to have left he would have deemed a sacrilege, while he believed it hallowed by the corpse of his adored master; and having reluctantly desisted from his hitherto fruitless task, he seated himself on the ground, to wait the return of that day which would enable him to resume his melancholy search.
CHAP. VII.
HIS aching eyes, refusing the repose his sick soul rejected, continued fixed with a vacant gaze upon a pallid corpse stretched before him; but such sights were within the last few hours become too familiar; and having already satisfied himself it was not his lost benefactor, his mind, abstracted from the gloomy scene, ran over the past events of his life, to that period when he had once before sought the solemn abode of death, to pass a wretched night, which he now contrasted with the present: he was then a friendless outcast, unknown and unpitied, smarting beneath the stripes inflicted by unmerited cruelty, fainting under the accumulated pangs of hunger and thirst, which no friendly hand offered to assuage; for then he knew not the benevolent being who had afterwards dried his infant tears, and dreaded the return of morning, which, by discovering his forlorn situation, might induce some one to convey him again to the master he so much dreaded: but all this was comparative happiness; his gratitude had then never been called forth, but to bless the kindness of any charitable neighbour, who had given him a piece of bread, when the brute he served refused sufficient for the pressing wants of nature; he therefore knew not the extent of that generous sentiment, which nevertheless filled every recess of his heart with its divine emanations, and had since taught him the extatic bliss of living for others. The moment which rescued him from misery, gave him new life, new being. His attachment to his preservers was undefinable to his naturally intelligent mind, and left him, as he emphatically asserted, “no say;” for it came not within that commonplace kind which admits description. The colonel had clothed, fed, and protected him; to his children’s intercession he was indebted for that protection, and they had ever treated him with kindness and affection: but Mrs. Beresford, what had she not done for him, and what would Yamboo not do to ward even the shade of sorrow from his benefactress? Vain wish! he was now far from her, in the dreadful seat of war, without protection, desolate, and alone; for every one was too much engaged, in the present confusion and dangerous state of affairs, to think of him, who was destined to pass unsheltered a sleepless night, replete with horror, for the sole purpose of seeking him for whom only that revered mistress existed, among the slaughtered troops collected round him.
Imagination sickened at the retrospect, and a convulsive sigh burst from his oppressed heart as he exclaimed—“My masser, Yamboo but find you, he too lay him down, and die!”
The awful silence which pervaded the scene of death, and his own cause of sorrow, had hitherto rendered him unconscious of fear, for other evils were swallowed up in that which absorbed every faculty, and admitted not an augmentation; but the sound of his own voice had scarcely died away upon his astonished ear, when it caught a second, which, though faint as that of a fleeting spirit, stiffened every limb; his eyes, darting from their sockets, rolled wildly round him, while drops of perspiration chased each other off his face, as he attempted to raise his trembling frame from the ground, on which it was prostrate; but again the chilling whisper thrilled through every sense—“Water, in pity, water!” was the hollow sentence it repeated, as he darted from the place, unable longer to endure the agony of his own feelings; and he now first perceived a resplendent moon threw its mantle of light upon the carnage, which in every direction appalled his view; her mild influence seemed to awaken the powers of recollection, his eyes were raised to greet her friendly beams, and at that moment, to his vivid imagination, the God whom he served stood confest in this his divine agent.
Ashamed of his own weakness, he no longer hesitated to return, and satisfy himself from whence the sound so appalling had issued; but when he reached the spot he had left with so much precipitation, all was silent: he ventured to look more earnestly upon the corpse which lay so near the place where he had taken his mournful seat, but it was ghastly—a large wound gaped upon the forehead, from which the clotted stream disfigured every feature, while the blood-stained clothes bespoke many more not less fatal; it was an officer by the dress; but, had a symptom of life remained, he would doubtless have been removed with the wounded to the redoubt. Yamboo therefore moved slowly on to the next object which attracted his attention; this was two poor fellows, who had evidently fallen side by side; but their mutilated state, and distance from the mysterious spot, clearly convinced him they had not made the heart-rending request, which still vibrated on his ear, and urged the wish of discovering the unfortunate author, as he almost mechanically pursued his first melancholy search after Colonel Beresford. This led him yet farther from the probability of doing so, but could not extinguish the desire; and having wandered about till his tortured sight recoiled from such accumulated horror, he returned once more to his deserted seat, with a fixed determination of remaining there, till the morning, by assisting his researches, should accomplish the design, or no longer leave him a shade of hope to rest upon; beyond that period he dared not look, for all was a blank. His weary steps had again brought him to the extended form, which, like a painful magnet, continued to attract him, he knew not why; for he still adhered to his first opinion, that lips clenched, as those evidently were, in death, could never have uttered the words he had certainly heard; and a second time he stood before it, lost in thought, with crossed arms, and eyes rivetted on the pallid features, when either those eyes, yet dim with tears, had, like his ears, deceived him, or he really perceived a motion in the lips he believed closed for ever. Kneeling down, he laid his hand gently upon them, but the warm breath which ascended to it nearly froze the current which flowed at his beating heart: convinced that life yet remained, he forgot at the moment it inhabited not the breast of his lost colonel, as he looked frantically around him for that help which might still preserve it; but no human footsteps, save his own, lingered near the fatal spot: the next impulse was to return to the camp for succour; but it was not possible this new-found object of his anxious care could exist till he procured it; and irresolute how to proceed, he continued chafing the cold hand stretched by its side, till, as if sensible of the motion, the quivering lips again separated, but articulation was denied; this, however, gave him fresh hopes, as he endeavoured to persuade himself that, if sensible help was so near, the wounded man would feel a comfort that might enable him to sustain his short absence to procure it; and laying his head close to that of the sufferer, he said in a low voice—“You keep still, and no try to move; Yamboo go bring soldiers and doctor;” and without waiting a moment longer than to mark well the place, he flew, as he imagined, to the road which had conducted his anxious steps to the field of battle; he had yet to learn
“How quick is the glance of the mind,
Compar’d to the speed of its flight!”
for a circuitous path, which in his haste he had mistaken for the right one, considerably procrastinated the promised relief; to increase his difficulties, many of the soldiers, whom chance threw in his way, believing him deranged, by his agitated manner, refused the assistance he so eagerly entreated, and passed on: mortified and distressed, he pursued his way to the lines, and in terms expressive of his generous and humane feelings, explained his errand to the first officer whom he met, and who instantly ordered a surgeon, with suitable attendants, to accompany him, though he also doubted, from his hurried accents and visible distress, which he justly attributed to the recent loss of his excellent master, if he was perfectly correct in his story of the wounded officer: but such intelligence was not to be rejected; and Yamboo set out with an escort, conducted, rather than conducting them, by a nearer road, till he shewed them the object of their search, whom the whole party at once pronounced past all their efforts to save, till the surgeon’s application of his glass to the cold lips told the vital spark was not extinct, though he did not hesitate to pronounce it had lingered too long on the verge of eternity to be recovered. Restoratives were, nevertheless, applied, and a short period proved their efficacy; the eyelids were slowly raised, but the eyes appeared dim and heavy; deep-drawn sighs shortly after issued from the almost lifeless breast, and the parched tongue again faintly articulated—“Water!”
“Ah! that’s what Yamboo first hear,” said the delighted creature, no longer sensible of his own misery; “that make Yamboo first think him live; now him hear it once more, him glad, happy, very happy;” but the pronunciation of the word happy destroyed the ideal sensation; his lost benefactor crossed his agitated mind, and wringing his hands, he exclaimed—“My colonel! who know but him want such help, and Yamboo stay here while him masser die!”
Forcibly struck by his deep tones of anguish, one of the officers (whom a compassionate interest in the account had added to the party) said—“Stay, my good lad, a few minutes longer, and we will accompany you in looking over this horrid place, before the soldiers arrive to inter the brave fellows who have fallen on it. You have, I fear, little room to hope, though indeed to you alone we owe the discovery of Captain Longford, whose name, like Colonel Beresford’s, was returned among the missing; and, in return for your humanity, every thing that can satisfy you as to the fate of your master, which it is in my power to effect, shall be done.”
“Thank, thank you,” returned the agitated boy; “me ever bless you; did every body know my colonel, him good lady, him kind children, they no leave him in this place; Yamboo only once find him, he ask no more.”
During this affecting address to the officer, who well knew Colonel Beresford’s worth, and belonged to his regiment, the rest of the party had been actively and successfully employed in the recovery of Captain Longford, who, greatly revived by what the surgeon had administered, was removed to the litter provided for him, with less difficulty than they had at first apprehended; but, as the utmost precaution was still requisite, it was agreed to delay proceeding with him till the first fatigue was somewhat recovered; and, that no time might be lost, Lieutenant Edgar, as he had promised, attended by two of his men, and Yamboo, commenced their hopeless search, knowing that they could easily overtake the party, whose movement must of necessity be very slow. But the only advantage derived from their humane task, was that of prevailing upon Yamboo to quit with them the mournful scene, in which, but for their kind persuasion, he would most probably have remained till his exhausted frame could no longer have assisted him to do so.
Weary with disappointment, his sick heart needed the commiserating language in which Mr. Edgar urged him to believe there was even yet a probability that Colonel Beresford might still exist, and that the humane and good act he had then performed for Captain Longford, might be rewarded by the future restoration of his beloved colonel: “At all events,” continued his new friend, “my worthy fellow, you shall not want a kind master till we return to England, if you will remain with me; and should we live to see it again, I will have you conveyed in safety to Colonel Beresford’s family.”
The name of that family touched a tender chord; a sense of their sorrow added every thing to his own; and believing from the torture of his feelings at that moment (while his trembling limbs, faint for want of food, aided the conviction), that he should never survive to bear the dreadful story to them, he shook his head mournfully, and said in faltering accents—“Yamboo much thank you, pray for you when him die, and that him soon do, for him sick, very sick.”
This Mr. Edgar readily believed, for his heavy eyes and languid state fully corroborated the assertion; but he felt uncommonly interested in his welfare, and judging his apparent weakness arose wholly from distress of mind, determined not only to protect, but sooth him, if that were possible, into a forgetfulness of the cause.
They had by this time overtaken the party, when he procured some drops for Yamboo, which partially recruited his failing strength, and enabled him to listen with pleasure to the surgeon’s account of Captain Longford, which was every way favourable; “and to you, my good boy,” he added, “he certainly owes his life; nor can you but feel a satisfaction from knowing you have preserved both a fellow-creature and a valuable officer.”
“Now,” continued Mr. Edgar, with a hope of diverting his attention, “you must nurse him; for I think such an arrangement will be of service to both, from the proofs you have already given of a kind heart, in the service you have rendered him.”
Yamboo smiled, but he had no longer power to reply; his head became giddy, the faintness increased, and, though he still continued to walk on, he was no longer sensible of surrounding objects. Happily his excellent heart had raised him friends in the hour he most needed protection; for, from the moment which had deprived him of his first and valuable benefactor, his disordered mind, filled with one great cause of sorrow, heeded no other object, nor had in one instance reverted to his own fate; he knew only that he had lost his first, his dearest friend, and to him the future was chaos.
Many hours had elapsed before returning recollection brought, with the painful retrospect of past events, a grateful sense of present kindness, from those whom his still aching eyes, in the first moments of awakened sensibility, rested upon; they were strangers, but appeared deeply interested for him. There was yet an apathy in the frame, which left him unconscious whether or not he required nourishment, and he was still less inclined to speak; but as he looked around him, all was neat, clean, and cheerful; two soldiers stood near his bed, and a woman, who, leaning over him, in the mild accents of pity, inquired how he found himself: a deep-drawn sigh was at first his only answer; but, on her repeating the question, he replied—“Yamboo much better, thank you.” Scarcely satisfied that he was quite sensible, she begged him to take some drink, which she had provided for him; and his ready acquiescence having convinced her she was understood, one of the soldiers was dispatched for Lieutenant Edgar, as he had desired. The beverage Yamboo swallowed, by moistening his parched throat, afforded him more relief than his kind nurse had ventured to expect: the stupor gradually subsided, and, though feeble, he complained of no pain, save that which still rankled at his heart.
The pleasure Mr. Edgar expressed on finding him even thus recovered, drew tears of gratitude from the invalid, and a thousand times he blest him for his goodness to the poor, lost Yamboo.
“But you do not ask after Captain Longford,” said his friend; “and I am sure you must be happy to hear he is doing well.”
“Very, very glad,” he answered.
“He is,” continued Mr. Edgar, “very anxious to see his preserver; but it will be some time before he is enabled to express how much he owes to your goodness; yet I am convinced he will spare no expence to provide for your comfort, in return for his life.”
“Oh, Yamboo not give him life,” he replied, “God only give life; Yamboo do little, very little.”
Astonished to hear such a sentence from
lips so untaught, as from Yamboo’s complexion and situation he judged his must
be, and well aware that should Captain Longford recover, he, so far from
ascribing the gift to that Power to whom Yamboo had given the praise, would
rest his gratitude on the casual event which had made him his preserver, so
little did he profess for religion, that for a moment he continued looking upon
him in silence. At length, seating himself by his side, he said—“Then you
believe, Yamboo, that there is an over-ruling
“Oh, Yamboo know him in all things,” he replied, while more than usual animation pervaded his features; “he see him every where. But Yamboo say how him first found this God him bound to love;” and he ran over the little history of Mrs. Beresford’s attention to his religious principles, with a perspicuity that at once shewed Mr. Edgar the real worth of the being he also had been an instrument in saving, as the distracted state in which he at first found him certainly exposed him to many dangers. They had no sooner reached the hill fort, then occupied as an hospital, to which they were conveying Captain Longford, than Mr. Edgar gave Yamboo in charge to his own servant, with orders to conduct him to the quarters of a serjeant, who had been indebted to him for many favours, requesting his wife, on whose humanity he could depend, to pay every attention his weak state demanded. These orders had been punctually fulfilled; she had lain him on a clean bed, in a quiet room, where his friend soon called upon him, attended by a surgeon: but he still remained insensible, nor had shewn a symptom of returning reason till the period before described, on which she had dispatched a messenger for the lieutenant, at whose request he took some wine and other refreshments; for it was evident, want of food and natural rest, added to excessive grief, had reduced him to that state of extreme weakness. Proper care, and an excellent constitution, gradually restored him to health; but the spirits which had formerly distinguished him, the easy, happy air, that marked all his actions, were his no longer; a fixed dejection reigned in every feature; and though his passive, mild temper still created esteem, it was all that remained of the once cheerful, happy Yamboo.
When Captain Longford, also daily recovering, entreated permission of the surgeons who attended him to see his preserver, and the childish impatience he expressed to do so obliged them to comply, well knowing his irritable disposition, ill brooking contradiction, would render their refusal more dangerous to his health than the indulgence could possibly do, though his being kept undisturbed was, in his state, of essential consequence to his recovery—Yamboo was therefore introduced to him; and though his emaciated form, supported as he was in bed, and swathed in bandages, merely told he lived, when Yamboo contrasted the dreadful state in which he had first seen him with the many comforts which now surrounded him, he felt a pleasing satisfaction diffuse through his lacerated heart, and fervently thanked his God for having made him the humble instrument of his preservation. As he drew near the bed, Captain Longford raised one hand, which he extended towards him (the other had been shattered so much, as to render amputation necessary, and the operation had taken place); Yamboo modestly took the offered hand, and returned its warm pressure by respectfully raising it to his lips; but in so doing, a kind of tremor seized his whole frame, and made him believe he was going to relapse into that weakness from which he had so recently recovered; but Captain Longford spoke, and his voice rivetted his whole attention; he called him kind, good boy, his generous preserver; for this Yamboo was prepared; but there was something in the voice which still increased the tremor, when the surgeon, fearful of the consequences to his patient, forbid his talking, as the exertion might be attended with fatal consequences; and, on a promise of his being allowed to see the lad again on the following day, he was dismissed. On regaining the air, he was no longer sensible of the faintness which had assailed him; but he still remembered the voice, with its effect, which he endeavoured to account for, by reverting to the awful impression it had made upon him on the dreadful night he first heard it.
At an early hour next morning he was again summoned; for the captain hourly mended, and had insisted upon a second interview, which appeared to strengthen the wish of a better acquaintance on both sides. Again Captain Longford spoke, and again Yamboo listened with an avidity for which he could not account; an irresistible attachment had already awakened a lively interest in the sufferer’s welfare, and he believed, if allowed to attend wholly upon him during his confinement, it would at least amuse his own sorrow, if not be beneficial to the captain, as his attentions would be actuated by an ardent wish for his recovery. Perhaps it was that he derived comfort from looking upon the kind stranger, who, like the good Samaritan, had rescued him from the otherwise too certain death; but so earnest were Captain Longford’s entreaties that Mr. Edgar should resign Yamboo solely to his care, that the latter, reluctant as he was to part with him, knew not how to evade them. It was natural Captain Longford should wish to retain him near his person, and he knew had it in his power nobly to reward the generous act; but he also knew there were many reasons why Yamboo’s residence with himself during the campaign might, in many respects, tend more to his comfort; but the request was made and complied with.
Yamboo, as he expected, found his new office better suited to the tenor of his spirits than more active employment would have been, as the stilly silence of a sick room allowed him ample scope for the deep reflection which wholly occupied every moment not more immediately devoted to the various wants of his master; these were many, and to any other person would have been deemed irksome; for the natural impatience of Captain Longford’s disposition, unsubdued by the sufferings of his body, could ill brook the tedious confinement, to which he in part contributed, by his restless desire to do more than his strength was equal to; he had wearied every one but Yamboo, to whom they all felt grateful for the relief his personal attendance gave them, and by which even the surgeons were benefited; for, if any restriction was requisite, any new mode to be adopted in their treatment of him, which it was too probable he would have rejected, such was the ascendancy his favourite had already acquired over him, that he no longer hesitated, when told by him it was requisite, and would contribute to his more rapid recovery—still his pensive mind found ample leisure to sigh over the uncertain destiny of his beloved colonel, even to weep for the more certain distress into which he well knew the loss they had sustained would plunge Mrs. Beresford and her lovely daughters; for days and weeks had succeeded each other, without throwing the least light upon the colonel’s fate; and conscious that his presence would but add to the grief he had no means of alleviating, he became altogether indifferent as to the probable period that might effect his ever meeting with them; but to think of them, to pray for their health and preservation, was a daily duty, which he performed with the religious exactness of an anchorite; nor was Captain Longford excluded in these orisons.
“Is it,” he would sometimes mentally exclaim, “that Yamboo must love every body who speak kind to him, or why him love Captain Longford so much? him no like him good colonel, for he swear, scold, almost frighten every one; yet Yamboo feel he must love him, pray for him.”
His thoughtful mind next reverted to the chain of melancholy events which had thrown him upon the protection of Captain Longford, and, in so doing, dwelt upon the kind Mr. Edgar, who was still more entitled to his gratitude, for he had nursed him in sickness, and promised never to forsake him in a strange country; he had experienced incontestible proofs of his goodness and humanity, knew that he was much beloved in his regiment, which was that of Colonel Beresford, and every object connected with that name had a charm for him; but the attachment he felt towards Mr. Edgar was not of that description which bound him by an indefinable sensation to the captain, and which every day appeared to strengthen; his towards the grateful creature to whom he owed every thing needed no definition; it was his preserver, under whatever form he might appear before him, that he sought; and neither the darkened room, the close-drawn curtains, or his own weak sight, were of consequence in the interview, since it was the heart, and not the eyes, which was to recognise the being to whom he was indebted for life: from Mr. Edgar he had learned who and what he was, and his recital, given with all the pathos of a truly feeling, generous mind, added much to the interest he already avowed in his fate; and he even rejoiced that his forlorn situation would make his future protection of more consequence; for he had determined to prove, by unlimited acts of generosity, his deep sense of the eternal obligation he owed to him, and for this purpose had claimed the privilege of providing for him, as generosity was a leading trait in Captain Longford’s character, we do not say benevolence, for he was much too thoughtless to enter into all the delightful sensations of that god-like virtue.
CHAP. VIII.
FALSE indulgence in the early period of his life, had rendered him totally unfit to enter the busy world at the age of sixteen (in a dashing uniform, with sixty guineas in his pocket, a handsome gold watch, and unlimited authority to draw upon a liberal father for fresh supplies), without a kind Mentor to warn him of its many dangers. But so it was; he joined a regiment some thousand miles from his native land, and with the inconsiderate sentiments of a schoolboy first emancipated from the rigid rules of his academy, plunged at once into every extreme of licentious pleasure and prodigal extravagance. Many were the incentives to vice—more the abettors of it; for his money secured him friends of that description who flutter round the thoughtless victim while a guinea remains to provide a new pleasure, or his footsteps yet linger upon the precipice of that vortex into which he must eventually sink—but who, having seen him do so, are no longer present to soothe one pang of that soul-piercing remorse, embittered by their desertion.
Finding it impossible to stem the torrent of those bills which incessantly poured in upon him, and by their tenor proved the unbounded dissipation of a son who was become deaf to every remonstrance, the father of Captain Longford at length, though reluctantly, refused to accept them: but it was too late to reclaim him; the propensities of a once noble mind were, from habitual vice, become vitiated; a temper, naturally excellent, still interested many respectable characters in his welfare; while his manners, perfectly those of a gentleman, procured him admission into all companies; but the liquidation of his numerous debts depended wholly upon his success at cards, or in betting; and having still honour enough left to wish them cancelled, it was a resource to which he flew with avidity, though it too often served only to plunge him yet deeper in difficulties, from which he saw little chance of escape, till his father’s interest procured him an exchange, which removed him altogether from the companions and scene of his numerous follies.
Encreasing years affected a partial reformation; rank had given him more consequence, and he determined to act up to the character he had now to support. His disposition, though quick, made him an idol among his own men; and as he was still young, his brother officers ventured to believe that many of his indiscretions arose more from error of judgment than a bad heart; but he had no solid principle, was impatient of restraint, and, though he would listen to advice, wanted resolution to abide by it; while he commanded a guinea, his purse was open to every claim upon it; and he felt perhaps more pain when the want of it obliged him to refuse the loan, than he would have experienced pleasure from spending it himself.
Such were the general outlines of Captain Longford’s character when he embarked for the East Indies, where, as an active officer, he proved, however many his failings, that true bravery at least shone conspicuous among his virtues, and as such his loss would have been sincerely regretted; and many were the friendly congratulations that greeted his partial recovery, which was deemed little less than miraculous; for, dreadful as were his wounds, the climate he had to contend with was no less dangerous; still he continued to mend, though slowly; and the surgeons unanimously agreeing in a belief that his native air would do much more for him than they could, he solicited and obtained leave to return to England, as soon as his weak state admitted of his doing so.
Anxiously he anticipated the period which might see him enabled to encounter the fatigue of a long voyage, on which he was one evening contemplating, while his eyes rested on the face of Yamboo, who, totally unconscious of his gaze, sat also apparently lost in thought, which Captain Longford interrupted, by asking him if he, like himself, was reflecting upon the pleasure of returning to England?
Raising his pensive eyes, he replied—“Yamboo have no pleasure now but in serving masser, and all places same where him do so.”
Pleased with an answer so truly gratifying to his own feelings, Captain Longford continued—“But surely, my kind boy, you must derive pleasure from seeing Colonel Beresford’s family, who evidently occupy all your thoughts?”
“Oh no,” he returned mournfully, “Mrs. Beresford once say Yamboo never forsake him masser, for that he must go with him; now him go back to her, and say him colonel no where to be found, and Yamboo live to tell it; no, no, better him stay here always, than hear him ladies ask what Yamboo no give, him friend, him benefactor.”
“Then you refuse to accompany me home—me whom you have saved from death, nursed with such care,” said Captain Longford, “and mean to desert me when I shall stand most in need of your attentive kindness? who will dress my unclosed wounds, give my medicine, and prepare my various comforts?”
“Yamboo,” replied the affectionate creature, interrupting him, “Yamboo never leave him masser till him no longer useful; then him come back, and die here!”
“Then you can never respect me as you did Colonel Beresford, I find,” said his master, “since you purpose leaving me as soon as my health is restored; for useful you must always be; and I had hoped never to have lost sight of you again, lest I should for a moment forget the preserver of my life. Colonel Beresford could never love you more than I do; and I am desirous of knowing what could have attached you so strongly to him, that even in death you cannot resign his claims upon your gratitude.”
“Oh do not say him dead,” he exclaimed; “Yamboo bear all but that; when he say what him good colonel do to save him poor black boy, masser no wonder how much he love him.” He then related his short and simple story, in the plain language of truth, without an embellishment, save that of generous gratitude, from the early period in which he first became sensible that, as a slave, there was no redress for the cruelty that stamped his infant years, till that when, daring to force the fetters forged by unfeeling parents, he was thrown friendless and destitute upon the Beresford family, on whose boundless goodness he was expatiating, with the ardour that marked his character, when, having accidentally looked at his master, he beheld a change in his countenance, which at once surprised and terrified him; his eyes were fixed, yet appeared unconscious of any object, his lips quivered, and large drops of perspiration stood upon his pale face, while the emaciated form, supported as it was in bed, trembled; believing that it proceeded from his having sat up too long, Yamboo carefully removed his pillows; and a few minutes saw him sufficiently recovered to satisfy him that the faintness which had seized him so suddenly was in part removed, and that, feeling disposed to sleep, he should continue his little narrative on the following day. This he did, while Captain Longford listened attentively to every word; and so deeply was he become interested in the fate of his protegee, that when Yamboo, with enthusiastic warmth, described Mrs. Beresford’s unremitting care of him during his dangerous illness, he involuntarily exclaimed—“May Heaven reward her goodness to my poor boy!”
Yamboo, startled by the unexpected exclamation, looked at him, when the captain, recovering himself, said—“Can I, Yamboo, be sufficiently grateful to those who preserved a life which has since saved mine? neither can I any longer feel surprise at your uncommon attachment to your first benefactors.”
“But that not all him debt,” he continued; “Mrs. Beresford do more, much more for Yamboo; him good colonel make him free, clothe, feed him; dear Miss Emmeline, Miss Matilda, always love, treat him kindly; but him lady,” and, animated by a remembrance of the divine precepts she had taught him, he raised his fine eyes to heaven as he repeated—“she alone make him to know God.”
There were few who, at that period of his life, knew him less than the man who at that moment contemplated the interesting features of the boy, from whose lips had issued a sentence that gave rise to so many and various emotions in his own breast. Captain Longford certainly was not an atheist; for, had he been questioned in his most irregular and thoughtless moments as to the existence of a God, he would have answered, assuredly there is one—a conviction that must at once have condemned the being who, thus daring to acknowledge, refused to serve him. In the season of health, “when the high blood runs frolic through the veins,” in the hours of licentious pleasure, the dispensations of Providence were altogether unheeded; but when chained to the bed of pain, and left to his own solitary reflections, without one resource in his mind to compensate for the trifles which in health provided ample amusement for each vacant hour, his thoughts, thrown back as it were upon himself, naturally reverted to his late preservation, and the still more wonderful means by which it had been effected; to this was added circumstances that awakened sensations new to himself, and he fancied an over-ruling Providence manifest in the event; worn down by pain, weakened by confinement, his heart was more susceptible of any impression, and partially caught the fervour which lighted up the expressive eyes of Yamboo as he spoke; nor did he attempt to interrupt him, till having closed his artless history at the period of his still-lamented loss, he remained silent.
Passing over subsequent events, Captain Longford said—“Tell me, Yamboo, what are the singular benefits you have derived from these religious instructions of your pious mistress, who is probably an enthusiast herself, and thinks to secure her own road to heaven by the number of converts she makes; is not this the case?”
A gleam of anger clouded the usual serenity of his brow, as he replied—“Me not quite know what that mean; if it every thing good, then it like Mrs. Beresford, for she only good; but my captain not know her, and Yamboo forgive him.”
Diverted by the warmth with which he defended his benefactress, Captain Longford continued—“But you will not persuade me that you are happier for the knowledge you have gained of a Supreme Being: when you knew him not, you had no one to fear; now, if you are guilty of a fault, you must feel all the terror of having offended God; and you have faults, I suppose, like other people.”
“Oh yes, many, very many,” he returned; “but for him not to do wrong Yamboo always pray daily; then him strive never to offend any one; him captain, whom him but now know, and love, he no offend; how much then him not do to please God, who him love so much better; and this make him always happy while he do right: indeed,” he added with a heavy sigh, “no one so happy as Yamboo till he lost him colonel; but sometimes even now he think himself not always sorrow; something tell him he will come back again.”
“And that something you no doubt think is God?” said his master.
“Who else,” he replied eagerly, “know when the heart sick, and who but him dry Yamboo’s tears?”
“Singular boy!” exclaimed Captain Longford; but at that moment he felt a change little less singular in his own sentiments. Here was no bigotry, no priestly eloquence, but Nature’s simple dictates; yet how powerfully did they speak conviction to his mind, and how deeply interesting did every sentence make the speaker!
A painful recollection of many unworthy actions in his past life rapidly shot through his imagination, and each would have sufficed to make him blush, as he surveyed the boy who had thus unconsciously awakened the remembrance of them; but one, far more flagrant than the rest, extorted a heart-felt sigh, as he vainly tried to pass it over, in common with the lighter follies of his youthful days; but it admitted no palliation, for in the commission he had violated the laws of honour, and the act was in itself stamped with injustice, marked by cruelty; it had sometimes occurred to his memory, but now sunk deep in his heart; and, believing restitution was yet in his power, he determined to make every effort for that purpose, till he had washed out the deep stain of galling remorse.
The second which his accusing spirit presented in this hour of contrition, was a series of ingratitude to an indulgent father, who was no longer (he too late regretted) an inhabitant of this world; and the rapture of his now meditated amendment of conduct was damped by a recollection, that he who had so often with paternal solicitude desired it, was no longer sensible of the change.
Still there were two beings dear to him, and to whose happiness it was essential; this was a sister, tenderly attached to him, and his own son, whom he had left in her protection, and who kindly supplied the place of that mother, whom even the thoughtless father deemed unworthy the trust—she ranked among that wretched class of women who, stamped with infamy, are hurled from the place they once held in society, and thrown upon a wide world, with few to pity, less to reclaim their wandering footsteps, where all are ready to crush, but none to raise the bruised reed, and where even humanity must be suppressed, lest censure should mock the deed, and whisper to tenacious virtue what pity dared to do for a frail, a fallen victim. Erroneous delicacy! could that virtue be contaminated by the warm glow of sympathy, which taught it to administer, perhaps to save, one votary of vice from its dreadful effects? Say rather, would it not reflect a brighter lustre in his eyes, who, knowing the heart best, can tell why the distinction is permitted? Robbed of innocence, peace, and virtue, by a specious villain, the sorrowing penitent would have gladly regained the paths of rectitude; but it was a vain attempt; suspicion had closed every avenue; those who might have saved were deaf to her entreaties; and thus cruelly rejected, when her heart fondly leaned to virtue’s side, she had no alternative but vice; then courted and caressed, the victim lost at once every sense of moral duty; and knowing that to man, faithless man, she owed the misery which enveloped her, lived but to revenge upon the whole sex the injury she had sustained from one.
Among those who in turn became her dupes, was Captain Longford. A little boy, to whom she publicly gave his name, and claimed a provision for, was early taught to call him father; as both the world and its mother gave him the credit of being so, he generously resolved to support the character, by maintaining it during his stay in the country where the little stranger first hailed the light; and on his return to England it accompanied him, and was consigned to the care of this favourite sister, who, much too partial, drew a veil over the indiscretions of a brother, whom she vainly attempted to reclaim, but could never cease to love.
This sister would fondly welcome his return to her; still more, that to rectitude; the boy, whom habit, rather than nature, had taught him to love, would benefit by the change; and the dormant spark of virtue, which lingered in his own breast, whispered a thousand nameless blessings which might result from the laudable resolutions he was then forming in imagination. The train of deep reflection into which he had insensibly fallen, continued to occupy his mind, long after Yamboo had retired to the little pallet prepared for him in his master’s room, and on whom he gazed, as he silently ejaculated—“Poor Yamboo! thou shalt henceforth be my Mentor; I who owe thee life, will still owe thee more; thy excellent principles shall in future restrain every wayward passion, and lead this erring heart back to rectitude; neither shall shame prevent my acknowledging to the world how much, how deeply I have injured . . . . . . .”
He paused, and the unfinished sentence died upon his lips; for whatever the purport, a sudden recollection suppressed its utterance; honour suggested the resolution he was about to form, but a far less noble sentiment restrained the impulse—what will the world think? That direful question, from which thousands recoil abashed, darted into his mind, and staggered the half-formed resolution; still it was not wholly rejected, till pride, all-subduing pride, having suggested other means by which this new sense of justice might be appeased, elated with its conquest over returning virtue, left him pleased with the alternative, but surprised at his own temerity, in having for one moment meditated a step so absurd, and, he would have persuaded himself, so unnecessary to his future arrangements.
Ardent in every pursuit, whatever its tenor, he lost not with returning day the zeal with which his night’s reflections had inspired him; and successive conversations with Yamboo still confirmed his resolutions, by convincing him that the good man alone is happy, be his station what it may.
Of all his past enjoyments, vain desultory pleasures, nothing remained, by soul-piercing remorse, of a once elegant form and fine features; the former presented but a mutilated remnant, while the latter, pale and gashed with many a scar, left little trace of the once handsome Longford: but the revolution in his mind rendered him far more careless of the exterior change than he would otherwise have been. If Yamboo, accustomed to see him frequently, petulant, and always impatient, found it impossible to resist an attachment, which daily strengthened upon his side, how much was it increased, when he found him, mild and passive in his manners to others, still more kind and affectionate to himself, while he submitted without a murmur to the slow progress in the healing of his wounds, which yet threatened to procrastinate for many weeks his desired return to England: but the period at length arrived which saw him, accompanied by the warm wishes of every brother officer for a safe and speedy voyage, sail for his native land.
CHAP. IX.
TO Yamboo it was a renewal of all his grief. Many were the anxious looks he cast upon the receding shores of India, many the fond wishes which lingered upon the spot fatal to his happiness; yet such were the contradictory emotions of his soul, that, while he sickened to remain where he was, where only it was probable he could ever recover his lost colonel, an irresistible impulse urged him to follow the fate of Captain Longford; and had he even been allowed a choice, fondly as he still treasured the memory of the former, he would have found it impossible to forsake the latter: perhaps it was, that time, the only soother of the most poignant sorrow, had so far meliorated his, that he rather sighed for, than dreaded an interview with his beloved ladies, and he endeavoured to prepare his mind for that purpose. Useless precaution! it was a painful pleasure denied to him—a mournful gratification not permitted to Mrs. Beresford or her sorrowing children; for it would have found a melancholy alleviation of their trial in the presence of the faithful creature, whose unfeigned grief for the best of masters would have been considered a grateful tribute to his revered memory.
But Captain Longford had other views: daily
more sensible of increasing affection in his own breast, he witnessed with real
pleasure every proof of a mutual return in that of Yamboo, whom he found it
impossible to part from, and whom he determined in his own mind never to
resign, even to his first and valued benefactors. Theirs were the only claims
that could be made upon him, and these he ventured to affirm were futile, when
put in competition with his own. At all events, there was too little
probability of Colonel Beresford’s existence to warrant a fear of his demanding
him; and Yamboo’s ignorance of
Yamboo could but become a favourite, since, with all his errors, Captain Longford was tenderly beloved in his family, and every one strove to evince their gratitude to his preserver, him only excepted in whose breast it might have been supposed Nature would have implanted the strongest sense of such an obligation—his son; but so far differed the characters of father and child, that while the latter had imbibed every false erroneous principle which proved the former’s bane, not one of those relative virtues, which shewed the contrast, and was known to have inhabited Captain Longford’s breast, even when most the slave of intemperate folly, had descended to this his offspring. His features were regularly handsome, but this served only rather to increase his excessive vanity, even as a boy, while it rendered those of Yamboo, though equal in point of beauty, a subject of ridicule, because the complexion differed from his own.
He daily heard him extolled for virtues to which he had himself no pretensions, and this made him envious; he saw him most deservedly a decided favourite, and from that moment hated him; but so carefully concealed his unjust sentiments, that no one suspected the deceit.
When Captain Longford had placed his son under the care of his sister, to whom his slightest wishes were a law, and had provided an excellent school for him, he left England, perfectly satisfied that he had performed a father’s duty; but he returned to it, with a deep conviction that much more is required of a parent, and he determined carefully to guard Henry’s morals from the fatal errors which had perverted his own. He had already reached that age when the character is so far formed as to leave an accurate and interested observer little difficulty in ascertaining what it promises to be; and he anxiously watched, as that character unfolded itself, for the embryo virtues that might need a guardian’s care, to shield them from the early blight which had destroyed his; little penetration was requisite to discover that he had excellent abilities; nor was there wanting perseverance to improve them, since the closest examination proved the encomiums passed upon him by his different tutors were only such as his merit justly demanded; but a consciousness of that merit which all were so willing to allow him, tinctured it with a shade of vanity, that gave him, at that early age, a superiority in his own opinion over every cotemporary at the academy; they told him he was clever, and he believed it. His disposition was gay, volatile, and often thoughtless, but unmarked by any of those generous effusions of soul which are so often discernible in the schoolboy; and in the silent survey Captain Longford made, he found much to flatter a father’s pride, but little to promote his happiness; yet, as he was still a youth, he ventured to believe the admonitions of a parent, so much interested in his welfare, might in time correct many of those errors which, like baneful weeds, deform the fairest pasture; and, for this purpose, assiduously marked their progress, previous to his final determination as to his future plans, or the profession he might choose for him, as, though he still remained at school, it was so immediately in his father’s neighbourhood, as to allow great part of his time to be spent with him, during which Henry paid the strictest attention to his smallest wishes; but, absent from him, they were no longer remembered.
Not so with the faithful Yamboo; he watched the still slow returning health of his master with tender concern, for he had derived far less benefit than had been expected from his native air; and each day, if possible, redoubled the obliging assiduity of his affectionate attendant.
Miss Longford, estimating his real value, sought to repay her brother’s debt of gratitude by every attention on her part to his comfort. Her real goodness of heart, and near affinity to his captain, were strong claims upon Yamboo’s affection, who often blest the mercy which, in depriving him of his first benefactors, had given others now little less dear to him, and with whom he hoped to pass the residue of his life, since he was led to believe the former for ever lost to him.
At his earnest entreaty, Captain Longford,
soon after their arrival in
The letter, which so effectually closed all future knowledge of this beloved family, was at first a keen affliction, and too late he blamed his own rashness in leaving Mrs. Beresford; but a recollection of subsequent events, the life he had been a means of preserving, and which was become so dear to him, checked the regret, while it urged him to believe, that his having done so must have been the will of a higher Power, whose wisdom was, he knew, unerring.
In Captain Longford’s family he was treated with kindness and respect; for hardly could he be called a servant, where all were so anxious to promote his happiness; and, to prove how sensible he was of their kindness, it was requisite to be cheerful and contented, since it was all the return in his limited power to make. A fear of destroying that cheerfulness deterred Captain Longford from ever naming the subject of his loss; and as no other part of the family knew that which he lamented, he never spoke of them himself; hence arose the belief that they were no longer remembered by him, or, if remembered, not with that anxiety to rejoin them which he had so often evinced; and in this state of tranquillity, without one incident worthy of remark, had passed nearly two years of Yamboo’s life.
Captain Longford, no longer desirous of mixing in the busy world, and finding his health totally unequal to the fatigues of a military life, had been permitted to retire upon half-pay, which (with the remains of what, but for his former extravagance, might have been deemed a princely fortune) enabled him still to secure not only the comforts, but many of the elegancies of life, which he now enjoyed with his sister, who having, at a very early age, lost a favoured lover, and the only one for whom she ever allowed herself to feel an attachment, voluntarily devoted herself to a state of celibacy; time had soothed the poignancy of her youthful sorrow for his death; and having no living object so dear to her as this brother, she was desirous only of contributing to his comfort by unwearied attention to his most trivial wishes. Three domestics, beside Yamboo, whose duty was confined to a close attendance upon his master, formed their household, in which the greatest harmony prevailed, when Henry, having finished his education, left the academy, and returned to his father’s house, fraught with all that self-sufficiency which, having marked the progress of his studies, now served to increase his own consequence, and render him more impatient of those parental admonitions, which he averred might be requisite for a schoolboy, but ill suited the ardour of a spirited young man, eager to make his entrance in that world of which he had heard so much; for hitherto his own knowledge of it was confined to the beautiful village in which he had resided from the period of his arrival in England, when he had just attained his seventh year; but its romantic beauties were now lost upon his mind, which panted for gayer scenes; its quiet seclusion became irksome, and the restraint imposed by a residence under his father’s roof altogether hateful; still he had too much art openly to express the impatience he felt to leave a parent, whose ill health alone induced him to procrastinate the separation, which must remove him beyond the reach of his own observation; and already he saw with regret how much he would need a Mentor to conduct him through the dangerous labyrinth, where every rose-strewn path teems with hidden thorns, fatal to the touch.
But the feelings which, from interested policy, were suppressed in his father’s sight, knew no restraint in that of Yamboo; to him his fancied injuries were all revealed, with a thousand ungenerous invectives against the folly of Captain Longford, in thus detaining him in Wales, when his ardent imagination was already travelling over the whole globe, with no other object in view than unrestrained pleasure.
Yamboo, whose every wish now centered in the little circle of Alvington Manor (Captain Longford’s paternal estate), and who had known only sorrow in the great world Henry was so anxious to enter, could only wonder that he should be so eager to fly from happiness, and his kind indulgent father—“See my captain, masser Henry,” he said one morning, when their conversation had as usual turned upon the old topic, “see your good father; he travel all over the world, visit great many places, fight for him king, but that not make him happy; he lose him arm, him health, and yet him quite young man. Poor Yamboo too, he travel much, but he come back not happy as him went; yet here him find happiness; why you not more happy?”
“Ideot!” replied Henry, with a contemptuous look, “to suppose happiness was designed for such creatures as you; but, since your great wisdom has found it at Alvington, be satisfied to enjoy it, sir, without presuming to dictate my conduct, by passing your opinion; though, in fact, the fool whose ridiculous partiality has raised you above yourself is more blameable than your presumption.”
Never since his emancipation from slavery had the voice of insult been familiar to the ear of Yamboo; but its harsh discordant sounds now sunk deep in his generous heart; all that related to himself he could have borne from Henry, only because he was the son of Captain Longford, and, undeserved as it was, he would have forgiven it; but every noble sentiment in his soul revolted at the baseness of that son, who, without any provocation, could abuse such a father; for this he despised him, and, as the champion of his beloved master, felt justified in resenting it—“Yamboo may be ideot,” he returned, while his eyes, no longer expressive of the soft conciliating manners which endeared him to every one, darted an angry glance at Longford; “he may be fool; call him what you please; but never name him captain, for—” and his voice faltered as he added, “Yamboo may forget you him son.”
“And what then, sir?” returned Henry sarcastically; “do you intend to preach or fight for him? in either case, be assured, I shall know how to reward the impertinence of such a black bastard!”
“Ungenerous wretch!” exclaimed Captain Longford, who at that moment entered the room, “what unprovoked outrage have you committed against this unoffending creature, who I dare pronounce, without knowing more than the last words you uttered, could never merit them?”
Vexed at the interruption, but pleased to discover his father had not heard the whole of their conversation, he stood a moment irresolute what defence to make, when Captain Longford, turning to Yamboo, desired an explanation of the business; but of all that had passed Yamboo remembered only the last two words; they were indelibly impressed, and he replied mournfully, shaking his head—“Masser Henry say right; him black, but Yamboo no ask him God why he be so; him bastard too, but for that, others, not him, to blame; and Yamboo never curse him father, who him not know, nor him poor mother, though she make him a slave.”
“And what, sir,” said Captain Longford, speaking to Henry with rising indignation, “what are you, who have thus dared to violate the laws of gratitude and humanity? You too are a bastard; and, if it is possible to sink your proud spirit still lower, know that nature has given him a heart so far superior to yours, that even your boasted beauty is a poor recompence for the noble endowments of his mind, black as may be his face: true, he is a bastard, but his mother was perhaps far less vile than yours—more abandoned she could not be. His father,” he exclaimed, while increasing emotion choaked his utterance, “his father was as devoid of humanity as you are, or his ill-fated child had never been subject to such treatment. At least, rash boy, yours were the last lips which should have branded him with shame, who are yourself its offspring; he, the saviour of your father’s life, I am bound to protect him, and, while I live, he never can be fatherless. Henceforth then learn to respect his many virtues; and, since few of them are inherent to your own breast, believe there will be merit in striving to imitate them. If your narrow-minded observations have hitherto been confined to his dark complexion, look into his heart, and you will blush to find how fair a tablet it presents; for there, indelibly engraved, are sentiments that make him what you are not. But, as you value my future esteem, never let the unjust treatment he has this morning experienced be repeated; for again I assert, that I hold his claims upon my protection in no common light.”
Henry at once saw the folly of this open violence, and staggered by the determined anger of his father, which could but be prejudicial to his interest, had lost no time in resolving how to act; for in deceit he was much too great an adept to be long at a loss: when, therefore, Captain Longford had ceased speaking, he advanced, with a countenance expressive of that contrition which was to mark his language, and extending his hand to Yamboo, said, with every external appearance of sincerity—“That I have deeply injured you, is the least acknowledgment I can make for the fault I have committed; in my own defence, I have only to plead the warmth of a too irritable disposition; but, if an assurance that my future conduct shall make ample atonement for my present error can induce you to forgive it, let this friendly pressure,” taking the passive hand of Yamboo, “seal our amity.”
The veil thus artfully adopted was too impenetrable for the generous, unsuspecting soul of Yamboo; and though his proud heart swelled as he remembered the harsh unfeeling attack upon his birth and colour, the apparent humiliation of the offender at once subdued him; and clasping the hand thus tendered, he replied—“Yamboo never forgive but him forget too, and now he do both with all him heart. When masser Henry know him better, then he believe black man know how to respect him word.”
“Generous boy,” said Captain Longford, “you can never rate higher in my estimation than you have long done; and you, Henry, have taken the only method which could reconcile me to bury the past in oblivion; henceforth we will each strive to do so; and on your word I rely for the respect due to him from you, while I safely pledge mine in return, that he will repay it with interest;” when taking Yamboo with him, he left Henry to execrate the unguarded folly which had betrayed sentiments he wished to have concealed from the knowledge of his father, and basely to meditate the dark revenge which could alone appease his proud resentful spirit.
The artless, unoffending victim, whom he would willingly have annihilated, and whom it was not possible for him to forgive, was, he knew, too well protected for open violation; to injure him in Captain Longford’s opinion was equally impossible; and as the discovery of the contempt in which he held him would in future make his father more observant of his conduct towards him, he determined, great as was the task he imposed on his own feelings, to conceal, by a series of kind offices, that hatred which had been planted by jealousy, and was now cherished by revenge; and, happily for his own views, succeeded.
Convinced that Henry’s altered conduct resulted from a conviction of his error, and a wish to atone for it, Captain Longford praised him for repeated acts of generosity, extolled the liberality of his conduct, and continually gave him credit for virtues to which his soul was a stranger.
Yamboo, by nature kind, affectionate, and generous, could never sufficiently express his gratitude for repeated proofs of attachment on the part of Henry. In his own breast he had long cherished it, but it had hitherto been always coolly received, and too often unkindly repulsed. He was now become so decided a favourite, that, whenever Captain Longford could dispense with his attendance, Henry had always some occasion for it; and so much of their time was passed together, that Yamboo looked forward with unfeigned regret to the period which was shortly to deprive him of a friend, whose society was become so valuable, and from whose evident partiality he had derived consequence.
Captain Longford’s minute investigation of his son’s character had ended in a firm belief, that to give him a commission, and send him out into the world, as he had himself entered it, was at once to hurl him into destruction; he had formerly indulged the wish of getting him into his own regiment, that he might have an opportunity of guiding his conduct, till reason enabled him to shun the follies most incident to unguarded youth; but, rendered incapable of military duty himself, he determined his future plans for Henry should be guided entirely by his abilities and propensities; the former qualified him for any profession, while the latter proved the army should be the last fixed on; and he no longer hesitated in his choice: but unwilling to assign his real motive for the proposed alteration, and believing deception in the present case laudable, he told Henry that, having been disappointed in his expectation of procuring the commission he wished to have obtained for him, it was amply compensated by a letter which he had received, in answer to one written by himself, from an old friend of his late father, who had for many years been eminently distinguished at the bar, and still continued an ornament to his profession, proving by his every action that there are not wanting, in the present age, both honourable and honest lawyers; that anxious to place him with a character so deservedly esteemed, and convinced his own talents would place him high in the estimation of such a man, he hoped the choice he had ventured to make would meet with his entire approbation, as that alone was wanting, Mr. De Lasaux having assured him he should be happy to prove, by every attention in his power, to Mr. Henry Longford, the high respect he entertained for Captain Longford, and still cherished for the memory of his father.
The frequent mention of Mr. De Lasaux, with whom he knew Captain Longford corresponded, left Henry no stranger to a character of which so much had been said; but this weighed light in the scale of other matters, far more important to him, and he would have been quite as well pleased had he been less meritorious; but he lived in London, that dear delightful scene of dissipation, which he had so long impatiently desired to visit, and of which he had heard so much from a favourite cotemporary at the academy, whose father resided there, and who had himself been sent into Wales, to satisfy, as he said, the caprice of an old uncle, from whom he expected a handsome fortune, which was hereafter to be squandered with prodigal extravagance in the great metropolis; this friend had returned to London, would initiate him into all that was worthy the notice of such dashing, high-spirited young men, and they should together enjoy the reality of those bewitching pleasures which, as schoolboys, they had so often vainly anticipated.
The long-cherished hope of sporting a scarlet coat faded before the views he already had in perspective, and which rushing at once upon his delighted imagination, gave rise to feelings he could ill suppress; but it was requisite, in his politic mind, to make a merit of his acquiescence to the proposal thus unexpectedly made by his father, whom he assured, that however disappointed he might feel, in a point on the attainment of which he had perhaps allowed himself to be too sanguine, from a wish of endeavouring, by his own conduct, to prove to his king and country that the martial fire which distinguished Captain Longford had descended to a son, emulous to fill with honour the vacancy the fate of war, and not inclination, had made by his removal, still he embraced with pleasure the no less honourable profession he had chosen for him, having no will of his own, while a parent, so capable of judging for him, was spared to his filial wishes.
Pleased with his affectionate obedience, when he was in some degree prepared to combat the disappointment he expected Henry to express by every soothing argument in favour of the law, he embraced him with transport, at the same time assuring him, that having so far acceded to his wishes, he should find that a father’s indulgence could keep pace with the merits of a dutiful son: and mutually pleased with each other, they parted—Captain Longford to congratulate himself in private on the success of his wishes, Henry to enjoy no less the promised completion of his; and, in the fulness of his heart, to impart to the unsuspecting Yamboo the conversation he had just had with his father.
The visible satisfaction with which he repeated it, evinced the pleasure he derived from the arrangement; and Yamboo’s congratulations were offered with open sincerity: but, as the period of Henry’s removal drew near, he was often thoughtful, and when asked the cause, replied—“Yamboo only thinking how much him look for masser Henry when him far away; but he no think of Yamboo.”
“Indeed, my good friend,” said Henry, with a smile, “that might have stood the test even of suspicion; you wrong me; I have long since learned to appreciate your worth, and have to regret my father’s ill health obliges me to suppress the only wish his generous indulgence will leave unaccomplished at the hour of parting: to say how I should estimate your faithful services, if permitted to accompany me, is fruitless, since to make such a request would be ungrateful, when I am aware that, was your master even in health, it would be a painful sacrifice on his part; but, though far from you, I shall ever bear in mind the debt I owe you, nor rest till I have in some way proved in what light I hold the preserver of my father’s life.”
“Oh, masser Henry,” exclaimed the attached creature, “Yamboo no want rewards; him richly paid already; every kind word, every kind look make him debtor, not him young masser; and when him captain quite well, perhaps him bid Yamboo go stay with you some time.”
Even the momentary anticipation of such a prospect lighted up Henry’s countenance with the eager satisfaction it produced, for to such an event he looked with no common feelings; but the improbability that he should succeed in the attainment of this preparatory step to the design which was then engendering in his own mind, banished the smile, while he said—“Yamboo, I shall not be so happy; yet I am satisfied to know, that if an opportunity offered, you would not hesitate to come to me; and, in such a place as I understand London is, I might often derive comfort from the counsel of your good heart, and you would perhaps restrain me from the commission of many follies, into which my more heedless disposition may plunge me.”
Had Henry made this appeal, and in the same language, to any one possessing a mind brilliant as his own, it could hardly have failed to please and gratify that vanity inherent to the human heart, ever called forth by a decided preference. The child of nature, to whom it was addressed, was only vulnerable to affection; artless and unsuspecting, he believed that Henry really wished to have him still about him; and the manner in which he expressed his wish awakened the sensibility much too keen for the situation destiny had marked out for him; and he promised, fatally promised, to solicit his captain for permission to accompany his young master, and remain with him till he became in some degree acquainted with the family he was going to join, when he would hasten back into Wales, satisfied with having performed a duty he owed both to father and son.
Captain Longford, delighted by every additional proof of Yamboo’s attachment to himself and family, and no less so with the prudence of Henry, so manifest in the wish he expressed, together with his own inability, from continued ill health, to take the journey, felt pleased with the arrangement, till a sudden thought awakened the monitor, which seldom slumbers in that breast where deception has been practised—a visit to London might renew Yamboo’s desire of tracing Mrs. Beresford, and some chance might conduct him to her late residence: for a moment he paused; and at length, feeling still irresolute, promised to weigh the matter well in his own mind, and either give his consent on the following morning, or such reasons as would justify his refusal of the proposed plan.
Yamboo, satisfied his captain could not err, however he decided the point, slept in peace, and waited the result of morning, without one of the many pangs which harassed Henry with a sleepless night, and still agitated him through hope and fear, as he anxiously waited to learn his father’s determination at the breakfast-table.
Captain Longford’s pillow-reflections were
propitious to his son’s wishes; they had lulled every fear to sleep by the
improbability of Yamboo’s seeking Colonel Beresford’s lodgings, when he knew
the family had left them for
END OF VOL. I.
Lane, Darling, & Co. Leadenhall-Street.