Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker Read online

  Chapter IV.

  You call upon me for a confession of my offences. What a strange fortuneis mine! That a human being, in the present circumstances, should makethis demand, and that I should be driven, by an irresistible necessity,to comply with it! That here should terminate my calamitous series! Thatmy destiny should call upon me to lie down and die, in a region soremote from the scene of my crime; at a distance so great from all thatwitnessed and endured their consequences!

  You believe me to be an assassin. You require me to explain the motivesthat induced me to murder the innocent. While this is your belief, andthis the scope of your expectations, you may be sure of my compliance. Icould resist every demand but this.

  For what purpose have I come hither? Is it to relate my story? Shall Icalmly sit here, and rehearse the incidents of my life? Will my strengthbe adequate to this rehearsal? Let me recollect the motives thatgoverned me, when I formed this design. Perhaps a strenuousness may beimparted by them which, otherwise, I cannot hope to obtain. For the sakeof those, I consent to conjure up the ghost of the past, and to begin atale that, with a fortitude like mine, I am not sure that I shall liveto finish.

  You are unacquainted with the man before you. The inferences which youhave drawn, with regard to my designs and my conduct, are a tissue ofdestructive errors. You, like others, are blind to the most momentousconsequences of your own actions. You talk of imparting consolation. Youboast the beneficence of your intentions. You set yourself to do me abenefit. What are the effects of your misguided zeal and random efforts?They have brought my life to a miserable close. They have shrouded thelast scene of it in blood. They have put the seal to my perdition.

  My misery has been greater than has fallen to the lot of mortals. Yet itis but beginning. My present path, full as it is of asperities, isbetter than that into which I must enter when this is abandoned.Perhaps, if my pilgrimage had been longer, I might, at some future day,have lighted upon hope. In consequence of your interference, I amforever debarred from it. My existence is henceforward to be invariable.The woes that are reserved for me are incapable alike of alleviation orintermission.

  But I came not hither to recriminate. I came not hither to accuseothers, but myself. I know the retribution that is appointed for guiltlike mine. It is just. I may shudder at the foresight of my punishmentand shrink in the endurance of it; but I shall be indebted for part ofmy torment to the vigour of my understanding, which teaches me that mypunishment is just. Why should I procrastinate my doom and strive torender my burden more light? It is but just that it should crush me. Itsprocrastination is impossible. The stroke is already felt. Even now Idrink of the cup of retribution. A change of being cannot aggravate mywoe. Till consciousness itself be extinct, the worm that gnaws me willnever perish.

  Fain would I be relieved from this task. Gladly would I bury in oblivionthe transactions of my life. But no! My fate is uniform. The demon thatcontrolled me at first is still in the fruition of power. I am entangledin his fold, and every effort that I make to escape only involves me indeeper ruin. I need not conceal, for all the consequences of disclosureare already experienced. I cannot endure a groundless imputation, thoughto free me from it I must create and justify imputations still moreatrocious. My story may at least be brief. If the agonies of remembrancemust be awakened afresh, let me do all that in me lies to shorten them.

  I was born in the county of Armagh. My parents were of the better sortof peasants, and were able to provide me with the rudiments ofknowledge. I should doubtless have trodden in their footsteps, and havespent my life in the cultivation of their scanty fields, if an event hadnot happened, Which, for a long time, I regarded as the most fortunateof my life, but which I now regard as the scheme of some infernal agent,and as the primary source of all my calamities.

  My father's farm was a portion of the demesne of one who resided whollyin the metropolis and consigned the management of his estates to hisstewards and retainers. This person married a lady who brought him greataccession of fortune. Her wealth was her only recommendation in the eyesof her husband, (whose understanding was depraved by the prejudices ofluxury and rank,) but was the least of her attractions in the estimateof reasonable beings.

  They passed some years together. If their union were not a source ofmisery to the lady, she was indebted for her tranquillity to the forceof her mind. She was, indeed, governed, in every action of her life, bythe precepts of duty, while her husband listened to no calls but thoseof pernicious dissipation. He was immersed in all the vices that growout of opulence and a mistaken education.

  Happily for his wife, his career was short. He was enraged at theinfidelity of his mistress, to purchase whose attachment he had lavishedtwo-thirds of his fortune. He called the paramour, by whom he had beensupplanted, to the field. The contest was obstinate, and terminated inthe death of the challenger.

  This event freed the lady from many distressful and humiliatingobligations. She determined to profit by her newly-acquiredindependence, to live thenceforward conformably to her notions of right,to preserve and improve, by schemes of economy, the remains of herfortune, and to employ it in the diffusion of good. Her plans made itnecessary to visit her estates in the distant provinces.

  During her abode in the manor of which my father was a vassal, shevisited his cottage. I was at that time a child. She was pleased with myvivacity and promptitude, and determined to take me under her ownprotection. My parents joyfully acceded to her proposal, and I returnedwith her to the capital.

  She had an only son of my own age. Her design, in relation to me, wasthat I should be educated with her child, and that an affection, in thisway, might be excited in me towards my young master, which might renderme, when we should attain to manhood, one of his most faithful andintelligent dependants. I enjoyed, equally with him, all the essentialbenefits of education. There were certain accomplishments, from which Iwas excluded, from the belief that they were unsuitable to my rank andstation. I was permitted to acquire others, which, had she been actuatedby true discernment, she would, perhaps, have discovered to be far moreincompatible with a servile station. In proportion as my views wererefined and enlarged by history and science, I was likely to contract athirst of independence, and an impatience of subjection and poverty.

  When the period of childhood and youth was past, it was thought properto send her son to improve his knowledge and manners by a residence onthe continent. This young man was endowed with splendid abilities. Hiserrors were the growth of his condition. All the expedients thatmaternal solicitude and wisdom could suggest were employed to render hima useful citizen. Perhaps this wisdom was attested by the large share ofexcellence which he really possessed; and that his character was notunblemished proved only that no exertions could preserve him from thevices that are inherent in wealth and rank, and which flow from thespectacle of universal depravity.

  As to me, it would be folly to deny that I had benefited by myopportunities of improvement. I fulfilled the expectation of mymistress, in one respect. I was deeply imbued with affection for herson, and reverence for herself. Perhaps the force of education wasevinced in those particulars, without reflecting any credit on thedirectors of it. Those might merit the name of defects, which wereregarded by them as accomplishments. My unfavourable qualities, likethose of my master, were imputed to my condition, though, perhaps, thedifference was advantageous to me, since the vices of servitude are lesshateful than those of tyranny.

  It was resolved that I should accompany my master in his travels, inquality of favourite domestic. My principles, whatever might be theirrectitude, were harmonious and flexible. I had devoted my life to theservice of my patron. I had formed conceptions of what was reallyconducive to his interest, and was not to be misled by speciousappearances. If my affection had not stimulated my diligence, I shouldhave found sufficient motives in the behaviour of his mother. Shecondescended to express her reliance on my integrity and judgment. Shewas not ashamed to manifest, at parting, the tenderness of a mother, andto
acknowledge that all her tears were not shed on her son's account. Ihad my part in the regrets that called them forth.

  During our absence, I was my master's constant attendant. I correspondedwith his mother, and made the conduct of her son the principal theme ofmy letters. I deemed it my privilege, as well as duty, to sit injudgment on his actions, to form my opinions without regard to selfishconsiderations, and to avow them whenever the avowal tended to benefit.Every letter which I wrote, particularly those in which his behaviourwas freely criticized, I allowed him to peruse. I would, on no account,connive at or participate in the slightest irregularity. I knew the dutyof my station, and assumed no other control than that which resultedfrom the avoiding of deceit, and the open expression of my sentiments.The youth was of a noble spirit, but his firmness was wavering. Heyielded to temptations which a censor less rigorous than I would haveregarded as venial, or, perhaps, laudable. My duty required me to setbefore him the consequences of his actions, and to give impartial andtimely information to his mother.

  He could not brook a monitor. The more he needed reproof the lesssupportable it became. My company became every day less agreeable, tillat length there appeared a necessity of parting. A separation tookplace, but not as enemies. I never lost his respect. In hisrepresentations to his mother, he was just to my character and services.My dismission was not allowed to injure my fortune, and his motherconsidered this event merely as a new proof of the inflexibleconsistency of my principles.

  On this change in my situation, she proposed to me to become a member ofher own family. No proposal could be more acceptable. I was fullyacquainted with the character of this lady, and had nothing to fear frominjustice and caprice. I did not regard her with filial familiarity, butmy attachment and reverence would have done honour to that relation. Iperformed for her the functions of a steward. Her estates in the citywere put under my direction. She placed boundless confidence in mydiscretion and integrity, and consigned to me the payment, and, in somedegree, the selection and government, of her servants. My station was aservile one, yet most of the evils of servitude were unknown to me. Mypersonal ease and independence were less infringed than that of thosewho are accounted the freest members of society. I derived a sort ofauthority and dignity from the receipt and disbursement of money. Thetenants and debtors of the lady were, in some respects, mine. It was,for the most part, on my justice and lenity that they depended for theirtreatment. My lady's household-establishment was large and opulent. Herservants were my inferiors and menials. My leisure was considerable, andmy emoluments large enough to supply me with every valuable instrumentof improvement or pleasure.

  These were reasons why I should be contented with my lot. Thesecircumstances alone would have rendered it more eligible than any other,but it had additional and far more powerful recommendations, arisingfrom the character of Mrs. Lorimer, and from the relation in which sheallowed me to stand to her.

  How shall I enter upon this theme? How shall I expatiate uponexcellencies which it was my fate to view in their genuine colours, toadore with an immeasurable and inextinguishable ardour, and which,nevertheless, it was my hateful task to blast and destroy? Yet I willnot be spared. I shall find, in the rehearsal, new incitements tosorrow. I deserve to be supreme in misery, and will not be denied thefull measure of a bitter retribution.

  No one was better qualified to judge of her excellencies. A casualspectator might admire her beauty, and the dignity of her demeanour.From the contemplation of those, he might gather motives for loving orrevering her. Age was far from having withered her complexion, ordestroyed the evenness of her skin; but no time could rob her of thesweetness and intelligence which animated her features. Her habitualbeneficence was bespoken in every look. Always in search of occasionsfor doing good, always meditating scenes of happiness, of which she wasthe author, or of distress, for which she was preparing relief, the mosttorpid insensibility was, for a time, subdued, and the most depravedsmitten by charms of which, in another person, they would not perhapshave been sensible.

  A casual visitant might enjoy her conversation, might applaud therectitude of her sentiments, the richness of her elocution, and herskill in all the offices of politeness. But it was only for him whodwelt constantly under the same roof, to mark the inviolable consistencyof her actions and opinions, the ceaseless flow of her candour, hercheerfulness, and her benevolence. It was only for one who witnessed herbehaviour at all hours, in sickness and in health, her management ofthat great instrument of evil and good, money, her treatment of her son,her menials, and her kindred, rightly to estimate her merits.

  The intercourse between us was frequent, but of a peculiar kind. Myoffice in her family required me often to see her, to submit schemes toher consideration, and receive her directions. At these times shetreated me in a manner in some degree adapted to the difference of rankand the inferiority of my station, and yet widely dissimilar from thatwhich a different person would have adopted in the same circumstances.The treatment was not that of an equal and a friend, but still moreremote was it from that of a mistress. It was merely characterized byaffability and condescension, but as such it had no limits.

  She made no scruple to ask my counsel in every pecuniary affair, tolisten to my arguments, and decide conformably to what, after sufficientcanvassings and discussions, should appear to be right. When the directoccasions of our interview were dismissed, I did not of course withdraw.To detain or dismiss me was indeed at her option; but, if no engagementinterfered, she would enter into general conversation. There was nonewho could with more safety to herself have made the world her confessor;but the state of society in which she lived imposed certain limitationson her candour. In her intercourse with me there were fewer restraintsthan on any other occasion. My situation had made me more intimatelyacquainted with domestic transactions, with her views respecting herson, and with the terms on which she thought proper to stand with thosewhom old acquaintance or kindred gave some title to her good offices. Inaddition to all those motives to a candid treatment of me, there wereothers which owed their efficacy to her maternal regard for me, and tothe artless and unsuspecting generosity of her character.

  Her hours were distributed with the utmost regularity, and appropriatedto the best purposes. She selected her society without regard to anyqualities but probity and talents. Her associates were numerous, and herevening conversations embellished with all that could charm the sensesor instruct the understanding. This was a chosen field for the displayof her magnificence; but her grandeur was unostentatious, and hergravity unmingled with haughtiness. From these my station excluded me;but I was compensated by the freedom of her communications in theintervals. She found pleasure in detailing to me the incidents thatpassed on those occasions, in rehearsing conversations and depictingcharacters. There was an uncommon portion of dramatic merit in herrecitals, besides valuable and curious information. One uniform effectwas produced in me by this behaviour. Each day I thought it impossiblefor my attachment to receive any new accessions, yet the morrow was sureto produce some new emotion of respect or of gratitude, and to set theunrivalled accomplishments of this lady in a new and more favourablepoint of view. I contemplated no change in my condition. The necessityof change, whatever were the alternative, would have been a subject ofpiercing regret. I deemed my life a cheap sacrifice in her cause. Notime would suffice to discharge the debt of gratitude that was due toher. Yet it was continually accumulating. If an anxious thought everinvaded my bosom, it arose from this source.

  It was no difficult task faithfully to execute the functions assigned tome. No merit could accrue to me from this source. I was exposed to notemptation. I had passed the feverish period of youth. No contagiousexample had contaminated my principles. I had resisted, the allurementsof sensuality and dissipation incident to my age. My dwelling was inpomp and splendour. I had amassed sufficient to secure me, in case ofunforeseen accidents, in the enjoyment of competence. My mentalresources were not despicable, and the external means of intellectualgra
tification were boundless. I enjoyed an unsullied reputation. Mycharacter was well known in that sphere which my lady occupied, not onlyby means of her favourable report, but in numberless ways in which itwas my fortune to perform personal services to others.