The Father and Daughter 6

The Father and Daughter 6

"I hate to hear children cry," said he as he approached.--"Mine is quiet

now," replied Agnes: then, recollecting that she had some food in her

pocket, she offered some to the stranger, in order to divert his

attention from the child. He snatched it from her hand instantly, and

devoured it with terrible voraciousness; but again he exclaimed, "I do

not like children;--if you trust them they will betray you:" and Agnes

offered him food again, as if to bribe him to spare her helpless

boy.--"I had a child once,--but she is dead, poor soul!" continued he,

taking Agnes by the arm, and leading her gently forward.--"And you loved

her very tenderly, I suppose?" said Agnes, thinking that the loss of his

child had occasioned his malady; but, instead of answering her, he went

on:--"They said that she ran away from me with a lover,--but I knew they

lied; she was good, and would not have deserted the father who doted on

her.--Besides, I saw her funeral myself.--Liars, rascals, as they

are!--Do not tell any one: I got away from them last night, and am now

going to visit her grave."

 

A death-like sickness, an apprehension so horrible as to deprive her

almost of sense, took possession of the soul of Agnes. She eagerly tried

to obtain a sight of the stranger's face, the features of which the

darkness had hitherto prevented her from distinguishing: she however

tried in vain, as his hat was pulled over his forehead, and his chin

rested on his bosom. But they had now nearly gained the end of the

forest, and day was just breaking; and Agnes, as soon as they entered

the open plain, seized the arm of the madman to force him to look

towards her,--for speak to him she could not. He felt, and perhaps

resented the importunate pressure of her hand--for he turned hastily

round--when, dreadful confirmation of her fears, Agnes beheld her

father!!!

 

It was indeed Fitzhenry, driven to madness by his daughter's desertion

and disgrace!!

 

After the elopement of Agnes, Fitzhenry entirely neglected his business,

and thought and talked of nothing but the misery which he experienced.

In vain did his friends represent to him the necessity of his making

amends, by increased diligence, for some alarming losses in trade which

he had lately sustained. She, for whom alone he toiled, had deserted

him--and ruin had no terrors for him.--"I was too proud of her," he used

mournfully to repeat,--"and Heaven has humbled me even in her by whom I

offended."

 

Month after month elapsed, and no intelligence of Agnes.--Fitzhenry's

dejection increased, and his affairs became more and more involved: at

length, absolute and irretrievable bankruptcy was become his portion,

when he learned, from authority not to be doubted, that Agnes was living

with Clifford as his acknowledged mistress.--This was the death-stroke

to his reason: and the only way in which his friends (relations he had

none, or only distant ones) could be of any further service to him was,

by procuring him admission into a private madhouse in the neighbourhood.

 

Of his recovery little hope was entertained.--The constant theme of his

ravings was his daughter;--sometimes he bewailed her as dead; at other

times he complained of her as ungrateful:--but so complete was the

overthrow which his reason had received, that he knew no one, and took

no notice of those whom friendship or curiosity led to his cell: yet he

was always meditating his escape; and, though ironed in consequence of

it, the night he met Agnes, he had, after incredible difficulty and

danger, effected his purpose.

 

But to return to Agnes, who, when she beheld in her insane companion her

injured father, the victim probably of her guilt, let fall her sleeping

child, and, sinking on the ground, extended her arms towards Fitzhenry,

articulating in a faint voice, "O God! My father!" then prostrating

herself at his feet, she clasped his knees in an agony too great for

utterance.

 

At the name of 'father,' the poor maniac started, and gazed on her

earnestly, with savage wildness, while his whole frame became convulsed;

then, rudely disengaging himself from her embrace, he ran from her a few

paces, and dashed himself on the ground in all the violence of phrensy.

He raved; he tore his hair; he screamed, and uttered the most dreadful

execrations; and, with his teeth shut and his hands clenched, he

repeated the word 'father,' and said the name was mockery to him.

 

Agnes, in mute and tearless despair, beheld the dreadful scene: in vain

did her affrighted child cling to her gown, and in its half-formed

accents entreat to be taken to her arms again: she saw, she heeded

nothing but her father; she was alive to nothing but her own guilt and

its consequences; and she awaited with horrid composure the cessation of

Fitzhenry's phrensy, or the direction of its fury towards her child.

 

At last, she saw him fall down exhausted and motionless, and tried to

hasten to him; but she was unable to move, and reason and life seemed at

once forsaking her, when Fitzhenry suddenly started up, and approached

her.--Uncertain as to his purpose, Agnes caught her child to her bosom,

and, falling again on her knees, turned on him her almost closing eyes;

but his countenance was mild,--and gently patting her forehead, on which

hung the damps of approaching insensibility, "Poor thing!" he cried, in

a tone of the utmost tenderness and compassion, "Poor thing!" and then

gazed on her with such inquiring and mournful looks, that tears once

more found their way and relieved her bursting brain, while seizing her

father's hand she pressed it with frantic emotion to her lips.

 

Fitzhenry looked at her with great kindness, and suffered her to hold

his hand;--then exclaimed, "Poor thing!--don't cry,--don't cry;--I can't

cry,--I have not cried for many years,--not since my child died.--For

she is dead, is she not?" looking earnestly at Agnes, who could only

answer by her tears.--"Come," said he, "come," taking hold of her arm,

then laughing wildly, "Poor thing! you will not leave me, will

you?"--"Leave you!" she replied: "Never:--I will live with you--die with

you."--"True, true," cried he, "she is dead, and we will go visit her

grave."--So saying, he dragged Agnes forward with great velocity; but

as it was along the path leading to the town, she made no resistance.

 

Indeed it was such a pleasure to her to see that though he knew her not,

the sight of her was welcome to her unhappy parent, that she sought to

avoid thinking of the future, and to be alive only to the present: she

tried also to forget that it was to his not knowing her that she owed

the looks of tenderness and pity which he bestowed on her, and that the

hand which now kindly held hers, would, if recollection returned, throw

her from him with just indignation.

 

But she was soon awakened to redoubled anguish, by hearing Fitzhenry, as

he looked behind him, exclaim, "They are coming! they are coming!" and

as he said this, he ran with frantic haste across the common. Agnes,

immediately looking behind her, saw three men pursuing her father at

full speed, and concluded that they were the keepers of the bedlam

whence he had escaped. Soon after, she saw the poor lunatic coming

towards her, and had scarcely time to lay her child gently on the

ground, before Fitzhenry threw himself in her arms, and implored her to

save him from his pursuers.

 

In an agony that mocks description, Agnes clasped him to her heart, and

awaited in trembling agitation the approach of the keepers.--"Hear me!

hear me!" she cried; "I conjure you to leave him to my care: He is my

father, and you may safely trust him with me."--"Your father!" replied

one of the men; "and what then, child? You could do nothing for him, and

you should be thankful to us, young woman, for taking him off your

hands.--So come along, master, come along," he continued, seizing

Fitzhenry, who could with difficulty be separated from Agnes,--while

another of the keepers, laughing as he beheld her wild anguish, said,

"We shall have the daughter as well as the father soon, I see, for I do

not believe there is a pin to choose between them."

 

But severe as the sufferings of Agnes were already, a still greater pang

awaited her. The keepers finding it a very difficult task to confine

Fitzhenry, threw him down, and tried by blows to terrify him into

acquiescence. At this outrage Agnes became frantic indeed, and followed

them with shrieks, entreaties, and reproaches; while the struggling

victim called on her to protect him, as they bore him by violence along,

till, exhausted with anguish and fatigue, she fell insensible on the

ground, and lost in a deep swoon the consciousness of her misery.

 

When she recovered her senses all was still around her, and she missed

her child. Then hastily rising, and looking round with renewed phrensy,

she saw it lying at some distance from her, and on taking it up she

found that it was in a deep sleep. The horrid apprehension immediately

rushed on her mind, that such a sleep in the midst of cold so severe was

the sure forerunner of death.

 

"Monster!" she exclaimed, "destroyer of thy child, as well as

father!--But perhaps it is not yet too late, and my curse is not

completed."--So saying, she ran, or rather flew, along the road; and

seeing a house at a distance she made towards it, and, bursting open the

door, beheld a cottager and his family at breakfast:--then, sinking on

her knees, and holding out to the woman of the house her sleeping boy,

"For the love of God," she cried, "look here! look here! Save him! O

save him!"

 

A mother appealing to the heart of a mother is rarely unsuccessful in

her appeal.--The cottager's wife was as eager to begin the recovery of

the child of Agnes as Agnes herself, and in a moment the whole family

was employed in its service; nor was it long before they were rewarded

for their humanity by its complete restoration.

 

The joy of Agnes was frantic as her grief had been.--She embraced them

all by turns, in a loud voice invoked blessings on their heads, and

promised, if she was ever rich, to make their fortune:--lastly, she

caught the still languid boy to her heart, and almost drowned it in her

tears.

 

In the cottager and his family a scene like this excited wonder as well

as emotion. He and his wife were good parents; they loved their

children,--would have been anxious during their illness, and would have

sorrowed for their loss: but to these violent __EXPRESSION__s and actions,

the result of cultivated sensibility, they were wholly unaccustomed, and

could scarcely help imputing them to insanity,--an idea which the pale

cheek and wild look of Agnes strongly confirmed; nor did it lose

strength when Agnes, who in terror at her child's danger and joy for his

safety had forgotten even her father and his situation, suddenly

recollecting herself, exclaimed, "Have I dared to rejoice?--Wretch that

I am! Oh! no;--there is no joy for me!" The cottager and his wife, on

hearing these words, looked significantly at each other.

 

Agnes soon after started up, and, clasping her hands, cried out, "O my

father! my dear, dear father! thou art past cure; and despair must be my

portion."

 

"Oh! you are unhappy because your father is ill," observed the

cottager's wife; "but do not be so sorrowful on that account, he may

get better perhaps."

 

"Never, never," replied Agnes;--"yet who knows?"

 

"Aye; who knows indeed?" resumed the good woman. "But if not, you nurse

him yourself, I suppose; and it will be a comfort to you to know he has every thing done for him that can be done."