66

Why should you doubt it? You will, I pray God you will reach those shores in safety. Do write soon, and as often as you can. Your mother, myself, all your friends, will be most anxious to hear from you. Do not fail to write, I conjure you."

A boy at this moment came from the ferryhouse, and was going towards the boat. "Where is your master, my lad?" said I. "You are not the person who puts the boat across; it is too much for you. Where is your master?"

"Not to be found, sir," said the lad; "he's out somewhere, and the gentleman says he must be put across to-night." "Yes, this night, this moment, I can no longer delay," exclaimed Edwards vehemently.

"Do not, I beseech you," I replied, "do not trust yourself with that boy, who is little better than a child. He is altogether unfit to manage the boat across such a passage."

"I have taken her over fifty times by myself,” said the boy. I did not heed him, but I continued to urge Edwards to stay. Only till to-morrow morning," said I, seizing his hand as I spoke. "Stay but till then, and then you can go in safety; the master will then be back; but do not cross to-night, it will be dangerous."

It was all in vain; Edwards persisted in his determination to go, and the boy in his capability to put him across.

The wind blows hard," I said; 66 every moment it is rising fresher and fresher; it is blowing up a gale; do not cross to-night-do not.” Again I caught his hand as I spoke.

He looked at me intently for a moment, the tears were now in his eyes: he asked me with deep emotion, where I thought she would be consigned to rest.

"In the family vault," I said; "there no doubt she will be buried."

"Then there would I rest too, if it might be permitted; say as much to Mr. Armerage." I saw that at this moment his mind was fixed on the only object that yet gave it an interest on earth; an interest now of earth indeed, for it dwelt with the dead.

I looked again towards the broad Severn. I saw the little bark that was to bear away my friend nearly ready to push out the sailor boy, who had such confidence in himself, was already in her, waiting for his charge. Once more Edwards grasped my hand; once more I pressed upon him delay, "till the morrow, only till the morrow," but he would not listen. "There is danger," I exclaimed, making a last effort to detain him, "danger with only that boy; wait but till to-morrow!"

"To-morrow!" he cried, re-echoing my words mournfully, "to-morrow! who can tell what a day may bring forth? what has this day brought forth? sorrow, ruin, death!—No, nothing shall delay me. If yonder boat were more fragile than it is; were it no better than a portion of those wrecks that so often float to the shores; were the winds yet higher, the waters yet stronger and more convulsed; were the fountains of the great deep broken up, as a foredoomed, unpitiable, and avenging instrument of the Divine power, I would yet go.-Farewell! in this world, for ever, farewell!"

"Oh! do not, do not venture," I again exclaimed, with an awful sense of foreboding evil; "if you go, you may perish!"

"I shall perish," he replied firmly; "it is FATED." And saying this, he let go my hand, leapt into the boat, and in another minute that slight and fragile thing was cleaving her way over the angry and agitated waters. The moon was up, but seemed only to look forth through the dun, heavy clouds that floated around her, to send an occasional gleam, which shewed but too distinctly the Severn, covered and quivering with foam, as the wild waves came rushing in, with unmitigable rage, as if in combination with the winds and the tides to wreak their fury on that fated bark. Suddenly the atmosphere became more dense, and a distant peal of thunder rolled away among the mountains of Wales, as one brief bright flash shot from east to west, and gave once more to my sight the little bark, distinct in its outline, and surrounded by the disturbed and threatening waves.

How shall I speak the sickening of my soul, the sense of horror that thrilled through every vein, when I beheld that bark, so frail, so small, so ill-governed by the hand of a boy, reeling in the midst of the eddies, and driving on towards the sunken rocks! the boat, too, overbalanced by an outspread and straining sail! "Great God! be merciful," I exclaimed, "or they are lost!"

A dreadful conviction of impending evil seized on my mind; my head grew dizzy, my trembling limbs almost refused me their support, and my eyes closed, as if to shut out the fearful spectacle that in another moment would meet their agonised gaze. I could not, dared not look up; I could only fervently ejaculate a few broken sentences, imploring the mercy of him who can calm the raging of the tempestuous waters, or the storm of human passions by his will, by his word! How deeply, how ardently did I offer up that agitated petitionthat heaven would spare! But the winds were pitiless-the waves were wild-they did their bidding in that awful, that

fatal hour. “ Lost, lost; struck on the rocks, down,-sunk -Good God! the poor boy's mother!" These were cries which, in hurried accents of affright, met my ear on every side, as I stood watching on the shore. Such cries, indeed, first announced to me that all was over, that all earthly hopes of aid were vain. The boat, my unhappy friend, and the presumptuous boy who had undertaken its guidance in such peril, had all sunk together!

I can scarcely tell the rest. The body of Charles Edwards was washed on shore. Mr. Armerage permitted its interment in his family vault, near the coffin of his beloved daughter, where, not very long after these sad events, that unfortunate father was himself laid to rest. Sir Frederick quitted Wales; he became a wanderer on the Continent: his character appeared totally changed by the violent extinction of all his hopes; he was remarked for a solitary and reserved man; no female ever afterwards attracted his attention; he lived till he had completed his forty-eighth year, and died unmarried. Miss Henley was not unprovided for at the death of Mr. Armerage. He left her a small annuity; and with this she retired into a remote part of North Wales. I believe she is yet living, the last and mourning survivor of the once happy family of New Park.

After the death of Edwards, I had the pitiable task of breaking the final issue of this domestic tragedy to his poor mother. She was greatly affected; but, after the first shock, she appeared to bear it with a submission to the divine will, which I should have attributed entirely to her religious feelings, had I not found that her lamented son (whose genius and acquirements had raised her opinion of his judgment to an extravagant degree of admiration) had infused into her mind his own spirit of fatalism, and superstitious credulity. For one day when, in the hope to cheer her solitude, and to shew my sympathy with her sorrows, I called upon her, and indulged her in talking to me of her lost son—she told me mysteriously that Charles was perfectly right in what he said to me at the moment we parted, ere he leapt into the boat. She would trust me on examining his papers left at her house, she had found a note written by him some few years before at Oxford. It was his memorandum of a Prediction which had there been made to him of his future fortunes. The two things especially denounced as fatal to him, he had himself, she fancied (in imitation of some of the ancient prophecies of Wales, that were always in verse) turned into a few rude rhymes-she shewed them to me, they ran thus:

:

When a bridal bell
Tolls like a knell,
Then the angry sea
Thy grave shall be;
And all on earth
Is closed on thee.

"This, then," said I, "was the cause of his death. A mind in despair is like a mind in madness, it rushes on ruin. Charles Edwards saw the danger of the passage, the insufficiency of the boy, the gathering storm; he rushed on his FATE, and by so doing, himself accomplished the PREDICTION."

THE ORPHANS OF LA VENDÉE.

INTRODUCTION.

In the year 1818, I first visited some of the most remarkable towns and provinces of France: amongst the latter was La Vendée. La Vendée (formerly the Bocage) has only been known by that name since it acquired such immortal honour during the fearful epocha of the Revolution.

It was with feelings of the deepest interest that I travelled through a considerable part of this most remarkable country -remarkable for its people, its manners, its natural characteristics, and above all, for its heroism. Its history was known to me; and the delightful memoirs of Madame de la Rochejacqueline had excited in my mind that powerful sympathy for herself, and her brave and devoted countrymen, which they can never fail to call forth in every bosom capable of feeling esteem and admiration for all that is good and great.

Take the history of the world, from the earliest ages down to the present times, including the most heroic actions of Greece and Rome, and perhaps none can compete with, certainly none can excel, those to be found in the deathless annals of La Vendée; and when the simplicity of character, the piety, and the morality of the peasantry who performed these deeds of heroic self-devotion are considered, there is something so touching in their story, that to dwell upon their cruel fate, after all their noble struggles in the cause of virtuous freedom, loyalty, and religion, conveys that sense of painful interest to the mind which we experience whilst hearing an account of the calamities that may have befallen our most dear and personal friends. When reading the memoirs of Madame de la Rochejacqueline, I felt, at every page, as if I went along with her through the animating, the fearful scenes she describes. Thus impressed, judge how deep was