THE SILENT RIVER: A DRAMATIC SKETCH.*

The Interior of CALEB's Cottage.

CALEB-RAYLAND.

Rayland. Gone hence this half hour, say'st thou? Tell me, friend, Could'st thou not overtake him?-'Tis of moment

What I would say.

Caleb.

Rayland.

He must pass up the river
To where his road runs o'er it, for the floods
Have left the moor too moist in that direction
To be with ease attempted. If I make
My way across, I shall be soon enough,

For he has many windings, and the stream
Is strong against him.

Hasten, then,-your pains

Shall not in vain be used. And, lest he feel

Unwilling to return (writing on a leaf of his pocket-book) deliver

this.

MARY (singing without, in a melancholy tone)

"So under the wave, and under the wave,

Beneath the old willow tree,

With the weeds for my pall, in a deep, deep grave,
Shall my false love find me."

Rayland. That is a moving voice!

Caleb.

Rayland.

Rayland.

Mary.

Rayland.

Mary.
Rayland.
Mary.

It is Luke's wife.

'Tis their first parting, and she feels it sorely,
Though for so short a time.

Pray send her here;

I'll talk with her till he returns. (Stands meditating.)
RAYLAND-MARY.

So fair!
So delicate! Lady (for such I'll call you)
I've heard that Luke, the fisherman, did wed
Something beyond himself, but 'tis not possible
That thou art she!

O, Sir, I thank the Heavens
You are as out in this as when you say
That Luke did wed beyond him. It was I
Who play'd the usurer in that bargain.

Well

But yet, methinks,"
, more fondly said than truly.
Forgive me, pretty friend, nor think I ask
Aught without plenteous reason. By what means
Hath he maintain'd thee for these many months?

It was but now you named his toilsome trade.
'Tis a bleak place to yield subsistence.

Yes;

But Luke was labouring for his wife, and then
Even the deserts and the floods grew kind.

Rayland. (after a pause.) You said he ne'er was succour'd at the hands
Whence Nature should have wrung as much-I mean
His father's?

Mary.

Rayland.

Mary.

Rayland.

Mary.

Wert driven from his mansion destitute.
Thou seest that I know much.-Now, then, confess
How oft distress hath made him curse that father
For much of his forlorn existence, which,
With other usage, had not ask'd repentance.

You question strangely, Sir; but since it takes
No leave of truth to answer proudly-Never.
No babe e'er saw the world, no saint hath left it,
With less to answer than my loving Luke.
He never mention'd his relentless father
Without becoming reverence; and then
I've heard him sigh to think how bitterly
The mem'ry of an unoffending son,
Left from his infancy to all the ills
Of unprotected poverty, would hang

Upon that father's death-bed. I have said
Too much, but 'twas to shield him from reproach.
No; not a jot too much. 'Tis a hard life,
Your husband's—and laborious by night
As well as day?

Oh, often I have watch'd

'Till the grey dawn hath peeped into my lattice,
And found me lonely still.

And, as I think, his work by night is only
For the wild winter-fowl.

Since you watch'd last?

But now 'tis summer;

It must be long

No longer than last night :

But then he went to see a dying friend,

And brought back that which smooths his nights hereafter. Rayland. (apart.) "Tis even so! Despair hath driven him

Mary.

To gain by rapine what more guiltily

I did deny him. Poor, unhappy son!

How must thy heart have writhed to do this crime!
It is in pity to thyself, not me,

That Heaven hath set it down thy first, and chance
Directed thee towards a prize, already

Meant as an earnest of thy father's love.

God, how prophetic thou didst make my conscience!
Soon as his trembling hand was on my rein,

And I beheld, then for the first sad time,
That pallid countenance in its agony,

I bound myself, as if the deed were mine,

To keep the fearful secret; for I felt

I could expect no otherwise to meet him.

And here's the faithful mate of all his sorrows

Excepting one ;-one she must never know,

To clog the tongue which loves to speak his praise.
(aloud) Most fair-most worthy of all love and bliss,

Say, if Lord Rayland came with penitence

To seek the long neglected Luke, and raise
The lowly peasant to the peer's proud son,

Could'st thou forget thy days of lamentation

Forgive the hand which would not snatch thee from them?
Lord Rayland!

Rayland (embracing her.)
Mary. (sinking at his feet.)

And thy father.

Oh, my lord:
I have pray'd Heaven to let me see you once!
Rayland. Once, and for ever! And I give thee thanks
That thou 'rt too mild to bow with thy reproach

Mary.

One who already trembles with remorse.

But sort me not with those with whom the wrench
Of Nature's links is pastime. Years were gone
Before I knew my blood was in the veins
Of any but the sons beneath my eye;
And then 'twixt justice and thy husband stood
A haughty woman, jealous of her own.
O'erruled in part, I yet commission'd one,
Who proved unworthy of his trust, to make
Such poor amends as could by gold be compass'd,
For absence of parental countenance.

Oh, it was wrong! and I have paid it deeply!
It hath brought down misfortune in such weight
As might almost be look'd on for atonement.
Amongst the rest, my wife is dead, my children
Or dead, or worse in disregarded duty.

My home is solitary but for thee

And him thou lov'st.

And who will over-pay

In all a son should be, whatever grief

May elsewhere have befallen thee. My lord,

You come to bring us wealth, and ne'er can know

The half of that son's worth. You should have come

In want, in sickness, and in sorrow too:

Then you had seen how his elastic arms

Had labour'd for your comfort. Then you had felt
How much too tender is that manly heart
To hoard the memory of suffer'd ills.

Caleb rushes in in great horror.

Rayland. What is it, man? speak out.
Mary.

Rayland. Caleb. Mary.

Caleb.

Caleb.

Why is your look so dreadful?
Nought of my husband?

God's mercy, Caleb,
Nought of him?

He is dumb with fear!

Would I were so for ever!

Thou hast something

Did you mark

Of matchless horror to relate! My husband!
Oh, quickly speak,―my husband!

No strangeness in his manner when you parted?
Mary. No-nothing-yes-Oh, God! I charge thee speak!
Rayiand. Speak out, I tell thee, peasant! I'm his father.
Thou sure canst tell what I can stand to hear.
I used my utmost speed, but the deep fen
Clung to my feet and pluck'd me back, as though
It were in league with that most damned whirlpool.
(They stand motionless.)
My heart misgave me, whilst I struggled on.
I thought of his last look, and labour'd harder,
And came within a stone's throw of the bank.
The stream has nothing to oppose its course,
And glides in deadly silence. Then I heard
The name of " Mary," and a plunge, and then
A suffocating gasp-I heard no more;
But dashing through the rushes which conceal'd
The drowning man, beheld a quivering arm
Just vanish in the greedy whirlpool's gorge!
But-but-thou say'st-I know-I see thou say'st
It was not he-my husband-God! O, God!
(She falls into the arms of Rayland.)

Mary.

VOL. IV. No. 22.-1822.

X 2

Rayland.

Caleb.

Rayland.

Caleb.

Thou loitering slave! what need so many words? -
Thou 'dst have me think it was indeed my son.

A boat had drifted to the shore-'twas Luke's
I leap'd into 't, and shouted loud for help,
Which, haply, was at hand. Alas, alas!
None ever rose and none hath e'er been raised,
Alive or dead, from that dark place! I I left
My breathless friends lamenting on the bank :-
Their toil was fruitless.

Awful, heavy wrath!

But it is just.-0, my devoted son,

Sharp misery ne'er wrung a tear from thee

So burning as the one which thou thyself

Hast call'd up from thy father's heart!-But how-
But how canst thou be sure it was my son?

I saw him yesterday wrought to a pitch
Beyond his custom of impatient grief.
'Twas one of many blank successless days,
And he talk'd madly of his wife and famine.
I left him late upon the moor-this morn,
As I return'd from Willow Mead, I found him
In strange disorder at his cottage door.

He told me he had slept; his wife just now
Assured me that he was not home all night,

And, when he came, he brought a purse of gold.-
My Lord, I'm sure you best know how he got it.

Rayland. Well, well-thou 'dst not betray him-would'st thou, man?
Caleb. Not I indeed, my Lord. Fear, shame, and anguish,

At what despair and his necessity

Had done, no doubt, hath caused this dreadful end.

Rayland. (after some ineffectual attempts to speak.) Hast thou a bed to lay this innocent on?

Caleb.

Within, my lord :-my wife does love her well,
And will watch by her tenderly.

[Rayland supports her out slowly and in great
agitation. Caleb, haring endeavoured to
preserve his firmness, throws himself into a
chair and bursts into tears.

Poor Luke!

This is the saddest way he could have left us.

Rayland. (returning and looking earnestly at him.) Good peasant, thou,

Caleb.

Rayland.

on whom he had no claim

Of kindness, wert the only one of all

Who used him kindly.-Where's that cruel gold?
My Lord, she gave it in my charge just when
You entered. It is here (raising it from the table.)
Let me look on it—

Away with it, in mercy.-You are poor,
And my son leaves it to his only friend.
But mark me, as thou hopest that it will buy
Prosperity, be choicer of his secret

Than of thy life.-Now lead me where he lies-
'Tis just, most just-I came not at his need,

And angry Heaven hath snatch'd him up from mine.

OLD AGE.

"My age is as a lusty winter,-frosty but kindly."

As you Like it. WITH the exception of a few reprobates and freethinkers, every body wishes to go to Heaven; but the most enthusiastic of us all, if he had the choice, would consent to go there as late as possible. This perverse disposition to extend life beyond that period in which the faculties begin to decay, like that of children, who, having eaten the apple, apply themselves voraciously to devour the parings, is any thing but rational: yet so it is, we cling with closer earnestness to the rickety tenement, as its dilapidations increase; and are never so anxious for a renewal of the lease as at the very moment when the edifice is crumbling about our ears.

The Abbé Morellet was wont to declare, that in spite of his overwhelming infirmities he still clung to life, in the hopes of seeing how the French revolution would end and it seems not unreasonable to attribute the love of long life very generally to a principle of curiosity. Men are always more or less involved in some series of events which it is disagreeable to leave unfinished. One man would be glad to know how his children will turn out; another has begun a plantation; a third desires.to arrive at the end of a political intrigue; a fourth longs to witness how his neighbour will cut up; and a fifth (the most unreasonable of all) would see the end of a Chancery suit; and so we go on with time" in its petty space from day to day.'

We see this disposition in individuals to pry into a futurity in whose combinations they have no part, instanced in their thousand minute directions concerning the disposition of their own funerals, in the petty details of direction which accompany the testamentary disposition of property; and even the indirect admonitions of sexagenary fathers given in the shape of predictions,-the "Tom, Tom, when I'm gone I suppose you'll carry my trees to Newmarket," and the "I see how it will be when I'm out of the way," betray full as much of idle speculation, as of paternal anxiety. If we except the old fellow of a college, who would do nothing for posterity, because posterity had done nothing for him, it would be hard to find an individual, who really entertained no curiosity to know how the world could possibly go on, when deprived of his own co-operation and support.

The desire of long life, abstracted from some such consideration, is the more absurd, because, when "the inevitable hour" arrives, the longest and the shortest life are in the imagination equal. However wearisome existence may have been in the acting, in retrospect it never appears long; and with the oldest, no less than the youngest, " enough" in this, as in many other cases, signifies pretty generally "a little

Louis the Second of Hungary, we are told*, ran through a long career, within the short compass of a very few years. He was born so long before the ordinary completion of gestation, that he came into the world without the decent covering of a skin. In his second year he

Huseland on Animal Life.