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PRIDE AND HIS PRISONERS.

THE HAUNTED DWELLING.

"He who envies now thy state, Who now is plotting how he may seduce Thee also from obedience; that with him, Bereaved of happiness, thou mayst partake His punishment,--eternal misery!"

MILTON.

Bright and joyous was the aspect of nature on a spring morning in the beautiful county of Somersetshire. The budding green on the trees was yet so light, that, like a transparent veil, it showed the outlines of every twig; but on the lowlier hedges it lay like a rich mantle of foliage, and clusters of primroses nestled below, while the air was perfumed with violets. Already was heard the hum of some adventurous bee in search of early sweets, the distant low of cattle from the pasture, the mellow note of the cuckoo from the grove,--every sight and sound told of enjoyment on that sunny Sabbath morn.

Yet let me make an exception. There was one spot which reserved to itself the unenviable privilege of looking gloomy all the year round. Nettleby Tower, a venerable edifice, stood on the highest summit of a hill, like some stern guardian of the fair country that smiled around it. The tower had been raised in the time of the Normans, and had then been the robber-hold of a succession of fierce barons, who, from their strong position, had defied the power of king or law. The iron age had passed away. The moat had been dried, and the useless portcullis had rusted over the gate. The loop-holes, whence archers had pointed their shafts, were half filled up with the rubbish accumulated by time. Lichens had mantled the grey stone till its original hue was almost undistinguishable; silent and deserted was the courtyard which had so often echoed to the clatter of hoofs, or the ringing clank of armour.

Silent and deserted--yes! It was not time alone that had wrought the desolation. Nettleby Tower had stood a siege in the time of the Commonwealth, and the marks of bullets might still be traced on its walls; but the injuries which had been inflicted by the slow march of centuries, or the more rapid visitation of war, were slight compared to those which had been wrought by litigation and family dissension. The property had been for years the subject of a vexatious lawsuit, which had half ruined the unsuccessful party, and the present owner of Nettleby Tower had not cared to take personal possession of the gloomy pile. Perhaps Mr. Auger knew that the feeling of the neighbourhood would be against him, as the sympathies of all would be enlisted on the side of the descendant of that ancient family which had for centuries dwelt in the Tower, who had been deprived of his birthright by the will of a proud and intemperate father.

The old fortress had thus been suffered to fall into decay. Grass grew in the courtyard; the wallflower clung to the battlements; the winter snow and the summer rain made their way through the broken casements, and no hand had removed the mass of wreck which lay where a furious storm had thrown down one of the ancient chimneys. Parties of tourists occasionally visited the gloomy place, trod the long, dreary corridors, and heard from a wrinkled woman accounts of the moth-eaten tapestry, and the time-darkened family portraits that grimly frowned from the walls. They heard tales of the last Mr. Bardon, the proud owner of the pile; how he had been wont to sit long and late over his bottle, carousing with jovial companions, till the hall resounded with their oaths and their songs; and how, more than thirty years back, he had disinherited his only son for marrying a farmer's daughter. Then the old woman would, after slowly showing the way up the worn stone steps which led round and round till they opened on the summit of the tower, direct her listener's attention to a small grey speck in the wide-spreading landscape below, and tell them that Dr. Bardon lived there in needy circumstances, in actual sight of the place where, if every man had his right, he would now be dwelling as his fathers had dwelt. And the visitors would sigh, shake their heads, and moralize on the strange changes in human fortunes.

There is a wild light in the eyes of Intemperance, not caught from the glad sunbeams that are bathing the world in glory; it is like a red meteor playing over some deep morass, and though there is often mirth in his tone, it is such mirth as jars upon the shuddering soul like the laugh of a raving maniac! Pride is of more lofty stature than his companion, perhaps of yet darker hue, and his voice is lower and deeper. His features are stamped with the impress of all that piety abhors and conscience shrinks from, for we behold him without his veil. Human infirmity may devise soft names for cherished sins, and even invest them with a specious glory which deceives the dazzled eye; but who could endure to see in all their bare deformity those two arch soul-destroyers, Intemperance and Pride?

"Nay, it was I who wrought this ruin!" exclaimed the former, stretching his shadowy hand over the desolated dwelling. "Think you that had Hugh Bardon possessed his senses unclouded by my spell, he would ever have driven forth from his home his own--his only son?"

"Was it not I," replied Pride, "who ever stood beside him, counting up the long line of his ancestry, inflaming his soul with legends of the past, making him look upon his own blood as something different from that which flows in the veins of ordinary mortals, till he learned to regard a union with one of lower rank as a crime beyond forgiveness?"

"I," cried Intemperance, "intoxicated his brain"--

"I yield this point to you," said Intemperance, "I grant that your black badge was rivetted on the miserable Bardon even more firmly than mine. And yet, what are your scattered conquests to those which I hourly achieve! Do I not drive my thousands and tens of thousands down the steep descent of folly, misery, disgrace, till they perish in the gulf of ruin? Count the gin-palaces dedicated to me in this professedly Christian land; are they not crowded with my victims? Who can boast a power to injure that is to be compared to mine?"

"Your power is great," replied Pride, "but it is a power that has limits, nay, limits that become narrower and narrower as civilization and religion gain ground. You have been driven from many a stately abode, where once Intemperance was a welcome guest, and have to cower amongst the lowest of the low, and seek your slaves amongst the vilest of the vile. Seest thou yon church," continued Pride, pointing to the spire of a small, but beautiful edifice, embowered amongst elms and beeches; "hast thou ever dared so much as to touch one clod of the turf on which falls the shadow of that building?"

"It is, as you well know, forbidden ground," replied Intemperance.

"To you--to you, but not to me!" exclaimed Pride, his form dilating with exultation. "I enter it unseen with the worshippers, my voice blends with the hymn of praise; nay, I sometimes mount the pulpit with the preacher, and while a rapt audience hang upon his words, infuse my secret poison into his soul! When offerings are collected for the poor, how much of the silver and the gold is tarnished and tainted by my breath! The very monuments raised to the dead often bear the print of my touch; I fix the escutcheon, write the false epitaph, and hang my banner boldly even over the Christian's tomb!"

"Your power also has limits," quoth Intemperance. "There is an antidote in the inspired Book for every poison that you can instil."

"How is it, then," inquired Intemperance, "that so many believers in the Gospel fall under your sway?"

"It is in this shape," said Intemperance angrily, "that you have sometimes even taken a part against me! You have taught my slaves to despise and break from my yoke!"

"Nay, you must acknowledge," said Intemperance, "that we now seldom work together."

"We have different spheres," answered Pride. "You keep multitudes from ever even attempting to enter the fold; I put my manacles upon tens of thousands who deem that they already have entered. I doubt whether there be one goodly dwelling amongst all those that dot yonder wide prospect, where one, if not all of the inmates, wears not my invisible band round the arm."

"You will except the pastor's, at least," said Intemperance. "Yonder, on the path that leads to the school, I see his gentle daughter. She has warned many against me; and with her words, her persuasions, her prayers, has driven me from more than one home. I shrink from the glance of that soft, dark eye, as if it carried the power of Ithuriel's spear. Ida seems to me to be purity itself; upon her, at least, you can have no hold."

"Were we nearer," laughed the malignant spirit, "you would see my dark badge on the saint! Since her childhood I have been striving and struggling to make Ida Aumerle my own. Sometimes she has snapped my chain, and I am ofttimes in fear that she will break away from my bondage for ever. But methinks I have a firm hold over her now."

"Her pride must be spiritual pride," observed Intemperance.

"Not so," replied his evil companion; "I tried that spell, but my efforts failed. While with sweet voice and winning persuasion Ida is now guiding her class to Truth, and warning her little flock against us both, would you wish to hearken to the story of the maiden, and hear all that I have done to win entrance into a heart which the grace of God has cleansed?"

"Tell me her history," said Intemperance; "she seems to me like the snowdrop that lifts its head above the sod, pure as a flake from the skies."

"Even the snowdrop has its roots in the earth," was the sardonic answer of Pride.

"What a beautiful sermon you gave us to-day!" exclaimed a lady to her pastor. "The devil told me the very same thing while I was in the pulpit," was his quaint, but comprehensive reply.

RESISTED, YET RETURNING.

"Mount up, for heaven is won by prayer; Be sober--for thou art not there!"

KEBLE.

"The sacred pages of God's own book Shall be the spring, the eternal brook, In whose holy mirror, night and day, Thou'lt study heaven's reflected ray. And should the foes of virtue dare With gloomy wing to seek thee there, Thou will see how dark their shadows lie, Between heaven and thee, and trembling fly."

MOORE.

"Ida Aumerle," began the dark narrator, "at the age of twelve had the misfortune to lose her mother, and was left, with a sister several years younger than herself, to the sole care of a tender and indulgent father. Ever on the watch to strengthen my interests amongst the children of men, I sounded the dispositions of the sisters, to know what chance I possessed of making them prisoners of Pride. Mabel, clever, impulsive, fearless in character, with a mind ready to receive every impression, and a spirit full of energy and emulation, I knew to be one who was likely readily to come under the power of my spell. Ida was less easily won; she was a more thoughtful, contemplative girl, her temper was less quick, he passions were less easily roused, and I long doubted where lay the weak point of character on which Pride might successfully work.

"As Ida grew towards womanhood my doubts were gradually dispelled. I marked that the fair maiden loved to linger opposite the mirror which reflected her tall, slight, graceful form, and that the gazelle eyes rested upon it with secret satisfaction. There was much time given to braiding the hair and adorning the person; and the fashion of a dress, the tint of a ribbon, became a subject for grave consideration. There are thousands of girls enslaved by the pride of beauty with far less cause than Ida Aumerle."

"But this folly," observed Intemperance, "was likely to give you but temporary power. Beauty is merely skin-deep, and passes away like a flower!"

"But often leaves the pride of it behind," replied his companion. "There is many a wrinkled woman who can never forget that she once was fair,--nay, who seems fondly to imagine that she can never cease to be fair; and who makes herself the laughing-stock of the world by assuming in age the attire and graces of youth. It will never be thus with Ida Aumerle.

"I thought that my chain was firmly fixed upon her, when one evening I found it suddenly torn from her wrist, and trampled beneath her feet! The household at the Vicarage had retired to rest; Ida had received her father's nightly blessing, and was sitting alone in her own little room. The lamp-light fell upon a form and face that might have been thought to excuse some pride, but Ida's reflections at that moment had nothing in common with me. She was bending eagerly over that Book which condemns, and would destroy me,--a book which she had ofttimes perused before, but never with the earnest devotion which was then swelling her heart. Her hands were clasped, her dark eyes swimming in joyful tears, and her lips sometimes moved in prayer,--not cold, formal prayer, such as I myself might prompt, but the outpouring of a spirit overflowing with grateful love. That was the birthday of a soul! I stood gloomily apart; I dared not approach one first conscious of her immortal destiny, first communing in spirit with her God!"

"You gave up your designs, then, in despair?"

"You would have done so," answered Pride with haughtiness; "I do not despair, I only delay. I found that pride of beauty had indeed given way to a nobler, more exalting feeling. Ida had drunk at the fountain of purity, and the petty rill of personal vanity had become to her insipid and distasteful. She was putting away the childish things which amuse the frivolous soul. Ida's time was now too well filled up with a succession of pious and charitable occupations, to leave a superfluous share to the toilette. The maiden's dress became simple, because the luxury which she now esteemed was that of assisting the needy. Many of her trinkets were laid aside, not because she deemed it a sin to wear them, but because her mind was engrossed by higher things. One whose first object and desire is to please a heavenly Master by performing angels' offices below, is hardly likely to dwell much on the consideration that her face and her figure are comely."

"Ida is, I know, reckoned a model of every feminine virtue," said Intemperance. "I can conceive that your grand design was now to make her think herself as perfect as all the rest of the world thought her."

"Ay, ay; to involve her in spiritual pride! But the maiden was too much on her knees, examined her own heart too closely, tried herself by too lofty a standard for that. When the faintest shadow of that temptation fell upon her, she started as though she had seen the viper lurking under the flowers, and cast it from her with abhorrence! 'A sinner, a weak, helpless sinner, saved only by the mercy, trusting only in the strength of a higher power;' this Ida Aumerle not only calls herself, but actually feels herself to be. The power of Grace in her heart is too strong on that point for Pride."

"And yet you hope to subject her to your sway?

"About two years after the night which I have mentioned," resumed Pride, "after Ida had attained the age of eighteen, she resided for some time at Aspendale, the home of her uncle, Augustine Aumerle."

"One of your prisoners?" inquired Intemperance.

"Of him anon," replied the dark one, "our present subject is his niece. At his dwelling Ida met with one who had been Augustine's college companion, Reginald, Earl of Dashleigh. You can just discern the towers of his mansion faint in the blue distance yonder."

"I know it," replied Intemperance; "I frequented the place in his grandfather's time. The present earl, as I understand, is your votary rather than mine."

"Puffed up with pride of rank," said the stern spirit; "but pride of rank could not withstand a stronger passion, or prevent him from laying his fortune and title at the feet of Ida Aumerle."

"An opportunity for you!" suggested Intemperance.

"A golden opportunity I deemed it. What woman is not dazzled by a coronet? what girl is insensible to the flattering attentions of him who owns one, even if he possess no other recommendation, which, with Dashleigh, is far from being the case? There was a struggle in the mind of Ida. I whispered to her of all those gilded baubles for which numbers have eagerly bartered happiness here, and forfeited happiness hereafter. I set before her grand images of earthly greatness, the pomp and trappings of state, the homage paid by the world to station. I strove to inflame her mind with ambition. But here Ida sought counsel of the All-wise, and she saw through my glittering snare. The earl, though of character unblemished in the eyes of man, and far from indifferent to religion, is not one whom a heaven-bound pilgrim like Ida would choose as a companion for life. Dashleigh's spirit is too much clogged with earth; he is too much divided in his service; he wears too openly my chain, as if he deemed it an ornament or distinction. Ida prayed, reflected, and then resolved. She declined the addresses of her uncle's guest, and returned home at once to her father."

"The wound which she inflicted was not a deep one," remarked Intemperance. "Dashleigh was speedily consoled, without even seeking comfort from me."

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