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Southern Field and Fireside.
VOL. 1.
[For the Southern Field and Fireside.]
JACK HOPETON AND HIS FRIENDS
OK,
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP A GEORGIAN.
BY WM. W. TURNER
(COKCMTDED.)
The day passed off and evening came—the
soft twilight. After dining, and spending an
hour or two in the drawing room, we had all
scattered, each one to pursue for a short time,
the bent of his or her own inclination. Fitz
warren was in his room. I strolled back into
the drawing room, and finding no one there,
walked out on the colonnade. Helen Bently
was sitting by a column, leaning slightly on the
balustrade, motionless and silent, gazing toward
the road.
I approached unnoticed, and standing beside
her, called her name in a low tone. She turned
quickly, and I saw that she hastily brnsjied
away a tear; but immediately a cold, reserved
expression came over her pale face, though I
thought I could perceive that she was afraid to
trust herself to speak.
“ You are on the very spot,” I said, “ where
1 sat one night, after you had left me, musing,
bewildered, intoxicated by the tones of your
voice still lingering in my cars. It was the
night of the first day I saw you. It was the
first time I had ever heard you sing. I recollect
well, how I leaned over that balustrade, and
wondered if I wero not dreaming, and whether
I had not been listening to some fairy in my
sleep. And well do I remember that I asked
myself l is it possible for me to win her love ?’ ”
There was no reply. Helen sat making an
effort to appear calm, but she was evidently
under the influence of strong emotion. Wheth
er this was favorable or unfavorable to me, I
could not yet determine. I continued :
“Yonder,” said I, pointing as I spoke—“ can
you see where wo walked that evening ?”
She bowed affirmatively.
“ Then, first, the hope I had formed that you
loved me, amounted to almost a certainty. Af
terwards you yourself murmured the word
‘ love,’ and allowed me to consider you my af
fiancod. What moments those were to me!—
How I ‘ lived’ in that ‘short hour!’ How I rev
eled in the thought that I had won the affec
•tions of the peerless Helen Bently ! Yet I al
most fear to say ‘ Helen,’ although you once per
mitted it. Perhaps I offend ?”
Still there was no word uttered by my com
panion. It seemed as if there was a struggle
going on, the evidence of which appeared in the
agitation of her finely moulded features.
“ Since, then,” I resumed, “ you have chang
ed. I have remained the same. I thought, at
first, that the slanders of Lorraine were the
cause of this change in you, and howev
er unjust I might consider it for you to
condemn me unheard, and although I might
think that if you loved me you ought to have
informed me, at least, of these slanders, still I
was happy in the belief, that when you were
made sensible of their utter falsity, you would
again—love me.
“ But you say you never believed them, and
now, even after the proof laid before your fa
ther, you still hold yourself aloof from me ; and
my earnest entreaty is, that you tell me the rea
son.”
And yet Helen replied not. If I had seen
only aversion to me expressed in her counte
nance, pride would have come to my relief, and
sealed my lips ; but I believed —nay, I knew —
my instinct told me—that something akin to the
old feeling of lovo was mingled with the other,
and a doubtful struggle was going on between
these conflicting elements.
“ Oh ! Helen,” I exclaimed, what is the bar
rier between us ? Your heart was mine —who
lias robbed me of this treasure ? Let me know
the worst.”
“ This has lasted long enough,” she said, at
length, speaking with forced calmness. “ The
interview is painful to me, and it cannot be pleas
ant to you. Let it be ended. Let us depart in
peace.”
“ And will you give me no Lint, no idea, of the
cause of this estrangement ?”
“ None.”
“ There is a cause ? It is not a mere whim?
These do not operate so suddenly as to induce a
lady, in the short space of twelve hours, to so
change her opinion as to look with positive dis
like upon one whom she loved.”
“ You are correct. But, Mr. Hopeton, let me
beg of you not to prolong this interview. —
No good can come of it.”
“ By a positive command, you can banish me
forever; but let me give you the reasons for my
pertinacity, lest I seem a dangler, devoid of spir
it. You and I once loved each other. Before
my God, I know of no reason why it should be
otherwise now. There is some obstacle in my
way, which I could remove, if I only knew its
nature. You have heard some other slander
against me, and give it credit. Let me know
what this is, and I will refute it. You yet love
the Hopeton of your first imagination. It is only
because yon look on mo as possessing a charac-
1 JAXES GARDNER, I
I Proprietor. f
AUGUSTA. GA., SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1859.
ter different from what you at first supposed to
mine, that you have withdrawn your favor.—
Could I convince you that I am still the
some. I doubt not you would still love me.”
“ This must end, Mr. Hopeton,” said Helen,
rising. “ Since you will not leave me, I must
leave you. But first, to answer one of your
questions. You ask me 1 who has robbed you
of this treasure ?—to let you know the worst.’
W hat would be the worst for you, I know not,
but the worst for me is, that my heart has re
turned to me, a homeless, disappointed wander
er—wounded, crushed —here to abide forever.”
The next moment I was alone, as completely
mystified, bewildered a mortal, as ever groped
helplessly in the mazes of love. The reader
will perceive the difficulty of my situation. I
had stated the case precisely to Helen Bently.—
If 1 had thought that slio ceased to love me
from any other cause than a misconception—in
deed, had I believed that she had entirely ceased
to love me from any cause, I would not have
been so pertinacious. Entertaining the opinion
I did, however, I felt as if it was my duty to try
and find out the reason of this misunderstanding.
Even Helen’s last word convinced me, more
than ever, that her first love was not entirely
gone ; but they also convinced me that further
effort on my part, to discover the cause of our
estrangement, would be useless and humiliating.
I was left completely in the dark. Long
while I sat, pondering, but at length my resolu
tion was taken.
“ I will forget all this I said to myself, “or
will remember it only as a pleasant dream. I
will go home, and there enter on the duties of
man's estate. Georgia has work for her sons to
do, and I’ll volunteer in her service. No more
dallying with love for me. No more shall pleas
ure be my solo object in life. I will strive to
render myself useful. The paths to distinction
lie open before me. AVhy cannot I follow them
successfully? Ambition shall prompt me. Fame
shall be my idol now.”
Supper was announced, and I went in. Since
the struggle was over with me, I was enabled
to appear so calm, that no one, not even Fitz
warren, could perceive any trace of unusual ex
citement in my countenance. A cheerful con
versation went on round the table, and I was
taking my full share in it.
“ By the way, Mr. Hopeton,” said Mrs. Bent
ly, suddenly: I received a letter this evening
from a friend in Georgia, and there is intelli
gence in it of a wedding, which is to come off
on a magnificent scale ”
“Ah !” said I, guessing what wedding she
was talking of. “ I must get home, as quickly
as possible, and perhaps I may be invited to at
tend.”
“ Oh, ray correspondent informs me that you
are to be an attendant. Indeed, she says that
the wedding has been postponed, on account of
your absence.”
“ Indeed ! And pray Mrs. Bently, who are
the parties ?”
“ Well, they will grace a magnificent fete as
well as any couple I know, for they are magnif
icent-looking people. They nro Mr. Charley
Hampton—l believe y.ou call him Uncle Charley.
That fine looking, distingue, polite gentleman, in
every sense of the word, Mr. Bently,” said the
lady, speaking now to her husband, “ whom you,
and Frank, and Helen and I all liked so much,
on such a short acquaintance."
“ Digressive, like a woman,” said Mr. Bently.
“ We are waiting to know who is the lady.”
“ Father thinks it unnecessary for you to
praise the gentleman quite so warmly, mother,”
said Frank.
“Well, Mr. Bently may take my role now.
The lady is Mrs. Holmes.”
“Itis my turn sure enough, now,” said Mr.
8., “ for never have I seen a lady better calcu
lated to lead men in silken fetters than Mrs.
Holmes—except one.”
“ The exception is entirely unnecessary," said
our hostess.
“ But tell us if you know anything abont it,
Jack,” said Frank Bently.
“ Well,” said I, “there is no use in keeping it
a secret any longer. They were engaged when
you saw them at Cotoosa. They have loved
each other for years.”
“ Are you sure of this, Mr. Hopeton ?" asked
Helen Bently, in a tone tremulous and strange.
“ Certainly," was my reply. “ Uncle Charley
never conceals anything from me. Nor did
Mrs. Holmes, last summer. She looks on me
almost as a brother.”
“ And what in the world is the matter with
you, Helen?" asked her father. “You speak
as if you intended to forbid the bans. Did
you, like your mother, fall in love with the ac
complished Charley ?’’
“ No, but I have been so entirely mista
ken ”
“ In what. Miss Helen ?
“Oh, nothing, nothing.”
I looked at Helen, and caught her eye. It
seemed to express something akin to contrition
and returning love.
“ Speaking of the lady’s kindness • for you,
said Frank Bently, “I thought ’twas rather ten
derer in its nature, than that between brother
and sister."
My eyes were opened. Helen Bently, in
common with her brother, had thought I was
making love to Mrs. Holmes.
“Let me assure you, Frank,” said I, speaking
seriously, “ that you were entirely mistaken.
Whenever you saw me in earnest conversation
with Mrs. Holmes, the subject was the man she
so much admires and loves—Mr. Hampton. No
other could interest her.”
“ Well,” replied Frank, “the fact is, I was
jesting, fori did not think ym would fall in love
with a lady older than yourself, however lovea
ble she might be; but one night, 1 was passing
along through the ball room, aud overheard
this same fellow Lorraine tell Helen that you
and Mrs. Holmes w ere betrothed. I paid no at
tention to it, however. I concluded that you
and the belle were merely carrying on a flirta
tion for the amusement of each.”
“ Did you hear that, brother?” asked Ifeleu,
i asked faintly.
“Yes. You didn’t believe the report, did
you ?”
“ I must acknowledge,” was the reply, in a
still lower tone, “ that I did.”
I cannot explain exactly how it happened;
but that night—it was almost as bright as day
—Helen and I took a stroll through that most
beautiful of all groves. Once more I clasped
her hand, and again her eyes “looked love to
eyes that spake again.” Somehow, all the
dreams of ambition in which I had been in
dulging but-an hour before, and all my plans of
rendering myself useful in my native State van
ished, and I thought only of happineas in once
more possessing tho love of Helen Bently.
I will not weary my readers by telling them
what I said to Helen, and how she replied.
They have had enough of this recently. They
; can easily imagine what passed. A complete
j explanation and understanding was had, and
from the very depths of despondency, I was
suddenly elevated to the summit of felicity.
Even at that moment, though, I could not help
moralizing on the sudden and nnlooked for sliift
ings and changes in the panorama of human ex
istence. Life is composed of lights and shad
ows. At one moment the former brighten our
horizon, and in tho very next the latter over
spread it with gloom.
CHAPTER XXXII.
A few more days found Fitzwarreu and my
self at Hopeton.
“ Independent of the pleasure I have in seeing
you as a guest, Mr. Fitzwarren,” said my father,
soon after our arrival, “I am glad to meet with
you at this particular time, because I have busi
ness with you. You recollect Mr. Warlock, the
old gentleman to whose house we rode one day
during your first visit here ?”
“Very well,” w'as the reply.
“ He is dead, and has bequeathed a large prop
erty to you. I am named executor in his will
and wish to enter on my duties at an early day.”
“I cannot understand why he should leave
property to me, Mr. Ilopetou—not that I deny
the relationship, which, by this time, you prob
ably know existed between us; but I thought he
hated me with a perfect hatred.”
“ Oh, he w r as very much changed before his
death. But I have in my possession a confes
sion which he placed in my hands, and this will
j give you all the information you need. From it
| you will learn some things of which you have
been entirely iguorant, although you imagined
yourself to be in possession of all the facts in
i the case.”
| So saying, my father produced a long manu
j script, which he handed to Fitzwarren.
j “A great deal of this,” he said, “is a narration
I of events, with which you are already acquaint
; ed and in which, indeed, you were an actor. —
i Here, though, where I hold my finger, commen
ces a tale which, I think, will be entirely new to
| you."
“As this portion is not very long, Mr. Hope
j ton,” said Fitzwarren, “ I will just-sit down by
this window and read it.”
The extract, which soon absorbed completely
and entirely Fitzwarren s attention, was as fol
: lows:
“ Although I knew my nephew s determined
character and was very sorry to see Jasper
strike him—not that I w'as sorry to see him hu
miliated, to my shame be it spoken, but I feared
the consequence of his anger —I was not pre
pared for what followed, and when I saw him
stooping over Jasper’s body, twisting his dagger
about in the wound, I was, for a moment, para
lyzed. as were the rest. When we all started
toward him, his father was ahead of us and,
reaching his son, commenced striking him with
a cane. , , .
“ The infuriated boy turned and, after plung
ing his dagger to the hilt in my brother’s breast,
fled. He was swifter of foot than any of us;
and the truth is, we were too frightened to fol
low him. We lifted poor David and carried him,
along with Jasper’s dead body, into the house.
He was still breathing, but we were convinced
that he was mortally wounded, and, brute that
I was, I already counted his property mine, since
Warren would never dare to come back and
claim it.
“So sure was I that he would die, I did not
hesitate to send for a physician. He came and !
on examining the wound, pronounced it to be a |
very dangerous, but not necessarily a mortal '
one.
“ 1 With the good, kind nursing which your
brother will receive at your hands and those of j
your family, Mr. Fitz warren,’ said the worthy, ,
unsuspecting physician. ‘ doubtless he will soon
recover.’
“ ‘ And all my tine prospects will be marred,’
said Ito myself. ‘The good nursing shall be
lacking.’
“That night—that night—Oh, God! It was
a night which stamped the mark of Cain upon
my brow! That night I sold myself to the ene
my of souls, and since I have never known
peace. I have endured a perpetual hell on
earth. If that to which lam hastening is worse
than this, what a future is before me!
“But let me particularize a little. The body
of Jasper had been shrouded and laid out. I
had loved him, if I ever loved any one, but now
grief for his death was obscured by a stronger
feeling which reigned in my bosom —disappoint-
ment, anger, that the prize I had imagined to be
almost within my grasp, should now escape me.
I was sitting in company with one or two oth
ers of my own family in the chamber where the
corpse was. I did not want visitors in the
house.
“In a room, not very far off, lay my poor
wounded brother, attended only by a negro.—
About midnight I went to this chamber and
found the watcher and patient both asleep. The
latter was breathing easily and quietly, evidently
getting along well. I awakened the servant and
sent him on some errand, which I knew would
keep him a considerable length of time, saying
that I would watch till his return.
“ The negro left the room and I listened to his
footsteps, echoing along the silent hall, till he
passed out of the house. Then all was still.—
Not a sound was audible save the subdued and
regular breathing of the ill-fated David. The
shaded lamp threw a faint and sickly light
around the walls. The curtains of the bed inter
cepted this, and obscured the features of my
sleeping brother. With a fell purpose I locked
the door on the inside and crept softly to the
bedside.
“If there is a special Providence, why did it
not then interpose to prevent the crime of fratri
cide ? Why did not outraged Nature cause the
earth to yawn and swallow up the monster,
about to imbue his hands in the blood of his un
offending brother? But Providence interfered
not, nor did the earth quake and open. A small
cot stood beside the larger bed. Taking tho
matrass off this, I threw it across the face of the
sleeping man and leaped upon it, stretching my
self at full length and using the whole weight
of my large person to smother the victim be
neath.
“ When I recall the writliings, the agonizing
moans of the feeble being, who struggled for life
beneath my merciless pressure, I almost go mad.
It is a mystery to me, how I have been able to
live so long under the accumulated weight of
remorse which has long made my life a burden
to me. But I cannot give the faintest idea of
the horrors which reign in my bosom. That
night I was more pitiless than the savage, aqjl I
did not rise from that bed until every motion nad
ceased and my victim lay in the stillness of
death.
“ Then I rose, arranged the bed clothes and
placed the body in the same position it occupied
when I sent the negro from the room. I opened
the door and looked out. No one was near.
“In the course of half on hour the attendant
returned. Telling him that my brother was still
resting well and that he too might lie down to
sleep, I left the room.”
The document was long, and it is unnecessary
to weary the reader with the whole of it. A min
ute account of the forging of a will and of subse
quent wanderings of the forgers constituted a
large part of it. Besides, it was filled with such
keen self-reproaches, such wild wailings of de
spair, as only the most fearful remorse can give
utterance to. It concluded with the following
language:
“ Mr. Hopeton, my tale is done. Now you
have some idea of the wound whiclr I told you
had been festering for years within my breast.
Are you astonished that I should exclaim, ‘ Re
morse! Remorse!’
“ Remorse! The ancients believed thv ' were
two powers, or influences, or spirits, pervading
the universe—the good and the bad. There may
be a good spirit: there are a thousand bad ones,
and they are far more potent than the one good.
The latter is unable to preserve us from the ma
chinations of the former. These are forever on
the alert. Some of them tempt us poor, miser
able, forsaken, helpless mortals to the commission
of crime, and then there are others whose mission
it is to torture and torment us—in this world,
giving us a foretaste of the horrors which are to
seize upon our damned souls in the next. Re
morse is one of those whose office it is to punish.
It is the harpy which has fed upon my breast
for these many years. It is the minister which
will wait on me in the moments of my last agony
in this existence, and then follow me to where
the means and appliances of torture are such,
i Two Dollars Per Annum, I
l Always In Advance. f
that the paia and anguish I have suffered, here,
will seem as nothing in comparison with what I
must endure there.”
“Then,” said Fitzwarren, after he handed the
paper back to my father, “ then I am not a par
ricide. Thin guilt, at least, is not m ne. If
there is ad Omniscient Being, he knows that I
never was one, in spirit, but I was enraged, mad,
that blows should be inflicted on me by my own
father for resenting so outrageous an insult. I
did not wish to kill my poor, weak parent, un
just and unfeeling as his conduct was. Under
the influence of blind anger I struck at him
with my dagger, without thinking what the
blow might produce. Some weight has been re
moved from my troubled breast.”
“Jack,” ho continued, turning to me, “I be
lieve there is hope that I may know happiness
yet. Now that I have foregone it, I will tell
you what has been my purpose for several
years. Before I formed your acquaintance, I
had determined to commit suicide. You were a
friend to me, and for the sake of your compan
ionship I concluded to live. Then you fell in
love with Helen Bently. I know you would
marry—her or some one else —and then I would
bo companionloss again. I concluded to wait;
to see you made happy and then put an end to
an existence which has been one long period of
anguish and remorse. Since I find lam not al
together the unfortunate, guilty wretch I deem
ed myself, 1 have once more altered my plans.”
“That is, Fitzwarren, you will not commit
suicide?”
“ That is what I mean, Jack. But when you
get married, where do you intend to reside?”
“ I don’t know yet; but you are foot-loose and
possessed of ample means; so, when I do lo
cate, you must buy a plantation close by.”
“That is the very thing I wish to do. It is
just what I was going to propose.”
“We are agreed on that point, then,” said I.
“ Were you present, father,” I asked, turning to
him, “ at Mr. Warlock’s death ?"
“No, Jack. He for me, but I arrived
too late and I am glad that I did, from the ac
count I had of his death.”
“ It was unhappy, then ?”
“Awful! Horrid!”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Uncle Charley heard that I had come home,
and a day or two afterward he drove up to
Hopeton.
“Well, young man,” he said to me, “is it
your supreme pleasure to perform that little
service for me, now, or must I wait till you make
the tour of Europe, before you will be at leisure
to attend to the matter ?”
“ I am ready at a moment’s warning, Uncle
Charley,” was my reply, “ and very proud will
I be to ‘ stand up’ with such a couple as you and
Mrs. Holmes.”
“ And Jack,” said he, speaking earnestly and
kindly, “Jack, my boy, how comes on your af
fair ?”
“ All right, Uncle Charley. We have plight
ed faith once more.”
“ Glad to hear it. Well, lamto be married on
the twenty-eighth inst., so hold yourself in read
iness.”
The wedding came off at the appointed time.
Uncle Charley and Mrs. Holmes both had con
siderable fondness for the magnificent, and the
bridal party was a large one. All the splendor
wealth could command was lavished on the oc
casion, and as I looked on the couple who stood
up to be joined in the holy bonds of wedlock, I
was certain that no finer-looking, more courtly
gentleman, no more beautiful, noble-looking la
dy could be produced. I thought, too, that, de
spite their previous habits of flirtation, never
were two people better calculated to make each
other happy. Their eyes, whenever they met,
spoke a language of mutual love and pride which
it was impossible to mistake.
The next time I went to Bentwold, Helen con
sented to name a day for our nuptials. Os course
she named a distant one—why is it that they al
ways do ?—but I pleaded hard and we finally
settled on one within a reasonable length of
time.
My wooing was happily over, and it was not
very long before I went to Florida once more, to
wed. A party of friends accompanied me from
Georgia, and among them were Uncle Charley
and his bride, Fitzwarren, Tom Harper and Ed.
Morton. Miss Emma and Miss Kate Morgan al
so consented to go. A merry crowd we were.
Os course Tom was in clover; Ed., good, kind
hearted fellow, is always happy. Fitzwarren
was daily becoming more cheerful, and more hu
manized in every way.
I can’t undertake to give a minute account of
the wedding fete. It is not my forte. You re
collect, reader, the description of the house and
grounds at Bentwold—the groves and shrubbe
ry. You have some idea of Florida climate.
Well, just imaginr that magnificent grove light
ed up, almost with the brilliancy of day, save
here and there an alley, or an arbor left half
lighted, or nearly dark, for tho accommodation
of those who wished to indulge in whispering
too sacred for publicity; and everything arrang
ed for a splendid fete cbamp£tre, out-doors, while
within the same good taste and elegance prevail
NO. 31.