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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.