Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JOSEPH WILMOT; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. 159 accompanying, could have tracked me to that par- ticular spot where he had so suddenly encountered me—I did not notice the precise direction which we took. I however perceived that we did not plunge into the brilliantly lighted thoroughfares : but when I at length began to wonder where we were, and to look about me, I felt assured that we must have been keeping on the outskirts of the town. Our walk had already lasted a quarter of an hour; and methought that by this time we should be at our destination. Still however my companion went on,—I continuing by his side. I glanced towards his countenance: it was coldly stern—the features were rigid, with the expression of a fixed and settled purpose. He glanced not at me—but looked straightforward; and I had no doubt in my own mind that he hated, scorned, and despised me with all the energy of a proud heart’s susceptibilities. For five more minutes was our walk continued ; and then if terminated at an iron gate in the middle of a garden-wall. Within the enclosure a large mansion was situated; and in several win- dows lights were burning. A strange feeling of bewilderment came over me: for this did not appear to have the aspect of the same premises from which I had been so quickly hurried away by Calanthe, three quarters of an hour back. And yet I said to myself that it might have been by the side or in the rear of the garden that I had been admitted by Lady Calanthe: whereas this was evidently the front entrance. While I was thus silently deliberating, my companion had taken forth a key from his pocket and opened the iron gate. We passed in: but instead of making straight across the lawn, or even pursuing the circular course of the carriage-drive towards the portico, where brilliant lamps were burning, we turned abruptly into a path to the right—thus plunging into the shade of an avenue of trees. Then we turned to the left,—the path following the direction of the walls; so that now I began to think it must be at the end of this very avenue that the arbour was situated, and that the door by which I had been admitted must be, as I ere now suspected, in the rear of the premises. But ere we reached the farther end, we turned into another path,—which brought us up to the side of the mansion; and we stopped short at a glass-door shaded with pink curtains, but not so much as to prevent me from observing that there was a faint light within. My companion knocked gently at one of the panes of glass: the door was opened—the curtain drawn aside—and I passed into a large and appa- rently sumptuously furnished apartment. I say apparently, because there was but one wax-candle burning there ; and this was totally insufficient to light so spacious a room. ‘The individual who had opened the door, and thus given admission to my- self and companion, was a very old man—short in stature—slightly bowed in form—with a thin white countenance, and cold gray glassy eyes. His lips were firmly compressed: he had precisely that same rigidity and settled sternness of features which I had observed on the part of him who had guided me thither ; and notwithstanding the great discrepancy of their ages, it was by no means difficult to discern by the profile that the younger one was the son of the elder. The cold glassy eyes of the latter were immediately fixed upon me as I entered the room, with an earnest, searching, scrutinizing look: there was a knitting too of the brows, a firmer compression of the lips, and a deepening of that rigidity of expression on the part of the old man,—all tending to convince me that I was regarded not lovingly by him. Still my courage failed not. J knew that in reality I had done no harm—that I was the object of a pas- sion which I had never encouraged voluntarily, and certainly never sought to engage: my mind was made up to perform a duty—and the integrity of my purpose served to arm me with fortitude. That I was now in the presence of Calanthe’s father, Lord Mandeville, I could not doubt; and the expression of his countenance was but too well calculated to justify her ladyship’s assurance that she had experienced the sternest upbraidings from his lips. The nobleman who had brought me thither closed the glass-door as he followed me into the room, and drew the curtain over the window. His father slowly traversed the apartment, and seated himself in an arm-chair,—whence he again fixed his glassy eyes upon me, but still without speaking a word. He surveyed me with the scrutinizing air of one who sees for the first time an individual of whom he has nevertheless heard much, but whom he has little cause to like. Slowly did his gaze wander over me, thus travelling from my head to my feet; and the survey lasted upwards of a minute. I did not feel comfortable under that scrutiny: I did not like that old nobleman’s glacial, glassy look, in the very dull deadness of which there was nevertheless a sort of sinister, almost horrible animation. It was as if a corpse were mystically inspired with the power to gaze on the object of its life-time’s hate. I could not endure to meet that look; and as I averted my own eyes, they encountered an immense picture suspended to the wall, the hideous subject of which, though but dimly shadowed forth in the feeble light which but partially shone in the apartment, made me suddenly recoil from it. In- deed the blood turned cold. in my veins: for that picture represented an enormous snake flinging itself down from the boughs of a tree to which its tail still clung, while its other extremity circled in enormous coils the body of a man on horseback. The steed itself was represented as rearing in wild affright; and the subject—evidently an Indian scene—was on so vast a scale, that it really seemed as if it were the living reality, and not a mere pic- ture from which I thus suddenly shrank back. But ashamed of that terror which had seized upon me, I turned my eyes again on the old nobleman, ——who at the moment beckoned with his hand for me to draw nearer to him. “Young man,” he said, in a stern voice, which for the first instant trembled slichtly, but imme- diately became coldly firm,—“ you have brought disgrace down upon a family which never knew disgrace before ; and you must make such amends as lie in your power. Your guilty partner—for I shall no longer call her daughter of mine—has confessed everything. Three days ago did she reveal all the agonizing circumstances to her mother: she named the author of her degradation —she mentioned your presence in this town, and the appointment which was made for to-night——~” CORNICLO@ SS (CO) AA