I felt as if the opportunity of
combating such evils was an enviable privilege, and, though none would
witness my victorious magnanimity, yet to be conscious that praise was
my due was all that my ambition required. These sentiments were doubtless tokens of delirium. The excruciating
agonies which now seized upon my head, and the cord which seemed to be
drawn across my breast, and which, as my fancy imagined, was tightened
by some forcible hand, with a view to strangle me, were incompatible
with sober and coherent views. Thirst was the evil which chiefly oppressed me. The means of relief was
pointed out by nature and habit. I rose, and determined to replenish my
pitcher at the well. It was easier, however, to descend than to return. My limbs refused to bear me, and I sat down upon the lower step of the
staircase. Several hours had elapsed since my entrance into this
dwelling, and it was now night. My imagination now suggested a new expedient. Medlicote was a generous
and fearless spirit. To put myself under his protection, if I could walk
as far as his lodgings, was the wisest proceeding which I could adopt. From this design, my incapacity to walk thus far, and the consequences
of being discovered in the street, had hitherto deterred me. These
impediments were now, in the confusion of my understanding, overlooked
or despised, and I forthwith set out upon this hopeless expedition. The doors communicating with the court, and, through the court, with the
street, were fastened by inside bolts. These were easily withdrawn, and
I issued forth with alacrity and confidence. My perturbed senses and the
darkness hindered me from discerning the right way. I was conscious of
this difficulty, but was not disheartened. I proceeded, as I have since
discovered, in a direction different from the true, but hesitated not
till my powers were exhausted and I sunk upon the ground. I closed my
eyes, and dismissed all fear, and all foresight of futurity. In this
situation I remained some hours, and should probably have expired on
this spot, had not I attracted your notice, and been provided, under
this roof, with all that medical skill, that the tenderest humanity
could suggest. In consequence of your care, I have been restored to life and to health. Your conduct was not influenced by the prospect of pecuniary recompense,
of service, or of gratitude. It is only in one way that I am able to
heighten the gratification which must flow from reflection on your
conduct:--by showing that the being whose life you have prolonged,
though uneducated, ignorant, and poor, is not profligate and worthless,
and will not dedicate that life which your bounty has given, to
mischievous or contemptible purposes. END OF VOL I.




ARTHUR MERVYN;

OR,

MEMOIRS OF THE YEAR 1793. VOL. II. ARTHUR MERVYN. CHAPTER XXIV. Here ended the narrative of Mervyn. Surely its incidents were of no
common kind. During this season of pestilence, my opportunities of
observation had been numerous, and I had not suffered them to pass
unimproved. The occurrences which fell within my own experience bore a
general resemblance to those which had just been related, but they did
not hinder the latter from striking on my mind with all the force of
novelty. They served no end, but as vouchers for the truth of the tale. Surely the youth had displayed inimitable and heroic qualities. His
courage was the growth of benevolence and reason, and not the child of
insensibility and the nursling of habit. He had been qualified for the
encounter of gigantic dangers by no laborious education. He stepped
forth upon the stage, unfurnished, by anticipation or experience, with
the means of security against fraud; and yet, by the aid of pure
intentions, had frustrated the wiles of an accomplished and veteran
deceiver. I blessed the chance which placed the youth under my protection. When I
reflected on that tissue of nice contingencies which led him to my door,
and enabled me to save from death a being of such rare endowments, my
heart overflowed with joy, not unmingled with regrets and trepidation. How many have been cut off by this disease, in their career of virtue
and their blossom-time of genius! How many deeds of heroism and
self-devotion are ravished from existence, and consigned to hopeless
oblivion! I had saved the life of this youth. This was not the limit of my duty or
my power. Could I not render that life profitable to himself and to
mankind? The gains of my profession were slender; but these gains were
sufficient for his maintenance as well as my own. By residing with me,
partaking my instructions, and reading my books, he would, in a few
years, be fitted for the practice of physic. A science whose truths are
so conducive to the welfare of mankind, and which comprehends the whole
system of nature, could not but gratify a mind so beneficent and
strenuous as his. This scheme occurred to me as soon as the conclusion of his tale allowed
me to think. I did not immediately mention it, since the approbation of
my wife, of whose concurrence, however, I entertained no doubt, was
previously to be obtained. Dismissing it, for the present, from my
thoughts, I reverted to the incidents of his tale. The lady whom Welbeck had betrayed and deserted was not unknown to me. I
was but too well acquainted with her fate. If she had been single in
calamity, her tale would have been listened to with insupportable
sympathy; but the frequency of the spectacle of distress seems to lessen
the compassion with which it is reviewed. Now that those scenes are only
remembered, my anguish is greater than when they were witnessed. Then
every new day was only a repetition of the disasters of the foregoing. My sensibility, if not extinguished, was blunted; and I gazed upon the
complicated ills of poverty and sickness with a degree of unconcern on
which I should once have reflected with astonishment. The fate of Clemenza Lodi was not, perhaps, more signal than many which
have occurred. It threw detestable light upon the character of Welbeck,
and showed him to be more inhuman than the tale of Mervyn had evinced
him to be. That man, indeed, was hitherto imperfectly seen. The time had
not come which should fully unfold the enormity of his transgressions
and the complexity of his frauds. There lived in a remote quarter of the city a woman, by name Villars,
who passed for the widow of an English officer. Her manners and mode of
living were specious. She had three daughters, well trained in the
school of fashion, and elegant in person, manners, and dress. They had
lately arrived from Europe, and, for a time, received from their
neighbours that respect to which their education and fortune appeared to
lay claim. The fallacy of their pretensions slowly appeared. It began to be
suspected that their subsistence was derived not from pension or
patrimony, but from the wages of pollution.