AUBREY CONYERS: OB, THE LORDSHIP OF ALLERDALE. CHAPTER I. "Who would bear the whips and scorns of time; Which patient merit of the unworthy takes." HAMLET. A GLOOMY day, at the latter end of a chill and wet October, was beginning to close with such symptoms of a tempestuous night, that a solitary traveller, in one of the wild districts of Cumberland, for a moment checking his horse, cast his eyes anxiously round in the hope of discerning some place of shelter. It was scarcely possible to imagine a prospect more dreary; around him lay a wild, dismal heath, occasionally sinking into hollows, or marshes, which would make it dangerous travelling after dark. To the left, this heath was bounded by chaotic masses of mountain, but this boundary gloomed only in a dark broken line against the horizon, a nearer approach would have exhibited it in a more fearful form, for among those hills were situated some of the B lead mines of the county, and deep gullies and yawning precipices, 'dark even at noonday, assumed an aspect absolutely appalling in the thickening gloom of a winter evening. To the right, amid that gloom, the traveller's eye could detect no boundary to the heath, save a trivial gleam of the sunset, breaking through the stormy clouds. The plashing of some large drops of rain, and a more bitter gust of wind, which came howling over the waste like the cry of an evil spirit, warned the traveller of the rapid approach of the tempest which had been threatened for the last hour. In the increasing obscurity, however, if there were on that desolate heath any human habitation, he could not discover it, and wrapping his large military mantle more closely round him, he put spurs to his horse, and prepared to face the pelting of the storm of elements with the same calm courage of endurance which had so often supported him in the conflict of life. A bitter smile even crossed his lip, as the wind still rose in louder gusts, and drove a sheet of rain, hail, and sleet against his person, and he muttered, partly appropriating the words of Lear, "I tax not you, ye elements, with unkindness: neither rain, hail, wind, nor thunder, are my creditors;" "and yet," he added, with a groan of mingled pride and anguish, you, my poor mother, my dear sister Adela; you have to face a storm more terrible than this; the bitter tongues of angry wretches who hold your poverty for your sin, and insolently tell you that you will not pay, because you cannot! And the sickness of my mother, and the beauty of my darling sister; oh! what cruel aggravations are they to the cup of gall, while I, alas, alas! how little can I do to assist them; how small a relief to their necessities will be the portion of my poor pay which I have to-day sent them !" 66 AUBREY CONYERS: ов, THE LORDSHIP OF ALLERDALE. CHAPTER I. "Who would bear the whips and scorns of time; Which patient merit of the unworthy takes." HAMLET. A GLOOMY day, at the latter end of a chill and wet October, was beginning to close with such symptoms of a tempestuous night, that a solitary traveller, in one of the wild districts of Cumberland, for a moment checking his horse, cast his eyes anxiously round in the hope of discerning some place of shelter. It was scarcely possible to imagine a prospect more dreary; around him lay a wild, dismal heath, occasionally sinking into hollows, or marshes, which would make it dangerous travelling after dark. To the left, this heath was bounded by chaotic masses of mountain, but this boundary gloomed only in a dark broken line against the horizon, a nearer approach would have exhibited it in a more fearful form, for among those hills were situated some of the B which was, doubtless, that his tastes and inclinations were always at issue with the mercantile pursuits to which he had been by necessity devoted. Mr. Conyers was not fit for trade; it was at variance with his principles to cheat others, and he was so easily cheated that a wealthy uncle on the mother's side, who had introduced him to mercantile business, disgusted with what he called his carelessness, refused all assistance in a crisis of his nephew's affairs, which resulted in bankruptcy, and within six months of its date the brokenhearted father of Conyers was laid in his grave. Aubrey was then but twelve years of age, and his sister scarcely six, and as the health of Mrs. Conyers was very feeble, and the family had no near relation save the selfish uncle who had refused assistance to preserve his nephew from total ruin, their condition would have been very pitiable indeed, but for the aid of a distant cousin of Mrs. Conyers, who received her into his house, and was at the expense of educating Aubrey for the military profession. Unfortunately, however, for the Conyers family, General St. Leger was one of those persons who do kind things, not from principle but from caprice, and after supporting the widow and her daughter for years, presenting Aubrey with a commission, and intimating that he should bequeath to him the bulk of his large fortune, he wholly withdrew his countenance, because Adela Conyers, a beautiful girl of seventeen, refused to become the wife of an ill-tempered man almost treble her age, an old companion in arms of the General. In this displeasure Aubrey also was included, for no other reason than that he refused to exert his influence with his sister to make her permanently unhappy. The threat, too, which the General used of withdrawing all pecuniary assistance was unwisely urged upon a spirit so proud as that of Aubrey Conyers, and when he took the General at his word, on being ordered to quit his house for ever, the perverse and irascible old man, who, with all his faults, had been much attached to Aubrey, inflicted upon himself, in repelling the almost filial love of the young man, a wound no less severe than that which he meant only for the objects of his wrath. Three weary years had elapsed since then; the path of promotion, which Aubrey could not pave with gold, was not easy of access, and the uncertain earnings of his sister as a governess, with his lieutenant's pay, were their sole means of supporting themselves and a mother, whose miserably ill health was made worse by the want of necessary comforts, and peace of mind. Oh, it was no wonder that Aubrey so little heeded for himself that bitter cheerless night; his thoughts were with his sister,-thinly clad, and perhaps wearily seeking her home at that very hour, after a day of annoyance and toil, and possible insult in the exercise of that odious profession which left her at the scant mercy of her own sex, of its most selfish and worldly-minded members, well-to-do wives, and doting mothers of ugly evil-conditioned urchins, who were in their eyes models of amiability and grace, and who, it was never to be forgotten, most heartily hated Miss Conyers for the youth and beauty, the talent and accomplishments which they did not themselves possess. And after the sufferings of the day, to what a home must the poor Adela return,—to nurse a sick mother, to a scanty table, perhaps to a rapacious landlady. But no; from that aggravation of distress, the money which Aubrey had that morning transmitted from his pay would for a time release those dear ones; and with a heart somewhat lightened by that thought, he again endeavoured through the pelting storm to discover some place of shelter. Afar off, through the driving |