Ernest Maltravers | Page 9

and saw that they were already the subject of curious
observation to the various passengers that overtook them. "Don't
forget!" he whispered, and strode on with a pace that soon brought him
to the town.
He inquired for the principal hotel--entered it with an air that bespoke
that nameless consciousness of superiority which belongs to those
accustomed to purchase welcome wherever welcome is bought and
sold--and before a blazing fire and no unsubstantial breakfast, forgot all
the terrors of the past night, or rather felt rejoiced to think he had added
a new and strange hazard to the catalogue of adventures already
experienced by Ernest Maltravers.
CHAPTER IV.
"Con una Dama tenia Un galan conversacion."* MORATIN: /El Teatro
Espanol/.--Num. 15.
* With a dame he held a gallant conversation.
MALTRAVERS was first at the appointed place. His character was in
most respects singularly energetic, decided, and premature in its
development; but not so in regard to women: with them he was the
creature of the moment; and, driven to and fro by whatever impulse, or
whatever passion, caught the caprice of a wild, roving, and all-poetical
imagination, Maltravers was, half unconsciously, a poet--a poet of
action, and woman was his muse.
He had formed no plan of conduct towards the poor girl he was to meet.
He meant no harm to her. If she had been less handsome, he would
have been equally grateful; and her dress, and youth, and condition,
would equally have compelled him to select the hour of dusk for an
interview.

He arrived at the spot. The winter night had already descended; but a
sharp frost had set in: the air was clear, the stars were bright, and the
long shadows slept, still and calm, along the broad road, and the
whitened fields beyond.
He walked briskly to and fro, without much thought of the interview, or
its object, half chanting old verses, German and English, to himself,
and stopping to gaze every moment at the silent stars.
At length he saw Alice approach: she came up to him timidly and
gently. His heart beat more quickly; he felt that he was young and alone
with beauty. "Sweet girl," he said, with involuntary and mechanical
compliment, "how well this light becomes you. How shall I thank you
for not forgetting me?"
Alice surrendered her hand to his without a struggle.
"What is your name?" said he, bending his face down to hers.
"Alice Darvil."
"And your terrible father,--/is/ he, in truth, your father?"
"Indeed he is my father and mother too!"
"What made you suspect his intention to murder me? Has he ever
attempted the like crime?"
"No; but lately he has often talked of robbery. He is very poor, sir. And
when I saw his eye, and when afterwards, while your back was turned,
he took the key from the door, I felt that--that you were in danger."
"Good girl--go on."
"I told him so when we went up-stairs. I did not know what to believe,
when he said he would not hurt you; but I stole the key of the front
door, which he had thrown on the table, and went to my room. I
listened at my door; I heard him go down the stairs--he stopped there
for some time; and I watched him from above. The place where he was

opened to the field by the back-way. After some time, I heard a voice
whisper him; I knew the voice, and then they both went out by the
back-way; so I stole down, and went out and listened; and I knew the
other man was John Walters. I'm afraid of /him/, sir. And then Walters
said, says he, 'I will get the hammer, and, sleep or wake, we'll do it.'
And father said, 'It's in the shed.' So I saw there was no time to be lost,
sir, and--and--but you know all the rest."
"But how did you escape?"
"Oh, my father, after talking to Walters, came to my room, and beat
and--and--frightened me; and when he was gone to bed, I put on my
clothes, and stole out; it was just light; and I walked on till I met you."
"Poor child, in what a den of vice you have been brought up!"
"Anan, sir."
"She don't understand me. Have you been taught to read and write?"
"Oh no!"
"But I suppose you have been taught, at least, to say your
catechism--and you pray sometimes?"
"I have prayed to father not to beat me."
"But to God?"
"God, sir--what is that?"*
* This ignorance--indeed the whole sketch of Alice--is from the life;
nor is such ignorance, accompanied by what almost seems an
instinctive or intuitive notion of right or wrong, very uncommon, as our
police reports can testify. In the /Examiner/ for, I