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Title: A Love Story
Author: A Bushman
Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8883]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on August 20, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LOVE STORY ***
Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
A Love Story
by
A Bushman.
Vol. I.
“My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main,
And bear my spirit back again
Over the earth, and through the air,
A wild bird and a wanderer.”
1841.
To
Lady Gipps
This Work Is Respectfully Inscribed,
By
A Grateful Friend.
Preface.
The author of these pages considered that a lengthened explanation might
be necessary to account for the present work.
He had therefore, at some length, detailed the motives that influenced
him in its composition. He had shown that as a solitary companionless
bushman, it had been a pleasure to him in his lone evenings
“To create, and in creating live
A being more intense.”
He had expatiated on the love he bears his adopted country, and had
stated that he was greatly influenced by the hope that although
“Sparta hath many a worthier son than he,”
this work might be the humble cornerstone to some enduring and highly
ornamented structure.
The author however fortunately remembered, that readers have but little
sympathy with the motives of authors; but expect that their works should
amuse or instruct them. He will therefore content himself, with giving a
quotation from one of those old authors, whose “well of English
undefined” shames our modern writers.
He intreats that the indulgence prayed for by the learned Cowell may be
accorded to his humble efforts.
“My true end is the advancement of knowledge, and therefore have I
published this poor work, not only to impart the good thereof, to those
young ones that want it, but also to draw from the learned, the supply
of my defects.
“Whosoever will charge these travails with many oversights, he shall need
no solemn pains to prove them.
“And upon the view taken of this book sithence the impression, I dare
assure them, that shall observe most faults therein, that I, by gleaning
after him, will gather as many omitted by him, as he shall shew
committed by me.
“What a man saith well is not, however, to be rejected, because he hath
some errors; reprehend who will, in God’s name, that is, with sweetness,
and without reproach.
“So shall he reap hearty thanks at my hands, and thus more soundly help
in a few months, than I by tossing and tumbling my books at home, could
possibly have done in some years.”
A Love Story
Chapter I.
The Family.
“It was a vast and venerable pile.”
“Oh, may’st thou ever be as now thou art,
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring.”
The mansion in which dwelt the Delmés was one of wide and extensive
range. Its centre slightly receded, leaving a wing on either side.
Fluted ledges, extending the whole length of the building, protruded
above each story. These were supported by quaint heads of satyr, martyr,
or laughing triton. The upper ledge, which concealed the roof from
casual observers, was of considerably greater projection. Placed above
it, at intervals, were balls of marble, which, once of pure white, had
now caught the time-worn hue of the edifice itself. At each corner of
the front and wings, the balls were surmounted by the family device—the
eagle with extended wing. One claw closed over the stone, and the bird
rode it proudly an’ it had been the globe. The portico, of a pointed
Gothic, would have seemed heavy, had it not been lightened by glass
doors, the vivid colours of which were not of modern date. These
admitted to a capacious hall, where, reposing on the wide-spreading
antlers of some pristine tenant of the park, gleamed many a piece of
armour that in days of yore had not been worn ingloriously.
The Delmé family was an old Norman one, on whose antiquity a peerage
could have conferred no new lustre. At the period when the aristocracy
of Great Britain lent themselves to their own diminution of
importance, by the prevalent system of rejecting the poorer class of
tenantry, in many instances the most attached,—the consequence was
foreseen by the then proprietor of Delmé Park, who, spurning the
advice of some interested few around him, continued to foster those
whose ancestors had served his. The Delmés were thus enabled to
retain—and they deserved it—that fair homage which rank and property
should ever command. As a family they were popular, and as individuals
universally beloved.
At the period we speak of, the Delmé family consisted but of three
members: the baronet, Sir Henry Delmé; his brother George, some ten
years his junior, a lieutenant in a light infantry regiment at Malta;
and one sister, Emily, Emily Delmé was the youngest child; her mother
dying shortly after her birth. The father, Sir Reginald Delmé, a man of
strong feelings and social habits, never recovered this blow. Henry
Delmé was barely fifteen when he was called to the baronetcy and to the
possession of the Delmé estates. It was found that Sir Reginald had been
more generous than the world had given him credit for, and that his
estates were much encumbered. The trustees were disposed to rest
contented with paying off the strictly legal claims during Sir Henry’s
minority. This the young heir would not accede to. He waited on his
most influential guardian—told him he was aware his father, from
hospitality and good nature, had incurred obligations which the law did
not compel his son to pay; but which he could not but think that equity
and good feeling did. He begged that these might be added to the other
claims, and that the trustees would endeavour to procure him a
commission in the army. He was gazetted to a cornetcy; and entered life
at an age when, if the manlier traits are ready to be developed, the
worthless ones are equally sure to unfold themselves. Few of us that
have not found the first draught of life intoxicate! Few of us that have
not then run wild, as colts that have slipped their bridle!
Experience—that mystic word—is wanting; the retrospect of past years
wakes no sigh; expectant youth looks forward to future ones without a
shade of distrust. The mind is elastic—the body vigorous and free from
pain; and it is then youth inwardly feels, although not daring to avow
it, the almost total impossibility that the mind should wax less
vigorous, or the body grow helpless, and decay.
But Sir Henry was cast in a finer mould, nor did his conduct at this
dangerous period detract from this his trait of boyhood. He joined his
regiment when before the enemy, and, until he came of age, never drew on
his guardians for a shilling. Delmé‘s firmness of purpose, and his after
prudence, met with their due reward. The family estates became wholly
unencumbered, and Sir Henry was enabled to add to the too scanty
provision of his sister, as well as to make up to George, on his
entering the army, a sum more than adequate to all his wants. These
circumstances were enough to endear him to his family; and, in truth,
amidst all its members, there prevailed a confidence and an unanimity
which were never for an instant impaired. There was one consequence,
however, of Sir Henry Delmé‘s conduct that he, at the least, foresaw
not, but which was gradually and unconsciously developed. In pursuing
the line of duty he had marked out—in acting up to what he knew was
right—his mind became too deeply impressed with the circumstances
which had given rise to his determination. It overstepped its object.
The train of thought, to which necessity gave birth, continued to
pervade when that necessity no longer existed. His wish to re-establish
his house grew into an ardent desire to aggrandize it. His ambition
appeared a legitimate one. It grew with his years, and increased with
his strength.
Many a time, on the lone bivouac, when home presents itself in its
fairest colours to the soldier’s mind, would Delmé‘s prayer be embodied,
that his house might again be elevated, and that his descendants might
know him as the one to whom they were indebted for its rise. Delmé‘s
ambitious thoughts were created amidst dangers and toil, in a foreign
land, and far from those who shared his name. But his heart swelled high
with them as he again trod his native soil in peace—as he gazed on the
home of his fathers, and communed with those nearest and dearest to him
on earth. Sir Henry considered it incumbent on him to exert every means
that lay in his power to promote his grand object. A connection that
promised rank and honours, seemed to him an absolute essential that was
worth any sacrifice. Sir Henry never allowed himself to look for, or
give way to, those sacred sympathies, which the God of nature hath
implanted in the breasts of all of us. Delmé had arrived at middle age
ere a feeling incompatible with his views arose. But his had been a
dangerous experiment. Our hearts or minds, or whatever it may be that
takes the impression, resemble some crystalline lake that mirrors the
smallest object, and heightens its beauty; but if it once gets muddied
or ruffled, the most lovely object ceases to be reflected in its waters.
By the time that lake is clear again, the fairy form that ere while
lingered on its bosom is fled for ever.
Thus much in introducing the head of the family. Let us now attempt to
sketch the gentle Emily.
Emily Delmé was not an ordinary being. To uncommon talents, and a mind
of most refined order, she united great feminine propriety, and a total
absence of those arts which sometimes characterise those to whom the
accident of birth has given importance. With unerring discrimination,
she drew the exact line between vivacity and satire, true religion and
its semblance. She saw through and pitied those who, pluming themselves
on the faults of others, and imparting to the outward man the ascetic
inflexibility of the
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