540 THE MALEDICTEU. 



at that moment blew back the rich velvet pall, and the sun streamed full 

 upon the gilded memorial on the lid. Oh ! those rays were basilisks. 

 I read 



MARIAN KENNEDY, 

 AGED 21. 



And they had murdered her ! Too loving too faithful girl ! She 

 could not she dared not vindicate her opinion of my innocence, but she 

 could die ! Ha ! what horrible thought flashed across my brain the 

 fatal words! ran they not so? "and every living wretch who shall 

 dare to claim your alliance !" Oh ! most unhappy mother thou hadst 

 spoken words of fire against thy darling child ! 



It moved away they bore her from me the faithful even unto 

 death and I beheld her no more. Respect and honour be with her 

 beloved name. 



The last link was broken that bound me to the world. I would have 

 been content in that moment to have yielded up my spirit and shared the 

 grave of my poor Marian. I had nothing to live for none to love me 

 and, now, none to love. 



My resolution was taken. If I am doomed to live, I said, I will have 

 but one witness of the past. The wilds of the new world are open to 

 me, and in their depths I will seek a shelter. What ! if I shared the 

 covert of a savage ? have I not lived amongst the civilized ? 



As soon as the ordinary preparations were completed, I embarked for 

 America. To me, who was utterly ignorant of a maritimal life, the first 

 few days were sufficiently irksome ; but I felt I was wedded to mis- 

 fortune, and I resolved to make a virtue of endurance. The compara- 

 tive loneliness, too, of my situation affected me, and the undying worm 

 which was preying on my heart, rendered me a victim to the most 

 miserable of morbid conditions. It was in vain that I endeavoured to 

 shake off this mental lethargy in vain that I sought relief in the vast- 

 ness and originality of the scene around me. I was personally witnessing 

 the glorious descriptions, which almost every man has read with feel- 

 ings he will probably never forget, and yet, this new and mighty aspect 

 of nature failed to awaken one burst of admiration, or elicit one sentiment 

 of rapture, from a mind buoyant and imaginative both by nature and 

 by education. My nights were not less miserable than my days were 

 unhappy ; the season of repose brought no succour to the maledicted. 

 The images of my waking thoughts resolved themselves into awful 

 phantoms for the hours of sleep, and distressed me, till the bare idea of 

 retiring to rest became a burden to me. Often and often have I stood 

 in moody silence, and watched the lessening rays of the retiring sun, as 

 he withdrew his glories for the irradiation of another sphere. I have 

 marked in mute regret, the solemn advances of darkness, till the cur- 

 tained heavens became invisible, and I returned to my cabin with 

 loathing and alarm. In the middle of the night I would start from my 

 intermittent slumbers with the voice of the denouncer ringing in my 

 ears. " Clement Kennedy, thou art avenged !" At other times, my 

 eyes would be appalled by the horrid vision of the kneeling females, re- 



