PAUL LANDER. 311 



echoed with his name — he came not. Distracted with fear and 

 alarm, the wretched Luke refused to be comforted j with all his 

 son's peculiarities and neglect of duty, there was about him a 

 mysterious charm> which made him dear to his father. Why, 

 he knew not, but he felt proud of his pale-faced boy. The 

 night had nearly elapsed, the faint streaks of day were darting 

 round the horizon, the poor family sat in mute despair. — Hark ! — ^ 

 'tis a voice, a loud voice at the cottage door — again — ah, ah, ah, 

 my boy, my child, Paul 3 Luke staggered to the door, he clasped 

 his lost son to his heart — " Now I care not ;" he looked earnestly 

 in his pale and sickly face, ardently, fondly did he look, put his 

 dark hair aside from his hiah cold brow j and his light-hearted 

 brother took his hand, and his mother gazed on him, and they 

 wept, and those tears were like the sun-light shower — they were of 

 joy ; but the student we{)t not, moved not, spoke not — still he 

 seemed to look beyond them all. — My son — Paul — Paul — and as 

 they gazed on him he gently put aside their hands — " Father, I am 

 tired, I wish to sleep, my head is strangely confused, my eyes are 

 dim, sleep will refresh me." 



It was about a week after his son's absence when Luke received 

 a letter containing an intimation that unless the bond, then due, 

 was discharged in three days, his person and property would be 

 seized, to satisfy the claim. What could he do ? no friends, no 

 hope, no prospect of escape from ruin, and worse than death — 

 imprisonment j to be immured within the close, dark cell of a goal, 

 for no crime, no guilt, no shame; to be the mate of the most 

 abandoned, to go down to the grave with the seal of dishonour 

 upon his heart — " Oh God ! I am a poor old man; take me ere I go 

 mad with horror." He looked around his home, his once neat 

 happy home ; his wife, his drooping, now despairing wife, his 

 sons — Luke could not weep — he gazed from one to the other, 

 " Wife, sons, speak, or are you all dead, sure you have not left me 

 all alone ?" They wept ; " Weep on, weep on, I cannot weep, my 

 eyes are dry and burning, but I cannot shed one tear." On the 

 evening of the second day, they were assembled in the little room, 

 taking a last farewell of all around them ; the fire unlit, the room 

 disorderly and unclean. There sat, in mute despair, the wretched 

 Luke, his poor wife seeming about to bid farewell to all her 

 sorrows — pale, haggard, and abstracted ; the student looked list- 

 lessly on the flowered lattice, he scarcely breathed ; sometimes he 

 inclined his head, and seemed to listen, 'twas nothing — the wind — 

 the falling leaf. Edward, the gay, spirited Edward, how changed ; 

 his broad breast heaved with the dreadful throes of his agonized 

 heart. But how shall I paint such misery; who can paint the 

 agonies of the soul ? " Ah, they come," exclaimed Luke, " they 

 come ; hide me — wife — boys" — and the old man sunk, powerless, 

 on the ground. The noise of a carriage was heard in the distance, 

 rolling rapidly along. *' Yes, they come," said Paul, " they come." 

 Suddenly the carriage stopped — a little time elapsed, when two 

 persons were observed passing slowly on to Luke's cottage. A 



June, 1835. — vol. ii. no. xi. 2 s 



