n it by
his courage. In the next place, for his devotion to that cause, he was a
banished and an outlawed man, with his life at the mercy of any one who
chose to take it. In the next he was well nigh penniless, with the life
of another, dear, most dear to his heart, depending entirely upon his
exertions.
The heart of the traveller, then, was ill, very ill at ease, but yet the
calm of that evening's sunshine had a sweet and tranquillizing effect.
There is a mirror--there is certainly a moral mirror in our hearts,
which reflects the images of the things around us; and every change that
comes over nature's face is mingled sweetly, though too often unnoticed,
with the thoughts and feelings called forth by other things. The effect
of that calm evening upon Lennard Sherbrooke was not to produce the
wild, bright, visionary dreams and expectations which seem the peculiar
offspring of the glowing morning, or of the bright and risen day; but it
was the counterpart, the image, the reflection of that evening scene
itself to which it gave rise in his heart. He felt tranquillized, he
felt more resolute, more capable of enduring. Grief and anxiety subsided
into melancholy and resolution, and the sweet influence of the hour had
also an effect beyond: it made him pause upon the memories of his past
life, upon many a scene of idle profligacy, revel, and riot,--of talents
cast away and opportunity neglected,--of fortune spent and bright hopes
blasted,--and of all the great advantages which he had once possessed
utterly lost and gone, with the exception of a kind and generous heart:
a jewel, indeed, but one which in this world, alas! can but too seldom
be turned to the advantage of the possessor.
On these things he pondered, and a sweet and ennobling regret came upon
him that it should be so--a regret which might have gone on to sincere
repentance, to firm amendment, to the retrieval of fortunes, to an utter
change of destiny, had the circumstances of the times, or any friendly
voice and helping hand, led his mind on upon that path wherein it had
already taken the first step, and had opened out before him a way of
retrieval, instead of forcing him onward down the hill of destruction.
But, alas! those were not times when the opportunity of doing better was
likely to be allowed to him; nor were circumstances destined to change
his course. His destiny, like that of many Jacobites of the day, was but
to be from ruin to ruin; and let it be remembered, that the character
and hist