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The Adventures of Hugh Trevor

T >> Thomas Holcroft >> The Adventures of Hugh Trevor




The morning came, I was punctual, and the stranger was there. He
had slept at the house of Mr. Hilary. 'This, sir,' said the latter,
presenting me, 'is the young gentleman of whose acquaintance you are
so very desirous.'

The stranger regarded me earnestly; and, with great emotion in his
countenance, asked--'Are you, sir, the humane person, who found me
almost expiring; and by whose care I am now among the living?'

'I hope, sir, you do not think there was any thing extraordinary in
what I did?'

'I wish I had not reason so to think. How many there are who, from
mean and selfish motives, would have passed me I cannot say: but there
are few indeed that would have discharged the office you undertook
with so much unaffected and generous benevolence. I am in your debt,
sir, not only for my recovery, for which I can never repay you, but
literally for money expended. I shall forbear thanks, for I have none
that are adequate; but suffer me to rid myself of petty obligations.'

'I understand, sir, that you are rich, and I am not. I therefore
inform you, without hesitation, I left twenty pounds with the
physician.'

'You may well suppose that I returned, after my recovery, to enquire
for my preserver. I was then informed of your whole proceedings; and
of the anxiety with which, after your journey, you came to complete
the charitable office you had begun. And I own, sir, that I was so
desirous of seeing a person who, in the very fervour of youth, could
act and feel as you have done that, one excepted, you are the man on
earth I am most happy to meet.'

'Mr. Hilary tells me that we are to be travelling companions.'

'Most willingly. I have long been a wanderer, and am lately returned
to end my days in my native land. During my absence, the elder
branches of my family are all deceased. I brought back with me more
than sufficient for my own wants: but their property has descended to
me, and I now very unexpectedly find myself wealthy.'

'And have you no descendants, sir?'

'None. I am at present in search of a distant relation: whom if I
should find, and find him such as my present hopes and past knowledge
have pictured him, I shall be one of the happiest of men. To make this
and another enquiry is the purpose of the journey I now mean to take.
When I left England, I had no intention ever to return: I therefore
resolved to hold no correspondence with the persons whom I have left;
that I might not revive the memory of scenes and events which had been
full of anguish. By accident, about eighteen months ago, being then at
Grand Cairo I was informed that a person of my family had long been
dead. This determined me to settle my concerns abroad, and revisit my
native country. As however my informer spoke only from report, I am
desirous, before I make myself known, to verify this fact. I have my
reasons; which, from what I have said, you may suspect to be those of
resentment. But not so; they are only what I conceive to be necessary
precautions. Acrimony and anger have long since died away; and I have
but too much cause to condemn those actions of my life in which they
were indulged. The relation, whom I hope to find, I may unfortunately
discover to be more likely to misuse the wealth, that has devolved to
me by the death of the elder branches of my family, than to make it a
blessing to himself and others. It is true he is not my heir at law. I
have no heir: what I possess is at my own disposal. But he was once my
greatest favourite: and I would avoid any action that should excite
hopes which it might be weakness and vice in me to gratify.'

This short narrative was not merely delivered with a serious air; but
it was accompanied with somewhat of a plaintive tone, that rendered
the venerable stranger unusually interesting. It likewise excited
various wild yet not impossible conjectures in my mind, which made me
very eager to pursue the discourse. Mr. Hilary, whose mind had been
full of conjectures mingled with doubt, had not informed him of my
name.

'Is the person,' said I, 'in search of whom you mean to take this
journey young, or old?'

'About four and twenty. He was the son of my wife's sister; therefore
my relation only by marriage. He was certainly the most extraordinary
child I ever beheld. I cannot recollect him but with inconceivable
emotions of affection. Of all the sportive little creatures I ever
met with, he was the most active, the most undaunted, and the most
winning. Heaven bless the sweet boy! He was my delight. My eyes
overflow whenever I recall to mind the feats of his childhood, which
can never be long forgotten by me. My wife and her sister had been at
variance, and the first time I saw him was at a fair; when he was not
five years old. I found him placed on a table, where he stood reading
the newspaper to country farmers; who were collected round him, and
hearing him with astonishment. They seemed to doubt if he could
possibly be a child, born of a woman; and were more inclined to think
him a supernatural being. His flaxen curly hair, his intelligent eyes,
his rosy cheeks, his strong and proportioned limbs, and his cheerful
animated countenance, rendered him the most beautiful and most
endearing of human creatures. The discriminating sensibility which he
displayed was enchanting. Oh should he be living, should I find him,
and should he be at present all that his infancy promised, God of
heaven and earth! I should expire. The pleasure would be too mighty
for my years. But, should I survive it, I should once again before I
die feel the animating fervor of youth.'

I listened in amazement. I was not then acquainted with all the
incidents of my childhood so perfectly as, by hearing them repeated,
I since have been: but I knew enough of them to be persuaded the
discourse that I had heard could relate only to me. I paused. I gazed.
My eyes were riveted upon the narrator. At length I exclaimed--'What I
have just heard, sir, has excited very strange ideas. They seem almost
impossible: and yet I am persuaded they are true. Pardon a question
which I cannot refrain to ask. Surely I cannot be mistaken! Your name
is Elford?'

'Sir!'

'You are my--'

'Speak! Go on! What am I?'

'My uncle!'

'Heavens! Mr. Trevor! Is that your name?'

'It is.'

'Oh! God! Oh! God! Oh! God!--Hugh! Little Hugh! My boy! My sweet boy!'

Mr. Elford was almost overcome. In a moment he again cried--'My
saviour too! Still the same! Courageous, humane, generous! All that my
soul could desire! Oh shield me, deliver me from this excess of joy!'




CHAPTER XVII


_The conclusion_


One event only excepted, little remains to be told of my story; and
that one is doubtless anticipated by the imagination of the reader.
To describe the enquiries that passed between me and my uncle, the
various fortunes we had encountered, and the feelings they excited,
would be to write his history and tediously repeat my own. My
difficulties now disappeared. I was the acknowledged heir of a man
of great wealth: therefore, I myself am become a great man. Heaven
preserve me from becoming indolent, proud, and oppressive! I have
not yet forgotten that oppression exists, that pride is its chief
counsellor, that activity and usefulness are the sacred duties of both
rich and poor, that the wealth entrusted to my distribution is the
property of those whom most it can benefit, that I am a creature of
very few wants, but that those few in others as well as in myself are
imperious, and that I have felt them in all their rigour. Neither
have I yet shut my doors on one of my former friends. But I am
comparatively young in prosperity. How long I shall be able to
persevere in this eccentric conduct time must tell. At present I must
proceed, and mention the few remaining circumstances with which the
reader may wish to be acquainted.

After my uncle had heard me describe Olivia, and mention the motives
which induced me to wish to aid her brother, he immediately determined
on taking the journey we had before proposed. We neither of us wished
to separate. Robust in 'a green old age,' he had no fear of fatigue
from travelling this distance; and it would be a pleasure to revisit,
in my company, scenes which would bring my former sports and pranks to
his recollection. He heard from me a confirmation of the death of Mrs.
Elford; and heard it with the same tokens of melancholy in his face
which he had betrayed, when he spoke of her himself.

That I should have wished before I took this journey, short as it was,
to have seen Olivia, related all my good fortune and partaken in the
pleasure it would excite in her, may well be imagined: but forms,
and delicacies, and I know not what habitual feelings, forbad me the
enjoyment of this premature bliss. I wrote however, and not only to
her but to those tried and invaluable friends who were not to be
neglected.

We found Hector in a lamentable state. Instead of the bluff robust
form, which but shortly before he had worn, his limbs were shrunk, his
cheeks formerly of a high red were wan and hollow, his voice was gone,
his lungs were affected, and his cough was incessant. He had himself
at last begun to think his life in danger; and was preparing to return
to town for advice: consequently our stay was short. His reception
of me however was friendly. The increasing debility which he felt
softened his manners; and, when he understood the good fortune that
had befallen me, he seemed sincerely to rejoice.

And now let me request the reader to call to mind, not only my first
emotions of love for Olivia, and the violence of the passion that
preyed upon me while struggling between hope and despair, but those
late testimonies of affection, such as a mind so dignified as hers
could bestow; and then let him imagine what our meeting must be.
Should he expect me to describe her, such as she was and is, in all
her attractions, all her beauties, and all her various excellence, he
expects an impossible task. To be beloved by her, to be found worthy
of her, and to call her mine, are blessings that infinitely exceed
momentary rapture: they are lasting and indubitable happiness.

I know not if it will give him pleasure to be told that, could I
have delighted in revenge, I might have satiated myself with that
unworthy and destructive passion. The committee, appointed to decide
on the election, voted the Idford candidate guilty of bribery and
corruption. The fortune of the Earl, like that of Hector, has suffered
depredations which half a century will probably not repair. The
new-made peer and his party daily became so obnoxious to the nation,
by the destructive tendency of their measures, that they were and
continue to be haunted by terrors that deprive them of the faculties
common to man. My heart bears witness for me that I do not speak this
in triumph. I should be no less vicious than unworthy, could I triumph
in the misfortunes of any human being: but I were a wretch indeed,
were I to make mistakes that are the scourge of mankind a subject of
exultation.

Must I repeat more names? Is it necessary to say the virtues of Turl
and Wilmot are too splendid to need my praise: or that my social hours
are most beneficially and delightfully spent in their society? That
I have amply provided for the generous-minded Clarke? That Philip is
once more the good and faithful servant of a kind mistress? That Mary
and her son are equally objects of my attention? And that I do not
mean to boast of these things as acts of munificence: but as the
performance of duties?

This were unnecessary. Neither shall I be required to particularize
the present happiness of Lydia, now Mrs. Wakefield; and of that man of
brilliant and astonishing faculties who is her affectionate companion
and friend, and from whose exertions, if I am not strangely mistaken,
the world has so much to profit and so much to expect. Like me, he is
in the enjoyment of affluence; and he enjoys it with a liberal and
munificent spirit. Are there any who hate him, because he once was
guilty of hateful crimes? I hope not. It is a spirit that would sweep
away half the inhabitants of the 'peopled earth.' For my own part, I
delight in his conversation, am enlivened by his wit, and prompted to
enquiry by the acuteness of his remarks. He is a man whom I am proud
to say I love.

I have told my tale. If it should afford instruction, if it should
inspire a love of virtue, briefly, if it should contribute to the
happiness of mankind, I shall have gained my purpose. My labours will
be most richly rewarded.

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