moment
thought self-destruction allowable. Before principle had time to allay
this agony of acute feeling, a sob, that seemed to issue from a breaking
heart, made him raise his head to see if there were any as wretched as
himself. A pale war-worn figure stood beside him, leaning on a carbine;
his hat drawn over his eyes, and his body wrapped in a tattered
roquelaure. Eustace would have felt ashamed at yielding to such
expressions of poignant distress before any observer, had not the more
painful consideration that this person had been a witness of his
disgrace suppressed every other thought.

"Did you hear the General speak to me?" enquired Eustace in a perturbed
accent. After a long pause the stranger answered, "I did."--Those words
were uttered in a well-known voice; and at a moment of indelible shame
and public ruin, Eustace saw the long-desired features of his father:
that father, by whose side he hoped to have fought manfully, in defence
of his King and in pursuit of glorious renown, was the witness of an
accusation which even mercy could not pardon, and beheld him sinking
under the consciousness of acknowledged offences. Dignified in misery,
Colonel Evellin stood gazing at the youth on whose virtues his fondest
hopes had reposed, now sunk far below even his own desperate fortunes.
Eustace held his hands before his face, not daring even to ask a
blessing, nor presuming to enquire how they happened to meet at this
awful crisis.

Colonel Evellin first broke silence. "You are Eustace Evellin, my only
son, for whom I cherished the remnant of my unfortunate life.--Boy, I
was plundered of wealth, title, and reputation, by a perfidious friend.
I submitted to obscurity and poverty, for I was blessed with a faithful
wife in your angel-mother. Thanks be to Heaven, she lives not to see
this day!--I have fought and bled for my King. I have endured hardships
which would paralyze your pampered niceness to hear described. For
eleven months I fed on carrion, reposed on filth, deafened with the
sound of battering cannon, the shouts of besieging rebels, and the
groans of dying comrades. I have swam across rivers, warding the broken
ice from my wounded body. I have, like a hunted wolf, dressed those
wounds in mountain-fastnesses, shunning the abode of man, and eluding
pursuers whose mercy I disdained to ask. I have seen my King a prisoner,
without power to redress his wrongs; my country a prey to tyrants; all
her hallowed instituti