LETTER XXVI

Colonel Morden, to John Belford, Esq. 
Sunday night, Sept. 10.

DEAR SIR,

According to my promise, I send you an account of matters here.  Poor Mrs. Norton was so very ill upon the road, that, slowly as the hearse moved, and the chariot followed, I was afraid we should not have got her to St. Albans.  We put up there as I had intended.  I was in hopes that she would have been better for the stop:  but I was forced to leave her behind me.  I ordered the maid-servant you were so considerately kind as to send down with her, to be very careful of her; and left the chariot to attend her.  She deserves all the regard that can be paid her; not only upon my cousin’s account, but on her own—­she is an excellent woman.

When we were within five miles of Harlowe-place, I put on a hand-gallop.  I ordered the hearse to proceed more slowly still, the cross-road we were in being rough; and having more time before us than I wanted; for I wished not the hearse to be in till near dusk.  I got to Harlowe-place about four o’clock.  You may believe I found a mournful house.  You desire me to be very minute.

At my entrance into the court, they were all in motion.  Every servant whom I saw had swelled eyes, and looked with so much concern, that at first I apprehended some new disaster had happened in the family.  Mr. John and Mr. Antony Harlowe and Mrs. Hervey were there.  They all helped on one another’s grief, as they had before done each other’s hardness of heart.

My cousin James met me at the entrance of the hall.  His countenance expressed a fixed concern; and he desired me to excuse his behaviour the last time I was there.

My cousin Arabella came to me full of tears and grief.

O Cousin! said she, hanging upon my arm, I dare not ask you any questions!—­About the approach of the hearse, I suppose she meant.

I myself was full of grief; and, without going farther or speaking, sat down in the hall in the first chair.

The brother sat on one hand of me, the sister on the other.  Both were silent.  The latter in tears.

Mr. Antony Harlowe came to me soon after.  His face was overspread with all the appearance of woe.  He requested me to walk into the parlour; where, as he said, were all his fellow-mourners.

I attended him in.  My cousins James and Arabella followed me.

A perfect concert of grief, as I may say, broke out the moment I entered the parlour.

My cousin Harlowe, the dear creature’s father, as soon as he saw me, said, O Cousin, Cousin, of all our family, you are the only one who have nothing to reproach yourself with!—­You are a happy man!

The poor mother, bowing her head to me in speechless grief, sat with her handkerchief held to her eyes with one hand.  The other hand was held by her sister Hervey, between both her’s; Mrs. Hervey weeping upon it.