ABSTRACT
The report of the rencontre had reached Cranberry Hall long before our hero. It had acquired various forms and colours in its progress. It was sometimes a bloody battle, in which both were mortally wounded; and then an unprovoked assault, by Tickle, who had basely assassinated his antagonist, and would suffer death for the murder. All agreed that Mr. Moody could not survive; and some reports affirmed, that the assassin was apprehended. What a source of sorrow for the heart of Letitia, already enfeebled by repeated assaults of misfortune! She represented to herself, her faithful lover wan and fainting with loss of blood; dragged to a dungeon, among malefactors, to undergo an ignominious trial; and, perhaps, an untimely / death. And for what? For attempting to vindicate his own fame; to dispel the groundless suspicions which the treachery of her rival had excited. ‘The gallant youth could not live under my displeasure. It drove him, at first, to rush into solitude, into captivity and danger of death. It now has impelled him to sacrifice the brother, to efface the guilt and stain created by the perfidious sister! If he had not been true to me, why would he have hesitated to acknowledge his love? to have taken the hand which was forced on him? Would he have embrued his sword in the blood of the brother, for urging an union which he so eagerly aspired after? No! His truth, her treachery, my folly, and his undeserved misfortune, are now established too fatally! Generous youth! when he left me, I read his purpose in his eyes – to seal his innocence, if necessary, either with his own blood or that of his accuser! Why had I not retained him by / my embraces, and soothed the tumults of his bosom by my confidence? Thus his peace and life might have been rescued.’
