THE

FATALISTS;

OR,

RECORDS OF 1814 AND 1815.

A Novel.

IN FIVE VOLUMES

BY

MRS. KELLY,

AUTHOR OF THE MATRON OF ERIN, &c.

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour), we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity-fools by heavenly compulsion-knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance-drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. SHAKESPEARE.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

A. K. NEWMAN AND CO. LEADENHALL-STREET.

122

1

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to the world. Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such business as the bitter day
Would quake to look on.

Ibid.

THE few female visitants that appeared at the castle, with lady Courteney's love of prayer and meditation, gave Plunket

frequent opportunities of passing great part of the evenings alone with Geraldine, while sir Richard entertained his guests at table. These precious moments were occasionally given to literary discussions, or sage precepts of wisdom; but in which our Mentor, more disposed for admiration than instruction-for encomium than reproof, had to sustain a restrained part. Whenever this part, as it frequently happened, became too difficult to support, and that our hero's overcharged heart felt ready to escape his lips, he would fly from the tender confession his feelings were urging him to pour forth, to some solitary walk, of which little Arthur would be the sole companion; or, to disguise his softened thoughts, have recourse to music, in which Geraldine (who possessed a fine ear, and whose voice combined softness and melody) was a great proficient.

Thus forced to maintain a continual conflict between love and honour, Plunket felt his burning heart exhausted with the

painful

painful struggle, under whose incessant exertions his wasting form was sinking to decay. This conviction aroused at length the dormant energy of his firm nature, and forcibly impressed on his mind the necessity of a speedy departure, which (though to separate from Geraldine appeared more agonizing than death) he resolved no longer to defer. Aware, however, of the opposition which sir Richard, with cruel, though good-natured kindness, would give to his immediate departure, and conscious of his own failure of resolution to resist the friendly baronet's entrea ties for his longer stay, he arose early, after a night passed in restless agitation, and before breakfast set off for the neighbouring town, in order to suggest to doctor Acerbus the necessity of change of air for his perfect recovery, whose opinion to that effect, strengthening his own, would remove, he imagined, every obstacle his friends at the castle might oppose to his going away.