CHAPTER XXXIX.

DEMONIACAL PUNISHMENT.

As Ernest stood, in anger and hatred, viewing the happiness of the newly-married pair, two of the runners of the Pandemonic council of his district made their appearance before him, and summoned him, in the dictator's name, to make his appearance immediately before his bench of judgment.

When he arrived, he found an immense crowd gathered, to attend, as they said, his trial for neglect and contumacy. Ernest at once stepped to the base of the throne, and inquired, in an exceedingly haughty manner, why he had been so abruptly summoned from his duties, to that tribunal.

An unusual sternness pervaded the features of the dictator, as he slowly turned his eyes on Ernest, and without reply or other notice, ordered the accusation to be read. The shrivelled secretary looked still paler and more malicious, as

he unfolded the roll; the usual sneer of his voice had more than its common virulence of hatred, as he slowly read. "Ernest Maltravers is accused of neglect of demoniacal duty as a tempter to Robert Woods, and has been summoned to this august presence, to answer to our dictator, and through him to our great master, for his delinquencies."

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Why summon me, more than any other baffled demon," exclaimed Ernest, "and why, at this period of my career, when a life-time is given for our temptations? There is some personal ill-will and malice contained in this accusation."

"As it regards the time," said the dictator, coolly, "your control over your victim has now ceased. A member of Congress, engaged in public life, requires our most experienced and vigilant tempters, ["one would suppose," whispered Sidney, "that some of our members of Congress had enough of the devil in them without any external temptation!"] for national evils may depend upon their success in tempting. Had you, then, by your exertions, brought your victim up to this important station, a wicked man, fit för our associate, you would have been released from

your obligations, as long as he continued connected with national affairs, and remained before the public eye: but your victim is an honest, upright, religious man. ["And yet a member of Congress!" exclaimed Sidney.] The very trials you have obliged him to undergo, have only strengthened his virtue and established his character for integrity and uprightness. Had this been the result of mere ignorance or mistake on your part, it would still show you to be culpable, and deserving of punishment: how much more, when the course you have taken has been to gratify personal malice, without any regard to consequences. I know that it is a great gratification to exercise our malice; but policy, and the laws of our great master, and the interests of his kingdom, require that our private malice should be laid aside, if it interferes with our great objects.

"You saw that in early boyhood, every slight of his companions, every sneer at the town-pauper, instead of irritating Robert Woods, only drove him to depend upon himself, to seek in his own mind resources for his own happiness; and yet you persevered in such injurious irritations, for the mere purpose of tormenting. Your victim was of that temperament to have had prosperity

make him boastful, self-confident, and forgetful of Providence. He was kind-hearted and affectionate; you could have tempted him to have placed his confidence and happiness in earthly friends, and not in the Deity. His skill and personal strength would then have made him the leader of his companions, and you and they could have easily hurried him into wrong; but instead of that, you would not allow the 'poorhouse boy' any friends or any companions; you drove him to thoughts, to intellectual exertion, to a dependence upon God. If he made a friend by his kind deportment and amiable temper, you broke off that friendship, not by Robert's improper conduct. The insults of the foreman of the sawmill; the betrayal of his confidence by his partner, the reproaches respecting his birth by Mr. Clifford, all operated alike; they showed him the injustice of men; and while he felt his character did not deserve such treatment, he knew that his situation did, for his mother had imprinted it on his young heart that it must be so, and would be so, and he did not murmur. You brought out the secret of his birth before his election for the mere purpose of personal irritation, when, had you waited until after the election, or after the

consent of the father had been gained to his mar riage, he would have had some motive for concealment; you then could have spread temptations for deception before his mind, and, probably, would have been successful; but, by bringing this reproach upon him while such important events were uncertain, you made it a matter of honour, and of course of interest, to be open; and it was a matter of more credit and satisfaction to him, to obtain his office and his mistress, when such a stain on his birth was known, than if it had been kept concealed. You took continually, in your desire to torment, the readiest course to lose your victim: with ordinary judgment you could have seen this, and probably did see it; hence the accusation, that you have preferred the gratification of your own private malice, to the interests of your master's cause, and are, therefore, punishable."

Ernest could hardly be restrained from replying until the dictator paused; he then burst out, "Who made me amenable to your laws or to your tribunal? True, I have taken the course you say; I have endeavoured to crush the hopes and plans of my illegitimate son; and what is that to you, or to any of this grinning assembly?