The Loyalists Part 1

The Loyalists.

by Jane West.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Abate the edge of Traitors, gracious Lord, That would reduce these b.l.o.o.d.y days again, And make poor England weep in streams of blood!

Shakspeare.

Those who have but an indifferent banquet to offer, are not usually inclined to discourage their guests, by a repulsive bill of fare; yet surely, when a public invitation is given, there is honesty, and prudence too, in simply stating the kind of regale we are going to spread, lest a palled and sickly appet.i.te should expect stimulants, or a perverted taste should pine for foreign luxuries and modern cookery, when we have nothing to set before them but plain old English food.

Church and King now look as obsolete in a publication, as beef and pudding would at a gala dinner; yet let us remember, that as the latter have fed our heroes from the days of Cressy and Agincourt to the present times, so the former have fas.h.i.+oned minds fit to animate these mighty bodies. It is only to those who have a relish for stern virtue and grave reflection, that I would recommend the following pages.

I have dated this narrative in a peculiarly calamitous period, though well aware that virtue, like happiness, is supposed to flourish most in times of tranquility. Such times afford no subjects for the historian or the bard; and even the moralist is often led to revert rather to those stormy eras which roused the energies of the human soul, and compelled it to a.s.sert qualities of which they who have observed only the repose of domestic life can form no conception. Man, attempting with finite powers to compa.s.s the most stupendous designs in spite of physical or moral obstacles; submitting to every privation, braving danger and death, often even defying omnipotence, and all for the sake of some speculative tenet, some doubtful advantage, the post of honour burdened by superlative responsibility, or the eminence of power attended with perpetual care, is an object no less interesting to the philosopher, than it is miraculous to the peasant, who places enjoyment in ease and animal indulgence. It is on the motives and actions which characterise this self-denial and enterprise, that the hero and the statesman fix their attention; forming their models, and drawing their conclusions, not from the pa.s.sive inclinations, but from the capabilities of our species, not from what man would or ought to prefer, but from what he has achieved when stimulated by hope, goaded by ambition, or instigated by desperation.

Under the influence of these pa.s.sions, how often has one restless spirit disturbed the repose of a prosperous nation, and spread desolation and misery over the fairest portions of the globe. Does G.o.d permit this--and is he righteous? Yes, short-sighted questioner of Omniscience, the Father of the universe is never more conspicuous in his paternal care, than when, by means of temporal afflictions, he draws our regards toward our heavenly country.--Then is death disarmed of the terrors which are planted round the bed of prosperity; then is the soul freed from that bondage of sensual delight, which impedes her spiritual exertion. The no longer pampered body, subdued to spareness, braced by toil, elastic from exertion, and patient from habit, is not a clog, but a meet companion for its immortal a.s.sociate. Prosperity, among many other evils, engenders religious apathy, and luxurious selfishness. She presents a gorgeous stage, on which the puppets of vanity and petty ambition act their insignificant parts; adversity educates and exercises men.

Nor is the moral harvest a mere gleaning of good deeds. Where misery and wickedness seem most to abound; where desperadoes and plunderers go forth to destroy and pillage; the pa.s.sive virtues pray, and endure.

Self-devoting generosity then interposes her s.h.i.+eld, and magnanimous heroism her sword; benevolence seeks out and consoles distress; the confessor intercedes with heaven; the patriot sacrifices his fortune and his comforts; the martyr dies on the scaffold, and the hero in the field. England hath often witnessed such piteous scenes, and many fear she is now on the verge of similar calamities, which threaten to cloud her glory from the envy and admiration of foreign nations, making her a taunting proverb of reproach to her enemies, while she points a moral, and adorns a tale, for posterity. May those who govern her wide extended empire, so study the records of our former woes, and shape their political course with such single-hearted observance of the unerring laws of G.o.d, as to become, under his Providence, our preservers from danger; and may the governed, remembering the tyranny which originated from insubordination; the daring ambition of popular demagogues; the hypocrisy of noisy reformers, and all the certain misery which arises from the pursuit of speculative unattainable perfection, adhere to those inst.i.tutions, which have been consecrated with the best blood in England, and proved by the experience of ages to be consistent with as large a portion of national prosperity, as any people have ever enjoyed.

Yet as our offences may prevail over our prayers, let us prepare our minds for times of trial. The public duties they require, are adapted to the discussion of that s.e.x, whose physical and mental powers fit it for active life, and deliberate policy. But the exercise of the milder virtues is imperiously called for in seasons of national alarm. Whether we are to endure the loss of our accustomed wealth and luxury, or to encounter the far heavier trial of domestic confusion, there are habits of thinking and acting, which will conduce to individual comfort and improvement. There are sorrows which neither "King nor laws can cause or cure;" enjoyments, that no tyrant can withhold; and blessings, which even the wildest theories of democracy cannot destroy. The asylum where these sacred heritages of a good conscience are generally concealed, is the domestic hearth, that circ.u.mscribed but important precinct where the female Lares sit as guardians. Is it presumptuous in one, who has long officiated at such an household altar, again to solicit the forbearance and favour, which she has often experienced, by calling public attention to a popular way of communicating opinions, not first invented by herself, though she has often had recourse to it. The tale she now chooses as a vehicle, aims at conveying instruction to the present times, under the form of a chronicle of the past. The political and religious motives, which convulsed England in the middle of the seventeenth century, bear so striking a resemblance to those which are now attempted to be promulgated, that surely it must be salutary to remind the inconsiderate, that reformists introduced first anarchy and then despotism, and that a mult.i.tude of new religions gave birth to infidelity.

Nor let the serious hue which a story must wear that is dated in those times, when the church militant was called to the house of mourning, deter the gay and young from a patient perusal. Whatever mere prudential instructors may affirm, worldly prosperity should not be held out as the criterion, or the reward of right conduct. Let us remember St.

Augustine's answer to those Pagans, who reproached him with the evils that Christians, in common with themselves, suffered from the then convulsed state of the world. They asked him, "Where is thy G.o.d?" But he declined founding the believer's privileges on individual exemptions, or personal providences. "My G.o.d," said he, "in all his attributes, different from the false impotent G.o.ds of the Heathen, is to be found wherever his wors.h.i.+ppers are;--if I am carried into captivity, his consolations shall yet reach me;--if I lose the possessions of this life, my precious faith shall still supply their want;--and if I die, not as the suffering heathen dies, by his own impious and impatient hand, but in obedience to the will of G.o.d, my great reward begins. I shall enter upon a life that will never be taken from me; and henceforth all tears shall be wiped from my eyes."

Adversity purifies communities, as well as individuals. If fastidiousness, selfishness, pride, and sensuality, conspire to cloud, with imaginary woes, the enjoyments of those whom others deem happy and prosperous; faction, discontent, a querulous appet.i.te for freedom, and an inordinate ambition to acquire sudden pre-eminence, disturb public tranquillity, when a country has long enjoyed the blessings of plenty and repose. Previous to the commencement of that great rebellion, which tore the crown and mitre from the degraded s.h.i.+eld of Britain, our forefathers, as we are informed by the n.o.ble historian of his country's woes and shames[1], experienced an unusual share of prosperity. During the early part of the reign of King Charles the First, he tells us, "this nation enjoyed the greatest calm, and the fullest measure of felicity that any people of any age for so long a time together had been blessed with, to the envy and wonder of all the other parts of Christendom." The portrait he draws is so striking, that I must exhibit it in its native colours. "A happiness invidiously set off by this distinction, that every other kingdom, every other state, were entangled and almost destroyed by the fury of arms. The court was in great plenty, or rather (which is the discredit of plenty) excess and luxury, the country rich, and what is more, fully enjoying the pleasure of its own wealth, and so the more easily corrupted with the pride and wantonness of it. The church flouris.h.i.+ng with learned and extraordinary men; trade increased to that degree, that we were the exchange of Christendom; foreign merchants looking upon nothing so much their own, as what they had laid up in the warehouses of this kingdom; the royal navy in number and equipage, very formidable at sea; lastly, for a complement of all these blessings, they were enjoyed under the protection of a King of the most harmless disposition; the most exemplary piety; the greatest sobriety, chast.i.ty, and mercy, that ever Prince had been endowed with: But all these blessings could but enable, not compel, us to be happy. We wanted that sense, acknowledgement, and value of our own happiness, which all but we had; and we took pains to make, when we could not find ourselves miserable. There was in truth a strange absence of understanding in most, and a strange perverseness of understanding in the rest. The court full of excess, idleness, and luxury; the country full of pride, mutiny, and discontent. Every man more troubled and perplexed at what they called the violation of one law, than delighted or pleased with the observance of all the rest of the charter. Never imputing the increase of their receipts, revenue, and plenty, to the wisdom, virtue, and merit of the crown; but objecting every small imposition to the exorbitancy and tyranny of the government. The growth of knowledge and virtue were disrelished for the infirmities of some learned men, and the increase of grace and favour to the church was more repined and murmured at than the increase of piety and devotion in it were regarded."

Such was the lowering calm of ungrateful discontent, which ushered in a fearful season of crime and punishment, described at large by one who was an ill.u.s.trious actor on that eventful stage, and composed his history, "that posterity might not be deceived by the prosperity of wickedness into a belief that nothing less than a general combination of an whole nation, and a universal apostacy from their religion and allegiance, could, in so short a time, have produced such a prodigious and total alteration; and that the memory of those, who out of duty and conscience have opposed that torrent which overwhelmed them, may not lose the recompence due to their virtues, but having undergone the injuries and reproaches of that, might find a vindication in a better age."

In describing the scenes which ensued, "when an infatuated people, ripe and prepared for destruction, plunged by the just judgment of G.o.d into all the perverse actions of folly and madness," he reads us such important lessons as must strike an enlightened public, if recalled to their attention. He tells us, by fatal experience, "that the weak contributed to the designs of the wicked, while the latter, out of a conscience of their guilt, grew by desperation worse than they intended to be. That the wise were often imposed upon by men of small understandings. That the innocent were possessed with laziness, and slept in the most visible article of danger, and that the ill-disposed, though of the most different opinions, opposite interests, and distant affections, united in a firm and constant league of mischief, while those whose opinions and interests were the same, divided into factions and emulations more pernicious to the public than the treasons of others. Meanwhile the community, under pretence of zeal for religion, law, liberty, and parliament, (words of precious esteem in their just signification,) were furiously hurried into actions introducing atheism, and dissolving all the elements of the Christian religion."

So great were the miseries incident to civil commotion, so soon did the mask fall off from those pseudo-patriots, that all parties except the creatures of the ambitious Cromwel, ardently looked for the restoration of their imprisoned King, as a termination of their own sorrows, as well as of his misfortunes. And when that hope was frustrated "by the most consummate hypocrisy and atrocious breach of all law and justice," the iron pressure of those times of pretended liberty and equality that ensued, led every one, who had not by some unpardonable crime hazarded his own safety, to welcome back the son of the royal victim to the const.i.tution and honour of England, with such rash exuberance of confiding loyalty, that, by intrusting to his careless hand the full possession of unrestrained power, they laid the foundation of future contests and confusion. Such were the prospective evils with which the Oliverian usurpation afflicted the state, while in the department of morals, piety was brought into such contempt by the extravagance of fanatics, and the detected cheats of hypocrites, that atheism and profaneness grew popular, as being more open and candid in their avowed profligacy. The oppressive, or as his admirers call it, the vigorous government of Cromwell humbled the proud spirit of Englishmen, who had often revolted at the excessive stretches of prerogative under their legitimate kings; and this new habit of submission, added to a deep repentance for their late crime, so struck the independent character of the nation, that a cabal of atheists and libertines persuaded an unprincipled Prince that he might as easily found his throne on what was then deemed the firm basis of despotism, as many of the Continental princes had done. If, as Englishmen, we blush at the disgrace of a King sold to France, and a court and nation abandoned to such licentious contempt of all Christian obligations, that even decency is compelled to consign their polite literature to oblivion, we must seek for the seeds of this twofold degradation in the times of which I propose to exhibit a familiar portrait, ill.u.s.trated by imaginary characters and events, but carefully compared with warranted originals.

It remains to say something of the conduct of this design. Public events will be stated with fidelity. Historical characters shall be but sparingly combined with feigned actions, but, where they, are, great care shall be taken that they be neither flattered, calumniated, nor overcharged; and, I believe, they may be found to have behaved in much the same manner to others, as I shall represent them to do to the imaginary persons whom I bring on the scene. The long s.p.a.ce of years which this narrative embraces, is, I know, a great abatement of its interest. It is a fault which could not be avoided without falsifying chronology at a period familiar to every well-read person, or losing sight of the admonitory lesson which the tale was intended to convey.

I know that there is no small share of hardihood in my attempt: Bigotry, superst.i.tious adherence to existing inst.i.tutions, exclusive partiality to a sect, and pertinacious resistance to the increase of liberal information, are well-sounding epithets easily applied, and too grateful to the million to want popularity. Those who write with no higher motive than to please the prevailing taste, must beware of touching upon topics which are likely to rouse the hostile feelings of self-importance, and to disgust would-be statesmen and intuitive divines. Ridicule will never disprove those opinions which were held by the wisest and most ill.u.s.trious persons that England ever produced. Should I be so unfortunate as to provoke hostility where I look for co-operation; erroneous or undeserved censure shall not induce me to enter into a controversy with those whom I believe to be sincere champions of religious truth, and to whose labours I am consequently bound to say, "G.o.d speed," though they may consider me as a doubtful ally, if not an enemy. To these I would address the dying words of the celebrated non-juror Archbishop Sancroft to his subscribing chaplain, Needham--"You and I have gone different ways in these late affairs, but I trust Heaven's gates are wide enough to receive us both. I always took you for an honest man. What I said concerning myself was only to let you know that what I have done I have done in the integrity of my heart, _indeed in the great integrity of my heart_." Thus, only anxious to defend and support const.i.tutional principles, I shall plead guilty to many errors in taste, in the construction of the fable, as well as in the style of the narrative, and throw myself on the mercy of the Public with regard to those points.

[1] Lord Clarendon.

CHAP. II.

I will not choose what many men desire, Because I will not jump with common spirits, And rank me with the barb'rous mult.i.tudes.

Shakspeare.

About the commencement of the reign of King Charles the First, a stranger came to reside in a populous village in Lancas.h.i.+re, under circ.u.mstances of considerable interest and mystery. He was young, and elegant in his person; his language not only evinced the cultivated chasteness of education, but the nicer polish of refined society. When drawn into conversation (to which he seemed averse), he discovered cla.s.sical learning enlivened by brilliant wit, and seasoned by deep reflection. He was versed in the history of foreign courts; and if he forbore to speak of our own, it seemed more from caution than from ignorance. He excelled in fas.h.i.+onable exercises, rode the great horse with a military air, and alarmed the rustics by his skill in fencing, as much as he delighted them by the till then unheard tones which he drew from the viola-de-gamba. It was impossible that, with these accomplishments, a sad-coloured cloak and plain beaver could conceal the gentleman. In vain did he report himself to be a Blackwell-hall factor, whom an unfortunate venture had reduced to ruin.--Every one discovered that his manners did not correspond with this description, and they would have at once determined him to be some gay gallant, whose wantonness of expense had outstripped his ability, had not his purse contained good store of broad pieces, which his hand liberally bestowed, as often as poverty appealed to his benevolence.

A Lancas.h.i.+re gentleman in those times had less intercourse with the metropolis of the British empire, than one of the present day, has with Canton. No London correspondent, therefore, could whisper the sudden disappearance of a sparkling blade, who, after blazing awhile at Whitehall, had unaccountably vanished like a meteor from its horizon; nor had the depredation of swindlers, or the frequent intrusion of impertinent hangers-on compelled the owners of manorial houses to shut their doors on uninvited guests. The jovial coa.r.s.e hospitality of those times delighted in a crowded board; the extensive household daily required ample provision, and refinement was too little advanced from its earliest stage to make nice arrangement or rare delicacies necessary to an esquire's table. Such a guest therefore as Evellin, was eagerly sought and warmly welcomed. He joined with the joyous hunters in the morning, he relieved the sameness of their repasts with his diversified information; and in the evening he was equally gratifying to the ladies, who being then generally confined to the uniform routine of domestic privacy, loved to hear of what was pa.s.sing in the great world. He could describe the jewels which bound the hair of the Queen of Bohemia, and he had seen the hood in which Anne of Austria ensnared the aspiring heart of the Duke of Buckingham; beside, he led off the dance with matchless grace, and to their native hornpipe enabled them to add the travelled accomplishments of the galliard and saraband. What a concentration of agreeable qualities! It must be owing to the invincible pressure of secret uneasiness, and not to a suspicion of the cordiality with which his entertainers welcomed him, if Evellin ever pa.s.sed a day in solitude.

Yet he came into society with the air of one who sought it as a temporary relief from anxiety, rather than as a source of real enjoyment. A visible dissatisfaction, constraint, and unsubdued aversion to the present, arising from regret at the past, sometimes interrupted his graceful courtesy, and oftener made him indifferent to the pa.s.sing scene, or unconscious of it. This humour increased whenever he received a dispatch from London, and at one time the mortification which his letters excited, threw him into such a mental agony, that the cottagers with whom he lodged, recurring to what was then deemed a specific for troubled minds, called in the aid of Dr. Eusebius Beaumont to give him ghostly consolation. I am not going to bring a mortified Franciscan friar on the scene: his reverence was the village pastor, happy and respectable as a husband and father, and largely endowed with those which have signalized the Church of England, whenever she has been called to any conspicuous trial. Learning and piety were in him two neighbouring stars that reflected radiance on each other, and were rather brightened than obscured by his humility. His manners and habits of life retained the simplicity of the primitive ages, yet were they so blended with courtesy, n.o.bleness of mind, and superiority to every mean selfish consideration, that the most travelled cavalier of the times could not more winningly display the true gentleman. His example shewed that the superiority which distinguishes that character consists not in adopting the reigning mode (that poor ambition of a copyist), but in the refined suavity which defies imitation, and is an inborn sentiment, rather than an a.s.sumed costume. The most powerful peer in England had not a more independent mind than Dr. Beaumont. His fortune was sufficiently ample to supply his modest wants and large benevolence; they who envied his popularity knew not how to weaken it except by imitating the virtues in which it originated. Placed in that respectable mediocrity which was the wish of Agar--too exalted to fear an oppressor or to invite insult; too humble to make ambition look like virtue, or to fall into that forgetfulness of his Maker, which is often the d.a.m.ning sin of prosperity; accustomed to those habits of wise self-control that fit the mind and body for their respective functions; and perfectly possessed with a most conscientious resignation and confidence respecting future events--he was free from those cares which corrode the temper and contract the understanding. Next to his church, his study was his earthly paradise; but the same calm principle of self-discipline attended him there, and regulated his enjoyment of lettered ease. He left his beloved authors without a sigh, as often as active duty called him to attend the sick cottager, to heal contention between his paris.h.i.+oners, to admonish the backsliding, or to defend the cause of the oppressed.

Such was the man who presented himself to the agonized Evellin; nor was the latter surprized at the visit, or at the serious admonition which he received. Parochial care was not then regarded as a novelty, when it extended beyond the altar or the pulpit; and the graceful stranger felt himself reproved by one who had a right to exercise the functions of spiritual authority. He bowed to the pastor's instructions, with a respect which characterized those times, when the power of the church was supported by superior holiness, and acknowledged even by those who in their lives disobeyed her precepts. His subsequent behaviour made Dr.

Beaumont not only pardon the infirmities of a wounded spirit, but also apply the balm of friends.h.i.+p to them, by giving the stranger a most cordial invitation to the glebe-house, where he promised him a friendly welcome as often as he was disposed to relish the quiet habits of his family.

It so happened, that after Evellin had twice or thrice pa.s.sed the little wicket that separated the parson's garden from the village green, he disliked taking any other road. Yet though Mrs. Beaumont's person was of that description which subjects Lancas.h.i.+re ladies to the imputation of witchcraft, (a charge too clearly proved against them to be denied,) it was not the fascination of her eyes which drew the loitering step, fixed the unconscious gaze, and almost charmed to repose the stranger's untold sorrows. The wife of his friend excited only the respect and esteem of this antique courtier; but a young unaffianced Arachne sat spinning by her side, discreet and ingenious as Minerva, rosy and playful as Hebe.

This was Isabel, the younger sister of his reverence, who, not inwardly displeased that the family party was enlarged by such an agreeable guest, nor wholly unconscious of the power of her own charms, strove with all the unsuspecting confidence of youth to amuse a visitor whom her honoured brother p.r.o.nounced worthy of esteem and pity, and willingly exerted her arch vivacity to divert a melancholy of which no one knew the cause. Evellin soon discovered that he interested the fair recluse, and though she was not the first lady who viewed him with favour, he was flattered by an attention which he could not impute to extrinsic qualities. "She certainly pities me," observed he, on perceiving an unnoticed tear steal down her cheek, when with unguarded confidence, momentarily excited by the benign manners and calm happiness of his host, he inveighed against the treachery of courts and the weakness of Kings. "Can she love me?" was his next thought; "or why this lively interest in my sorrows?" This doubt, or rather hope, was suggested by hearing Isabel sob aloud while he told Dr. Beaumont not to look for any earthly return for the kindness he shewed him. "Were my fortunes," said he one day to his hospitable friends, "equal to my birth, you should find me a prodigal in my grat.i.tude, but my own folly in 'believing integrity of manners and innocence of life are a guard strong enough to secure any man in his voyage through the world in what company soever he travelled, and through what ways soever he was to pa.s.s[1],' furnished my enemies with weapons which have been used to my undoing. For this last year I have suffered alternate hopes and fears. Whether my heart is sick of suspence, or the clouds of mischance really thicken around me, I can scarcely ascertain, but my meditations grow more gloomy, and I believe myself doomed to an obscure life of little usefulness to others, and less enjoyment to myself. Among my privations I must rank that of spending my days in unconnected solitude. Who will willingly share the scant portion of bare sufficiency, or interweave their destiny with the tangled web of my intricate fortunes? Would you plant a flouris.h.i.+ng eglantine under the blasted oak? Remove it from such a neighbourhood, or the blessed rain pa.s.sing through the blighted branches, will affect its verdure with pestilent mildew, instead of cheris.h.i.+ng it with wholesome shade."

Some short time after this conversation, Mrs. Beaumont observed to her husband that an extraordinary change had taken place in Isabel's manners since Evellin had become a frequent visitor. "She very rarely laughs,"

said she; "but that I do not wonder at, for the infection of his melancholy has made us all grave; but she often, weeps. Then she is so absent, that she cut out the frieze gowns for the alms-women too short, and spoiled Mrs. Mellicent's eye-water. The tapestry chairs are thrown aside, and she steals from us to the bower in the yew-tree that overlooks the green, where she devotes her mornings to reading Sydney's Arcadia. My dear Eusebius, I see her disease, for I recollect my own behaviour when I was doubtful whether you preferred me; but surely, if a connection with Evellin would involve our dear Isabel in distress, ought I not to warn her of her danger in so disposing of her heart?"

"I fear," replied the Doctor, "if your observations are correct, that the caution would now come too late. Isabel is of an age to judge for herself, and if she prefers a partner in whom high degrees of desert and suffering seem united, ought her friends to interfere? If her own feelings tell her that she considers personal merit as an equipoise to adversity, shall we tell her that outward splendour const.i.tutes intrinsic greatness? I marvel not that Evellin interests my sister; he engages most of my thoughts, and I have employed myself in collecting instances of good men suffering wrongfully, and of the piety, humility, and patience with which they endured chastening. These may be useful to Evellin; if not, they will be so to ourselves whenever sorrow visits our abode, as she is sure some time to do while she is travelling to and fro on the earth."

Mrs. Beaumont acquiesced in her husband's opinion, and determined that love should take its course, but it met with an opponent in the person of Mrs. Mellicent Beaumont, who perhaps was not free from those objections which elder sisters often entertain to the engagements of the younger branches of the family, while they themselves write spinster.

She had now, however, a more colourable plea; the beauty of Mrs. Isabel had attracted the notice of Sir William Waverly, and to see her sister the lady of Waverly Park, roused that desire of pre-eminence which, though absolutely foreign to the principles of Dr. Beaumont, was not overlooked by all his family. She thought it became her to lecture Isabel on her preference, and unwittingly confirmed it by exhibiting, in opposition, two men of most dissimilar characters and endowments; the one, brave, generous, enlightened, accomplished, but unhappy; the other, lord of a vast demesne, but selfish, ignorant, scant of courtesy, and proud of wealth. "Tell me not of Waverly Park," said Mrs. Isabel, "I would sooner gather cresses by his lakes as a beggar, than sail over them under a silken awning with him by my side as my companion for life.

His language, his ideas, his manners, differ from those of our meanest rustics in no other way than that theirs is the native simplicity which had no means of improvement, and his the wilful grossness which rejected it when offered, resting satisfied in what he received from his ancestors, without adding to it attainments that would properly have been his own. I know not what Evellin has been: clouds and storms hover over his future prospects. I see him only as he is the chief among ten thousand, and one who suffers no diminution even while conversing with our honoured brother; and I should be prouder of allying him to our house than of changing this silken braid for a golden coronet." Mrs.

Mellicent, after some remarks on the inconsiderate obstinacy of three and twenty, and the sure repentance of head-strong people, withdrew her opposition, to be renewed when the event should justify her predictions.

The lovers did not long rest in that unavowed consciousness which left a shadow of doubt as to their reciprocal attachment. To Evellin's declaration of unalterable love, Isabella answered, that she knew too little of his situation to say whether she ought to be his, but her heart told her she never could be another's. The lover poured forth protestations of grat.i.tude. "No," answered she, "I deserve no thanks; for, to tell you the truth, I have endeavoured to see you with indifference, but find it is impossible. You have lived in courts, Mr.

Evellin, where women are hardly won and quickly lost; but do not therefore despise a Lancas.h.i.+re girl who dares not play with Cupid's arrows, but loves in sad sincerity, or rejects with steady courtesy; yet if you suspect that you cannot meet my devoted constancy with equal singleness of heart, leave me now, good Evellin, ere yet my life is so bound up in your sincerity, that I shall want strength of mind to dissolve the bond. At present I am so much more disposed to respect you than myself, that I may think what you have said was only meant for gallantry, which my ignorance of the world has misconstrued. If after this warning you still persist in your suit, you must either be, till death, my faithful lover, or virtually my murderer."

"My own betrothed Isabel," answered Evellin, "to love, pourtrayed with such chaste simplicity, I owe a confidence as unbounded as thy own. I will put my life in thy keeping, by disclosing the bosom-secret I have concealed even from thy saint-like brother. 'Tis the pledge of my constancy. Mark me, dearest maiden, though a proscribed wanderer wooes thy love, thy hand may be claimed by a peer of England, and those graces which adorn thy native village may ornament the palace of our King."

He paused to see if the glow of ambition supplanted the virgin blushes of acknowledged love; but Isabel's cheek displayed the same meek roseate hue. No hurried exclamation, no gaspings of concealed delight, no lively flas.h.i.+ngs of an exulting eye, proclaimed that he was dearer to her now than before he acknowledged his high descent. Her objections to a speedy marriage were even confirmed by this discovery. "I must know," said she, "that there is no one who possesses a natural or acquired right to control your choice. People in eminent stations owe many duties to the state, and must not soil their honours by unworthy alliances. Perhaps under your tuition I might so deport myself as not to shame your choice, but I must be well a.s.sured that I shall be no obstacle to your moving in your proper sphere, or I will die Isabel Beaumont, praying that you may be happier than my love could make you."

Evellin rewarded this generous attachment by telling her his a.s.sumed name was an anagram of his real one, Allan Neville, presumptive heir to the earldom of Bellingham, the honours of which were now possessed by an elder brother, whose declining state of health made it probable that Allan would soon be called from the obscurity in which he lived, and compelled to clear his slandered fame or sink under the malice of his foes. As a younger brother, he was expected to be the founder of his own fortune. His education, therefore, had been most carefully conducted; he had had the best tutors in every branch of learning; and he had travelled under the guidance of an enlightened friend. The pacific character of King James furnis.h.i.+ng no employment in arms, he had sought the court as his sphere of action; but while he was displaying the accomplishments he possessed, and acquiring the knowledge of mankind which is necessary to a statesman, he at once attracted the notice of Princes and the envy of their favourites. That fearless candour, and that self-depending integrity which generally attends the finest qualities and n.o.blest dispositions, rendered him careless of the frowns of those whom he discovered to be rather crafty rivals than generous compet.i.tors, and determined him rather to despise opposition than to conciliate esteem.

The haughty Duke of Buckingham was then in the zenith of his power. By bringing Prince Charles back from Spain he had relieved the national anxiety; and the short-sighted mult.i.tude, forgetting who had endangered the heir-apparent's safety, heaped on him undeserved popularity. Hence his extraordinary good fortune in pleasing all parties so elated him as to make him shew in his conduct that contempt for his benefactor, King James, which he had long secretly entertained. By the impeachment of the Earl of Middles.e.x, a confidential adviser and personal favourite of the King's, from motives of private pique, and by hurrying the nation into a war with Spain, for which the Parliament had not provided resources, he laid the foundation of the pecuniary difficulties, and created those evil precedents which ultimately contributed to overthrow the regal authority. These fatal results of his pernicious measures formed an awful lesson to Kings on the mischiefs incident to favouritism, and on the folly of erecting a pile of ill-constructed greatness, which, in its fall, often endangers the stability of the throne.

To this vain, ambitious man, practised in all the smooth graces and insidious arts of a court, the aspiring, but frank and honourable Neville, more enlightened, equally engaging, and animated by purer motives, was an object both of envy and of fear. He scrupled not to lament the indignities which the declining King suffered from his former cup-bearer, who had danced himself into the highest honours England could bestow, and now basely turned from the setting orb from which he derived his borrowed splendour, to wors.h.i.+p the rising sun; nay worse, who attempted to alienate the duty of an amiable Prince from his sick and aged father. Neville was earnest in his expressions of disgust at such baseness; and the minions of the Duke did not suffer these hasty ebullitions of virtue to die unreported. The sarcasms soon reached his ear with magnified severity; and the ruin, or at least the removal of his growing rival became necessary to his own security.

Chance favoured the Duke's designs. A gentleman in his suite was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the streets of London when returning from a masquerade, and the murderer was seen in the act of escaping, not so near the body as that his person could be identified, but plain enough for the beholders to ascertain that he wore the very dress in which Neville appeared that evening. The implacable enemy he had indiscreetly provoked possessed the royal ear; and though a jury could not have found in such a coincidence sufficient grounds to indict Neville, the Duke easily procured a royal warrant for his immediate arrest. "My own heart," here observed Allan, "and my confidence in the justice and good sense of my country, prompted me to brave my accusers; but I had now a convincing proof that with all my acquirements I still wanted knowledge of the world. I, however, possessed the invaluable blessing of a sincere, wise, and prudent friend, one who reads man in his true characters, and deals with him cautiously, instead of believing him to be the ingenuous offspring of simplicity. In early youth this friend saved me from a watery grave, and he is now the guardian of my fame and fortune. In conformity to the advice of the kind Walter de Vallance (for that is his name), I yielded to the storm; instead of resisting its fury, I chose this retreat; and since my innocence as well as my guilt admitted not of proof, I offered to submit the dubious question to the arbitration of the sword, and called on Buckingham to meet me in single combat, or, if he declined a personal engagement, to select any one of n.o.ble birth and breeding for his proxy, who should accuse me as the author of Saville's death. Walter de Vallance carried my proposal to the young King, who at first yielded to my suit, but, on consulting his chaplains, judged this to be an unlawful manner of deciding disputes in a Christian country. I am now informed that by my flight I have erased those impressions which my former behaviour had made in my favour. Many think I was the murderer; and the vast power my adversary possesses at court is rendered still more dangerous to my life and fame, by the pains that have been taken to prepossess those who would have to decide upon my fate. But should the death of my declining brother call me to act in the same sphere with my proud oppressor, and put my life into safer guardians.h.i.+p, I will burst from the retreat which I sometimes fear was unadvisedly chosen, and either fall by an unjust sentence, or vindicate my innocence. I will no longer, like the mountain-boar, owe a precarious existence to the untrodden wilds in which I hide from my pursuers."

Even now, when the universal pa.s.sion for luxury and self-enjoyment renders prosperity so alluring, subdues our native energies, and makes us the puppets and slaves of fortune, there are some lovely young martyrs who immolate prudence on the shrine of love. It may easily be imagined, therefore, that this heroine of a simpler age, instead of being discouraged by the difficulties her Allan had to encounter, loved him with more intense affection. He an a.s.sa.s.sin!--the eye that flamed defiance on an ungrateful vicegerent of the King, when every knee but his bent in homage, could never pursue a court-b.u.t.terfly, or guide a murderous dagger to a page's breast, while indignant virtue pointed the sword of justice to a public delinquent. Isabel agreed that it was wrong in Evellin to fly; but when, on her lonely pillow, she cast her thoughts on the alternative, and contemplated her beloved, in the hands of him before whom a potent peer had recently fallen; in the power of a man armed with the confidence of two successive monarchs, and now the idol of the people; when she saw Evellin arraigned before a packed jury, no evidence to prove him innocent, and scarce an advocate sufficiently courageous to defend him; female softness shrunk at the image of such perils. She blessed the prudent De Vallance who had s.n.a.t.c.hed him from sure destruction, and rejoiced at an event which afforded her the means of seeing human nature in its most captivating form.

When Evellin found that her constancy was proof to this trial, he unfolded the brighter prospects which the letters he received from De Vallance occasionally afforded. This invaluable friend had, to the great joy of Evellin, allied himself to their house by marrying the Lady Eleanor Neville, his only sister. Though Buckingham never stood firmer in the King's favour, he had already experienced that popular esteem is a quicksand, fair to the eye, but fallacious and destructive to all who build their greatness on it. Two parliaments that were called, in succession, to grant the supplies which the favourite's profusion, and the war in which he had unwisely engaged, rendered necessary, had been angrily dissolved for presenting pet.i.tions for redress of grievances instead of pa.s.sing money-bills. The King was still deservedly popular.

The odium of these acts, therefore, rested on the minister. He had, besides, a potent enemy in the palace, no less a person than the beautiful queen, who complained that the Duke, not content with directing state affairs, intruded into the domestic privacies of royalty, and left her without the power, which as a wife and Princess she ought to exercise, that of choosing her servants and rewarding her friends. Nor did this presumptuous servant rest here. The spotless purity of the King shrunk from conjugal infidelity; but Buckingham found means, during the hours of easy confidence, to insinuate such reflections against the religion, the foreign manners, and the native country of Henrietta Maria, that the affection which once bade fair to cement the union of a virtuous and amiable Prince with the lady of his choice, was weakened by reserve, doubt, distaste, and all the sentiments hostile to conjugal peace.

The Lady Eleanor De Vallance held a situation in the household of the Queen, and possessed a secure place in her affection. She knew the secret discontent of her royal mistress, and the pique she felt against Buckingham, who, she also knew, sought the ruin of the house of Neville.

Evellin did not enlarge on the amiable features of his sister's character. He spoke of her as one who panted for aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, and possessed the means of attaining her object; adding also, that she was pledged to the ruin of the favourite by those strong inducements, interest and revenge. He dwelt with pleasure on the valuable and useful qualities of her husband, who, he said, united to the talents which generally achieve success, the circ.u.mspection and foresight that secure it. While such able a.s.sistants advocated his cause, despair would have been weakness.

Months, nay years, rolled away. Evellin was liberally supplied with remittances, and the hearts of the lovers became more firmly united. Dr.

Beaumont, a.s.sured that his sister knew the circ.u.mstances of her lover, though neither chose to intrust them, to him, confided implicitly in her discretion and his honour. As a man, there was little to blame and much to revere in the character of Evellin. He was open, impetuous, brave, generous, and placable, with a n.o.ble simplicity of soul, untainted by the mean alloy of selfishness. He was a Christian too. In Dr. Beaumont's eye, that was an indispensable requisite. Yet more, he steadily adhered to the established church with enlightened affection; and in an age when the Puritans grew more open and confident in their attempts to overthrow it, love for the most venerable support of the protestant cause was a sacred bond of union. Sometimes a deep feeling of his wrongs induced Evellin to inveigh against courts and kings with great animosity; but this was the ebullition of a warm temper, not the cold enmity of a corroded heart. Immovable to harsh reproof, he was pliant as the bending ozier to persuasive kindness. Looking at the qualities of the man, rather than the accidents of his situation, Dr. Beaumont felt proud in thinking that his Isabel deserved the conquest she had gained.

Evellin deferred his marriage till some event should happen which must hasten the crisis of his fate. The same dispatch which brought intelligence of the death of his elder brother, announced the fall of his adversary by the hand of Felton. Concealment could now no longer be deemed wisdom; he determined to burst from obscurity, lay claim to his honours, and require to be relieved from a long pending accusation contrived by malice and believed by credulity. But could he quit the banks of the Ribble, leaving his Isabel to suffer the pangs of suspense, and to pine under those limes and alders that had sheltered him from persecution? Her behaviour told him she would conduct herself with propriety in every situation. Her society had been his chief consolation in sorrow, and he saw that her fort.i.tude would support him in the hour of trial, her wisdom guide him in difficulty, and her partic.i.p.ation give the fairest colouring to success. Whether he sat in the senate as a peer, or stood at the bar as a criminal, Isabel should be his wedded a.s.sociate. What pleasure would he feel in presenting to his vain and beautiful sister, the lily he had gathered and placed in his bosom, while he lay concealed in the woodlands! Or, when he embraced Walter as his brother and friend, how would he rejoice to hear the fair Lancastrian, with all the eloquent energy of unsophisticated nature, bless the services which had preserved and restored her husband.